[Pan-users] Re: Download All New Messages from All Subscribed Groups

[Duncan]

Matej Cepl <address@hidden> posted
address@hidden, excerpted below, on  Thu, 04 Jun 2009 06:21:12
+0000:

> Why is this (IMHO, quite basic) functionality not implemneted? Pressing
> Ctrl-D,D,C,G fourty times (I have redefined C to be Cache this message)
> every morning doesn't feel like state-of-the-art of the 21st century. :)

It is slated to be added when the former rules feature replacement for 
auto-* goes in.  This will be score-based, and as discussed, will allow 
auto-download and auto-cache on the one side and auto-mark-read and auto-
delete on the other side, with the same score categories as are already 
seen in the color tab of preferences and in the view > header menu.

Presumably, most people would set watched to auto-download (or auto-
cache), with ignored set to auto-delete (or auto-mark-read) and possibly 
negative set to auto-mark-read.  However, the highest category for the 
negative stuff and the lowest for the positive stuff could be set, so 
users that want to auto-cache (or auto-download) everything could simply 
set that to the zero/normal category, or even the ignored category, if 
desired.

That's the last remaining unimplemented feature from old-pan.  Honestly, 
I'm not sure why Charles didn't implement it, except that early on, he 
wasn't sure exactly what he wanted to do with it except that he knew the 
old rules feature was way too complex (and I agree, as we had a lot of 
people asking here for help with it, or for features that were already 
available using rules), and that he wanted a far simpler setup for new-
pan.  As the other bit of stuff the rules used to manage was expiration 
and new-pan already handles that better, the auto-* actions are what 
remains, and Charles did participate in a discussion where he agreed on 
the general principle of a preferences tab to setup the auto-actions, as 
much simpler and a sensible solution.  However, it never actually got 
implemented, and after working very hard on pan for over a year, with 
nearly weekly updates, he evidently got burnt out and decided to give it 
a rest.

That was nearly two years ago, with one maintenance release, updating pan 
to compile with new versions of gcc and various libraries as well as 
fixing a security vuln, at exactly one year after the last previous 
update.  That was version 0.133, released on August 1, 2008.

Obviously all us non-coders are eagerly awaiting his return to working on 
pan, but nobody's quite sure when it might be.

FWIW, I had an ebuild that followed the SVN-live version, and updated it 
relatively frequently, but haven't for awhile, and gnome has moved to GIT 
now, so I assume pan will too, but haven't updated the ebuild to see if 
it has or what the new status is.  So it's possible Charles has started 
working on pan again in the last couple months and I just don't know 
about it yet as I haven't switched the ebuild to git to check.  But I 
don't know for sure that he's moving to git, either.  It's unlikely but 
possible he's sticking with SVN and will move the repository elsewhere 
when he has to... or maybe already has.  Last I checked the pan site, it 
still referred to the old gnome SVN repository, tho that's not unexpected 
if Charles isn't doing anything with it at all, nor if he's working on 
something big like the C++ rewrite we didn't know about for years, so I 
really don't know.

I've said it before and I'm sure I'll say it again.  I wish I could code
C++.  Maybe someday...

-- 
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