Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!genrad!decvax!harpo!floyd!vax135!ariel!hou5f!orion!houca!hogpc!houxm!ihnp4!ihldt!jhh From: jhh@ihldt.UUCP Newsgroups: net.news Subject: Re: A gripe about 2.10 readnews - (nf) Message-ID: <1694@ihldt.UUCP> Date: Fri, 17-Jun-83 15:32:15 EDT Article-I.D.: ihldt.1694 Posted: Fri Jun 17 15:32:15 1983 Date-Received: Tue, 21-Jun-83 01:08:29 EDT Lines: 24 Flame on There is nothing worse than allowing selection of a pager by environment variables and then customizing the call of that pager to one and only one pager. The same thing happenned with the mail responses. The first implementation was all tied to UCB through Mail and/or vi. While I have nothing against them, I use Montgomery's EMACS and it's mail interface, which does not support giving an address as an option. News 2.10 has fixed that problem by sending the response to EDITOR, and mailing the result. This allows any editor to be used. If enhancements to an interface are made, make them portable. One method could be to specify options in the PAGER variable. Also, be sure that they are upward compatible with current software. Not everybody has time to make changes over all the source code so that everything works together. There are some places that do not want the PAGER invoked on the real file because the location of those files is not fully known. Flame off. John Haller