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* Proposed new introductory section to the Gnus manual
@ 2019-08-18 23:26 Eric Abrahamsen
  2019-08-19  0:34 ` dick.r.chiang
  2019-08-19 17:55 ` Adam Sjøgren
  0 siblings, 2 replies; 43+ messages in thread
From: Eric Abrahamsen @ 2019-08-18 23:26 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: ding

Hi folks,

I just filed this bug:
https://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=37078, which proposes a
new introductory section to the Gnus manual, called "Don't Panic". It's
meant to be a brief orientation, and a crash course in the style of the
vim tutorials that start with how to quit vim. If this goes in, we might
want to change or remove the existing "Mail in a Newsreader" section of
the manual, which covers some of the same ground, but which I find more
panic-inducing than not :)

Let me know if you have any comments/questions/suggestions!

			     ━━━━━━━━━━━━━
			      DON’T PANIC
			     ━━━━━━━━━━━━━


Welcome, gentle user, to the Gnus newsreader and email client! Gnus is
unlike most clients, in part because of its gross configurability, and
in part because of its historical origins. While Gnus is now a
fully-featured email client, it began life as a newsreader, and its DNA
is still newsreader DNA. Thus it behaves a little differently than most
mail clients.

The typical assumptions of a newsreader are:

1. The news server offers a potentially enormous number of newsgroups to
   read. The user may only be interested in some of those groups, and
   more interested in some than others.
2. Groups probably see a high volume of articles, and the user won’t
   want to read all of them. Mechanisms are needed for foregrounding
   interesting articles, and backgrounding uninteresting articles.
3. Once a group has been scanned and dealt with by the user, it’s
   unlikely to be of further interest until new articles come in.

These assumptions lead to certain default Gnus behaviors:

1. Not all interesting groups are equally interesting, thus there are
   varying degrees of “subscribedness”, with different behavior
   depending on “how subscribed” a group is.
2. There are a large number of commands and tools for scoring and
   sorting articles, or otherwise sweeping them under the rug.
3. Gnus will only show you groups with unread or ticked articles; groups
   with no new articles are hidden.
4. When entering a group, only unread or ticked articles are shown, all
   other articles are hidden.

If this seems draconian, think of it as Enforced Inbox Zero. This is the
way Gnus works by default. It is possible to make it work more like an
email client (always showing read groups and read messages), but that
will take some effort on the part of the user, and Gnus won’t ever
really like it.

The brief introduction below should be enough to get you off the ground.


Servers, Groups, and Articles
═════════════════════════════

  The fundamental building blocks of Gnus are servers, groups, and
  articles. Servers represent stores of articles, either local or
  remote. A server maintains a list of groups, and those groups contain
  articles. Because Gnus presents a unified interface to wide variety of
  servers, the vocabulary doesn’t always quite line up (see XXX for a
  more complete glossary). Thus a local maildir is referred to as a
  “server” the same as a Usenet or IMAP server is; “group” might mean an
  NNTP group, IMAP folder, or local mail directory; and an “article”
  might elsewhere be known as a message or an email. Gnus employs
  unified terms for all these things.

  A Gnus installation is basically just a list of one or more servers,
  plus the user’s subscribed groups from those servers.

  Servers can be added and configured in two places: in the user’s
  gnus.el startup file, using the `gnus-select-method’ and
  `gnus-secondary-select-methods’ options, or within Gnus itself using
  commands in the *Server* buffer. See XXX for details.

  Some servers (including the more mail-like servers) will automatically
  subscribe the user to all their groups. Other servers (more news-like)
  will not. In the latter case, it’s necessary to enter the *Server*
  buffer (with “^”), press return on the server in question, and then
  subscribe to individual groups using “u”.


Getting Mail
════════════

  New mail has to come from somewhere. Some servers, such as NNTP or
  IMAP, are themselves responsible for adding newly-arrived articles.
  Others, such as maildir or mbox servers, only store articles and don’t
  fetch them from anywhere.

  In the second case, Gnus provides for “mail sources”: places where new
  mail is fetched from. A mail source might be a local spool, or a
  remote POP server, or some other source of incoming messages. Mail
  sources are usually configured globally, but can be specified
  per-group (see XXX for more information).

  The “g” key is used to update Gnus and fetch new mail. Servers that
  fetch their own mail will do so; additionally, all the mail sources
  will be scanned for new mail. That incoming mail will then be split
  into local servers according to the users splitting rules (see XXX).


Viewing Mail
════════════

  By default, Gnus’s *Group* buffer only displays groups with unread
  messages. It is always possible to display all the groups temporarily
  with “L”, and to configure Gnus to always display some groups (see
  XXX). The “j” key will prompt for a group name and jump to it,
  displaying it if necessary.

  Press “RET” on a group to enter it: by default Gnus will only show
  unread and ticked articles. It’s possible to see already-read mail,
  either by giving a prefix argument to “RET” before entering the group,
  or by pressing “/ o” once the group is open.

  Articles can be opened and scrolled using “RET” and/or “SPC”, and “n”
  will select the next message.


Sending Mail
════════════

  When sending messages, too, Gnus makes a distinction between news-like
  and mail-like behavior. News servers handle mail delivery themselves,
  and no additional configuration is necessary. Begin composing a news
  article using the “a” key in the *Group* buffer, or “f” if you’re in a
  group and replying to an article.

