Re: [RFC] Gnus generalized search, part II

[Andrew Cohen <cohen@bu.edu>]

Dear Eric:

This is great (although I haven't tested it yet:))

Some questions/comments:

The previous version of nnir that I contributed could search multiple
backends (indeed something I did routinely with messages threads that
were spread out across gmane and my personal email which in turn was a
combination of imap and namazu) but it was cumbersome since it worked
only with queries that were understood simultaneously by both
backends. This effectively reduced the searches to rather simple ones,
but it was nevertheless pretty effective. One aspect of the design that
was important was that C-g while searching wouldn't abort the whole
thing but just the current backend. So if the gmane search web site
wasn't responding, for example, a C-g would move things along and still
search the other backends. Can you make sure that your modifications do
the same? (They probably do, but I just want to make sure:))

I occasionally do some complicated searching which needs access to the
raw imap syntax (and indeed the imap thread referral uses the ability of
nnir-run-query to accept a raw imap search constructed in
'nnimap-make-thread-query) so I think it is important for nnir-run-query
to accept this format as well. I know I previously said it would be good
if the whole criteria thing goes away, but perhaps I was too
hasty. Right now a prefix arg to the gnus entry point to searching sets
the criteria in a complicated fashion; we could simplify this so that a
prefix arg skips all parsing of the query-spec and sends the raw query
directly to the query engine (as is the case now if you use a criterion
of 'imap). The user would presumably not try this with multiple backends
since the syntax wouldn't be common.

My limited window to work on this is rapidly closing. The good news is
that I think that all of the nnselect stuff is done (aside from some
renaming of things) and seems to be working. The bad news is that after
weeks of trying I still have no git access :( I have sent 2 emails to
this list, and on the advice of several people I have signed up for a
savannah account and requested membership in emacs, but its been almost
a week with no response.

The changes are pretty large and somewhat invasive, and since there are
likely to be bugs found in testing I expect some back and forth with
testers and subsequent modifications in the code. I doubt I have the
wherewithal to do this without using git. So if I can't get access soon
I may have to forgo pushing these changes.

Best,
Andy