Subject: Read only folders for some, read-write for others

From: Elmar Kurgpold <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 1994 16:29:12 -0800 (PST)

I've been trying to setup a folder that many people could open up with
read-only access, and one designated person could read and write.  I tried
some variations on the methods in the attached message below, but couldn't
get anything to work with IMAP.  By the way, I want this folder to be
treated as an incoming folder. 

Right now, the only thing that works is

incoming-folders=incoming  {develop}/home/develop/compute/incoming

Then I just do some Unix group ownership tricks to allow only the owner of
the file to modify it.  However, this results in some strange messages and
weird behavior when opening the folder read-only, which I'd like to avoid
since it is confusing.  Anyone have any ideas how I can do this and still
use IMAP?

-------------------------------------         ,-,,-,   __
| Elmar Kurgpold                    |  ______/     /_,'  |
| Network Administrator             |  \________________/
| University of Southern California |       |<) (> |
| The Law Center                    |    (  | oo   |
| [email-masked]              |     ) `|  |--'
| (213)740-2571 FAX: (213)740-5502  |    (___^^^^|
-------------------------------------       (____'

On Fri, 3 Dec 1993, Terry Gray wrote:

> Isaias,
>   "news.u.washington.edu" is only an example; it is not available to you
> for news access.  You will need to find a news server (perhaps from
> your Internet provider) that you can use.
> 
> Chances are you really do want to use nntp, since it is easier to find 
> news servers that run nntp than those that run IMAPd and will let you 
> have an account on them.  (Unlike nntp, IMAPd uses a newsrc file on 
> the same machine as the news database.)
> 
> Remember that *for now* you must run another newsreader to initially
> create a suitable newsrc file.  Once you have successfully read news via
> some other program, presumably using nntp, it should be easy to get Pine
> to do the same. 
> 
> -teg
> 
> On Fri, 3 Dec 1993, Isaias Callejas Mancilla. wrote:
> 
> > On Thu, 2 Dec 1993, David L Miller wrote:
> > 
> > > 
> > > Henry,
> > > 
> > > You need to specify the news server in your .pinerc file.  Something like
> > > 
> > > news-collections=*{server/nntp}[*]
> > > 
> > > where "server" is the name of the NNTP server you want to use.  You will 
> > > also need a .newsrc file as generated by another newsreader like rrn or 
> > > nn.
> > > 
> > > --DLM
> > > 
> > > |\ |  |\/|  David L. Miller    [email-masked]  (206) 685-6240
> > > |/ |_ |  |  Software Engineer, Pine Development Team   (206) 685-4045 (FAX)
> > > University of Washington, Networks & Distributed Computing
> > > 4545 15th Ave NE, Seattle WA 98105, USA
> > > 
> > > On Thu, 2 Dec 1993, Henry Kuo wrote:
> > > 
> > > > Hi! Everyone:
> > > > 
> > > > How can I read newsgroup by pine?
> > > > 
> > > > 
> > > >             `~~~~~~
> > > >              @(0-0)
> > > > ---------oOO----^---OOo-------
> > > > 
> > > > ^.^ Henry.........
> > > > ------------------------------
> > > >                 
> > 
> >   That's O.K..
> > 	In my ".pinerc" configuration file I have got it :
> > 
> > # news-collections specifies one or more collections of news groups.
> > # News collection syntax: optnl-label *{news-host/protocol}[]
> > # Examples:
> > # news-collections=News *[]   <-- if your login host carries news
> > # news-collections=Subscribed-Groups *{news.u.washington.edu/nntp}[]
> > news-collections=News *{news.u.washington.edu/imapd}[]
> > 						^
> >   I haven't nntp yet...then type "imapd"--------|
> > 
> >   When PINE show me the folder's screen, exist a line about remote 
> > conection :
> > 
> >       " [ Select Here to See Expanded List ]"
> > 
> > Then I press <return> on it and PINE connect to news.u.washington.edu, but
> > ask me for a "login" and "password"....
> >    I don't know what type!!!
> > 
> >  Pardon if is it obvious... but I don't know what type...or 
> > news.u.washington.edu is not a server for "news"???
> > 
> > Than's in advance... :(
> > 
> >       /#######               E. Isaias Callejas M.
> >     /#       /############   Group System Managers from Microvax 3400 System
> >   /##      /##############   Coordination of Computing Services
> >   ###    /##           ###   Academic Computing
> >   ###    ###           ###   National University of Mexico
> >   ###    ##########    ###
> >   ###           ###    ###  =================================================
> >   ###           ##/    ###  
> >   ##############/      ##/   Internet :  [email-masked]
> >   ############/       #/     Bitnet   :  [email-masked]
> >               #######/ 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
>

---

From: Terry Gray <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 1994 22:52:12 -0800 (PST)

Elmar,
There shouldn't be any problem providing shared RO access to a folder via 
IMAP, but I don't know of any way to suppress the messages that warn the 
user that access is Read-Only.

