Nice blog post - Org-mode in Your Pocket Is a GNU-Shaped Devil

Nice blog post - Org-mode in Your Pocket Is a GNU-Shaped Devil

[Rainer M. Krug]

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Hi

I stumbled upon this blog post :
http://mph.puddingbowl.org/2010/02/org-mode-in-your-pocket-is-a-gnu-shaped-devil/

It is from 2010, but it describes my feelings perfectly - I just started
using gnus.

Cheers and thanks everybody for building and contributing to org-mode,

Rainer

-- 
Rainer M. Krug, PhD (Conservation Ecology, SUN), MSc (Conservation Biology, UCT), Dipl. Phys. (Germany)

Centre of Excellence for Invasion Biology
Stellenbosch University
South Africa

Tel :       +33 - (0)9 53 10 27 44
Cell:       +33 - (0)6 85 62 59 98
Fax :       +33 - (0)9 58 10 27 44

Fax (D):    +49 - (0)3 21 21 25 22 44

email:      Rainer@krugs.de

Skype:      RMkrug

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Re: Nice blog post - Org-mode in Your Pocket Is a GNU-Shaped Devil

[Russell Adams]

On Thu, Apr 04, 2013 at 11:28:23AM +0200, Rainer M. Krug wrote:
> http://mph.puddingbowl.org/2010/02/org-mode-in-your-pocket-is-a-gnu-shaped-devil/
>
> It is from 2010, but it describes my feelings perfectly - I just started
> using gnus.

What a great summary! That certainly sums it up:

"The genius of org-mode is that you will eventually impose more
complex features on yourself."

I need that last paragraph in a poster. I wonder if we can quote him
on t-shirts?

Thanks for sharing.

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PGP Key ID:     0x1160DCB3           http://www.adamsinfoserv.com/

Fingerprint:    1723 D8CA 4280 1EC9 557F  66E8 1154 E018 1160 DCB3

Re: Nice blog post - Org-mode in Your Pocket Is a GNU-Shaped Devil

[Christian Moe]

Been there, nearly did that, then opted for mu4e over gnus, to
preserve remains of sanity.

Cheers,
Christian

Rainer M. Krug writes:

> Hi
>
> I stumbled upon this blog post :
> http://mph.puddingbowl.org/2010/02/org-mode-in-your-pocket-is-a-gnu-shaped-devil/
>
> It is from 2010, but it describes my feelings perfectly - I just started
> using gnus.
>
> Cheers and thanks everybody for building and contributing to org-mode,
>
> Rainer

Re: Nice blog post - Org-mode in Your Pocket Is a GNU-Shaped Devil

[Rainer M. Krug]

Christian Moe <mail@christianmoe.com> writes:

> Been there, nearly did that, then opted for mu4e over gnus, to
> preserve remains of sanity.

Sanity - never heard of it. I am giving gnus a few weeks and then I wil
see - I think I am getting used to it (*not* understanding it!)

I use notmuch for email indexing, so I liiked at notmuchs email
capabilities, and I decided to look at gnus. Maybe mu4e is next - I will
see.

Cheers,

Rainer


>
> Cheers,
> Christian
>
> Rainer M. Krug writes:
>
>> Hi
>>
>> I stumbled upon this blog post :
>> http://mph.puddingbowl.org/2010/02/org-mode-in-your-pocket-is-a-gnu-shaped-devil/
>>
>> It is from 2010, but it describes my feelings perfectly - I just started
>> using gnus.
>>
>> Cheers and thanks everybody for building and contributing to org-mode,
>>
>> Rainer
>
<#secure method=pgpmime mode=sign>

-- 
Rainer M. Krug, PhD (Conservation Ecology, SUN), MSc (Conservation Biology, UCT), Dipl. Phys. (Germany)

Centre of Excellence for Invasion Biology
Stellenbosch University
South Africa

Tel :       +33 - (0)9 53 10 27 44
Cell:       +33 - (0)6 85 62 59 98
Fax :       +33 - (0)9 58 10 27 44

Fax (D):    +49 - (0)3 21 21 25 22 44

email:      Rainer@krugs.de

Skype:      RMkrug

Re: Nice blog post - Org-mode in Your Pocket Is a GNU-Shaped Devil

[François Pinard]

Rainer@krugs.de (Rainer M. Krug) writes:

> Sanity - never heard of it. I am giving gnus a few weeks and then I wil
> see - I think I am getting used to it (*not* understanding it!)

