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Re: [Pan-users] About colors of read and watched messages...
From: |
Bobby D. Bryant |
Subject: |
Re: [Pan-users] About colors of read and watched messages... |
Date: |
Fri, 13 Dec 2002 16:21:51 -0600 |
On 2002.12.13 04:10:19 -0600 Maurizio Colucci wrote:
[me:]
> The second is "read" vs. "unread" vs. "new", i.e. how much previous
> attention the article has received.
I apologize, but in this sentence you seem to mix different concepts
once again: the "new" concept is separate from read-unread.
Technically, yes. But in practice, no. With the default
color/boldness scheme the unwatched messages show up _visually_ as
light-medium-dark, and for text newsgroups that precisely maps onto the
degree of attention a message has had. "Light" means you either read
it or took the trouble to mark it as read. "Dark" means you have never
had a chance to see it before at all. And "medium" means "something in
between" -- you _have_ had a chance to see it, but you neither read it,
marked it read, marked it ignored, nor deleted it. It's still in an
ambivalent intermediate state between "new" and "tended". Cognitively
it works perfectly, at least for busy text newsgroups.
The only difference I would like to have on that part of the encoding
would be to make the unread color slightly lighter, since I have to
look more closely to distinguish the bolding from the ordinary unread
color.
(Furthermore, but this is another matter, I would completely eliminate
the "new" feature because I can see no use for it... after all, new
unread
messages and old unread messages are on the same level, since I have
to read them both. Why a message downloaded now would be more
important than one downloaded one hour ago?)
It is more important due to incomplete triage. If I didn't read it
last time I fetched articles then that means that it's not of pressing
importance but I still might want to read it later if time allows, but
right now I want to see whether any of the new messages are more
important and should be read first. Coding the new ones means that I
don't have to waste time going over all the previous unread ones making
the read-now-or-postpone decision all over again.
It would be unbearable to try to follow a busy text newsgroup without
the three-level coding that Pan now offers for unwatched threads. And
Pan really needs to provide the same support for watched threads. As
it is, the "watch" feature is almost useless to me.
> The current system uses a color scheme to differentiate between
> watched and not-watched; I suggest continuing that.
Why?
Some threads merit priority attention, and color coding is the easiest
way to find them. We're primates with that straight-ahead focus of
visual attention.
> The current system also uses a color or value (darkness) or font
> (boldness) scheme to differentiate between "read" vs. "unread" vs.
> "new", and I also suggest continuing that.
You still don't say why this solution would be better than the one I
proposed in reply to Duncan and at the end of this message.
Hopefully I've explained it better above.
If it's just because it minimizes changes to existing code?
I can't say that I agree with such an argument.
No, that has nothing to do with it. Any comments I have made about
simplicity are just to forestall any notion that it would be a big,
complex system.
This would make me sick...
1) Suppose you see a bunch on black messages, and between them you
see, isolated, one "blue" message.
Now, how do you tell which color is it? Is it dark blue, medium blue,
or light blue?
Forgive me, but I'm starting to have trouble thinking you are serious
about this. For the non-watched threads this is how I've interpreted
it since the day Pan introduced the bolding for new messages, and I've
never had the slighest trouble doing exactly what you describe.
In absence of blue neighbors, this would be at least annoying.
2) Suppose there are two near messages: one is medium blue, the other
one is medium red. The meaning is, according to your definition, that
one is old, unread and watched, and the other one is old, read and
unwatched.
No, "medium" means "neither new nor read", regardless of the color.
The color only indicates "watched" vs. "unwatched", and can be encoded
with a color since it is a completely orthogonal issue to what the
darkness encodes.
So they are on the same level (in the sense that you should read them
both).
But the difference doesn't leap to the eye! THe is NOTHING to bind
them.
(except of course, the fact that they have the same intensity of
color, medium... but this is crazy. Try to imagine).
Yeah, I've been imagining it for several days. And the more I imagine
it, the more I want it. Then I could start using "watched"
systematically.
These are only two situations, but I guess there will be many others.
> In fact the boldness for "new" is already orthogonal to watched vs.
> unwatched
And this is fine, because I must stress that they are independent
concept...
See top of this message.
[snip rest]
later,
Bobby Bryant
Austin, Texas
- Re: [Pan-users] About colors of read and watched messages..., (continued)
- Re: [Pan-users] About colors of read and watched messages..., Maurizio Colucci, 2002/12/12
- Re: [Pan-users] About colors of read and watched messages..., Bobby D. Bryant, 2002/12/12
- Re: [Pan-users] About colors of read and watched messages..., Duncan, 2002/12/12
- Re: [Pan-users] About colors of read and watched messages..., Bobby D. Bryant, 2002/12/12
- Re: [Pan-users] About colors of read and watched messages..., Maurizio Colucci, 2002/12/12
- Re: [Pan-users] About colors of read and watched messages..., Bobby D. Bryant, 2002/12/12
- Re: [Pan-users] About colors of read and watched messages..., Maurizio Colucci, 2002/12/13
- Re: [Pan-users] About colors of read and watched messages..., Maurizio Colucci, 2002/12/13
- [Pan-users] Are articles whose attachments are saved marked as read?, J. Gardner Biggs, 2002/12/13
- Re: [Pan-users] About colors of read and watched messages..., jef_e, 2002/12/13
- Re: [Pan-users] About colors of read and watched messages...,
Bobby D. Bryant <=
- Re: [Pan-users] About colors of read and watched messages..., Maurizio Colucci, 2002/12/12
- Re: [Pan-users] About colors of read and watched messages..., Duncan, 2002/12/13