[Pan-users] Re: server priority and completeless

[Duncan]

Duncan <address@hidden> posted
address@hidden, excerpted below, on  Wed, 25 Mar 2009
22:16:51 +0000:

> Beartooth <address@hidden> posted
> address@hidden,
> excerpted below, on  Wed, 25 Mar 2009 17:24:16 +0000:
> 
>> Using motzarella, I've been getting quite a few posts unreadable
>> because, Pan says, they're not complete. If it finds an incomplete post
>> on one (higher priority) server, and a complete one on another (lower
>> priority) one, will it find and grab the complete one?

> You can tell whether it's multi-segment or not, and whether pan thinks
> it can get all the parts or not, by the icons next to the posts.  A red/
> broken puzzle piece is a post pan thinks is a binary, without all the
> pieces.  A green/complete puzzle has all the pieces.  A closed envelope
> indicates a(n unread) text post, or at least one pan thinks is text
> (sometimes it's wrong).  An open envelope indicates an already read text
> message.

I meant to mention in the above but forgot...

You can if you want (if you think pan made a mistake or you want to see 
the parts that are there even if they're not complete) tell pan to 
download and display what it can of a post that pan says isn't all there. 
Secondary-button-click (normally right-click) on the post and choose 
"Read Article".  Pan should then download and display what it can, even 
if it wouldn't normally do so as it doesn't believe it's all there.

BTW, pan parses the subject line to see if there's multiple segments.  
Such subject lines will usually end in [x/y], example, [3/19], meaning 
the third segment of 19, but due to the way pan works, it doesn't 
normally display that part of the subject line as it only lists it once 
instead of 19 times, once for each individual message segment.  If all 19 
parts are there, it'll not display that part at all and will show the 
green complete puzzle icon.  If some parts are missing, pan will say how 
many parts are there (instead of [3/19] meaning the third part of 19, it 
would mean three parts of the 19 are available) and show the red 
incomplete puzzle icon.

However, such subject lines aren't exactly standardized and sometimes 
contain the number in a series, say (36/75), for image 36 of a 75 image 
series in the images groups, or (5/9), for the fifth track on a 9 track 
CD, as well as the segment number.  And sometimes the series number is 
last instead of the segment number, and the poster switches around the () 
and [].  Then there's the text message replies to a binary post, keeping 
the same subject line but with Re: in front.  Pan normally gets those 
right, due to the re:, but what about when someone posts a multi-segment 
in reply, but doesn't change the subject line, so now the subject line is 
wrong in the number of segments AND has re:, so pan would normally treat 
it as a text message reply?  That's the one I've seen pan screw up on 
most frequently, because there's simply no way it can properly figure it 
out, at least not before downloading.

So pan definitely has taken on a challenging task trying to parse the 
subject line automatically and take an educated guess at what it means.  
It does surprisingly well, but as I mentioned, its not perfect.  That's 
where the manual download trigger comes in handy, when pan makes a 
mistake.

-- 
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