Message Threading or Interleaving Your Replies

Message Threading or Interleaving Your Replies

[dick]

What's the deal with message threads not including your replies?

My gnus setup is a gargantuan mess.  My INBOX resides in ~/Maildir but
my sent replies go into ~/Mail/archive.  And then there's no mail header
that could conceivably link same-thread messages.  I know Microsoft
Outlook sports a Thread-Index mail header.

Re: Message Threading or Interleaving Your Replies

[Adam Sjøgren]

dick writes:

> What's the deal with message threads not including your replies?

Are you looking for the group parameter `gcc-self`?

 · https://www.gnus.org/manual/gnus_21.html#Group-Parameters

> there's no mail header that could conceivably link same-thread
> messages.

Isn't that what References: and In-Reply-To: do?


  Best regards,

    Adam

-- 
 "AI coding tools are just tech debt loan sharks"           Adam Sjøgren
                                                       asjo@koldfront.dk

Re: Message Threading or Interleaving Your Replies

[dick.r.chiang]

AS> Are you looking for the group parameter `gcc-self`?

YES!  This put my replies into the thread, and whatever
default sorter that assigns incoming messages to a particular
thread also correctly assigns my outgoing message.

I am gratified but also chagrined that an obscure flag like "gcc-self"
is required for something so basic to email usability.  Then again, as
Hyman Roth points out, this is the business we've chosen.

Re: Message Threading or Interleaving Your Replies

[Adam Sjøgren]

dick.r.chiang@gmail.com writes:

> I am gratified but also chagrined that an obscure flag like "gcc-self"
> is required for something so basic to email usability.

I _don't_ want my outgoing emails mixed with my ingoing, so as it
often is with email: different strokes for different folks!

Happy to hear it solved your problem.


  Best regards,

    Adam

-- 
 "All the truth in the world adds up to one big lie"        Adam Sjøgren
                                                       asjo@koldfront.dk

Re: Message Threading or Interleaving Your Replies

[e.fraga]

Response below/inline for email Adam Sjøgren wrote:
> (original email sent 21 Mar 2025 at 22:10)
> 
> I _don't_ want my outgoing emails mixed with my ingoing, so as it
> often is with email: different strokes for different folks!

Indeed.

nnvirtual groups are good for this, providing virtual groups that bring
together emails actually stored in different real groups.

-- 
Eric S Fraga via gnus (Emacs 30.1 2025-02-25) on Debian trixie/sid

Re: Message Threading or Interleaving Your Replies

[dick.r.chiang]

AS> I _don't_ want my outgoing emails mixed with my ingoing

How can this be?  It's hard to refresh your memory when the conversation
you're revisiting only shows one side of it.

Re: Message Threading or Interleaving Your Replies

[James Thomas]

dick.r.chiang@gmail.com writes:

> AS> I _don't_ want my outgoing emails mixed with my ingoing
>
> How can this be?  It's hard to refresh your memory when the conversation
> you're revisiting only shows one side of it.

Or do it on demand; say:

  (setq gnus-refer-thread-use-search '(("nnml:archive" "sent")))

--

Re: Message Threading or Interleaving Your Replies

[dick.r.chiang]

Wowsa!  This dark sorcery appears to have been conceived in 2011 by
cohen@andy.bu.edu as part of a backend called "nnir" (presumably
short for Net News Information Retrieval).  It's like Geppetto fashioned
a vast collection of woodworking tools then tossed them onto a workbench
scattershot, then expected mere mortals to carve a talking boy.

Gnus is truly *the* canonical example of how *not* to write user-facing
software.

Re: Message Threading or Interleaving Your Replies

[James Thomas]

"Gnus Veteran Discovers Gnus Feature" ought _not_ to make the gnus.

--

Re: Message Threading or Interleaving Your Replies

[James Thomas]

James Thomas writes:

> "Gnus Veteran Discovers Gnus Feature" ought _not_ to make the gnus.

...because it's too commonplace to.

