[Pan-users] Re: "score" group list

[Duncan]

Thufir <address@hidden> posted
address@hidden, excerpted below, on  Sun, 17 May 2009 19:31:29
+0000:

> Would it be possible to add a "score" to groups in addition to
> subscribe/ unsubscribe?  I don't, nor do I imagine others, post and read
> all groups equally.

??  The first bit of the scoring dialog deals with the group, so it's 
easy enough to score based on group.

But I suspect what you're wanting instead is a way to categorize or at 
least reorder the subscribed groups list, basically, to allow a deeper 
tree, with more than two layers.  That has been on the requested list for 
some time.

There is a (somewhat crude) workaround, however.  This is what I do.  
When pan first starts it checks the PAN_HOME environmental variable and 
if set, looks in that dir for its data and config files (if unset, it 
uses the default ~/.pan2).  Thus, not only can you set and export this 
variable in the environment pan will see in ordered to move the directory 
elsewhere, but by creating several pan starter scripts, each of which 
sets this variable differently, it's possible to run multiple pan 
instances, each with its own data and settings.  I use this feature to 
keep three pan instances, text, bin, and test, thus keeping my text and 
binary groups separate from each other and avoiding "dirtying" my normal 
subscribed groups with temporary subscriptions when I'm just browsing, 
while also allowing different settings (cache size, for instance) for 
each instance. Of course, you could setup the instances however you 
wanted, mp3s vs iso images vs still-pix, for instance.

While I'm at it, I use the script to set a couple other things before I 
start pan as well.  Here's my pan.bin script, for the binary instance. 
($PANDIR is set in my .bashrc, and each instance script sets PAN_HOME as 
a subdir thereof.  x is substituted for my username for posting purposes.)

#!/bin/bash
export GTK2_RC_FILES="/etc/gtk-2.0/gtkrc:/home/x/.gtkrc-2.0:/home/x/
kde3.5/share/config/gtkrc-2.0"
export PAN_HOME=$PANDIR/bin
cd ~/pan/scraps
exec /usr/bin/pan $*

You can then setup menus or other launchers (I use kmenu here, then 
attach a hotkey to it to launch directly without opening the menu) as you 
normally would, but pointing at the appropriate starter script instead of 
at the pan executable directly, while deleting the original pan menu 
entry.

While pan only has one level of subscribed groups, one can thus limit the 
subscribed groups for a particular pan instance, thus keeping the length 
of an individual instance's subscribed groups list manageable for those 
of us who subscribe to many different groups.

-- 
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