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GNUS was written by Masanobu UMEDA. When autumn crept up in '94, Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen grew bored and decided to rewrite Gnus.
If you want to investigate the person responsible for this outrage, you can point your (feh!) web browser to `http://www.stud.ifi.uio.no/~larsi/'. This is also the primary distribution point for the new and spiffy versions of Gnus, and is known as The Site That Destroys Newsrcs And Drives People Mad.
During the first extended alpha period of development, the new Gnus was called "(ding) Gnus". (ding) is, of course, short for ding is not Gnus, which is a total and utter lie, but who cares? (Besides, the "Gnus" in this abbreviation should probably be pronounced "news" as UMEDA intended, which makes it a more appropriate name, don't you think?)
In any case, after spending all that energy on coming up with a new and spunky name, we decided that the name was too spunky, so we renamed it back again to "Gnus". But in mixed case. "Gnus" vs. "GNUS". New vs. old.
The first "proper" release of Gnus 5 was done in November 1995 when it was included in the Emacs 19.30 distribution (132 (ding) Gnus releases plus 15 Gnus 5.0 releases).
In May 1996 the next Gnus generation (aka. "September Gnus" (after 99 releases)) was released under the name "Gnus 5.2" (40 releases).
On July 28th 1996 work on Red Gnus was begun, and it was released on January 25th 1997 (after 84 releases) as "Gnus 5.4" (67 releases).
On September 13th 1997, Quassia Gnus was started and lasted 37 releases. If was released as "Gnus 5.6 on March 8th 1998.
If you happen upon a version of Gnus that has a prefixed name -- "(ding) Gnus", "September Gnus", "Red Gnus", "Quassia Gnus" -- don't panic. Don't let it know that you're frightened. Back away. Slowly. Whatever you do, don't run. Walk away, calmly, until you're out of its reach. Find a proper released version of Gnus and snuggle up to that instead.
What's the point of Gnus?
I want to provide a "rad", "happening", "way cool" and "hep" newsreader, that lets you do anything you can think of. That was my original motivation, but while working on Gnus, it has become clear to me that this generation of newsreaders really belong in the stone age. Newsreaders haven't developed much since the infancy of the net. If the volume continues to rise with the current rate of increase, all current newsreaders will be pretty much useless. How do you deal with newsgroups that have thousands of new articles each day? How do you keep track of millions of people who post?
Gnus offers no real solutions to these questions, but I would very much like to see Gnus being used as a testing ground for new methods of reading and fetching news. Expanding on UMEDA-san's wise decision to separate the newsreader from the backends, Gnus now offers a simple interface for anybody who wants to write new backends for fetching mail and news from different sources. I have added hooks for customizations everywhere I could imagine it being useful. By doing so, I'm inviting every one of you to explore and invent.
May Gnus never be complete. C-u 100 M-x all-hail-emacs and C-u 100 M-x all-hail-xemacs.
Gnus was designed to be fully compatible with GNUS. Almost all key bindings have been kept. More key bindings have been added, of course, but only in one or two obscure cases have old bindings been changed.
Our motto is:
In a cloud bones of steel.
All commands have kept their names. Some internal functions have changed their names.
The gnus-uu
package has changed drastically. See section Decoding Articles.
One major compatibility question is the presence of several summary buffers. All variables relevant while reading a group are buffer-local to the summary buffer they belong in. Although many important variables have their values copied into their global counterparts whenever a command is executed in the summary buffer, this change might lead to incorrect values being used unless you are careful.
All code that relies on knowledge of GNUS internals will probably
fail. To take two examples: Sorting gnus-newsrc-alist
(or
changing it in any way, as a matter of fact) is strictly verboten. Gnus
maintains a hash table that points to the entries in this alist (which
speeds up many functions), and changing the alist directly will lead to
peculiar results.
Old hilit19 code does not work at all. In fact, you should probably
remove all hilit code from all Gnus hooks
(gnus-group-prepare-hook
and gnus-summary-prepare-hook
).
Gnus provides various integrated functions for highlighting. These are
faster and more accurate. To make life easier for everybody, Gnus will
by default remove all hilit calls from all hilit hooks. Uncleanliness!
Away!
Packages like expire-kill
will no longer work. As a matter of
fact, you should probably remove all old GNUS packages (and other
code) when you start using Gnus. More likely than not, Gnus already
does what you have written code to make GNUS do. (Snicker.)
Even though old methods of doing things are still supported, only the new methods are documented in this manual. If you detect a new method of doing something while reading this manual, that does not mean you have to stop doing it the old way.
Gnus understands all GNUS startup files.
Overall, a casual user who hasn't written much code that depends on GNUS internals should suffer no problems. If problems occur, please let me know by issuing that magic command M-x gnus-bug.
If you are in the habit of sending bug reports very often, you
may find the helpful help buffer annoying after a while. If so, set
gnus-bug-create-help-buffer
to nil
to avoid having it pop
up at you.
No rebels without a clue here, ma'am. We conform to all standards known to (wo)man. Except for those standards and/or conventions we disagree with, of course.
tin
and Netscape
I know not to use either of
those for posting articles. I would not have known that if it wasn't
for the X-Newsreader
header.
If you ever notice Gnus acting non-compliant with regards to the texts mentioned above, don't hesitate to drop a note to Gnus Towers and let us know.
Gnus should work on :
Gnus will absolutely not work on any Emacsen older than that. Not reliably, at least.
There are some vague differences between Gnus on the various platforms--XEmacs features more graphics (a logo and a toolbar)---but other than that, things should look pretty much the same under all Emacsen.
The new Gnus version couldn't have been done without the help of all the people on the (ding) mailing list. Every day for over a year I have gotten billions of nice bug reports from them, filling me with joy, every single one of them. Smooches. The people on the list have been tried beyond endurance, what with my "oh, that's a neat idea <type type>, yup, I'll release it right away <ship off> no wait, that doesn't work at all <type type>, yup, I'll ship that one off right away <ship off> no, wait, that absolutely does not work" policy for releases. Micro$oft--bah. Amateurs. I'm much worse. (Or is that "worser"? "much worser"? "worsest"?)
I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Academy for... oops, wrong show.
This manual was proof-read by Adrian Aichner, with Ricardo Nassif, Mark Borges, and Jost Krieger proof-reading parts of the manual.
The following people have contributed many patches and suggestions:
Christopher Davis, Andrew Eskilsson, Kai Grossjohann, David Kågedal, Richard Pieri, Fabrice Popineau, Daniel Quinlan, Jason L. Tibbitts, III, and Jack Vinson.