  Mail message composition starts with “m” in the *Group* buffer, or “r”
  if you’re replying to an existing message. Because mail is sent with
  SMTP, which is an entirely separate process from the mail-reading
  servers, it must also be configured separately, with the option
  `message-send-mail-function’ (see XXX).






^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 43+ messages in thread

* Re: Proposed new introductory section to the Gnus manual
  2019-08-18 23:26 Proposed new introductory section to the Gnus manual Eric Abrahamsen
@ 2019-08-19  0:34 ` dick.r.chiang
  2019-08-19  1:06   ` Eric Abrahamsen
  2019-08-19 17:55 ` Adam Sjøgren
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 43+ messages in thread
From: dick.r.chiang @ 2019-08-19  0:34 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: ding

Disclaimer: I want to be brief, not abrasive (but the two are often conflated).

The monograph is half "Tao of Gnus", quarter "basic commands", and quarter
"setup detail".  The "Tao" part can be much shorter.  For instance:

> Gnus treats mail and news uniformly as categorized message queues.  One can
> think of a mail folder or mailing list as isomorphic to a newsgroup.
> Threads are identical in both realms. Traditionally, however, users prefer
> keeping "TODO" mails at the top of their inbox, and here the mail-news
> abstraction fails as Gnus *qua* newsreader does its best to hide what's
> already been seen.

Boom, onto the next chapter: "Basic Commands" should essentially be a `C-h m`
dump of the Gnus keymap, with very little prose.

Setup options (every sentence ending in "see XXX") need not be mentioned, as 
they all get their own chapters.

One attracts users by making things easy, not boring.  Your monograph contains
a level of detail that's not appreciable until users actually start using Gnus.




^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 43+ messages in thread

* Re: Proposed new introductory section to the Gnus manual
  2019-08-19  0:34 ` dick.r.chiang
@ 2019-08-19  1:06   ` Eric Abrahamsen
  2019-08-19  2:46     ` Bob Newell
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 43+ messages in thread
From: Eric Abrahamsen @ 2019-08-19  1:06 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: ding

dick.r.chiang@gmail.com writes:

> Disclaimer: I want to be brief, not abrasive (but the two are often conflated).

Thanks for the comments! And don't worry about tone.

> The monograph is half "Tao of Gnus", quarter "basic commands", and quarter
> "setup detail".  

Yup, that was the idea. Basically this would be the section users read
right before they hit M-x gnus for the first time.

> The "Tao" part can be much shorter. For instance:
>
>> Gnus treats mail and news uniformly as categorized message queues. One can
>> think of a mail folder or mailing list as isomorphic to a newsgroup.
>> Threads are identical in both realms. Traditionally, however, users prefer
>> keeping "TODO" mails at the top of their inbox, and here the mail-news
>> abstraction fails as Gnus *qua* newsreader does its best to hide what's
>> already been seen.

To me, this is the sort of thing that the Gnus manual already has plenty
of. If I were a new user, this would make very little sense to me, and
wouldn't be particularly helpful.

> Boom, onto the next chapter: "Basic Commands" should essentially be a `C-h m`
> dump of the Gnus keymap, with very little prose.
>
> Setup options (every sentence ending in "see XXX") need not be mentioned, as 
> they all get their own chapters.
>
> One attracts users by making things easy, not boring.  Your monograph contains
> a level of detail that's not appreciable until users actually start using Gnus.

The idea was exactly to mix some concept with some detailed keybindings,
so that the user could at least truck around the *Group* and *Summary*
buffers and feel like they knew where they were at.

A dump of "C-h m" sounds like the perfect way to drive away new users :)

Let's see what other people say!




^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 43+ messages in thread

* Re: Proposed new introductory section to the Gnus manual
  2019-08-19  1:06   ` Eric Abrahamsen
@ 2019-08-19  2:46     ` Bob Newell
  2019-08-19  7:01       ` Eric S Fraga
                         ` (3 more replies)
  0 siblings, 4 replies; 43+ messages in thread
From: Bob Newell @ 2019-08-19  2:46 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: ding

I think the writeup is quite good as is. Gnus is so different from
everything else it is a little hard to grasp at first, and the
underlying philosophy is important to understand.

Many, maybe most of us, have the advantage of 'remembering' Usenet and
how things worked with newsgroups. That really helps in understanding
the heritage and philosophy of Gnus. Today, with Usenet effectively
dead and even Gwene offline (does ANYONE use NNTP any longer?) it's
harder to grasp the group/article paradigm. So I think some verbosity
is in order. Gnus isn't Yahoo Mail (thank heaven) nor is it
Thunderbird. It's its own unique thing.

I really should have sent this from my AOL account :)

-- 
Bob Newell
Honolulu, Hawai`i

Via Linux/Emacs/Gnus/BBDB.



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 43+ messages in thread

* Re: Proposed new introductory section to the Gnus manual
  2019-08-19  2:46     ` Bob Newell
@ 2019-08-19  7:01       ` Eric S Fraga
  2019-08-20  4:26         ` Eric Abrahamsen
  2019-08-19 16:01       ` Adam Sjøgren
                         ` (2 subsequent siblings)
  3 siblings, 1 reply; 43+ messages in thread
From: Eric S Fraga @ 2019-08-19  7:01 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: ding

I like it.  Sets the scene.

