Re: regexp-based group parameters

[ShengHuo ZHU <zsh@cs.rochester.edu>]

prj@po.cwru.edu (Paul Jarc) writes:

[...]

> > * Group/topic parameters allow setting arbitrary variables, not only
> > `strict' parameters.
> 
> I'm not sure this is a problem.  Your gnus-parameters doesn't seem to
> address it, either.

As to group variables, it is.

[...]

> I'd like it if parameters were (or could be) stored in backends.
> Backends can already use -request-update-info to correct Gnus's
> parameters, so we just need a way for Gnus to notify the backend when
> the user modifies the parameters.  (Then once all backends do this,
> Gnus could stop redundantly storing parameters in newsrc.eld.)

Using -request-update-info is another issue.

> Also, to provide for hierarchical inheritance, we could have a
> parameter called, say, parameter-parent, whose value is a group.  Then
> when trying to find the value of parameter foo, if the group doesn't
> have a value for foo, you check the parent group, recursively,
> stopping when you find a group that has foo, or one that has no
> parent.  Dummy groups could be used to hold sets of parameters; real
> groups would use the dummy as their parent.

I don't like this idea. Regexp scheme is much clearer and easier to
maintain.

> Your suggestion (like mine) fails to cover the capability we have now
> of putting a group into multiple topics, and using the parameters of
> whichever topic the user entered through, but this seems like more
> trouble than it's worth, especially in situations where there is no
> "current" topic.

This is the weakness of topics implementation.

ShengHuo