Subj : adhoc origin line feature
To   : August Abolins
From : Martin Foster
Date : Wed Jan 19 2022 13:59:00

Hello August!

*** Tuesday 18.01.22 at 07:29, August Abolins wrote to Martin Foster:

 AA>>> I'm still trying to wrap my head over the adhoc Origin line
 AA>>> feature in OXP.  Dunno what to do with it...

 MF>> Hmmmmm, I find it quite useful and it's quick and easy to
 MF>> use.

 AA> I haven't seen you use it very much.   :/

I haven't used it much, I only use it when the need arises :)

 AA>>> And.. the adhoc one is replaced one with the static one
 AA>>> if there is a need to re-edit the message body before
 AA>>> sending it.

 MF>> Yes, that's correct.

 AA> That is a bit annoying especially if one has spent time to
 AA> craft something witty and profound but a simple re-edit would
 AA> undo it.

I find it *very* annoying actually.

 AA>>> What is the designer's/programmer's idea behind the function?

 MF>> A basic simple way of changing the pre-defined origin for
 MF>> the current message. However, there's plenty of scope for
 MF>> improvement in future releases.

 AA> But then why not build it so that it extracts predefined text
 AA> (that is known to fit) in that space?

Yes, why not?
Perhaps you could ask the developer about that.

 AA> I am just having trouble understanding what exactly the
 AA> designer had in mind to put in there each and every time.

See [1] below .....

 AA>>> How is anyone else using it?

 MF>> Ummmmmmmm :)

 MF>> -+- OpenXP 5.0.51
 MF>>  + Origin: OpenXP-Team (2:310/31.3)

 AA> OK, sure..  nice, short and simple. But wouldn't it make better
 AA> sense to craft different versions of it so that you can pick
 AA> them from a drop-down or something?

A better solution would have been to implement something along the lines  
of the Glossary feature, whereby all the user needs to do is to press  
<Alt+G> from within the editor and then select an item from the pre- 
defined list that pops up. In this case, it would be a list of origin  
lines pre-defined by the user in an ascii text file, e.g. "origins.txt"  
and the key-press could be <Alt+O>.

[snip]
 AA> The designer had *something* in mind for its REGULAR use so
 AA> that there were no incidents like re-entering that text.

[1] Seeing as origin lines could be defined on a global, group and area  
level, somebody(me) thought it would be nice if they could also be defined  
at the single message level and I duly put in a feature request for a  
*simple*, *basic* means of doing so. He duly obliged by implementing  
exactly what I'd asked for, no more, no less.

Regards,
Martin

--- OpenXP 5.0.51
 * Origin: Watch   This   Space (2:310/31.3)

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