bug#8674: 23.3; Face header rendering bug in Gnus v5.13 on GNU Emacs 23.3.1 (i386-mingw-nt5.1.2600) on Windows XP Professional, Service Pack 3

["Benjamin L. Russell" <dekudekuplex@yahoo.com>]

> The Gnus manual says
> 
>    Viewing an [sic] `Face' header requires
> an Emacs that is able to
>    display PNG images.
> 
> Can your Emacs display PNG images?
> If not, I imagine this is the same as
> 
> http://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=8324

It cannot; however, when I following your link, downloaded the libpng 1.4.3 package from "GTK+ - Download for Windows" (see http://www.gtk.org/download-windows.html), unzipped the libpng_1.4.3-1_win32.zip archive, copied the ..\libpng_1.4.3-1_win32\bin\libpng14-14.dll file into both the C:\WINDOWS\system32 and C:\emacs\emacs-23.3\bin directories, and restarted Emacs 23.3.1, Emacs was able to read PNG files correctly.

Subsequently reading a USENET message with a Face header via NNTP in Gnus then caused the Face header to be rendered correctly in the "From" line.

Bug solved!

Incidentally, I also have three other problems with Emacs-23.3.1 (one is a possible bug, and the other two are possible lack of features), as follows:

1. [Possible Bug] In Gnus v5.13, for some reason, just after sending an NNTP post using C-c C-c, occasionally (once in every two to three attempts), Gnus freezes when using STARTTLS, just before requesting my SMTP password, and refuses to respond until I press C-g.  Here is the corresponding transcript from my *Messages* buffer:

> Sending...
> You have lines longer than 79 characters.  Really post? (y or n) 
> Sending news via news20.forteinc.com using nntp...
> Sending via mail...
> Source file `c:/emacs/emacs-23.2/lisp/gnus/starttls.el' newer than byte-compiled file
> Opening STARTTLS connection to `plus.smtp.mail.yahoo.com:587'...done
> Quit

For some reason, Emacs still references `c:/emacs/emacs-23.2/lisp/gnus/starttls.el' (the version for Emacs 23.2.1) instead of `c:/emacs/emacs-23.3/lisp/gnus/starttls.el' (the version for Emacs 23.3.1) (still unmodified), even though I just ran C:\emacs\emacs-23.3\bin\addpm.exe.

My folder setup under c:\Emacs is as follows:

C:\emacs\.emacs.d
C:\emacs\Deprecated Versions
C:\emacs\emacs-23.1
C:\emacs\emacs-23.2
C:\emacs\emacs-23.3

My USER $HOME environmental variable points to C:\home, where I have my .emacs and .gnus.el files, among others. 

The reason that source file `c:/emacs/emacs-23.2/lisp/gnus/starttls.el' is newer than the byte-compiled file is that I manually edited it to follow the following directions by Uday Reddy on 2010-04-26 on "Question #108267 : Questions : VM" (see https://answers.launchpad.net/vm/+question/108267):

> 1. Added:
> (defcustom starttls-kill-program "c:\\cygwin\\bin\\kill"
>   "External kill command to send SIGALRM to starttls."
>   :group 'starttls)
> 
> 2. Replaced all three instances of:
> (signal-process (process-id process) 'SIGALRM)
> with
> (call-process starttls-kill-program nil nil nil
>                                    "-ALRM" (format "%d" (process-id process)))

Is this the correct procedure?

2. [Possible Lack of a Feature] I wish to specify multiple NNTP servers in my .gnus.el file, but don't know how to do so.  The relevant portion from my ~/.gnus.el file is as follows:

> (setq gnus-select-method '(nntp "news20.forteinc.com"))

> (add-to-list 'gnus-secondary-select-methods '(nntp "news.gmane.org"))

> (add-to-list 'gnus-secondary-select-methods '(nntp "news.gnus.org"))

The relevant portion from my ~/.authinfo file is as follows:

> machine news20.forteinc.com login <username> password <password>

The <username> and <password> portions have been substituted with the appropriate information accordingly.

