From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.emacs.gnus.general/48553 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Frank Schmitt Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.gnus.general Subject: Re: ... and now for something completely different: User Friendliness Date: Thu, 02 Jan 2003 11:11:12 +0100 Organization: Hamme net, kren mer och nimmi Sender: owner-ding@hpc.uh.edu Message-ID: References: Reply-To: replies@Frank-Schmitt.net NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: main.gmane.org 1041502282 26700 80.91.224.249 (2 Jan 2003 10:11:22 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@main.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 10:11:22 +0000 (UTC) Return-path: Original-Received: from malifon.math.uh.edu ([129.7.128.13]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 18U2Jt-0006wW-00 for ; Thu, 02 Jan 2003 11:11:21 +0100 Original-Received: from sina.hpc.uh.edu ([129.7.128.10] ident=lists) by malifon.math.uh.edu with esmtp (Exim 3.20 #1) id 18U2KA-0004iv-00; Thu, 02 Jan 2003 04:11:38 -0600 Original-Received: by sina.hpc.uh.edu (TLB v0.09a (1.20 tibbs 1996/10/09 22:03:07)); Thu, 02 Jan 2003 04:12:30 -0600 (CST) Original-Received: from sclp3.sclp.com (sclp3.sclp.com [66.230.238.2]) by sina.hpc.uh.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id EAA23010 for ; Thu, 2 Jan 2003 04:12:16 -0600 (CST) Original-Received: (qmail 85120 invoked by alias); 2 Jan 2003 10:11:19 -0000 Original-Received: (qmail 85115 invoked from network); 2 Jan 2003 10:11:19 -0000 Original-Received: from quimby.gnus.org (80.91.224.244) by 66.230.238.6 with SMTP; 2 Jan 2003 10:11:19 -0000 Original-Received: from news by quimby.gnus.org with local (Exim 3.12 #1 (Debian)) id 18U2L1-0001fR-00 for ; Thu, 02 Jan 2003 11:12:31 +0100 Original-To: ding@gnus.org Original-Path: not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnus.ding Original-Lines: 53 Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: pppin44.max-hochsimmer.rz-online.net Original-X-Trace: quimby.gnus.org 1041502351 6412 212.7.169.44 (2 Jan 2003 10:12:31 GMT) Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet@quimby.gnus.org Original-NNTP-Posting-Date: 2 Jan 2003 10:12:31 GMT X-Face: :EL9TzGRN){7|oE2~xQ8Q(VjpjsXgX$~gi&rYD5J5p)$w\Thdl~v:7h`/n)J!8nXT%_+Wj6}@EHM8}QbA(9nX-wrQ:ch1%DauV[?kFasXUcnL#+"K8zOx&$@/M'/},q-eztaJra1|?C+p$h\2XnK-HB"8_U writes: > Now, the most obvious thing to do is to just write them in Lisp, and > I definitely don't want to do that. What a pity. > (if (string= (getenv "NNTPSERVER") "") > (if (query "You don't seem to have set a news server, > so do you want to use Gnus to read news or mail?") > (setq news-server (quert "Ok, then gimme the > name of the news server")))) > > Eek. It's a readability nightmare. That depends. Define gnus-wizard-look-for-nntp-server gnus-wizard-look-for-pop3-server gnus-wizard-look-for-spool-file and (gnus-wizard-get-nntp-server-from-user &opt proposed-server) (gnus-wizard-get-pop-server-from-user &opt proposed-server) ... And stuff already looks much better. > The same is the case with anything that looks like HTML with embedded > program statements. If you write PHP with lots of strings and stuff > in between, it soon just gets too ugly to be fun. And the user needs an apache or alike on his system. > So -- any good ideas? Surely somebody must have come up with a nice > solution here... > > The other question is -- how to render the user interface? Again, > Customize has lots of stuff for that, and might be a likely > contender. The other is HTML and w3. Any other ideas? Whatever you do, remember that there are other systems then Linux/FreeBSD running Gnus, e.g. MacOS or Windows. Your solution should work on those systems, too so I'd still vote for a wizard in Emacs Lisp, asking the user in Minibuffer and some explanation on what he should input in a buffer above. -- One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.