Also thanks to the following for patches and stuff:
Jari Aalto, Adrian Aichner, Vladimir Alexiev, Russ Allbery, Peter Arius, Matt Armstrong, Marc Auslander, Frank Bennett, Robert Bihlmeyer, Chris Bone, Mark Borges, Mark Boyns, Lance A. Brown, Kees de Bruin, Martin Buchholz, Joe Buehler, Kevin Buhr, Alastair Burt, Joao Cachopo, Zlatko Calusic, Massimo Campostrini, Castor, David Charlap, Dan Christensen, Kevin Christian, Michael R. Cook, Glenn Coombs, Frank D. Cringle, Geoffrey T. Dairiki, Andre Deparade, Ulrik Dickow, Dave Disser, Rui-Tao Dong, Joev Dubach, Michael Welsh Duggan, Dave Edmondson, Paul Eggert, Enami Tsugutomo, Michael Ernst, Luc Van Eycken, Sam Falkner, Nelson Jose dos Santos Ferreira, Sigbjorn Finne, Decklin Foster, Gary D. Foster, Paul Franklin, Guy Geens, Arne Georg Gleditsch, David S. Goldberg, Michelangelo Grigni, D. Hall, Magnus Hammerin, Kenichi Handa, Raja R. Harinath, Yoshiki Hayashi, P. E. Jareth Hein, Hisashige Kenji, Marc Horowitz, Gunnar Horrigmo, Richard Hoskins, Brad Howes, François Felix Ingrand, Ishikawa Ichiro, Lee Iverson, Iwamuro Motonori, Rajappa Iyer, Andreas Jaeger, Randell Jesup, Fred Johansen, Gareth Jones, Simon Josefsson, Greg Klanderman, Karl Kleinpaste, Peter Skov Knudsen, Shuhei Kobayashi, Koseki Yoshinori, Thor Kristoffersen, Jens Lautenbacher, Martin Larose, Seokchan Lee, Carsten Leonhardt, James LewisMoss, Christian Limpach, Markus Linnala, Dave Love, Mike McEwan, Tonny Madsen, Shlomo Mahlab, Nat Makarevitch, Istvan Marko, David Martin, Jason R. Mastaler, Gordon Matzigkeit, Timo Metzemakers, Richard Mlynarik, Lantz Moore, Morioka Tomohiko, Erik Toubro Nielsen, Hrvoje Niksic, Andy Norman, Fred Oberhauser, C. R. Oldham, Alexandre Oliva, Ken Olstad, Masaharu Onishi, Hideki Ono, William Perry, Stephen Peters, Jens-Ulrik Holger Petersen, Ulrich Pfeifer, Matt Pharr, John McClary Prevost, Bill Pringlemeir, Mike Pullen, Jim Radford, Colin Rafferty, Lasse Rasinen, Lars Balker Rasmussen, Joe Reiss, Renaud Rioboo, Roland B. Roberts, Bart Robinson, Christian von Roques, Jason Rumney, Wolfgang Rupprecht, Jay Sachs, Dewey M. Sasser, Loren Schall, Dan Schmidt, Ralph Schleicher, Philippe Schnoebelen, Andreas Schwab, Randal L. Schwartz, Justin Sheehy, Danny Siu, Matt Simmons, Paul D. Smith, Jeff Sparkes, Toby Speight, Michael Sperber, Darren Stalder, Richard Stallman, Greg Stark, Sam Steingold, Paul Stodghill, Kurt Swanson, Samuel Tardieu, Teddy, Chuck Thompson, Philippe Troin, James Troup, Trung Tran-Duc, Aaron M. Ucko, Aki Vehtari, Didier Verna, Jan Vroonhof, Stefan Waldherr, Pete Ware, Barry A. Warsaw, Christoph Wedler, Joe Wells, Katsumi Yamaoka, and Shenghuo Zhu.
For a full overview of what each person has done, the ChangeLogs included in the Gnus alpha distributions should give ample reading (550kB and counting).
Apologies to everybody that I've forgotten, of which there are many, I'm sure.
Gee, that's quite a list of people. I guess that must mean that there actually are people who are using Gnus. Who'd'a thunk it!
These lists are, of course, just short overviews of the most important new features. No, really. There are tons more. Yes, we have feeping creaturism in full effect.
New features in Gnus 5.0/5.1:
New features in Gnus 5.2/5.3:
mail-mode
, rnews-reply-mode
and gnus-msg
are
now obsolete.
(setq gnus-build-sparse-threads 'some)
trn
-like tree buffer can be displayed (see section Tree Display).
(setq gnus-use-trees t)
nn
-like pick-and-read minor mode is available for the summary
buffers (see section Pick and Read).
(add-hook 'gnus-summary-mode-hook 'gnus-pick-mode)
(add-hook 'gnus-group-mode-hook 'gnus-topic-mode)
(add-hook 'gnus-summary-exit-hook 'gnus-summary-bubble-group)
nndoc
now understands all kinds of digests, mail boxes, rnews
news batches, ClariNet briefs collections, and just about everything
else (see section Document Groups).
nnsoup
) to create/read SOUP packets
(see section SOUP).
(add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-add-buttons-to-head)
Message-ID
.
gnus-buffer-configuration
(see section Windows Configuration).
(setq gnus-use-nocem t)
(setq gnus-permanently-visible-groups "^nnml:")
Mail-Copies-To
header.
References
header
(see section Customizing Threading).
(setq gnus-summary-thread-gathering-function 'gnus-gather-threads-by-references)
(setq gnus-keep-backlog 50)
(setq gnus-prompt-before-saving t)
gnus-uu
can view decoded files asynchronously while fetching
articles (see section Other Decode Variables).
(setq gnus-uu-grabbed-file-functions 'gnus-uu-grab-view)
(setq gnus-cited-lines-visible 2)
(add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-hide-boring-headers t)
New features in Gnus 5.4/5.5:
and
,
or
, not
, and parent redirection (see section Advanced Scoring).
(setq gnus-suppress-duplicates t)
nndoc
was rewritten to be easily extendable (see section Document Server Internals).
nn
-like. Line
numbers are displayed and the . command can be used to pick
articles (Pick and Read
).
w
(see section Score File Format).
(setq gnus-use-adaptive-scoring '(word))
(setq gnus-decay-scores t)
nndoc
with nnvirtual
on top) has been added---M-C-d
(see section Really Various Summary Commands).
Sorting
Groups
).
(add-hook 'gnus-article-display-hook 'gnus-article-emphasize)
New features in Gnus 5.6:
nndraft
backend has returned, but works differently than
before. All Message buffers are now also articles in the nndraft
group, which is created automatically.
gnus-alter-header-function
can now be used to alter header
values.
gnus-summary-goto-article
now accept Message-ID's.
nnvirtual
groups with
C-u C-c C-c.
nntp-rlogin-program
---new variable to ease customization.
C-u C-c C-c
in gnus-article-edit-mode
will now inhibit
re-highlighting of the article buffer.
gnus-boring-article-headers
---long-to
.
gnus-simplify-subject-functions
variable to allow greater
control over simplification.
nnmail-split-methods
.
custom-face-lookup
function has been removed.
If you used this function in your initialization files, you must
rewrite them to use face-spec-set
instead.
nntp
, you can set
nntp-record-commands
to a non-nil
value.
nntp
now uses `~/.authinfo', a `.netrc'-like file, for
controlling where and how to send AUTHINFO to NNTP servers.
article-date-iso8601
.
gnus-score-thread-simplify
.
message-cite-original-without-signature
.
article-strip-all-blank-lines
---new article command.
gnus-adaptive-word-minimum
variable.
gnus-start-date-timer
command.
nnlistserv
backend.
nnweb
.
Also known as the todo list. Sure to be implemented before the next millennium.
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
(That a feature appears in this list doesn't necessarily mean that I've decided to actually implement it. It just means that I think it sounds interesting.)
(Yes, this is the actual, up-to-the-second todo list.)
