Re: [Pan-users] interface bug (or not?)

[Jim Henderson]

On Thu, 14 Mar 2024 00:21:35 -0000 (UTC), Duncan wrote:

> Jim Henderson posted on Wed, 13 Mar 2024 21:18:33 -0000 (UTC) as
> excerpted:
> 
>> On Wed, 13 Mar 2024 10:53:44 -0000 (UTC), Duncan wrote:
>> 
>>> The other possibility would be adding smallish/mediumish sizes to
>>> options
>> 
>> I think "configurable", either globally or per-group
> 
> I hadn't thought of per-group configurable for this.  I haven't thought
> through whether it'd be particularly useful as opposed to global config,
> but at least global config would be good.  The only reason I didn't push
> configurable more strongly is because I can't do that patch myself, and
> I prefer updating the hard-coded values to doing nothing at all, if no
> one else coded the patch required to make it configurable.

I dislike configuration (which should be changeable) in the code, because 
it makes it more difficult for non-coding users to make changes that align 
with their preferences.  I can code, but like you, creating a patch for 
something like this is a patch I'm not able to do without a deeper 
understanding of the pan code itself, and (maybe not like you - I don't 
know) I don't have that kind of time.

>> and the save dialog should have an option to just view the attachment
>> inline as an option.
> 
> That's a really useful idea -- useful enough and obvious enough now that
> it's presented, I'm jealous I didn't come up with it! =:^)

Sometimes the simplest solutions are the easiest things to overlook. :)
 
>> The behavior as it is is a little confusing, that opening it triggers
>> the 'save' dialog, but selecting it in the header pane and pressing
>> 'enter' gives a different behavior (ie, showing the image inline).  It
>> feels like pressing 'n' for the next message should have the same
>> behavior as pressing 'enter' after manually selecting the message.
> 
> The current behavior is indeed confusing, agreed there.  But I don't see
> a way around the two differing behavior cases, because having pan not
> display the text (and image if there) by default on "smallish" would be
> seriously inconvenient, nor can I see doing away with at least /some/
> sort of "don't just download insanely large posts without a prompt"
> behavior.

I think it is largely incumbent upon the user to see the size of the post 
they're reading - there's a "lines" column in the header pane, so if they 
are looking for it and opt not to skip the large post, that's on them.  
They can also always cancel it if it's really huge (thus giving them 
enough time to cancel it).

> But your idea to add the view-inline option to the save dialog should
> dramatically improve the large-post experience and make it /somewhat/
> less confusing, and if that's combined with making the small/medium
> boundaries configurable (or at least modernizing the hard-coded values),
> it should go quite some way to improving the overall experience.

Thanks!  I think it would make pressing 'n' (or 'v' for the previous post) 
the same as selecting a post and pressing 'enter'.  Having that 
consistency would be a good UI improvement.  I would also set the default 
to "view" rather than "save" so for someone viewing, it's just "enter" 
"enter" to view the post.

> Additionally, a bonus to making the small/medium boundaries configurable
> is that there'd then be a natural place in the GUI to document the
> differing read/save behavior that's now undocumented, making it less
> confusing at least for those that explore config options! =:^)  (Option
> wording to be determined, but in /theory/ it could help...)

That's a good thought. :)

-- 
 Jim Henderson
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