Re: gnus newbie question: why do read articles disappear from summary?

[Christopher Schmidt <mr.chr.schmidt@online.de>]

Brendan Miller <catphive@catphive.net> writes:

> After reading an article in summary it gets marked with 'R'. If I
> leave the summary buffer for my group with q and log back in, that
> article disappears. Why is this? Also, is there a way to prevent this
> behavior?

This is Gnus default behaviour.  If you give Gnus a numerical prefix N
when entering a group via the group buffer, Gnus will fetch the N newest
articles, even when some of them are marked as read.  You can also tick
articles in the summary buffer via gnus-summary-tick-article-forward (M
!) which marks them to be always visible.  To display a group without
unread articles unconditionally in the group buffer, set the group
parameter 'visible' to t.  Have a look at

(info "(gnus)Selecting a Group")
(info "(gnus)Unread Articles")

for more information.

> Also, I've noticed there is a way to mark an article read using d, but
> it makes it with a lower case 'r' flag. What's the difference between
> this lower case 'r' flag and the upper case 'R' flag?

'r' means that the article has been explicitly marked as read whereas
'R' means that the article actually has been read, that is it was
display in an article buffer at some point.

        Christopher