Hypermail: <URL:http://www.falch.no/people/pepper/DSSSL-Lite/archives/> <URL:http://www.eit.com/software/hypermail/hypermail.html> <URL:http://homer.ncm.com/> <URL:http://www.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Internet/World_Wide_Web/HTML_Converters/> http://www.uwsg.indiana.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/9610/index.html <URL:http://union.ncsa.uiuc.edu/HyperNews/get/www/html/converters.html> http://www.miranova.com/gnus-list/
push active file and NOV file parsing down into C code. `(canonize-message-id id)' `(mail-parent-message-id references n)' `(parse-news-nov-line &optional dependency-hashtb)' `(parse-news-nov-region beg end &optional dependency-hashtb fullp)' `(parse-news-active-region beg end hashtb)'
From: Jason L Tibbitts III <tibbs@hpc.uh.edu> (add-hook 'gnus-select-group-hook (lambda () (gnus-group-add-parameter group (cons 'gnus-group-date-last-entered (list (current-time-string)))))) (defun gnus-user-format-function-d (headers) "Return the date the group was last read." (cond ((car (gnus-group-get-parameter gnus-tmp-group 'gnus-group-date-last-entered))) (t "")))
`M l <name> RET' add label <name> to current message. `M u <name> RET' remove label <name> from current message. `/ l <expr> RET' limit summary buffer according to <expr>. <expr> would be a boolean expression on the labels, e.g. `/ l bug & !fixed RET'would show all the messages which are labeled `bug' but not labeled `fixed'. One could also imagine the labels being used for highlighting, or affect the summary line format.
Group-mode show-list-of-articles-in-group if (key-pressed == SPACE) if (no-more-articles-in-group-to-select) if (articles-selected) start-reading-selected-articles; junk-unread-articles; next-group; else show-next-page; else if (key-pressed = '.') if (consolidated-menus) # same as hide-thread in Gnus select-thread-under-cursor; else select-article-under-cursor; Article-mode if (key-pressed == SPACE) if (more-pages-in-article) next-page; else if (more-selected-articles-to-read) next-article; else next-group;
(defun article-fix-m$word () "Fix M$Word smartquotes in an article." (interactive) (save-excursion (let ((buffer-read-only nil)) (goto-char (point-min)) (while (search-forward "\221" nil t) (replace-match "`" t t)) (goto-char (point-min)) (while (search-forward "\222" nil t) (replace-match "'" t t)) (goto-char (point-min)) (while (search-forward "\223" nil t) (replace-match "\"" t t)) (goto-char (point-min)) (while (search-forward "\224" nil t) (replace-match "\"" t t)))))
(add-hook 'gnus-exit-query-functions '(lambda () (if (and (file-exists-p nnmail-spool-file) (> (nnheader-file-size nnmail-spool-file) 0)) (yes-or-no-p "New mail has arrived. Quit Gnus anyways? ") (y-or-n-p "Are you sure you want to quit Gnus? "))))
> > > If so, I've got one gripe: It seems that when I fire up gnus 5.2.25 > > > under xemacs-19.14, it's creating a new frame, but is erasing the > > > buffer in the frame that it was called from =:-O > > > Hm. How do you start up Gnus? From the toolbar or with > > `M-x gnus-other-frame'? > > I normally start it up from the toolbar; at > least that's the way I've caught it doing the > deed before.
"\\(This\s+\\)?[^ ]+ has been automatically signed by"og det er maks hundre tegn mellom match-end og ----linja. Men -det- er min type heuristikk og langt fra alles.
gnus-build-sparse-threads
has been switched on.
All variables are properly documented elsewhere in this manual. This section is designed to give general pointers on how to customize Gnus for some quite common situations.
If you run Emacs on a machine locally, and get your news from a machine over some very thin strings, you want to cut down on the amount of data Gnus has to get from the NNTP server.
gnus-read-active-file
nil
, which will inhibit Gnus from requesting the
entire active file from the server. This file is often v. large. You
also have to set gnus-check-new-newsgroups
and
gnus-check-bogus-newsgroups
to nil
to make sure that Gnus
doesn't suddenly decide to fetch the active file anyway.
gnus-nov-is-evil
nil
. If not, grabbing article headers from
the NNTP server will not be very fast. Not all NNTP servers
support XOVER; Gnus will detect this by itself.
Let's say you use your home computer for dialing up the system that runs Emacs and Gnus. If your modem is slow, you want to reduce (as much as possible) the amount of data sent over the wires.
gnus-auto-center-summary
nil
to inhibit Gnus from re-centering the summary
buffer all the time. If it is vertical
, do only vertical
re-centering. If it is neither nil
nor vertical
, do both
horizontal and vertical recentering.
gnus-visible-headers
gnus-article-display-hook
(setq gnus-article-display-hook '(gnus-article-hide-headers gnus-article-hide-signature gnus-article-hide-citation))
gnus-use-full-window
nil
, you can make all the windows smaller.
While this doesn't really cut down much generally, it means that you
have to see smaller portions of articles before deciding that you didn't
want to read them anyway.
gnus-thread-hide-subtree
nil
, all threads in the summary buffer will be
hidden initially.
gnus-updated-mode-lines
nil
, Gnus will not put information in the buffer mode
lines, which might save some time.
The startup files can get rather large, so you may want to cut their sizes a bit if you are running out of space.
gnus-save-newsrc-file
nil
, Gnus will never save `.newsrc'---it will
only save `.newsrc.eld'. This means that you will not be able to
use any other newsreaders than Gnus. This variable is t
by
default.
gnus-save-killed-list
nil
, Gnus will not save the list of dead groups. You
should also set gnus-check-new-newsgroups
to ask-server
and gnus-check-bogus-newsgroups
to nil
if you set this
variable to nil
. This variable is t
by default.
If you have a slow machine, or are just really impatient, there are a few things you can do to make Gnus run faster.
Set gnus-check-new-newsgroups
and
gnus-check-bogus-newsgroups
to nil
to make startup faster.
Set gnus-show-threads
, gnus-use-cross-reference
and
gnus-nov-is-evil
to nil
to make entering and exiting the
summary buffer faster.
Set gnus-article-display-hook
to nil
to make article
processing a bit faster.
Gnus works so well straight out of the box--I can't imagine any problems, really.
Ahem.
max-lisp-eval-depth
to 500 or
something like that.
If all else fails, report the problem as a bug.
If you find a bug in Gnus, you can report it with the M-x gnus-bug command. M-x set-variable RET debug-on-error RET t RET, and send me the backtrace. I will fix bugs, but I can only fix them if you send me a precise description as to how to reproduce the bug.
You really can never be too detailed in a bug report. Always use the M-x gnus-bug command when you make bug reports, even if it creates a 10Kb mail each time you use it, and even if you have sent me your environment 500 times before. I don't care. I want the full info each time.
It is also important to remember that I have no memory whatsoever. If you send a bug report, and I send you a reply, and then you just send back "No, it's not! Moron!", I will have no idea what you are insulting me about. Always over-explain everything. It's much easier for all of us--if I don't have all the information I need, I will just mail you and ask for more info, and everything takes more time.
If the problem you're seeing is very visual, and you can't quite explain
it, copy the Emacs window to a file (with xwd
, for instance), put
it somewhere it can be reached, and include the URL of the picture in
the bug report.
If you just need help, you are better off asking on `gnu.emacs.gnus'. I'm not very helpful.
You can also ask on the ding mailing list---`ding@gnus.org'. Write to `ding-request@gnus.org' to subscribe.
It is my hope that other people will figure out smart stuff that Gnus can do, and that other people will write those smart things as well. To facilitate that I thought it would be a good idea to describe the inner workings of Gnus. And some of the not-so-inner workings, while I'm at it.
