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List:       kde-devel
Subject:    feature request for knode
From:       Peter Buckenleib <pbu397 () compuserve ! de>
Date:       2001-08-30 8:56:26
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Hi folks,

i updated my favorite newsreader (knode) to version 0.6 now, and it looks 
better than ever!

but there are still some features i would like to discuss. Perhaps some of my 
ideas are not new and already "under construction". ( the order is purely 
random and has nothing to do with priority)

1. Example for filters using regular expressions 

Please add one or two filter(s) that hide all articles containing a regular 
expression to the list of predefined filters just as an example and starting 
point for modifications by using the "Copy"-feature that is already there.

2.  a third column for the number of articles that would pass all filters

currently (version 0.6) the total number of articles and the number of unread 
articles are shown in the tree. The number of unread articles includes all 
the unwanted that will not pass the filters. So you see 123 unread articles, 
but when you open the group, no article is displayed in the list of subjects. 
That is a little bit frustrating. 

3.  download - monitoring

One of the features i like most is the ability to generate a queue of 
background-downloads by just clicking on the subjects. But this happens 
unvisible inside knode. As the articles take longer to download, the queue 
grows and there is no feedback what articles are already in that queue. 

So i would suggest to use
- a green arrow for all the articles that are waiting for download 
- a yellow arrow for the currently downloading article and 
- a red arrow for all those articles that have been downloaded but not read.

In conjunction with additional filters for that arrows it would be much 
easier to navigate within groups.

Additionally the size of the queue should be displayed in the statusbar. 
(Then i could see if there is time enough to get me another cup of coffee).

The name of groups in the tree should also be displayed in corresponding 
color. 
- green , if there are articles in that group that are queued for download
- yellow, if the currently downloading article belongs to that group
- red    , if the group contains downloaded, but unread articles.


I will not use a local news-server like leafnode as it would need a filter 
that has frightening artificial intelligence. It must understand the meaning 
of the subject-line and know everything about me to decide what articles are 
interesting to me and worth downloading. To keep it up to date i would have 
to tell this alien everyday what i have heard,seen and thought. Disgusting ! 
I prefer the way knode works.

4.  EXE-Killer

I think most people will not download any .EXE-files (or .VBS) from 
newsgroup-posters to avoid viruses. Since the posters of viruses want to 
spread their evil doing they use misleading subjects that look interesting. 
When you see what you got, you have already spent downloadtime and money for 
something you throw away. 
Would it be possible to tell knode to cancel the download immediately when it 
detects that the article contains an attachment of that type? Perhaps this 
requires some kind of scanning the download-stream. Additionally the article 
should be marked with a "bomb" as a feedback to the user.

5. Add more "scoring-rules"

currently there are 8 possible entries, and that is not enough for me. 
Perhaps i have trouble using regular expressions. if those are possible here, 
an example would be usefull for me ( how could i create just 1 rule that 
apllies to all subjects containing the word "ATTRACT" or  the word "MEET" or 
the word "PHEROM"). Otherwise please make the rules-panel scrollable and 
change the fixed number of entries to "open end". 

6. Downloading a couple of articles

This point is a extension to point 3. It would be much easier to create a 
download queue if it would be possible to mark a group of articles (click and 
shift-click or cntrl-click) and then enter the whole group into the download 
queue by a entry in the menu that pops up with a click on the right 
mouse-button.

7. Multipart messages

i have already written a small KDE2-app that joins partial messages which are 
transfered by drag and drop from the filemanager. The only drag-n-drop 
functionalities i found in knode are
- drag a attachment to a folder as a link to the article (even if it is 
already downloaded), 
- drag a article to a folder, but you can only use 1 and you have to enter a 
name for it. If you want to download a movieclip that consists of dozneds of 
parts, this is not usable. Why not mark a group of articles and take the 
subject as filename?
So i can not use it directly. How are your plans to integrate the handling of 
multipart-messages into knode directly?

regards

Peter



 
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