Re: Internal viewer troubles.

[Pavel Roskin <proski gnu org>]

Hello!

> Of course I'm going to have to spend a considerable amount of time
> analyzing the source code before I can say anything about it, and maybe
> I'll just end up devising my own "hack" to do what I want, but more
> likely I'll find new things about linux and what makes it tick.

Please don't assume that GNU Midnight Commander or gnome-terminal, or any 
other program is only for Linux, unless this is clearly stated.  Looks at 
this statement on the mc homepage:

  GNU Midnight Commander is a file manager for free operating systems. 
  Like other GNU software, it is written in a portable manner and should 
  compile and run on a wide range of operating systems with some degree of 
  UNIX compatibility.

> I can imagine how annoying it is as a developer to keep answering the
> same dumb questions over and over again, but how else can a person find
> out those obscure and arcane details that are hard to find at best.

Good software should not have "obscure and arcane details".  Questions 
that demonstrate deficiency of user interface and documentation are not 
dumb, as long as they give enough details to fix the problem.

What is really annoying is the questions that don't tell the version
number (as if all versions have the same bugs) and ignorant
tongue-in-cheek remarks ("I don't want to install Gtk to run your
program").

> If you want to mock me, though, I'll post my
> panel-mousewheel-scroll.patch, and you can have some fun with it. It's
> probably a candidate for Ugly Hack Of The Week Award :)

Some people don't even realize how bad their patches are, or don't
document their changes, so that nobody can estimate the quality of the
code without much testing.  Those who do both are legitimate targets :-)

> It's not that bad, just a few lines in screen.c:panel_event(), one extra 
> local int to control a speedy mousewheel like mine (combine it with my 
> xterm-btn2-doubleclick.patch and I can lean back in my chair and surf!). 
> You'd hate it because it introduces ANOTHER option possibility that would
> need to be documented :) Keep up the good work. It's a great app in 
> spite of cut-n-paste hacksters like me :) I'm glad somebody around here 
> knows what they're doing...

You can still post your patch.  Somebody can pick it, improve it and apply
it later.  One of the reasons why I added mouse wheel support at all was
because I realized that it can be done without any new settings, dialogs,
translatable strings and changes in the manual.  But all that can be done
later if your patch does the right thing.

-- 
Regards,
Pavel Roskin