Re: mutt and ncurses
On Tue, 1 Feb 2000, Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 01, 2000 at 05:04:46PM +0000, Jules Bean wrote:
> > On Tue, 1 Feb 2000, Michael Stone wrote:
> >
> > But there is another issue here:
> >
> > I use, on a basis varying from very rarely to very regularly, a wide range
> > of programs on my linux system. Those which I use most frequently
> > (enlightenment, gnome-panel, emacs, lyx) I'm prepared to invest the time
> > to find out about their complex configuration possibilities. For the
> > other hundred or so, I rely on the debian maintainers arranging reasonable
> > defaults, since I don't have the time to learn about those programs in
> > detail - I just want them to work.
> >
> > I don't know whether this point is directly relevant to the mutt/ncurses
> > issue. I just feel it needs making. Debian maintainers should attempt,
> > where feasible, to set up sufficiently powerful defaults that casual users
> > find that most things Just Work (tm).
>
> What about inventing some system (/etc/ui and ~/.ui), by which one can choose
> her favourite keyboard settings (vi, lynx, emacs ...) and general colorization
> (white on blue, green on black, black on cyan ...) for *all* programs ?
> This could esien custom setups a-lot. We need only some specification, little
> library and make ~100 programs use this library.
To some extent, this is what the XResources system does. But very few
understand it or use it, and projects which come after (e.g. GNOME) have,
for reasons good or bad (I've no idea) chosen not to use them.
They seem very elegant to me.
Jules
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| Jules aka | jules@debian.org | Richmond, Surrey |
| Julian Bean | jmlb2@hermes.cam.ac.uk | TW9 2TF *UK* |
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