Paul, at 19:06 on Jul 28 1995, you wrote to Bill Grimsley...

BG> Stop shouting at me, you complete bastard!  And you can crawl back into 
BG> your hole now, 'cos I DID just try your suggestion, and it DOESN'T BLOODY 
BG> WORK!  It's all very well to be "pretty sure", but you
really should have 
BG> tested it yourself.  Have fun wiping all that egg from your face.  :)

PE> The reason I didn't test it was because I was pretty sure it would
PE> work, so there was no need to. 

Just like you're pretty sure your Spirit should not connect improperly, nor
double-send, nor sometimes fail to emit negotiation tones, right?

PE> I will now investigate why it doesn't work.

Your sort-of-apology is accepted.  :)

BG> Yeah, I know all that, but why disable Alt-X from everywhere else?

PE> In the old version, were you able to go Alt-X when you were in the
PE> "message list" screen? 

Yeah, I'm almost certain that you could.  From almost anywhere, in fact. 

PE> Now the "message read" section is second
PE> level down, and "message list" is 3rd level.

Whatever that means...

BG> what happened to the "areas" keyword?  Did you
intentionally disable it, or 
BG> was it an accident?

PE> It was disabled, because it would have sent the program into a
PE> bizaare recursive loop if I had not. 

How so?  If Esc brings it up, why not a special keyword as well?  Most
other functions are also duplicated with keywords, and they work just fine.

PE> However, I will find out why "quit" does not work for you.
 That readkey I 
PE> sent you will probably be working in the next alpha! 

I can hardly wait.

BG> I'm almost used to it now, but I still miss the ability to do a quick exit 
BG> WITHOUT having to bring up the area list first.  I'm also concerned that 

PE> It's basically the same as you had to do if you wanted a quick
PE> exit from the "message list" in the old version, you can't do
PE> it.  But the double-Alt-X is a good idea.

Dunno, to replace the original intuitive Alt-A with Alt-X (which had
previously been used as a global exit) seems extremely retrograde to me. 
Presumably you realise that the help screens will now also need changing?

BG> you may have fucked up other keywords without realising it, 

PE> No, it was deliberate.

Fair enough.

PE> P.S. Investigation reveals that it is "exit" not
"quit" that you need.

OK, I'll try that later and let you know.

PE> And the principle remains the same, don't make assumptions about things not 
PE> working when you haven't tried them, and passing them off as facts, because 
PE> you were CERTAINLY WRONG, even though I was also a little bit wrong.

Que?  You said "try this, it'll definitely work", so I did, but
it didn't work at all.  Ergo, don't make assumptions about things working
when you haven't tried them, and attempt to pass them off as facts, because
you were CERTAINLY WRONG, and I was 100% correct.

Your turn.

Regards, Bill
@EOT:

--- Msgedsq/2 3.20 alpha 6