Gnus: mark-expirable vs. delete

Gnus: mark-expirable vs. delete

[Joe Casadonte]

So, I've been using Gnus for a while now, and am quite comfortable
with the whole mail-as-news concept, and marking something as
expirable only to have it stick around for X days until it's *really*
deleted.  I'd even go so far as to say that I like it.

But there are times that I just want to delete something, and I don't
want it to stick around for X days.  Why?  Spam, large email messages,
reminder email messages -- stuff that is really trash.  So the
question is, can I do it both ways, mark some messages as expirable
and some as delete-it-now?  For reference, my current group parameters are:

 (total-expire . t)
 (expiry-wait . 60)

Thanks!

--
Regards,

joe
Joe Casadonte
jcasadonte@northbound-train.com

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Re: Gnus: mark-expirable vs. delete

[Johan Bockgård]

"Joe Casadonte" <jcasadonte@northbound-train.com> writes:

> So the question is, can I do it both ways, mark some messages as
> expirable and some as delete-it-now?

You can delete them explicitly.

,----
| B DEL runs the command gnus-summary-delete-article
| [...]
| Delete the N next (mail) articles.
| [...]
| If N is nil and articles have been marked with the process mark,
| delete these instead.
`----

-- 
The day Microsoft makes something that doesn't suck is probably the
day they start making vacuum cleaners. -- Ernst Jan Plugge

Re: Gnus: mark-expirable vs. delete

[Joe Casadonte]

On Fri, 13 Jun 2003, Johan Bockgård wrote:

> "Joe Casadonte" <jcasadonte@northbound-train.com> writes:
>
>> So the question is, can I do it both ways, mark some messages as
>> expirable and some as delete-it-now?
>
> You can delete them explicitly.
>
> ,----
> | B DEL runs the command gnus-summary-delete-article
> | [...]
> | Delete the N next (mail) articles.
> | [...]
> | If N is nil and articles have been marked with the process mark,
> | delete these instead.
> `----

Close, but not quite what I want.  And there's something strange with
it, too.

What I was looking for was something to mark the message as deletable,
which I can sort of do with the process mark, but that interferes with
anything else I may be doing with the process mark.  It's not as
nicely done as `gnus-summary-mark-as-expirable', IMHO.  I can live
with this, though, as I don't often use the process mark for other
things.

The strange part kills this option for me, however.  When I do
something like "C-u 200 RET" in the Group window (runs
`gnus-topic-select-group' or `gnus-group-select-group' with an
argument of 200), it seems to be counting those now-deleted articles
as part of the 200, and what I wind up with is some number less than
200 (e.g. 200 => 36, 450 => 257).  The whole point of this (for me)
was that when I went back looking for an old email, I didn't have to
sift through the cruft.  I'd have to repeat the request with ever
larger numbers until I found the article I wanted.

Now, as the articles are deleted, I do indeed not have to sift through
them, but I'm also not getting the number of articles I've asked for,
and so I have to repeat the request over and over again until I've
guessed what it is that will give me the article I'm looking for.
Pretty much the same thing, as far as I'm concerned.

Any other options, or is this odd behavior fixed in a later version of
Gnus (assuming it's a bug)?  I'm using the 5.8.8 version of Gnus, if
that helps.

Thanks!

--
Regards,

joe
Joe Casadonte
jcasadonte@northbound-train.com

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Re: Gnus: mark-expirable vs. delete

[Kai Großjohann]

"Joe Casadonte" <jcasadonte@northbound-train.com> writes:

> Any other options, or is this odd behavior fixed in a later version of
> Gnus (assuming it's a bug)?  I'm using the 5.8.8 version of Gnus, if
> that helps.

There has been some talk in the past couple of weeks.  Not sure
whether that addresses your problem, or a related but distinct
problem.  You'd find the new stuff in CVS.

-- 
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Re: Gnus: mark-expirable vs. delete

[Joe Casadonte]

On Sun, 15 Jun 2003, Kai Großjohann wrote:

> There has been some talk in the past couple of weeks.  Not sure
> whether that addresses your problem, or a related but distinct
> problem.  You'd find the new stuff in CVS.