One minor comment: I would change "gross" to "extensive" or something
similar; gross has a colloquial meaning which does not quite fit with
the intent of the text.

thanks,
-- 
Eric S Fraga via Emacs 27.0.50 & org 9.2.4 on Debian 10.0




^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 43+ messages in thread

* Re: Proposed new introductory section to the Gnus manual
  2019-08-19  2:46     ` Bob Newell
  2019-08-19  7:01       ` Eric S Fraga
@ 2019-08-19 16:01       ` Adam Sjøgren
  2019-08-19 18:04         ` Bob Newell
  2019-08-20  4:29         ` Eric Abrahamsen
  2019-08-19 16:16       ` Eric S Fraga
  2019-08-20  7:08       ` Bjørn Mork
  3 siblings, 2 replies; 43+ messages in thread
From: Adam Sjøgren @ 2019-08-19 16:01 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: ding

Bob writes:

> Today, with Usenet effectively dead and even Gwene offline (does
> ANYONE use NNTP any longer?)

gwene.org is online, as is news.gmane.org.

(I use nntp every day, for mailing listsm, newsfeeds and for managing a
blog; I switched from gwene.org to feedbase.org, but I am biased in that
choice.)


  Best regards,

    Adam

-- 
 "We can discuss sexism in survival situations when I         Adam Sjøgren
  get back."                                             asjo@koldfront.dk




^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 43+ messages in thread

* Re: Proposed new introductory section to the Gnus manual
  2019-08-19  2:46     ` Bob Newell
  2019-08-19  7:01       ` Eric S Fraga
  2019-08-19 16:01       ` Adam Sjøgren
@ 2019-08-19 16:16       ` Eric S Fraga
  2019-08-20  7:08       ` Bjørn Mork
  3 siblings, 0 replies; 43+ messages in thread
From: Eric S Fraga @ 2019-08-19 16:16 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: ding

On Sunday, 18 Aug 2019 at 16:46, Bob Newell wrote:
> Today, with Usenet effectively dead and even Gwene offline (does
> ANYONE use NNTP any longer?) 

I use nntp daily (gwene, feedbase) and in particular for this group!

I love usenet (via nntp) and despair of all alternatives (facebook,
reddit, discourse, ...) as they are simply intractable high traffic
volumes and/or I can never find anything again once read!
-- 
Eric S Fraga via Emacs 27.0.50 & org 9.2.4 on Debian 10.0




^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 43+ messages in thread

* Re: Proposed new introductory section to the Gnus manual
  2019-08-18 23:26 Proposed new introductory section to the Gnus manual Eric Abrahamsen
  2019-08-19  0:34 ` dick.r.chiang
@ 2019-08-19 17:55 ` Adam Sjøgren
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 43+ messages in thread
From: Adam Sjøgren @ 2019-08-19 17:55 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: ding

Eric writes:

> Let me know if you have any comments/questions/suggestions!

Nitpicks and comments follow.

> 			     ━━━━━━━━━━━━━
> 			      DON’T PANIC
> 			     ━━━━━━━━━━━━━

It's cute with a Douglas Adams reference, but I think a headline that is
more descriptive of the contents is warranted.

> Welcome, gentle user, to the Gnus newsreader and email client! Gnus is
> unlike most clients, in part because of its gross configurability, and

I agree with (the other) Eric that "gross" sounds a little too.. icky?

> While Gnus is now a fully-featured email client, it began life as a
> newsreader, and its DNA is still newsreader DNA.

I think I understand where you are going with this, but Gnus is still a
newsreader, right? This sentence sounds like it isn't anymore.

> 3. Gnus will only show you groups with unread or ticked articles;

Is "ticked" articles a Gnusism? Maybe "marked" or "flagged" would be
more accessible to a newcomer?

Come to think of it, will the average email user who hasn't heard of
usenet know that "article" for mail is synonymous with "email"? A little
later you use the term "message", which might be less confusing up here
as well?

> If this seems draconian, think of it as Enforced Inbox Zero.

"Enforced" sounds so negative. Automatic Inbox Zero? "Now, with more AIZ!"

> This is the way Gnus works by default. It is possible to make it work
> more like an email client (always showing read groups and read
> messages), but that will take some effort on the part of the user, and
> Gnus won’t ever really like it.

Does Gnus have an opinion? It's more like it is unnatural or counter to
the design, right?

(I said I would nitpick...)

>   When sending messages, too, Gnus makes a distinction between news-like
>   and mail-like behavior. News servers handle mail delivery themselves,

Perhaps "message delivery"?

>   Mail message composition starts with “m” in the *Group* buffer, or “r”
>   if you’re replying to an existing message.

Won't most users expect to use R or F, rather than r?

                                 o o o

I'm not really sure where you're aiming with this. It's too vague to be
a tutorial, it's too limited to be a manual. An email-biased
introduction? Perhaps use a headline to set the tone/ambition.

It is hard to write a tutorial without getting bogged down in details
that won't fit every reader, I know - even from experience.

Maybe it's been too long since I've read the manual. (And no, I won't go
read any of the vim-tutorials you referred to ;-))

I think I sound more negative than I wanted to, here. It makes sense to
me, to have a more gentle introduction/overview in the beginning of the
manual and I think you've got a good start.

Documentation is hard, let's go code.


  Best regards,

    Adam

-- 
 "Lanois can get passionate about what he feels to be         Adam Sjøgren
  true," Dylan said. "He's not above smashing guitars.   asjo@koldfront.dk
  I never cared about that unless it was one of mine."




