[115] in Zephyr_Comments
doing zwrite-signature right
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (jik@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Mon Oct 24 23:59:28 1988
From: <jik@ATHENA.MIT.EDU>
Date: Mon, 24 Oct 88 23:59:06 EDT
To: zephyr-comments@ATHENA.MIT.EDU
I, too, really hate the way zwrite handles the zwrite-signature now.
The most obvious problem with it is that if you're *going* to do it
the way you're doing it now, at least you should print a blank line
between the from line and the message test. I believe I've submitted
a patch to zwrite to do that to zephyr-comments before. If not, I can
get it out of my RCS zwrite directory if you want to see it.
Second, you *shouldn't* be doing it the way you're doing it now. The
"From: " should *not* be part of the zwrite-signature field, because
when it's like that you can't separate out just the name to put where
you want it.
Suggested implementation in the next release:
Make two changes to zwrite:
1. When sending a signature, the "From: " should be a separate
field, i.e. put a null after it.
2. When not sending a signature, you should include two nulls before
the signature to show that there *are* fields for the "From: "
and the signature there, but they're blank.
Change the global default zephyr.desc file so that it does something
like this:
fields fromtxt signature text
does x$fromtxt
match x
show
@center(@bold($aval) $type message at $time on $date:)
From: @bold($sender)
$text
endshow
exit
endmatch
match "From: "
show
@center(@bold($aval) $type message at $time on $date:)
From: @bold($signature <$sender>)
endshow
exit
endmatch
enddoes
The advantage to doing it the way I've described is that people who
already have .zephyr.desc files and don't make this change to them
will still continue to get the signatures the way they've been getting
them -- as the first line of the message.
The alternative to this is to make $signature a header field which is
displayed properly by the default zephyr.desc, in which case people
who have their own .zephyr.desc files won't see the signature unless
they specifically alter their .zephyr.desc to display it.
jik
P.S. It *is* possible to fiddle around a little bit with how the
signature is displayed in the current implementation. See my
.zephyr.desc file for one example -- the only difference between what
I've got it doing and what the real thing, if implemented properly,
should do is that I've got the From: in bold-face, because I've got no
other choice. Oh, well.
