Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!chinet!les
From: les@chinet.chi.il.us (Leslie Mikesell)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.elm
Subject: Re: Feature addition idea
Message-ID: <7214@chinet.chi.il.us>
Date: 18 Dec 88 20:56:48 GMT
References: <1094@raspail.UUCP> <51900010@mcdurb> <2454@ficc.uu.net> <40@dsinc.UUCP>
Reply-To: les@chinet.chi.il.us (Leslie Mikesell)
Organization: Chinet - Public Access Unix
Lines: 25

In article <40@dsinc.UUCP> syd@dsinc.UUCP (Syd Weinstein) writes:
>Novices cannot
>handle an editor.  Note that it is possible to build mail and read
>it from Elm with out using any Editor at all.  Forcing them to use
>an editor is wrong.  Perhaps allowing it for the Guru's isnt wrong,
>but you still need to have a way for the novices to handle things
>without the editor.

Um, perhaps you mean you can build mail without an *external* editor.
I doubt if a novice knows or cares if the editor is internal or not.
How about allowing rn-like % escapes to specify what is pre-written
to the edit buffer for those who want to see what elm is planning to
do, and allow any headers typed in the text to override the defaults,
merging in any totally new headers.
This would have the advantage of being invisible unless the elmrc is
modified but would not require the change just to gain the ability to
add a non-standard header.  If you think that someone is dumb enough
to start a message with:
TO: you
FROM: me
then maybe a special line should be required at the beginning to indicate
that headers are present (something unusual enough that it is not likely
to appear by accident).

Les Mikesell