Re: [Pan-users] signature when replying to Usenet posts

[Dave]

On Saturday 27 August 2016 19:17:50 Duncan wrote:
> mick posted on Sat, 27 Aug 2016 15:20:25 +0100 as excerpted:
> 
> > Signature problem with Pan 0.13.9/Linux Mint KDE 17.3 and Pan 0.14/Linux
> > Mint Cinnamon 18 using a signature saved as a text file.
> 
> FWIW that's weird version numbering.  Presumably Mint or its upstream 
> distros Ubuntu or Debian change the upstream pan version numbers for some 
> reason, and the given 0.13.9 and 0.14 refer to upstream pan 0.139 and 
> 0.140, with 0.140 being current release, I think.  (I'm running live-git 
> pan and have lost track of the current release, but my live-git, which I 
> last updated on Aug 13, reports 0.141 and the git commit, as shown in my 
> headers since I follow the list as a newsgroup with pan.)
> 
> > When I open follow up to a newsgroup post there is a blank line below
> > the other persons quoted text, then a blinking cursor ready for me to
> > start typing my reply on the second line, then three blank lines below
> > the cursor, then the two dashes and then the signature, that's five
> > lines between the last line of quoted text and the two dashes.  If I use
> > the 'text' signature instead of a 'text file' signature that produces
> > six blank lines between the other persons quoted text and the two dashes
> > before I ever start typing.
> > This does not seem normal.  Posts I see from other Pan users have only
> > one blank line between their last line of text and the two dashes. When
> > making new posts there are four blank lines between the top of the page
> > and the two dashes.
> 
> At least in my case, that's because I tend to manually add/delete lines 
> as necessary to leave a single blank line above the signature.  (On short 
> posts it'll be manual delete as there's too many blank lines, but on 
> longer posts I guess I often arrow down instead of hitting enter twice to 
> start a new paragraph, so I often end up manually adding lines to keep 
> the signature as, effectively, the last paragraph.)
> 
> IOW, that's a long term if minor bug that has been there as long as I can 
> remember.  In fact, I /think/ I remember the old C-based pan, 0.14.x era 
> (upstream 0.14.x), before the C++ rewrite that was introduced with 0.90, 
> behaving similarly.  I suppose most long-term users have gotten as used 
> to it as I have, and simply add/delete lines manually without hardly 
> thinking of it any longer, just as I do.
> 
> But if someone wishes to create a patch to fix it, say making it three 
> blank lines with the cursor on the second, ready to type in the reply, I 
> imagine it'd be taken pretty fast, and I imagine that'd be a reasonably 
> easy patch, likely easy enough I could do it myself if it bothered me 
> enough, and I don't make any claims at being a coder, certainly not C++, 
> tho I did have a pascal course in college, 30-some years ago.  But as I 
> said half the time I'd probably end up manually fixing up the sig 
> separation anyway, so it's too minor to bother patching, here. 

I'll just add the following, replied direct to Mike in a newsgroup where we've 
discussed it a couple times in the past.

"In Pan, for example, when I click on reply the new post compose window opens 
up either quoting the selected text, if any, or the whole post if not.  There 
are exactly three blank lines between the quoted text and the sig and the 
cursor is set at the middle line.  That's why I suspect it's not the fault of 
Pan but some other library it's calling.  You have the same version of Pan as 
me but you use Linux and I use FreeBSD so it's likely an external event causing 
the problem or maybe even the compiler used to build it.  Have you tried out 
Pan from any other live boot OS to see if it behaves differently?"

So, in light of that, what OS/version are people running and how many blank 
lines are auto-inserted between the quoted text and the dash-dash-space sig sep?

OS:   FreeBSD 10.3
Pan:  0.140
Inserts 3 blank lines.