greyham@hades.OZ (Greyham Stoney) (09/26/89)
in article <1169@ispi.UUCP>, jbayer@ispi.UUCP (Jonathan Bayer) says: > I just had a small problem where I had about a dozen messages I wanted > to reply to, using the same message. Apparently I cannot reply to more > than one at a time. How about a 'R' that would reply to all tagged > messages at the same time? Yeah - I do this a lot too!. How about it?. -- /* Greyham Stoney: Australia: (02) 428 6476 * * greyham@hades.oz - Ausonics Pty Ltd, Lane Cove, Sydney, Oz. * * TDMP/IP: Telepathic Direct Marketing Personel Interface Protocol */
mike@cochise (09/30/89)
ok, let's try again (maybe our news SW will accept this ;-):
greyham@hades.OZ (Greyham Stoney) writes:
->in article <1169@ispi.UUCP>, jbayer@ispi.UUCP (Jonathan Bayer) says:
->> I just had a small problem where I had about a dozen messages I wanted
->> to reply to, using the same message. Apparently I cannot reply to more
->> than one at a time. How about a 'R' that would reply to all tagged
->> messages at the same time?
->Yeah - I do this a lot too!. How about it?.
Best idea I've heard in a long time re. ELM features. Syd, I hope
this goes thru. How about adding a command for piping 't'agged
messages to one command (I've griped about this before - having to
pipe each message in a folder to unshar eg.)
---
Mike Schroeder PCS-Mail: msc
DOMAIN: msc@cochise.pcs.de (EUR) or msc@cochise.pcs.com (US)
BANG: ..unido!pcsbst!msc (EUR) or ..pyramid!pcsbst!msc (US)ignatz@chinet.chi.il.us (Dave Ihnat) (09/30/89)
While discussing 'tag', frankly it would make sense to make it orthogonal for all reasonable commands--i.e., all tagged messages are forwarded, bounced, saved, deleted, etc. This would make handling classes of messages a *lot* easier! Dave Ihnat Analysts International Corporation ignatz@homebru.chi.il.us (preferred return address) ignatz@chinet.chi.il.us
taylor@limbo.Intuitive.Com (Dave Taylor) (10/02/89)
Dave Ihnat comments that it would make sense to have "tag" be orthogonal for
all 'reasonable' commands, including 'forwarding' 'bouncing', 'replying', &c.
Well, I'll tell ya, from my way of thinking, Elm *is* orthogonal with the
tag command for all 'reasonable' commands...
The reason that Elm doesn't currently support tagged/mass replying, forwarding,
etc, is that it isn't at all obvious how one would want that to work. In other
words, if I have, say, three email messages in my mailbox that I'd like to
forward to you, Dave, there are a number of possible things that could happen
if I "tag" them all, then press "meta-forward" [or whatever] to send them all
to you. Among the possibilities; each is sent as a separate message to you,
they are all bundled into a single message and sent to you, or they are added
to a 'meta' message that contains further information about the group, and
are then sent to you.
The complexity isn't so much with forwarding, really, as it is with something
like 'reply'. What does it mean, for example, to tag two messages from two
different people, then choose "reply"? Should you be allowed to compose a
single message that would go to both of them? Should they know of each other?
Or should you be creating a 'template' message that would then be automatically
sent to each of them, separately?
What if you want to mass reply to a stack of messages, but also want to include
a separate note to one or two of the people? The 'template' approach might be
the best in that case, but if you *don't* want to personalize any, and/or you
don't care that each learn about the other, it is the wrong solution.
One of the big issues to me was also privacy; if I send personal email to
someone about, say, a posting they made on the net, just 'cause I'm part of
a group, doesn't mean that I want OTHER people to read my note to the person.
If they have a mass-reply '+ include text of message' feature, then it's
quite easy to do that. Plus the whole privacy/security issue of knowing who
else sent mail to the person on a specific subject.
