Subject: Motif GUI for pine

From: Ian Leiman <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 4 Jan 1994 04:49:19 +0300 (EETDST)

I have made great progress in building an OSF/Motif-based Graphical User 
Interface for pine. I can already browse the folder index, select and
manipulate folders and collections, and view messages. Compose, 
addressbook, configuration and help screens still need to be implemented. 
Plus a lot of polishing.

Basically what I have done, is that I've thrown out all the code that
does I/O onto screen (calls to ttyin.c and ttyout.c). I have built
respective Motif screens with an interface builder, rewritten the code
that builds and maintains lists etc on tty-screen, to fill instead
Motif list and text widgets. User interaction now comes through callbacks
from Motif widgets (Menus, buttons and lists) for which I have to write 
callback functions to execute pine functions.

The GUI interface code will be plain automatically generated K&R C, which 
should compile on any Unix machine, which has X11R5 and Motif 1.2 libraries 
installed. The underlying remaining pine code will remain essentially 
unchainged, so that should compile on the same Unix platforms as 3.89 did. 
A lot of original pine code can be thrown away since Motif widgets handle 
most screen operations by themselves (such as scrolling lists and texts), 
and pico will no longer be needed at all.

This is what it will look like:
- The main window will pop-up first, it contains the folder index list,
  which looks pretty much the same what the L-command in pine shows. It is 
  scrollable and has scrollbars, a popup-menu etc. 
  Above the list is a status bar, exactly like in pine.
  Above status bar is a menu bar, containing pulldown menus, from which 
  most Pine functions can be executed. 
  Below the folder index list is a pane of push buttons, which allows 
  convinient execution of the most common functions.
  Below that is a scrollable text window, onto which all messages to user are 
  printed.

- A separate window is provided for viewing messages. This allows concurrent
  viewing of the folder index and messages. Messages are shown in a scrollable 
  text widget. This window also has a menu bar and push buttons.

- Yet another window is provided for composing messages. The editor is very 
  simple typical Motif text widget application. it does however provide
  pull-down menus and pop-up dialogs etc. Another more powerfull editor can
  be used instead, like in pine.
  
- Addressbook is shown in yet another dialog window, which has one list for
  individual addresses, one for mailing lists and a third to show contents
  of mailing list items. Plus text fields for editing and adding entries
  and command buttons and menus.

- Collections and folders are selected also with a custom dialog having
  scrollable lists and nescessary buttons etc.

- Options and user preferences can be set from a separate window. This
  will eliminate the need to edit .pinerc by hand. .signature can be
  edited too. .forward and vacation can be turned on/off from menus.

- Of course there will be also a help text viewer (and help button on each
  window and dialog), with a help item index, 
  possibly with mouse pointable context sensitive help and maybe even
  hypertext links.

- Attachement viewers for GIF's, Postscript etc. can be integrated more
  smoothly now. 

As this is just a hobby for me, it will take probably until March before 
I get a distributable version of the package together. It will run on
HP9000/73x's (HP-UX 9.01) for sure, maybe even on IBM RS/6000's (AIX 3.2). 
As the unix system-call dependencies are pretty well isolated into one 
module in pine already (os-???.c), there will probably be very few problems 
in porting the code to any reasonable Unix-platform (with Motif).
Needeless to say, this won't work on DOS. As a matter of fact, I've
thrown that code out as it makes reading very difficult.

-- 
Ian Leiman, M.Sc.             phone +358 0 5104 4453, fax +358 0 5104 4764
Development Engineer          mail: TL2E, P.O. BOX 12, FIN-02611 Espoo, Finland
Data Communications           internet: [email-masked]
Transmission Systems          x400: C=FI,A=Elisa,or A=Mailnet,P=Nokia Telecom,
NOKIA Telecommunications            SUR=LEIMAN,GIV=IAN,(UNIT=DCO)

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From: Charlie Brady <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 1994 14:06:51 +1100 (EST)

I'm not sure if it has always been the case, or is a new change, but the 
notification of new mail from Pine 3.89 is

"New mail from xxxxx in point of Some subject or other"

"in point of"?? What is wrong with "re" or "about" or "Subject:"?

