Question regarding the new multiplaned x-face

Question regarding the new multiplaned x-face

[Torsten Hilbrich]

I have tested the new x-face support using commands like the
following code:

  ;; With higher depth, unfortunatly the compability is not good
  (defun th-insert-xface ()
     (gnus-convert-image-to-gray-x-face
      (expand-file-name "~/.emacs.d/ich.gif") 3))

  (add-hook 'message-header-hook
            'th-insert-xface)

The problem is, the X-Face part is IMO too ugly to be used for older
readers supporting only that header.  In the example I tried all white
pixel in the original picture are drawn black basicly inverting the
image.

It would be nice if the X-Face part would be the same as the old
bitmap one and the additional planes are used to improve the picture.
Or is the code supposed to do this and I'm doing something wrong.

I tried a grayscale gif picture (using the full color map) and a user
defined color map with 8 entries (bit depth set to 3).

        Torsten

BTW: I have inserted the new x-face as a demonstration of my problem.
Just invoke '{ echo '/* Width=48, Height=48 */'; uncompface; } |
icontopbm | display -' and paste the X-Face header contents to see the
"inverted" image.

Re: Question regarding the new multiplaned x-face

[Wes Hardaker]

>>>>> On Sat, 12 Jan 2002 20:27:42 +0000 (UTC), Torsten Hilbrich <gnus@myrkr.in-berlin.de> said:

Torsten> The problem is, the X-Face part is IMO too ugly to be used
Torsten> for older readers supporting only that header.  In the
Torsten> example I tried all white pixel in the original picture are
Torsten> drawn black basicly inverting the image.

I have to agree.  All the people making use of this now have really
ugly looking pixmaps, as I haven't done an update in a long time.

Torsten> It would be nice if the X-Face part would be the same as the old
Torsten> bitmap one and the additional planes are used to improve the
Torsten> picture.

I agree.  Gnus is hardly the only mail/news reader that supports them,
and I'd say it's probably the second most popular as well (not the
first).

-- 
"Ninjas aren't dangerous.  They're more afraid of you than you are of them."

Re: Question regarding the new multiplaned x-face

[Steve Youngs]

|--==> "WH" == Wes Hardaker <wes@hardakers.net> writes:

  WH> I agree.  Gnus is hardly the only mail/news reader that supports them,
  WH> and I'd say it's probably the second most popular as well (not the
  WH> first).

Two questions:  What's number one?  And, why?

-- 
|---<Steve Youngs>---------------<GnuPG KeyID: 10D5C9C5>---|
|            XEmacs - It's not just an editor.             |
|                    It's a way of life.                   |
|------------------------------------<youngs@xemacs.org>---|

Re: Question regarding the new multiplaned x-face

[Wes Hardaker]

>>>>> On Mon, 14 Jan 2002 22:11:32 +1000, Steve Youngs <youngs@xemacs.org> said:

SY> |--==> "WH" == Wes Hardaker <wes@hardakers.net> writes:
WH> I agree.  Gnus is hardly the only mail/news reader that supports them,
WH> and I'd say it's probably the second most popular as well (not the
WH> first).

SY> Two questions:  What's number one?  And, why?

I'm assuming probably exmh is more popular than gnus.  I think zmail
might be more popular as well, and it also displays xfaces.

-- 
"Ninjas aren't dangerous.  They're more afraid of you than you are of them."

Re: Question regarding the new multiplaned x-face

[Steve Youngs]

|--==> "WH" == Wes Hardaker <wes@hardakers.net> writes:

  >>>>>>On Mon, 14 Jan 2002 22:11:32 +1000, Steve Youngs <youngs@xemacs.org> said:

  SY> Two questions:  What's number one?  And, why?

  WH> I'm assuming probably exmh is more popular than gnus.  I think zmail
  WH> might be more popular as well, and it also displays xfaces.

OK, but what is it about these that makes them more popular than Gnus?

Is it "ease of use"?  