Thanks, Kai.  Can I access archives of the discussion, to see if it is
what I'm looking for?  Thanks again!

--
Regards,

joe
Joe Casadonte
jcasadonte@northbound-train.com

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Re: Gnus: mark-expirable vs. delete

[Johan Bockgård]

"Joe Casadonte" <jcasadonte@northbound-train.com> writes:

> On Sun, 15 Jun 2003, Kai Großjohann wrote:
>
>> There has been some talk in the past couple of weeks. Not sure
>> whether that addresses your problem, or a related but distinct
>> problem. You'd find the new stuff in CVS.
>
> Thanks, Kai. Can I access archives of the discussion, to see if it
> is what I'm looking for? Thanks again!

It's in gnus.ding at news.gnus.org (or google groups). I think this is
the start of said discussion:

    From: Hanak David <dhanak@inf.bme.hu>
    Newsgroups: gnus.ding
    Subject: emacs.gnus
    Date: Sun, 08 Jun 2003 15:04:33 +0200
    Message-ID: <m2wufwoh3y.fsf@maui.hanak.hu>
    
    
    I find it annoying that Gnus cannot determine the exact article
    count for nnml groups. Since I often move messages from one group
    to another, or expire articles, the active range is full of holes.
    Therefore, when I ask Gnus for, say, 50 articles, it might happen
    that I only get 5. And the estimate for the number of artciles can
    also become very wild.
    
    I've hacked this for myself quite a while ago, but very recently
    I've joined the Gnus newsgroups, and decided to send a patch that
    would solve the problem for others, too. The patches are up to
    date, they are based on the CVS version. Please feel free to
    modify them. [...]

-- 
The day Microsoft makes something that doesn't suck is probably the
day they start making vacuum cleaners. -- Ernst Jan Plugge

Re: Gnus: mark-expirable vs. delete

[Reiner Steib]

On Tue, Jun 17 2003, Joe Casadonte wrote:

> Can I access archives of the discussion, to see if it is what I'm
> looking for?

Maybe this one?

<URL:http://search.gmane.org/search.php?query=expire+delete&
group=gmane.emacs.gnus.general&sort=date>

Especially the subject "Completely removing an article from drafts?".

Bye, Reiner.
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Re: Gnus: mark-expirable vs. delete

[Johan Bockgård]

"Joe Casadonte" <jcasadonte@northbound-train.com> writes:

> On Fri, 13 Jun 2003, Johan Bockgård wrote:
>>
>> You can delete them explicitly.
>>  [...]
>
> Close, but not quite what I want.  And there's something strange with
> it, too.
>
> What I was looking for was something to mark the message as
> deletable, which I can sort of do with the process mark, but that
> interferes with anything else I may be doing with the process mark.
> It's not as nicely done as `gnus-summary-mark-as-expirable', IMHO. I
> can live with this, though, as I don't often use the process mark
> for other things.

Yes, I have thought about this too. It might be nice to have. I think
Pine does this--you mark messages for deletion and it deletes them
when you exit. We could do something like

(defun gnus-summary-mark-as-deletable (n)
  "Mark next N articles as deletable.
If N is negative, mark backward instead."
  (interactive "p")
  ;; TODO: what MARK (character) should we use?
  (gnus-summary-mark-forward n MARK))

Then add a hook that (asks and then) deletes the marked messages when
you exit summary.

> The strange part kills this option for me, however. When I do
> something like "C-u 200 RET" in the Group window (runs
> `gnus-topic-select-group' or `gnus-group-select-group' with an
> argument of 200), it seems to be counting those now-deleted articles
> as part of the 200, and what I wind up with is some number less than
> 200 (e.g. 200 => 36, 450 => 257). The whole point of this (for me)
> was that when I went back looking for an old email, I didn't have to
> sift through the cruft.

    Question 4.12:
    ..............

