Smart --gui 'View' Format

[Mikus Grinbergs]

Using smart on SuSE 10.0.  I'm on a dial-up (slow) line.

While 'smart --gui' was downloading a new gnome update (takes
a long time) I wanted to check the formats of how it displays
the list of packages.  Because 'smart --gui' was busy with the
download, I could not access its main display.   So I started
a second instance of 'smart --gui':  this second instance told
me it was in read-only mode, but otherwise came up as usual.

I normally have selected the setting View -> Tree Style ->
Channels & Groups.  I wanted to see how 'Groups' (only) looked.
But when I tried to select 'Groups' in this second instance of
'smart --gui', it did not change the display, but instead gave
me an error pop-up saying "Configuration is in readonly mode".

Now what I wanted was to TEMPORARILY look at how it displayed
the list of packages.  I did NOT intend to make a permanent
change to the display format.

Why can't smart have a 'Record this setting' function in the
'Tree' list - when clicked it *would* make whatever changes
were necessary to the configuration.  But in the ABSENCE of
being specifically told 'Record this setting', why shouldn't
smart allow 'View' format changes __even__ in readonly mode ?

mikus