• Reasons for not clipping out un-needed text (was USENET, the OG social

    From Jim Jackson@21:1/5 to rdh on Wed Sep 13 18:01:03 2023
    References: <1531475146@f172.n1.z21.fsxnet> <lEIKM.585771$Fgta.181666@fx10.iad> <udgb2d$3obdi$3@dont-email.me> <udgujh$3udev$2@dont-email.me> <C4HLM.1176633$SuUf.32855@fx14.iad>
    Followup-To:

    On 2023-09-11, rdh <rdh@tilde.institute> wrote:
    On 9/9/23 00:08, Rich wrote:
    Typically you get your editor pre-loaded with quoted text from the
    article and you enter your responses (and clip out parts that no longer
    need to remain).

    That last bit doesn't happen as much as it should.

    Yes indeedy. But why?

    Ok the obvious - idleness, in a hurry, lack of focus.

    The not obvious - how many "editors" in non-text apoplications make it difficult? The one's I've come across need you to highlight the bit to
    delete, then hit delete. While text mode editors have mark/line delete
    keyboard functions which work quite quick (for those that use them). I'm
    happy using vi or emacs type keys for delete and finds it really quick.
    The quick line delete is particularly useful.

    Yes the highlight and delete is intuitive but it involves quite
    dexterous ability to hit the correct boundaries. And it involves the
    classic waste of time co-ordination shift from hands at keyboard to hand
    on mouse and back again.

    I understand some people even program in such crippled editors!

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Rich@21:1/5 to Jim Jackson on Wed Sep 13 18:25:39 2023
    Jim Jackson <jj@franjam.org.uk> wrote:
    References: <1531475146@f172.n1.z21.fsxnet> <lEIKM.585771$Fgta.181666@fx10.iad> <udgb2d$3obdi$3@dont-email.me> <udgujh$3udev$2@dont-email.me> <C4HLM.1176633$SuUf.32855@fx14.iad>
    Followup-To:

    On 2023-09-11, rdh <rdh@tilde.institute> wrote:
    On 9/9/23 00:08, Rich wrote:
    Typically you get your editor pre-loaded with quoted text from the
    article and you enter your responses (and clip out parts that no longer
    need to remain).

    That last bit doesn't happen as much as it should.

    Yes indeedy. But why?

    Ok the obvious - idleness, in a hurry, lack of focus.

    The not obvious - how many "editors" in non-text apoplications make it difficult? The one's I've come across need you to highlight the bit to delete, then hit delete. While text mode editors have mark/line delete keyboard functions which work quite quick (for those that use them). I'm happy using vi or emacs type keys for delete and finds it really quick.
    The quick line delete is particularly useful.

    Or, in the case of google groups users it is that the GG web interface
    hides all the quoted text initially behind a small (IIRC) grey "plus to
    expand here" icon that can be easily overlooked. So many of them are completely unaware that there is even quoted text to trim.

    And, I think when reading in GG, it also hides the quoted text, because
    the actual article content is "just above" in their web view. So not
    only do they have no reminder to trim when writing, but they don't see
    the mess they make when they fail to trim, because the web ui hides
    that mess from them behind another little "expand this" icon.

    If other builtin newsreader editors do anything similar, then another
    reason can be because the user didn't pay attemtion, and their editor
    defaults (and/or reader defaults) hid from them most of the view
    necessary to remind them to trim.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)