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Date:      Mon, 5 Aug 2019 07:05:22 +0200
From:      Polytropon <freebsd@edvax.de>
To:        hw <hw@adminart.net>
Cc:        freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: thunderbird in German?
Message-ID:  <20190805070522.be1fb873.freebsd@edvax.de>
In-Reply-To: <87pnllbxp7.fsf@toy.adminart.net>
References:  <87o91bw4mx.fsf@toy.adminart.net> <20190731012754.3783a859.freebsd@edvax.de> <878ssc5v3x.fsf@toy.adminart.net> <20190802053434.6babd0d0.freebsd@edvax.de> <87y30b8h0v.fsf@toy.adminart.net> <20190803042205.550f5903.freebsd@edvax.de> <87pnllbxp7.fsf@toy.adminart.net>

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On Sun, 04 Aug 2019 02:07:00 +0200, hw wrote:
> Polytropon <freebsd@edvax.de> writes:
> 
> > On Fri, 02 Aug 2019 22:10:56 +0200, hw wrote:
> >> Polytropon <freebsd@edvax.de> writes:
> >> 
> >> > On Fri, 02 Aug 2019 01:22:42 +0200, hw wrote:
> >> >> Polytropon <freebsd@edvax.de> writes:
> >> >> 
> >> [...]
> > While it has been good practice for decades to use -Wall and its
> > equivalents, it doesn't seem to be important anymore.  Compile time
> > errors and warnings are irrelevant just as runtime warnings and
> > errors.
> 
> My impression is that software is now generally much more stable than it
> used to be.  I don't know why, perhaps better tools became available.

Yes, program stability has improved, especially for web browsers.
But it's more than fair to acknowledge that the complexity of a
web browser is comparable to the complexity of a whole operating
system.



> > You can easily verify this by launching any "modern" Gtk or Qt program
> > from a terminal, say, Firefox, Gimp, and so on.
> 
> You mean the messages they're printing and nobody knows what they are
> about?  I have written a small program in perl that uses Gtk and it
> prints a message when I quit it.  There is no reason for it to do that,
> so what should I do:
> 
> 
>         (in cleanup)    (in cleanup)  at /usr/local/lib/perl/Database.pm line 163 during global destruction.
> 
> 
> Line 163 disconnects from the database, using the disconnect method of
> DBI.  There is no such message in programs without Gtk, doing the same
> thing, using the same source.  It seems such messages show up for no
> reason.

I'm refering to things that seem to signal an error or a condition
that should never appear. Here are a few:

	(gimp:3022): GLib-WARNING **:
	goption.c:2132: ignoring no-arg,
	optional-arg or filename flags (8) on option of type 0

	(gimp:3022): Gimp-Display-CRITICAL **:
	render_image_tile_fault: assertion `tile[4] != NULL' failed
	end from FAM server connection
	end from FAM server connection
	end from FAM server connection
	end from FAM server connection
	end from FAM server connection

	(gimp:3022): Gtk-CRITICAL **:
	IA__gtk_icon_info_load_icon: assertion `icon_info != NULL' failed
	end from FAM server connection
	end from FAM server connection

	(gimp:3022): Gimp-Display-CRITICAL **:
	render_image_tile_fault: assertion `tile[4] != NULL' failed

	(gimp:3022): Gtk-CRITICAL **:
	IA__gtk_icon_info_load_icon: assertion `icon_info != NULL' failed

	(gimp:3022): Gimp-Base-WARNING **:
	tile ref count balance: 20

	(process:3532): Gtk-WARNING **:
	Locale not supported by C library.
        Using the fallback 'C' locale.

	(gimp:4511): Gtk-CRITICAL **:
	IA__gtk_icon_info_load_icon: assertion `icon_info != NULL' failed
	libpng warning: zero length keyword
	libpng warning: Empty language field in iTXt chunk
	end from FAM server connection
	end from FAM server connection

A few can be explained (the last one probably refers to a damaged
or nonstandard PNG file), but the others are warnings and "CRITICAL",
where I think this should have been addressed during testing. Do
they still do testing today? :-)



> > Churning out new versions and new features often seems to be
> > more important that fixing bugs or working against bad decisions.
> > Doing it right for everyone is impossible, I know, but a certain
> > amount of "good old common sense" should be applied more. :-)
> 
> These kids don't have that.  How could they?

Need more download brain apps from smartphone. :-)



> >> > Because it's left to the users to find out how to do "nonstandard"
> >> > things like intending to change the interface language. Because
> >> > all the world only the English always! ;-)
> >> 
> >> and right handed, of course
> >
> > Remember that traditional X (and X applications using the XMotif
> > and Xaw / Xaw3d toolkits, if I remember correctly) provides a
> > "/ shaped" mouse pointer (instead of the traditional \ one), and
> > it can be enabled with "xsetroot -cursor_name right_ptr". However,
> > some programs use their own mouse pointer, and it will change
> > as soon as you point into such a window...
> 
> That's the same stupid idea as is behind programs insisting on doing
> the job of the window manager by drawing their own decorations.

