Subject: 'A' & 'N' msg status

From: Dave King <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 1994 18:15:09 +0000 (GMT)

'A' status
----------
When a message has been answered using (R)eply, the message's status 
field is updated to show an 'A' - as expected.

If however, a reply is *postponed* and resumed, the status field is not 
updated to indicate that an (A)nswer has been mailed.

I've had a quick look at the code and I see that it's the c-client that
does the updating of X-Status. I don't know how easily this anomaly
could be resolved, so is it worthwhile either: 

1. indicating in Pine's help that 'A' is not infallible.
2. Amend Pine and/or the c-client to cope with postponed replies - maybe 
   a lot of work ...

'N' status
----------
Pine's help on this field (in common with all other mailers I know of)
states that this message is 'new' but in fact I've noticed that if a
message 'comes in' and is *not* read, it's 'Status:' field changes to:

Status: RO  = OLD
Status:  O  = SEEN but *not* READ

When the mailbox is rewritten on exit. I think I've got this the right 
way around!

With this information, it should be possible to present on entry to a 
folder (INBOX?) information to convey how many messages have:

1. Previously arrived, and have not been read (Unseen).
2. Just arrived (New).
3. Previously arrived and have been read (Old).

This information is used here when our menu system initialises to inform 
the user that there may be messages that need reading (New & Unseen).

Pine must parse the mailbox at the moment to setup the status flag display
so would it be worthwhile having a 'U' flag to indicate the message's
'unread' status? (although I know many mailers use 'U' to indicate
urgent). Is this worthwhile information? 

Maybe I'm being pedantic but should a 'new' message really be a brand-new
message and not an unread message that has previously been 'seen' in the
index?

Dave

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

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From: Mike Brudenell <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 1994 09:20:35 +0000 (GMT)

> 'A' status

I, too, have noticed this bug.  Ideally I'd like to see the "A" flag set 
correctly, but guess there may be context saving problems (for example 
the message you're replying to may be deleted before the postponed reply 
is actually sent?)

> 'N' status

I agree that with this information it certainly SHOULD be possible to to 
have "New", "Old" and "Unseen" (Elm does it).

HOWEVER one of the nice things about Pine IMHO is that it DOESN'T (by 
default) do this.  Trying to explain the subtleties of the difference 
between the three cases to new or naive users is not easy.  IWhen we 
moved from Elm to Pine I was glad to see the back of this.

If the Powers That Be do decide to re-introduce this PLEASE let it be 
configurable offable!

							Mike B-)