[Pan-users] overnight header updates -- just a dream?

[listMAN]

I asked about this back in November with no meaningful reply.  I know Charles 
is busy with the upcoming release but maybe someone else can help us out.

My computers run 24h/d but I only launch Pan when I feel the need. 
Unfortunately, I am subscribed to dozens of high volume groups that I visit 
only occasionally. The current methods (load at startup or load at visit) 
require that I sit through often lenghty header downloads when I finally want 
to read one of these groups.

Now, if those same headers could be updated daily at 3AM?  When I come along 
at 11AM I only need a light touchup to make any group's header info current.

A "--upd" option to Pan that called do_xover_subscribed_groups() and exited 
when the active job count decremented to zero would really be a nice feature.
Combined with cron it would shave many unproductive minutes off my Pan 
sessions.

I wanted to include a patch, well... I used to know C but never learned C++.
I wrote the code but can't get it to compile because of rigid scoping rules.
It's a pity, such a simple (and useful) change.

For what its worth, here's a diff for anyone wanting to try this at home.
My sources are now a little out of date, but I doubt this code changes much:

FILE: ~/pan-0.122/pan/gui/pan.cc


175d173
< "  --upd                    Update subscribed groups.\n"
192c190
<   bool gui(true), nzb(false), upd(false);
---
>   bool gui(true), nzb(false);
209,210d206
<     else if (!strcmp (tok, "--upd"))
<       { upd = true; gui = false; }
255,269d250
<               // address@hidden
<               if (upd)
<               {
<
<                       int active(0), total(0);
<                       active = 1;
<                       do_xover_subscribed_groups();
<                       while (active)
<                       {
<                               sleep(10);
<                       }
<                       exit(0);
<               }
<
<

Yes, the sleep() is a really bad idea.  I'm sure there's a very effective
C++ method for watching a variable and acting when it reaches a value.

Any takers?  Or a solution to my scope errors?


oldschool