Hi Rainer!

I surely tried many mail user agents (MUAs) in my life and, sad to say
:-), Gnus is undoubtedly the most featured and flexible, while being the
one which best respects various standards in the field.

If I write "sad to say", this is because Gnus coupled me more intimately
with Emacs, while I tried hard to run away of it, to recover some sanity.
To no avail: after many years of abstinence, and with reluctance and
dismay, Org got me back in it.  Org is so good that I could not resist.

In the meantime, despite I found some MUAs quite impressive, I knew deep
down that none really match Gnus.  So, when Org thrown me back in Emacs,
and given Org and Gnus integrate rather well with one another, Gnus was
the next logical step, which I do not regret yet.

A tiny example from yesterday.  Knowing that Google Reader is soon going
to leave us, and after a few other unsatisfying tries, I finally opted
for Gwene + Gnus, and found out that the UI is even more efficient than
Google Reader, at least for me, to sort out what I want to read and what
I want to ignore.  Some groups (Hacker News is typical) only yield links
in Gnus, with no text.  It took me about one hour (my Gnus programming
is rather rusty) for adding a Gnus command opening many tabs at once, in
a graphical browser, for all articles I retain in Gnus for reading.

I do not see any other environment in which such tiny projects would
stay reasonably small and tractable.

François

Re: Nice blog post - Org-mode in Your Pocket Is a GNU-Shaped Devil

[Bastien]

Hi François,

François Pinard <pinard@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:

> It took me about one hour (my Gnus programming
> is rather rusty) for adding a Gnus command opening many tabs at once, in
> a graphical browser, for all articles I retain in Gnus for reading.

That looks nice, is your hack public somewhere?

I've been using Gwene + Gnus for feeds since one year or so now, 
and it is a clear win.

And Gnus as the most funny manual ever.  Another reason to stick to
it.

-- 
 Bastien

Re: Nice blog post - Org-mode in Your Pocket Is a GNU-Shaped Devil

[Rainer M. Krug]

François Pinard <pinard@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:

> Rainer@krugs.de (Rainer M. Krug) writes:
>
>> Sanity - never heard of it. I am giving gnus a few weeks and then I wil
>> see - I think I am getting used to it (*not* understanding it!)
>
> Hi Rainer!
>
> I surely tried many mail user agents (MUAs) in my life and, sad to say
> :-), Gnus is undoubtedly the most featured and flexible, while being the
> one which best respects various standards in the field.
>
> If I write "sad to say", this is because Gnus coupled me more intimately
> with Emacs, while I tried hard to run away of it, to recover some sanity.
> To no avail: after many years of abstinence, and with reluctance and
> dismay, Org got me back in it.  Org is so good that I could not resist.

I used org more or less exclusively for literate programming in R, and I
never really got used to emacs and elisp - but even though, org kept me
with emacs - I don't want to miss org and babel with ess when writing
code! And now it is gnus...

>
> In the meantime, despite I found some MUAs quite impressive, I knew deep
> down that none really match Gnus.  So, when Org thrown me back in Emacs,
> and given Org and Gnus integrate rather well with one another, Gnus was
> the next logical step, which I do not regret yet.

After two days, I was frustrated with gnus, andstarted thunderbird
again... When after five minutes thunderbird was still unresponsive and
using one of my two cores, I decided that's it - gnus is so much faster
and when I search with notmuch, I have everything I need for now (well -
next step is the google calendar...).

