Re: Help with xfaces questions/problems/enhancements...

Charles Owen (cowen@olimbos.dartmouth.edu)
Tue, 14 Feb 1995 18:56:16 -0500 (EST)

Here's some help...
|
| Here are a few things faces used to do that xfaces still doesn't; one
| I've asked for before but got no response:
|
| 2) faces used to beep when new mail arrived. I know xfaces has
| netaudio support but I don't want to go through that hassle; can't
| someone add a simple beep for those of us who don't want a sermon
| or aria for new mail? :)
|
| 3) faces used to pop up to the front on my window when mail arrived.
| Can I get xfaces to do the same? Please?
|
I'll second both of these. What I would still prefer is the ability
to run any desired executable on mail arrival. Then I could play audio
or pop up notices or detonate the world or whatever. Seems a reasonable
approach to me.

| Here's (I think) a bug in xfaces:
|
| 4) I have some users who use elm (blech! VM all the way :) and xfaces
| will recognize they have new mail, but after they read it xfaces
| still says they have new mail (they set their update to 15 seconds
| and xfaces just never updates).
|
| It's not until *more* new mail comes in that xfaces updates their
| mail (deleting the old mail faces and adding the new ones).
|
| I don't know much about elm, but I think it's one of those grody
| mail agents that keeps your read mail in your system mail spool
| instead of moving it; somehow xfaces can't tell that you've read
| that mail.
|
| However, faces works correctly for them in the same environment.
|
I don't think it's a bug. Faces works by checking the status of a mail
message by checking for a line: Status:. Elm adds that after you've read
the mail, but does not synchronize the mail folder to itself until either
you tell it to or new mail arrives. The solution I use is to hit $ after
reading a mail message. This forces synchronization. (I think it's $.
I'm in elm, so I can't check and did you ever have one of those keystrokes
you hit several times a day but can't be sure of when you tell it to
someone?) If anything, this is an idiosynchrosy with the way elm works.

Hope this helps...

-- 
Charles B. Owen                           Charles.B.Owen@dartmouth.edu
Dartmouth College                                Office:  603-646-3297
6211 Sudikoff Laboratory, Rm 108                   Home:  603-448-5677
Hanover, NH  03755                 http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~cowen/