You can never expect the internals of a program not to change, but I will be defining (in some details) the interface between Gnus and its backends (this is written in stone), the format of the score files (ditto), data structures (some are less likely to change than others) and general methods of operation.
When writing small functions to be run from hooks (and stuff), it's vital to have access to the Gnus internal functions and variables. Below is a list of the most common ones.
gnus-newsgroup-name
gnus-find-method-for-group
gnus-group-real-name
gnus-group-prefixed-name
gnus-get-info
gnus-group-unread
t
if that is
unknown.
gnus-active
gnus-set-active
gnus-add-current-to-buffer-list
gnus-continuum-version
gnus-group-read-only-p
gnus-news-group-p
gnus-ephemeral-group-p
gnus-server-to-method
gnus-server-equal
gnus-group-native-p
gnus-group-secondary-p
gnus-group-foreign-p
group-group-find-parameter
gnus-group-set-parameter
gnus-narrow-to-body
gnus-check-backend-function
nil
.
(gnus-check-backend-function "request-scan" "nnml:misc") => t
gnus-read-method
Gnus doesn't know anything about NNTP, spools, mail or virtual
groups. It only knows how to talk to virtual servers. A virtual
server is a backend and some backend variables. As examples
of the first, we have nntp
, nnspool
and nnmbox
. As
examples of the latter we have nntp-port-number
and
nnmbox-directory
.
When Gnus asks for information from a backend--say nntp
---on
something, it will normally include a virtual server name in the
function parameters. (If not, the backend should use the "current"
virtual server.) For instance, nntp-request-list
takes a virtual
server as its only (optional) parameter. If this virtual server hasn't
been opened, the function should fail.
Note that a virtual server name has no relation to some physical server name. Take this example:
(nntp "odd-one" (nntp-address "ifi.uio.no") (nntp-port-number 4324))
Here the virtual server name is `odd-one' while the name of the physical server is `ifi.uio.no'.
The backends should be able to switch between several virtual servers. The standard backends implement this by keeping an alist of virtual server environments that they pull down/push up when needed.
There are two groups of interface functions: required functions, which must be present, and optional functions, which Gnus will always check for presence before attempting to call 'em.
All these functions are expected to return data in the buffer
nntp-server-buffer
(` *nntpd*'), which is somewhat
unfortunately named, but we'll have to live with it. When I talk about
resulting data, I always refer to the data in that buffer. When I
talk about return value, I talk about the function value returned by
the function call. Functions that fail should return nil
as the
return value.
Some backends could be said to be server-forming backends, and some might be said not to be. The latter are backends that generally only operate on one group at a time, and have no concept of "server" -- they have a group, and they deliver info on that group and nothing more.
In the examples and definitions I will refer to the imaginary backend
nnchoke
.
(nnchoke-retrieve-headers ARTICLES &optional GROUP SERVER FETCH-OLD)
Message-ID
s. Current backends do not fully support either--only
sequences (lists) of article numbers, and most backends do not support
retrieval of Message-ID
s. But they should try for both.
The result data should either be HEADs or NOV lines, and the result
value should either be headers
or nov
to reflect this.
This might later be expanded to various
, which will be a mixture
of HEADs and NOV lines, but this is currently not supported by Gnus.
If fetch-old is non-nil
it says to try fetching "extra
headers", in some meaning of the word. This is generally done by
fetching (at most) fetch-old extra headers less than the smallest
article number in articles
, and filling the gaps as well. The
presence of this parameter can be ignored if the backend finds it
cumbersome to follow the request. If this is non-nil
and not a
number, do maximum fetches.
Here's an example HEAD:
221 1056 Article retrieved. Path: ifi.uio.no!sturles From: sturles@ifi.uio.no (Sturle Sunde) Newsgroups: ifi.discussion Subject: Re: Something very droll Date: 27 Oct 1994 14:02:57 +0100 Organization: Dept. of Informatics, University of Oslo, Norway Lines: 26 Message-ID: <38o8e1$a0o@holmenkollen.ifi.uio.no> References: <38jdmq$4qu@visbur.ifi.uio.no> NNTP-Posting-Host: holmenkollen.ifi.uio.no .So a
headers
return value would imply that there's a number of
these in the data buffer.
Here's a BNF definition of such a buffer:
headers = *head head = error / valid-head error-message = [ "4" / "5" ] 2number " " <error message> eol valid-head = valid-message *header "." eol valid-message = "221 " <number> " Article retrieved." eol header = <text> eolIf the return value is
nov
, the data buffer should contain
network overview database lines. These are basically fields
separated by tabs.
nov-buffer = *nov-line nov-line = 8*9 [ field <TAB> ] eol field = <text except TAB>For a closer look at what should be in those fields, see section Headers.
(nnchoke-open-server SERVER &optional DEFINITIONS)
(VARIABLE VALUE)
pairs that define this virtual server.
If the server can't be opened, no error should be signaled. The backend
may then choose to refuse further attempts at connecting to this
server. In fact, it should do so.
If the server is opened already, this function should return a
non-nil
value. There should be no data returned.
(nnchoke-close-server &optional SERVER)
nil
if the server couldn't be closed for some
reason.
There should be no data returned.
(nnchoke-request-close)
nntp-server-buffer
, though.) This
function is generally only called when Gnus is shutting down.
There should be no data returned.
(nnchoke-server-opened &optional SERVER)
nil
vlue. This function should under no circumstances
attempt to reconnect to a server we have lost connection to.
There should be no data returned.
(nnchoke-status-message &optional SERVER)
(nnchoke-request-article ARTICLE &optional GROUP SERVER TO-BUFFER)
Message-ID
or a number.
It is optional whether to implement retrieval by Message-ID
, but
it would be nice if that were possible.
If to-buffer is non-nil
, the result data should be returned
in this buffer instead of the normal data buffer. This is to make it
possible to avoid copying large amounts of data from one buffer to
another, while Gnus mainly requests articles to be inserted directly
into its article buffer.
If it is at all possible, this function should return a cons cell where
the car
is the group name the article was fetched from, and the cdr
is
the article number. This will enable Gnus to find out what the real
group and article numbers are when fetching articles by
Message-ID
. If this isn't possible, t
should be returned
on successful article retrieval.
(nnchoke-request-group GROUP &optional SERVER FAST)
211 56 1000 1059 ifi.discussionThe first number is the status, which should be 211. Next is the total number of articles in the group, the lowest article number, the highest article number, and finally the group name. Note that the total number of articles may be less than one might think while just considering the highest and lowest article numbers, but some articles may have been canceled. Gnus just discards the total-number, so whether one should take the bother to generate it properly (if that is a problem) is left as an exercise to the reader.
group-status = [ error / info ] eol error = [ "4" / "5" ] 2<number> " " <Error message> info = "211 " 3* [ <number> " " ] <string>
(nnchoke-close-group GROUP &optional SERVER)
(nnchoke-request-list &optional SERVER)
ifi.test 0000002200 0000002000 y ifi.discussion 3324 3300 nOn each line we have a group name, then the highest article number in that group, the lowest article number, and finally a flag.
active-file = *active-line active-line = name " " <number> " " <number> " " flags eol name = <string> flags = "n" / "y" / "m" / "x" / "j" / "=" nameThe flag says whether the group is read-only (`n'), is moderated (`m'), is dead (`x'), is aliased to some other group (`=other-group') or none of the above (`y').
