Paul, at 08:40 on Jul 27 1995, you wrote to Bill Grimsley...

BG> Alt-A still doesn't work at all, and Alt-X still brings up the area list, 
BG> same as before.  I can still only exit by bringing up the area list then 
BG> pressing Escape.  Very retrograde IMO.

PE> Bring up the area list and then go Alt-X is what I meant.

OK, that wasn't made clear at all, and I can now exit quickly by doing
Alt-X twice in succession (just have to remember it, that's all).

BG> readkey 0x0061 areas   ; a = bring up Areas list (3.1)

PE> Anyway, change it to "readkey 0x0061 quit" and it MIGHT work. 

BG> What will happen then is that pressing "a" will quit the
program, which is 
BG> not what I had in mind.  I want it to bring up the area-list, as before.

It does neither, I might add.

PE> Are you making this statement because you TRIED it and KNOW it
PE> to be true, or did you just make it up? 

BG> No, I didn't try it, because it's NOT what I wanted. 

PE> READ WHAT I SAID.  AND TRY IT INSTEAD OF JUST MAKING UP "FACTS"
PE> AS YOU GO ALONG.  I AM NOW PRETTY SURE THAT WHAT I SAID WILL
PE> WORK, AND BRING UP THE AREA LIST.

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

BG> I have to actually stop and think before bringing up the area list 
BG> with Escape (and if accidentally pressed twice, the program exits 
BG> completely!).

PE> Not if you have confirm on.  Surely you don't run with that off?

Not normally though, only while testing this version.

PE> What happens if you accidentally hit Alt-D?

So the current message disappears, tough shit.  Who cares?  Not me.

BG> Read and absorb this:  I don't mind you making the area list the main 
BG> focus, indeed, I think it's a good idea, but I do NOT like the use of 
BG> Escape to bring up said screen, when Escape also exits Msged from that 
BG> screen.  It's far too easy to accidentally double-press the key and find 
BG> yourself back in the WPS.  

PE> Why did you switch confirm off?  Try switching it on, and tell me
PE> what bad effects it has.

You seem to have forgotten that I had trapped the Escape key for exit only,
so confirmation was not necessary, which is why I had confirm off.  I used
Alt-X, just like every other program in the entire world, but now that I
can't, I have to allow the use of Escape to exit.  I know you can still use
Alt-X from the area list, but I liked to use it from anywhere, not just the
area list.

BG> Perhaps, but I've never seen YYYY-MM-DD used anywhere.  Not at all.

PE> That's because you've only ever dealt with English speaking 
PE> countries, not one of which uses that format.  Half of Europe
PE> uses the format, so does China.

BG> What a pity that nobody here uses fidonet to communicate with any of these 
BG> non English speaking countries then, wouldn't you say?  I wasn't aware that 
BG> Msged was capable of handling Chinese script characters...

PE> Well now you do.

Oh crap, now you're just being silly.

BG> the loss of Alt-A, Alt-X (to exit), and the "area" keyword.  

PE> Alt-X exits from the area screen.  You go TO a message area after
PE> going through the area list, that's why it's called making the
PE> area screen front-focus.

Yeah, I know all that, but why disable Alt-X from everywhere else?  And
what happened to the "areas" keyword?  Did you intentionally
disable it, or was it an accident?

BG> Dunno what else has changed, but these are certainly the most obvious, and 
BG> the ones which have already bitten me on the arse so far.

PE> Yeah, it is a big change, that's why it gets a 3.20.  It took me
PE> a week to get used to it again.  Switch confirm on and you'll find
PE> that it only takes a week to get into the swing of things!  

I'm almost used to it now, but I still miss the ability to do a quick exit
WITHOUT having to bring up the area list first.  I'm also concerned that
you may have fucked up other keywords without realising it, which will make
it rather difficult when somebody emails you and says "why doesn't the
xxxxx keyword work any more?" for example, and you don't know.

Regards, Bill
@EOT:

--- Msgedsq/2 3.20 alpha 6