Re: why graphical screenshot? from a command prompt console window?

On 18 Feb 2026 18:38:54 GMT, Frank Slootweg <[email protected]>
wrote:

>Paul <[email protected]> wrote:

>> On Tue, 2/17/2026 8:07 PM, Char Jackson wrote:
>> > On Tue, 17 Feb 2026 05:43:40 -0500, Paul <[email protected]> wrote:
>[...]
>> >> The M-ID would work, but only for M-ID enabled News Clients.
>> >> Betterbird or Thunderbird, may be about to gain this function.
>> > 
>> > I assume you mean natively. 
>> 
>> Yes, a native method.
>> 
>> Betterbird Portable  140.7.1esr-bb18 (64-bit)
>> 
>> betterbirdlauncher "mid:[email protected]"
>> 
>> Somehow, it knows which server out of six in my list to use.

Could it have queried more than one server? Over here with Forte Agent,
retrieving a message from the server via its M-ID appears to be
instantaneous, so it's not like multiple (series? parallel?) queries
should introduce a ton of latency.

>> On purpose, I "selected" a non-functional server, to try to confuse it,
>> and eventually it still opened a window on the server where the message exists.
>> 
>> Whether it is doing this, via searching all the Mork Summary Files .msf,
>> I don't know. It might mean, that one of the requirements would be for
>> the user to have all their server message lists up-to-date.

If it doesn't find the message locally, it should query its configured
server(s). 

>> My first concern, was of the MID URI design. I figured it should
>> have the server name, followed by a MID string. But the above syntax worked.

The server name/address is not part of the M-ID.

>> It worked on that example.
>> 
>> I did NOT (so far), see a menu item added for this. It likely would work
>> with a MID buried in a message, so we should leave one here later for test.
>> If this feature was working well, I should be able to click one of these
>> that looks sufficiently like a URI and a separate tab should open after
>> you actuate it.
>> 
>>       <[email protected]>

With Agent, that works fine, partly because of how I have it configured.
In the Options, I see this:

How to interpret a name@domain URL:
  _ Prompt for action
  _ Assume the URL is an email address
  X Assume the URL is a message-id
  _ Make an educated guess

Since 1995, I've had that third option checked.

>>      mid:[email protected]

For me, that format doesn't work, although it's easily repaired.

>> And maybe one of those strings will work. We'll see.
>
>
>  The format should be <news:<MID>>, i.e.
>
>       <news:[email protected]>

With or without the news: scheme, Agent recognizes that as a M-ID,
again, because of how it's configured.

>  The 'news;' part is required, otherwise it's ambiguous, because it
>also looks like an e-mail address.
>
>  It's defined in the schemes for URI, in whatever the correct RFC might
>be these days. I.e. like 'http://' for a web URL, 'mailto:' for an
>e-mail address, etc..
>
>  Some newsreaders try to do the right thing when the scheme  part is
>absent, but <news:<MID>> is the only correct way. We'll see if
>Thunderbird et al understand it.
>
>  AND, there of course is still the issue that the newsreader must be
>able to actually fetch ('article'/'head'/'body'commands) the article/
>headers/body. I.e. like an 'http://' URL might fail, so might a 'news:'
>one, for all kinds of reasons.