[Gnus] persistent marks

[Gnus] persistent marks

[ernobe]

Hi all

I'm a gnu Gnus user and am wondering if someone can help me with a
certain functionality I've been trying to achieve.  Ideally I would be
able to have it mark the articles as usual, but not carry out the
corresponding action until I command it.  For example, all articles I
read will be marked R, but will continue to be shown in summary until I
make them go away.  Or if I choose to mark them as expunged, they will
continue to show up and have the expunge mark until I actually issue the
expunge command, etc.  Is this somehow possible?

I've tried to do it with the following:

(defun my-add-ancient-articles (group articles)
  (if (string= group "news.software.readers")
      (append gnus-newsgroup-ancient articles)
    articles))
(setq gnus-alter-articles-to-read-function 'my-add-ancient-articles)

I have also been unable to get it to set a mark with the article
selection hooks.  Another way to do it would be to have it set a mark
based on a score, but it doesn't appear to be possible with the existing
scoring rules.



-- 
"The world of existence is an emanation of the merciful attribute of God."
Abdu'l-Baha
http://www.costarricense.cr/pagina/ernobe

Re: [Gnus] persistent marks

[Emanuel Berg]

ernobe <ernobe@yahoo.com> writes:

> I'm a gnu Gnus user and am wondering if someone can
> help me with a certain functionality I've been trying
> to achieve.  Ideally I would be able to have it mark
> the articles as usual, but not carry out the
> corresponding action until I command it.  For example,
> all articles I read will be marked R, but will
> continue to be shown in summary until I make them go
> away.  Or if I choose to mark them as expunged, they
> will continue to show up and have the expunge mark
> until I actually issue the expunge command, etc.  Is
> this somehow possible?

I use Gnus all the time (right now, for example) and
that is possible, make no mistake about it. Only... I
don't understand what "that" is. Do you want to remove
read articles (i.e., those marked with "R") or the other
way around, would you like to *keep* them?

Also, you know of gnu.emacs.gnus, I take it?

-- 
Emanuel Berg, programmer-for-rent. CV, projects, etc at uXu
underground experts united:  http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: [Gnus] persistent marks

[ernobe]

Emanuel Berg <embe8573@student.uu.se> writes:
>
> I use Gnus all the time (right now, for example) and
> that is possible, make no mistake about it. Only... I
> don't understand what "that" is. Do you want to remove
> read articles (i.e., those marked with "R") or the other
> way around, would you like to *keep* them?
>
> Also, you know of gnu.emacs.gnus, I take it?

gnu.emacs.gnus was the first group I posted to with Gnus, but something
went horribly wrong and apparently the post is irretrievably lost
somewhere in cyberspace.  I did an improved version and posted here; the
only thing I did different this time was that I didn't cross-post to
news.software.readers.  I'll try cross-posting to alt.test and
newsreader.test to see if that's the problem.

Anyway, perhaps you didn't get my earlier point about what I'm trying to
achieve because I didn't explain that I'm using a spool for the news.  I
get the news with slrnpull and it goes into the archives so I don't have
to worry about Gnus connecting to the internet all the time.  I don't
worry about *keeping* or *losing* articles because I already have them
and will expire them when I so choose.  I handle expiration, not Gnus,
but I would still want to be able to mark them as expirable (E) with the
understanding that once I say expire they will not be shown next
session.  Those that I read will get marked with R but will continue to
show up on the summary session after session (perhaps marked O in
subsequent ones) until I expire them too.  The problem is that Gnus
treats the R and E marks as commands to delete or expire when exiting
the current session, and I want it to mark them and leave the commanding
to me, in the current or subsequent sessions.

 

-- 
"The world of existence is an emanation of the merciful attribute of God."
Abdu'l-Baha
http://www.costarricense.cr/pagina/ernobe

Re: [Gnus] persistent marks

[Emanuel Berg]

ernobe <ernobe@yahoo.com> writes:

> Those that I read will get marked with R but will
> continue to show up on the summary session after
> session (perhaps marked O in subsequent ones) until I
> expire them too. The problem is that Gnus treats the
> R and E marks as commands to delete or expire when
> exiting the current session, and I want it to mark
> them and leave the commanding to me, in the current or
> subsequent sessions.

