[Pan-users] Re: Marking Messages Read

[Duncan]

Paul Trevethan posted <address@hidden>,
excerpted below,  on Sun, 07 Nov 2004 09:47:05 +1100:

> [M]y new SuSE v9.2 saw the removal of all Windows partitions and I have
> decided to bite the bullet and go Linux only!

Congrats!

> Pan is my reader of choice in making the transition. It handles my 8
> binary groups (out of 50+ total) the best.

Double congrats and cool! =8^)

> However, I have a real problem getting it to behave as I would really
> like - in terms of mimicking my trusted old Agent ways.

Not so cool! =8^(

> I like to download [new headers, then] go through each group and mark
> for retrieval those messages I want to gather the bodies for - that's ok
> (M was more logical than J).

Be aware that PAN does allow you to reconfigure hotkeys.  If it didn't,
I'd very possibly be using something else, not because I can't learn new
hotkeys, but because the functions I want hotkeyed and the way they are
grouped doesn't fit the way I work, so the ability to change that really
goes quite a way in improving usability for me!

Actually, I /never/ use the flag for download and then download flagged,
as separate functions,  I simply select the ones I want to download (using
the standard control and shift metakeys to group the selection, either
with the mouse, or shift-home/shift-end, as the shift arrow and pgdn/pgup
keys don't work quite as expected due to a problem PAN inherited from
GTK+), and download them directly, then go on to the next set and set them
to download.

See what I mean about needing different functions hotkeyed?  I don't need
flag/unflag/download-flagged hotkeyed at all, as I don't use those
functions.  OTOH, I **DO** need the simple "download" command hotkeyed, as
that's what I use to download what I have selected.  Further, I use the
"download" function enough that it needs to be in a convenient one-touch
location, so I remapped that to F1.

Likewise, the M for mark-read seems entirely logical to me, but since I
often re-mark a post I want to save to reply to later as unread, (because
I normally filter marked read posts as not displayed, so I'd lose track of
the post otherwise), and the standard "reverse operation" key is the shift
key, I remapped shift-M to mark unread.

I use other logical hotkey groups as well.  I use shift-F# (F1-F?) as my
switch-server keys, so I can switch between my multiple configured servers
with the two-stroke combo shift-F? (remembering which server is on which
function key) instead of having to take the long way around using the
menu.

Of course, there'd be no easy way to set those up as shipped anyway, since
each person uses different servers.

Likewise, all the different pop-up dialogs available from the tools menu
are configured with ctrl-alt-? combos, R=rules, F=filters, T=tasks,
S=Scorefile-edit (also in the same family as a simple "S" by itself, to
score a particular message, altho ctrl-S is reserved for the more standard
save dialog), etc.

If your GTK+ is properly configured, remapping a function to a new hotkey
is normally simply a matter of opening the menu with the mouse, hovering
it over the function you want to assign a hotkey, and pressing the
appropriate key.  If the key is assigned elsewhere, you have to go hover
over that first, and hit the delete key, to delete that entry, before you
can assign it where you want.

The exceptions are of course the delete key itself (which deletes the
current hotkey, rather than assigning itself as the new one, as above),
and any (single letter) key normally used in that menu as a menu
accelerator key, in which case, it is parsed as selecting the accelerated
function rather than reassigning the hotkey.  For these, and a few other
possible "exotic" combinations, one must directly edit the hotkey file
(found under the pan dir).  Note that PAN scrambles the listing order
every time it closes and saves its currently active hotkeys, so don't get
any fancy ideas about nicely sorting the hotkey file and directly editing
it.  If you /do/ plan to make direct hotkey file editing a frequent
occurrence, and wish to sort it, name the sorted version something else,
and copy it over to the working version any time you make changes.  (As
you may have guessed, I found this out the hard way. =8^( )

If neither the point and remap nor the direct hotkey file editing are
working for you, it's because GTK isn't configured to allow remappable
hotkeys.   Early versions of GTK+2 had hotkey remapping turned off by
default, due to some misguided GTK+ developer notion of enforcing the
Gnome/GTK+ HIG on folks, thinking FORCED consistent key mapping thru all
GTK+/Gnome apps was a better solution, somehow, than simply creating
defaults, and letting the user change them as desired (as Gnome/GTK+
original did).  However, either they changed their minds and now allow it
by default, or the distribs I've worked with since then have patched it to
work that way anyway.  Both Mandrake and Gentoo, at least, no longer seem
to need the gtkrc (or whatever file it was) line to force user remapping
back on.  I don't remember the exact line if you do need it, but I've
posted it a number of times to the list myself, and that's where I
originally found it as well, so check the archive, it's there.