Please don't use three words, and perhaps ones without a clear meaning 
all through the English speaking world, when one will do.

Charlie Brady * (W) [email-masked] * (H) [email-masked]
"Make it as simple as possible - | Tel: (02) 413 6838 ____Telectronics__| /\__
  but no simpler"   Einstein, A  | Fax: (02) 413 6868 Pacing Systems    \/

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From: Billy Barron <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 1994 05:17:01 -0600

>notification of new mail from Pine 3.89 is
It's been the case for a long time at least.

>"in point of"?? What is wrong with "re" or "about" or "Subject:"?
Actually, sometimes the phrase constructed does not make any sense
to me.

>all through the English speaking world, when one will do.
I agree wholehearted.

-- 
Billy Barron,  Network Services Manager, Univ of Texas at Dallas
[email-masked]

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From: Charlie Brady <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 1994 18:03:21 +1100 (EST)

> all through the English speaking world, when one will do.

I've looked in the source code and see that there are twelve different 
messages. This one is the only one  I find really offensive - some call 
me a pedant....

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From: David Brownlee <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 1994 11:50:48 +0000 (GMT)

Another vote to cut down on 'in point of'!

		David

       [email-masked]. Network Analyst. Postmaster. Hostmaster.
         <_.-^-._>  Telephone: (+44) 71 477 8000 Ext:3757.  <_.-^-._>
 Snailmail:E308, City University, Northampton Sq, Islington, London EC1V 0HB.

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From: Barry Landy <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 1994 13:36:05 GMT

> all through the English speaking world, when one will do.

Please do not restore Re: (I would be happiest with Subject:, and about 
is OK). My non English first language users (and we have plenty!) find 
normal English hard enough, and "re" is not a word in basic english.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Barry Landy                        Computer Laboratory:+44 223 334600
Head of Systems and Development    Direct line:        +44 223 334713
University of Cambridge Computing Service
New Museums Site                   Email:[email-masked]
Pembroke Street, Cambridge CB2 3QG

---

From: Barry Cornelius <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 1994 14:39:56 +0000 (GMT)

> messages. This one is the only one  I find really offensive - some call 

I noticed that different messages were being used when producing a
document about Pine.  I also checked the source, and found that 12
messages were possible and Pine "randomly" chooses one of them.  At the
time I thought this was rather quaint.  However, if you want to document
Pine (and I acknowledge that some would say that that is not needed), it
is helpful to have the same text each time. 

So, I would vote for "always the same text", and like other people I would
prefer "about" because it is reasonably short and not as obscure as "re". 

--
Barry Cornelius                            Durham (091 or +44 91) 374 
4717
Information Technology Service,                IT Service Office: 374 2892
University of Durham, Durham.                                Fax: 374 3741
DH1 3LE, UK                           E-mail: [email-masked]

---

From: Richard Lee <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 1994 08:34:24 -0600 (CST)

> >all through the English speaking world, when one will do.

	If we're voting count mine with theirs (to replace "in point 
of").  Maybe just a colon would do:

	"New mail from Joe:  Meeting tomorrow"
--

Dr. Richard Lee                         [email-masked]
Department of Philosophy Old Main 318   [email-masked]
University of Arkansas                  phone: 501-575-5826
Fayetteville, AR 72701

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From: Dan Schlitt <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 1994 09:39:50 -0500 (EST)

I am not so concerned with what is said as in its length.  Since the
information seems to be confined to one line I want to see more of who the
mail is from and what it is about and less boilerplate from pine.

A simple colon-space separator might be a language independent method.

/dan

Dan Schlitt                           School of Engineering Computer Systems
[email-masked]        City College of New York
(212)650-6760                         New York, NY 10031

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From: NoRM <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 1994 14:50:47 +0000 (GMT)

Er... 'about' is a nice plain english word, and might be understood 
better than 're:' which implies you know the word 'regarding.'

    I don't like 'in point of' myself. It sounds sloppy....