So you want Gnus *not* to delete 'R' articles? And
"delete" in this case is that equivalent to "not show up
in the summary next time I bring up the group"?

-- 
Emanuel Berg, programmer-for-rent. CV, projects, etc at uXu
underground experts united:  http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: [Gnus] persistent marks

[Eric Abrahamsen]

ernobe <ernobe@yahoo.com> writes:

> Emanuel Berg <embe8573@student.uu.se> writes:
>>
>> I use Gnus all the time (right now, for example) and
>> that is possible, make no mistake about it. Only... I
>> don't understand what "that" is. Do you want to remove
>> read articles (i.e., those marked with "R") or the other
>> way around, would you like to *keep* them?
>>
>> Also, you know of gnu.emacs.gnus, I take it?
>
> gnu.emacs.gnus was the first group I posted to with Gnus, but something
> went horribly wrong and apparently the post is irretrievably lost
> somewhere in cyberspace.  I did an improved version and posted here; the
> only thing I did different this time was that I didn't cross-post to
> news.software.readers.  I'll try cross-posting to alt.test and
> newsreader.test to see if that's the problem.
>
> Anyway, perhaps you didn't get my earlier point about what I'm trying to
> achieve because I didn't explain that I'm using a spool for the news.  I
> get the news with slrnpull and it goes into the archives so I don't have
> to worry about Gnus connecting to the internet all the time.  I don't
> worry about *keeping* or *losing* articles because I already have them
> and will expire them when I so choose.  I handle expiration, not Gnus,
> but I would still want to be able to mark them as expirable (E) with the
> understanding that once I say expire they will not be shown next
> session.  Those that I read will get marked with R but will continue to
> show up on the summary session after session (perhaps marked O in
> subsequent ones) until I expire them too.  The problem is that Gnus
> treats the R and E marks as commands to delete or expire when exiting
> the current session, and I want it to mark them and leave the commanding
> to me, in the current or subsequent sessions.

If you use the registry it _might_ (this is all complete speculation) be
possible to add some custom marks to gnus-registry-marks: say "My
Pending Expire" and "My Pending Read". These marks would be meaningless
except that you'd write a custom function that found them and turned
them into the "real" expire and read marks.

I totally made that up; there's any number of reasons why it might not
work...

E

Re: [Gnus] persistent marks

[ernobe]

Emanuel Berg <embe8573@student.uu.se> writes:

> ernobe <ernobe@yahoo.com> writes:
>
>> Those that I read will get marked with R but will
>> continue to show up on the summary session after
>> session (perhaps marked O in subsequent ones) until I
>> expire them too. The problem is that Gnus treats the
>> R and E marks as commands to delete or expire when
>> exiting the current session, and I want it to mark
>> them and leave the commanding to me, in the current or
>> subsequent sessions.
>
> So you want Gnus *not* to delete 'R' articles? And
> "delete" in this case is that equivalent to "not show up
> in the summary next time I bring up the group"?

Exactly.

-- 
"The world of existence is an emanation of the merciful attribute of God."
Abdu'l-Baha
http://www.costarricense.cr/pagina/ernobe

Re: [Gnus] persistent marks

[ernobe]

Eric Abrahamsen <eric@ericabrahamsen.net> writes:

>
> If you use the registry it _might_ (this is all complete speculation) be
> possible to add some custom marks to gnus-registry-marks: say "My
> Pending Expire" and "My Pending Read". These marks would be meaningless
> except that you'd write a custom function that found them and turned
> them into the "real" expire and read marks.
>
> I totally made that up; there's any number of reasons why it might not
> work...
>

Of course if I knew how to do that I'd probably be able to change the
default keys instead.  The problem with knowing (at least for an
independent investigator like myself) is that there's the Emacs Lisp
language on the one hand, and the Gnus Manual on the other.  But have
you tried reading the manual with 'C-h i'?  I don't see how to navigate
it without getting lost.  If I only follow the 'Up' 'Next' 'Previous'
links at the top of the page, I can get back to my original starting
point, but if I follow links within the page, I can't hit a 'back' link
to get back to my original starting point.  So I downloaded the
documentation and turned it into a single .info file, then used 'pinfo'
to read it.  Why there isn't a sane way to read it within Emacs, I don't
know.
   
