[Pan-users] Re: [REQUEST] Style and Headers color

[Duncan]

analogue posted <address@hidden>, excerpted
below,  on Sat, 09 Jul 2005 19:54:36 +0200:

> Hi,
> 
> I just switched from Thunderbird to Pan and I miss two simple features:
> 
> 1/ The ability to format the body of a post using the commonly used
> style /italic/ *bold* and _underline_.

This one has been discussed before.  The conclusion was that it would make
a nice /optional/ feature, altho many including your's truly prefer the
ambiance of seeing the original text as written, including text based
emphasis and text based smileys, instead of some artificial graphical
substitutes for same.  As long as it was /optional/, there was no
objection (why should there be, for an option), with some saying they'd
use it, others not.

The catch, however, is that there are all sorts of things most users would
find /more/ useful.  Things like fully automated multi-server handling
(which depends on the database backend work now underway in CVS and by
KHaley), filtering/scoring on elements of the headers and body /besides/
the normal overview headers, and attachment posting, both yEnc and MIME
based.  Realistically, therefore, this feature is rather down the priority
list, and not likely to appear much before PAN 1.0 (which is likely years
off), or even possibly as a 1.1 or later post 1.0 feature improvement. 
IOW, it would be target=bluesky if filed in bugzilla.  IOW, don't hold
your breath.

Of course, as is usually the case with open source, those with the skills
to do the coding and the time and motivation to provide the patches, often
find their itches get scratched.  So... if you are such a person, Charles
has repeatedly stated he's open to patch submissions, provided of course
they fit the PAN style and don't break something else PAN is about (such
as the GNKSA).  (Do note that there are currently big changes underway, so
patches, if you are so inclined, should probably be against current CVS,
rather than against current stable or beta release tarballs.  Then again,
to anyone so inclined, that likely goes without saying.)

> 2/ A way to greyify the background color of the message headers in a
> message pane to make it instantly separated from the message body in
> the user's view.

Actually... the headers used to be in their own visually setoff area, both
by color and by font.  At some point, this was changed.  I'm not entirely
sure why, except that it /is/ part of the same message, contained in the
same file in cache, and having PAN treat it that way probably made the
code significantly simpler than it was when they were treated separately.

FWIW, I preferred the separation as well.  However, as a practical matter,
I doubt it'll be back any time soon.  Charles evidently made his
preference known when he removed that feature, even if it was simply a
preference for less code bloat. Again, if it ever does make it into PAN,
it'll probably be in "bluesky" time period.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman in
http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2004/12/22/rms_interview.html