Wondering about subgroups or associated groups

Wondering about subgroups or associated groups

[Lloyd Zusman]

I've been thinking about an idea, and I'd like to put it forth here so
we could discuss the pros and cons.

I'd like to be able to create a "saved" group for every email and news
group that I'm currently maintaining in Gnus.  I know that I could
manually do that today by creating a set of nnarchive groups that
correspond to each of my active groups, and then do a `B m' to move
selected messages to the appropriate, associated nnarchive group.

I believe that it would be nice if we could associate one or more groups
with a principal group.  These groups could be configured to have
user-specified aliases (such as "saved", or whatever), which would
correspond to a group with a "real" name.  For example, a naming
convention could be devised as follows (this is just one possible
example to illustrate my idea ... many other naming conventions could be
devised):

 If the principal       ... and the alias    ... then the associated
 group has this name    has this name        group would have this name
 -------------------    -----------------    --------------------------
 nnml+email:ljz         saved                nnml+assoc:email-ljz-saved
 gnus                   old                  nnml+assoc:gnus-old
 ... etc ...            ... etc ...          ... etc ...

Then, in my proposal, the following commands could exist:

- gnus-assoc-move-to-assoc      Works almost like `B m', but
                                accepts an alias name and
                                moves selected articles to 
                                the associated group, whose
                                name is determined by a naming
                                convention such as the one I
                                offered, above.  If the
                                associated group doesn't exist,
                                it is created.

- gnus-assoc-copy-to-assoc      Same as gnus-assoc-move-to-assoc,
                                but copies the articles, instead
                                of moving them.

- gnus-assoc-move-to-main       Mirror images of the two commands
  gnus-assoc-copy-to-main       above; i.e., move or copy articles
                                from the associated group to the
                                corresponding main group.

- gnus-assoc-switch-to-assoc    Accepts an alias name, and
                                switches to the associated
                                group whose name is constructed
                                using the alias name via a
                                naming convention like the one
                                above.

- gnus-assoc-switch-to-main     When in an associated group,
                                automatically switches back to
                                the main group.

  ... and I'm sure there would be other commands ...

Once again, I realize that all this can be done manually with existing
Gnus commands.  But what I'm looking for are the following features that
don't currently exist:

1. The associated groups are automatically created based on the
   alias name, if they don't already exist.

2. A series of functions that take the alias name as an argument and
   operate on the associated group which corresponds to that alias name.

3. Command completion would show all exiting alias names for a given
   group, for appropriate commands where an alias name would need to
   be selected.

4. The associated groups could be configured to not show up at all in
   the Groups buffer ... in this case, they only would be accessible
   from within their main group's Summary and Article buffers.

What are your thoughts about this idea?

-- 
 Lloyd Zusman
 ljz@asfast.com

Re: Wondering about subgroups or associated groups

[Lloyd Zusman]

Correction:  in my message below, perform the following substitution:

  s/nnarchive/nnml/g

Lloyd Zusman <ljz@asfast.com> writes:

> I've been thinking about an idea, and I'd like to put it forth here so
> we could discuss the pros and cons.
>
> I'd like to be able to create a "saved" group for every email and news
> group that I'm currently maintaining in Gnus.  I know that I could
> manually do that today by creating a set of nnarchive groups that
> correspond to each of my active groups, and then do a `B m' to move
> selected messages to the appropriate, associated nnarchive group.
>
> I believe that it would be nice if we could associate one or more groups
> with a principal group.  These groups could be configured to have
> user-specified aliases (such as "saved", or whatever), which would
> correspond to a group with a "real" name.  For example, a naming
> convention could be devised as follows (this is just one possible
> example to illustrate my idea ... many other naming conventions could be
> devised):
>
>  If the principal       ... and the alias    ... then the associated
>  group has this name    has this name        group would have this name
>  -------------------    -----------------    --------------------------
>  nnml+email:ljz         saved                nnml+assoc:email-ljz-saved
>  gnus                   old                  nnml+assoc:gnus-old
>  ... etc ...            ... etc ...          ... etc ...
>
> Then, in my proposal, the following commands could exist:
>
> - gnus-assoc-move-to-assoc      Works almost like `B m', but
>                                 accepts an alias name and
>                                 moves selected articles to 
>                                 the associated group, whose
>                                 name is determined by a naming
>                                 convention such as the one I
>                                 offered, above.  If the
>                                 associated group doesn't exist,
>                                 it is created.
>
> - gnus-assoc-copy-to-assoc      Same as gnus-assoc-move-to-assoc,
>                                 but copies the articles, instead
>                                 of moving them.
>
> - gnus-assoc-move-to-main       Mirror images of the two commands
>   gnus-assoc-copy-to-main       above; i.e., move or copy articles
>                                 from the associated group to the
>                                 corresponding main group.
>
> - gnus-assoc-switch-to-assoc    Accepts an alias name, and
>                                 switches to the associated
>                                 group whose name is constructed
>                                 using the alias name via a
>                                 naming convention like the one
>                                 above.
>
> - gnus-assoc-switch-to-main     When in an associated group,
>                                 automatically switches back to
>                                 the main group.
>
>   ... and I'm sure there would be other commands ...
>
> Once again, I realize that all this can be done manually with existing
> Gnus commands.  But what I'm looking for are the following features that
> don't currently exist:
>
> 1. The associated groups are automatically created based on the
>    alias name, if they don't already exist.
>
> 2. A series of functions that take the alias name as an argument and
>    operate on the associated group which corresponds to that alias name.
>
> 3. Command completion would show all exiting alias names for a given
>    group, for appropriate commands where an alias name would need to
>    be selected.
>
> 4. The associated groups could be configured to not show up at all in
>    the Groups buffer ... in this case, they only would be accessible
>    from within their main group's Summary and Article buffers.
>
> What are your thoughts about this idea?
>
> -- 
>  Lloyd Zusman
>  ljz@asfast.com
>