I haven't looked at the Emacs Lisp documentation yet but suspect it is
also not meant to help the independent researcher.  Like college
textbooks, these manuals are meant to be read by people who are under
adult supervision in their researching.


-- 
"The world of existence is an emanation of the merciful attribute of God."
Abdu'l-Baha
http://www.costarricense.cr/pagina/ernobe

Re: [Gnus] persistent marks

[Joost Kremers]

EN:SiS(9)
ernobe wrote:
> Eric Abrahamsen <eric@ericabrahamsen.net> writes:
> Why there isn't a sane way to read it within Emacs, I don't
> know.

You don't know because you're not looking. If you hit `C-h i`, the first
few lines of the info buffer say:

,----
|   This (the Directory node) gives a menu of major topics.
|   Typing "q" exits, "?" lists all Info commands, "d" returns here,
|   "h" gives a primer for first-timers,
|   "mEmacs<Return>" visits the Emacs manual, etc.
`----


Have fun.

-- 
Joost Kremers                                   joostkremers@fastmail.fm
Selbst in die Unterwelt dringt durch Spalten Licht

Re: [Gnus] persistent marks

[Emanuel Berg]

ernobe <ernobe@yahoo.com> writes:

> Of course if I knew how to do that I'd probably be
> able to change the default keys instead.  The problem
> with knowing (at least for an independent investigator
> like myself) is that there's the Emacs Lisp language
> on the one hand, and the Gnus Manual on the other.
> But have you tried reading the manual with 'C-h i'?  I
> don't see how to navigate it without getting lost.  If
> I only follow the 'Up' 'Next' 'Previous' links at the
> top of the page, I can get back to my original
> starting point, but if I follow links within the page,
> I can't hit a back' link to get back to my original
> starting point.  So I downloaded the documentation and
> turned it into a single .info file, then used 'pinfo'
> to read it.  Why there isn't a sane way to read it
> within Emacs, I don't know.

Well, I happen not to like reading documentation the
"info" way either (or in general, on the screen), but it
is "sane" in its own way once you learn your way around.

My piece of advice: instead, go to the Gnus home page,
get the manual in PDF format and *print* it. Then read
it both as "evening reading" *and* as a reference to
lookup things.

I should say, though, that Gnus isn't the most easiest
thing to configure/extend. Emacs (in general) is easier
in my experience. So it takes some time. But, it is
worth it, so you just need to keep it up. Learn one new
thing every day. In a year, that will make for 365 new
things :)

Also, don't forget about gnu.emacs.help and
gnu.emacs.gnus.

> I haven't looked at the Emacs Lisp documentation yet
> but suspect it is also not meant to help the
> independent researcher.  Like college textbooks, these
> manuals are meant to be read by people who are under
> adult supervision in their researching.

Yes, it is the same there. I takes time. Good things
happen to people who work hard.

-- 
Emanuel Berg, programmer-for-rent. CV, projects, etc at uXu
underground experts united:  http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: [Gnus] persistent marks

[Emanuel Berg]

ernobe <ernobe@yahoo.com> writes:

>> So you want Gnus *not* to delete 'R' articles? And
>> "delete" in this case is that equivalent to "not show
>> up in the summary next time I bring up the group"?
>
> Exactly.

OK, I suspect this is actually possible to do by just
telling Gnus about it. How, and where, you'll have to
digest that manual, or wait for the Gnus foxes to get
out of their lairs.

But, three points to investigate:

- those posts that you would like to keep, you could
  mark collectively as something other than 'R' (this
  could be automatized, for example when you close a
  summary)
  
- when bringing up the group, could you configure it to
  show 'R' posts as well? (This is the least hackish
  approach. Examine `gnus-group-select-group' with
  C-h f, *or* C-h k RET in the groups buffer.)

- when writing to ~/.newsrc, could you inhibit it from
  noting those Rs?

-- 
Emanuel Berg, programmer-for-rent. CV, projects, etc at uXu
underground experts united:  http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

Re: [Gnus] persistent marks

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: ernobe <ernobe@yahoo.com>
> Date: Sat, 09 Nov 2013 10:34:06 -0600
> 
> have you tried reading the manual with 'C-h i'?  I don't see how to
> navigate it without getting lost.  If I only follow the 'Up' 'Next'
> 'Previous' links at the top of the page, I can get back to my
> original starting point, but if I follow links within the page, I
> can't hit a 'back' link to get back to my original starting point.
> So I downloaded the documentation and turned it into a single .info
> file, then used 'pinfo' to read it.  Why there isn't a sane way to
> read it within Emacs, I don't know.

