[Pan-users] Re: External Editor not communicating with Pan Editor

[Duncan]

Peter posted <address@hidden>, excerpted
below,  on Sat, 26 Nov 2005 06:50:17 -0500:

> Using 14.2.91 code, I observe the following: Whenever I click on External
> Editor,

[The following paragraph edited into sentences (you know, with proper
terminating periods and initial caps <g>) so I can parse the message in
ordered to properly respond.  The lack thereof doesn't /usually/ bother
me, but I was having difficulty parsing this for some reason, so I went
thru and added them, making it /much/ easier.]

> If there is [existing content] in PAN, it does not go to the
> [external] editor.  Then, when exiting the editor, the PAN message is
> unchanged.  If the message is blank, and I write something in the EE,
> when I quit the editor and save the file, nothing is in PAN.
> 
> I use gvim %t as my editor command. If I click Editor (CTRL-E), the temp
> file PAN creates is quickly deleted in the /tmp directory. The editor
> opens a blank file with what appears to be the same random name pan
> created, but blank. When the editor file is saved, nothing is imported
> to the PAN screen.
> 
> Why does the original tmp file get deleted? Why are changes not being
> captured?

Speculation:  The gvim you call is simply a starter script that
launches the real executable (perhaps after setting appropriate
environmental variables or some such) and then exits. If this is the case,
PAN will see the exit of the starter script as the exit of the external
editor, grab what it thinks is the now edited content, and erase the
temp-file.

I'd find the executable (which gvim), open it in a text editor to see if
it's a real binary or just a script, and go from there.  If it's a binary,
consider running strace on it or something, to see what it's doing and if
it exits before the gvim window does.  A process listing with initial
command line (so you can figure out what the real gvim you are seeing is,
if it's not the one PAN is invoking) may help as well.

Given the evidence as posted, I'd consider that most likely.  Other
possibilites:

Perhaps you have something cleaning the temp dir?  Are you sure the temp
file is being created at all?  Maybe you (or whatever user PAN is
being run as) don't have permissions to write to that directory and the
file isn't being created?

FWIW, I don't use the external editor feature regularly, but did just try
it (same PAN version), and it worked as expected, with the existing
content appearing in kwrite (my editor of choice, kwrite %t in PAN
preferences), and upon exit of kwrite, the changed content appearing in
the pan compose window.  This is on Gentoo, using KDE 3.5.0-rc1 and PAN
0.14.2.91

> ----
> Do not reply to this email address. It is a spam trap and not monitored.
> If you wish to contact me, please use pete4abw at comcast dot net. Thx.

Please consider using a real sig delimiter (dash dash space on its own
line, just two dashes, don't forget the space), so clients can detect the
sig and won't try to quote it in the reply.  PAN is usually pretty good
about helping with this.  Maybe the above looked sufficiently unlike a sig
PAN didn't generate its usual "please use a proper sig delimiter" warning?

-- 
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 in
http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2004/12/22/rms_interview.html