introducing Per-Group Fetch Intervals

introducing Per-Group Fetch Intervals

[jidanni]

Gentlemen, it would just be a
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_matter_of_programming to utilize
"technology" similar to (info "(gnus)Group Timestamp") to implement
per-group fetch intervals. (Note however that Group Timestamps track
when YOU last READ a group, not when GNUS last FETCHED a group, which
I am talking about here.)

One could set each per-group fetch interval just the same way one sets
group levels currently, in units of seconds, or in
sec,min,hours,days,etc. However per-group fetch intervals would give a
much finer control than group levels. Indeed, one could even use both
at the same time.

The per-group fetch intervals could even be as fancy as WWWOFFLE:

   Refresh [newsgroup] when the following four conditions are all true:
   The month is:
          + [_] January
          + [_] February...
   The day of the month is: (default: any day, example: 1,3,5-10)
   The day of the week is:
          + [_] Sunday
          + [_] Monday...
   The hour of the day (24hr clock) is: (default: once per day, example:
          6,9-18,20)

"I'm only interested in reading the hurricane news group during the
hurricane season."

"The Holmesian Report only comes out on Wednesdays. No use in checking
other times."

"I hate that grinding sound my computer makes when getting nnrss
groups. Wouldn't once a day be enough for them? Sure slows down
checking my email. Don't tell me to put them on a different group
level, as I would surely forget about them."

How would per-group fetch intervals work? Well, when the user presses
"g" (gnus-group-get-new-news), for each group, we see if the time of
last fetching of this group + this group's per-group fetch interval <
the current time. If so, then we fetch the group and update its
timestamp. If not, then we don't fetch the group: if there were 38
unread articles in that group before we hit "g", there will be 38
after.

(gnus-group-get-new-news 'ignore-all-fetch-intervals) would give the
behavior of the current "g" key.

TZ> If the functionality you describe is added, it should be optional.

Yes Ted, the default fetch interval for each group would be 1 second.
(0 seconds means never fetch: "I'm bored with the Florentine
architecture newsgroup, and wish to get no new articles, but there's a
couple articles I haven't finished reading or whatever...")

Implementors: please remember to add a new item to
gnus-group-line-format for the per-group fetch intervals.

Anyways, glad everybody likes my idea. Be sure to have the code on my
desk by next week. Over and out.