[Pan-users] Re: Unread Watched column in group pane

[Duncan]

Mick Wever posted <address@hidden>, excerpted
below,  on Wed, 22 Oct 2003 12:10:11 +0200:

> What would be nice is to have a column in the Group pane 'unread watched'
> that was a count of unread articles in watched threads.
> Some groups have large amounts of traffic and often I only/extra
> interested if new articles have been posted to watched threads. Now I
> could use filter 'watch threads' but if I have a large number of groups in
> this category then I still have to go to each one, filter on 'watched
> threads' and 'unread'. It would be nice to have this summarised in a
> column. Possible? or is there a better way to achieve the same thing?

The problem with this is that it involves far more code than the current
setup.  Basically, the current unread count is just the last message
number you read subtracted from the highest message number in the group,
which is available from the news server (plus any previously unread
messages, of course).  That's why the number often changes when you
actually enter the group -- because sometimes messages aren't numerically
ordered on the server (some numbers may be skipped, as deleted by spam
filters after numbering, for instance), and because of x-posting (x-posted
messages may have been read in the other group they were posted to, but
the number in the unread group doesn't change until you actually enter it
so PAN can update the real counts based on what it has).

Thus, the current unread count is a simple mathematical operation,
requiring little code, while tracking watched messages would require just
that -- actually tracking messages per group.  That would be expensive
both in terms of code and performance -- PAN would take longer to process
and display the info since it has many many times more work to do.  IOW, I
don't think it's a very practical idea.  Of course, someone may code it up
and prove me wrong, but unless or until that happens...

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
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