>
> A tiny example from yesterday.  Knowing that Google Reader is soon going
> to leave us, and after a few other unsatisfying tries, I finally opted
> for Gwene + Gnus, and found out that the UI is even more efficient than
> Google Reader, at least for me, to sort out what I want to read and what
> I want to ignore.  Some groups (Hacker News is typical) only yield links
> in Gnus, with no text.  It took me about one hour (my Gnus programming
> is rather rusty) for adding a Gnus command opening many tabs at once, in
> a graphical browser, for all articles I retain in Gnus for reading.

Interesting. But As I read my news mainly on my iPad at home (to not
distract me even more from work then gnus is already doing) I am trying feedly.
 
>
> I do not see any other environment in which such tiny projects would
> stay reasonably small and tractable.

Well - at the moment I don't see the end of gnus yet...

Cheers and happy orging,

Rainer

>
> François
>
<#secure method=pgpmime mode=sign>

-- 
Rainer M. Krug, PhD (Conservation Ecology, SUN), MSc (Conservation Biology, UCT), Dipl. Phys. (Germany)

Centre of Excellence for Invasion Biology
Stellenbosch University
South Africa

Tel :       +33 - (0)9 53 10 27 44
Cell:       +33 - (0)6 85 62 59 98
Fax :       +33 - (0)9 58 10 27 44

Fax (D):    +49 - (0)3 21 21 25 22 44

email:      Rainer@krugs.de

Skype:      RMkrug

Re: Nice blog post - Org-mode in Your Pocket Is a GNU-Shaped Devil

[Haider Rizvi]

Bastien <bzg@altern.org> writes:

> Hi François,
>
> François Pinard <pinard@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:
>
>> It took me about one hour (my Gnus programming
>> is rather rusty) for adding a Gnus command opening many tabs at once, in
>> a graphical browser, for all articles I retain in Gnus for reading.
>
> That looks nice, is your hack public somewhere?

Not exactly the above, but I have the following my-gnus-browse bound
to ; in gnus-summary-mode-map, which opens up a browser with the right
links for gwene, gmane and nnrss groups. I think the browse-nnrss-url
is untouched from the gnus manual.

(defun browse-nnrss-url( arg )
  (interactive "p")
  (let ((url (assq nnrss-url-field
                   (mail-header-extra
                    (gnus-data-header
                     (assq (gnus-summary-article-number)
                           gnus-newsgroup-data))))))
    (if url
        (progn
          (browse-url (cdr url))
          (gnus-summary-mark-as-read-forward 1))
      (gnus-summary-scroll-up arg))))
(add-to-list 'nnmail-extra-headers nnrss-url-field)

(defun rs-gnus-browse-archived-at ()
  "Browse \"Archived-at\" URL of the current article."
  (interactive)
  (let (url)
    (with-current-buffer gnus-original-article-buffer
      (setq url (gnus-fetch-field "Archived-at")))
    (if (not (stringp url))
	(gnus-message 1 "No \"Archived-at\" header found.")
      (setq url (gnus-replace-in-string url "^<\\|>$" ""))
      (browse-url url))))

(defun my-gnus-browse (arg)
  (interactive "p")
  (cond ((string-match ":\\(gwene\\|gmane\\)\\." gnus-newsgroup-name)
         (rs-gnus-browse-archived-at))
        ((string-match "^nnrss\." gnus-newsgroup-name)
         (browse-nnrss-url arg))))


Regards, 
-- 
Haider

Re: Nice blog post - Org-mode in Your Pocket Is a GNU-Shaped Devil

[Suvayu Ali]

On Thu, Apr 04, 2013 at 07:48:50AM -0400, François Pinard wrote:
> If I write "sad to say", this is because Gnus coupled me more intimately
> with Emacs, while I tried hard to run away of it, to recover some sanity.

[...]

> In the meantime, despite I found some MUAs quite impressive, I knew deep
> down that none really match Gnus.

