Text 563, 77 rader
Skriven 2007-04-29 03:11:48 av Mvan Le (1:343/41.0)
    Kommentar till text 557 av Joe Bruchis (1:229/1394.0)
Ärende: What I Don't Like About Synchronet
==========================================
 JB> I was a Max SysOp many moons ago, and loved the 
 JB> freedom to customize.
 JB> I have run Synchronet Win/32 and it's extremely 
 JB> configurable, plus has an STMP email server, news 
 JB> server, telnet server and web interface.... and it all 
 JB> costs -0-.  Plus the support is free and always 
 JB> available in the many Sync related echoes. The author, 
 JB> Rob Swindell, will respond to questions in 24 hrs, but 
 JB> of course, requires everyone to consult the docs and 
 JB> try before asking.

Rob Swindell's alright. I get the feeling he doesn't like me very much. :)

As of v3.14, there're a couple of things I don't like about Synchronet. 

Mainly its message reading functionality. Thus far this is my critique, 

* When quoting replies lines are prefixed with ">" which eventually truncates
the quoted line, which means each reply truncates more of the original message
text.  

* It lacks some of the user-customisable message searching functions that
Maximus has eg. Browse Msg -> All areas -> List messages (instead of Read
messages) etc.  

* As of v3.14 it only has 2 options when scanning messages: 1) list message
titles, or 2) display messages -- which effectively reads the message and
updates the message pointer, and I might prefer pointers unmodified since I can
refer to those messages later ie. after a scan.  

* When listing message titles it clutters the screen with all the subgroups.

* When listing message titles it also lists -OLD- / read messages which
clutters the screen even more.

* Where's the 'read original' message option ? I only saw some sorting by
thread / author options ...

* Currently a plugin is required for new-message-received notifications. And
these notifications are displayed and then deleted during the logon process so
the user can't review those new message notifications later eg. subsequent
logons, which is quite inconvenient.  

* I don't like the board/sub-board (RA-style group/subgroup) file/message area
categorising method. Traversing the Maximus Usenet style divisions are a more
logical/relational/intuitive breakdown of message groups & areas. (imo). And 
the heirarchies can be embedded deep.

Interestingly the author said he had never encountered such feature requests,
which bewildered me, and led me to believe that the majority of Synchronet
users are more caught up in its internet 'spectacularisms' than messaging. 

But anyway, due to a revival of interest from the author on his dwindled
project; it took off. What makes Synchronet worthwhile, apart from its internet
capabilities and multiplatform support, is the active and enthusiastic
development community; which is how new features and bug fixes get rapidly
tested and implemented.  

Anything can be made "highly customisable" if you have source code. 

But Scott Dudley disappared off the face of the earth. I don't blame him.
So now there's only a half-arsed intermittently commited ragtag user group
left. 

Hypothetically if I contracted dozens of dedicated Chinese/Indian/Russian
students AUD$5k pa to develop Maximus it would easily be better than
Synchronet. Money is a powerful catalyst. 

Oh well. Maybe one day :)

"I'm a die-hard Maximus fan and I ain't switch'n, ever." -- received quite a
lot of flagrant replies in the (imo reproachable (at the time)) Synchronet
Discussion echo in contrast to the humble mild mannered MUFFIN echo seemingly
full of UN embassadors like Ryan de Laplante ...

--- Maximus/2 3.01
 * Origin: Top Hat 2 BBS (1:343/41)