Re: [Pan-users] Re: posting problem

[Bruce Bowler]

On Tue, 16 Jan 2007 15:29:54 +0000 (UTC)
Duncan <address@hidden> put fingers to keyboard and said:

> Bruce Bowler <address@hidden> posted
> address@hidden, excerpted below, on  Tue, 16 Jan 2007
> 13:41:46 +0000:

[snip]
 
> > pan "knows" which server it gets each group from so, by default, it
> > should use that server to post to.
> 
> But if it gets said group from a lot of servers, what then?  Post to the
> first one using the first profile by default, even if the user has no
> posting privileges there and in fact would be embarrassed to have his
> primary profile used? That's what it used to do.

After some thought I agree, in principle, that the current situation is
good for the "power users".  For the "casual user", it is neither
intuitive or obvious.  What I expect the casual user (I put myself in
this category, despite by background) expects to happen is that pan knows
which server(s) it can get "this group" from.  When posting to "this
group", it will try "Server A" - if it works, stop.  If it fails, try
"Server B".  If it works, stop.  If it fails, try "Server C", etc.  As an
extra step, if Server A fails because of "no posting privs", set a flag
so that the next time the user tries to post something, Server A is
skipped.  That flag should, obviously, be resettable by the user in the
event they eventually get posting privs to Server A.  As a further
extension the user should be able to set that flag as well if they know
they can't post to Server A (in the user set or reset case, I'm happy if
the UI is emacs or notepad).

[snip]
 
> Question: If you hadn't setup a posting profile yet, no from name or
> address, no nothing, what would you expect pan to do?  Well, I'd expect
> it to object when I opened the posting dialog, telling me to setup a
> posting profile first.  Once a profile has been setup, presumably you
> set it up, and saw and either accepted the default choice (still the
> first server listed, I believe), or selected a different choice.

right, but the one time I did that it was *ages* ago, like the first time
I ran "new pan".

[snip]

> In fairness, I should point out that I was the one who came up with the
> idea, so it /should/ seem simple to me, but no one else came up with a
> better idea, or even really any decent alternative, tho both Charles and
> I asked for other ideas.  I guess it must have seemed at least as
> decently simple and intuitive as anything they could come up with to
> everyone else...  So lacking a better or more intuitive idea, the lone
> candidate unsurprisingly won by default.

or some of us "came late" to the beta party and the introduction of the
unified database.

> If you have a better idea, I'd honestly like to see it (and I'm sure
> Charles would want to see it as well).

Of course I think the idea I presented above is "more obvious" (and thus
better :-)

[snip]

> Anyone with proposals on how to better word this error, please post'em!
> =8^)
> 
> Here's mine, spur of the moment and I admit somewhat clumsily worded, so
> there's likely better:
> 
> -----
> There were problems with this post.
> 
> Warning: The following groups are unknown on the posting server
> currently selected for this posting profile.  You may wish to examine
> your profile selection.
> 
> gmane.comp.gnome.apps.pan.user
> 
> -----

Much better wording.  I like it.

> Keep in mind that in the case of cross-posting, it's quite possible one
> or more listed newsgroups appear on that server, while others do not.
> Thus, it's possible someone may wish to continue the posting even if
> some don't appear on the server in question.  That's why this is a
> warning, not an error, altho if no listed newsgroups exist, and the
> post is sent anyway, it'll probably return an error from the news
> server itself to that effect. Still, said error will depend on the
> server, which may simply act like it accepted the post, while
> bit-bucketing it instead.

Not being a cross-poster or a wizard at the nntp protocol.  I don't know
if it would fly or not, but my proposal above could be modified slightly
to remove any groups successfully posted to before trying "Server B",
"Server C", etc.  

> So the warning, however it is worded, must remain just that, a warning,
> and continue to allow the user to say yes, that's what I wanted to do. 

agreed it should be a warning, not an error.

-- 
+-------------------+---------------------------------------------------+
Bruce Bowler        | The trouble with facts is that there are so many of
1.207.633.9600      | them.  - Samuel McChord Crothers   
address@hidden | 
+-------------------+---------------------------------------------------+