	[New mail! From [email-masked] in point of Re: Bob]

    ....in point of regarding Bob. Hmmm....

    Perhaps you could have 'From [email-masked] about subject' and if the 
subject starts 'Re:' you have 'From [email-masked] in reply to subject.'

	N.

  .---------------------{ NoRM : [email-masked] }------------------------.
 |    "Now when you pick a paw-paw, or a prickly pear, and you prick the   |
 |   wrong paw, well next time beware. Don't pick a prickly pear with the  |
 |   paw, when you pick a pear try to use the claw. But you don't need to  |
 |           use the claw when you pick a pear of the big paw-paw.         |
 |                        Have I given you a clue ?"                       |
  `                                                                       '

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From: "Michael A. Crowley" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 1994 11:08:17 -0500 (EST)

> is helpful to have the same text each time. 

This is quite easy to change without even bothering to modify the
random selection by setting each of the 12 lines to the same thing.
I used "Subj:" for the text string.

Mike

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From: Elaine Lolos <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 1994 11:28:56 -0500 (EST)

> prefer "about" because it is reasonably short and not as obscure as "re". 

I agree with always using the same text, and something short.  When I first
started using Pine, I noticed the messages having different text right
away, and it was confusing because I assumed there was some method to it. 
I don't think having Pine randomly choose phrases is a good thing - it
doesn't promote that feeling of consistency.

Elaine Lolos
Tufts University
Medford, MA

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From: Mike Ramey <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 1994 08:45:04 -0800 (PST)

Charlie - It's worse than that!  The notification actually uses one of
several phrases selected at random from a list:
  - in re
  - about
  - in point of
  - apropos
  - concerning
  - a la
  - <etc> 

The original programmer probably thought that was a cute idea 
(like obscure command names in unix), but I feel it is simply confusing.  
Computer messages should (IMNSHO) present the relevant information in a 
consistent way.  The skeleton of the message should be -constant- so that 
the user's attention is drawn to the significant variable part: 
  - WHO the message is from and 
  - WHAT the message is about.  
The focus should be on the message not on the 'envelope'.  
I have been urging the pine folks to change this for a lonnnnng time.  
I'm glad to hear I'm not alone in my distaste for clever presentation. 
-mr

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From: Mike Ramey <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 1994 09:16:54 -0800 (PST)

> prefer "about" because it is reasonably short and not as obscure as "re". 

My preference:
                [New mail! From: .....; Subject: ........]
because "From:" and "Subject:" are identical to the message header lines.
Why improvise when the standard words works just fine?  -mr

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From: Mike Ramey <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 1994 09:20:40 -0800 (PST)

> 	"New mail from Joe:  Meeting tomorrow"

Excellent!  Short and clear.  Better than my earlier suggestion.
Strunk & White would love it.  -mr

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From: Sharon Deng <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 1994 09:40:03 -0800 (PST)

> 	"New mail from Joe:  Meeting tomorrow"
I am voting for the colon idea.  What a great idea!  

Sharon Deng
Assistant Director			Internet: [email-masked]
Academic Computer Center			  [email-masked]
University of Redlands			   Phone: (909)793-2121 x.4963

---

From: Matt Simmons <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 1994 12:16:21 -0600 (CST)

> Why improvise when the standard words works just fine?  -mr
Well, there are some of us out here who do think it's a nice change from 
just the same old boring thing...  Since the code for randomness is 
already in there, if you do change it, please make it an option (perhaps 
something #defined at compile time) so those of us who like the 12 
messages can still have them? 

Devoted    _n______________________________________________  _________________
Teri      /   \|[]|""  \    |[]|   |[]|   |[]|   |[]|    / || \    |[]|   |[]|
Polo    ,(_____|  |()_()\___|  |___|  |___|  |___|  |___/  ||  \___|  |___|  |
Fan    <_______|__|_(_)_____|__|___|__|___|__|___|__|______||______|__|___|__|
=========\   Walt Disney World Monorail System             ||
LCA  _____\________________________________________________||_________________
  __/ This highway's in perfect shape.  Quick!         Thank god I'm not a
_/ Break it so we can 'fix' it! -- IDOT Motto              F. I. P. =)

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From: Richard Lee <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 1994 12:49:37 -0600 (CST)

> doesn't promote that feeling of consistency.

