Having sent mail inside threads in inbox

Having sent mail inside threads in inbox

[Antoine Levitt]

Hello,

I'm moving to gnus from gmail, and am learning about the threading
system. I'd like to have my sent mail displayed inside the threads in my
inbox. That is, if a guy sends me A, I reply B, and he replies C, I'd
like to have

A
-> B
---> C

so I can read back old conversations in full, just like what I do on
gmail. Right now, the best I've found I can do is

(setq gnus-build-sparse-threads 'more)

which display "ghosts" messages, so I get
A
-> some stuff I can't read if I select it
---> C

How do people adress that problem?

Re: Having sent mail inside threads in inbox

[Tassilo Horn]

On Thursday 15 April 2010 19:02:54 Antoine Levitt wrote:

Hi!

> I'm moving to gnus from gmail, and am learning about the threading
> system. I'd like to have my sent mail displayed inside the threads in
> my inbox. That is, if a guy sends me A, I reply B, and he replies C,
> I'd like to have

[...]

> How do people adress that problem?

,----[ (info "(gnus)Group Parameters") ]
| `gcc-self'
|      If `(gcc-self . t)' is present in the group parameter list, newly
|      composed messages will be `Gcc''d to the current group.  If
|      `(gcc-self . none)' is present, no `Gcc:' header will be
|      generated, if `(gcc-self . "string")' is present, this string will
|      be inserted literally as a `gcc' header.  This parameter takes
|      precedence over any default `Gcc' rules as described later (*note
|      Archived Messages::).
`----

Bye,
Tassilo

Re: Having sent mail inside threads in inbox

[Antoine Levitt]

Tassilo Horn <tassilo@member.fsf.org> writes:

> On Thursday 15 April 2010 19:02:54 Antoine Levitt wrote:
>
> Hi!
>
>> I'm moving to gnus from gmail, and am learning about the threading
>> system. I'd like to have my sent mail displayed inside the threads in
>> my inbox. That is, if a guy sends me A, I reply B, and he replies C,
>> I'd like to have
>
> [...]
>
>> How do people adress that problem?
>
> ,----[ (info "(gnus)Group Parameters") ]
> | `gcc-self'
> |      If `(gcc-self . t)' is present in the group parameter list, newly
> |      composed messages will be `Gcc''d to the current group.  If
> |      `(gcc-self . none)' is present, no `Gcc:' header will be
> |      generated, if `(gcc-self . "string")' is present, this string will
> |      be inserted literally as a `gcc' header.  This parameter takes
> |      precedence over any default `Gcc' rules as described later (*note
> |      Archived Messages::).
> `----
>
> Bye,
> Tassilo

Hi,

Thanks for this. It's kind of strange to send mail to myself;
furthermore, sent mail is already copied to a special gmail IMAP folder,
so I now have both in duplicate. I'd rather have a way to virtually
import the sent mail folder (without breaking the synchronisation with
the IMAP server), but I guess that's not the point of gnus.

By the way, during tests weird behaviour (such as duplicate or
unavailable mails) occured, which was fixed by setting gnus-agent to
nil. Is that a bug, or am I doing something wrong?

Antoine

Re: Having sent mail inside threads in inbox

[Tassilo Horn]

On Thursday 15 April 2010 22:45:14 Antoine Levitt wrote:

Hi Antoine,

> >> How do people adress that problem?
> >
> > ,----[ (info "(gnus)Group Parameters") ]
> > | `gcc-self'
> > `----
> 
> Thanks for this. It's kind of strange to send mail to myself;

Well, when setting gcc-self to t, you don't really mail yourself, but
Gnus puts the sent mail directly into the current folder.

> furthermore, sent mail is already copied to a special gmail IMAP
> folder, so I now have both in duplicate.

That seems to be some Gmail magic.  For me, the mail is only put into
the folder I specify with gcc-self, and normally that's the current one
(t) or "nnimap+Account:Sent" for mailinglists.

> I'd rather have a way to virtually import the sent mail folder
> (without breaking the synchronisation with the IMAP server), but I
> guess that's not the point of gnus.

Search the manual for virual groups.  But I guess that's not the exact
thing you are looking for.  Virtual groups allow mixing some groups into
one, but in your case, you want to mix your sent mail folder into any
other mail group, so you would need one virtual group per real group.

> By the way, during tests weird behaviour (such as duplicate or
> unavailable mails) occured, which was fixed by setting gnus-agent to
> nil. Is that a bug, or am I doing something wrong?

Well, at least it's a known problem.  The agent was designed mostly for
nntp and doesn't handle backends (like imap) where mails can be deleted,
copied and moved well.  So disabling the agent for those servers is the
best you can do.  Simply go to the server buffer (^ in *Group*) and
disable the agend for the gmail account.

