[Pan-users] Some UI notes and feature requests (long)

[James Hawtin]

Long time user, first time poster ;-)

Anyway I few things i have noticed as of 0.11.2.90

I normally use pan with 2 news servers for binaries as well as text
groups.

1) At the bottom of the Screen there are three slots for current
activities, even though the default is to use 4 connections at the same
time. Fine, however if connection 4 and 1 are being used, you still get 1
and two blanks and don't get to see whats going on in 4 (save though the
task manager) even when it has closed connected 2 and 3.

Perhaps change it so it has 4 slots and if more than 4 connections are
being used it redivides it into smaller units.

Connected slots, that are connected but idle could display "idle <news
server>"

2) It would be nice the message window had a button on it for "View full
headers"

3) Can cut n paste from the header pain of the message window.
(have to save article and look at the saved one)

4) If you try to save a (0/x) file pan goes into a decode loop, and
crashes. It should nto be trying to decode a 0/x file as its a message.

5) Title bar is incorrect or misleading when changing news servers.
When you change news serves, the groups lists changes and the title bar
changes to reflect the change to the new news server. However the current
group listing does not change. And is still on the old news server, the
title bar reflects this with the number of messages. If you have the same
group subscribed on multiple  servers its easy to forget to reselect the
group from the groups listing  and use the group on the wrong server. The
titlebar changing to reflect  the new server seems to mislead. Perhaps in
the group listing, when you have subscriptions to multiple servers, it
could read something like.

+ alt.binaries.barney.xxx (news.whatever.com)

Or just Blank this window when changing news server.

6) Saving articles/attachments.

When you save an attachment on one news server at little floppy disk
appears. However when you switch servers this floppy disk symbol is not
shown. The "read"/light grey nature of the article is.

Most people want to use there "free" news server as much as possible. Only
using the pay for service when an article is Unavailable on the free
one/ones.

It is possible as it stands to download most of the parts from one server
then switch to a different one to get the rest by clicking on all the
articles. to save them to cache then switch server and doing save
attachment, the 3 discs cache symbol is shown on the other server, however
after you do a save attachment on your second server and go back to the
first one the "cache" symbols are gone, and no floppy disc symbol (as
above). Perhaps  the cache is flushed after the save.. I don't know.. It
would make sence  to put those articles to the top to be flushed from the
cache. Still its confusing.

7) Default post server preferences, even though I am viewing via one news
server I would prefer all my posts are sent (if possible) via my pay
service, as it does not tag my IP among other things. Also they have a
dedicated post only server, perfect for posting, even to text groups, and
generally it has much better connectivity and propergation.

Options I would like to see, That could go in Pan: Preferences: Online
Settings: per-server settings.

Default news post server If selected aways try this server first. Then try
the server the message was read from.

Available for posting

This would allow me to Uncheck the box to never use some servers to post.

Available for reading.

Pan does not try to read from a posting only server.

Pay

Don't read messages from this server unless you have to...
(see later point)

8) Global Subscribed list.

I hate having to copy my Subscribed list from server to server. It would
be nice if it was "global" if a group is not available on the server you
are currently connected to it could grey the group out.

9) Allow heirachies of news groups. Nice for when you look at lotsof
groups, as you could setuop one grouping for binaries another for text
etc.

10) Binaries are normally posted in multiple parts, fine, however oftain
multiple rar files make up the actual file, it would be nice if these
could all be grouped together too.

11) A hold in cache option. For segment fills, I have no idea how the
caching works, but it would be nice if you could select a message with
incomplete parts and select "hold in cache" these would not then be
flushed (even if the orginal post expires or after XX days (setable))
Until a Save or Save Attachment and the whole post is sucessfully decoded.

Some use of this would be nice text groups, so messages you like could be
held in your cache for longer.

12) Combined Group view. USing multiple servers to view the same group, it
would be nice if the group pain could display the two versions of the news
group at the same time.

When downloading it could use your prefered download server(s) first
(ie free ones) and then get missing parts from your other server(s)

A little icon to the left could be used to describe how much of the
message (for multipart ones) would come from each server. I would suggest
a Dollar Sign (well I would suggest a pound being from the UK) the ammount
of it that is coloured Green could refect how "free" it was. the more Red
it is the more expensive.

Other representations could be Display More of the Dollar sign for the
more "less free" it is Good for colour blind people as many people are
red/green colour blind or just a Percentage.

13) If you have the scrollbar active on the "group" window it is
impossible to change the size of the last field (date). This is a pain cos
it lists Date then Time, and by default the size is not big enough to show
the whole Date/Time field.

14) In the group listing it would be nice to change the order of the
fields, personally i would like poster before subject as subject lines are
oftain very long and so scroll everything else of the screen.

Ok I think i am done for the moment ;-)

James

PS pan rocks.