[Pan-users] Re: Request For An Additional Feature: Link to newspost for binary posting

[Duncan]

Graham <address@hidden> posted
address@hidden, excerpted below, on  Fri, 02 Jun 2006
17:28:10 +0100:

> I know this matter has come up before, and Charles has said that it has
> a low priority, but with a new version of Pan I would ask that it is
> looked at again.
> 
> [] Pan reads yenc and uuencoded messages on the fly, but there
> is no provision for encoding and posting binaries within Pan.

ATM it's no new features.  It's bugfixes and just getting PAN back where
it was in the 0.14.x series, for the most part.  However, the bugs are
starting to thin out a bit, and PAN, while missing a few functions from
the previous version (remembered profiles per group is the most irritating
here, but Charles says that's now post-1.0, the lack of configurable rules
to actually /do/ anything with scores, is another big one, but I've no
idea when that's going in, Charles has hinted that customized hotkeys will
return, but not mentioned a timeframe), is starting to shape up into at
least being usable once again.

Charles has hinted that he's targeting 1.0 for the next stable release. 
Certainly, at the rate of progress over the last 10 weeks, it would appear
possible for a 1.0 before the end of the year.  The roadmap on rebelbase
hasn't been updated to reflect the reality of the new-pan and the new 1.0
target, but previously, simple binary attachments was slated for pre-1.0
(0.15.x actually).  If Charles is indeed planning on the next stable being
1.0, I'm guessing that will slide to post-1.0.  However, I'm also guessing
that it'll be one of the higher priority items after that, in some form or
another.

As for current solutions, a few months ago I posted an incredibly crude
attachment script for PAN, but it /does/ seem to work.  Check the
archives.  The idea is to place the script somewhere, then set PAN to use
it as it's "external editor".  By then placing the appropriate special
markup in the message (indicating attachment encoding, uuencode, yenc, or
plain text aka identity, and the path to the file to be attached), and
hitting the external editor button, the script will be invoked and encode
the specified file as an attachment, then appended to the existing
message.  It's also possible to setup a real editor as a pass-thru (using
an environmental variable) such that if the script doesn't find the markup
for attaching a file, it will simply pass the message to the real
external editor.  The script requires uuenview, part of the uudeview
package, for the encoding stuff, and assumes bash is available to run the
script. The rest of what you need to know is in the script itself as
comments. (Don't run it on it's own or with the usual --help parameter, as
it'll either just sit there or die horribly -- I /said/ it was crude!)

It's more a proof of concept than anything, as I had been suggesting that
a solution could be done as a script designed to be invoked from the
external editor button, for some time, Someone had previously done
something similar with a gpg message signing script, giving me the idea. 
However, no one else seemed interested enough to try it, and I finally
took up the challenge myself.  It works, thus satisfying the proof of
concept idea, but as withh most proof of concepts, it's crude, and tends to
be rather a hassle to use in real life.  I was hoping the proof and
initial code would stimulate someone to something better, but nothing yet,
unfortunately.

I haven't had occasion to try it on new-pan -- it was designed and tested
with 0.14.x, but I believe the external editor mechanism is similar, so it
should work on new-pan as well, likely without modification.

Maybe if Charles doesn't add a better solution to PAN right away, I'll
decide to see if I can make it any better, possibly using xdialog or
python (which I'm supposed to be learning, but I haven't done anything
with it for awhile) to get some sort of real GUI going for the thing,
instead of having to use that hokey markup stuff.

Anyway, if you want to try it and can't find it in the archive, reply with
a request, and I'll see if it works with 0.99 by posting the script using
the script, as I did last time. =8^)  It's short enough (shorter than this
post, I believe) doing so even on a text group/list isn't too bad.  Maybe
you or someone else will like the idea and improve it for me!  =8^)

-- 
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