Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!agate!eos!ames!pacbell!pbhyf!rob
From: rob@PacBell.COM (Rob Bernardo)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.elm
Subject: Re: Behavior of ' ' considered inconsistant
Message-ID: <5234@pbhyf.PacBell.COM>
Date: 9 May 89 19:24:05 GMT
References: <1415@lokkur.UUCP> <5222@pbhyf.PacBell.COM> <1114@itivax.iti.org>
Reply-To: rob@PacBell.COM (Rob Bernardo)
Organization: Pacific * Bell, San Ramon, CA
Lines: 38

In article <1114@itivax.iti.org> scs@vax3.iti.org (Steve Simmons) writes:
+'Natural' order is a pretty slippery term here.  One of the neat
+features of elm is it lets you define what you want the ordering
+to be.  Want mailbox order?   You got it.  Want by date sent?  You
+got it.  Want those reversed?  You got it.  Better for our discussion
+if we call it "user-selected order".  Now we can define the request
+to be:
+
+When at the end of a displayed message, the ' ' command intuitively
+means 'go to the next message' rather than return to index page.
+What message is  'next' is determined by the ordering criteria set
+by the user, with 'reversed' setting going to lower message numbers
+and 'normal' settings going to higher message numbers.
+
+My reasoning: When a user selects a sorting criteria I feel he is
+requesting the order for both the display *and* the accessing of
+messages.

But that's how it is!!! The sort criteria affects both the order of
listings on the index screen and the  traversal of messages when in
pager mode. Don't get confused by the message numbers. The message
numbers used in pager mode are the same message numbers used on the index
screen. And these numbers reflect the sorted order of messages,
not the physical order of messages in the file.

When you say:

+What message is  'next' is determined by the ordering criteria set
+by the user, with 'reversed' setting going to lower message numbers
+and 'normal' settings going to higher message numbers.

it sounds like you are mistaking the message numbers to be fixed regardless
of the sort criteria.
-- 
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