[Pan-users] Re: Speaking of bugs ...

[Duncan]

Greg Lee <address@hidden> posted
address@hidden, excerpted below, on  Fri, 28 Sep 2007 21:56:10
+0000:

>> What you are saying is that the group should remain 'selected' until
>> you purposely click on a different group.
> 
> Now that you've explained to me what happened, I think I'd like to say
> that the group should either remain selected or be reselected in this
> specific circumstance -- when you're looking at its headers in the
> header pane.  On the other hand, if you're viewing the group pane and a
> selected group name disappears because of a selection pattern, it seems
> right to have it be deselected.

That has been pan's behavior for quite some time (years).  From various 
discussions I've seen, it appears it is at least partly deliberate, and 
in response to requests.  At a minimum, it gives a user a fast "way out", 
should someone come into the room they don't want to see what group they 
are perusing, without actually losing what's displayed in the dependent 
panes/tabs (body is dependent on headers/overviews, which is dependent on 
the group list) and thus losing one's place entirely.

Arguably, however, the bug is that if an entity is deselected, the 
dependent panes should clear as well.  Thus, if the overview entry is 
deselected, it should clear the body pane/tab; if the group entry is 
deselected, it should clear the overview pane/tab, which should in turn 
clear the body pane/tab.

However, while admittedly rather more intuitive and more convenient for 
"panic mode", that would be inconvenient for some, who depend on that 
feature to be able to for instance, refer to the group list to look up an 
unsubscribed group, when composing a reply, without losing the body of 
the post to which one is replying from the body pane.

IOW, I don't really consider it a bug, just an idiosyncrasy of the way 
pan works.  Obviously, Charles doesn't really consider it a bug either, 
or the behavior would almost certainly be different.  In any case, I'm 
sure that now that many long time pan users are used to current behavior, 
if it were to change, people would be getting frustrated when they lost 
their place, doing something that used to work.  (While I'm not opposed 
to changing the behavior in principle, I know it'd catch me a few times, 
likely more than a few, thus frustrating me, before I eventually got used 
to the new behavior once again.  Thus as a purely practical matter, 
because I don't see any real need to change it, I'd prefer it stay as it 
is.  I'd not argue otherwise, however, if someone were to persuade 
Charles it was worth changing, just don't expect me to argue it as well, 
because I'd prefer it not change, purely personal preference.)

The rule, therefore, would be to simply make sure the target of the 
action you intend to take is actually selected, before you take it.  
That's actually a good computer rule to follow in general, even if pan's 
enforcement of it is arguably a bit less than intuitive at times.

-- 
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