Could you be more specific about the "wierd behavior" you referred to?

-teg

---

From: Elmar Kurgpold <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 21 Jan 1994 12:29:22 -0800 (PST)

Terry,

The first message is:

      [-no folder- : Can't get write access to mailbox, access is readonly]

...and then:

      [Folder "incoming" opened with 4 messages READONLY]

...accompanied by a beep.  The second message seems to be delayed for a
moment, which is expected, but can be confusing for our intermediate
users.  If I want ten people to open a given folder read-only as often as
once every five minutes, and one person to open it read-write, my little
system seems less than attractive. 

If this is not the most efficient method, perhaps someone on the list can
put me on the path towards something better.  Would an internal news
server be the answer?  And would I still be able to control the access on
an individual?  And would it be worth the time to try and fire up news
just for this purpose?  Any answers and hints are welcome, send them to 
[email-masked].

Thanks,

	Elmar

---

From: Terry Gray <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 21 Jan 1994 23:41:59 -0800 (PST)

Elmar,
If the first message was suppressed, would that meet your needs?

You can certainly build a pseudo-newsgroup, but updating it is not quite
as convenient as just using a simple mailbox format. 

The question of when/how to display ReadOnly-ness is non-trivial, since
there are several degrees of ReadOnly-ness.  (For example, newsgroups are
not completely read-only because you can set one flag (D) that gets saved
in your .newsrc.  In the future there will be other variations on this 
theme as well.)

-teg

---

From: Klaus Zeuge <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 23 Jan 1994 18:08:29 +0100 (MET)

> moment, which is expected, but can be confusing for our intermediate

I think the handling of error messages in Pine is pretty bad. It seems to 
me, whenever Pine wants to display an error message, it puts the message 
on an internal queue. The messages on the queue are displayed one at a 
time, with a pause between them. During this, the user can go around 
doing other things, making more error or no errors at all. The messages 
keep being displayed. Very annoying, especially as a displayed message 
has nothing at all to do with what the user has done in the last couple 
of seconds.

A simple way to demonstrate this, is to start Pine without -z, ie not 
suspendable, and then pressing CNTRL/Z some ten times. After that, start 
reading mail, composing mail, whatever.

Is this a bug in the implementation of UNIX/Pine 3.89?

---

From: Terry Gray <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 23 Jan 1994 15:47:04 -0800 (PST)

Klaus,
We agree.

The fact that Pine displays some messages after they are no longer relevant,
thus causing confusion, is definitely a known bug, and it is definitely on
the list of things we want to improve this year.  (As usual, I can't predict
exactly when.)

-teg

---

From: Richard Lee <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 23 Jan 1994 22:59:11 -0600 (CST)

Sometimes ^C would be welcome where it is not available.  I was 
reading a letter in my inbox and wanted to print it.  I don't often do 
that, so I forgot what letter of the alphabet is used to print mail this 
week.  I remembered it wasn't "P".  So I tried "L."  Naturally I got into 
a screen allowing me to change folders.  I didn't want to be there.  I 
wanted to return to what I was.  But no, ^C wouldn't let me do that.  I 
had to return to the main menu, go from there to the index, then down to 
the message I was reading, then read that.  A simple ^C would have been 
easier.

--

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

---

From: Elmar Kurgpold <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 1994 09:38:47 -0800 (PST)

---

From: Elmar Kurgpold <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 1994 09:53:15 -0800 (PST)

(By the way, sorry for that previous message, when I realized I was
responding to the wrong one I hit control-X instead of control-C.  Guess
my nerves are still a little rattled from the earthquake :-}

Terry,

If the first message were suppressed, I think that would be alright.  But
really what I am most interested in is suppressing the beep.  I'd prefer
my system not warn me (especially audibly) about something I fully
intended to do ("Psst, excuse me, did you know your fly is up?").  I think
it would be beneficial to have an option on an IMAP folder to specify
read-only, although I would agree that it may not be the most popular Wish
to be added to The List.  I'm no programmer, but it seems that Pine can
figure out if a file is read-only for itself, it should be fairly easy to 
tell it what to expect ahead of time ;-)

	Elmar

---

From: Elmar Kurgpold <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 1994 09:56:58 -0800 (PST)

I've also wanted a control-C to cancel out of folder selection.  I realize
that the name of the folder I have open is at the top of the screen, but
if I didn't want to go to the folder list anyways it may take me a few
seconds to figure out where I am.

---

From: Charlie Brady <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Jan 1994 10:54:27 +1100 (EST)

Another point regarding error messages being queued and appearing when 
they are no longer relevant, if a save is done to a non-existant folder, 
the user is prompted about whether to create the folder or not. Then 
oafter the user says yes, and the message is saved in the newly created 
folder, the system error message "No such file or directory" is 
displayed.

This message should never be placed in the error message queue.

Charlie Brady * (W) [email-masked] * (H) [email-masked]
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