<rant/>
For me it is the other way around.  I want to couple with Emacs more
closely, but Gnus prevents me from doing so.  A few gripes follow.

1. Emacs is single threaded, so a network interruption while reading my
   email over IMAP means my emacs server is stuck!
2. Oh that's easy to solve, use maildirs (sync with OfflineIMAP).  That
   does not work well because Gnus uses its own flags (an example where
   Gnus actually breaks standards)!  There are some hacks around that
   out in the wild, so let's let it slide.
3. Gnus stores some meta information/cache for maildirs in a .nnmaildir
   folder *inside* the maildir directory tree!
     maildir
     ├── .nnmaildir
     ├── cur
     ├── new
     └── tmp
   I do not know how, but this supposed meta information or cache takes
   about 2/3 of disk space as the original maildir!  Obviously that is a
   problem for large mailboxes.

Apart from this I often notice broken threads from posters using Gnus,
not sure if Gnus or the user is to blame there.
</rant>

I use mutt-kz (mutt with notmuch integration) and emacsclient.  With
support for linking using org-notmuch, I couldn't be happier.

-- 
Suvayu

Open source is the future. It sets us free.

Re: Nice blog post - Org-mode in Your Pocket Is a GNU-Shaped Devil

[François Pinard]

Bastien <bzg@altern.org> writes:

>> It took me about one hour (my Gnus programming is rather rusty) for
>> adding a Gnus command opening many tabs at once, in a graphical
>> browser, for all articles I retain in Gnus for reading.

> That looks nice, is your hack public somewhere?

No, but here it is, usage instructions follow.



(defun fp-gnus-summary-open-links (arg)
  "Open links in a browser for processable articles, like for Hacker News."
  (interactive "P")
  (let ((articles (gnus-summary-work-articles arg)))
    (save-excursion
      (while articles
        (setq article (pop articles))
        (gnus-summary-goto-article article)
        (gnus-summary-show-article t)
        (save-excursion
          (pop-to-buffer gnus-article-buffer)
          (re-search-forward "<a href=\"\\([^\"]+\\)\">Link</a>")
          (browse-url (match-string 1)))
        (gnus-summary-remove-process-mark article))))
  (gnus-summary-position-point))

(defun my-gnus-summary-mode-hook ()
  (define-key gnus-summary-mode-map "\C-cnl" 'fp-gnus-summary-open-links)
  ;; ...
  )
(add-hook 'gnus-summary-mode-hook 'my-gnus-summary-mode-hook)



The function selects articles according to the process/mark convention,
and I want it to fail whenever an article does not have a "Link" button
(that's why I do not catch the error if "re-search" fails).  So, I use
it this way.  In an RSS summary buffer, I use C-k to "read" without
opening any subject I want to skip.  Once done, I use "x M P A C-c n l"
to remove all article I C-k'ed, add a process mark on everything else,
then transfer marked articles into a graphical browser, one tab per
article.  Transferred articles also get "read" in the summary buffer.


I also use this bit of Emacs Lisp code in ~/.emacs, which is related:



;; Chrome (really xdg-open)
;; ------------------------

(defun browse-url-xdg-open (url &optional new-window)
  "Ask the default browser to load URL.
Default to the URL around or before point."
  (interactive (browse-url-interactive-arg "URL: "))
  (shell-command (concat "xdg-open "
                         (shell-quote-argument (browse-url-encode-url url)))))

(setq browse-url-browser-function 'browse-url-xdg-open)



François

Re: Nice blog post - Org-mode in Your Pocket Is a GNU-Shaped Devil

[François Pinard]

Suvayu Ali <fatkasuvayu+linux@gmail.com> writes:

> For me it is the other way around.  I want to couple with Emacs more
> closely, but Gnus prevents me from doing so.  A few gripes follow.

> 1. Emacs is single threaded, so a network interruption while reading my
>    email over IMAP means my emacs server is stuck!

