Re: [Pan-users] "name as subject"

[Danny Rathjens]

Thanks for the informative response.
The use for the feature I have found is in the case of attachments
using the same names.  Most often in the case where the attachments
come from a digital camera and lazy folks don't bother to rename
the files from their default names.  Many camera brands have a hardcoded
prefix so the files aren't just numbers, but obviously they can still 
overlap.
Some examples are dsc0001.jpg image0001.jpg and my camera does AGF00001.jpg.
So in these cases, and of course in the case where the name is simply 
0001.jpg,
it is very useful to be able to save the attachments in a file named
by the subject of the article(the same way the text of the article is 
saved).
It is also useful if the subject just happens to have more information
than just the filename alone.

I suppose streamlining things make sense.(although I really don't like 
things
changing position arbitrarily, my fingers got used to the first option 
on group
right-click menu being 'mark all read')  But being a programmer myself, I
love to have as many options as possible that I can tweak in software I 
use, ;)

I think my newbie vs advanced menus option idea is a decent resolution 
to that.
I checked out the cvs.  I like the meaningful function naming style.
I'll give it a whirl.  pan is such awesome software, sometimes I forget 
it is
in active development that I could contribute to, 8^)

Incidentally, the gtk+ feature of modifying menu shortcuts mentioned in 
the FAQ
doesn't work for me.  I guess I should try to figure that out too.

On Mon, 10 Feb 2003 12:02:49 -0700, Duncan wrote:
> On Mon 10 Feb 2003 04:50, Danny Rathjens posted as excerpted below:
> > Gah!, I just upgraded to 0.13.3 and the option to save based on the
> > article subject name has been removed, but I can find no reference
> > to this in the changelogs or mailing list archive except one post
> > from a user complaining about the 'save article as' dialog being
> > confusing and being told to design a new one.
> >
> > Was that the motivation to remove this very useful feature?
> > If that's the case, can we have a setting for newbie vs expert menu
> > options?(or braindead vs literate, if you want to look at it that way, ;)
> >
> > Or is there some way I can still do this and I am just missing it
> > (keystrokes)?
>
> I'd never noticed it disappeared, until now.  I guess that shows how much I 
> used it.  <g>  Same would apply to most of the others on the list, I assume, 
> as I don't recall seeing it there, either.  I do remember it from b4, and had 
> a vague feeling, on occasion, that the save as dialog was missing something, 
> but never bothered to figure out what.
>
> There was a specific, and a more general reason for removing the feature.  
> Charles, to his credit and that of the other coders, has been pretty good at 
> controlling code bloat and featuritis.  If features are rarely used, they are 
> candidates for removal, keeping PAN lean and mean, and code maintanance and 
> debugging that much simpler.  That is a GOOD thing.  Occasionally, he finds 
> he removes something he THOUGHT was little used, and it causes howls of 
> dismay.  In a revision or two, they get put back.  (The single click selects 
> vs activates option, and having a separate option for the overview vs group 
> panes is a good example.)  Others cause a squak from one or two folks, but 
> nothing major, and they may not get put back.  This is obviously an example 
> of the latter, alto I can see how it would be a quite useful feature on 
> occasion, and may eventually get put back (see below).  That's the general 
> reason.
>
> More specifically, Charles had the goal of porting PAN to MSWormOS.  It seems 
> to be working there, now, in beta at least, but to get it there with the 
> least trouble, the choice was made to cut features requiring the larger Gnome 
> libraries (a good thing on *ix installations not running Gnome as well), and 
> stick with the bare minimums, basically GTK, and GNET (the move to GNET was 
> in part to facilitate the MSWindows port, but it had other advantages as 
> well).  The original file dialogs, as welll as some other features, depended 
> on Gnome, AFAICT, and were removed if considered non-vital, or recoded if 
> considered vital, to kill that dependence.  This particular feature hasn't 
> been recoded yet, it would seem.
>
> That's the story as I gather it from the various discussions on the list, 
> anyway.  I think I do recall a discussion about more advanced file dialogs 
> returning at some point.  Perhaps now would be a good time.  I can't speak 
> for him or the other coders, however, except to say that I doubt he'd turn 
> down a patch implementing such functionality, if it's something you can do.
--
     _.,-*~`^'~*-,._ Danny Rathjens _.,-*~`^'~*-,._
  "Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and
   what you do are in harmony." -- Mohandas K. Gandhi