Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!rutgers!mailrus!uwm.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!psuvax1!psuvm!DERRZE1!MAINT From: MAINT@DERRZE1.BITNET (Rainer M Woitok) Newsgroups: bit.listserv.mailbook Subject: Proposals for yet another version of MAIL/BOOK Message-ID: <900112.122001.CET.MAINT@DERRZE1> Date: 12 Jan 90 23:21:58 GMT Sender: MAIL/MAILBOOK subscription list Reply-To: MAIL/MAILBOOK subscription list Lines: 120 Approved: NETNEWS@PSUVM Gateway Yesterday I installed 89-02-0A and was really impressed by the various enhancements and by the performance improvements achieved by using these index files. I'd nevertheless like to make some proposals, part of which arouse from my testing and playing with the new version, and part of which I'm carrying around for quite a while. The sequence in which I'll mention things is random and does not reflect any priority. 1. Message-Ids Since it is now possible to generate a unique message-id for each mail, it would perhaps be meaningful to display a message with a message-id only once in case it is cross posted to several lists. But since you'll see the mail only once, you will respond only once and thus to only one list. A way out would perhaps be to modify the REPLY ALL command in such a way that it would really pick up all addresses, even those in the X-To: or Comments: To: fields. In order to then bring this feature to a widespread use, the default for MESSAGE.ID should perhaps be changed to YES. 2. SENDER and FROM options for the LOG(D) command When you issue the LOG(D) command without parameters, the notebook to be used is determined from the various header fields which are scanned in a sequence specified via the LOGGING.PERSON option. This seems not enough for me. I have a PF-key set to LOGD#REPLY FROM, and using it I end up with the list mail I'm privately responding to being logged in, say, MAILBOOK NOTEBOOK while my response is logged in, say, SCHAFER NOTEBOOK. I would prefer my PF-key being set to LOGD (FROM#REPLY FROM TEXT in which case both items would end up in SCHAFER NOTEBOOK. I would recommend to interpret LOG (SENDER FROM as a request to log the item in both notebooks if they are different and to log it only once if they are not. Thus LOG (SENDER FROM may or may not behave like LOG(SENDER#LOG(FROM. 3. I'd like to see a SELECTD command When I read my incomming mail and encounter a subject I'm totally desinterested in, I'd like to select all items with that peculiar subject and to immediately mark them for deletion, so subsequent READs won't pick them up. Currently I have to use SELECT and then delete the items one by one by hand, since deleting items from a set of SELECTed menu lines is somewhat awkward, because the numeric parameters passed to the DISCARD command refer to the position in the main menu rather than to the position in the current selection. (By the way, since there are some commands which take as arguments the line number in the main menu, could there be another displayable column with exactly these numbers? I know, I know, I could turn the prefix on and set it to numeric, but five digits for that information seems a bit overdone.) 4. New sorting column STATUS (or similar) Since I can now sort according to multiple columns, I'd like also to be able to sort according to the status field, where either ' ' (old mail), '>' (new mail) or '-' (mail to be discarded) is displayed. Thus I could cleanly separate old from new mail. 5. Editing the header part This topic has already been discussed here, but I'd like to add my two cents: Since I'm working in a fullscreen environment, I'd like to make changes to the subject line by simply typing over it, without having to use a (line mode) SUBJECT command. Similarly I'd like to be able to add a Reply-To: line by simply duplicating the From: line and then changing the From: into a Reply-To:. I'd even like to be able to change recipients from a cc: status to a Bcc: or to a normal To: status and vice versa simply by typing over the corresponding fields, I'd like to correct a human name, drop a .BITNET suffix without having to clobber with INCLUDE and EXCLUDE. Finally I'd prefer the prefix-D command for omitting recipients. Couldn't MAIL postpone the creation of the BSMTP envelope until SEND is issued? Couldn't it even check for correct headers (if they were modified) and insert missing or drop extraeous commas from the To:, cc: and Bcc: lines? The manipulating of the headers currently is still sort of line mode oriented. (By the way, I even get the warning "Changes to the headers ..." when I enter a prefix-A command in the separator line containing all these equal signs.) 6. TIME.ZONES option My private TIMEZONE TABLE file contains slightly less than eighty entries of time zones I've encountered. Even if I omit rather strange ones, they clearly don't fit into a single line. Thus I'd prefer the TIME.ZONE option to specify a file containing the time zone definitions in the format "zone_name offset comment". Besides there are time zones which have offsets of some hours plus thirty minutes, for example CADT +10.5 Central Australian Daylight Time CAST +09.5 Central Australian Standard Time Does the TIME.ZONE option handle this? 7. What is the default of EXPAND.TABS? While file MAIL89 CHANGES states that the default be NO, PROFILE HELPMAIL claims it to be YES. Who is right? 8. Suboptimal use of screen width When I set MENU.FIELDS to FROM DATE SIZE SUBJECT, the subject column of the main menu does not use as much space as it could. The subject lines could be longer. Is there a way to do this? 9. Just for fun I had my main menu sorted according to the DATE column when I encountered a pair of mail items where the reply was listed ahead of the original question: Barry Hathaway 1/11/90*PROFS acknowledgements and reo Richard A. Schafer 1/11/90 PROFS acknowledgements and reo I checked the time stamps: Richard's was 13:13:57 CST, which is 19:13:57 UT and Barry's was 15:08:51 EDT which is 19:08:51 UT. So the software was correct: Fast-As-Lightning-Barry responded roughly five minutes before Richard asked. Sincerely Rainer .----------------------------------------------------------------------. | Rainer M. Woitok | Phone : (+49 9131) 85-7811,-7031 | | Regionales Rechenzentrum | e-Mail : MAINT@DERRZE1.BITNET | | Friedrich-Alexander-Universitaet | | | D-8520 Erlangen | | | West Germany | | '----------------------------------------------------------------------'