[Pan-users] Re: few questions about new design of Pan

[Duncan]

Zygfryd Homonto <address@hidden> posted
address@hidden, excerpted below, on  Mon, 16 Jul 2007
07:51:35 +0300:

> On Sun, 15 Jul 2007 23:53:00 +0000 (UTC) Duncan
> <address@hidden> wrote:
> 
>> > 4-there was possible to get pop up window while filter was matched -
>> > now it does not exist
>> 
>> More info please.  I can't quite parse that one.
> 
> in old Pan, when rule matched there was a window: "you get new messages
> in group blabla matching your rule" - of course text was possible to
> customize
> so, in old Pan just after starting up the program, when all groups were
> already gathered I knew where (in which groups) I got threads to see
> cause they match my conditions

OK, it's rules, which as I mentioned in passing a bit further down, 
Charles removed, as many people found the rules configuration too 
complex, so they didn't use it.

1.0 is scheduled as the next stable.  Charles thought it would be out a 
year ago (the first public beta of the rewrite, 0.90, was April 1, 2006). 
I thought by the end of last year, but turns out there were rather more 
bugs to fix than either of us figured -- definitely not suitable for a 
1.0 -- so here we are, still not released.

Back to rules.  Most folks that did use them, used them to do one of 
several things: (1) expire old messages -- expiration time is now 
configurable and no longer depends on the server.  (2) Auto-delete 
certain posts (generally matching on ignored).  (3) Auto-mark-read 
certain posts (generally matching on low/negative scored).  (4) Auto-
download certain posts (often matching on watched, but some auto-
downloaded everything that wasn't ignored).

Post 1.0, as previously discussed on the lists, Charles plans to 
implement probably a new tab in preferences.   For each "auto" action 
above, delete, mark-read, download, there'll be options to match each 
scoring level.  The simplest GUI setttings idea so far is something like 
this:

Automatically:

        Download messages scored at least [dropdown]

        Mark read messages scored at most [dropdown]

        Delete messages scored at most [dropdown]

The dropdowns will contain the scoring levels, matching the ones in the 
color options, <deactivated>, -9999/ignored, -9998 to -1/low, 0/normal, 
1-4999/medium, 5000-9998/high, 9999/watched.

The defaults will either be deactivated, or delete-ignored, mark-read-
low, download-watched, but it'll maintain the flexibility to allow 
autodownload of everything but ignored as some folks like, or conversely, 
to allow auto-delete of anything scored negative and auto-mark-read of 
anything not specifically scored up, as other folks prefer.

>> b. One by one isn't absolutely necessary.  You can select ranges, with
>> the standard ctrl click to get one-by-one multi-select, and shift-click
>> to get ranges.  Or, just shift-arrow.  The thread must be expanded,
>> however.
> 
> this is exactly what I meant: must be expanded and checked every message
> in it to save them all - wouldn't it be possible to mark parent message
> and then while saving all kids are saved by default ?

That would be a new feature.  I'd suggest you check to see if anyone else 
has requested that as such in bugzilla, and if not, that you file a 
feature request bug on it.  That way, the idea won't get lost, even if 
it's not implemented immediately.

It shouldn't be hard to implement and could be useful.  However, I'm not 
sure Charles will like adding the feature as it certainly would need an 
preferences option controlling it, and Charles does try to keep the bloat 
and excess options that few will use from cluttering up the preferences.  
OTOH, he might really like it and implement it right away.  I simply 
don't know on this one.

> one more thing:
> how to set up Pan to be able to:
> -get headers only while checking groups -get headers AND messages while
> checking groups (to be able to read them later) - only for NEW messages
> of course

For the latter, auto-downloading headers (technically overviews, since 
it's only /some/ headers, not /all/ of them) and bodies, there's no way 
to do it automatically ATM.  As explained above, however, the feature has 
been heavily requested, and is planned for post 1.0.

For the former, there are checkbox options in preferences to 
automatically check for new messages at pan start, and when entering a 
group.  You can turn either one on or off.  Here, I have them both off so 
it only fetches overviews when I hit the button (or the shortcut key) to 
do so.

What I do here when I'm doing binaries, is download headers, then setup 
to download bodies (to cache) while I sleep or go to work or something.  
When I come back, it's done, and I can process them, then download 
headers and setup to download bodies again, while I do something else 
again.  That way, whenever I want to check binaries, I have a bunch 
loaded up to process, and just grab overviews and set it up to grab 
bodies once again when I'm done, so they'll be ready the next time.

The one thing that must be changed to make that work, however, is pan's 
cache size, as the default, 10 MB, is fine for saving attachments 
directly as they are downloaded, but not for downloading to cache to work 
on later.  There's not a GUI setting for cache size, it's one of those 
things Charles thinks would be too confusing, but it CAN be set directly 
in the config file.  (There are a number of other features that way as 
well, BTW.)  I actually have multiple pan instances setup (using the 
PAN_HOME environmental variable to point each instance at its own 
separate data dir), one for text, one for binaries, etc, and have the 
binaries one set to cache to its own dedicated partition of some 12 GB in 
size.  It works great.

> Pan is nice anyway ;-)
> thanks for your work

Yes it is.  I think of it sort of like democracy.  As they say, democracy 
sucks, but it sure beats all the other alternatives! =8^)  While pan's 
decent, there's certainly room for improvement.  Still, I've found 
nothing else even close to comparable, the reason I not only use it 
myself, but spend all the time I do on this list helping others make the 
best of it as well. =8^)

-- 
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