Re: [Pan-users] [.97] Some usability issues

[Charles Kerr]

Jeff Berman wrote:

> 1) pan forgets which column each newsgroup is supposed to be sorted
> by.  If I enter a group and sort it by Subject (by clicking on the
> heading "Subject"), then the next time I enter the group it reverts
> to being sorted by Date.

I don't really want to do per-group sort orders unless there's
an overwhelming clamor for them, but 0.98 has a persistent,
global sort order.

> 2) It might be me, but the direction of the sort direction arrow
> seems to be backwards.  When sorting Subjects from A to Z, I would
> think the arrow would denote this by pointing up, but instead it
> points down.

Hm.  Right now when A is at the top and Z is at the bottom, the
arrow points down, which makes sense to me and is how other
news and mail apps do it.

> 3) When selecting a group with pan 0.14.2, focus would shift to the
> header pane, but with 0.97 it stays on the group pane.  It would be
> nice to regain the ability to click (or select by typing 'G') on a
> group and then immediately use keyboard strokes to manipulate
> articles.

I like this idea.

> 4) At the top of the body pane is an area that shows Subject, From,
> and Date.  Clicking on this area collapses/expands it.  However,
> pan forgets the preference after restarting.

I like this idea too.

> 5) It would be wonderful to bring back the "Delete Group's
> Articles" context menu when clicking on a group name.  Maybe I use
> pan differently than some, but after exiting a group I'll sometimes
> (not always) delete all its articles.  The only way I've found to
> do this in 0.97 is by selecting all articles and deleting them.

...which is kind of slow in 0.97, but instantaneous in 0.98.

> 6) pan 0.97 indicates already-read articles by changing its icon
> from a closed envelope to an open one, or by turning the green icon
> to grey.  For me, it seemed far easier to spot unread articles when
> the whole header line was greyed out.  That method also made unread
> articles detectable when the header pane was scrolled such that
> those icons were no longer on the screen.

Messing with the colors causes all kinds of headaches for people
using different system colors, so 0.9x is following the trend
(such as in Thunderbird) of boldfacing unread articles and
underlining read articles that have hidden unread children.

> 7) When loading headers in, pan now periodically refreshes the
> header pane.  I can see how some might prefer this, but it can also
> be disturbing.  Perhaps this live update could become a preference?

If there's some specific point about it that's disturbing, maybe that
should be addressed instead of making a preference.  What bothers
you about it?

> 8) In the header pane, it appears that the left/right arrow keys
> will scroll the view horizontally.  For some reason, however, it
> takes a few key presses before the scrolling starts.
>
> 9) It also appears that in the header pane, pressing shift +
> left/right arrow will expand/collapse a thread.  If it's agreed
> that expanding a thread occurs more often than scrolling headers
> right and left, perhaps these keys could be switched so that the
> left/right arrows manipulate nested threads and shift + arrows
> scroll left and right.

...thus confusing everyone who navigates trees in other gtk
applications. ;)  Those default keystrokes need to stay as
they are.  IMO the right fix is to allow users to customize
their keystrokes.

> Well, that's it for now.  Please let me know if this is the wrong
> place to give feedback.  And thanks everyone for such an awesome
> job!

Thanks for the good feedback!

Please open http://bugzilla.gnome.org/ tickets for 3, 4, 5, and 7,
or they'll likely get lost in the shuffle.

(There's already a ticket for custom keystrokes, BTW).

cheers,
Charles