The sane way to read it, in Emacs and elsewhere, is to press SPC to go
forward and DEL (or Backspace, if you have no DEL key) to go back.
This will move you through the node tree in depth-first manner, which
I presume you wanted.  (If that's not what you wanted, please explain
more.)

Re: [Gnus] persistent marks

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Emanuel Berg <embe8573@student.uu.se>
> Date: Sat, 09 Nov 2013 20:36:41 +0100
> 
> My piece of advice: instead, go to the Gnus home page,
> get the manual in PDF format and *print* it. Then read
> it both as "evening reading" *and* as a reference to
> lookup things.

Bad advice; don't listen to it.  Looking up information in the on-line
manual is orders of magnitude faster than searching for it in the
printed manual.

Re: [Gnus] persistent marks

[ernobe]

Emanuel Berg <embe8573@student.uu.se> writes:

> ernobe <ernobe@yahoo.com> writes:
>
>>> So you want Gnus *not* to delete 'R' articles? And
>>> "delete" in this case is that equivalent to "not show
>>> up in the summary next time I bring up the group"?
>>
>> Exactly.
>
> OK, I suspect this is actually possible to do by just
> telling Gnus about it. How, and where, you'll have to
> digest that manual, or wait for the Gnus foxes to get
> out of their lairs.
>
> But, three points to investigate:
>
> - those posts that you would like to keep, you could
>   mark collectively as something other than 'R' (this
>   could be automatized, for example when you close a
>   summary)
>   
> - when bringing up the group, could you configure it to
>   show 'R' posts as well? (This is the least hackish
>   approach. Examine `gnus-group-select-group' with
>   C-h f, *or* C-h k RET in the groups buffer.)

It turns out this is possible by setting 'gnus parameters':

(setq gnus-parameters
  '((".*"
    (display . all))))

The 'all' in this case means that read ones are included (exactly what I
wanted).  I found out about this from the 'Limiting' section of the
'Summary Buffer' section of the info, which links to the 'Group
Parameter' section of the 'Group Buffer' section.

With this setting entering the group is kind of slow.  Is there
something else I can turn off to speed it up?  Maybe I could mark most
of them dormant and send them to a cache, but then it will probably get
out of sync with slrnpull's cache which is where the articles are
actually received from the net.  If they are expired in the spool, will
they expire in the gnus cache?  I'll give it a try and report back here
if everything goes well.


>
> - when writing to ~/.newsrc, could you inhibit it from
>   noting those Rs?


-- 
"The world of existence is an emanation of the merciful attribute of God."
Abdu'l-Baha
http://www.costarricense.cr/pagina/ernobe

Re: [Gnus] persistent marks

[Emanuel Berg]

ernobe <ernobe@yahoo.com> writes:

> (setq gnus-parameters '((".*" (display . all))))

Aha, cool!

> With this setting entering the group is kind of slow.

Really? You have that many articles? Just generating a
summary shouldn't be that expensive, I think.

> Is there something else I can turn off to speed it up?
> Maybe I could mark most of them dormant and send them
> to a cache, but then it will probably get out of sync
> with slrnpull's cache which is where the articles are
> actually received from the net.  If they are expired
> in the spool, will they expire in the gnus cache?

I don't know, I never did this and besides I never have
that many articles to make a summary of, anyway. (Those
may be connected, of course.) The only thing I can think
of is this line

(setq gnus-summary-line-format "%U %3{%I%a%} %1{%s%}\n")

in your init file. Use C-h v on that variable to find
out what you have, and what those characters mean. One
would suspect a less complicated summary is faster to
generate, but even that is a longshot because I think
even a "complicated" summary should be fast to generate
on modern computers.

> I'll give it a try and report back here if everything
> goes well.

Yes! And you may report back even if it doesn't... :)

-- 
Emanuel Berg, programmer-for-rent. CV, projects, etc at uXu
underground experts united:  http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573