Do they have more/better features?  

Is Gnus lacking in some respect?

Is it just a marketing issue?

Do we care?

-- 
|---<Steve Youngs>---------------<GnuPG KeyID: 10D5C9C5>---|
|            XEmacs - It's not just an editor.             |
|                    It's a way of life.                   |
|------------------------------------<youngs@xemacs.org>---|

Re: Question regarding the new multiplaned x-face

[Wes Hardaker]

>>>>> On Tue, 15 Jan 2002 06:19:47 +1000, Steve Youngs <youngs@xemacs.org> said:

WH> I'm assuming probably exmh is more popular than gnus.  I think
WH> zmail might be more popular as well, and it also displays xfaces.

SY> OK, but what is it about these that makes them more popular than Gnus?

SY> Is it "ease of use"?  

Yes.

SY> Do they have more/better features?  

No.  gnus certainly has just about every function under the sun :-)
(at least that's why I use it) exmh is very good and is "prettier".
IE, it's graphical and not based on a text based editor so it just
looks "pretty" in comparison (even though I'm not a tk-look-n-feel
fan).  Speed is probably an issue, as gnus is generally slower (elisp
just isn't that fast).

SY> Is Gnus lacking in some respect?

SY> Is it just a marketing issue?

Yes, it runs under emacs and the majority of the world doesn't want to
run emacs as their operating system (I do, however, so...)

SY> Do we care?

Nope.

-- 
"Ninjas aren't dangerous.  They're more afraid of you than you are of them."

Re: Question regarding the new multiplaned x-face

[Russ Allbery]

Steve Youngs <youngs@xemacs.org> writes:

> OK, but what is it about these that makes them more popular than Gnus?
> Is it "ease of use"?

This is one of the major objections that I hear from people on getting
started with Gnus.  It's a very complicated program that's somewhat
difficult to configure unless you've already done a lot of Emacs
configuration.

The other main objection that I hear from people using other mail clients
on Unix is that using Gnus requires using Emacs.  If one's preferred
editor is vim, using mutt and slrn makes more sense.  That one there isn't
much that we can do about.

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra@stanford.edu)             <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>

Re: Question regarding the new multiplaned x-face

[Andrew J Cosgriff]

Steve Youngs wrote :

> |--==> "WH" == Wes Hardaker <wes@hardakers.net> writes:

>   WH> I'm assuming probably exmh is more popular than gnus.  I think zmail
>   WH> might be more popular as well, and it also displays xfaces.
>
> OK, but what is it about these that makes them more popular than
> Gnus?
>
> Is it "ease of use"?
>
> Do they have more/better features?  

I haven't looked at exmh since I migrated to Gnus back in about 1995.
But as the others suggested, the fact that they don't run under Emacs
is a bonus for some.  Exmh is nice enough if you want a GUI mailer,
although I imagine the Tk look and feel isn't quite as nifty as it
used to be 7 years ago.

Zmail is/was a commercial Motif-based mailer.  I saw it once or twice
back in the mid-90's, it looked pretty good for a GUI mailer back then
(but it wasn't Gnus ;).

Sylpheed is another apprently ok mail client, it's GTK-based and reads
MH folders, and if I hadn't moved from MH to 100% IMAP and if I wasn't
surgically attached to Gnus[1], I might've taken a look at it.  No idea
what it's X-Face support is like, though.

If you're a real IMAP-head, there's (possibly still beta ?) copies of
Mulberry available for Linux et al, now.  I found it a bit odd, but
it's supposedly among the best IMAP clients around.

> Is Gnus lacking in some respect?

Well, Gnus isn't for a novice Emacs user, I suppose.

> Is it just a marketing issue?

Who would we market to ?

> Do we care?

I don't know :)


Footnotes: 
[1]  I used to use XEmacs for all sorts of things, but these days at
     least 95% of the time I spend with it is spent using Gnus.

