[Pan-users] More info on the impending version of Pan

[Charles Kerr]

I'm glad there are people interested in new versions of Pan!  I should 
have the code ready for cvs in a couple of days.

The new version works on gtk 2.4, but I *strongly* recommend gtk 2.8 or 
newer because they are so much faster, particularly in the header pane.

The rewrite is to address the old version's design problems that had 
over time grown to make Pan less fun to hack.  So the backend is even 
more different than the front, and there's not a lot of compatability to 
be found in the .pan directory:

 * It now uses standard newsrc files to know what groups a server has.
 * It now uses standard newsgroups.dsc for group descriptions
 * It now uses standard nzb files for making a resumable task list.
 * There's now one file per group, not one per group per server.
 * Many preferences settings have gone away.
   (i.e., use Gnome or Windows registry to know what web browser to use)
 * The data files are human-readable and -editable.
   (It's never been easier to raise your connection limit past four! ;)

However, none of these changes are gratuitious: they've all been either 
to make the files more human-readable, to make them load or save faster, 
 or to make them more compatable with other readers and nzb tools.

Hopefully there will be enough advantages to the new version to offset 
the churn of such a big change.

Also, here's the screenshot. :)

cheers,
Charles