Gnus mail reading assistant (was: new user assistant)

["Ted Zlatanov" <tzz@lifelogs.com>]

Some more work on the mail setup assistant.  The syntax is nebulous
so I'm trying my best to make it do what we want.  It's not clear,
for example, what we should do when a nnml server is created - do we
create a new "mail" group?  Do we set up splitting?

For NNTP, do we ask for a username and password, or do we test the
server and see if they are needed, or is that too advanced for a
setup assistant?

Ted

@ifassistant

@title Configuring Gnus for the first time
@node What do you want to do with Gnus?

;; defaults to nnml
@variable backends :'(set (const :tag "Read news via NNTP" nntp)
                          (const :tag "Read news via RSS" nnrss)
                          (const :tag "Read news from Slashdot" nnslashdot)
                          (const :tag "Manage TODO items" nntodo)
                          (const :tag "Read mail with nnml" nnml)
                          (const :tag "Read mail with nnmaildir" nnmaildir)
                          (const :tag "Read mail with nnimap" nnimap))
                    '(nnml)

;; defaults to sendmail
@variable outbound :'(choice (const :tag "Send mail via sendmail" sendmail)
                             (const :tag "Send mail via SMTP" smtp)) 
                    'sendmail

@result primary-mail-selections (list backends outbound)
@text
Welcome to Gnus.  You need to tell us what you want to do with Gnus
before we go on to specific configurations.

Choose the tasks you want to set up: @variable{backends}

Choose the method Gnus will use to send mail: @variable{outbound}
@end text

;; this is like a cond, and multiples are allowed
@next (assq 'nnml backends) "Configuring the nnml backend"
@next (assq 'nntp backends) "Configuring the NNTP backend"
@next (eq sendmail outbound) "Configuring sendmail"
@next (eq smtp outbound) "Configuring SMTP"

@node "Configuring the nnml backend"

;; note that we don't need "@variable nnml-directory"

;; but we do need @result, so undo and reset know what to undo
@result nnml-directory

;; invented functions
@next-action '(gnus-server-add-server-direct 'nnml)

@undo-action '(gnus-server-remove-server-direct 'nnml)

@text

In order to use nnml, you need to specify a directory where your mail
will live: @variable{nnml-directory}

The default is usually fine.

@end text

@node "Configuring the NNTP backend"

;; defaults to nntp-address?
@variable server :string nntp-address

;; invented functions
@next-action '(gnus-server-add-server-direct 'nntp server)

@undo-action '(gnus-server-remove-server-direct 'nntp server)

@text

You need a NNTP server to read news via nntp: @variable{server}

@end text

@end ifassistant