Re: Re: get out of Busy state

On Tue, 5 Sep 2006, Curt Sampson wrote:

> On Sat, 2 Sep 2006, Beartooth Staffwright wrote:
>
>> Having to react instantly, finger poised already on correct key, and 
>> still not succeed half the time, intensifies the purple. I can't think 
>> of anything else in all of pine that I so detest.
>
> Errors in general. I miss errors all the time, because the message goes 
> away too quickly. Or I sit there for second after second, waiting for 
> several seconds each for error after error to disappear after I've read 
> it. It would be hard to design something to be more annoying.
>
> Errors should just appear in a separate window, not interrupting normal 
> progress, with a "hotkey" of some sort, not used elsewhere, to 
> acknowledge them.

         Good point! I have the same problem, just not so often;
      but it is indeed irritating. Whether a separate window -- I
      presume you mean a little popup -- or something else would
      be better, I won't try to say; but I'd like *something* that
      waits for an acknowledgement, and then goes away.

         Refinement: popups that announce problems and contain
      only an OK button are also frustrating. I'd rather have a
      second option or two, such as "tell me more" or "try again"
      or something leaving the subtechnoid user less helpless in
      front of something utterly alien.

     Incidentally, in the case I mentioned, I happen to have
      direct access to the same server (a mailserver at
      fastmail.fm), though I prefer to check it through pine
      (partly because it's mainly a backup, and there's seldom
      anything interesting there). So I did eventually check the
      direct way. Turned out the server was down. Had been and
      remained so for several hours, while someone there worked on
      it, no doubt frantically. I could've gone on beating my head
      and keyboard against it, holding up access to pine,
      fruitlessly, for all those hours.

         Now, I don't suppose Pine can tell whether a server is
      down, or one of the routers inside Adelphia my Utterly
      Accursed ISP is down again, or what. But I concur, in the
      other cases as well as this one, in wanting more control,
      and access to any relevant info available in a particular
      case.

-- 
Beartooth Sciurivore, Double Retiree, Neo-Redneck Linux Convert
Remember, I have precious little idea what I am talking about.
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