(nnchoke-request-post &optional SERVER)
(nnchoke-retrieve-groups GROUPS &optional SERVER)
active
or
group
, which says what the format of the result data is. The
former is in the same format as the data from
nnchoke-request-list
, while the latter is a buffer full of lines
in the same format as nnchoke-request-group
gives.
group-buffer = *active-line / *group-status
(nnchoke-request-update-info GROUP INFO &optional SERVER)
(nnchoke-request-type GROUP &optional ARTICLE)
news
if article in group is news, mail
if it
is mail and unknown
if the type can't be decided. (The
article parameter is necessary in nnvirtual
groups which
might very well combine mail groups and news groups.) Both group
and article may be nil
.
There should be no result data from this function.
(nnchoke-request-update-mark GROUP ARTICLE MARK)
nil
or any other type of garbage.
The only use for this I can see is what nnvirtual
does with
it--if a component group is auto-expirable, marking an article as read
in the virtual group should result in the article being marked as
expirable.
There should be no result data from this function.
(nnchoke-request-scan &optional GROUP SERVER)
(nnchoke-request-group-description GROUP &optional SERVER)
description-line = name <TAB> description eol name = <string> description = <text>
(nnchoke-request-list-newsgroups &optional SERVER)
description-buffer = *description-line
(nnchoke-request-newgroups DATE &optional SERVER)
(nnchoke-request-create-group GROUP &optional SERVER)
(nnchoke-request-expire-articles ARTICLES &optional GROUP SERVER FORCE)
nil
, all articles should be deleted, no matter how new
they are.
This function should return a list of articles that it did not/was not
able to delete.
There should be no result data returned.
(nnchoke-request-move-article ARTICLE GROUP SERVER ACCEPT-FORM
eval
accept-form in the buffer where the "tidy" article is. This
will do the actual copying. If this eval
returns a
non-nil
value, the article should be removed.
If last is nil
, that means that there is a high likelihood
that there will be more requests issued shortly, so that allows some
optimizations.
The function should return a cons where the car
is the group name and
the cdr
is the article number that the article was entered as.
There should be no data returned.
(nnchoke-request-accept-article GROUP &optional SERVER LAST)
nil
, that means that there will be more calls to
this function in short order.
The function should return a cons where the car
is the group name and
the cdr
is the article number that the article was entered as.
There should be no data returned.
(nnchoke-request-replace-article ARTICLE GROUP BUFFER)
(nnchoke-request-delete-group GROUP FORCE &optional SERVER)
(nnchoke-request-rename-group GROUP NEW-NAME &optional SERVER)
The backends should use the function nnheader-report
to report
error conditions--they should not raise errors when they aren't able to
perform a request. The first argument to this function is the backend
symbol, and the rest are interpreted as arguments to format
if
there are multiple of them, or just a string if there is one of them.
This function must always returns nil
.
(nnheader-report 'nnchoke "You did something totally bogus") (nnheader-report 'nnchoke "Could not request group %s" group)
Gnus, in turn, will call nnheader-get-report
when it gets a
nil
back from a server, and this function returns the most
recently reported message for the backend in question. This function
takes one argument--the server symbol.
Internally, these functions access backend-status-string
,
so the nnchoke
backend will have its error message stored in
nnchoke-status-string
.
Many backends are quite similar. nnml
is just like
nnspool
, but it allows you to edit the articles on the server.
nnmh
is just like nnml
, but it doesn't use an active file,
and it doesn't maintain overview databases. nndir
is just like
nnml
, but it has no concept of "groups", and it doesn't allow
editing articles.
It would make sense if it were possible to "inherit" functions from backends when writing new backends. And, indeed, you can do that if you want to. (You don't have to if you don't want to, of course.)
All the backends declare their public variables and functions by using a
package called nnoo
.
To inherit functions from other backends (and allow other backends to inherit functions from the current backend), you should use the following macros:
nnoo-declare
(nnoo-declare nndir nnml nnmh)
nndir
has declared here that it intends to inherit functions from
both nnml
and nnmh
.
defvoo
defvar
, but registers the variable as
a public server variable. Most state-oriented variables should be
declared with defvoo
instead of defvar
.
In addition to the normal defvar
parameters, it takes a list of
variables in the parent backends to map the variable to when executing
a function in those backends.
(defvoo nndir-directory nil "Where nndir will look for groups." nnml-current-directory nnmh-current-directory)This means that
nnml-current-directory
will be set to
nndir-directory
when an nnml
function is called on behalf
of nndir
. (The same with nnmh
.)
nnoo-define-basics
(nnoo-define-basics nndir)
deffoo
defun
and takes the same parameters. In
addition to doing the normal defun
things, it registers the
function as being public so that other backends can inherit it.
nnoo-map-functions
(nnoo-map-functions nndir (nnml-retrieve-headers 0 nndir-current-group 0 0) (nnmh-request-article 0 nndir-current-group 0 0))This means that when
nndir-retrieve-headers
is called, the first,
third, and fourth parameters will be passed on to
nnml-retrieve-headers
, while the second parameter is set to the
value of nndir-current-group
.
nnoo-import
(nnoo-import nndir (nnmh nnmh-request-list nnmh-request-newgroups) (nnml))This means that calls to
nndir-request-list
should just be passed
on to nnmh-request-list
, while all public functions from
nnml
that haven't been defined in nndir
yet should be
defined now.
Below is a slightly shortened version of the nndir
backend.
;;; nndir.el -- single directory newsgroup access for Gnus ;; Copyright (C) 1995,96 Free Software Foundation, Inc. ;;; Code: (require 'nnheader) (require 'nnmh) (require 'nnml) (require 'nnoo) (eval-when-compile (require 'cl)) (nnoo-declare nndir nnml nnmh) (defvoo nndir-directory nil "Where nndir will look for groups." nnml-current-directory nnmh-current-directory) (defvoo nndir-nov-is-evil nil "*Non-nil means that nndir will never retrieve NOV headers." nnml-nov-is-evil) (defvoo nndir-current-group "" nil nnml-current-group nnmh-current-group) (defvoo nndir-top-directory nil nil nnml-directory nnmh-directory) (defvoo nndir-get-new-mail nil nil nnml-get-new-mail nnmh-get-new-mail) (defvoo nndir-status-string "" nil nnmh-status-string) (defconst nndir-version "nndir 1.0") ;;; Interface functions. (nnoo-define-basics nndir) (deffoo nndir-open-server (server &optional defs) (setq nndir-directory (or (cadr (assq 'nndir-directory defs)) server)) (unless (assq 'nndir-directory defs) (push `(nndir-directory ,server) defs)) (push `(nndir-current-group ,(file-name-nondirectory (directory-file-name nndir-directory))) defs) (push `(nndir-top-directory ,(file-name-directory (directory-file-name nndir-directory))) defs) (nnoo-change-server 'nndir server defs)) (nnoo-map-functions nndir (nnml-retrieve-headers 0 nndir-current-group 0 0) (nnmh-request-article 0 nndir-current-group 0 0) (nnmh-request-group nndir-current-group 0 0) (nnmh-close-group nndir-current-group 0)) (nnoo-import nndir (nnmh nnmh-status-message nnmh-request-list nnmh-request-newgroups)) (provide 'nndir)
Having Gnus start using your new backend is rather easy--you just
declare it with the gnus-declare-backend
functions. This will
enter the backend into the gnus-valid-select-methods
variable.
gnus-declare-backend
takes two parameters--the backend name and
an arbitrary number of abilities.
