Re: [Pan-users] Some remarks about the user interface

[Charles Kerr]

Rhialto wrote:

> - Drag-select doesn't work anymore even though it is a basic GUI
>   concept. This is very inconvenient, I would call it a showstopper.

Ha, I'm glad you asked for this!  This is a gtk+ bug, not a Pan one,
it's come up so many times that I'd bookmarked the gtk+ bugzilla ticket
to refer people there to say "me too".  I was about to do that here,
but I see that GtkTreeView finally got drag-select as of gtk+ 2.10.
So I'll have this working in the next release w/gtk+ >= 2.10.0.
(http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=80127)

> - If you choose a primary newsserver and one or more secondaries, you
>   get duplicate articles, so you can't just select a range of articles
>   to download because it will download too much. This is very
>   inconvenient, I would call it a showstopper.

The duplicate articles are a known and fixed bug.  However the fix
doesn't retroactively prune out duplicates that you've already
downloaded, so you should rm ~/.pan2/groups/*, then install the
latest version of Pan.

> - How are the different (primary) newsservers related anyway? I can't
>   seem to choose between them or anything.

Connections are all grouped together in a pool, and a task waiting
in the queue snatches the next available connection in the pool.
First it looks for connections in the primary pool, then the secondary
one, and so on.  (ask Duncan about having more than two tiers)

> - I'd like my times expressed in 24 hour format please.

This would make a good preferences option.
Please open a bugzilla ticket for this.

> - If I "Save articles" I always get the ^***&*& dialog, instead of just
>   saving the attachments in the default directory as set for the group.
>   Worse, the dialog has the wrong pre-selection, it always selects
>   "custom path" even if I previously selected "Group's default path".

You're not the first person to ask for this.
I'm don't think there's a bugzilla ticket open on this,
but there needs to be.

> - There isn't even a "Group's default path" option in the dialog if you
>   didn't set something for the group; there is apparently not a global
>   default path.

The `custom path' is remembered between sessions, so it
fills in for that role.

> - In the "task list" I can't see with which server a task is associated,
>   which is inconvenient in case of very slow fallback servers for
>   instance.

A task isn't associated with any server.  Tasks needing a
connection just grab the the first connection available
in the pool.  A multipart can be divided up among as many
servers as you've got.

> - Something which is not really Pan's problem but of the posters: if
>   there are multiple numbered posts with the numbers near the start of
>   the Subject rather than near the end, all the [01/40] articles are
>   grouped together even if they don't belong together.

I agree that this is not Pan's problem. ;)

> Cheers,
> -Olaf.

Thanks for your feedback!  In summary: you should rm ~/.pan2/groups/*,
upgrade to the latest version, and make sure there are bugzilla tickets
open for 24-hour time and a "save" button that doesn't require
the dialog.

cheers,
Charles