hidden citations not hiding blank lines between citations

hidden citations not hiding blank lines between citations

[Greg Stark]

you might want to turn off hiding citations for this post (C-u - 1 W W c)

in text like this:

> blah blah blah
> blah blah blah
> blah blah blah

> yada yada yada
> yada yada yada
> yada yada yada


I think the citation hiding algorithm will leave several blank lines,
since the goal of hiding citations is to recover as much screen real-estate as
possible, I would prefer if any blank lines between two hidden blocks got
hidden as well.  

It might be useful to guarantee that at least one blank line showed up before
the original text though.  Actually I think it would be most useful if some
indication that there was hidden text were inserted;  I often am slightly
confused until I figure out from context that some citation has been hidden.

--
greg,
anxiously awaiting 0.27

Re: hidden citations not hiding blank lines between citations

[Damian Marriott]

I whole-heartedly agree with Greg in his following comments:

>>>>> "Greg" == Greg Stark <gsstark@MIT.EDU> writes:

    Greg> I think the citation hiding algorithm will leave several
    Greg> blank lines, since the goal of hiding citations is to
    Greg> recover as much screen real-estate as possible, I would
    Greg> prefer if any blank lines between two hidden blocks got
    Greg> hidden as well.

    Greg> It might be useful to guarantee that at least one blank line
    Greg> showed up before the original text though.  Actually I think
    Greg> it would be most useful if some indication that there was
    Greg> hidden text were inserted; I often am slightly confused
    Greg> until I figure out from context that some citation has been
    Greg> hidden.

How about a faked ellipsis, i.e. "...".

Damian
-- 
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180 Queen's Gate, London SW7 2BZ, United Kingdom   Fax: +44 171 581 8024

Re: hidden citations not hiding blank lines between citations

[Sten Drescher]

	Something _I'd_ like to see when hiding citations is an
indication that there _is_ a hidden citation, especially if the toggling
of hiding in implemented.  Ideally, I'd like to see a configuable number
of lines of citation to leave exposed, with a [...]  indicator following
it.

-- 
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Re: hidden citations not hiding blank lines between citations

[Russ Allbery]

Sten Drescher <stend@grendel.texas.net> writes:

> 	Something _I'd_ like to see when hiding citations is an indication
> that there _is_ a hidden citation, especially if the toggling of hiding
> in implemented.  Ideally, I'd like to see a configuable number of lines
> of citation to leave exposed, with a [...]  indicator following it.

What I'd prefer is to have each section of the citation replaced with a
button of some sort (... is the obvious choice), so that I can click on it
to expand that part out (and not have to restart the article from the top
or expand out the rest of the citation).

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra@cs.stanford.edu)     http://www-leland.stanford.edu/~rra/

Re: hidden citations not hiding blank lines between citations

[Kai Grossjohann]

>>>>> On Mon, 15 Jan 1996 19:19:45 -0800 (PST), Russ Allbery
>>>>> <eagle@cyclone.Stanford.EDU> said:

  Russ> What I'd prefer is to have each section of the citation
  Russ> replaced with a button of some sort [...]

Yes, please.

        kai
--
I like both kinds of music.

Re: hidden citations not hiding blank lines between citations

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Russ Allbery <eagle@cyclone.Stanford.EDU> writes:

> What I'd prefer is to have each section of the citation replaced with a
> button of some sort (... is the obvious choice), so that I can click on it
> to expand that part out (and not have to restart the article from the top
> or expand out the rest of the citation).

How much is a "section", though?  Should there be one of these button
thingies for each paragraph?  Or for each person's cited text?  Or
just one button for all cited text?

----------
>>>something
>>>something

>>>something
>>other
>more

Blah.

>>>even more
>more
----------

Point to where the buttons should go.

-- 
Home is where the cat is.

Re: hidden citations not hiding blank lines between citations

[Russ Allbery]

Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@ifi.uio.no> writes:

> How much is a "section", though?  Should there be one of these button
> thingies for each paragraph?  Or for each person's cited text?  Or
> just one button for all cited text?

My preference is:

----------
>>> something
>>> something

>>> something
>> other
> more

[ Button here ]

Blah.

>>> even more
> more

[ Button here ]

----------

The reason why I want to expose cited text is to get the context for a
followup, which means I want all cited text, regardless of author, back
to the last block of non-cited text.

Other people may have different needs, though.

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra@cs.stanford.edu)     http://www-leland.stanford.edu/~rra/

Re: hidden citations not hiding blank lines between citations

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Russ Allbery <eagle@cyclone.Stanford.EDU> writes:

> My preference is:
> 
> ----------
> >>> even more
> > more
> 
> [ Button here ]
> 
> ----------

That seems ok to me... although having the button after the exposed
text might be counter-intuitive.  (When the text is hidden, it makes
no difference whether the button is before or after the hidden text.)

-- 
Home is where the cat is.

Re: hidden citations not hiding blank lines between citations

[Darren/Torin/Who Ever...]

larsi@ifi.uio.no (Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen), in a magnificent manifestation of deity, wrote:
>How much is a "section", though?  Should there be one of these button
>thingies for each paragraph?  Or for each person's cited text?  Or
>just one button for all cited text?
----------
>>>something \
>>>something  \
	       = ...
>>>something  /
>>other	     /
>more       /

Blah.

>>>even more = ...
>more       /
----------
>Point to where the buttons should go.

Where of course ... represents the buttons.  It might even be good to
just reference a function to call with the text that's cited since I
could easily see myself wanting:
----------
>>>something
>[...]
>more

Blah.

>>>even more
>more
----------
As I've often changed text that I've quoted to look like this when I
just wanted to give context and didn't really want the quoted text in my
reply.

>--
>Home is where the cat is.


I like this.  It's true too...

