[Pan-users] Re: Pan 0.14.2 Web Browser preference

[Duncan]

Fred posted <address@hidden>, excerpted below,  on
Wed, 09 Jun 2004 22:10:59 +0000:

> Under Edit -> Preferences -> Apps&Mail there is a setting
> for a Web Browser.  How is the web browser invoked?
> 
> Will Pan invoke the browser thru some keystroke or mouse-click?
> 
> I have used Pan 0.11.2 for several years and always relied on
> Klipper to invoke a browser by just hiliting the link in a message.
> 
> Now, using Pan 0.14.2, just pressing the "C" key on the keyboard causes
> Mozilla to be invoked, always with an invalid URL, and it's quite a
> nuisance.
> 
> I love Pan, but the new version is a little frustrating.

I can see why, with behavior such as that.  <g>

To my knowledge, the web browser is /normally/ only invoked by clicking on
a URL, as detected and marked in a different color (see PAN preferences,
Color tab).  

PAN has configurable hotkeys.  Thus, the defaults may not apply to
everyone, and mine have been customized, so I'm not positive WHAT the
normal defaults are, any more.  That said, here, and I /believe/ by
default, "c" is normally set to toggle the body pane display font (think
"character-set", thus, "c") between the mono-space and normal, as
configured under prefs, fonts.

The same toggle-font function is available on the View main-menu, listed
as "Use Monospace Font in Body Pane", with the assigned hotkey shortcut
beside it.  If indeed that is showing "c" in your installation, that's
what PAN *THINKS* it is invoking, when you press that letter.

I'm guessing something strange has happened to your config file, and when
PAN tries to invoke the mono-space toggle, it's doing something that the
system interprets as a call to Mozilla, so that's what you get.

If indeed the menu hotkey checks out as above, I'd first try configuring
something else in your font selections, and see if that fixes the problem.

If not, check out the other menus and see if you can find what PAN
thinks the "c" hotkey is supposed to do, and try reconfiguring whatever is
related, if possible.

If that doesn't work, try (with PAN not running) renaming your ~/.pan
directory. (That's the place PAN stores its data by default.  I assume if
it's different on your system you know about it and can adjust as needed.
Of course, the name starts with a dot, so it will be hidden by default on
most *ix systems.) Then start PAN and see if it still has that behavior
with a blank config.

If it doesn't, you know the problem is in your config and can copy (don't
rename, copy, so you have a backup in case your experiments trash
something else) the dir (close PAN first) back to what it was, replacing
the new stub PAN created in the test, and then try renaming individual
files and/or entire dirs within that config until you find the problem
one.  With intelligent guessing, it should be fairly easy to pin down the
problem file, likely the PAN config file itself (which I'm to lazy to go
check the name of on my system, but it's fairly obvious in the data tree).
Once you have the bad file, you can either try to repair it manually (or
replace it with a good backup copy if you have one), or delete it and
redo your config as necessary.

If the problem still exists with a fresh config of PAN, to
quote.. "Houston, we have a problem!" <g>  However, I suspect it's an
individual user PAN config problem, and the above should eliminate it. 
Therefore, if it doesn't, "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

(You aren't using ReiserFS, are you?  I use it here, but it does have
issues under certain circumstances with stuffing random garbage or the
contents of previous files inside a file that was open when the system
crashed.  The problem has been substantially reduced with the new
data=ordered default journal setting in 2.6.6+ kernels, but that's still
new enough that few have it, altho SuSE has used ReiserFS, with the
data=ordered patch, as its default fs for quite some time.)

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little
temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." --
Benjamin Franklin