^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 43+ messages in thread

* Re: Proposed new introductory section to the Gnus manual
  2019-08-19 16:01       ` Adam Sjøgren
@ 2019-08-19 18:04         ` Bob Newell
  2019-08-19 18:09           ` Adam Sjøgren
  2019-08-20  4:29         ` Eric Abrahamsen
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 43+ messages in thread
From: Bob Newell @ 2019-08-19 18:04 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Adam Sjøgren; +Cc: ding

Adam Sjøgren <asjo@koldfront.dk> writes:

> gwene.org is online, as is news.gmane.org.
>
> (I use nntp every day, for mailing listsm, newsfeeds and for managing a
> blog; I switched from gwene.org to feedbase.org, but I am biased in that
> choice.)

Thanks for this info, I must look into this option more closely. I
wasn't aware of NNTP still being very current. But I'm not aware of a
lot of things!

-- 
Bob Newell
Honolulu, Hawai`i
* Via Gnus/BBDB/Org/Emacs/Linux *



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 43+ messages in thread

* Re: Proposed new introductory section to the Gnus manual
  2019-08-19 18:04         ` Bob Newell
@ 2019-08-19 18:09           ` Adam Sjøgren
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 43+ messages in thread
From: Adam Sjøgren @ 2019-08-19 18:09 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: ding

Bob writes:

> Thanks for this info, I must look into this option more closely. I
> wasn't aware of NNTP still being very current. But I'm not aware of a
> lot of things!

I think it's fair to say that NNTP is very niche today, but it is not
gone, and it is surprisingly versatile, as we abuse it for various
nefarious purposes.

But without Gnus... nah.


  Best regards,

    Adam

-- 
 "And so, after a three minute downpour, he became            Adam Sjøgren
  ludicrously attired for the rest of the day."          asjo@koldfront.dk




^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 43+ messages in thread

* Re: Proposed new introductory section to the Gnus manual
  2019-08-19  7:01       ` Eric S Fraga
@ 2019-08-20  4:26         ` Eric Abrahamsen
  2019-08-20 11:37           ` dick
  2019-09-07 19:50           ` Adam Sjøgren
  0 siblings, 2 replies; 43+ messages in thread
From: Eric Abrahamsen @ 2019-08-20  4:26 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: ding

Eric S Fraga <e.fraga@ucl.ac.uk> writes:

> I like it.  Sets the scene.
>
> One minor comment: I would change "gross" to "extensive" or something
> similar; gross has a colloquial meaning which does not quite fit with
> the intent of the text.

Yup, that was me attempting to be amusing.

Adam Sjøgren <asjo@koldfront.dk> writes:

> Eric writes:
>
>> Let me know if you have any comments/questions/suggestions!
>
> Nitpicks and comments follow.
>
>> 			     ━━━━━━━━━━━━━
>> 			      DON’T PANIC
>> 			     ━━━━━━━━━━━━━
>
> It's cute with a Douglas Adams reference, but I think a headline that is
> more descriptive of the contents is warranted.

Okay, I can add a section description, but see at bottom.

>> Welcome, gentle user, to the Gnus newsreader and email client! Gnus is
>> unlike most clients, in part because of its gross configurability, and
>
> I agree with (the other) Eric that "gross" sounds a little too.. icky?
>
>> While Gnus is now a fully-featured email client, it began life as a
>> newsreader, and its DNA is still newsreader DNA.
>
> I think I understand where you are going with this, but Gnus is still a
> newsreader, right? This sentence sounds like it isn't anymore.

Okay, I can adjust this.

>> 3. Gnus will only show you groups with unread or ticked articles;
>
> Is "ticked" articles a Gnusism? Maybe "marked" or "flagged" would be
> more accessible to a newcomer?
>
> Come to think of it, will the average email user who hasn't heard of
> usenet know that "article" for mail is synonymous with "email"? A little
> later you use the term "message", which might be less confusing up here
> as well?

Yeah, I was trying to keep the vocab under control, and might have
missed a few spots.

>> If this seems draconian, think of it as Enforced Inbox Zero.
>
> "Enforced" sounds so negative. Automatic Inbox Zero? "Now, with more AIZ!"

That's better!

>> This is the way Gnus works by default. It is possible to make it work
>> more like an email client (always showing read groups and read
>> messages), but that will take some effort on the part of the user, and
>> Gnus won’t ever really like it.
>
> Does Gnus have an opinion? It's more like it is unnatural or counter to
> the design, right?
>
> (I said I would nitpick...)

This is probably me trying to match Lars' voice in the rest of the
manual. That might be a bad idea. (but nitpicks are welcome!)

>>   When sending messages, too, Gnus makes a distinction between news-like
>>   and mail-like behavior. News servers handle mail delivery themselves,
>
> Perhaps "message delivery"?

Or just "delivery"?

>>   Mail message composition starts with “m” in the *Group* buffer, or “r”
>>   if you’re replying to an existing message.
>
> Won't most users expect to use R or F, rather than r?

Yeah, that's probably right.

> o o o
>
> I'm not really sure where you're aiming with this. It's too vague to be
> a tutorial, it's too limited to be a manual. An email-biased
> introduction? Perhaps use a headline to set the tone/ambition.
>
> It is hard to write a tutorial without getting bogged down in details
> that won't fit every reader, I know - even from experience.
>
> Maybe it's been too long since I've read the manual. (And no, I won't go
> read any of the vim-tutorials you referred to ;-))
>
> I think I sound more negative than I wanted to, here. It makes sense to
> me, to have a more gentle introduction/overview in the beginning of the
> manual and I think you've got a good start.

