Re: Being forced to deal with message numbers and frustrated

[Tony Lam <Tony.Lam+ding@eng.sun.com>]

* "Rat" == Stainless Steel Rat <ratinox@peorth.gweep.net> writes:

Rat> Point: Gnus *DOES* hide those numbers completely (if you tell it
Rat> not to display article numbers in the summary buffers).

People are forced to be concern with, deal with article numbers
because they have been kept prompting to make decision (how many
messages to fetch), for which they have first to be aware there is an
article number associate with each article and secondly, they have to
somehow keep reseqencing these numbers in order for that decision to
make sense. And for the situations I mentioned, Gnus does not provide
a satisfactory solution.

Rat> Admittedly, you are using cache and tick in a fashion that is
Rat> more complex than it needs to be (read: wrong :).  I think you
Rat> would be happier doing this:

Rat> * Use ticks (! or u) to mark articles that you wish to reply to later.

Rat> * Use mark dormant (?) to mark articles that you want to keep around
Rat>   forever.

Rat> * Set gnus-use-cache based on group name (I use a cond form in
Rat>   gnus-select-group-hook to set certain variables based on group name).
Rat>   Set it true for remote groups, nil or passive as you would for local
Rat>   (mail) groups.

I'm one of those people who prefer 5 marks for messages:

  unmarked - new message
  O - old, read message (with total-expire)
  ! - message needs attention
  * - message archived in place
  ? - interesting message that I would like to see followup

Anyway, the problem remains as long as any kind of cache is used for
mail groups (gnus-use-cache is anything other than nil) and I don't
see how using cache is too complex.

Regards,

Tony