PLEASE use MIME Atttachments! (was: Re: [FIX] Comments for Set...)

Richard A. O'Keefe ok at cs.otago.ac.nz
Tue Apr 30 21:46:59 UTC 2002


I wrote:
	> So when I saw a great big button labelled "send message", I not
	> unreasonably expected it to SEND THE MESSAGE. This was the lie.  That
	> button does NOT mean "send the message", it means "add the message to
	> the .tosend category".

Bert Freudenberg <bert at isg.cs.uni-magdeburg.de> wrote:
	Indeed, this is what Celeste users expect. What happened was that you were
	classified as "Celeste user" because you had, as you admitted, tried to
	use Celeste before.
	
I think there is some misunderstanding here.
I *had* previously tried to use 'mail to list'.
The problem occured on the very first use.

	If you had *never* before used Celeste, then "send message" would have 
	sent the message out immediately. I just checked, it works.
	
I had never successfully used Celeste in this image before.
I did NOT have a Celeste data base on disc.  In fact it explicitly
asked for permission to create one, and if that doesn't make me a
"first time" Celeste user, what would?
In particular, when I first tried 'mail to list' last week, and right
up until I discovered what the problem was, Celeste's SMTP server
variable was still nil, and if _that_ doesn't make me someone who has
never sent or received a message using Celeste, what would?

	I second that, or a similar arrangement. Maybe the "send" button could
	just be labeled depending upon what it actually will do, that is, if you
	are classified as Celeste user or not. For example, "move to .tosend"  
	vs. "send now".
	
Not quite good enough.  The thing is that someone who is NOT familiar with
the way 'home user' mail systems work WILL know that the message has not
been sent but WON'T yet know how to send it.
	
If the 'Send message' button were merely relabelled to 'Move to .tosend',
then it would also be necessary to add two items to the menu that is
accessible from items in the .tosend category:
    Send this message now.
    Send all messages now.

The reason that I asked for
 [Send message later][Send message now][Add attachment]
is that that I don't envisage _ever_ wanting 'Send message later'.
"Send message NOW" is the operation I want, and Celeste _could_ support
it (I'm up to my ears in a document review for a consulting project, or
I would have a go at this myself; if no-one else does it I may try later)
quite easily, so why should Celeste make the operation hard?

An alternative would be to have a preference:
    celesteSendJustQueues *true* should 'sending' a message in Celeste
        add it to the .tosend category (true) or send it immediately (false).
	Wording of "send" button adapts to this setting.

It's reasonable to expect people to know about Preferences (on the left side
flap) and the Preferences panel has a search facility, so it's easy enough
for people to find out what preferences are specific to Celeste.



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