Well I'll tell you where I'm aiming! I called it "Don't Panic" because I
know for a fact that many potential users have considered Gnus, started
it up, gone "WTF is this how do I even get the thing to open where are
my goddamn oh to hell with it" and then shut it down for good -- if they
can find the "q" key, that is. The vim mention was a reference to the
old joke that the first thing any vim tutorial should teach you is
"<esc>:q", ie, how to get the hell out of vim and back to safety.

The Gnus manual is very long, and very unintuitive... uh, discursive.
All of us on this list are way past this point, but I can still remember
that it took me several days of poking around to understand the
difference between a mail backend and a mail source. New users regularly
burst into invective about why their groups have disappeared. This is
an attempt to instill a measure of confidence in people who have dived
into Gnus, and hit a submerged rock.

> Documentation is hard, let's go code.

In this case, the coding was too hard, so I wrote some documentation :)




^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 43+ messages in thread

* Re: Proposed new introductory section to the Gnus manual
  2019-08-19 16:01       ` Adam Sjøgren
  2019-08-19 18:04         ` Bob Newell
@ 2019-08-20  4:29         ` Eric Abrahamsen
  2019-09-07 19:44           ` Adam Sjøgren
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 43+ messages in thread
From: Eric Abrahamsen @ 2019-08-20  4:29 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Adam Sjøgren; +Cc: ding

Adam Sjøgren <asjo@koldfront.dk> writes:

> Bob writes:
>
>> Today, with Usenet effectively dead and even Gwene offline (does
>> ANYONE use NNTP any longer?)
>
> gwene.org is online, as is news.gmane.org.

I think it's just gmane search that's offline. (Which is also unfortunate.)

> (I use nntp every day, for mailing listsm, newsfeeds and for managing a
> blog; I switched from gwene.org to feedbase.org, but I am biased in that
> choice.)

I'd never heard of NNTP until I started using Gnus, and I only use it
for reading Emacs-related groups (and some gwene RSS feeds). But it
makes me wish it were still in wider usage.



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 43+ messages in thread

* Re: Proposed new introductory section to the Gnus manual
  2019-08-19  2:46     ` Bob Newell
                         ` (2 preceding siblings ...)
  2019-08-19 16:16       ` Eric S Fraga
@ 2019-08-20  7:08       ` Bjørn Mork
  2019-08-20  9:51         ` Eric S Fraga
  3 siblings, 1 reply; 43+ messages in thread
From: Bjørn Mork @ 2019-08-20  7:08 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Bob Newell; +Cc: ding

Bob Newell <bobnewell@bobnewell.net> writes:

>  (does ANYONE use NNTP any longer?)

Yup. Not much left of Usenet, but traditional NNTP servers with real
discussion groups and no binaries still exist.

And as others have mentioned: news.gmane.org is the perfect mailing list
interface. 

My primary select method is nntp, as it always has been.


Bjørn (feeling old now...)



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 43+ messages in thread

* Re: Proposed new introductory section to the Gnus manual
  2019-08-20  7:08       ` Bjørn Mork
@ 2019-08-20  9:51         ` Eric S Fraga
  2019-08-20 10:32           ` Bjørn Mork
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 43+ messages in thread
From: Eric S Fraga @ 2019-08-20  9:51 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: ding

On Tuesday, 20 Aug 2019 at 09:08, Bjørn Mork wrote:
> Bjørn (feeling old now...)

You want to feel old?  I remember when the newsgroups to read were
net.singles and net.jokes... ;-)

-- 
Eric S Fraga via Emacs 27.0.50 & org 9.2.4 on Debian 10.0




^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 43+ messages in thread

* Re: Proposed new introductory section to the Gnus manual
  2019-08-20  9:51         ` Eric S Fraga
@ 2019-08-20 10:32           ` Bjørn Mork
  2019-08-20 10:55             ` Eric S Fraga
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 43+ messages in thread
From: Bjørn Mork @ 2019-08-20 10:32 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Eric S Fraga; +Cc: ding

Eric S Fraga <e.fraga@ucl.ac.uk> writes:
> On Tuesday, 20 Aug 2019 at 09:08, Bjørn Mork wrote:
>> Bjørn (feeling old now...)
>
> You want to feel old?  I remember when the newsgroups to read were
> net.singles and net.jokes... ;-)

Ok, you win the old fart contest by at least a decade :-)


Bjørn



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 43+ messages in thread

* Re: Proposed new introductory section to the Gnus manual
  2019-08-20 10:32           ` Bjørn Mork
@ 2019-08-20 10:55             ` Eric S Fraga
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 43+ messages in thread
From: Eric S Fraga @ 2019-08-20 10:55 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: ding

On Tuesday, 20 Aug 2019 at 12:32, Bjørn Mork wrote:
> Ok, you win the old fart contest by at least a decade :-)

Yay!  I win at something.  ;-)

The funny thing was that I went offline (with respect to USENET) in '86
for almost 2 years (long story) and when I reconnected, everything had
changed.  Bastards did it just to confuse me, I'm sure.  :-Q

-- 
Eric S Fraga via Emacs 27.0.50 & org 9.2.4 on Debian 10.0




^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 43+ messages in thread

* Re: Proposed new introductory section to the Gnus manual
  2019-08-20  4:26         ` Eric Abrahamsen
@ 2019-08-20 11:37           ` dick
  2019-09-09  8:13             ` Eric Abrahamsen
  2019-09-07 19:50           ` Adam Sjøgren
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 43+ messages in thread
From: dick @ 2019-08-20 11:37 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: ding

"Lipstick on a pig" comes to mind when I think of patching documentation.
If a system is sufficiently baroque that it's difficult to write concise
documentation, then the battle was already lost (the shining counterpoint is
K&R in which Kernighan famously writes "C is not a big language and ... is not
well served by a big book").

