Help with Message Sorting!

Help with Message Sorting!

[Jake Colman]

I think may earlier posts may have been lost due to some changes on my local
mail client and server.  Pardon this repost if it is a duplicate.

I need to sort my message threads, and the messages within the threads, in
order of receipt.  This seems to me to be only logical since I want to read
messages in the order they were posted, no?

How can I do this using gnus-thread-sort-functions?  Thanx!

-- 
Jake Colman                     

Principia Partners LLC                  Phone: (201) 946-0300
Harborside Financial Center               Fax: (201) 946-0320
902 Plaza II                           Beeper: (800) 505-2795
Jersey City, NJ 07311                  E-mail: colman@ppllc.com
                                       E-mail: jcolman@jnc.com
                                          web: http://www.ppllc.com

Re: Help with Message Sorting!

[Justin Sheehy]

Jake Colman <colman@ppllc.com> writes:

> I need to sort my message threads, and the messages within the threads, in
> order of receipt.  This seems to me to be only logical since I want to read
> messages in the order they were posted, no?

There are a couple of things in your request that I am unclear on:

Do you want to sort by receipt time or sending time?  You say both as
though they were interchangeable, but they are quite different.

Do you want threading, or sorting-by-date after sorting-by-subject?
Often, messages in a grouping/thread/whatever are either in
chronological order or are threaded, but they cannot usually be both.

-- 
Justin Sheehy

In a cloud bones of steel.
  

Re: Help with Message Sorting!

[Jake Colman]

>>>>> "Justin" == Justin Sheehy <justin@linus.mitre.org> writes:

    Justin> Jake Colman <colman@ppllc.com> writes:
    >> I need to sort my message threads, and the messages within the threads,
    >> in order of receipt.  This seems to me to be only logical since I want
    >> to read messages in the order they were posted, no?

    Justin> There are a couple of things in your request that I am unclear on:

    Justin> Do you want to sort by receipt time or sending time?  You say both
    Justin> as though they were interchangeable, but they are quite different.

Hmmmm.  I want to be able to read the messages in the order they were intended
to be read! :-) IOW I want to see answers following the question.  Ever since
switching mail servers from Unix to M$ Exchange I am always seeing the most
recent messages first - the answer before the question.  Having said that, I
suppose I mean sorting by send time.

    Justin> Do you want threading, or sorting-by-date after sorting-by-subject?
    Justin> Often, messages in a grouping/thread/whatever are either in
    Justin> chronological order or are threaded, but they cannot usually be
    Justin> both.

I want threading.  That's paramount.  I can't fathom clients that can't thread
messages together (M$ Outlook 98).  Within a thread, I want messages to be
sorted chronologically.

Oh!  One sec!  Are you saying that 'threading' is exclusive of 'sorting'?
Maybe that's my problem.  Maybe the Exchange Server's method of assigning IDs
used by threads is what's scrweing up my ordering.

If that's the case, what do I want to do instead that would be the equivalent
of thrading?  I want all messages with the same subject to be listed together
under a single entry, and sorted by date within the thread.  Can do?

-- 
Jake Colman                     

Principia Partners LLC                  Phone: (201) 946-0300
Harborside Financial Center               Fax: (201) 946-0320
902 Plaza II                           Beeper: (800) 505-2795
Jersey City, NJ 07311                  E-mail: colman@ppllc.com
                                       E-mail: jcolman@jnc.com
                                          web: http://www.ppllc.com

Re: Help with Message Sorting!

[Justin Sheehy]

Jake Colman <colman@ppllc.com> writes:

> Oh!  One sec!  Are you saying that 'threading' is exclusive of 'sorting'?

Sort of, yes.  At least, it is more advanced sorting.

Some clients, such as the tin newsreader, simply do
subject-and-date-sorting and call it threading.  However, real
threading uses the In-Reply-To and References headers in addition to
Subject in order to produce more useful thread trees.  

A simple example...

Four messages are sent, in the following order:

A:  asks a question, starting the thread
B:  answers A's question, and adds other comments
C:  also answers A's question
D:  follows up to B's comments

In a client that doesn't do real threading, this would look something
like:

 A
  B
  C
  D

With decent threading, it would look more like:

 A
  B
   D
  C

Does this example make sense to you?

