It does seem like a heated political debate has begun. Right now, I'll step out on a limb and define the sides I see:
1. Those willing to accept the "features" TB provides while also wanting the option to do things in a way they consider more standardized and intuitive 2. Those firmly entrenched in the belief that TB is doing it the right way - the *only* way. And that anyone who disagrees is out to somehow destroy the program they prefer to use. First of all, let me take some text from the RitLabs website: a. "The Bat! The Natural Email System" b. "Save your time - Extend your life!" I think many problems, such as editor preference, stem from comments such as a and b above. Who's definition of "natural" has been used to qualify TB's usage? How many tests have been conducted to assure that time is being saved? Advanced or novice users? A few messages back someone pointed out that novice users would get confused at specifications detailing soft and hard breaks and they would not understand what the editor would do to their messages when sent. I propose that such a novice user would #1, not be using TB and #2, using TB would be infinitely more confused by the free caret and non-traditional formatting methodologies currently in place. I'm starting to distinctly paint myself into user type 1 now... :) Friday, December 27, 2002, 4:23:46 AM, Dierk wrote: > Sorry, Agent uses soft-wraps during composition and will only change > that to hard-wraps during send. Luckily the developers knew the rouble > behind this and decided to soft-wrap at the pre-defined lengths - > regardless of the window size. We agree that the Agent editor has many shortcomings but also has a number of strengths. I've been using Agent since the summer of 1995. I have been on countless beta runs with it and had quite a bit of input into various bug fixes and editor enhancements. Sadly, the time to increase the editor's robustness to the next level has not yet been allocated. My experience with TB started just over two years ago. I evaluated it for a brief time but found it would not be able to replace my other software at the time. I made several suggestions for improvement and I'm happy t say a number of them are now in place. My editor suggestions were well received at the time and were supposed to find their way as options into version 2. I didn't think version 2 would be this far off. Having re-evaluated TB about a month ago, I decided to make a complete switch while configuring my new network. >>The program should >> simply respect what the user entered. If I want a paragraph break, >> I'll press Enter. If I don't, I don't. > That's not quite the right way with e-mail, the standard is to have a > LB/CR (hard-wrap) at around 72 characters; PGP and Agent, BTW, use > exactly that as default. Alas, you're now confusing e-mail with text composition. No one is asking for mail to be sent/delivered in a different way. Just for more options when composing. Saying there is a "right" and "wrong" way to compose is very closed-minded. Agent, as you mentioned, soft-wraps at the same point it will hard-wrap when sending. That's a very convenient option, IMO. Like many other features, it's nice to be able to configure such behaviour. TB doesn't allow for much configuration of its editor. Though it does feature some very powerful composition tools. > So, you cannot just make up a paragraph by one new line, you need two. Says who? You can easily make a new paragraph in agent with a single new line. This is all in implementation. > Which has become standard even in business letters Oh oh.... Someone bringing up "standards" while trying to make an argument against the very use of them. > 3) How come I regularly get messages - mostly from OL/OE - which don't > wrap at all, they show even lengthy posts in just one long line? Must be because your viewer isn't smart enough to wrap those lines. :) Or rather it simply lacks an option to wrap those lines at either a preselected length or at the window edge. TB wraps HTML/RICH mail without a problem that was composed with Outlook as far as I can tell. >> Does it have to be the same in appearance? > Yes. > Try making up a table. How often do I make a table in an email message? Not very often. And if one wants to make a table, one just has to enable the necessary editor features to do so. This again is not a reason for not supporting additional functionality in the editor. I can make a table fairly easily in TextPad for instance. The ability to have a free caret also should not affect the program's ability to wrap text properly (TB often leaves white space at the start of a line without a paragraph as you're typing - this is with auto-wrap on but auto-format off. You have to manually format to correct. Auto-format is too annoying, IMO.) >> Isn't it much more convenient if you can resize the window as you're >> typing, and have the text automatically conform to the new size of >> the window - and so can the recipient? > No. I'd say by the popularity of this ability (who said something about status quo a little while back while trying to argue the opposite?) speaks for itself. "Can" implies an option. Don't take away my freedoms in using a program because you don't think it's convenient for you. I don't find it very convenient having to constantly ALT-L. >> Isn't it more convenient when, if you add or remove some text inside >> a paragraph, the paragraph stays, rather than being split into a >> bunch of uneven lines? > You can achieve this with TB through Auto-Format, Auto-Wrap, <Alt><l>. But that functionality does seem tied to the incorrect function. It would more logically be tied to auto-wrap (because that's what it's doing) rather than auto-format. Auto-format has too many caveats that I don't use it right now. However, I'd still appreciate the functionality of having things _auto-wrap" as defined. That currently isn't supported. Again, hard versus soft breaks. >> TheBat insists on inserting linebreaks where I didn't enter them. > Which it will do regardless of what you see, *as long as it conforms > to breaking lines at certain lengths*. You now can see it, with your > scheme you won't know how it looks upon sending. I will point you back to your own comments regarding Agent. Really, follow along. :) Composition can be presented in any way a software author wants. There are really no limits with this. The relationship between composition and final text can be as similar or as obscure as a software author would like it to be. > It's a feature, yes. It's wrong, no. It doesn't fit your needs, maybe. He, and others, including myself, are telling you is most definitely does not suit our needs. No maybe about it. It is "wrong" only in the sense that it does not follow normal conventions. I don't believe this to be a bad thing, but value its abilities as "options." I would like to be able to *configure* the editor for additional options to provide the shortcomings that are being pointed out in this thread. Anything that impedes my usage of a piece of software, that costs me time and does not feel natural to me, I consider a shortcoming. > Just because something doesn't works like you want it to be doesn't > make it wrong. Just because someone wants additional functionality does not make *them* wrong. The very first person who started the thread put forth the gist of the matter in a clear and concise manner. I'm sure most of us have been using one or other text editor for years. I've been using them for 20 years. And I can tell you that I've seen some pretty bad ones. The wheel has never been re-invented so many times (often not round which is a shame :) TB's editor, with some additional work, can be even better for an even larger percentage of its users - and much better for a very large population of possible users. > This editor discussion pops up every few weeks, > one can always see when a new marketing wave has hit, because new > users complain about it. I can forward you my messages from two years ago. I can orward you my messages from the Agent and TextPad beta programs from over the past 7 years too. > Every single time I've found those > complaining loudest became the most ardent converts. Like with > religion. It's pretty clear already. The bottom line is that everyone (I hope) using the program has paid to do so. It is completely within reason to want a little bit more from your investment. I'll put down another $50 right now for an enhanced editor. Over-all I do consider TB to be one of the best, if not the best email program. However, I won't turn a blind eye to its shortcomings. I've been doing software quality assurance for a living for over 6 years, so I'm pretty good at picking things apart. :) > You just had to <Alt><l> while your cursor is still in the paragraph. > Or use Auto-format. You don't know how many times I "just had to" - when I would simply prefer "not to have to" (without auto-format) Bruno -- Using The Bat! v1.62 Christmas Edition on Windows XP 5.1 Build 2600 Service Pack 1 ________________________________________________ Current version is 1.62 | "Using TBUDL" information: http://www.silverstones.com/thebat/TBUDLInfo.html