It would be so appealing if Emacs was really using threading for its
windows.  Tom Tromey seems to be making a very courageous attempt at it,
but is still hitting various problems and walls.  I wonder if he will
succeed at the end.

In my case, Emacs is indeed stuck for a few seconds, not enough to
bother me significantly.  I read that some people combine fetchmail,
procmail and other tools so Emacs does not IMAP itself; I just did not
want to dive into all the locking and synchronization issues implied by
such tools.

> 2. Oh that's easy to solve, use maildirs (sync with OfflineIMAP).  That
>    does not work well because Gnus uses its own flags (an example where
>    Gnus actually breaks standards)!  There are some hacks around that
>    out in the wild, so let's let it slide.
> 3. Gnus stores some meta information/cache for maildirs in a .nnmaildir
>    folder *inside* the maildir directory tree!
>      maildir
>      ├── .nnmaildir
>      ├── cur
>      ├── new
>      └── tmp
>    I do not know how, but this supposed meta information or cache takes
>    about 2/3 of disk space as the original maildir!  Obviously that is a
>    problem for large mailboxes.

I never really studies IMAP, and use it rather naively, so I take your
word about Gnus not being straight about it.  Sorry to hear that.  I've
not been bitten yet, or maybe I'm just too naive to know.

However, I remember that I often had to read Gnus structures in
external, non-Emacs programs, and it is indeed a challenge each time.  I
merely try to not do that anymore! :-)

> I use mutt-kz (mutt with notmuch integration) and emacsclient.  With
> support for linking using org-notmuch, I couldn't be happier.

Thanks for the hints, which I save, could be useful one day, who knows!
:-) When I left Emacs for other lands, years ago, I decided for Mutt and
used it for many years (before switching to others, and finally
Thunderbird).  With many stunts (a bit too much of them should I say), I
could get Mutt to do about anything I wanted (but never had such success
with Thunderbird).  Back to Gnus, and configuring it as little as I can,
I have the impression of recovering some simplicity on the user side.
Moreover, Org nicely plays with Gnus (or almost).

François

Re: Nice blog post - Org-mode in Your Pocket Is a GNU-Shaped Devil

[Suvayu Ali]

Hey François,

On Fri, Apr 05, 2013 at 07:18:56AM -0400, François Pinard wrote:
> Suvayu Ali <fatkasuvayu+linux@gmail.com> writes:
> 
> > For me it is the other way around.  I want to couple with Emacs more
> > closely, but Gnus prevents me from doing so.  A few gripes follow.
> 
> > 1. Emacs is single threaded, so a network interruption while reading my
> >    email over IMAP means my emacs server is stuck!
> 
> It would be so appealing if Emacs was really using threading for its
> windows.  Tom Tromey seems to be making a very courageous attempt at it,
> but is still hitting various problems and walls.  I wonder if he will
> succeed at the end.

I'm dying for Emacs to be multi-threaded in the future.  Email is just
one task affected by this.  My biggest problem is using tramp over
unreliable connections.  e.g. I want to edit my remote org files with
the latest and greatest of org on my laptop!  I often have to work on
remote machines behind internal gateways (that's 3 ssh hops away!).  I
do save my notes/tasks in org files there, but cannot edit them
optimally because emacs on these nodes is some crappy old version.

> > 2. Oh that's easy to solve, use maildirs (sync with OfflineIMAP).  That
> >    does not work well because Gnus uses its own flags (an example where
> >    Gnus actually breaks standards)!  There are some hacks around that
> >    out in the wild, so let's let it slide.
> > 3. Gnus stores some meta information/cache for maildirs in a .nnmaildir
> >    folder *inside* the maildir directory tree!
> >      maildir
> >      ├── .nnmaildir
> >      ├── cur
> >      ├── new
> >      └── tmp
> >    I do not know how, but this supposed meta information or cache takes
> >    about 2/3 of disk space as the original maildir!  Obviously that is a
> >    problem for large mailboxes.
> 
> I never really studies IMAP, and use it rather naively, so I take your
> word about Gnus not being straight about it.  Sorry to hear that.  I've
> not been bitten yet, or maybe I'm just too naive to know.