What is the value of your gnus-thread-sort-functions variable?

-- 
Justin Sheehy

In a cloud bones of steel.
  

Re: Help with Message Sorting!

[Jake Colman]

>>>>> "Justin" == Justin Sheehy <justin@linus.mitre.org> writes:


    Justin> Does this example make sense to you?

Yes, your examples made alot of sense.  As a matter of fact, I think that now I
understand my own problem a bit better.  First a question: does real threading
apply to mailing lists?  Or is it only newsgroups that have the appripriate
reference values that allow sorting?

I know that if I receive two unrelated messages that have the same subject I no
longer see them in the order they were posted.  Instead I see the most recent
message first.


    Justin> What is the value of your gnus-thread-sort-functions variable?


gnus-thread-sort-functions's value is 
(gnus-thread-sort-by-number)


-- 
Jake Colman                     

Principia Partners LLC                  Phone: (201) 946-0300
Harborside Financial Center               Fax: (201) 946-0320
902 Plaza II                           Beeper: (800) 505-2795
Jersey City, NJ 07311                  E-mail: colman@ppllc.com
                                       E-mail: jcolman@jnc.com
                                          web: http://www.ppllc.com

Re: Help with Message Sorting!

[Danny Siu]

Jake Colman writes:

  Jake> If that's the case, what do I want to do instead that would be the
  Jake> equivalent of thrading?  I want all messages with the same subject
  Jake> to be listed together under a single entry, and sorted by date
  Jake> within the thread.  Can do?

Of course, it is *Gnus*!  ;-)

This is what you need to do:

(setq gnus-thread-sort-functions '(gnus-thread-sort-by-date
				   gnus-thread-sort-by-subject
                                   gnus-thread-sort-by-total-score))


Here is the reference:

`gnus-thread-sort-functions' is a variable declared in Lisp.

Value: (gnus-thread-sort-by-date gnus-thread-sort-by-subject gnus-thread-sort-by-total-score)

Documentation:
*List of functions used for sorting threads in the summary buffer.
By default, threads are sorted by article number.

Each function takes two threads and return non-nil if the first thread
should be sorted before the other.  If you use more than one function,
the primary sort function should be the last.  You should probably
always include `gnus-thread-sort-by-number' in the list of sorting
functions -- preferably first.

Ready-made functions include `gnus-thread-sort-by-number',
`gnus-thread-sort-by-author', `gnus-thread-sort-by-subject',
`gnus-thread-sort-by-date', `gnus-thread-sort-by-score' and
`gnus-thread-sort-by-total-score' (see `gnus-thread-score-function').

  Jake> -- Jake Colman

Hope this helps!
-- 
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Re: Help with Message Sorting!

[Justin Sheehy]

Jake Colman <colman@ppllc.com> writes:

> First a question: does real threading apply to mailing lists?

Yep.

> gnus-thread-sort-functions's value is 
> (gnus-thread-sort-by-number)

I recommend changing it to:

(gnus-thread-sort-by-number gnus-thread-sort-by-date
 gnus-thread-sort-by-total-score)

The order of those is significant, btw.

-- 
Justin Sheehy

In a cloud bones of steel.
  

Re: Help with Message Sorting!

[Jake Colman]

>>>>> "Danny" == Danny Siu <dsiu@Adobe.COM> writes:

    Danny> Of course, it is *Gnus*!  ;-)

Yes, I know.  That's why I'm certain this is doabl!

    Danny> This is what you need to do:

    Danny> (setq gnus-thread-sort-functions '(gnus-thread-sort-by-date
    Danny> gnus-thread-sort-by-subject gnus-thread-sort-by-total-score))

Nope.  These functions sort the threads themselves.  My problem is with the
display of articles *within* a thread.  I want the *articles* *inside* of a
thread to be displayed in the order of posting.

-- 
Jake Colman                     

Principia Partners LLC                  Phone: (201) 946-0300
Harborside Financial Center               Fax: (201) 946-0320
902 Plaza II                           Beeper: (800) 505-2795
Jersey City, NJ 07311                  E-mail: colman@ppllc.com
                                       E-mail: jcolman@jnc.com
                                          web: http://www.ppllc.com