Re: [Pan-users] Changes in PAN article navigation.

[Duncan]

On Tue 05 Aug 2003 01:07, Bobby D. Bryant posted as excerpted below:
> On 2003.08.05 01:53, address@hidden wrote:
> > The moment i use the keyboard to move to another article, the
> > body-pane will blank itself... preventing me from reading _anything_
> > of that article. The same is true when you use middle-click with the
> > mouse to "select but not download" an article. I guess these two
> > modes of selection (moving the select-box across the screen with the
> > cursors but not pressing 'enter' and using the middle mouse-button do
> > pretty much the same thing).
> >
> > My question is: is there any particular reason for this behaviour ?
> > It's really handicapping my enjoyment of reading news-postings in
> > certain groups. My request would be to "disable blanking of body-pane
> > on 'changing article selection' actions". Or to allow this to be
> > enabled/disabled in preferences.
>
> I just put in a bugzilla report on that, # 119153.  I'll add a note
> that it happens when the selection is done by keyboard as well as the
> middle-click, though fixing one will probably fix both anyway.

If I read my PAN lists right, that's a discussed feature, not a bug.

It was decided after some discussion on-list, that for PAN to be displaying an 
article other than the one selected was rather confusing, and could lead to 
deleting the wrong article, etc, let alone the fact that previous behavior 
didn't even update the body pane when one switched groups until one 
specifically selected an article to read in the new group.

Philosophically speaking, I believe we have the age old contention here 
between power user features and intuitive features that work the way a newbie 
would expect.  IMO, while this is of some inconvenience, the inconvenience is 
mostly in changing the habits one has accumulated when it worked the other 
way.  Once one gets used to the current behavior, I don't think it will be so 
bad.

OTOH, if enough folks strongly object to the new behavior, it might be 
reverted, at least within group.  I do believe that PAN should at least clear 
the body pane when switching groups, however, and that the current behavior 
is actually more intuitive all around, tho within a group, I don't have any 
real strong feelings on the matter, personally.

Charles?  Your call on this one.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little
temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Benjamin Franklin