Darren
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Darren Stalder/2608 Second Ave, @282/Seattle, WA 98121-1212/USA/+1-800-921-4996
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Re: hidden citations not hiding blank lines between citations

[Jens Lautenbacher]

>>>>> "LMI" == Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@ifi.uio.no> writes:

    LMI> Russ Allbery <eagle@cyclone.Stanford.EDU> writes:
    >> My preference is:
    >> 
    >> ----------
    >> >>> even more
    >> > more
    >> 
    >> [ Button here ]
    >> 
    >> ----------

    LMI> That seems ok to me... although having the button after the exposed
    LMI> text might be counter-intuitive.  (When the text is hidden, it makes
    LMI> no difference whether the button is before or after the hidden text.)

I makes a difference if you 'unhide' (aka show) the citation. I'm
starting to read a not cited part of the message, realize that I need
to see the referenced part maybe just for a quick peek, so I press the
button but I still remain with point at the beginning of the
"interesting", new part and have the button also there to toggle back.
Just my 0.02$

       __/__/ __/__/__/ __/            Jens Lautenbacher 
         __/    __/    __/     
        __/    __/    __/      mailto:jens@ekp.physik.uni-karlsruhe.de
  __/  __/    __/    __/       mailto:jtl@tkm.physik.uni-karlsruhe.de
 __/  __/___ __/___ __/__/__/_________________________________________
  __/__/                     

Re: hidden citations not hiding blank lines between citations

[Edward J. Sabol]

Excerpts from mail: (17-Jan-96) Re: hidden citations not hiding blank lines between citations by Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen
>  Russ Allbery <eagle@cyclone.Stanford.EDU> writes:
>> What I'd prefer is to have each section of the citation replaced with a
>> button of some sort (... is the obvious choice), so that I can click on it
>> to expand that part out (and not have to restart the article from the top
>> or expand out the rest of the citation).
>  How much is a "section", though? Should there be one of these button
> thingies for each paragraph? Or for each person's cited text? Or just
> one button for all cited text?

----------
>>>something
>>>something

>>>something
>>other
>more

Blah.

>>>even more
>more
----------

> Point to where the buttons should go.

Ok, I've seen what other people have responded, and I haven't like what I've
seen a whole lot. So let me give a shot at this. When the citations are
hidden, here is what I think the above should look like:

----------
[...]

Blah.

[...]
----------

Note: I strongly prefer "[...]" to "..." for the buttons. As to what it
should look like when one or more citations are unhidden, here's one
possibility: make the the first citation tag into the button that collapses
that section of citations. Example:

----------
[>>>]something1
>>>something2

>>>something3
>>other
>more

Blah.

[>>>]even more
>more
----------

Here the strings ">>>" on the ">>>something1" line and the ">>>even more"
line are button that would collapse there respections citation sections. (The
brackets wouldn't be visible. I've just put them in there to show where the
buttons would go.) Clicking on both of these buttons would result in an
article buffer that looks like the first example where all citations have
been hidden.

Now, someone out there had the suggestion that it would be nice if Gnus would
only hide citations with more than x number of lines and optionally be able
to display the first n lines of such a citation. I think this would a
marvelous idea! Example:

Original article text:
----------
>>>long citation1
>>>long citation2
>>>long citation3
>>>long citation4
>>>long citation5
>>>long citation6
>>>long citation7

Blah.

>>different citation1
>>different citation2
>>different citation3
>>different citation4

Blah.

>yet another citation

Blah.
----------

Here's how I think this should look after hiding the relevant portions:
(example uses x = 3, n = 2 (x and n defined above)):
----------
>>>long citation1
>>>long citation2
[...]

Blah.

>>different citation1
>>different citation2
[...]

Blah.

>yet another citation

Blah.
----------

Again, the "[...]" are buttons that would unhide the rest of that citation
section.

Just my $0.02,
Ed

Re: hidden citations not hiding blank lines between citations

[Kai Grossjohann]

>>>>> On Thu, 18 Jan 1996 12:01:20 -0500, "Edward J. Sabol"
>>>>> <sabol@thuban.gsfc.nasa.gov> said:

  Ed> [[talking about hiding part of long citations]]

I think that you want to be able to unhide just the last few lines of
a citation, too, so that you'd have two buttons, one for unhiding the
beginning and one for unhiding the end of a citation.  Also, you'd
want to be able to hide/unhide all of it.  And all of all citations.

What about making the *uncited* text into buttons so clicking on a
piece of uncited text would unhide a few lines of citations around
this text if any, and if they're hidden.

This is getting rather complicated.  I never hide any citations and
I'm just fine with the color indications of where the important text
is, myself.

        kai
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Re: hidden citations not hiding blank lines between citations

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

"Edward J. Sabol" <sabol@thuban.gsfc.nasa.gov> writes:

> Ok, I've seen what other people have responded, and I haven't like what I've
> seen a whole lot. So let me give a shot at this. When the citations are
> hidden, here is what I think the above should look like:
> 
> ----------
> [...]
> 
> Blah.
> 
> [...]
> ----------

That looks nice, so I've added this to September 0.30.  The look of
the buttons are specified by the `gnus-cited-text-button-line-format'
variable, which is another one of those Gnus format spec variables. 

> Here the strings ">>>" on the ">>>something1" line and the ">>>even more"
> line are button that would collapse there respections citation sections. (The
> brackets wouldn't be visible. I've just put them in there to show where the
> buttons would go.) 

I haven't done this, because it seemed a bit fiddly to me...

> Now, someone out there had the suggestion that it would be nice if Gnus would
> only hide citations with more than x number of lines and optionally be able
> to display the first n lines of such a citation. I think this would a
> marvelous idea!

I've added a new variable called `gnus-cited-lines-visible' to control
this.

-- 
Home is where the cat is.