Subject: More on use of the "Y" key for printing.

From: Terry Gray <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 8 Dec 1993 23:12:42 -0800 (PST)

Folks,
Recently there was some discussion on why using the "Y" key for
printing was unfortunate, due to the confusion with (y/n) prompts.

This is a request for specific feedback on what, if anything, we should do
about it.  Please send email to <[email-masked]> indicating which
of the approaches listed below you prefer, and I'll summarize.

Please note that Pine design is not a democratic process... we want it to
be as useful as possible to as many people as possible, but pleasing our
UW constituency (and patrons!) takes precedence over needs elsewhere.  So,
we make no promise to abide by majority rule, but we wouldn't ask if we
didn't care what you think. 

THE PROBLEM

Recall that last summer we changed the Pine print command from L to Y.
This was done to free-up L for List Folders.

What we didn't think about at the time was that Y is also the most common
response to many (y/n) prompts in Pine (e.g. really expunge?), and that it
is quite possible that one can inadvertently end up, by typing ahead,
trying to print something you didn't intend to. 

Although we are extremely reluctant to make another keybinding change,
several of you have let us know that the current behavior is a problem.

OPTIONS

I can only think of a few viable options:

  1. Do nothing.  "Just get used to it..." :)

  2. Change "Y Print" to "K Print" --or maybe "K KillTree" :)

     -K is the only "regular" character that is available, and even
      it is used for KBlock on the main menu.

  3. Change "Y Print" to "% Print"

    -% is only semi-mnemonic, (but better than K in that regard!)
     It is also shifted (a bug or a feature?)
     It saves K in case we discover a more important need later.

  4. Have a feature-list option to change from "Y" to "%"

    -I hate to see more config-based variations in user-interface behavior,
     and I hate to chew up the last regular character (K) with an option
     many folks may not use... (hence, the idea of using %.)  But, hey,
     we are already well into "you can't please everyone" territory...

We're not too interested in responses of the form "just put it back the
way it was in 3.07" but if you believe you have a better solution than
those listed, please let us know that, in addition to which of the above
is least objectionable to you. 

Note that options 2 and 3 will require a *lot* of support to get 
considered, since there *are* folks who like the current Y behavior.

Your vote?  (Or even better: your *ranking* of the options.)

Thanks!

-teg

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From: Philip Hazel <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 9 Dec 1993 09:47:22 +0000 (GMT)

> printing was unfortunate, due to the confusion with (y/n) prompts.

Initiated by me, so I guess I'd better reply to this :-)

>   4. Have a feature-list option to change from "Y" to "%"

My preferences, in order, are:

    3     I like the idea of a shifted character for a rare operation.
     
    2     I'm not really keen on using up "K", though I prefer change to
            no change. 
             
    1   ) By a small margin, I think I prefer no change to making just
    4   )   ONE key configurable.

Regards,
Philip
                                                        
--
Philip Hazel                   University Computing Service,
[email-masked]             New Museums Site, Cambridge CB2 3QG,
[email-masked]          England.  Phone: +44 223 334714

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From: Ian Dunkin <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 9 Dec 1993 10:39:23 +0000 (GMT)

>   3. Change "Y Print" to "% Print"
 
But let's not miss the root cause of much of the confusion.  People
hitting Y (meaning Yes) in anticipatory typeahead, are answering a
question they expected Pine to ask but which it did not.  Most often this
is because they intended the key beforehand to be a command, but Pine did
not accept it.  For us, the most common case is use of the X (purge)
command when not in Index mode: 
 
  User  having  read  and deleted a mail, wants to purge deleted mail,
  and hits X (and then Y, anticipating the Pine  confirmation  query).

  Pine  does not accept X in this context (it only works in INDEX mode
  for some reason), and so the expected query never  comes.   

  The typed-ahead Y is taken as Print. 
      
I'm sure there are other similar scenarios.  Better than just changing Y
not to mean print, is surely to get rid of such
user-expects-something/Pine-does-not-allow-it cases (which I can tell from
the nice `feel' of Pine that you try to do anyway).  In the above example:
make X work in READ mode! 
 
No?
   
       I.

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From: "D.K.Brownlee" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 9 Dec 1993 11:11:28 +0000 (GMT)

Can I put forward another alternative - use a non-shifted puntuation
	key for print, rather than '%'.

	The choice is limited because of different keyboards, and is no more
	mnemonic than 'Y', but at least it is not 'Y'!

	If you replace the % with one of the below then I would definitely
	vote for it, otherwise my money is on 'K' :)

	On a standard PC keyboard the unshifted punctuation keys are

	    ]	/   -   .   ;

	And also the following, but rejected for reasons listed

	    =	Is shifted on a DEC keyboard
	    \	Is shifted on a DEC keyboard
	    [	Is shifted on a DEC keyboard
	    ,	Now is that a comma or a quote?
	    #	Not on my sun keyboard
	    `	No way - "Which quote is it again?"
	    '	No way - "Which quote is it again?"

       [email-masked]. Network Analyst. Postmaster. Hostmaster.
         <_.-^-._>  Telephone: (+44) 71 477 8000 Ext:3757.  <_.-^-._>
 Snailmail:E308, City University, Northampton Sq, Islington, London ECIV 0HB.

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From: Mike Brudenell <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 9 Dec 1993 11:44:46 +0000 (GMT)

I got confused for ages having enabled the "expunge without confirm" 
feature-level feature (or whatever the name actually is!).  I had trouble 
getting used to the fact that the X expunge command no longer asked for 
confirmation (but I was HAPPY that Pine no longer asked me for 
confirmation when quitting, which was why I enabled the feature!)

Consequently I was always typing X Y and having the Y taken as Print!

I also have problems because some commands in the Index screen aren't 
available, even though I'd have thought they shoud be.  For example, if 
"L" takes you from Index to Folder List, why can't "A" take me to the 
Address Book?

						Mike B-)

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From: "Michael A. Crowley" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 9 Dec 1993 07:15:01 -0500 (EST)

Please DO NOT send your vote to the entire list.  Send it back
to Terry ([email-masked]).

Mike

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From: Henry Kuo <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 9 Dec 1993 08:50:36 -0800 (PST)

Would that be ok to use ^L or ^Y?  4th option!

One more thing I would like to discuss here about the "Where is."  In 
some case, eg in pico, ^W is for searching, but on Index menu, W is for 
searching.  Would that be good to make them same?

            `~~~~~~
             @(0-0)
---------oOO----^---OOo-------

^.^ Henry.........
------------------------------

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From: Kari Sutela <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 9 Dec 1993 21:00:26 +0200

> 	On a standard PC keyboard the unshifted punctuation keys are

In Finland only - and . are unshifted.  Actually, ] requires using the
horrible "Alt Gr" key (unfortunately, so does @ --- the PC keyboard
layout is terrible).  I'd support using % for printing; actually, I'd
support anything that makes printing as hard as possible :-)

/KS

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From: "Jason R. Thorpe" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 9 Dec 1993 12:58:36 -0700 (PDT)

> Would that be ok to use ^L or ^Y?  4th option!

^Y is a paging key, and ^L redraws the screen...

> ---------oOO----^---OOo-------

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