Here's an example:
(gnus-declare-backend "nnchoke" 'mail 'respool 'address)
The abilities can be:
mail
post
post-mail
none
respool
address
prompt-address
nntp
, but not nnmbox
, for instance.
One of the things that separate the mail backends from the rest of the
backends is the heavy dependence by the mail backends on common
functions in `nnmail.el'. For instance, here's the definition of
nnml-request-scan
:
(deffoo nnml-request-scan (&optional group server) (setq nnml-article-file-alist nil) (nnmail-get-new-mail 'nnml 'nnml-save-nov nnml-directory group))
It simply calls nnmail-get-new-mail
with a few parameters,
and nnmail
takes care of all the moving and splitting of the
mail.
This function takes four parameters.
nnmail-get-new-mail
will call backend-save-mail
to
save each article. backend-active-number
will be called to
find the article number assigned to this article.
The function also uses the following variables:
backend-get-new-mail
(to see whether to get new mail for
this backend); and backend-group-alist
and
backend-active-file
to generate the new active file.
backend-group-alist
should be a group-active alist, like
this:
(("a-group" (1 . 10)) ("some-group" (34 . 39)))
Score files are meant to be easily parseable, but yet extremely mallable. It was decided that something that had the same read syntax as an Emacs Lisp list would fit that spec.
Here's a typical score file:
(("summary" ("win95" -10000 nil s) ("Gnus")) ("from" ("Lars" -1000)) (mark -100))
BNF definition of a score file:
score-file = "" / "(" *element ")" element = rule / atom rule = string-rule / number-rule / date-rule string-rule = "(" quote string-header quote space *string-match ")" number-rule = "(" quote number-header quote space *number-match ")" date-rule = "(" quote date-header quote space *date-match ")" quote = <ascii 34> string-header = "subject" / "from" / "references" / "message-id" / "xref" / "body" / "head" / "all" / "followup" number-header = "lines" / "chars" date-header = "date" string-match = "(" quote <string> quote [ "" / [ space score [ "" / space date [ "" / [ space string-match-t ] ] ] ] ] ")" score = "nil" / <integer> date = "nil" / <natural number> string-match-t = "nil" / "s" / "substring" / "S" / "Substring" / "r" / "regex" / "R" / "Regex" / "e" / "exact" / "E" / "Exact" / "f" / "fuzzy" / "F" / "Fuzzy" number-match = "(" <integer> [ "" / [ space score [ "" / space date [ "" / [ space number-match-t ] ] ] ] ] ")" number-match-t = "nil" / "=" / "<" / ">" / ">=" / "<=" date-match = "(" quote <string> quote [ "" / [ space score [ "" / space date [ "" / [ space date-match-t ] ] ] ] ")" date-match-t = "nil" / "at" / "before" / "after" atom = "(" [ required-atom / optional-atom ] ")" required-atom = mark / expunge / mark-and-expunge / files / exclude-files / read-only / touched optional-atom = adapt / local / eval mark = "mark" space nil-or-number nil-or-number = "nil" / <integer> expunge = "expunge" space nil-or-number mark-and-expunge = "mark-and-expunge" space nil-or-number files = "files" *[ space <string> ] exclude-files = "exclude-files" *[ space <string> ] read-only = "read-only" [ space "nil" / space "t" ] adapt = "adapt" [ space "ignore" / space "t" / space adapt-rule ] adapt-rule = "(" *[ <string> *[ "(" <string> <integer> ")" ] ")" local = "local" *[ space "(" <string> space <form> ")" ] eval = "eval" space <form> space = *[ " " / <TAB> / <NEWLINE> ]
Any unrecognized elements in a score file should be ignored, but not discarded.
As you can see, white space is needed, but the type and amount of white space is irrelevant. This means that formatting of the score file is left up to the programmer--if it's simpler to just spew it all out on one looong line, then that's ok.
The meaning of the various atoms are explained elsewhere in this manual (see section Score File Format).
Internally Gnus uses a format for storing article headers that corresponds to the NOV format in a mysterious fashion. One could almost suspect that the author looked at the NOV specification and just shamelessly stole the entire thing, and one would be right.
Header is a severely overloaded term. "Header" is used in
RFC1036 to talk about lines in the head of an article (e.g.,
From
). It is used by many people as a synonym for
"head"---"the header and the body". (That should be avoided, in my
opinion.) And Gnus uses a format internally that it calls "header",
which is what I'm talking about here. This is a 9-element vector,
basically, with each header (ouch) having one slot.
These slots are, in order: number
, subject
, from
,
date
, id
, references
, chars
, lines
,
xref
. There are macros for accessing and setting these
slots--they all have predictable names beginning with
mail-header-
and mail-header-set-
, respectively.
The xref
slot is really a misc
slot. Any extra info will
be put in there.
GNUS introduced a concept that I found so useful that I've started using it a lot and have elaborated on it greatly.
The question is simple: If you have a large amount of objects that are identified by numbers (say, articles, to take a wild example) that you want to qualify as being "included", a normal sequence isn't very useful. (A 200,000 length sequence is a bit long-winded.)
The solution is as simple as the question: You just collapse the sequence.
(1 2 3 4 5 6 10 11 12)
is transformed into
((1 . 6) (10 . 12))
To avoid having those nasty `(13 . 13)' elements to denote a lonesome object, a `13' is a valid element:
((1 . 6) 7 (10 . 12))
This means that comparing two ranges to find out whether they are equal is slightly tricky:
((1 . 5) 7 8 (10 . 12))
and
((1 . 5) (7 . 8) (10 . 12))
are equal. In fact, any non-descending list is a range:
(1 2 3 4 5)
is a perfectly valid range, although a pretty long-winded one. This is also valid:
(1 . 5)
and is equal to the previous range.
Here's a BNF definition of ranges. Of course, one must remember the semantic requirement that the numbers are non-descending. (Any number of repetition of the same number is allowed, but apt to disappear in range handling.)
range = simple-range / normal-range simple-range = "(" number " . " number ")" normal-range = "(" start-contents ")" contents = "" / simple-range *[ " " contents ] / number *[ " " contents ]
Gnus currently uses ranges to keep track of read articles and article marks. I plan on implementing a number of range operators in C if The Powers That Be are willing to let me. (I haven't asked yet, because I need to do some more thinking on what operators I need to make life totally range-based without ever having to convert back to normal sequences.)
Gnus stores all permanent info on groups in a group info list. This list is from three to six elements (or more) long and exhaustively describes the group.
Here are two example group infos; one is a very simple group while the second is a more complex one:
("no.group" 5 (1 . 54324)) ("nnml:my.mail" 3 ((1 . 5) 9 (20 . 55)) ((tick (15 . 19)) (replied 3 6 (19 . 3))) (nnml "") ((auto-expire . t) (to-address . "ding@gnus.org")))
The first element is the group name---as Gnus knows the group,
anyway. The second element is the subscription level, which
normally is a small integer. (It can also be the rank, which is a
cons cell where the car
is the level and the cdr
is the
score.) The third element is a list of ranges of read articles. The
fourth element is a list of lists of article marks of various kinds.
The fifth element is the select method (or virtual server, if you like).
The sixth element is a list of group parameters, which is what
this section is about.
Any of the last three elements may be missing if they are not required. In fact, the vast majority of groups will normally only have the first three elements, which saves quite a lot of cons cells.
