Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!purdue!ames!pacbell!pbhyf!rob
From: rob@PacBell.COM (Rob Bernardo)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.elm
Subject: Re: Behavior of ' ' considered inconsistant
Message-ID: <5222@pbhyf.PacBell.COM>
Date: 8 May 89 17:45:32 GMT
References: <1415@lokkur.UUCP>
Reply-To: rob@PacBell.COM (Rob Bernardo)
Organization: Pacific * Bell, San Ramon, CA
Lines: 45

In article <1415@lokkur.UUCP> scs@lokkur.dexter.mi.us (Steve Simmons) writes:
+
+When using the space bar in the index page, the direction of travel is
+always downwards (to higher number messages).
+
+If you have your 'sorting' criteria set up by date, that's fine -- you
+proceed thru your unread messages from oldest to newest.  But if you
+have the order reversed (newest is 1, oldest is max) using the space
+bar to navigate thru messages does the opposite of what you want.  For
                                                   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Perhaps, it's what *you* want, but not necessarily what everyone wants.
(But, that's okay. Let's just not presume what any one of us thinks is
"natural" really is. :-) )

+2.3 I'd suggest this be changed so that the ' ' direction is inverted
+when the user does a 'reverse' setting on date.

The "logic" here is that the sort criteria change the numbering and
ordering of messages as displayed by elm.  Obviously, as Steve points
out, this governs the index screen.  However, Steve is suggesting that
it *not* govern the movement from one message to the next while in
"pager mode" (i.e.  when you display a sequence of messages without
returning to the index screen).

I see a problem with Steve's suggestion. He suggests that ' ' in pager
mode follow traverse the messages in the "natural" order if your sort sequence
is reverse-date-sent or  reverse-date-received (he didn't say which). Does
Steve mean they should be traversed in mailbox order or does he
mean they should be traversed in date-sent (or date-received order)?

If the former, things could get confusing because mailbox order is
not necessarily the reverse of reverse-date-{sent,received}. Mailbox
order is very unlikely to be the reverse of say reverse-subject order.

If the latter, what do we do when someone chooses to sort by subject,
or reverse-subject, or one of the other sort modes?

I dunno. Seems more natural to me to have the sort criteria govern both
the index screen and the traversal of messages in pager mode. My $.02.
-- 
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