(Clarifying just in case someone didn't get it)

--

Re: Message Threading or Interleaving Your Replies

[Björn Bidar]

dick.r.chiang@gmail.com writes:

> Wowsa!  This dark sorcery appears to have been conceived in 2011 by
> cohen@andy.bu.edu as part of a backend called "nnir" (presumably
> short for Net News Information Retrieval).  It's like Geppetto fashioned
> a vast collection of woodworking tools then tossed them onto a workbench
> scattershot, then expected mere mortals to carve a talking boy.
>
> Gnus is truly *the* canonical example of how *not* to write user-facing
> software.

Gnus is an example who language develops. Term develop over time derived
from other common terms only for the origin terms to derived.

Or do you know why how Richard became (a) Dick?

Just don't be a Dick, pun intended.

Why do I feed the troll?

Re: Message Threading or Interleaving Your Replies

[Björn Bidar]

Instead of using gcc-self or virtual groups you can also use sparse
threads.

Check out C-h v `gnus-build-sparse-threads' RET or read:
(info "(gnus) Filling In Threads")

If you want to dynamically build threads using gnus-summary-refer-thread
check out my `thao/gnus-archive-to-refer-thread-search' function which
sets the variable controlling gnus-summary-refer-thread using the
the archive method set by the current group.

https://codeberg.org/Thaodan/emacs.d#headline-237

Re: Message Threading or Interleaving Your Replies

[dick.r.chiang]

Does your Rube Goldberg machine actually reconstruct the thread in its
original message sequence?  I looked into gnus-refer-thread-use-search
and was rather horrified.  For nnml, it might do a simple find-grep.
For an nnimap user like myself, it would actually attempt
a dovecot query, something I've struggled mightily with even without the
added complication of the nnselect abstraction.

But more importantly, the whole business of just-in-time search to
reconstruct threads is like Armstrong returning to the Moon to retrieve
his house keys.  Even in 1995 when Gnus was written, there was a clear
notion of a message thread.  Not keeping its constituent messages
contiguous on disk was just a basic design mistake.  With gcc-self, I
can rectify this error without insane gymnastics.

Re: Message Threading or Interleaving Your Replies

[Björn Bidar]

Sorry I'm out of fish (for trolls). Please try to keep a respectful
tone.
Your cultural references don't make any sense for someone not American.

Re: Message Threading or Interleaving Your Replies

[James Thomas]

dick.r.chiang@gmail.com writes:

> For nnml, it might do a simple find-grep. For an nnimap user like
> myself, it would actually attempt a dovecot query, something I've
> struggled mightily with even without the added complication of the
> nnselect abstraction.

It uses whatever is the -search-engine. So you can set up indexing with
notmuch etc.

> But more importantly, the whole business of just-in-time search to
> reconstruct threads is like Armstrong returning to the Moon to retrieve
> his house keys.  Even in 1995 when Gnus was written, there was a clear
> notion of a message thread.  Not keeping its constituent messages
> contiguous on disk was just a basic design mistake.  With gcc-self, I
> can rectify this error without insane gymnastics.

True, but some won't want to mix. The mentioned nnvirtual is another
option.

--

Re: Message Threading or Interleaving Your Replies

[James Thomas]

James Thomas writes:

> It uses whatever is the -search-engine. So you can set up indexing with
> notmuch etc.
>
>> But more importantly, the whole business of just-in-time search to
>> reconstruct threads is like Armstrong returning to the Moon to retrieve
>> his house keys.  Even in 1995 when Gnus was written, there was a clear
>> notion of a message thread.  Not keeping its constituent messages
>> contiguous on disk was just a basic design mistake.  With gcc-self, I
>> can rectify this error without insane gymnastics.
>
> True, but some won't want to mix. The mentioned nnvirtual is another
> option.

And (to go beyond this thread's purview) you may even add 'drafts' to
this system and warp to it with 'A W' followed by 'e'.

--

Re: Message Threading or Interleaving Your Replies

[Steinar Bang]

>>>>> James Thomas <jimjoe@gmx.net>:

> "Gnus Veteran Discovers Gnus Feature" ought _not_ to make the gnus.

Oooooow!