little annoyance in maildir support.

little annoyance in maildir support.

[Maciej Matysiak]

hello,

i've made my qmail deliver the mail into maildirs. after small change
in mail-sources, gnus reads mail from maildir perfectly. almost, because
there're few details that could be improved:

1. gnus inserts somehow ">" before "From" when it is at the beginning
   of the line. in maildir specification you can read:
      The  message is  delivered  without an extra  UUCP-style "From_"
      line, without any ">From"  quoting,  and without an extra  blank
      line at the end.
   and qmail indeed acts like that. but mail viewed in gnus has those
   ">From" :( at least, on my system, with quite fresh gnus cvs snapshot.

2. the "x-from-line" header is:
    X-From-Line: maildir Thu Jul  6 00:59:50 2000
   instead of
    X-From-Line: sender@domain Thu Jul  6 00:59:50 2000
   like it was with mailbox flat file. is it supposed to be like that?

3. the `new mail' indicator in emacs does not work anymore. i'm not sure
   if it's still gnus job (or emacs, or some system software), so please
   correct me.

i'm sorry for no patches attached, but i'm not a lisp hacker at all.

m.m.
-- 
 use gnus not guns!

Re: little annoyance in maildir support.

[ShengHuo ZHU]

Maciej Matysiak <phoner@blah.pl> writes:

[...]

> 1. gnus inserts somehow ">" before "From" when it is at the beginning
>    of the line. in maildir specification you can read:
>       The  message is  delivered  without an extra  UUCP-style "From_"
>       line, without any ">From"  quoting,  and without an extra  blank
>       line at the end.
>    and qmail indeed acts like that. but mail viewed in gnus has those
>    ">From" :( at least, on my system, with quite fresh gnus cvs snapshot.

Gnus uses mail-crash-box (a file in Unix mail format) to collect mails
from various mail sources including maildir,  therefore, Gnus has to
insert ">" before "From ".

> 2. the "x-from-line" header is:
>     X-From-Line: maildir Thu Jul  6 00:59:50 2000
>    instead of
>     X-From-Line: sender@domain Thu Jul  6 00:59:50 2000
>    like it was with mailbox flat file. is it supposed to be like that?

Maildir has no From line.  For the same reason stated previously, a
pseudo From line has to be added.

> 3. the `new mail' indicator in emacs does not work anymore. i'm not sure
>    if it's still gnus job (or emacs, or some system software), so please
>    correct me.

It is not Gnus job, but time.el, which checks display-time-mail-file,
the environment variable MAIL or others.

Shenghuo

Re: little annoyance in maildir support.

[Kai Großjohann]

ShengHuo ZHU <zsh@cs.rochester.edu> writes:

> Gnus uses mail-crash-box (a file in Unix mail format) to collect mails
> from various mail sources including maildir,  therefore, Gnus has to
> insert ">" before "From ".

It might be useful to modify Gnus to use some other format.  Maybe an
MH-style directory?  Or a modified mbox format with Content-Length
header added (so that From escaping is not necessary)?  (I think that
Lars has said he does not want to frob the message contents; this
might be an argument against the Content-Length header.  OTOH, From
escaping even frobs the message body, not just the header.  Hm.)

Er.  Of course, the other format would be an option!  Gnus would
default to the exiting behavior, I guess.

Whatcha all think?

kai
-- 
I like BOTH kinds of music.

Re: little annoyance in maildir support.

[Maciej Matysiak]

On 06 Jul 2000 11:45:04 -0400 ShengHuo ZHU <zsh@cs.rochester.edu> wrote:

> Gnus uses mail-crash-box (a file in Unix mail format) to collect mails
> >From various mail sources including maildir

make it use maildir ;)

> therefore, Gnus has to insert ">" before "From ".

doh. that breakes the quotation colouring :(

> > X-From-Line: maildir Thu Jul  6 00:59:50 2000
> >  instead of
> > X-From-Line: sender@domain Thu Jul  6 00:59:50 2000
> Maildir has no From line.

hm? what do you mean? every single file in ~/Maildir/{cur,new,tmp}/*
has the "From: <user@domain>" line in the header. am i missing something?

