From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.emacs.gnus.general/23564 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Ken McGlothlen Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.gnus.general Subject: Re: some mail annoyances Date: Fri, 25 Jun 1999 13:34:51 -0700 (PDT) Sender: owner-ding@hpc.uh.edu Message-ID: <14195.59371.224963.121057@ralf.serv.net> References: <4yn1xp7ytu.fsf@sgichr.fastweb.no> NNTP-Posting-Host: coloc-standby.netfonds.no Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: main.gmane.org 1035161274 2702 80.91.224.250 (21 Oct 2002 00:47:54 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@main.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2002 00:47:54 +0000 (UTC) Return-Path: Original-Received: from farabi.math.uh.edu (farabi.math.uh.edu [129.7.128.57]) by sclp3.sclp.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id QAA26053 for ; Fri, 25 Jun 1999 16:36:14 -0400 (EDT) Original-Received: from sina.hpc.uh.edu (lists@Sina.HPC.UH.EDU [129.7.3.5]) by farabi.math.uh.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id PAB09799; Fri, 25 Jun 1999 15:35:18 -0500 (CDT) Original-Received: by sina.hpc.uh.edu (TLB v0.09a (1.20 tibbs 1996/10/09 22:03:07)); Fri, 25 Jun 1999 15:35:44 -0500 (CDT) Original-Received: from sclp3.sclp.com (root@sclp3.sclp.com [204.252.123.139]) by sina.hpc.uh.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id PAA08327 for ; Fri, 25 Jun 1999 15:35:29 -0500 (CDT) Original-Received: from ralf.serv.net (a.serv.net [207.207.72.1]) by sclp3.sclp.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id QAA25820 for ; Fri, 25 Jun 1999 16:34:25 -0400 (EDT) Original-Received: (from mcglk@localhost) by ralf.serv.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) id NAA35562; Fri, 25 Jun 1999 13:34:52 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from mcglk@serv.net) X-Authentication-Warning: ralf.serv.net: mcglk set sender to mcglk@serv.net using -f Original-To: ding@gnus.org X-Mailer: VM 6.72 under Emacs 20.3.1 Precedence: list X-Majordomo: 1.94.jlt7 X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by sclp3.sclp.com id QAA26053 Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.gnus.general:23564 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.gnus.general:23564 s911254@stud.nhh.no (Christian Nybø) writes: | Per Bothner writes: | | [...] | > Gnus *could* be that recommended mailer for everybody using Emacs. It is | > very close - it just needs a little bit of usability engineering, some | > tweaking of the defaults, and some better documentation It certainly has | > the power and flexibility. However, the defaults are a bit unnatural, the | > standard keybindings are optimized for news rather than mail, and there is | > no good introduction to using Gnus. (The latter should *start* by | > explaining how to use it for mail, since that is what people need *first*.) | | Where do you see VM in that picture? Well, this is just one guy's perspective. Please pardon the narrative form. When I first started using something besides /usr/bin/mail to read my mail and /usr/local/bin/rn to read my news, I chose Emacs, my favorite editor (at that time, somewhere in either late v17 or early v18), and used RMAIL and Masanobu Umeda's GNUS (which at the time, of course, had no mail-reading capabilities). The shortcomings of RMAIL have been covered extensively elsewhere. I hated it, wanted to get back to using something that respected the mbox format, and finally discovered VM. GNUS, on the other hand, I loved, and made a lot of customizations that made it even cooler for me to use. Except for that one sticky point: Umeda-san had basically walked away from it, guaranteeing no further development. You can imagine how relieved and delighted I was when Lars announced he was going to take over development. If memory serves, I think I wrote him a thank-you note when I heard about it. And then Lars pointed out that he wanted to make GNUS handle email as well. Zowie, I thought---VM is a nice enough package (and as you can see from the headers, I still use it, at v6.72), but it has some limitations that rather annoy me. The thought of using a package that would thread my email, and one I didn't have to remember different strokes to, was very, very cool. It hasn't worked out that way. I've tried converting to Gnus on several occasions, but never with any good success. For example, a few months ago, I unexpectedly wound up being CEO of a small, troubled ISP. I was suddenly receiving a LOT of email (this from a guy who's signed up not only to ding@gnus.org, but questions@freebsd.org) that I absolutely had to keep organized. The best way I could think of was to bite the bullet and use Gnus, but needed some quick guidance. I wrote Lars, if memory serves (those first few weeks were a blur), who gave me sound advice, but I couldn't get it working effectively in a short enough amount of time, and wound up using PINE. Ulk. As I said, I'm still using VM, not GNUS. Why? Well, lessee. I have over 400 mail folders comprising over 100MB of email, all in mbox format. I need to conveniently transfer messages between folders (I do occasionally reorganize folders). I do use procmail, but only use it to break out mailing list from personal mail---if I were to use GNUS, I'd like to shuttle it all into appropriate folders, but don't know how to do it in some cases. (For example, mail from userA to me should go in the userA folder, but mail from userA to me *and* userB, userC, userD and userE should go in the groupZ folder.) The deletion/expiration stuff can be a bit confusing; I've lost mail on occasion when trying to convert over. And it's not a matter of just having tried once; I've tried six times to move from VM to Gnus, letting my incoming mail pile up over a couple of days while I try to figure out how to get Gnus to work well, but eventually giving up and going back to VM when I run out of spare time, or when the mail pile gets too huge. There needs to be a "So you use an mbox-style mail reader, and would like to use Gnus?" document somewhere, for example. I'd be happy to write it, even---I'm articulate, after all (well, I think so, at any rate), but I haven't been able to get it working smoothly enough to convert myself. If someone wants to help me work through this process, I'll be more than happy to write up said document. ---Ken