The Great "Hard Return" Debate

[Steve Lamb]

    See, it is messages like this, born out of ignorance, that really chap my
hide.

Friday, November 05, 1999, 5:04:09 AM, Darin wrote:
> Does VIM give you access to PMMail's address book?

    In what way would the editor have anything to do with the address book?
Does PMMail's editor give you access?  No.


> The handiest part of the email editor in PMMail, by far, to me, is its
> access to the address book.

    The editor doesn't access the address book.

> The second handiest part is its seamless integration of file attachments -
> especially mime encoding (uucoding is easy in comparison).

    Again, the editor doesn't do this, either.

> Unfortunately, generalised editors, for some *unknown* reason <sarcasm
dripping>>, continue to fail in incorporating these essentials for
> editing *this* type of text.

    So do mail client editors, so what is your point?  Oh, wait, you are
confused, that is your point.

> Due to this, I treat email as a different type of document from
> straight text - marginally, but different.  And I want an editor that
> can handle these differences ... vim can't, but PMMail's internal
> editor can and does.

    PMMail's internal editor does not.  Let me ask you this.  On unix the mail
clients on the console side all use external editors yet they are perfectly
capable of using aliases, attachments and what not.  The reason, the editor
has nothing to do with that.

    When you fire up PMMail and start a new message or reply to a message what
do you get?  The message dialog.  I call it that because it isn't the editor,
it just happens to *contain* the editor.  You've got the buttons up top, the
to/cc/bcc/subject dialogs, the attachment area below.  That text entry box
between the subject and the attachment area is the editor.  ONLY that area is
the editor.  Place your cursor in there and try to do anything with the
attachments or aliases.  Kinda hard, innit?

    Now, remove that text entry box but leave everything else.  *That* is the
external editor version of the same message dialog.

    You still have access to the aliases through the to/cc/bcc fields.

    You still have access to the attachment dialog below.

    You still have access to the spell checker.

    You still have access to the PGP options.

    The *ONLY* difference is that the editor, 1 text entry box, has been
removed to save space.

    Amazingly, that is how the unix clients do it and it works extremely well.

    That is why I said you were confused.  I also said you were ignorant
because, clearly, you haven't even tried this dialog before spewing your FUD
about it.  PMMail's external editor support is on par with a unix client's.
If it weren't, I was right there bitching at Bob & Ike since the 1.5 series to
improve it.

-- 
         Steve C. Lamb         | I'm your priest, I'm your shrink, I'm your
         ICQ: 5107343          | main connection to the switchboard of souls.
-------------------------------+---------------------------------------------