-- 
 Lloyd Zusman
 ljz@asfast.com

Re: Wondering about subgroups or associated groups

[Henrik Enberg]

Lloyd Zusman <ljz@asfast.com> writes:

> I've been thinking about an idea, and I'd like to put it forth here so
> we could discuss the pros and cons.
>
> I'd like to be able to create a "saved" group for every email and news
> group that I'm currently maintaining in Gnus.  I know that I could
> manually do that today by creating a set of nnarchive groups that
> correspond to each of my active groups, and then do a `B m' to move
> selected messages to the appropriate, associated nnarchive group.
>
> I believe that it would be nice if we could associate one or more groups
> with a principal group.  These groups could be configured to have
> user-specified aliases (such as "saved", or whatever), which would
> correspond to a group with a "real" name.  For example, a naming
> convention could be devised as follows (this is just one possible
> example to illustrate my idea ... many other naming conventions could be
> devised):

I have the following in ~/gnus.el.  I guess you could massage it to
follow your naming conventions.  Currently it just stuffs mail in
"nnml.archive.group-name".  It will probably only work if you have a
newsserver as your primary select method, and for nnml groups.

It's not quite as fancy as your proposal, it just copies the article to
the archive group when I hit `B a'.

(defun gnus-summary-archive-article ()
  "Copy current article to a suitable nnml archive group.
The copied article will be marked as \"ancient\", the original
will retain its current marks."
  (interactive)
  (let* ((group-name (if (string-match "^nnml:" gnus-newsgroup-name)
			 (substring gnus-newsgroup-name 5 nil)
		       gnus-newsgroup-name))
	 (archive-name (concat "nnml:archive." group-name))
	 (orig-mark (gnus-summary-article-mark)))
    (gnus-summary-mark-article nil gnus-ancient-mark t)
    (gnus-summary-copy-article 1 archive-name)
    (gnus-summary-mark-article nil orig-mark t)))

(eval-after-load "gnus-sum"
  '(define-key gnus-summary-backend-map (kbd "a")
     'gnus-summary-archive-article))

Re: Wondering about subgroups or associated groups

[David S Goldberg]

>>>>> On Fri, 24 Jan 2003 09:00:00 -0500, Lloyd Zusman
>>>>> <ljz@asfast.com> said:

> I'd like to be able to create a "saved" group for every email and news
> group that I'm currently maintaining in Gnus.

I do this for many, though not all, of the groups I read.  Mostly I do
it for nntp groups though I use nnml rather than nnarchive.  For
nnimap, I just leave stuff on the server.

> Once again, I realize that all this can be done manually with existing
> Gnus commands.  But what I'm looking for are the following features that
> don't currently exist:

I think it would be nice to tie it all together this way.  As you
note, it's possible.  I've done some of it for myself, though not in
the generalized fashion you are looking for.  Perhaps they offer some
ideas for implementing your desired functionality.

> 1. The associated groups are automatically created based on the
>    alias name, if they don't already exist.

I handled this with gnus-move-split-methods.  Mine is fairly complex
as I use it for other things than this depending on the group I'm in
so I won't post it, but it's simple enough to do a simple string
operation to generate the "saved" group name.  Groups are created
automatically (though prompted for) if they don't exist as a matter of
course.

> 2. A series of functions that take the alias name as an argument and
>    operate on the associated group which corresponds to that alias name.

> 3. Command completion would show all exiting alias names for a given
>    group, for appropriate commands where an alias name would need to
>    be selected.

I haven't felt a need for 2 and 3.

> 4. The associated groups could be configured to not show up at all in
>    the Groups buffer ... in this case, they only would be accessible
>    from within their main group's Summary and Article buffers.

I handled this with nnvirtual.  For the groups that I "save" in this
manner, I set up an nnvirtual with the main nntp group and the alias
group.  I set listing level to 3 and put the main and alias groups at
a higher level so they never show up in a group listing unless I
explicitly ask for them.

-- 
Dave Goldberg
david.goldberg6@verizon.net