Certainly Gnus's intro documentation is (much) longer than it needs to be.
Coders who also write documentation have an overriding tendency to explicate
all that they know rather than condense to what the user cares to know
(which is "how can i get on with my life?").

I believe Gnus can be made less user-hostile so that lengthy and "jocular"
documentation is unnecessary -- most Gmail and Thunderbird users never have to
read consult docs.  I've been working steadily to write a "spacemacs for Gnus"
(even though I dislike spacemacs).




^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 43+ messages in thread

* Re: Proposed new introductory section to the Gnus manual
  2019-08-20  4:29         ` Eric Abrahamsen
@ 2019-09-07 19:44           ` Adam Sjøgren
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 43+ messages in thread
From: Adam Sjøgren @ 2019-09-07 19:44 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: ding

Eric writes:

>> gwene.org is online, as is news.gmane.org.
>
> I think it's just gmane search that's offline. (Which is also
> unfortunate.)

Also web-display of articles doesn't work, which was the only thing I
was using the web-interface for (sending links to people).

> I'd never heard of NNTP until I started using Gnus, and I only use it
> for reading Emacs-related groups (and some gwene RSS feeds). But it
> makes me wish it were still in wider usage.

I heard of usenet when I was a kid on FidoNet, and I borrowed a login of
a student on the university for an hour, to dial in and try nn¹. Ooooh.
The *real* usenet - such access. The authors of the compiler I was using
on the Amiga, SAS/C, were accessible in a newsgroup, whaaaat!

Now I feel old.


  :-),

    Adam


¹ http://www.nndev.org/

-- 
 "None of them kicks go boom                                  Adam Sjøgren
  None of them basslines fill the room"                  asjo@koldfront.dk




^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 43+ messages in thread

* Re: Proposed new introductory section to the Gnus manual
  2019-08-20  4:26         ` Eric Abrahamsen
  2019-08-20 11:37           ` dick
@ 2019-09-07 19:50           ` Adam Sjøgren
  2019-09-08 17:00             ` Bob Newell
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 43+ messages in thread
From: Adam Sjøgren @ 2019-09-07 19:50 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: ding

Eric writes:

> Yup, that was me attempting to be amusing.

Yeah - it's a hard edge to walk.

> This is probably me trying to match Lars' voice in the rest of the
> manual. That might be a bad idea. (but nitpicks are welcome!)

Sometimes he also overdid it, I think.

(Oooh, heresy.)

>>>   When sending messages, too, Gnus makes a distinction between news-like
>>>   and mail-like behavior. News servers handle mail delivery themselves,
>>
>> Perhaps "message delivery"?
>
> Or just "delivery"?

Sold.

> Well I'll tell you where I'm aiming! I called it "Don't Panic" because I
> know for a fact that many potential users have considered Gnus, started
> it up, gone "WTF is this how do I even get the thing to open where are
> my goddamn oh to hell with it" and then shut it down for good

It is indeed daunting to get started. That's what the tutorials try to
handle. But it's hard to write a good one.

I agree it would be good to have a more friendly/hand-holdey
introduction right there, in the manual.

> The Gnus manual is very long, and very unintuitive... uh, discursive.
> All of us on this list are way past this point, but I can still remember
> that it took me several days of poking around to understand the
> difference between a mail backend and a mail source.

My biggest problem has always been the general Emacs/elisp nomenclature.
When do I need to put ', when do I need to not, when do I need to go ,()
etc. And then the documentation uses `' around somethings, and other
marks around others.

It's all so simple if you're a lisp weenie. Eventually you become one,
or just try all the combinations until you hit one that work (still my
way of solving it).

But I digress as much as I agree here.

> New users regularly burst into invective about why their groups have
> disappeared. This is an attempt to instill a measure of confidence in
> people who have dived into Gnus, and hit a submerged rock.

A worthy cause! Perhaps only slightly quixotic.


  Best regards,

    Adam

-- 
 "I forgot you grew up in an Enid Blyton novel."              Adam Sjøgren
                                                         asjo@koldfront.dk




^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 43+ messages in thread

* Re: Proposed new introductory section to the Gnus manual
  2019-09-07 19:50           ` Adam Sjøgren
@ 2019-09-08 17:00             ` Bob Newell
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 43+ messages in thread
From: Bob Newell @ 2019-09-08 17:00 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: ding

Adam Sjøgren <asjo@koldfront.dk> writes:

> It is indeed daunting to get started. (...)

> I agree it would be good to have a more friendly/hand-holdey
> introduction right there, in the manual.

Today, over 10 years into Gnus, it's become something I couldn't
possibly live without. But I do remember the initial suffering, back in
whatever year it was, transitioning from ViewMail to Gnus on the advice
of a colleague (who claimed it was 'easy').

There are a couple of good tutorials on the internet. The one that says
it features the 'essential 5%' (or thereabouts) is one I wish I had had
when starting out. But information is still scattered in many places,
and some of it is misleading.

A layered 'official' manual would be a good thing. Start with the
concept, then the 5%, then build up into the more complex stuff.

