Subject: [sup-talk] sup setting my name

From: [email-masked] (jeff.covey at pobox.com)
Date: Wed, 06 Jun 2007 21:30:31 -0400

sup seems to have the idea that my name is "Burning House Zendo", apparently
based on something it found while indexing.  whenever it finds a message
from jeff.covey at pobox.com, it displays it with that name, and when i start
composing a message, it sets the first line to "From: Burning House Zendo
<jeff.covey at pobox.com>".

why does it do this, and how can i make it stop?  adding an alias for my
address doesn't help, nor does changing the text after the numbers in
~/.sup/people.txt.

why doesn't it use the name information i set in ~/.sup/config.yaml?  i have
:name: set to "jeff covey" there, and have :email: and :alternates: set.

thanks,

-- 
jeff covey
http://jeffcovey.net/

---

From: [email-masked] (William Morgan)
Date: Thu, 07 Jun 2007 15:42:09 -0700

Excerpts from jeff.covey's message of Wed Jun 06 18:30:31 -0700 2007:
> sup seems to have the idea that my name is "Burning House Zendo",
> apparently based on something it found while indexing.  whenever it
> finds a message from jeff.covey at pobox.com, it displays it with that
> name, and when i start composing a message, it sets the first line to
> "From: Burning House Zendo <jeff.covey at pobox.com>".

Hah. Good catch. I'm going to fix this in a general way by treating all
names in config.yaml and contacts.txt as definitive. For the time being
just delete every instance of that name from people.txt, and apply this
patch:

Index: lib/sup/person.rb
===================================================================
--- lib/sup/person.rb   (revision 433)
+++ lib/sup/person.rb   (working copy)
@@ -19,7 +19,7 @@
     ## all else being equal, prefer longer names, unless the prior name
     ## doesn't contain any capitalization
     oldcount, oldname = @names[email]
-    @names[email] = [0, name] if oldname.nil? || oldname.length < name.length || (oldname !~ /[A-Z]/ && name =~ /[A-Z]/)
+    @names[email] = [0, name] if oldname.nil?
     @names[email][0] = Time.now.to_i
   end

-- 
William <wmorgan-sup at masanjin.net>

---

From: [email-masked] (William Morgan)
Date: Fri, 08 Jun 2007 15:52:31 -0700

Excerpts from William Morgan's message of Thu Jun 07 15:42:09 -0700 2007:
> names in config.yaml and contacts.txt as definitive.

Ok, I believe I've fixed this in SVN. Jeff, you will have to reverse
that patch before updating, or otherwise resolve the conflict. Let me
know if I've managed to break something.

---

From: [email-masked] (jeff covey)
Date: Sun, 10 Jun 2007 14:37:52 -0400

> Ok, I believe I've fixed this in SVN.

it's fixed for composing messages, but the name displayed in threads is
still whatever sup put in people.txt.  in this thread, for example, the
first message was still displayed as being from Burning House Zendo in
inbox-mode, thread-view-mode, etc.  i moved people.txt out of the way, and
it started showing me as jeff.covey.  i edited that to "jeff covey" in the
newly-generated people.txt, and it started showing me that.

it's not a big deal, but the display is probably most readily intelligible
if it shows people whatever names they have set for themselves in
config.yaml and the names they have set for others in contacts.txt.  or
would it be even better to use "me" for messages from oneself (from all the
primary and alternate addresses), as gmail does?  "me" takes the least space
on the screen, leaving more room for the names of the other conversation
participants, which is what you really want to see.

thanks!

-- 
jeff covey
http://jeffcovey.net/

---

From: [email-masked] (William Morgan)
Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2007 11:33:51 -0700

Excerpts from Jeff Covey's message of Sun Jun 10 11:37:52 -0700 2007:
> still whatever sup put in people.txt.

Ok, it should be "really fixed" now. Everything in contact.txt and
config.yaml should override everything in people.txt. Which is as it
should be, as the latter is auto-generated and the former is human-
generated.

The reason for the weirdness with Burning House Zendo, btw, is that I
have a heuristic when I have multiple names for a given email address to
prefer the longest one, which is clearly deficient in many cases.

> would it be even better to use "me" for messages from oneself (from
> all the primary and alternate addresses), as gmail does?

Apparently I broke that a few revisions ago. Should be fixed now.

Let me know how it's working for you now.

---

From: [email-masked] (jeff covey)
Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2007 21:22:57 -0400

> Let me know how it's working for you now.

seems to be ok; thanks!

-- 
jeff covey
http://jeffcovey.net/