> This is the important step though! - and the problem? Under Agent, when
> I told it to then go and download all the bodies for the marked messages
> I could set it to mark all messages that did not have a body ( i.e. any
> I had not marked for download) to be marked read. This vital step is
> what I cannot find a way to replicate in Pan?! It is vital to me because
> it allows me to return to the groups offline and simply go through with
> the N key (read next unread message). This makes the reading of the
> messages a snack in that I can safely ignore any message that I have not
> asked to see. In Pan, when the bodies are retrieved and the other
> headers are not marked, using the N key goes and gets the body of each
> message in succession which I have already decided I do not want because
> I did not mark the message.

I don't believe there's a way to have PAN do that /automatically/, that
is, without any additional steps.  However, using key remapping as above,
it should be possible to make each of the necessary steps easily
invokable.

You have two basic choices, here, in terms of implementation.  You can
either work with the flag and sort order options (and possibly the thread
toggle as well), or with the cached/uncached display filtering options.

If you work with cached/uncached, you'll have to wait to do the
marked-read thing until the messages you want to remain unread are
downloaded.  The filters menu has a built-in "match only cached" option,
but what you need is a "match only uncached" option.  Create it yourself
using the filter dialog (tools menu).  In the new filter dialog, select
"article is...", then change the dropdown to "cached", and hit the add new
line to filter button.  Then select the line just added, and hit the
invert button.  Choose a name for the filter (mine is just "Uncached", but
to match the built-in entries, you may want to be a bit fancier and call
it "Match only Uncached Articles"), make sure the "show in filter menu"
checkbox is checked, and save your new filter.

Now, after your articles have downloaded, you can filter by uncached only,
which will filter out all of them, leaving only the ones you wish to mark
read.  Select all articles in the overview (incorrectly aka header) pane,
and "mark read".  Toggle the uncached filter back off, and vwalla! only
your downloaded articles should be displayed as unread.

Don't forget what I said above about hotkey remapping, either.  I use the
"read" filter often enough that I mapped the "r" key to toggle it.  If you
use the solution I describe above, you'll likely want to map a hotkey to
the uncached filter you created (just as I mapped R to the "read" filter,
altho that's a default filter menu entry, not one I created myself).
Likewise, you may want a hotkey mapped to select-all (I use the standard
ctrl-a), altho you could fairly easily simply focus the overview pane, hit
home, then shift-end, to "select all", as well. Mark-read is the other
function you'll need hotkeyed, but it's hotkeyed by default, IIRC, tho you
may wish to change it to match your own scheme.


Or..  if you want the ability to do that marking BEFORE all those posta
are actually downloaded, only flagged, you can trade the ease of simple
hotkeying for the ability to do the mark without waiting for the full
download.  Do the flag for download thing as usual, then sort by flag
column (this of course means that column must be displayed in the overview
pane).  Just click on it.  Note that if you don't normally mark entire
threads, you'll need to toggle threading (ensure that toggle is a hotkey),
so flagged messages are sorted to the top or bottom regardless of their
threading.  However, once you get it sorted, use standard range select
(click shift-click, or select, shift-home/end) to select all /unflagged/
messages, /then/ mark-read.  Then toggle threading again if necessary, and
revert to your preferred sort.

.....

Actually, in terms of hotkeys, what I did here was make a list of all the
default hotkeys, and a list of what I wanted hotkeyed (and conversely the
functions I didn't use enough to be worth hotkeying, meaning I could free
the hotkey for use elsewhere), then decided on a general scheme (so M and
shift-M marked read and reversed to unread, respectively, for instance,
all the tools had consistent hotkeys, things like download were one-key
ops, and the standard keys I was used to, ctrl-a -s -x -c -v, etc, did
what they were "supposed" to do), and started remapping as necessary.  The
first scheme was pretty good, but it did require some tweaking here and
there over time, as I realized I wanted download on a single-key
out-of-the-way yet easy-touch-locate hotkey, for instance, and chose F1 as
the best candidate.  (I never use help functions enough to need F1 for
that, and it's located perfectly, not to out of the way yet not likely to
be hit on accident, so it was perfect!)

Yes, getting used to a different app can be frustrating, when the keys
don't do what you expected them to do by habit, and there's no fully
automated way to do what you did in the previous app.  Thankfully,
however, PAN's hotkey layout is very flexible, and you can remap the
functions it has to the hotkeys you know, and /almost/ get automatic
operation of other functions implemented in PAN as multiple functions, by
arranging them for easy sequential hotkeying, if desired.  (You could for
instance map the three functions needed above, toggle uncached,
select-all, mark-read, to F8-F10, if desired, so you could just hit F8,
F9, F10, F8 again.  Of course, that could make remembering which one is
the mark-read key harder for /other/ ops, but it's possible, AND something
YOU can actually decide, as an individual user.)

Hope it all helps...

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little
temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." --
Benjamin Franklin