It really seemed to be a can of worms at the time I added the 'tag'
capabilities, which is why tagging only affects local operations, including
printing, saving to files, &c.
I would be interested in hearing more thoughts on this subject.
Sitting on a cornflake,
waiting for the man to come...
-- Dave Taylor
Intuitive Systems
Mountain View, California
taylor@limbo.intuitive.com or {uunet!}{decwrl,apple}!limbo!taylorgaryb@gallium.UUCP (Gary Blumenstein) (10/03/89)
In article <9705@chinet.chi.il.us> ignatz@chinet.chi.il.us (Dave Ihnat) writes: >While discussing 'tag', frankly it would make sense to make it orthogonal for >all reasonable commands--i.e., all tagged messages are forwarded, bounced, >saved, deleted, etc. This would make handling classes of messages a *lot* >easier! I'll second that. It's an excellent idea! -- Gary Blumenstein, UNIX Network Administrator // CIBA-GEIGY CORPORATION, USA =========================================================================== Voice: (914) 347-4700 7 Skyline Drive, Hawthorne, NY 10532 FAX : (914) 347-5687 uucp: ...{philabs, gaboon}!crpmks!{sysadm, garyb}
mark@DRD.Com (Mark Lawrence) (10/04/89)
taylor@limbo.Intuitive.Com (Dave Taylor) wrote: } Dave Ihnat comments that it would make sense to have "tag" be orthogonal for } all 'reasonable' commands, including 'forwarding' 'bouncing', 'replying', &c. } } Well, I'll tell ya, from my way of thinking, Elm *is* orthogonal with the } tag command for all 'reasonable' commands... *Bouncing* tagged messages seems reasonable to me. As an administrator (system and mailing list), I have occasion to bounce a mass of selected messages from a folder. I agree in principle with Dave's other comments about the semantics of forwarding and replying. I suppose one could make the argument for tagging messages in order to designate addresses and then replying or fowarding the message currently selected (the one currently being read or where the cursor is currently positioned) and utilizing the text of that message for the contents to be sent to the recipients designated by the tagged messages. Of course, that is just Dave's point. The 'intuitive-ness' of the semantics of such an operation is fairly subjective. I'd still like to register my desire for being able to bounce tagged messages. -- mark@DRD.Com (918) 743-3013 Jer. 9:23,24 {uunet,rutgers}!drd!mark
caa@garnet.ssd.cdc.com (Charles A. Anderson) (10/04/89)
Dave Taylor makes comments about how to implement the tagged reply, forward, etc... My suggestion is that it works just like you hit reply or forward on each of the messages sequentially. Tagging three messages and hitting forward sends out three messages. Tagging three messages and hitting reply brings up the editor three times for you to compose a message. I don't think Dave's privacy point holds up, if I want to send the same message to a bunch of people, and add some comments to it, I'll CC: the lot or have a group alias set up. Tagged save works just like I want it to. -charlie -- Charles Anderson | caa@garnet.ssd.cdc.com \ Disclaimer: I said what? ----------------/ caa@midgard.mn.org \ But CDC didn't. I woke up this morning and it was nice out, so I left it out.
mike@cochise (10/04/89)
taylor@limbo.Intuitive.Com (Dave Taylor) writes:
->Dave Ihnat comments that it would make sense to have "tag" be orthogonal for
->all 'reasonable' commands, including 'forwarding' 'bouncing', 'replying', &c.
->Well, I'll tell ya, from my way of thinking, Elm *is* orthogonal with the
->tag command for all 'reasonable' commands...
[ some stuff deleted ...]
->It really seemed to be a can of worms at the time I added the 'tag'
->capabilities, which is why tagging only affects local operations, including
->printing, saving to files, &c.
-> I would be interested in hearing more thoughts on this subject.
I agree with just about all that Dave Taylor says (writes ;-),
except that IMHO, local commands also includes in particular
piping messages to a command (I know, this is the third time I've
stated this;-). But, Dave, hav