Re: OSX USB Scanner support

On Wed, 26 Nov 2008 18:11:34 +0000, Tim Streater
<timstreater@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

In article
<augqi4pnut4484tnhoamoi1f3dc9bpt137@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Jaimie Vandenbergh <jaimie@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Wed, 26 Nov 2008 12:28:48 +0000, Tim Streater
<timstreater@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

In article <68fqi459rs1alq3i4i04dj67lm66nd16tq@xxxxxxx>,
T i m <news@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

[snip]

Add to that the stupid basic things like everyday apps that won't
start minimised or close rather than stay resident, the lack of
support for my printer and scanner, the lack of useable news reader
and (much though I tried) it just doesn't work for me (yet).

What's wrong with MT-NewsWatcher? I have used no other.

I couldn't remember, so I grabbed the latest and had a go with it. By
the time I had a message up, I had six windows open, four of which
were pointless.

Gee, how d'you manage that?

Open the DMG, copy to Applications. Start. You get various windows pop
up while the configuration wizardy thing is there.

Show Full group list, and File -> New Group Window. Then I'd drag groups
I was interested in, from the former to the latter, and close the
former.

Yep, did that.


The Groups window can be saved and put in the Dock.

Ah. Put the *file* in the Dock. So there's no way to get the app
itself to launch up with a groups window autoloaded?

If I open the Groups window, command-Y refreshes the groups (is this
what you mean by "Download all headers"? I don't otherwise know what
that means). Hit space-bar and I have a second window - that group,
showing unread threads. Spacebar again or double click to open a thread.
So I have three windows open (groups, threads, and a message). I never
have more than that and would have to do extra work to get more.

OK, you don't use the progress window, and close the all-groups
window. I forget what the other one was.

By the time I'd finished, I had in the region of 60 (going on eleven
thousand if I'd let it) - I was attempting to deselect stuff after
hitting select-all in the headers window, and managed to persuade it
to try and open them all instead - whoops. If they'd already been
downloaded, I'd have probably broken something... how should I have
get out of that?

Why are you surprised that doing select all of the threads and asking it
to open them gets you a billion windows? Craziest thing I ever heard of.

I wasn't surprised. I was surprised that after doing cmd-A to select
all messages there was no obvious method of deselecting them. It was
while I was trying to deselect that I accidentally triggered open.

Of course I didn't want to open them!

Other problems:

* Closing and opening a group doesn't remember the size+position I'd
had that group window.
* Likewise for message windows.
* The message list doesn't seem to have an "open with all threads
unfolded" choice.

<yawn>, <yawn>, and <yawn>.

Thanks, that's terribly helpful. I take it there's no fix for those?
They *** me right off.

Since you carried on replying, I'm at a totally-non-Rowland-style loss
as to why you chose to write that line!

* Next Article (cmd-I, a thumb-twisting choice) doesn't step between
threads. The wee downarrow does, but is there a key for it?

Use the arrow keys to navigate and use the keypad shortcuts to get next
message, next thread, and next group.

Yep, I found the key equivalents to the downarrow button in the help
file - space and numpad5.

A couple of other newsreaders failed on the "one key read" test - why
should I care that the next message is in a different thread, and need
to press a different key to get to it? Mad.

* It doesn't autoload the last-used subbed groups list on startup,
which I assume is a throwback to "everything must be document
centric".
* Opening a group appears to get all headers every time, rather than
just new ones since last time

From this I can only conclude that you are not using a personal groups
window, rather you are trying to use the Full Groups List each time. See
first para above of my reply and it will work better for you.

I was. I called it the "subbed groups list" in the first * above. The
second is the content of a single group - if you have the "tasks in
progress" window open too, you'll see that it takes the same amount of
time first time and thereafter, so it's downloading all headers in the
group rather than just using the NNTP "newnews" command. Pants.

From MT-NW not being active, I can click once in the dock, and one
window opens showing my list of groups and the number of unread msg in
each. Space-bar twice and I am reading my first message.

I can't duplicate that. How do you persuade it to come up with your
list of groups (I have one, which I have saved)? And mine don't seem
to carry the messages through from previous session, so they have to
download them all again each time.

* Scrolling through the group is jerky jerky
* No way to lock/keep messages other than "forward to self"
* No offline ability?

What I'm used to in a Usenet session:
1) Hitting Download All New Headers to affect the groups in a defined
set

See above.

Done.

2) Rules are setup to "get all bodies up to a limit of 200 lines or
otherwise killfiled", which are then stored in a local cache
3) I proceed to read all such positively vetted articles top to bottom
with little more than "next article" and "page through article" keys
(or eg middle button and scrollwheel on the mouse).

Can I get anywhere near there with MT? It looks to be a dedicated
online reader, so I suspect not.

You can do all this. It will filter when you download a group, and you
can certainly kill on number of lines. I just checked this (never do it
myself so I didn't know it was there). I tend to kill if subject
contains ****, or perhaps *****, or if the poster is **** (you know the
sort of thing :-)

Okay, we're getting there - another couple of helping hands and I'd be
up to a similar level as I am here. However, since the things you
yawned at are important to me, I'm not going to carry on with MT.

Cheers - Jaimie
--
Thank you for your input. Now, if you have something substantive to
bring to the discussion, kindly do. Otherwise, isn't there an
eternal flamefest that would peter out if you won't keep feeding it?
-- Cosmin Corbea, r.a.b
.