[Pan-users] [.104] Two issues with the "Get Headers from Server" window

[Jeff Berman]

Hi,

If a group is in the process of downloading headers
from the server, and then you activate another group
and then activate the original group, the "Get Headers
from Server" window will pop up again, even though
headers are already, um, getting.  I'll file this as a
bug.  Also, if you leave the window up and then
activate another empty group, a second "Get Headers
from Server" window will pop up, but there's no way to
tell which window applies to which newsgroup.  Perhaps
only one window should be allowed at a time or else
the newsgroup name should appear in the title.

The second issue is extremely nitpicky, so feel free
to disregard... but I, in all my quirkiness, find the
behavior of this window a little nagging.  Currently,
there's no way to tell at a glance if a group is empty
or contains already-read messages.  The only way to
find out is by entering (what pan calls "activating")
the group.  Since I use pan mostly for downloading
binaries, my reading behavior is to enter a group,
grab what I want, and then delete the remaining
headers.  (So Charles, thank you for returning
ctrl-shift-D!)  Once I get everything going in the
download queue, I'll often mark the group as read (as
a note to myself that I've already covered that group)
and move on to the next group; when downloading is
complete (and no extra pars are needed) then I'll go
back and delete all the headers.  So what happens with
pan2 is that every time I activate a group to see if
it has any contents, that window pops up if the group
was empty.  Maybe it's me, but I prefer the old
behavior where pan would only prompt you the first
time a group was accessed.  For me, I'd rather
activate a group, see that it's empty, and then decide
on my own how to proceed.

If this were to be fixed, in my opinion controlling
the popping-up of this window would be better than to
indicate somehow that a group contains already-read
articles (although that would be nice, too).  I
realize that the intent is to help users, but there's
something about those pop-ups that reminds me of
Windows trying to think for me by repeatedly offering
to hide unused desktop icons.  :-)

Sorry... I told you it was nitpicky.  But as always,
thank you so much to the developer(s) for all your
hard work!

Jeff

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