[Pan-users] Re: A couple of questions

[Duncan]

Danita Zanre posted <address@hidden>, excerpted below, 
on Mon, 31 Jan 2005 14:19:41 -0700:

> Here are a couple of things I can't seem to find answers for - I'm
> switching to Pan from Windows, and since I read/compose a lot of NNTP
> during the week, little things help <g>.
> 
> 1.  Is there a way to mark a thread as "read" - I don't want to ignore
> the thread permanently - I just want to mark all messages in the thread
> read.

Yes.  Use the select thread (or add subthread to selection) function, then
mark read.  See the shortcuts explanation below.

> 2.  Is there a way to separate the "Pan.Sent" folder into servers? Right
> now, no matter which news server I'm posting to, all messages end up in
> the same "Sent" folder.

PAN automatically puts everything in the pan.sent folder.  However, you
may be able to use scoring or filtering to sort them there (particularly
if you use different email addresses for each server or certain groups,
and sort by that), and then create a rule to move messages based on the
score or filter, if desired.

> 3.  Is there a way to prevent Pan from deleting messages from the local
> cache when they are deleted from the server?

Not directly, at least from the groups.  You may copy messages to a
folder, however.  Or, do what I do, and mail messages you want to keep to
yourself.  Or just save them as text.

Also note that you can turn the auto-update functions for your groups off,
under PAN preferences.  That will allow you to sort thru your current
collection of messages in a group at leisure, then update the group only
when you've finished sorting what you had before.  Before I switched to
klibido for binaries, I routinely did this with my binary groups,
updating, deleting the messages I knew I didn't want, downloading
everything, then taking a couple days to sort thru it before updating
again, thus keeping messages from disappearing until I'd finished sorting
thru them, saving what I wanted.

> 4.  Is there a way to show "unread messages to me"?  I've got a rule
> that "watches" all threads that I participate in, and that helps a bit,
> but isn't quite the same.

Well, you can do it with subthreads under your messages, tho some of them
will be replies to replies from others, of course.  Use the filters menu,
show matching articles' subthreads, match only my articles.

Do note that it's possible to forget you have "match only my articles" on.
I did this once and wondered why I wasn't seeing any new articles.  They
were there but they weren't mine, so the filter wasn't showing them.  Make
a point of checking the filter menu to ensure it's set as you expect, if
you don't see the messages you expect in a group.

> 5.  Hmmm - there was more, but I can't remember right now!

One particularly good PAN feature is the ability to reassign keyboard
accelerator functions.  Hover your mouse over a menu item, and hit the key
combo you want to assign to it.  Delete deletes the current combo, so it
can be assigned elsewhere.  Note that for single letter keys, the local
menu accelerator function takes precedence.  Thus, you can't use this
method to assign "r" to mark read in the Articles menu, for instance,
because once in that menu, "r" will activate mark read, instead of
assigning the function.  You could of course assign ctrl-r or something. 
However, these and other "exotic" key combos that can't easily be assigned
from within PAN, can be assigned if you quit PAN and edit the appropriate
config file (~/.pan/data/accels.txt by default) directly.  (Don't bother
attempting to sort the entries.  PAN will just scramble them the next time
it uses the file anyway.  Use your editor's search function to find the
entry you want.)  The default entries are all commented, but you can
uncomment them and change them if necessary.  Be aware of the possibility
of creating duplicate assignments when you do, however.

Using this functionality, not only can you remap existing assignments, but
you can map dynamic menu entries as well.  Thus, I've mapped the shift-Fx
functions (shift-F1 thru shift-F4, for my four) to my news servers, for
instance, so I can switch between them with just a couple keystrokes.

One could do the same with filters you've added yourself, as well as with
the existing filters (on the filter menu).  I haven't added accelerators
to any of my own filters, but I DO have "r" assigned to toggle the show
read threads filter.

Thus, here, to use your mark thread read example, I hit ctrl-t to select
thread (or ctrl-shift-t to add subthread to selection of I just want the
subthread), then "m" to mark read.  (I have shift-m mapped to mark unread.)

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little
temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." --
Benjamin Franklin