Here's a BNF definition of the group info format:
info = "(" group space ralevel space read [ "" / [ space marks-list [ "" / [ space method [ "" / space parameters ] ] ] ] ] ")" group = quote <string> quote ralevel = rank / level level = <integer in the range of 1 to inf> rank = "(" level "." score ")" score = <integer in the range of 1 to inf> read = range marks-lists = nil / "(" *marks ")" marks = "(" <string> range ")" method = "(" <string> *elisp-forms ")" parameters = "(" *elisp-forms ")"
Actually that `marks' rule is a fib. A `marks' is a `<string>' consed on to a `range', but that's a bitch to say in pseudo-BNF.
If you have a Gnus info and want to access the elements, Gnus offers a series of macros for getting/setting these elements.
gnus-info-group
gnus-info-set-group
gnus-info-rank
gnus-info-set-rank
gnus-info-level
gnus-info-set-level
gnus-info-score
gnus-info-set-score
gnus-info-read
gnus-info-set-read
gnus-info-marks
gnus-info-set-marks
gnus-info-method
gnus-info-set-method
gnus-info-params
gnus-info-set-params
All the getter functions take one parameter--the info list. The setter functions take two parameters--the info list and the new value.
The last three elements in the group info aren't mandatory, so it may be
necessary to extend the group info before setting the element. If this
is necessary, you can just pass on a non-nil
third parameter to
the three final setter functions to have this happen automatically.
Gnus extends the standard Emacs interactive
specification
slightly to allow easy use of the symbolic prefix (see section Symbolic Prefixes). Here's an example of how this is used:
(defun gnus-summary-increase-score (&optional score symp) (interactive (gnus-interactive "P\ny")) ... )
The best thing to do would have been to implement
gnus-interactive
as a macro which would have returned an
interactive
form, but this isn't possible since Emacs checks
whether a function is interactive or not by simply doing an assq
on the lambda form. So, instead we have gnus-interactive
function that takes a string and returns values that are usable to
interactive
.
This function accepts (almost) all normal interactive
specs, but
adds a few more.
gnus-current-prefix-symbol
variable.
gnus-current-prefix-symbol
variable.
gnus-summary-article-number
function.
gnus-summary-article-header
function.
gnus-group-group-name
function.
While Gnus runs under Emacs, XEmacs and Mule, I decided that one of the platforms must be the primary one. I chose Emacs. Not because I don't like XEmacs or Mule, but because it comes first alphabetically.
This means that Gnus will byte-compile under Emacs with nary a warning, while XEmacs will pump out gigabytes of warnings while byte-compiling. As I use byte-compilation warnings to help me root out trivial errors in Gnus, that's very useful.
I've also consistently used Emacs function interfaces, but have used
Gnusey aliases for the functions. To take an example: Emacs defines a
run-at-time
function while XEmacs defines a start-itimer
function. I then define a function called gnus-run-at-time
that
takes the same parameters as the Emacs run-at-time
. When running
Gnus under Emacs, the former function is just an alias for the latter.
However, when running under XEmacs, the former is an alias for the
following function:
(defun gnus-xmas-run-at-time (time repeat function &rest args) (start-itimer "gnus-run-at-time" `(lambda () (,function ,@args)) time repeat))
This sort of thing has been done for bunches of functions. Gnus does
not redefine any native Emacs functions while running under XEmacs--it
does this defalias
thing with Gnus equivalents instead. Cleaner
all over.
In the cases where the XEmacs function interface was obviously cleaner,
I used it instead. For example gnus-region-active-p
is an alias
for region-active-p
in XEmacs, whereas in Emacs it is a function.
Of course, I could have chosen XEmacs as my native platform and done mapping functions the other way around. But I didn't. The performance hit these indirections impose on Gnus under XEmacs should be slight.
The active file lists all groups available on the server in question. It also lists the highest and lowest current article numbers in each group.
Here's an excerpt from a typical active file:
soc.motss 296030 293865 y alt.binaries.pictures.fractals 3922 3913 n comp.sources.unix 1605 1593 m comp.binaries.ibm.pc 5097 5089 y no.general 1000 900 y
Here's a pseudo-BNF definition of this file:
active = *group-line group-line = group space high-number space low-number space flag <NEWLINE> group = <non-white-space string> space = " " high-number = <non-negative integer> low-number = <positive integer> flag = "y" / "n" / "m" / "j" / "x" / "=" group
For a full description of this file, see the manual pages for `innd', in particular `active(5)'.
The newsgroups file lists groups along with their descriptions. Not all groups on the server have to be listed, and not all groups in the file have to exist on the server. The file is meant purely as information to the user.
The format is quite simple; a group name, a tab, and the description. Here's the definition:
newsgroups = *line line = group tab description <NEWLINE> group = <non-white-space string> tab = <TAB> description = <string>
Believe it or not, but some people who use Gnus haven't really used
Emacs much before they embarked on their journey on the Gnus Love Boat.
If you are one of those unfortunates whom "M-C-a", "kill the
region", and "set gnus-flargblossen
to an alist where the key
is a regexp that is used for matching on the group name" are magical
phrases with little or no meaning, then this appendix is for you. If
you are already familiar with Emacs, just ignore this and go fondle your
cat instead.
Yes, when you use Emacs, you are apt to use the control key, the shift
key and the meta key a lot. This is very annoying to some people
(notably vi
le users), and the rest of us just love the hell out
of it. Just give up and submit. Emacs really does stand for
"Escape-Meta-Alt-Control-Shift", and not "Editing Macros", as you
may have heard from other disreputable sources (like the Emacs author).
The shift keys are normally located near your pinky fingers, and are normally used to get capital letters and stuff. You probably use it all the time. The control key is normally marked "CTRL" or something like that. The meta key is, funnily enough, never marked as such on any keyboard. The one I'm currently at has a key that's marked "Alt", which is the meta key on this keyboard. It's usually located somewhere to the left hand side of the keyboard, usually on the bottom row.
Now, us Emacs people don't say "press the meta-control-m key", because that's just too inconvenient. We say "press the M-C-m key". M- is the prefix that means "meta" and "C-" is the prefix that means "control". So "press C-k" means "press down the control key, and hold it down while you press k". "Press M-C-k" means "press down and hold down the meta key and the control key and then press k". Simple, ay?
This is somewhat complicated by the fact that not all keyboards have a meta key. In that case you can use the "escape" key. Then M-k means "press escape, release escape, press k". That's much more work than if you have a meta key, so if that's the case, I respectfully suggest you get a real keyboard with a meta key. You can't live without it.
Emacs is the King of Editors because it's really a Lisp interpreter. Each and every key you tap runs some Emacs Lisp code snippet, and since Emacs Lisp is an interpreted language, that means that you can configure any key to run any arbitrary code. You just, like, do it.
Gnus is written in Emacs Lisp, and is run as a bunch of interpreted functions. (These are byte-compiled for speed, but it's still interpreted.) If you decide that you don't like the way Gnus does certain things, it's trivial to have it do something a different way. (Well, at least if you know how to write Lisp code.) However, that's beyond the scope of this manual, so we are simply going to talk about some common constructs that you normally use in your `.emacs' file to customize Gnus.
If you want to set the variable gnus-florgbnize
to four (4), you
write the following:
(setq gnus-florgbnize 4)
This function (really "special form") setq
is the one that can
set a variable to some value. This is really all you need to know. Now
you can go and fill your .emacs
file with lots of these to change
how Gnus works.
