Re: [Pan-users] Re: General questions about Pan

[Douglas Bollinger]

On Fri, 29 Dec 2006 12:41:33 +0000 (UTC)
Duncan <address@hidden> wrote:

> Very cool!  Documentation has been needed for a long time!  Have you been
> using the wiki or is this for it or...?  I still need to go see what I can
> add, but meanwhile, it may answer some of your questions, assuming you
> weren't already aware of it and using it.
> 
> http://www.darrenalbers.net/wiki/index.php?title=Pan_FAQ&oldid=1412

Actually I was thinking more along the lines of builtin "F1-type" help so I've
written the docs in Docbook format.  With Docbook, you can pretty much
translate into anything else, like HTML or whatever.  Right now, Charles seems
to be on holiday, so whenever he comes back we will see what he wants to do
with the docs.

> > With a binary post, are there any instances where a red puzzle-piece
> > (incomplete) post can't be saved?  I just saved a red puzzle-piece post
> > without any problems.  I assume it's corrupt, but I thought I've read
> > where people were having trouble forcing the d/ling of corrupt binary
> > posts.
> 
> I'm not sure on that ATM.  There have been a number of corruption bugs
> fixed in the last half-dozen betas, and I'm not sure if it can be said
> that all such posts can be saved now or not.
<snip>

Since this seems to be in flux I'll let the current bit in the docs be.  The
more complicated binary saving ala uudecode is good fodder for the wiki.

> > What exactly does delete article do?  I'm sure it removes the article
> > from the cache, but anything else?
> 
> No, it does NOT remove it from the cache (tho old-pan, <0.90, did), so it's
> a good thing you asked.  It removes the entry in pan (for that group) for
> it, but it stays in the cache.  If the article was cross-posted and you
> delete it from one group then go visit another it was cross-posted to and
> download overviews including the ones deleted in the other group, they'll
> show up as new posts, but already downloaded.  If you have already
> downloaded the relevant headers in both groups, however, I believe it
> deletes them for both (but again, the actual article isn't deleted from
> cache).
> 
> The same cross-post behavior applies to mark-read, BTW.  If a cross-posted
> post is marked read in one group AFTER the header has been downloaded in
> another, it will show in both as marked read.  If however you download it
> in one, mark it read, then download it in the other, it won't show as
> marked read in the second.

OK.  So this command deletes the selected article in the currently active
group from Pan's article index.

So then there's not a way to manually delete data from the article cache?  And
the only way cache entries are deleted is when Pan itself deletes articles
when the article cache limit is hit as defined in Preferences.xml?

<snip>
> Replies to a post are supposed to have a references header, mentioning
> their "upline", the post being replied to, and it's parent, and the parent
> of that, all the way up the line or until the references header gets too
> long, in which case some clients cut out some of the older references.
> 
> Show matching articles should show /only/ the articles that match, period.
> 
> Show matching articles subthreads should show any post that includes a
> matching article in its references line -- thus, the /children/ or
> /downline/ of anything that matches.
> 
> Show matching articles threads should show not only the downline/children,
> but also the upline/parents as well.  Technically, that's anything in the
> references header of any matching article, as well as anything mentioning
> the matching articles in their references header.

Yup.  With "Show Matching", Pan will also display read upline/parents when
"Match Only Unread Articles" is activated.  I should know, I bitched until it
worked like this. :)

> Show matching articles subthreads would look the same as show matching
> articles, if you had the match only unread filter toggled ON, and you
> hadn't read any of the subthread.  If you had read some of the posts in
> the subthread but not their parents, /then/ you'd see a difference,
> because matching articles only wouldn't show the read articles, while
> matching articles subthreads /would/ show the read articles as children of
> a matching unread article, even tho they were already read themselves.
> 
> Since most folks read in threaded order, unless a child post came in
> before its parent, an unread parent would seldom have read children, so
> based on that filter alone, the outcome of view matching only and view
> matching subthreads would look the same.
> 
> Get it now?  Hope so, as the concept is complex enough that it's a not
> easy to explain in a simple manner.  If you don't get it, however, say so,
> and I'll try again, simplifying it but not necessarily covering all cases
> or saying why.

I think I can see the differences now.  Thanks!

> > How are Supersede Article and Cancel Article supposed to work?  Am I
> > right in assuming that most news servers will not honor these commands?
> 
> Some will, some won't.  In general, "open" news servers tend not to,
> because there's a major authentication problem, such that impostors will
> often cancel messages just to cause trouble, and one spammer trick uses
> supersedes to replace legitimate messages.  Closed/private/limited-access
> servers, or private groups on general purpose servers, are more likely to
> allow cancels/supersedes because they have a smaller and easier to monitor
> for abuse group of users.

So, how do you use these commands in Pan?  I've tried both of them and nothing
happens.  Do you need select a previous post?  I've been on Usenet for well
over a decade, but I don't believe I've ever canceled a post.

<snip>
> Thus, treat everything you post as impossible to take back, because in
> effect, it is.  It's can still be symbolically useful in some instances to
> say I apologize and I canceled that post, but for the most part, the
> effect of the cancel is just that, symbolic.

That's always a good way to look at it.  In fact, I just made that a tip in
the posting section. :)

> > When you setup a news server to never expire old articles, I believe Pan
> > will still delete articles when the news server does.  Is this correct? 
> > Isn't this setting just for when you want to expire articles faster than
> > the news server?
> 
> This is not correct (from my observations, anyway).  Consider that pan now
> has multiple servers viewing the same group.  Should it expire them when
> the first server does, or the last?  It uses its own settings, not what
> some remote server may do.

OK, you are right.  In the one binary group I monitor, I noticed that the
oldest article present was in September, even though the news server is set to
never expire old articles.  Since I've been using new Pan for longer than that
I supposed Pan was pruning old articles.  But this is not the cause, because
in other binary groups the articles go back to July, even though those
articles are no longer available for download from the news server. At one
time I must have reset that one binary group.

<snip>
> Consequently, I consider pan's per-server expiration settings a bug that
> needs fixed, altho not before 1.0.  Expiration /should/ be a per-group
> setting, with a global default set probably in preferences, and groups
> able to set it other than the default, if necessary.  That way, there's no
> ambiguity, and things expire when one would expect, not earlier or later
> because there's two different settings for the same group of posts!

Oh I agree 100%.  My provider, Giganews, never expires articles in text
newsgroups and has very generous retention in binary groups that varies from
group to group based on activity.  Pan's current expire articles behavior is
to coarse for what I need.

> Well, hope it helped! =8^)

Oh, absolutely!  Thanks again.

After some more editing, I'll post a link to the docs file so that the list
users can review it and make more suggestions as it definitely needs more
work.

-- 
Q:      What is the sound of one cat napping?
A:      Mu.