[Pan-users] Re: Formatting bug in 0.119

[Duncan]

JCA <address@hidden> posted
address@hidden, excerpted
below, on  Sat, 06 Jan 2007 17:50:40 -0800:

> I start typing my text, opening the first line with a tab character, or a
> suitable number of spaces. As I keep typing, on reaching the 80th column
> my text is wrapped around to the next line automatically. The problem is
> that Pan tries to be too clever: instead of starting at the leftmost
> column of the next line, it starts right below the first nonblank
> character of the first line.
> 
>     This is bad enough (I do not understand why it is assumed that
> this is the behavior that one wants - doesn't Pan know about indented
> paragraphs?) but, even worse, Pan does something to the cursor so that
> the first word in the second line is invariably messed up.
> 
>    Is there a fix for this in the works? This bug has been present
> since at least version 0.14.2; it would be nice it the new Pan were to
> quash it soon.

You are supposed to use block paragraphs. =8^)

Seriously, as you mention, that's problem was in old-pan as well.  It
doesn't just affect spaces at the beginning of a line, either, but also
anything it interprets as a quote character (like >).  If anything like
that's at the beginning of the line, not only does it think it's a quote
and do the same thing to the next line, but as you mention, it does
something weird with the order.  As best I can tell, it'll skip the first
letter and insert it the moment you pause more than whatever fraction of a
second it takes to catch up (seems to depend on CPU speed, as it usually
happens to me in a couple letters now, dual Opteron 242, where with my old
Athlon-C 1.2 GHz, I'd often get in a full word and it would hit at the
space).

I use block paragraphs and would suggest you do similar, for now. 
However, it'll still hit you on occasion, when typing smileys or math
symbols or something.  The frustrating thing is the screwed up letter
order afterward.  It can really ruin one's rhythm!  At least the screwed
up letter order usually triggers the spellcheck and I see the word
underlined in red, thus catching it. =8^]

I'm sure there's a bug on it somewhere.  You can look, and then add your
comment to it.  If you find it (or don't and file an new bug), post the
URL here and I'll chime in too.  Trouble is, given how long it has been
open, I'm wondering if it's due to an artifact in the GTK widget used, and
it's a choice between living with that bug and doing without proper
quoting or without autowrap. =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