[Pan-users] Re: Two options I REALLY miss

[Duncan]

Bruce Bowler <address@hidden> posted
address@hidden, excerpted below, on  Thu, 26
Apr 2007 08:22:24 -0400:

> The only references to mail that I see in the version of pan I'm using
> (0.125, self compiled, on fc5) are under Edit>>Preferences, where I see
> the option to tell pan which mail reader to use, and under post which
> has "reply to author in mail" (which appears to not use the mail reader
> specified under edit preferences).  True, I had forgotten about "reply
> to author in mail" which can be used to do what I want to do, which is
> forward the article on to someone else, but it adds the > marks which
> (if I remember correctly) old pan didn't do if you used the "forward
> article" option.  If I missed an option, please give me a hint where to
> look...

The > quote marks are added now, true.  Having a choice to forward and 
thus not add them is an irritation here too.  (I was going to mention 
that in the earlier mail but decided I didn't know enough about what you 
were actually wanting to want to take off on what might be a tangent.)

AFAIK, the preferences are used.  Here, I have both browser and mailer 
set to use the KDE prefs, and that's what gets used.  Maybe if pan can't 
find whatever is set or it returns and error code when pan tries it, it 
tries everything until something works?

Anyway, I basically never use the reply to author via mail option at 
all.  Instead, I just use followup (the f accel key being virtually hard-
coded in my muscle memory by now), and fill in the mailto line with 
whatever addresses I want -- usually mine as I'm simply forwarding it to 
myself for archiving, then delete the contents of the newsgroups line if 
appropriate.  Actually, I was doing that in old-pan a lot of the time as 
well, simply /because/ the "f" accel was "natural", and I'd have had to 
think about things to do it differently.

It's certainly different, now.  The added > is an irritant, but not a 
show stopper.  Another negative is that unless I remove it, I end up with 
a double sig, one from pan the other from the mailer, and one's likely to 
be not fully appropriate (list/group replies preferred when it's mailed 
personally, the address demunging mention, etc).  OTOH, a big positive is 
that because the mail version is set to the mailer for further processing 
before mailing, I can change the message there a bit, and thus send 
somewhat different messages via mail as compared to news posted.  This 
gives me rather more "live" flexibility than with old-pan in the mailing 
address I use for the mail version vs. the news version, and lets me 
personalize the mailed message a bit too, if desired.

So yes, it's different, but I can't say it's worse, and I'll probably 
eventually get used to it and prefer it.

BTW, a workaround for the > quoting is the external editor function, then 
using the editor's search and replace functionality.  Certainly, that's 
enough hassle to be impractical for constant use, but it's there, for 
occasional use if necessary.

I think a forward without > quote feature will be a good feature request 
eventually, but I'm not sure if Charles will want it due to the GUI 
clutter implications.  Still, I'd appreciate it and now I know I'm not 
the only one, so maybe it's time for a bug.  I don't feel strongly enough 
about it to bother ATM, however, so if you do, go ahead and file one, 
then post the number here and I'll probably add my voice to it as well.

-- 
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