Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!amdahl!pacbell!pbhyf!rob
From: rob@PacBell.COM (Rob Bernardo)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.elm
Subject: Re: screen update when new mail arrives
Keywords: yes they do! :-)
Message-ID: <5212@pbhyf.PacBell.COM>
Date: 6 May 89 18:07:04 GMT
References: <717@dutrun.UUCP>
Reply-To: rob@PacBell.COM (Rob Bernardo)
Organization: Pacific * Bell, San Ramon, CA
Lines: 33

In article <717@dutrun.UUCP> hans@duttnph.UUCP (Hans Buurman) writes:
+When I am in the main menu at (e.g.) message 15 of 22 on a 24 line display, I
+see messages 11 to 20. When new mail arrives, the entire screen is redrawn,
+only in order to change the number of messages on the first line. This seems
+a waste of time, especially at 1200 baud (modem). Can this be changed,
+or am I missing something ?

Yes, it can be changed, but it would take a lot of hacking.

One reason is that elm doesn't use the standard curses. This means you
can't simply add the line to the window and refresh it to update simply
change only what's needed to be changed in the was curses does. This will
change when we convert elm to use standard curses.

Another reason is that the elm code is not very modular.  You'd have to
rewrite whole bunch of stuff to isolate the functionality you've
requested be added into a single function.  Otherwise you start messing
with adding bunches of global variables (as if elm doesn't have enough)
and idiosyncratic flags to existing functions, etc.  (The development
team knows I've always maintained that elm needed it's code reworked
from scratch.)

So while it would be possible to change elm as you (and I) would like,
it may not be worth the effort considering how much time it would take
and how many real bugs there are out there.  it would be better at some
point to simply rewrite elm rather than patch it (only to make the code
less and less modular).

-- 
Rob Bernardo, Pacific Bell UNIX/C Reusable Code Library
Email:     ...![backbone]!pacbell!pbhyf!rob   OR  rob@pbhyf.PacBell.COM
Office:    (415) 823-2417  Room 4E850O San Ramon Valley Administrative Center
Residence: (415) 827-4301  R Bar JB, Concord, California