Bye,
Tassilo

Re: Having sent mail inside threads in inbox

[Antoine Levitt]

Tassilo Horn <tassilo@member.fsf.org> writes:

> On Thursday 15 April 2010 22:45:14 Antoine Levitt wrote:
>
> Hi Antoine,
>
>> >> How do people adress that problem?
>> >
>> > ,----[ (info "(gnus)Group Parameters") ]
>> > | `gcc-self'
>> > `----
>> 
>> Thanks for this. It's kind of strange to send mail to myself;
>
> Well, when setting gcc-self to t, you don't really mail yourself, but
> Gnus puts the sent mail directly into the current folder.

But then the change is picked up by the synchronisation tool (I use
offlineimap), so that it's equivalent.

>
>> furthermore, sent mail is already copied to a special gmail IMAP
>> folder, so I now have both in duplicate.
>
> That seems to be some Gmail magic.  For me, the mail is only put into
> the folder I specify with gcc-self, and normally that's the current one
> (t) or "nnimap+Account:Sent" for mailinglists.
>
>> I'd rather have a way to virtually import the sent mail folder
>> (without breaking the synchronisation with the IMAP server), but I
>> guess that's not the point of gnus.
>
> Search the manual for virual groups.  But I guess that's not the exact
> thing you are looking for.  Virtual groups allow mixing some groups into
> one, but in your case, you want to mix your sent mail folder into any
> other mail group, so you would need one virtual group per real group.

Actually, that's pretty much exactly what I'm looking for. I only really
want this functionality for my mail inbox, so I've created a nnvirtual
group gathering INBOX and [Google Mail] Sent Mail, and I read this one
instead of my usual inbox. Everything's good now, thank you! Maybe
mentioning this as a use of virtual groups in the manual would help
people looking for stuff like that.

>
>> By the way, during tests weird behaviour (such as duplicate or
>> unavailable mails) occured, which was fixed by setting gnus-agent to
>> nil. Is that a bug, or am I doing something wrong?
>
> Well, at least it's a known problem.  The agent was designed mostly for
> nntp and doesn't handle backends (like imap) where mails can be deleted,
> copied and moved well.  So disabling the agent for those servers is the
> best you can do.  Simply go to the server buffer (^ in *Group*) and
> disable the agend for the gmail account.

Then why isn't it disabled by default for other backends? Presumably
that's a one-line patch, and it would have saved and other beginners
some trouble.

>
> Bye,
> Tassilo

Thanks for your help! Gnus is pretty amazing once you take it the right
way. Next thing on my todo list: integrate google reader!

gnus agent, google reader and gmail folders (was: Having sent mail inside threads in inbox)

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Fri, 16 Apr 2010 07:52:36 +0200 Tassilo Horn <tassilo@member.fsf.org> wrote: 

TH> That seems to be some Gmail magic.  For me, the mail is only put into
TH> the folder I specify with gcc-self, and normally that's the current one
TH> (t) or "nnimap+Account:Sent" for mailinglists.

All groups on GMail are virtual: the folder name is really just a tag on
the message (this makes their IMAP implementation a bit weird IIRC).  So
the way GMail threads is fundamentally easier than we can do over IMAP,
which breaks folders apart.  We'd have to implement cross-group
threading, not an easy or very useful (for non-GMailers) task IMO.  So
as Antoine says, virtual groups will have to do for GMail users.

On Fri, 16 Apr 2010 12:31:28 +0200 Antoine Levitt <antoine.levitt@gmail.com> wrote: 

AL> Tassilo Horn <tassilo@member.fsf.org> writes:

>> Well, at least it's a known problem.  The agent was designed mostly for
>> nntp and doesn't handle backends (like imap) where mails can be deleted,
>> copied and moved well.  So disabling the agent for those servers is the
>> best you can do.  Simply go to the server buffer (^ in *Group*) and
>> disable the agend for the gmail account.

AL> Then why isn't it disabled by default for other backends? Presumably
AL> that's a one-line patch, and it would have saved and other beginners
AL> some trouble.

There's been a lot of people involved in the Gnus Agent.  Unfortunately
I don't use it at all so I can't comment on this part, but perhaps the
experts can explain a) why it's enabled by default, b) what's currently
missing or broken, and c) what's the plan for the future; that would be
especially useful if any of those differ currently from what's in the
Agent manual.

AL> Thanks for your help! Gnus is pretty amazing once you take it the right
AL> way. Next thing on my todo list: integrate google reader!

Here are some links that may help you; I was collecting them for the
next chance I had to work in this direction:

http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs-en/GoogleClient
http://emacspeak.blogspot.com/2007/03/emacs-client-for-google-services.html
http://groups.google.com/group/emacs-g-client?pli=1

I am very interested in this as a supplement to nnrss.  As long as it's
written in a way that's not exclusive to Google (so anyone, in theory,
could set up their own reader-like server) I think it's worthwhile.  If
it's very Google-specific it may be a hard sell to include it in Emacs
and we'd be at Google's mercy if they decide to change or disable the
Reader API.  Would you be willing to work on this?

Thanks
Ted