[Pan-users] Confused about Pan basic behavior

[Don]

I am just starting to use Pan under Linux, having previously used Agent under 
Windows. I am able to download and read messages, but I don't seem to really 
grok how Pan works. Sorry for the newbie questions, but I am having a hard time 
adjusting from how Agent works to how Pan works...

I am running ver 13.4, because that's what came with Mandrake 9.1. I realize 
that's not the current version, but I think my problems are basic understanding 
of how to use Pan, not bugs. If I'm wrong in this, let me know and I'll upgrade.

1) I subscribed to a couple of newsgroups, and then click on one of them in the group 
pane. That downloaded the headers. I did the same in another newsgroup. Then switched 
back to the first group. This caused it to download all headers again, and marked all the 
previously downloaded headers as "old". This wasn't the behavior I wanted, so I 
changed the preferences to only select on single click, instead of  loading.

But then when I click on a group in the group pane, the headers pane does not 
update. It shows the previous group. I have to double click it to get anything 
to happen, and when I do that the  headers download again. The only way to 
change groups without downloading headers seems to be to set it offline, double 
click on the group, and then set it online again. This is a pain, and it leaves 
a task pending to download that groups new headers when I next go online.

2) When I click on a header in the header pane, the body pane does not switch to that 
message. Why do I care? Well, the header pane only shows the beginning of the subject. If 
I can get the "body" to show in the body pane (even if the body hasn't been 
downloaded yet), then the title block for the body pane will show the entire subject.

3) Double clicking on a header doesn't seem predictable to me. Sometimes it 
downloads the message. Sometimes it displays an already downloaded message. 
Sometimes it expands or collapses the thread display (and does not display the 
message). Sometimes it does nothing. What am I missing?

4) The count of unread messages seems to be truly "unread messages", not "new, 
unread messages". Is this intended? Am I supposed to mark all messages as read when I am done 
in a group -- I'll never remember to do that...

Thanks for any help.

Don