[Pan-users] Documentations

[Glen Stark]

Hi Everyone.

Well, I've been silently observing the mailing list for a while now.  I'm
happy to see that it's still pretty active.  Just to let everyone know where
I'm coming from, I'm actually a pretty good programmer, particularly in C++.
I'm a bit of a GTK neophyte, but I have written a couple of small
applications using the toolkit, so I can usually muddle my way around.

I recently checked out the cvs version of pan, because I wanted to be able
to download multiple articles using only the keyboard.  Unfortunately this
is proving to be a little trickier than I would have thought, and I just
don't have the time right now to work on it.   But I hope soon.

On the other hand, I had a few ideas that I thought we on the list might get
active on, kind of as a present for Charles, if and when he graces us with
his presence again.  The first was documentation.

I read the recent discussion regarding the decision to simplify the UI, and
how we have to muck around in the preferences file.  I actually find this a
good philosophy, although I would debate on a point by point basis on
certain GUI elements that have been excluded.  Anyway, this got me to
thinking that the problem with not having a GUI to set, for example, the
default cache size, is it's not immediately transparent to figure out how to
do such a thing.  That further got me to thinking that, jesus, that web page
saying the pan project is going to have documentation soon hasn't changed in
YEARS!

Now I recently set up a couple of wikis at work, and y'know, it's easy and
quick.  I'm totally willing to set up a pan wiki for people to write
documentation, if anyone out there wants to contribute to it.  So if 2 or
more people say "heck yeah, I'd write a page or two", I'll set you up a
wiki, and provide the hosting. I'll even donate a few hours here or there
writing a little docu myself, but I'm not going to do the whole thing
myself.  I'll put it right out in front that if Charles wants to take it
over and incorporate it over at rebelbase, it's his.


As for code contributions, I have a lot on my plate at the moment, but I
might be able to squeeze a little time into working on PAN in July.  I could
probably make my patches available.  If any of you non coders have quick and
easy things that are driving you nuts, maybe I could hook you up, as a way
of getting my feet wet in the PAN pool.

Cheers,
Glen
(www.glenstark.net)