From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: wgreenhouse@riseup.net (W. Greenhouse) Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: gnus trying to read news while I want only mail Date: Tue, 10 Sep 2013 19:13:21 +0000 Message-ID: <8761u88p7y.fsf@motoko.kusanagi> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1378840482 16026 80.91.229.3 (10 Sep 2013 19:14:42 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 10 Sep 2013 19:14:42 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Tue Sep 10 21:14:45 2013 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1VJTOf-0001yl-8n for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Tue, 10 Sep 2013 21:14:45 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:59713 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1VJTOe-0001qt-NB for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Tue, 10 Sep 2013 15:14:44 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:58066) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1VJTOO-0001pa-7X for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Tue, 10 Sep 2013 15:14:33 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1VJTOI-00040R-NV for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Tue, 10 Sep 2013 15:14:28 -0400 Original-Received: from plane.gmane.org ([80.91.229.3]:53492) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1VJTOI-00040K-H4 for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Tue, 10 Sep 2013 15:14:22 -0400 Original-Received: from list by plane.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1VJTOF-0001Kx-1u for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Tue, 10 Sep 2013 21:14:19 +0200 Original-Received: from lumumba.torservers.net ([77.247.181.163]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Tue, 10 Sep 2013 21:14:19 +0200 Original-Received: from wgreenhouse by lumumba.torservers.net with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Tue, 10 Sep 2013 21:14:19 +0200 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Original-Lines: 48 Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: lumumba.torservers.net User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/24.3 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:BO3jQ7yxPICyh/MwEg0lwxBoAls= X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Genre and OS details not recognized. X-Received-From: 80.91.229.3 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:93319 Archived-At: Hello Luca, Luca Ferrari writes: > Hi, > I'm moving the first steps into gnus following this tutorial > http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/GnusTutorial, and I've created my > .gnus.el file with my mail information. I want to use gnus only for > reading mail, not newsgroup, so I've removed the select-methods > variables. However, when I start gnus it spins searching for news > servers. I then set such variables to nil, but an error "attempting to > use a nil select method" arises. So I tried to point them to localhost > fake news server, and this made a connection error to raise and asked > me to continue or not, so I was able to get into gnus at last. > Is there a way to instrument gnus for not reading news at all? Yes. There are at least three options: 1. As described in (info "(gnus) The Empty Backend"), set `nnnil' for a select method; this select method is a noop and just silently succeeds while returning no new news. This was an option designed for mail-only Gnus users: (setq gnus-select-method '(nnnil "")) 2. Start Gnus with M-x gnus-no-server. This will get new messages from the `gnus-secondary-select-methods' while ignoring `gnus-select-method'. 3. If you wish to use Gnus for mail only, it is actually perfectly fine to use your chosen mail backend as `gnus-select-method' instead of as one of the `gnus-secondary-select-methods'. There is no requirement that `gnus-select-method' be a news backend; in fact, aside from a few convenience functions, Gnus does not differentiate in its handling of "mail", "news", and other sources of messages (e.g. RSS, local files, etc.) In this configuration, you may also wish to (setq gnus-read-newsrc-file nil gnus-save-newsrc-file nil) as there's not much point in creating/using this old-style newsreader compatibility file if you are not visiting news servers anyway. -- Best, WGG