MacSOUP vs. MT-NewsWatcher
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From: Stefan Haller on 31 Mar 2010 04:43 Richard Maine <nospam(a)see.signature> wrote: > I have figured out that MacSOUP's author doesn't share my interface > preferences, so it isn't going to change. That's not necessarily a valid conclusion. I'm as annoyed by MacSOUP's weak points as anybody. In many cases things have historic reasons, in other cases I made wrong decisions 15 years ago; either way, the reason why things are still the way they are is not because I like them the way they are, but because I just haven't had time to change them. In this particular case (settings files as documents), the reason for this design decision is historic: back in System 7 there were no user accounts, so if several people (say, familiy members) share a machine, the only way for them to have separate MacSOUP installations was through settings files. Now, in Mac OS X, there's little reason to do it that way any more. Some people still use the feature to use several different news servers, but that's just an ugly workaround for a missing feature. You really want to be able to specify multiple servers, and maybe configure per group which server it is fetched from. That's a lot of work though, and I just don't have the time to do such a big change. -- Stefan Haller Berlin, Germany http://www.haller-berlin.de/
From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Niels_J=F8rgen_Kruse?= on 31 Mar 2010 05:31 Stefan Haller <stk.usenet(a)haller-berlin.de> wrote: > Richard Maine <nospam(a)see.signature> wrote: > > > I have figured out that MacSOUP's author doesn't share my interface > > preferences, so it isn't going to change. > > That's not necessarily a valid conclusion. I'm as annoyed by MacSOUP's > weak points as anybody. In many cases things have historic reasons, in > other cases I made wrong decisions 15 years ago; either way, the reason > why things are still the way they are is not because I like them the way > they are, but because I just haven't had time to change them. Could you provide a "reopen most recent settings" menu item? That would be an easy way to undo an accidental closing. -- Mvh./Regards, Niels J�rgen Kruse, Vanl�se, Denmark
From: Richard Maine on 31 Mar 2010 12:31 Stefan Haller <stk.usenet(a)haller-berlin.de> wrote: > Richard Maine <nospam(a)see.signature> wrote: > > > I have figured out that MacSOUP's author doesn't share my interface > > preferences, so it isn't going to change. > > That's not necessarily a valid conclusion. I'm as annoyed by MacSOUP's > weak points as anybody.... Thanks for the correction and elaboration, Stefan. And in case it was lost in the other material, let me reemphasize that just because I'm harping about one of those weak points, that doesn't change the fact that I do continue to use MacSOUP because I think its strong points outweigh its weak ones. Oh, and also, let me make it explicit that I do appreciation all the work you put into it. Yes, I did express that appreciation in the obvious way (I bought a license from you - looks like back in Nov 2005, as I just checked). I also understand the principle of rueing the aftereffects of a decision made long ago and now difficult to change. Been there. Done that. I had not realized that this was a case of that until you explained. -- Richard Maine | Good judgment comes from experience; email: last name at domain . net | experience comes from bad judgment. domain: summertriangle | -- Mark Twain
From: Doc O'Leary on 31 Mar 2010 12:54 In article <1jg7wnw.vuxq4vbywvcwN%jamiekg(a)wizardling.geek.nz>, jamiekg(a)wizardling.geek.nz (Jamie Kahn Genet) wrote: > Doc O'Leary <droleary.usenet(a)1q2010.subsume.com> wrote: > > > The same is true of people. Abstractly, email isn't *that* much > > different from instant messaging, yet there is usually different > > software for each, and many people adopt different habits for both. I > > prefer email because I don't have to constantly babysit my status or see > > every conversation start with "are you there?" Similarly, I don't like > > to babysit a Usenet client regarding its online/offline status. > > Oh, I don't know - I rather like controlling when I'll be bothered with > new info in these days of information overload. Frequent checking for > new email is a must for me, since I have to deal with some in a timely > fashion (filters and custom alerts help). Likewise I need to know when > I've new IMs or voicemail. An online Usenet client might matter more to > me if I used it for more serious purposes. Still, all this is just a > matter of personal preference and happenstance on my part. I can see how > an always online client can be useful to some :-) You're missing my point: it isn't about *me* checking things when *I* want to, it's about me being *required* to inform some other system that I'm *constantly* available. I'd love to use an offline reader because, as fast as broadband is these days, faster still is loading pre-fetched data from the local disk. Hell, I've written an AppleScript to do just that for group headers MT-NW, and it's a *much* better experience. But most "offline" readers don't operate at any level of intelligence. They focus on the online/offline mode as though it were a feature, and thus force me to care about it, but all I really care about is a faster experience. Having to micromanage the status is a non-starter in my book. > > I'm thinking more along the line of poorly thought out design choices. > > Like launching without a window. Like calling its main document type > > "Settings File". Like making me configure a POP account before anything > > else. Like forcing me to set a "personality" before even *reading* > > articles. Like making it non-obvious how to even *set* an NNTP server. > > That's as far as I went with the clunky UI before I come to the > > conclusion that it probably isn't worth the effort to use MacSOUP. > > Yeah... I somewhat agree. I can also understand how that might bug > certain users. Then again after seeing the results of people not forced > to sort the basics out before posting in other clients, I rather like > that MacSOUP insists on certain things as per the Good Net-Keeping Seal > of Approval minimum 'standards' <http://www.gnksa.org/>. None of my complaints are even about posting. They aren't even about *reading*, because MacSOUP fails to even make configuration sensible. If you want to lament the decline of Usenet, you need look no further than poorly designed clients. To read a web forum, click and click. To read a Usenet forum, go back and re-read my above paragraph to even *start* trying to do that with MacSOUP. -- My personal UDP list: 127.0.0.1, localhost, googlegroups.com, ono.com, and probably your server, too.
From: erilar on 31 Mar 2010 19:48
In article <1jg6dxw.1lixip21vrir3cN%nospam(a)see.signature>, nospam(a)see.signature (Richard Maine) wrote: > Just for kicks, I just tried to drag the settings file to the dock. It > doesn't want to go there. In fact, no kind of document that I tried > seems to want to go there, not that I have otherwise tried to do that > before. The dock has two parts. One will hold only applications. The other will hold just about anything you can think of. -- Erilar, biblioholic medievalist http://www.mosaictelecom.com/~erilarlo |