Still, 'how low can you go' has its limits. Gnus, like tensor calculus
or analysis of Old French texts, is not for everyone, and we don't want
it to be. This is not an elitist statement nor is it a call to keep it
obscure. It's just a recognition of the fact that a super-powerful and
super-flexible tool that can be made to do almost anything comes at a
price. That price is learning how to use it and being willing to feel
the pain of mental exertion (and exasperation at times) along the
way. We should strive to reduce the exasperation but the exertion, I
think, will always remain.

-- 
Bob Newell
Honolulu, Hawai`i
* Via Gnus/BBDB/Org/Emacs/Linux *



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 43+ messages in thread

* Re: Proposed new introductory section to the Gnus manual
  2019-08-20 11:37           ` dick
@ 2019-09-09  8:13             ` Eric Abrahamsen
  2019-09-09 11:52               ` dick
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 43+ messages in thread
From: Eric Abrahamsen @ 2019-09-09  8:13 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: ding

dick <dick.r.chiang@gmail.com> writes:

> "Lipstick on a pig" comes to mind when I think of patching documentation.
> If a system is sufficiently baroque that it's difficult to write concise
> documentation, then the battle was already lost (the shining counterpoint is
> K&R in which Kernighan famously writes "C is not a big language and ... is not
> well served by a big book").
>
> Certainly Gnus's intro documentation is (much) longer than it needs to be.
> Coders who also write documentation have an overriding tendency to explicate
> all that they know rather than condense to what the user cares to know
> (which is "how can i get on with my life?").

Yeah, I think that's where Gnus' manual is right now.

> I believe Gnus can be made less user-hostile so that lengthy and "jocular"
> documentation is unnecessary -- most Gmail and Thunderbird users never have to
> read consult docs.  I've been working steadily to write a "spacemacs for Gnus"
> (even though I dislike spacemacs).

Well hopefully we can simplify the code and improve the docs, and they
can meet somewhere in the middle.

What does "spacemacs for Gnus" mean?

Bob Newell <bobnewell@bobnewell.net> writes:

> Adam Sjøgren <asjo@koldfront.dk> writes:
>
>> It is indeed daunting to get started. (...)
>
>> I agree it would be good to have a more friendly/hand-holdey
>> introduction right there, in the manual.
>
> Today, over 10 years into Gnus, it's become something I couldn't
> possibly live without. But I do remember the initial suffering, back in
> whatever year it was, transitioning from ViewMail to Gnus on the advice
> of a colleague (who claimed it was 'easy').
>
> There are a couple of good tutorials on the internet. The one that says
> it features the 'essential 5%' (or thereabouts) is one I wish I had had
> when starting out. But information is still scattered in many places,
> and some of it is misleading.
>
> A layered 'official' manual would be a good thing. Start with the
> concept, then the 5%, then build up into the more complex stuff.

I will look for the one with the "essential 5%" and see if I can steal
from it, thanks for the tip!

While I think it will be fine to paste my "Gnus in 20 minutes" intro
into the front of the manual, eventually it would better to separate out
the rest of the manual into a "user guide" and "reference manual".

> Still, 'how low can you go' has its limits. Gnus, like tensor calculus
> or analysis of Old French texts, is not for everyone, and we don't want
> it to be. This is not an elitist statement nor is it a call to keep it
> obscure. It's just a recognition of the fact that a super-powerful and
> super-flexible tool that can be made to do almost anything comes at a
> price. That price is learning how to use it and being willing to feel
> the pain of mental exertion (and exasperation at times) along the
> way. We should strive to reduce the exasperation but the exertion, I
> think, will always remain.

Yeah, I think this is right. Including Adam's note about the
unfamiliarity of elisp itself -- while we can make the first steps
easier, users are eventually going to need to do their homework.

I've done another version of the intro based on everyone's feedback, but
when I've got an actual internet connection I'm going to look up the
guide you mentioned and see if I can steal from it.

Eric




^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 43+ messages in thread

* Re: Proposed new introductory section to the Gnus manual
  2019-09-09  8:13             ` Eric Abrahamsen
@ 2019-09-09 11:52               ` dick
  2019-09-09 18:39                 ` Bob Newell
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 43+ messages in thread
From: dick @ 2019-09-09 11:52 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: ding

EA> What does "spacemacs for Gnus" mean?

An opinionated setup that gets a noob going right away.

My story: I started with John Wiegley's dot-emacs files, spent 3 days trying
to get gmail going, gave up in disgust and shame.  Revisited several months
later, spent another 2 days to cobble an essentially unusable setup without
dovecot.  Finally, after a week of work, came up with https://github.com/dickmao/gnus-imap-walkthrough.

EA> I will look for the one with the "essential 5%" and see if I can steal
EA> from it, thanks for the tip!

redguardtoo's document (along with other google hits for "Gnus
tutorial") got me nowhere.  It's unfortunate that it received 5000 github
stars (mostly from users in China).  By plying Google's search algo,
it has become the unoffical guide to Gnus, which is one reason
among many why Gnus is on the wane relative to notmuch and mu4e.




^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 43+ messages in thread

* Re: Proposed new introductory section to the Gnus manual
  2019-09-09 11:52               ` dick
@ 2019-09-09 18:39                 ` Bob Newell
  2019-09-09 19:48                   ` dick
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 43+ messages in thread
From: Bob Newell @ 2019-09-09 18:39 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: ding

dick <dick.r.chiang@gmail.com> writes:

> redguardtoo's document (along with other google hits for "Gnus
> tutorial") got me nowhere.  It's unfortunate that it received 5000 github
> stars (mostly from users in China).