	Ditto.  I vote for ": ".

--

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From: John Stumbles <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 1994 19:14:58 +0000 (GMT)

On Thu, 20 Jan 1994, Mike Ramey (and others) wrote:

> [...and others wrote about their preferences....]

Suggestion:
.pinerc/PINERC:
# You can specify up to 12 set of strings to be used in announcing new mail,
# to be displayed at random - if only one string is specified only that set
# of strings will we used. The new-mail-from string comes at the beginning 
# of the line, then the sender's name, the -subject-string and the subject
# e.g. New mail! from: Arthur Dent - Subject: A nice hot cup of tea

new-mail-from-string0='New mail! From: '
new-mail-subject-string0=' - Subject: '

new-mail-from-string1='Knock knock - postman! '
new-mail-subject-string1=' writing about: '

new-mail-from-string2='Hey! '
new-mail-subject-string2=' just wrote, about '

John Stumbles                                        [email-masked]
Reading University                                                  0734 318435
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

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From: Steve Hubert <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 1994 12:09:20 -0800 (PST)

You people are no fun at all!

Spice up your day with a little uncertainty!
Steve Hubert <[email-masked]>
Networks and Distributed Computing, Univ. of Washington, Seattle

---

From: Matt Simmons <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 1994 14:51:55 -0600 (CST)

> new-mail-subject-string2=' just wrote, about '
This sounds like a good one... It's got my vote..

---

From: "John Ladwig" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 94 15:19:17 CST

>>>>> On Thu, 20 Jan 1994 19:14:58 +0000 (GMT), John Stumbles <[email-masked]> said:

    >> [...and others wrote about their preferences....]

    John> Suggestion:
    John> .pinerc/PINERC:

    John> # You can specify up to 12 set of strings to be used in
    John> # announcing new mail, to be displayed at random - if only
    John> # one string is specified only that set of strings will we
    John> # used. The new-mail-from string comes at the beginning of
    John> # the line, then the sender's name, the -subject-string and
    John> # the subject 
    John> # e.g. New mail! from: Arthur Dent - Subject: A nice hot cup of tea

    John> new-mail-from-string0='New mail! From: '
    John> new-mail-subject-string0=' - Subject: '

    John> new-mail-from-string1='Knock knock - postman! '
    John> new-mail-subject-string1=' writing about: '

    John> new-mail-from-string2='Hey! '
    John> new-mail-subject-string2=' just wrote, about '

new-mail-from-string2='The mailer-daemon hits! and hands you a scroll from'
new-mail-subject-string2=' inscribed: '

---

From: Norm Aleks <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 1994 13:18:28 -0800 (PST)

> new-mail-subject-string0=' - Subject: '

Well, this thread is already so long, but I feel obliged to say I *love*
this suggestion.  That way the configuration kings could set up anything
they (we!) like, and the default could be the colon. 

One little change:  I'd rather do something elmish and use %f and %s for 
from and subject, and I'd rather not enumerate or limit the number of 
possibilities ...

new-mail-strings = "New mail! %f: %s",
                   "Yoo hoo! %f says %s",
                   "%s (from %f)"

And if the Pine team doesn't have enough to do :), I liked the idea of 
stripping out the Re: from a subject (optionally).  It could be done with

new-reply-strings = "%f replied to %s"

Always another suggestion, always another suggestion ... 

Norm

____
\  /   Norm Aleks      [email-masked]     +1 508 797 4709
 \/    UMass Med. Ctr. Box 279, 55 Lake Ave. N., Worcester, MA 01655-0001 USA

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From: Richard Lee <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 1994 16:00:41 -0600 (CST)

> > new-mail-subject-string2=' just wrote, about '

	This allows fun lovers to have their fun (and Stumbles' lines here 
are great) and still allows for some dull ": " default for those who are 
nervous about confusing users.  What a solution!

