Re: questions about the Previous-Sequence
On Mon, 23 Mar 2020 13:16:56 +0100, Philipp said: > [2020-03-22 14:53] Ken Hornstein > > >We think currently about removing the Previous-Sequence support for > > >mmh. But because we don't use it we are not sure, if we missed some > > >aspect of it. Therefor I would like to ask some questions. > > > > I personally find the previous-sequence rather useful myself (when you > > find, for example, the results of "pick" were rather larger than you > > expected and didn't put it in a sequence). But that's up to you. > > May I ask, why do you prefer it over the history and command line editing? Keep in mind that some of us have been using Unix-style systems since *long* before readline existed, so all the fancy 'command line editing" didn't exist, and before shell history sprouted all its fancy features. So alternatives were invented. And muscle memory is hard to overcome. (Says the guy still using e16 as a window manager rather than Gnome, mostly because of muscle memory type reasons) pgp2NHqBnMtL2.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: questions about the Previous-Sequence
[2020-03-22 21:13] Conrad Hughes > One of the things I use it for is "unseeing" a message. Let's say I see > someone has emailed me, I'm about to go out, want to take a peek at the > message but don't want to mark it as seen — or alternatively I look at a > message, think "gosh that's gonna take a lot of work to deal with" so > want to mark it as unseen again, so I come back to it. My > unseen-sequence is "un", and my previous-sequence is "ditto", so I have > this alias to "unsee" whatever I just looked at: > > mark -sequence un -add ditto I have following in my profile: marku: -sequence u -add -nozero So if I want to unsee a mail I have just read, I just type marku. This only works if I read only one mail at the time or reuse the sequence/pick. Philipp
Re: questions about the Previous-Sequence
[2020-03-22 14:53] Ken Hornstein > >We think currently about removing the Previous-Sequence support for > >mmh. But because we don't use it we are not sure, if we missed some > >aspect of it. Therefor I would like to ask some questions. > > I personally find the previous-sequence rather useful myself (when you > find, for example, the results of "pick" were rather larger than you > expected and didn't put it in a sequence). But that's up to you. May I ask, why do you prefer it over the history and command line editing? > >When and why was the Previous-Sequence introduced to mh or nmh? > > Looks like it has been around for a while. From mh4/MHCHANGES: > > Mon Jul 16 00:21:52 1984 Rand MH mail system (agent: Marshall Rose) > > > Install the new Previous-Sequence mechanism. Introduce the SEQMOD > flag to the msgs structure. Just about every MH program now calls > m_setseq () upon parsing the messages and calls m_sync() prior to > exiting. > > Before my time, so I can't really answer the "why". Thanks for this info. Philipp Ps: Please don't put me in to or cc. I'm subcribed to the list and use the list-id field for scan and filtering.
Re: questions about the Previous-Sequence
Hi Conrad, > show !*; mark -sequence un -add ditto > > I bet there are magic command line switches to do this now (seems to > happen half the time I post these days!) There's show -file `mhpath .` that may give some success depending on your showproc and whether mhshow(1) is run by show(1). But it only handles one filename and show doesn't accept multiple -file options. The other way would be to run show in an environment that doesn't say to update the unseen sequence ‘un’ so the update doesn't need undoing. -- Cheers, Ralph.
Re: questions about the Previous-Sequence
Hi Ken, > I personally find the previous-sequence rather useful myself (when you > find, for example, the results of "pick" were rather larger than you > expected and didn't put it in a sequence). But that's up to you. I don't use it, but then my .mh_profile has pick: -sequence p following Peek's book's suggestion to cover that one case. That sequence ‘p’ is so useful I also have a ~/bin/mk that does exec mark -sequence p "$@" so I can fine tune a result with mk -d p:3 p:-1 If I want to keep it, it's then a pick -seq foo p except my ~/bin/p is exec pick "$@" Just thought it may be interesting to others to share. -- Cheers, Ralph.
Re: questions about the Previous-Sequence
One of the things I use it for is "unseeing" a message. Let's say I see someone has emailed me, I'm about to go out, want to take a peek at the message but don't want to mark it as seen — or alternatively I look at a message, think "gosh that's gonna take a lot of work to deal with" so want to mark it as unseen again, so I come back to it. My unseen-sequence is "un", and my previous-sequence is "ditto", so I have this alias to "unsee" whatever I just looked at: mark -sequence un -add ditto .. then I have another alias to do the first job — looking at something without "seeing" it: show !*; mark -sequence un -add ditto I bet there are magic command line switches to do this now (seems to happen half the time I post these days!), but I've had these for a long time and use them regularly. Conrad
Re: questions about the Previous-Sequence
>We think currently about removing the Previous-Sequence support for >mmh. But because we don't use it we are not sure, if we missed some >aspect of it. Therefor I would like to ask some questions. I personally find the previous-sequence rather useful myself (when you find, for example, the results of "pick" were rather larger than you expected and didn't put it in a sequence). But that's up to you. >When and why was the Previous-Sequence introduced to mh or nmh? Looks like it has been around for a while. From mh4/MHCHANGES: Mon Jul 16 00:21:52 1984 Rand MH mail system (agent: Marshall Rose) Install the new Previous-Sequence mechanism. Introduce the SEQMOD flag to the msgs structure. Just about every MH program now calls m_setseq () upon parsing the messages and calls m_sync() prior to exiting. Before my time, so I can't really answer the "why". --Ken
Re: questions about the Previous-Sequence
[2020-03-22 14:58] Ralph Corderoy > > 1. in the shell using the same messages again and spare some typing > ... > > The first completely covered with the shell history. > > If the arguments given to the last nmh command don't have a side effect > then shell history may be useful, but > > show next:3 > scan !$ > > doesn't achieve the same as Previous-Sequence. > > Not arguing you shouldn't remove it, just spotting a case you may not > have considered. Yes we have overseen this case, thanks. Philipp
Re: questions about the Previous-Sequence
Date:Sun, 22 Mar 2020 15:42:25 +0100 From:Philipp Message-ID: | The first completely covered with the shell history. Aside from what Ralph said, what shell history is that? Consider a user using dash, or some similar shell.Also consider that the commands may be in a script, in which even shells that support some kind of history usualy do not enable it, and command line editing is certainly not going to be available. Never rely upon shell history to handle anything in any application excecpt the shell in question. kre
Re: questions about the Previous-Sequence
Hi Philipp, > 1. in the shell using the same messages again and spare some typing ... > The first completely covered with the shell history. If the arguments given to the last nmh command don't have a side effect then shell history may be useful, but show next:3 scan !$ doesn't achieve the same as Previous-Sequence. Not arguing you shouldn't remove it, just spotting a case you may not have considered. -- Cheers, Ralph.