> It is not Gnus job, but time.el, which checks display-time-mail-file,
> the environment variable MAIL or others.

ok, the documentation says about display-time-mail-file:
 *File name of mail inbox file, for indicating existence of new mail.

is it possible now to give maildir as value for it or does it need a patch?

m.m.
-- 
 use gnus not guns!

Re: little annoyance in maildir support.

[ShengHuo ZHU]

Maciej Matysiak <phoner@blah.pl> writes:

[...]

> > > X-From-Line: maildir Thu Jul  6 00:59:50 2000
> > >  instead of
> > > X-From-Line: sender@domain Thu Jul  6 00:59:50 2000
> > Maildir has no From line.
> 
> hm? what do you mean? every single file in ~/Maildir/{cur,new,tmp}/*
> has the "From: <user@domain>" line in the header. am i missing something?

The From line is not the From field.  In Unix mail box, every message
starts with a "From ..." (without colon).

> > It is not Gnus job, but time.el, which checks display-time-mail-file,
> > the environment variable MAIL or others.
> 
> ok, the documentation says about display-time-mail-file:
>  *File name of mail inbox file, for indicating existence of new mail.
> 
> is it possible now to give maildir as value for it or does it need a patch?

You can redefine or advise display-time-file-nonempty-p to check
maildir.

Shenghuo

Re: little annoyance in maildir support.

[Kai Großjohann]

Maciej Matysiak <phoner@blah.pl> writes:

> On 06 Jul 2000 11:45:04 -0400 ShengHuo ZHU <zsh@cs.rochester.edu> wrote:
> 
> > > X-From-Line: maildir Thu Jul  6 00:59:50 2000
> > >  instead of
> > > X-From-Line: sender@domain Thu Jul  6 00:59:50 2000
> > Maildir has no From line.
> 
> hm? what do you mean? every single file in ~/Maildir/{cur,new,tmp}/*
> has the "From: <user@domain>" line in the header. am i missing something?

In an mbox file, each message starts with a "From " line (note the
space).  After this come the message headers, including the From
header.  But that's "From:" (note the colon).

The "From " line (also called the From_ line, or just the From line)
is not the same thing as the From header ("From:").  (The From_ line
is part of the envelope of the message, the From header is part of the
message itself.)

kai
-- 
I like BOTH kinds of music.

Re: little annoyance in maildir support.

[ShengHuo ZHU]

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"Robin S. Socha" <robin@socha.net> writes:

> * ShengHuo ZHU <zsh@cs.rochester.edu> writes:
> > You can redefine or advise display-time-file-nonempty-p to check
> > maildir.
> 
> You can. I can't. Could you? Please? Thanks *a lot* in advance,

Try this and make sure display-time-mail-file or the environment
variable MAIL is set as a string (whatever it is).

(require 'mail-watch)
(setq mail-watch-files-or-directories '("/my/maildir/new"))
(display-time)

ShengHuo


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Re: little annoyance in maildir support.

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

ShengHuo ZHU <zsh@cs.rochester.edu> writes:

> Gnus uses mail-crash-box (a file in Unix mail format) to collect mails
> from various mail sources including maildir,  therefore, Gnus has to
> insert ">" before "From ".

Well, the mail-crash-box file doesn't have to be Unix mbox -- MMDF is
also understood, and is probably a better format for in-between
storage than Unix mbox.  

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   larsi@gnus.org * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen

Re: little annoyance in maildir support.

[ShengHuo ZHU]

Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:

> ShengHuo ZHU <zsh@cs.rochester.edu> writes:
> 
> > Gnus uses mail-crash-box (a file in Unix mail format) to collect mails
> > from various mail sources including maildir,  therefore, Gnus has to
> > insert ">" before "From ".
> 
> Well, the mail-crash-box file doesn't have to be Unix mbox -- MMDF is
> also understood, and is probably a better format for in-between
> storage than Unix mbox.  

I've change it to MMDF mail format.

ShengHuo