--

---

From: Matt Simmons <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 1994 16:40:44 -0600 (CST)

> new-mail-subject-string2=' inscribed: '
new-mail-from-string2=''
new-mail-subject-string2=' opened their mouth and spewed '

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From: Sharon Deng <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 1994 18:01:07 -0800 (PST)

> Networks and Distributed Computing, Univ. of Washington, Seattle

I agree,  why should we so serious about what it said on the message 
after a long day work.  Honestly, I never pay any attention to those 
message until this big discussion.  But if I have to vote one way or 
other, I would say the colon is the best idea.  Clear and Simple!

Sharon Deng

---

From: Ron Pool <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 1994 20:55:27 -0500 (EST)

> > new-mail-subject-string0=' - Subject: '
...
> This sounds like a good one... It's got my vote..

Please don't add anything like that.  I'd much prefer to see the existing
random strings removed and have a single terse, informative message
instead.  I'd get much more pleasure out of having a simpler, smaller
.pinerc file and associated code for reading and handling it than out of
having random strings.
--
Ron Pool; Electronic Technology Group; B-15 Wing Hall; Ithaca, NY 14853
Internet: [email-masked]

---

From: Matt Simmons <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 1994 21:15:07 -0600 (CST)

> .pinerc file and associated code for reading and handling it than out of
How would you feel about having a #define in the Makefile which would 
switch between the original 12 random strings and your bor^H^H^Hproposed 
colon?

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From: Charlie Brady <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 21 Jan 1994 12:03:05 +1100 (EST)

> messages can still have them? 

How about 11? :-)

---

From: Ken Schriner <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 21 Jan 1994 08:10:03 -0600 (CST)

I'd like to cast my vote in the "who cares" pool.  I never even noticed 
it until this group started talking about it.  Consistent user 
interface?  A very noble goal.  But we never see it in life.

What's shaking, how you doing, good morning, you're a sight for sore 
eyes, what's happening.  All good greetings.

I say work on something more important (anything is.)

Ken Schriner                            ks06054@uafsysb
University of Arkansas                  [email-masked]

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From: Dave King <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 1994 12:20:26 +0000 (GMT)

Options screen
--------------
Perhaps when Pine is released with Options screen(s) in place, it could
include twelve "mail notification" prefix messages so that: 

1.  users who prefer variety could enter twelve individual messages.
2.  those who like consistency could repeat the same text 12 times.
3.  those who have no preference could have 12 default messages.

For novice users, editing .pinerc can be very confusing with lots of '{}'
, '[]' and '/' characters and sometimes cryptic syntax, etc.  Options
screen(s) will dramatically improve Pine's ease of configuration, and
could include further checks for curly brace matching / news & imap
syntax, etc. 

Could someone in the Pine team please give an idea of when the options
screen(s) are likely to be available? 

Thanks,

Dave

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Dave King, Admin. Computing Services Manager, University of Bristol
[email-masked] (JANET)  [email-masked] (INTERNET)

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From: John Stumbles <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 1994 13:16:32 +0000 (GMT)

> Options screen
                                       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Dave - you forgot to say 8^) after that!  ;-)

---

From: Barry Landy <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 1994 20:43:00 +0000 (GMT)

I certainly agree about working on important things, but please remember
all the time that while this mail list no doubt contains a number of
computer freaks (sorry, experienced computer users :-)), users of PINE
(mine at any rate) are on average anything but; they include Poles,
Czecks, Italians, Nigerians, Ghanaians, CHinese, Japanese, and so on; some
have a hard time with English and all they want is ease of use, simplicity
of language, and predictability. So "nice features to stop something 
being bor<del>,del><del> predictable" should definitely NOT appear on the work 
list.
On the other hand, I would guess that cutting out the "produce a random 
string" code would be the work of a moment.

There - that does feel better! :-)

> University of Arkansas                  [email-masked]

=======================================================================
Barry Landy, Head of Systems and Development,
University of Cambridge Computing Service
[email-masked]      0223-334713   +44-223-334713