invert the "abort-noattach" question
Dear mutt devs, The abort_noattach feature that was added in mutt 1.10 is useful but counter-intuitive. You expect a "do you wish to continue" question and automatically answer "N", which results in accidentally sending the email without attachment. I learned to be really careful with this question now, but wondered if it is a good idea (or even still possible) to invert this question so other users don't run into this as well. Best, Daan signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: invert the "abort-noattach" question
On Fri, Nov 02, 2018 at 11:58:57AM +0100, Daan van Rossum wrote: > The abort_noattach feature that was added in mutt 1.10 is useful but > counter-intuitive. You expect a "do you wish to continue" question > and automatically answer "N", which results in accidentally sending > the email without attachment. > > I learned to be really careful with this question now, but wondered if > it is a good idea (or even still possible) to invert this question so > other users don't run into this as well. Unfortunately, there is more precedence to the feature than the 1.10 release. It was pulled from a Debian patch, and has also been in NeoMutt for a while. So, while I'm sympathetic, I think it would cause more turmoil to reverse the behavior. You do have a good point about the inconsistency with the prompts though. Looking at other quadoptions it's split down the middle which answer aborts potentially undesirable behavior: With these you answer "yes" to stop: abort_noattach abort_nosubject abort_unmodified postpone While with these you answer no: delete pop_delete print quit The upside is the first four all have to do with message composition, so generally choosing "yes" during message composition is the safe answer! For your case, you may want to try setting $abort_noattach to "yes", and then adding a 'Y' macro to override: macro compose Y 'set abort_noattach=no\ set abort_noattach=yes' -- Kevin J. McCarthy GPG Fingerprint: 8975 A9B3 3AA3 7910 385C 5308 ADEF 7684 8031 6BDA signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: invert the "abort-noattach" question
On Fri, Nov 02, 2018 at 10:08:30AM -0700, Kevin J. McCarthy wrote: > With these you answer "yes" to stop: > abort_noattach > abort_nosubject > abort_unmodified > postpone The postpone question is special because both answers stop. In fact, if you quit accidentally and get asked the question "Postpone this message? ([yes]/no):" then what you should never do is answer "no" on the grounds that you want to continue editing the message instead of postponing it, because that will actually discard the message. imc
Re: invert the "abort-noattach" question
* Ian Collier [11-02-18 14:20]: > On Fri, Nov 02, 2018 at 10:08:30AM -0700, Kevin J. McCarthy wrote: > > With these you answer "yes" to stop: > > abort_noattach > > abort_nosubject > > abort_unmodified > > postpone > > The postpone question is special because both answers stop. > In fact, if you quit accidentally and get asked the question > "Postpone this message? ([yes]/no):" then what you should never > do is answer "no" on the grounds that you want to continue editing > the message instead of postponing it, because that will actually > discard the message. yes, you *should* to abort the questioned action you cannot expect mutt to know what or when you make an unintended action. -- (paka)Patrick Shanahan Plainfield, Indiana, USA @ptilopteri http://en.opensuse.orgopenSUSE Community Memberfacebook/ptilopteri Registered Linux User #207535@ http://linuxcounter.net Photos: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/piwigo paka @ IRCnet freenode
Re: invert the "abort-noattach" question
On 02Nov2018 17:19, Patrick Shanahan wrote: * Ian Collier [11-02-18 14:20]: On Fri, Nov 02, 2018 at 10:08:30AM -0700, Kevin J. McCarthy wrote: > With these you answer "yes" to stop: > abort_noattach > abort_nosubject > abort_unmodified > postpone The postpone question is special because both answers stop. In fact, if you quit accidentally and get asked the question "Postpone this message? ([yes]/no):" then what you should never do is answer "no" on the grounds that you want to continue editing the message instead of postponing it, because that will actually discard the message. yes, you *should* to abort the questioned action you cannot expect mutt to know what or when you make an unintended action. No, but you can and often should make the default answers to questions (a) not throw data away and (b) more generally, not do harm. On that basis: postpone should default to yes. Now, on the premise of Heuer's Law: If it can't be turned off, it's not a feature. - Karl Heuer the settings of postpone and abort_noattach etc should constitute the defaults, and mutt's _unconfigured_ state should set these to "do no harm, lose no data" defaults. My personal practice is that (a) defaults should do the least harm and that (b) the default answer should be "no" or "false" consistently, and options construed such that "no" or "false" means the safer choice. As an example, when I write Python functions with optional Boolean parameters, those parameters _always_ default to False, and the parameter's name is so defined that False is the safer (or less weird, when "safer" is less well defined) mode. Cheers, Cameron Simpson