    The number of total messages in a group which Gnus displays in
    group buffer is by far to high, especially in mail groups. Is this
    a bug?

    Answer:

    No, that's a matter of design of Gnus, fixing this would mean
    reimplementation of major parts of Gnus' back ends. Gnus thinks
    "highest-article-number - lowest-article-number =
    total-number-of-articles". This works OK for Usenet groups, but if
    you delete and move many messages in mail groups, this fails. To
    cure the symptom, enter the group via `C-u RET' (this makes Gnus
    get all messages), then hit `M P b' to mark all messages and then
    say `B m name.of.group' to move all messages to the group they
    have been in before, they get new message numbers in this process
    and the count is right again (until you delete and move your mail
    to other groups again)."

-- 
The day Microsoft makes something that doesn't suck is probably the
day they start making vacuum cleaners. -- Ernst Jan Plugge

Re: Gnus: mark-expirable vs. delete

[Johan Bockgård]

"Joe Casadonte" <jcasadonte@northbound-train.com> writes:

> On Mon, 16 Jun 2003, Johan Bockgård wrote:
>
>> Yes, I have thought about this too. It might be nice to have. I
>> think Pine does this--you mark messages for deletion and it deletes
>> them when you exit.
>
> That's exactly what I want!

Only slightly tested:


(defcustom gnus-expungable-mark ?D
  "*Mark used for articles that will be expunged on group exit."
  :group 'gnus-summary-marks
  :type 'character)

(defvar gnus-interactive-expunge 'maybe
  "*If t, require your confirmation before expunging articles. If nil don't ask.
Any other value means to do what `gnus-summary-delete-article' would do
\(ask if `gnus-novice-user' is non-nil).")

(defun gnus-summary-mark-as-expungable (n)
  "Mark next N articles as expungable.
If N is negative, mark backward instead."
  (interactive "p")
  (gnus-summary-mark-forward n gnus-expungable-mark))

(add-hook 'gnus-summary-prepare-exit-hook 'gnus-summary-expunge-expungable-articles)

;; mostly copied from spam-mark-spam-as-expired-and-move-routine in spam.el
(defun gnus-summary-expunge-expungable-articles ()
  (unless gnus-group-is-exiting-without-update-p
    (gnus-summary-kill-process-mark)
    (let ((articles gnus-newsgroup-articles)
	  article
	  todelete)
      (dolist (article articles)
	(when (eq (gnus-summary-article-mark article)
		  gnus-expungable-mark)
	  (push article todelete)))

      ;; now do the actual deletion
      (condition-case data
	  (when todelete
	    (dolist (article todelete)
	      (gnus-summary-set-process-mark article))
	    ;; should we ask before expunging?
	    (let ((gnus-novice-user (cond ((null gnus-interactive-expunge) nil)
					  ((eq gnus-interactive-expunge t) t)
					  (t gnus-novice-user))))
	      (gnus-summary-delete-article))
	    ;; why does gnus-summary-work-articles push the marks on the stack?
	    (gnus-summary-yank-process-mark)
	    (gnus-message 6 "Expunging articles"))
	;; is (cadr data) always a string?
	(error (gnus-message 3 "%s" (cadr data))))
      (gnus-summary-yank-process-mark))))

;;(define-key gnus-summary-mode-map "\C-cd" 'gnus-summary-mark-as-expungable)


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Re: Gnus: mark-expirable vs. delete

[Burton Samograd]

"Joe Casadonte" <jcasadonte@northbound-train.com> writes:
> But there are times that I just want to delete something, and I don't
> want it to stick around for X days.  Why?  Spam, large email messages,
> reminder email messages -- stuff that is really trash.  So the
> question is, can I do it both ways, mark some messages as expirable
> and some as delete-it-now?  For reference, my current group
> parameters are:

Try B <Backspace> in the summary pane to delete a single message, or B
Ctrl-Alt-e to delete all messages in the current folder as expirable
(probably not what you want).

-- 
burton samograd
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