Re: Testers wanted: New gnus backend nnselect

[Andrew Cohen <cohen@bu.edu>]

>>>>> "Eric" == Eric Abrahamsen <eric@ericabrahamsen.net> writes:

    Eric> Andrew Cohen <cohen@bu.edu> writes:
    >> TLDR: Please test the new feature found on the git repository at
    >> feature/gnus-select.

    Eric> Very cool! Later this week I'll make another copy of the
    Eric> search-language branch that's rebased onto this one.

    Eric> [...]


[...]

    Eric> Once this has landed, I hope we can rename nnir.el to
    Eric> gnus-search.el, and drop the "nnir" term altogether.


Yes, that's what I meant when I said there was a lot of renaming to do:) 

[...]


    Eric> I've started on a gnus-search-thread method for the search
    Eric> engines -- in fact, the majority of them can already handle
    Eric> searching by thread.  Ideally `nnselect-request-thread' could
    Eric> then become engine-agnostic, and only punt if the engine in
    Eric> question doesn't implement the `gnus-search-thread' method.

Great! But there is one quirk to keep in mind. If you start in a
"normal" group (like one with an imap backend) you can't (easily) insert
articles from other groups into the same summary buffer. If you look at
nnimap-request-thread you will notice that if
gnus-refer-thread-use-search is nil then only the current group is
probed for thread articles. But if its non-nil then it defers to
nnselect-search-thread which creates a NEW nnselect ephemeral buffer to
allow the results to cross groups. You can probably implement this in 
new nnfoo-request-thread methods for all the backends.

The function nnselect-request-thread is called only when referring a
thread from an nnselect group. The only way it is engine specific right
now is in the construction of the search query string
(nnimap-make-thread-query). So you could provide a function
nnir-make-thread-query (or better yet encapsulate the whole nnir related
stuff in nnselect-request-thread into a function like nnir-refer-thread)
and this would make the function fully universal (and keep all the
search-related junk in nnir where it belongs)

Then this same function can be used in nnselect-search-thread,
easy-peasy.

Sorry, re-reading the above paragraphs I might not have been clear (but
maybe I was?) And I guess I'm suggesting the function should be called
gnus-refer-thread.


[...]

    Eric> I think that, to maximize chances of people actually testing
    Eric> this, it would be best to provide a ready-made
    Eric> `gnus-group-make-persistent-search-group' function (or call it
    Eric> whatever), and give it a keybinding. Say:

But it has a keybinding: the usual one!  "G m"
(gnus-group-make-group):)

OK, OK,  it will only take a second to make a dedicated function.
But at some point I hope people go beyond searching in the testing. 


[...]


Best,
Andy