If you have put that thing in your .emacs
file, it will be read
and eval
ed (which is lisp-ese for "run") the next time you
start Emacs. If you want to change the variable right away, simply say
C-x C-e after the closing parenthesis. That will eval
the
previous "form", which is a simple setq
statement here.
Go ahead--just try it, if you're located at your Emacs. After you
C-x C-e, you will see `4' appear in the echo area, which
is the return value of the form you eval
ed.
Some pitfalls:
If the manual says "set gnus-read-active-file
to some
",
that means:
(setq gnus-read-active-file 'some)
On the other hand, if the manual says "set gnus-nntp-server
to
`nntp.ifi.uio.no'", that means:
(setq gnus-nntp-server "nntp.ifi.uio.no")
So be careful not to mix up strings (the latter) with symbols (the former). The manual is unambiguous, but it can be confusing.
This is the Gnus Frequently Asked Questions list. If you have a Web browser, the official hypertext version is at `http://www.ccs.neu.edu/software/gnus/', and has probably been updated since you got this manual.
Compiled with: | Can be used with: ----------------+-------------------------------------- 19.28 | 19.28 19.29 19.29 | 19.29 XEmacs XEmacs | 19.29 XEmacsIf you have Gnu Emacs 19.28 or earlier, or XEmacs 19.12 or earlier, get a recent version of auc-menu.el from `ftp://ftp.iesd.auc.dk/pub/emacs-lisp/auc-menu.el', and install it under the name easymenu.el somewhere early in your load path.
gnus-eval-in-buffer-window
, which is a macro.
It seems as if you have
compiled mailcrypt with plain old GNUS in load path, and the XEmacs byte
compiler has inserted that macro definition into
`mc-toplev.elc'.
The solution is to recompile `mc-toplev.el' with Gnus 5 in
load-path, and it works fine.
Steve Baur <steve@miranova.com> adds :(load "tm-setup") (load "gnus") (load "mime-compose")NOTE: Loading the package disables citation highlighting by default. To get the old behavior back, use the M-t command.
ail-indentation-spaces
spaces or mail-yank-prefix
if that is
non-nil, unless you have set your own mail-citation-hook
, which will
be called to do the job.
You might also consider the Supercite package, which allows for pretty
arbitrarily complex quoting styles. Some people love it, some people
hate it.
(("Subject" ("^\\(Re: \\)?[^a-z]*$" -200 nil R)))
(("xref" ("alt.fan.oj-simpson" -1000 nil s)) ("subject" ("\\<\\(make\\|fast\\|big\\)\\s-*\\(money\\|cash\\|bucks?\\)\\>" -1000 nil r) ("$$$$" -1000 nil s)))
(("subject" ;; CAPS OF THE WORLD, UNITE ("^..[^a-z]+$" -1 nil R) ;; $$$ Make Money $$$ (Try work) ("$" -1 nil s) ;; I'm important! And I have exclamation marks to prove it! ("!" -1 nil s)))
( (read-only t) ("subject" ;; ALL CAPS SUBJECTS ("^\\([Rr][Ee]: +\\)?[^a-z]+$" -1 nil R) ;; $$$ Make Money $$$ ("$$" -10 nil s) ;; Empty subjects are worthless! ("^ *\\([(<]none[>)]\\|(no subject\\( given\\)?)\\)? *$" -10 nil r) ;; Sometimes interesting announces occur! ("ANN?OU?NC\\(E\\|ING\\)" +10 nil r) ;; Some people think they're on mailing lists ("\\(un\\)?sub?scribe" -100 nil r) ;; Stop Micro$oft NOW!! ("\\(m\\(icro\\)?[s$]\\(oft\\|lot\\)?-?\\)?wind?\\(ows\\|aube\\|oze\\)?[- ]*\\('?95\\|NT\\|3[.]1\\|32\\)" -1001 nil r) ;; I've nothing to buy ("\\(for\\|4\\)[- ]*sale" -100 nil r) ;; SELF-DISCIPLINED people ("\\[[^a-z0-9 \t\n][^a-z0-9 \t\n]\\]" +100 nil r) ) ("from" ;; To keep track of posters from my site (".dgac.fr" +1000 nil s)) ("followup" ;; Keep track of answers to my posts ("boubaker" +1000 nil s)) ("lines" ;; Some people have really nothing to say!! (1 -10 nil <=)) (mark -100) (expunge -1000) )
(("subject" ;; No junk mail please! ("please ignore" -500 nil s) ("test" -500 nil e)) )
("xref" ;; the more cross posting, the exponentially worse the article ("^xref: \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+" -1 nil r) ("^xref: \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+" -2 nil r) ("^xref: \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+" -4 nil r) ("^xref: \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+" -8 nil r) ("^xref: \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+" -16 nil r) ("^xref: \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+" -32 nil r) ("^xref: \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+" -64 nil r) ("^xref: \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+" -128 nil r) ("^xref: \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+" -256 nil r) ("^xref: \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+" -512 nil r))
(defconst mail-yank-ignored-headers "^.*:" "Delete these headers from old message when it's inserted in a reply.")
(setq gnus-button-url 'gnus-netscape-open-url)
(setq gnus-save-killed-list t)and the second with
(setq gnus-read-active-file t)If both are disabled, Gnus will not know what newsgroups exists. There is no option to get the list by casting a spell.
define-key
or something like that in one of the
summary mode hooks? This would force Emacs to recalculate the keyboard
shortcuts. Removing the call should speed up M-x gnus-summary-mode
RET by a couple of orders of magnitude. You can use
(define-key gnus-summary-mode-map KEY COMMAND)in your `.gnus' instead.
(add-hook 'nntp-server-opened-hook 'nntp-send-authinfo)
(setq gnus-auto-select first nil)
;;; Don't auto-select first article if reading sources, or archives or ;;; jobs postings, etc. and just display the summary buffer (add-hook 'gnus-select-group-hook (function (lambda () (cond ((string-match "sources" gnus-newsgroup-name) (setq gnus-auto-select-first nil)) ((string-match "jobs" gnus-newsgroup-name) (setq gnus-auto-select-first nil)) ((string-match "comp\\.archives" gnus-newsgroup-name) (setq gnus-auto-select-first nil)) ((string-match "reviews" gnus-newsgroup-name) (setq gnus-auto-select-first nil)) ((string-match "announce" gnus-newsgroup-name) (setq gnus-auto-select-first nil)) ((string-match "binaries" gnus-newsgroup-name) (setq gnus-auto-select-first nil)) (t (setq gnus-auto-select-first t))))))
((local (gnus-auto-select-first nil)))and insert
(setq gnus-auto-select-first t)in your `.gnus'.
gnus-auto-expirable-newsgroups
to automagically expire articles
in some groups (Gnus being one of them). Sometimes there are
interesting articles in these groups that I want to keep. Is there any
way of explicitly marking an article as un-expirable - that is mark it
as read but not expirable?
Use u, !, d or M-u in the summary buffer. You
just remove the E mark by setting some other mark. It's not
necessary to tick the articles.
gnus-group-check-bogus-groups
does not
recognize them.
Removing mail groups is tricky at the moment. (It's on the to-do list,
though.) You basically have to kill the groups in Gnus, shut down Gnus,
edit the active file to exclude these groups, and probably remove the
nnml directories that contained these groups as well. Then start Gnus
back up again.
((adapt ignore) (local (gnus-use-scoring nil)) (exclude-files "all.SCORE"))
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