For some reason, the second invocation of (add-to-list 'gnus-secondary-select-methods '(...)) seems to be ignored.

Do you know how to specify a third NNTP server in my ~/.gnus.el file?

3. [Possible Lack of a Feature] For some reason, I am unable to specify a width for the group buffer that is less than the width of the maximum-length group name in Gnus when displaying a customized view with groups in the upper-left buffer, articles in the upper-right buffer, and article bodies in the lower buffer in my ~/.gnus.el file.  Here is the relevant code:

> ;; The following section controls the layout after displaying the article buffer
> ; change the configuration of a single buffer setting, without using the complicated gnus-buffer-configuration variable (see "Frequently Asked Questions: Window Layout" at http://gnus.org/manual/gnus_295.html)
> (gnus-add-configuration
>  ; configure the article buffer
>  '(article
>    ; split the screen in two vertically, and use the following settings for the upper half of the window
>    (vertical 1.0
> 	     ; the original number of rows for the group + summary buffers together, copied from "Frequently Asked Questions: FAQ 4 - Reading messages" (http://www.gnus.org/manual/gnus_400.html#SEC473)
> ;	     (horizontal 28
> 	     ; setting of the number of rows for the group + summary buffers together, adapted for my borrowed laptop PC from JIII
> 	     (horizontal 20
> 			 ; the original number of columns for the group buffer width setting, copied from "Frequently Asked Questions: FAQ 4 - Reading messages" (http://www.gnus.org/manual/gnus_400.html#SEC473)
> ;    			 (group 50)
> 			 ; setting of the number of columns for the group buffer width setting to match my settings in Forte' Agent 5.0
> ;			 (group 53)
> 			 ; setting of the number of columns for the group buffer width setting to display all newsgroup names without truncation
> ;    			 (group 77)
> 			 ; setting of the number of columns for the group buffer width setting to distinguish all newsgroup names uniquely
> 			 (group 69)
> 			 ; let the summary buffer take the remainder of the width of the rows, and position the point (cursor) therein
>     			 (summary 1.0 point) )
> 	     ; let the lower half take up the remainder of the horizontal space, and apply the following settings therein
> 	     (horizontal 1.0
> 			 ; let the article buffer take up the entire space of the lower half of the window
>     			 (article 1.0)))))

In the above code, the modification from (group 77) to (group 69) had no effect.  Further reducing the setting to (group 50) had no effect, either.  In a previous version of Emacs on Windows XP, Service Pack 3, installed in circa November 2007, on which I had installed Gnus in circa May of 2009 (that computer has since been reformatted, so I do not have the version information available), the settings worked fine.  How can I make the (group ...) setting modification effective?

Solutions to the above problems in using Gnus v5.13 on GNU Emacs 23.3.1 would help enormously.

Thank you for your assistance!

Sincerely yours,

Benjamin L. Russell

--- On Tue, 5/17/11, Glenn Morris <rgm@gnu.org> wrote:

> From: Glenn Morris <rgm@gnu.org>
> Subject: Re: bug#8674: 23.3; Face header rendering bug in Gnus v5.13 on GNU Emacs 23.3.1 (i386-mingw-nt5.1.2600) on Windows XP Professional, Service Pack 3
> To: "Benjamin L. Russell" <DekuDekuplex@Yahoo.com>
> Cc: 8674@debbugs.gnu.org
> Date: Tuesday, May 17, 2011, 6:43 AM
> Benjamin L. Russell wrote:
> 
> > There is a bug in GNU Emacs 23.3.1 that prevents
> correct rendering of
> > Face headers in NNTP postings.  Specifically, the
> following Emacs Lisp
> > code in my ~/.gnus.el file for inserting a face header
> in a USENET
> > posting works on GNU Emacs 23.2.1, but not on version
> 23.3.1, with Gnus
> > v5.13:
> 
> The Gnus manual says
> 
>    Viewing an [sic] `Face' header requires
> an Emacs that is able to
>    display PNG images.
> 
> Can your Emacs display PNG images?
> If not, I imagine this is the same as
> 
> http://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=8324
>