Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!osh3!chip
From: chip@osh3.OSHA.GOV (Chip Yamasaki)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.elm
Subject: Re: elmheaders question (Another one)
Message-ID: <1991Apr28.232226.7947@osh3.OSHA.GOV>
Date: 28 Apr 91 23:22:26 GMT
References: <1991Apr14.112755.26471@engin.umich.edu> <1991Apr15.160308.250@napc.uucp> <1991Apr25.150333.14057@mtdiablo.Concord.CA.US> <1991Apr28.163720.7923@corpane.uucp> <1991Apr28.221614.446@DSI.COM>
Organization: U.S. D.O.L - Occupational Safety & Health Admin.
Lines: 45

In <1991Apr28.221614.446@DSI.COM> syd@DSI.COM (Syd Weinstein) writes:

>herman@corpane.uucp (Harry Herman) writes:

>>Could the developers of ELM make a change to the next release of ELM to
>>append the headers out of the elmheaders file BEFORE you edit the text,
>>and allow them to be editted and/or deleted either while editting the
>>text or with the "edit headers" command?
>No, we cannot make such a change.  The problem is in how Elm tells
>the MTA where the headers end and the message starts.  Anything in
>the text buffer is part of the text of the message and not the headers.

>It would require a rewrite of how Elm handles the headers to change this
>which is why cries for editable headers and text have fallen on deaf
>ears. Its just not the way Elm was written and without a rewrite it
>won't happen.

And I don't think it should.  I wouldn't want beginning level users
seing headers in the editing buffer.  I think the way Elm works is just
GREAT!

What I would like to see instead is a powerful macro language to handle
this kind of thing.  With a nice macro language with user variables,
program flow control, conditional expression, the ability to tap into
the environment, and a few other goodies we could make Elm
sing-and-dance.

You could let users name macros, bind them to keys, and have named
macros executed through hooks in the code like:

    pre-edit-format-macro    run the edit buffer through this before
                             the editor is called
    post-edit-format-macro   run after the editor returns
    pre-mail-macro           run directly before passing message to
                             Unix/Xenix MTA program.

And some controls like switches to split the body of a letter into
pieces if it is larger than a given size, duplicate the header, append
"Part X of X" to the Subject: header and mail in pieces.

Any chance of any of this happening?
-- 
--
Charles "Chip" Yamasaki
chip@oshcomm.osha.gov