[Pan-users] Re: Undelete messages deleted in error.

[Duncan]

Steven D'Aprano posted on Sun, 29 Aug 2010 12:40:29 +1000 as excerpted:

> This is the second time in a week that I've selected a bunch of text in
> the Body pane, and pressed delete to trim my response as if it were a
> new post window.
> 
> Is there a way to undelete a post after I've deleted it? I've tried
> reading the user manual on the Pan home page, but there is no user
> manual on the Pan home page :/

I've done that occasionally myself (tho in my case, it's usually that the 
focus is on the wrong window, the main pan window, not the compose window, 
when I press delete).

Frustrating it is, and no, to my knowledge, there's no direct way to 
undelete.

If you're lucky and the message is still on the server, you can do the 
"Get all headers" thing (as opposed to get new headers), thus filling in 
the gaps, including the one you just created with the delete.  But if the 
message is already gone from the server...

Depending on the group, the server, and your level of desperation to get 
the deleted post back, you /might/ be able to google the message (if it's 
a text message) or if the post isn't /too/ old (six months to a year for 
binaries), sign up for an account with a server with longer retention 
(this works for binaries too, and unlike google, will keep the message as 
news, not a web page).

Note that there are a decent number of commercial news providers, a good 
share of which offer free or low cost 1-3 day trial subscriptions, so as 
long as it doesn't happen /too/ often...  Also, I recall reading about a 
free provider called "news for a day" or something similar, that's free 
and has nearly unlimited binaries, but changes their details every day, so 
you can't simply remain subscribed forever.  I /think/ it's a variant on 
the trial subscription thing, with the provider knowing that many will 
eventually get tired of changing the server details daily, and subscribe.  
But I've only seen a few mentions of it and never checked the details...

Another commercial option is a non-expiring block account, from the likes 
of astraweb.com or blocknews.net.  These you pay for once and don't worry 
about unless you need them, as the block doesn't expire.  Astra has upto 
180 gig for $25 (or 25 gig for $10), downloading headers doesn't count, 
and they're fairly well known.  Blocknews isn't as well known at least in 
my neck of the net, with blocks from 5 gig for $2.75 to 1024 gig (yes, a 
full terabyte!) for $91.39, but headers /do/ count with them.  They have a 
mid-grade 200 gig for $21.59 that compares quite directly with astra's 180 
gig, since headers count against the block for blocknews but don't for 
astraweb, with block increments 5,10,25,50,100,200,500,1024 gig, so are 
quite flexible, size-wise.  (Astraweb also offers monthly accounts, 
blocknews doesn't under that name, but does under its other name, 
usenetnow.net.)

I happen to know of these since my ISP quit bundling news a couple months 
ago, and these came up in the discussion.  I like the idea of a one-time 
fire-and-forget fee, and the terabyte account (which could last me years, 
perhaps a lifetime, unless usage changes) still fits nicely under $100, 
plus it breaks the 10 cents a gig barrier, so I've been strongly 
considering it.  The retail arm of Cox's former outsourced provider, 
highwinds-media, is providing free access to Cox users under the same 
terms until the end of the year, however, so I've been in no real hurry to 
sign up, just yet.

If you get a block account and don't want to use it up in normal use, note 
that pan's server priority mechanism only works for the posts themselves.  
Pan always downloads headers from all servers (there has been talk about 
making it consider a zero connection server as disabled and not queue 
header downloads for it, but that's not in official released pan yet; I'm 
not sure if there's a patch for it in khaley's git repo version or not), 
so astra's no-charge-for-headers policy would be useful.  Of course, if 
the block provider is your primary as it'd be for me, it doesn't matter 
much either way and blocknews would be fine.  Otherwise, if a zero-
connection=disabled patch hasn't been implemented yet, one might have to 
resort to hacks such as keeping two separate servers.xml files around, one 
with the block server configured, one without, to avoid the regular 
download of headers eating into the blocknews block, if it's used only 
occasionally, such as in the scenario we're talking here, to retrieve a 
deleted post already gone from one's normal server.

-- 
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