Hi Jeff,
On Sat, 1 Sep 2001, at 10:05:52 -0700, you wrote:
J> While I'm enjoying my evaluation of The Bat! and like it a lot, I'm
J> finding a few "issues" preventing me from enjoying it to it's
J> fullest. Rather than suffer through them I thought I could list them
J> here and get some help...
That's what this list is for... ;-)
J> 1) The message-editor doesn't work like any other I've used and it's
J> taking some time to get used to it.
But it's well worth the effort, believe me.
J> a) For example, is it possible to automatically "reflow" after fixing
J> a line. For example, [...] Do I need to edit it by hand to reflow it,
J> or will it automatically reflow as it's sent? If I need to reflow it
J> myself, is there something I can do to automate the process, or at
J> least make it easier?
Go to the "Options -> Editor Preferences" and activate "Auto wrap"
(which should be activated by default anyway) and "Auto format", this
will cause the editor to reflow the text automatically. But be advised
that this will also change the behaviour when you start a new paragraph.
With "Auto format" you have to leave a blank line when you start a new
paragraph (at first I didn't like this, now I love it; it makes text so
much more readable).
Or you can manually reflow text (as I did with the quotes from your
message). Just select a paragraph and hit ALT-L, ALT-J or ALT-R or use
the menu "Utilities -> Format Block ..." to achieve this.
J> b) The cursor doesn't move back to the left margin when it traverses
J> a blank line, the way it does in most Windows text editors.
J> Therefore, when I move down to the bottom to continue my message
J> after seeing and fixing a line above, I must reposition the cursor.
That's one of the biggest advantages of TB's editor. You can write
anywhere. This makes tables so much easier *and* <ironic> you don't even
need HTML to do this! </ironic>
J> A side-effect of this appears to be that the "-- " sig delimeter is
J> shortened to just "--", as trailing blank spaces in lines appear to
J> be truncated.
If you place a correct sig delimiter in your template, TB! will not
touch it, unless you edit the line it is in. Just mark my delimiter with
and you will see the trailing space.
J> c) The ability to cursor down past the end of a new email is a bit
J> disconcerting, too.
Agreed, but it has always been this way. You get used to it.
J> 2) I haven't figured out how to scroll through unread messages
J> properly and efficiently. For example:
Try CTRL-[ and CTRL-] (or CTRL-LEFTARROW or CTRL-RIGHTARROW) to jump to
the previous/next unread message.
J> a) When I first set up The Bat! I used 600 seconds as the time before
J> messages would appear as "read". I've since changed it to a
J> significantly lower number, but I can only make the change at the
J> highest level "account" and for posts already in my BatList folder,
J> they don't seem to change to "read" at all. Is this property applied
J> only when email is received?
Works fine here, also with messages that were explicitly marked unread.
J> b) Other programs I use (Eudora and Netscape) have a button I can
J> press which will automatically find (in Eudora's case) the next
J> message, or (in Netscape's case) the next unread message. The Bat!
J> doesn't seem to have either, and I've had to scroll through all the
J> messages by hand.
No button, a keyboard shortcut instead, see above.
J> c) I haven't found a way to open up threads automaticallly by
J> scrolling through them, and the folder list-window doesn't scroll
J> automatically, so opening up all those "+" signs can take a long time.
If you use the shortcut, threads expand automatically to show you an
unread message.
J> Am I missing something or somethings here? Or is this something I
J> just need to get used to in order to use The Bat! ?
Maybe it needs some time to get used to it, but I would not exchange it
for any other mail program (OK, perhaps for mutt, as there is no *nix
version of TB! ... ;-)
J> Are there answers to my questions? Or do I just join the group
J> writing to the wish-list <smile>?
I hope these are the answers to your questions. :)
--
Regards,
Lars
The Bat! 1.54 Beta/7 on Windows NT 5.0 Build 2195 Service Pack 2
____________________________________________________________
| Lars Geiger | <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> |
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