Re: Registry is working (first cut)

[Ted Zlatanov <tzz@lifelogs.com>]

On Sun, 11 May 2003, ray-2003@zonix.de wrote:
> * Ted Zlatanov <tzz@lifelogs.com> wrote:
> 
>> Yes, I would like to use the long names, but I haven't found a
>> reliable way to capture that.  If anyone can help me obtain the
>> correct long name for a group, I'm all ears.  I kept getting the
>> wrong backend on things like drafts, article moves/copies,
>> spooling, etc.
> 
> Sorry, I've no idea.  There's `gnus-newsgroup-name' and a function
> `gnus-real-group-name'.  The goal is to get a "fully" qualified
> group name, right?  `gnus-newsgroup-name' looks like that to me.

It doesn't work for moving, for instance.  You don't get the right
group name for either the source or the target group, I forget which.
Also with draft messages you get some really strange behavior.

> What will happen, if gnus-registry instructs the splitting function
> to write to a non-writeable group like NNTP?  I just tried and the
> message went into my INBOX.  This is OK but I didn't find any code
> in gnus-registry.el doing this :-)

Because the group name returned is the short name, the splitting
function will get a group name equivalent to the short name of the
NNTP group.  The nnmail/nnimap backend will then create that group, I
believe.

> There will be an expiry process for the registry, right?

Currently, you can only clear it.  The age of the entry is not
stored.  We can do one or both of:

- limit registry size and delete old entries when we go over the size

- delete entries when they are too old

We just need to store the creation date in the extra data field.

> AFAICS, there's no way to limit the registry collecting message IDs
> from certain groups.  This would help to reduce the size of the
> registry.

registry-ignore only works for the automatic registration that occurs
when you enter a group.  It's not applicable for the registration that
happens when you copy/move/delete/spool a message.  Should it?

> Some "Gnus synchronisation" should be possible if the fully
> qualified groupnames are stored in the registry.  If the registry
> could store article marks (read, ticked etc.) one could carry the
> registry from one place to another and get his Gnusae in sync.
> Without the need of common servers because syncing is done on base
> of message IDs.

Well, consider that external processes can add or delete messages to
the IMAP groups, for instance.  Marks can be set or unset by external
processes also.  It's not an easy problem.  I've been thinking about
it.

Furthermore, marks are per-group+article, while the registry is
per-MessageID.  The format of the registry would have to be modified
so instead of just the group name, we also store the marks for the
MessageID in the group entry, plus maybe the article number.

Ted