Exactly. I don't get that idea anyway. Traditionally on X, you have
programs using different toolkits, and that's okay, because there is
no "one size fits all" kind of eierlegende Wollmilchsau GUI toolkit.
Inconsistent? Sure, but nobody cares. Those who claim that visual
consistency is "needed" are scared today after discovering that it
doesn't exist, not even on Mac (and "Windows" lost GUI consistency
decades ago).

A program's job is _not_ to do what the window manager does. A program
can request to be handled in a different way, for exaple, without
a window decoration (like XMMS MP3 player where it doesn't make sense,
or little utilities in the "system corner" like xconsole, xbiff,
xclock, xload, xcpufreq, etc.). But programs sometimes used their
own ugly white _mouse cursor_ for no reason! Using a specific
mouse cursor is normal for tools like Gimp, xfig, even LibreOffice.
But generic programs? Why?



> >> But when you use the trackball with your left hand, [...]
> >
> > That's entirely wrong. You don't use a trackball because it
> > does not exist. Everyone uses a mouse (old people) or taps on
> > the screen (young people). ;-)
> 
> Dunno, I've already been way ahead of those tiny tap-screens 35 years
> ago when I used an old black-and-white TV as a display for my computer.
> I could see everything on it, and I could even program the computer
> which made it rather useful, and, imagine that, without being spied upon
> and without being controlled by anyone else.  So I don't understand how
> anyone can put up with the useless crap you have to tap on while you
> can't see anything and achieve nothing.

That's totally intended. :-)



> >> [...] you suddenly notice
> >> how wrong all the GUIs are designed.  The old X programs can have the
> >> scroll bar on the left no problem, but all the new stuff is so great
> >> because it's immature and you have to click the like buttons nonetheless
> >> (even if you can't reach them because they're at odd locations).
> >
> > This is called "to explore". ;-)
> 
> Hallowed are the like buttons!  Who presses the greatest number of them
> will be rewarded with the most friends of them all!

I prefer the dislike buttons, I'd be tempted to click on _those_
rather than the Facebook spy machine's ones. :-)



> >> >> >> Is this a general problem
> >> >> >> with the language pack or something specific to FreeBSD?
> >> >> >
> >> >> > Not FreeBSD-specific. It's one of the typical problems of
> >> >> > "constant change" when dealing with Mozilla software... :-/
> >> >> 
> >> >> Is there a usable alternative to Thunderbird for an IMAP client?
> >> >
> >> > Yes, Sylpheed is a lightweight and still very convenient and
> >> > usable MUA. It supports IMAP (as well as SMTP and POP3, which
> >> > is so obvious that I don't need to mention it).
> >> 
> >> Hm.  I'll try that out, thanks.  If that is in German, the users can
> >> decide what causes them more confusion: the same program they're used to
> >> in English but German or a new program they've never used, but in German.
> >
> > Sylpheed is in any language you want (English and German verified),
> > depending on what $LC_* says.
> 
> I tried it yesterday, and it has come a long way.  I think the last time
> I tried it, it was called slightly different with claws, and it crashed
> all the time.

Yes, I had the same problem on FreeBSD/AMD64. I'm not using the
Claws version ("Claws mail" today? I don't know due to the many
name chances...) and I'm more than happy with it. It does what
I want, and even better (!): It does _not_ do what I _don't_ want
it to do, like rendering HTML, automatically open attachments,
or other nonsense. It also integrates well with my mailing setup,
a nonstandard configuration that "modern" MUAs probably cannot
even be configured to attach to, because there's "only one way"
to access mail.



> It starts like 10 times faster than Thunderbird and even
> lets me use emacs.

Yes, you can use an external editor. The file selection dialogs
are also better than the modern "tablet mode oriented" ones.
And it doesn't have a calender. And no add-ins, add-ons,
extensions, and the like. Still you can configure a lot, like
generating mail as text, using the preferred encoding...



> Writing any email that is more than two sentences
> with Thunderbird or seamonkey is always a pain because their built-in
> editor sucks so badly and they force you to use it.

You can still get it a little better, but you need to go into
the configuration dialogs and change a lot - change it _back_
to sane defaults.



> But I haven't figured out how to make it so that libreoffice instead of
> gedit is the default program to open spreadsheets attached to
> emails.

Right-click on attachment, select "Open with", enter the command
needed for this file type, and it will be saved. For example, I
have two different commands for PDF attachments - simply because
I sometimes need program A, sometimes program B, depending on
the PDF file.





-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...



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