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

Chris Liebman (liebman@zod.com)
Tue, 14 Feb 1995 20:32:17 -0500 (EST)

Excerpts from mail: 14-Feb-95 Re: Help with xfaces questi.. Charles
Owen@olimbos.dar (2382*)

> 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? :)

This presents to design/coding problems to add....only time.... I wish
that there were more hours in a day!

> |
> | 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.

XFaces 3.3 does that now! :^) :^)

> | 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.

This is correct. Elm also uses utime() to set the time on the file back
so that it looks unmodified....yuck :^(

-- Chris (Wanting more time so that we can add other sound support and
usenix facesaver image support.......been trying to make time for a long
time now.... :^( )

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