Anthony, at 22:52 on Sat, Apr 16 1994, you wrote to Bill Grimsley ...

BG> Oh, OK then, I won't tell you that I've emulated OLX 3.nn 
BG> with msged.cfg, but I will tell you that I've also emulated 
BG> its colour scheme, and shitty UIs aside, that degree of 
BG> configurability is what makes a good program IMO.  ;-)

AM> Crap. |-)

Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you were Rod for a moment!

AM> You can have all the configurability you like, but if the basic 
AM> user interface is a flat nonprompting button pushing exercise 
AM> like Binkley is for instance, it 'aint worth shit IMHO.

That's why God gave us brains (to remember keystrokes) and help 
screens for the times we don't.  You forget, I do NOT like GUIs, 
nor using the mouse, and I hate icons, so as a CLI user, I find 
the Bink/Squish/Msged combination just fine for my needs.

AM> - if OLX was so good in the first place, then why are you
AM> finding yourself needing to copy part of it's U/I into MsgEd?

BG> Mainly because I prefer single hot-keys to Alt-whatever 
BG> keystrokes, and Msged can have every single key on the 
BG> keyboard altered to suit the user's needs, in both read and 
BG> edit modes, but then I'm sure you didn't want to hear that 
BG> either.  ;-)

AM> Not particularly - and you're wrong anyway. |-)  

Piss off, Rod!  ;-)

AM> IMHO of course... ;)  

Yeah, well we all know about opinions, don't we ...  ;-)

AM> I don't think the plain unshifted, unCTRLed or unALTed keys 
AM> should be use for anything except text entry in an application 
AM> where text entry has to occur on a regular basis - such as a mail 
AM> reader.  That's what the shift ctrl and alt keys are for.

In edit or text-entry mode, sure, but in read-only mode, it saves 
a lot of stuffing about IMO.  OLX and SLMR have always worked like 
that, which is why I configured Msged do the same.  Familiarity.

AM> Sounds like masochism to me! - not to mention blind zealotry!

BG> Zealotry?  For what?  Msged or OS/2 (or both) ??

AM> For OS/2.  Changing to using a native app simply because 
AM> it's OS/2 - despite email being the PCs major usage and 
AM> therefore the quality of that one app needing to be one of 
AM> best available.  And you go and use that msged crap...   
AM> It's pure blind zealotry. ;)

IYHO, of course.  ;-)

BG> Nope, I'm just happy that unlike some others here, my point 
BG> system works perfectly first time, every time, and if it ain't 
BG> broke ... ;-)

AM> ...don't fix it?  But you have and continue to do so - 
AM> you've gone to all this trouble to make it similar to OLX.  

Only because I developed a close familiarity with OLX, and found it 
easier on my brain to change Msged than to learn a whole new series 
of keystrokes.  Surely even you can understand that!  ;-)

AM> QED, it must have been 'broke' before hand for it to need to 
AM> be modified to be like that of something with a decent U/I.

Nope, it's perfectly fine as it comes, and at least it has the 
ability to be reconfigured to whatever the user wants, unlike most 
other apps currently available.

AM> Don't worry too much about it Bill - I understand zealotry 
AM> perfectly... ;)

Really?  You must explain it to me sometime then.  

Regards, Bill

--- Msgedsq/2 2.2e