Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!tiamat!jim
From: jim@tiamat.fsc.com (Jim O'Connor)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.elm
Subject: Re: Local and remote signatures - a solution(?)
Keywords: signatures
Message-ID: <581@tiamat.fsc.com>
Date: 3 Jun 89 17:47:01 GMT
References: <398@sirius.ua.oz>
Organization: Filtration Sciences - Chattanooga,TN
Lines: 65

In article <398@sirius.ua.oz>, mrp@sirius.ua.oz (Mark Prior) writes:
> For example I would
> consider all mail to people at the Uni to be local and maybe some mail to
> other people outside as local (ie I want to use a local signature) so I
> would have a file like -
> 
> *@*ua.oz.au
> person-alias
> group-alias
> 
> Elm would then pattern match on these templates to determine whether the
> addresses were `local' or not and then append the appropriate signature
> file to my mail message.

This would be a workable solution for "configuration file literate" users,
but most of my users still don't understand that .elm/elmrc and .newsrc
exist and/or what they are used for, much less a .elm/local-users file.

So far, IMHO, I like the idea of having the "signature" file selectable
from the headers menu.  Or perhaps, the command to send, edit, etc the message
could include the option - c)hoose signature  (I didn't pick a command clash,
did I?).  If the message is s)ent whithout using c), the default behavior
would occur.  If c) is selected, the user would have the option of
choosing between

auto  - signature appended according to the "usual" rules (whatever they
        end up being)
local - append file specified by the .localsignature elmrc variable, regardless
        of the rules
remote - append file specified by the .remotesignature elmrc variable, ditto
file - elm will prompt for arbitrary file name to append
editor - elm will put you back in the appropriate editor to enter the
         text for the signature, and not append anything else
none - elm doesn't add anything to the message

I include the "auto" selection in the menu, so that if a user changes the
"auto" behavior, they can put it back if they want to.

This method would maintain the fixes from patch8 in this manner:

1) when the user doesn't care, the "auto" mode will take care of appending
   the "appropriate" signature at the time the s)end command is issued, thus
   the to and cc headers can be examined.

2) when actually appending a file, the file will still be appended at the
   time s)end is issued, so that users using the built-in editor can use
   signatures.

There is also some added functionality, in that the user now has the option
to keep several different signature files, and append the one they want on
a message by message basis.  The folder concept could even be extended, so that
there would be a "Sig" directory with signature files, and "=file" would
specify a file in this directory, when using the "file" option listed above.

Getting back to my original "configuration file literate" users concern, I
think this method would be easier for novice Elm users to understand and
make good use of, while still allowing advanced Elm users to have the
flexibilty and functionality they desire.

--jim
------------- 
James B. O'Connor			jim@tiamat.fsc.com
Filtration Sciences Corporation		615/821-4022 x. 651

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