[Gllug] is KMAIL a good enough client for gllug?

[Nix]

On Thu, 08 Sep 2005, Rich Walker spake:
> Nix <nix at esperi.org.uk> writes:
> 
>> On Thu, 8 Sep 2005, paul at thinksolution.net prattled cheerily:
>>> I'm always surprised that people who remember the days of micro's
>>> dont want to catch up with the rest of the world.
>>
>> I've moved beyond it. I went through my graphics-freak
>> ooh-look-it's-GUI-it-must-be-cool phase when I was about fifteen, when
> 
> I think that exposure to GUIs between the ages of 5 and 15 is a Good
> Thing; it usually means that when you finally see someone using all 10
> input fingers concurrently you Get It pretty quickly.

Yes. (I was exposed to *textual* interfaces when I was, oh, six, so in
part this might be a case of `what you start with is the only good way':
but then I was using a micro running BASIC then, and a DOS box
afterwards, so that obviously doesn't apply at all times.

>> Windows 2 was new and Linux hadn't been thought of. Now I run X as a
>> way
> 
> Grief! I believe my first "cool GUI" experience involved the AMX Mouse
> on a BBC. I even wrote software for it...

Oh wow. I'd quite forgotten my one-day-long experience with that.

Thanks for digging up the memories. :)

>> to get tiny fonts and lots of colours and tabbed konsoles and session
>> management and the occasional bit of GUI here and there, for those
>> programs which actually benefit from it. (e.g. the book classification
> 
> I find w3m provides most of the GUIness I need when I need it - the
> ability to display images on a text console is one Monster Hack and well
> worth supporting...

Well, it can only do that in an xterm... and yes, it's an *appalling*
hack.

>> program I'm classifying my library with, Tellico, which can display the
>> cover of your book if you can't remember what the book looks like.
>> That's a good use of graphics, because you can't do it with text
>> at all.)
> 
> Ooh. Now, if I didn't have most of my library wrapped in plastic and in
> deep storage, I might try that...

If you wait a week I'll have given it a remote dcop interface. Wait another
week and I'll have it tied into XEmacs. :)

> [These days, I use "less" to read books on a laptop wherever possible. I
> get to choose the font and the font size, the pagination is irrelevant,
> I can use Search to find the previous reference to that d'd character to
> work out what was going on, and 1000 books weigh 1.6kg.]

Snap, except that I don't have enough books in textual form, and paper
*is* still far easier on the eyes.

>>> In my text I am refering to the look and feel of mutt and the fact
>>> that things have moved on now. We all own mice
>>
>> I have one (1) trackball on one of my machines, and either two or six or
>> fifteen[1] machines wih no mouse, keyboard or display whatsoever. The
>> only mice I own are in the waste-hardware box in case of trackball
>> failure (which had better never happen given the amount the combined
>> keyboard-and-trackball cost me).
> 
> Which is the keyboard+trackball - sounds interesting as a means of
> reducing desk space - and does it make Proper Clicking Noises?

No, I didn't care about that. It's one of these:
<http://www.maltron.co.uk/images/press/maltron-ergonomic-english-trackball-tq-hr1.jpg>

(Warning: *big* image.)

It costs a *lot*, but it's eliminated RSI symptoms for me completely ---
well, it would do if work would buy me one as well. As it is my RSI
intensifies at work and then fades at home, even though I do much more
typing at home than at work ('cos I'm not stopping typing all the time
'cos of the pain, that's why).

Selling conventional QWERTY keyboards and mice should be a criminal
offence. Warning labels won't cut it.

(Semi-serious there. I've seen *so many* people permanently injured by
those fucking things...)

>> Note that moving your hand from the keyboard to the mouse is difficult
>> and slow compared to hopping between keys. Since you *know* you'll be
>> using the keyboard when using an email program, unless you compose
>> emails with the mouse, why not stick with the same input device and
>> speed everything up and reduce RSI? (Composing emails with a pointing
> 
> Indeed, if you're in a position of authority in an organisation that
> requires people to use computers, promoting "not using the mouse" will
> be a wise Health and Safety decision ;->

I *wish*. I can't even get them to buy me something non-hideous. Hell,
they won't even get a (totally useless) wrist rest, or a chair that's
adjustable to the right height, or a keyboard costing more than five
quid.


(Health and safety law? They claim to conform to that by sending round a
leaflet each year asking you if you're sitting at the right height and
so on. The idea that the *keyboard itself* might be harmful, rather than
any problems being caused by just `using it wrong', hasn't occurred to
them.)

(I'll probably have an official diagnosis of RSI soon --- I've actually
got around to booking a doctor's appointment at last --- and then
perhaps they can be forced to actually *do* something.)

-- 
`... published last year in a limited edition... In one of the
 great tragedies of publishing, it was not a limited enough edition
 and so I have read it.' --- James Nicoll
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