Ah I think you misunderstood me.  My solution above was to move from
IMAP to Maildir so the reliance on a live network connection is gone.
Gnus screws it up when dealing with _Maildir_ flags.

Now back to work and more on topic threads.  ;)

Cheers,

-- 
Suvayu

Open source is the future. It sets us free.

Re: Nice blog post - Org-mode in Your Pocket Is a GNU-Shaped Devil

[Gareth Smith]

Suvayu Ali <fatkasuvayu+linux@gmail.com> writes:
> 2. Oh that's easy to solve, use maildirs (sync with OfflineIMAP).  That
>    does not work well because Gnus uses its own flags (an example where
>    Gnus actually breaks standards)!  There are some hacks around that
>    out in the wild, so let's let it slide.
> 3. Gnus stores some meta information/cache for maildirs in a .nnmaildir
>    folder *inside* the maildir directory tree!
>      maildir
>      ├── .nnmaildir
>      ├── cur
>      ├── new
>      └── tmp
>    I do not know how, but this supposed meta information or cache takes
>    about 2/3 of disk space as the original maildir!  Obviously that is a
>    problem for large mailboxes.

FWIW, I use offlineimap this way, but rather than pointing gnus directly
at my local maildir, I use dovecot (a small local IMAP server) as an
intermediary. This method is documented here:

http://roland.entierement.nu/blog/2010/09/08/gnus-dovecot-offlineimap-search-a-howto.html

Note the update at the end, since dovecot's command-line interface has
changed since the article was first written. I actually use:

(setq gnus-select-method '(nnimap "Mail"
                                  (nnimap-shell-program
                                   "/usr/lib/dovecot/imap -c ~/.dovecotrc")
                                  (nnimap-stream shell)))

So far, my emacs (which contains everything I do except Firefox) has
remained responsive, and my mailstore still makes sense to K9 when I'm
mobile.

G                                  

Re: Nice blog post - Org-mode in Your Pocket Is a GNU-Shaped Devil

[Eric Schulte]

>
> FWIW, I use offlineimap this way, but rather than pointing gnus directly
> at my local maildir, I use dovecot (a small local IMAP server) as an
> intermediary. This method is documented here:
>
> http://roland.entierement.nu/blog/2010/09/08/gnus-dovecot-offlineimap-search-a-howto.html
>

+1

I also use gnus, dovecot and offlineimap, and used this same page to
guide my setup.  Although this wasn't trivial to setup, I love the
results.  A responsive email/Emacs environment which is fully available
allowing me to read and write mail with or without internet access
(great for hour long train commutes).

>
> Note the update at the end, since dovecot's command-line interface has
> changed since the article was first written. I actually use:
>
> (setq gnus-select-method '(nnimap "Mail"
>                                   (nnimap-shell-program
>                                    "/usr/lib/dovecot/imap -c ~/.dovecotrc")
>                                   (nnimap-stream shell)))
>
> So far, my emacs (which contains everything I do except Firefox) has
> remained responsive, and my mailstore still makes sense to K9 when I'm
> mobile.
>
> G                                  
>
>

-- 
Eric Schulte
http://cs.unm.edu/~eschulte

Re: Nice blog post - Org-mode in Your Pocket Is a GNU-Shaped Devil

[Bastien]

Hi Haider,

Haider Rizvi <harizvi@gmail.com> writes:

> Not exactly the above, but I have the following my-gnus-browse bound
> to ; in gnus-summary-mode-map, which opens up a browser with the right
> links for gwene, gmane and nnrss groups. I think the browse-nnrss-url
> is untouched from the gnus manual.

Thanks -- will try this!

-- 
 Bastien