-- 
Andrew J Cosgriff <ajc@polydistortion.net>
void circle reconstruction convenience lost

Re: Question regarding the new multiplaned x-face

[Per Abrahamsen]

Wes Hardaker <wes@hardakers.net> writes:

>>>>>> On Mon, 14 Jan 2002 22:11:32 +1000, Steve Youngs
>>>>>> <youngs@xemacs.org> said:

> I'm assuming probably exmh is more popular than gnus.  I think zmail
> might be more popular as well, and it also displays xfaces.

I'd be very surpised if those two are anywhere near as popular as
Gnus.  They haven't heard about them for years, and suspect they are
nearly exclusively used by old time Unix users who can't be bothered
to switch to something more recent.  Especially zmail.

I suspect the most popular user agent supporting X-Face is Xnews.

I agree we should leave X-Face alone.  However, googling for exmh
showed that it supports an x-image-url header Gnus could support
instead. 

Re: Question regarding the new multiplaned x-face

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Torsten Hilbrich <gnus@myrkr.in-berlin.de> writes:

> It would be nice if the X-Face part would be the same as the old
> bitmap one and the additional planes are used to improve the picture.
> Or is the code supposed to do this and I'm doing something wrong.

Yes.  The multiplaned X-Faces aren't really useful as they are now.

Let's see...  Looking at one parts of one line with a single-plane
X-Face, it's like this:

1111000000001111

(A black bit with some white around it.)

With two planes it's:

1101000000010011
1110000000001111

(Lighter around the edges and black in the middle.)

So plane 1 doesn't remain the same with two planes representing 4
colors.  But perhaps the other planes don't have to be constructed
that way?

In any case, I think multiplaned X-Faces are a loss, and coming up
with a new standard would be better.  The Face header, which can
contain URLs or PNGs, or something.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   larsi@gnus.org * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen

Re: Question regarding the new multiplaned x-face

[Oystein Viggen]

* [Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen] 

> In any case, I think multiplaned X-Faces are a loss, and coming up
> with a new standard would be better.  The Face header, which can
> contain URLs or PNGs, or something.

I don't think anyone would want his Gnus to automatically grab URLs upon
reading mail.

X-WebFace: http://www.spammer.com/verify/goodaddress.cgi?luser=larsi@gnus.org

It is perhaps unlikely that a spammer would bother with a Gnus only
feature, though  :)

Oystein
-- 
Ebg13 arire tbrf bhg bs fglyr..

Re: Question regarding the new multiplaned x-face

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Oystein Viggen <oysteivi@tihlde.org> writes:

> I don't think anyone would want his Gnus to automatically grab URLs upon
> reading mail.

That's very true.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   larsi@gnus.org * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen

Re: Question regarding the new multiplaned x-face

[Daniel Pittman]

On Sun, 20 Jan 2002, Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen wrote:
> Oystein Viggen <oysteivi@tihlde.org> writes:
> 
>> I don't think anyone would want his Gnus to automatically grab URLs
>> upon reading mail.
> 
> That's very true.

Quite. I would turn it off and grab the semi-regular bulk drop that was
made of the images, just like the picons distribution. ;)

Well, that, or I would run a semi-regular batch process to fetch them
all, in bulk, and store them locally.

        Daniel

-- 
The medium is the message. This is merely to say that the personal and social
consequences of any medium ...result from the new scale that is introduced
into our affairs by each extension of ourselves or by any new technology.
        -- Marshall McLuhan, _Understanding Media_

Re: Question regarding the new multiplaned x-face

[Wes Hardaker]

>>>>> On Tue, 15 Jan 2002 11:52:10 +0100, Per Abrahamsen <abraham@dina.kvl.dk> said:

Per> I agree we should leave X-Face alone.  However, googling for exmh
Per> showed that it supports an x-image-url header Gnus could support
Per> instead.

It also supports picons (I know because I helped mess with it's picon
support as well ;-)
-- 
"Ninjas aren't dangerous.  They're more afraid of you than you are of them."