Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!ames!amdcad!sun!pitstop!sundc!seismo!uunet!mcvax!hp4nl!mhres!jv
From: jv@mhres.mh.nl (Johan Vromans)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.elm
Subject: Re: Feature addition idea
Message-ID: <2706@mhres.mh.nl>
Date: 19 Dec 88 12:53:42 GMT
References: <40@dsinc.UUCP>
Organization: Multihouse NV, the Netherlands
Lines: 34

From article <40@dsinc.UUCP>, by syd@dsinc.UUCP (Syd Weinstein):
> [...] Remember that Elm is 
> a mailing system for users from Novices to Guru's. Novices cannot
> handle an editor.
I do not agree. The problem is not the editor, but which editor.
A user-friendly full-screen editor which uses standard type
commands (e.g. what you type is what you get) and the terminal
cursor and page keys is a great companion for novice Elm.
In my company Elm is used as the primary mail interface most
notably for managers and other non-gurus. 
[Editor wars to /dev/null, please]

On the other hand, to make Elm more useful for novice users:

 - provide a restricted mode, in which most of the powefull
   commands are disabled.
 - require command names and *MOST IMPORTANT:* answers to
   questions to be terminated with a RETURN. Current Yes/No
   questions take ANY input and what happens depends on the
   coding.
 - support the terminal cursor and paging keys in all menu's.
   When an entry from the maile menu is high-lighted, the most
   natural way to select another entry is using the arrow-keys.

Useful for all users:

 - provide for a means to pass a pre-formatted message to Elm.
   This allows Elm to be called from application programs (e.g.
   the News programs) with a pre-formatted message which can be
   edited from Elm if desired. 
-- 
Johan Vromans			 jv@mh.nl via european backbone (mcvax)
Multihouse [A-Za-z ]* [NB]V			uucp: ..!mcvax!mh.nl!jv
Gouda - The Netherlands				  phone: +31 1820 62944