Yes, this is the one I referenced:

https://github.com/redguardtoo/mastering-emacs-in-one-year-guide/blob/master/gnus-guide-en.org

I suppose YMMV but I found it very useful (in conjunction with another
on using gnus with gmail). Now, at the time I first read it, I was
already well into Gnus, but it gave me some useful tips and I think if
it were to be read patiently, it would help a newcomer a lot. Of course
it could use some editing and cleanup, but that's quite doable.

> By plying Google's search algo,
> it has become the unoffical guide to Gnus, which is one reason
> among many why Gnus is on the wane relative to notmuch and mu4e.

I must disagree with the 3rd clause, that this is driving users away. I
think if you approach gnus with the idea that "I'm not going to do this
unless it's dead easy" then you've already lost and you're better off
with Thunderbird or some sort of web mail (I can't speak to notmuch or
mu4e, having never used either one).

And is gnus truly on the wane? I imagine getting stats to support an
argument either way would be difficult. But as I've alluded to earlier,
gnus is niche software. It appeals to a certain mindset. While it's (to
me at least[1]) the most powerful and flexible email/news client
imaginable, I don't know that it ever was intended to have appeal across
a broad spectrum.

-- 
Bob Newell
Honolulu, Hawai`i
* Via Gnus/BBDB/Org/Emacs/Linux *

[1] It even lets me collect my AOL mail along with my gmail :)



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 43+ messages in thread

* Re: Proposed new introductory section to the Gnus manual
  2019-09-09 18:39                 ` Bob Newell
@ 2019-09-09 19:48                   ` dick
  2019-09-10  2:36                     ` Eric Abrahamsen
  2019-09-10 20:39                     ` Adam Sjøgren
  0 siblings, 2 replies; 43+ messages in thread
From: dick @ 2019-09-09 19:48 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: ding

BN> I suppose YMMV but I found it very useful

The hard part is not the quirky UX which he calls the "essential 5%".  The
hard part is configuring Gnus to something usable, and that is completely
glossed over.

I'm typical of most newcomers who merely want their cloud service, i.e.,
Gmail, integrated into emacs.  I couldn't find anything authoritative for this
pedestrian task.  I found nnimap without dovecot unusable.  And I am wary of
nnmaildir because I hesitate to do my own search indexing.

BN> gnus is niche software.

It shouldn't be for two reasons:

1) As the built-in client, it needs to work out of the box.  Alas, it's not
meeting the duties of the throne.  Its recalcitrance towards new users is like
Yahoo occupying Firefox's default search engine when Google is clearly superior.

2) It's awesome.  While integration with emacs alone is worth the price of
admission, Gnus bests other mua's because its message queue paradigm subsumes
all my news, mail, and reddit activity in a single dashboard.  As it stands,
you *must* know elisp to be a day-to-day Gnus user, and I'm looking to change
that.




^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 43+ messages in thread

* Re: Proposed new introductory section to the Gnus manual
  2019-09-09 19:48                   ` dick
@ 2019-09-10  2:36                     ` Eric Abrahamsen
  2019-09-10 20:21                       ` dick
  2019-09-10 20:39                     ` Adam Sjøgren
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 43+ messages in thread
From: Eric Abrahamsen @ 2019-09-10  2:36 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: ding

dick <dick.r.chiang@gmail.com> writes:

> BN> I suppose YMMV but I found it very useful
>
> The hard part is not the quirky UX which he calls the "essential 5%".  The
> hard part is configuring Gnus to something usable, and that is completely
> glossed over.
>
> I'm typical of most newcomers who merely want their cloud service, i.e.,
> Gmail, integrated into emacs.  I couldn't find anything authoritative for this
> pedestrian task.  I found nnimap without dovecot unusable.  And I am wary of
> nnmaildir because I hesitate to do my own search indexing.
>
> BN> gnus is niche software.
>
> It shouldn't be for two reasons:
>
> 1) As the built-in client, it needs to work out of the box.  Alas, it's not
> meeting the duties of the throne.  Its recalcitrance towards new users is like
> Yahoo occupying Firefox's default search engine when Google is clearly superior.
>
> 2) It's awesome.  While integration with emacs alone is worth the price of
> admission, Gnus bests other mua's because its message queue paradigm subsumes
> all my news, mail, and reddit activity in a single dashboard.  As it stands,
> you *must* know elisp to be a day-to-day Gnus user, and I'm looking to change
> that.

In theory, at least, the Customize interface is there to help users who
don't feel comfortable writing elisp. Gnus has a lot of variables with
pretty convoluted value-structures. I wonder if its Customize support is
currently up to snuff in terms of helping users configure everything
without writing setq's? Maybe that would be a good area to work on?




^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 43+ messages in thread

* Re: Proposed new introductory section to the Gnus manual
  2019-09-10  2:36                     ` Eric Abrahamsen
@ 2019-09-10 20:21                       ` dick
  2019-09-10 23:50                         ` Eric Abrahamsen
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 43+ messages in thread
From: dick @ 2019-09-10 20:21 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: ding

EA> Gnus has a lot of variables with
EA> pretty convoluted value-structures. I wonder if its Customize support is
EA> currently up to snuff

It is not.  One such convoluted value-structure is `gnus-parameters`.
Configuring that via the Customize interface is like digging a ditch with a
toy shovel.  Even a basic parameter like `gnus-secondary-select-methods`
requires knowledge of how a Gnus METHOD is composed.

It bears repeating that introducing `gnus-secondary-select-methods` instead of
vectorizing `gnus-select-method` was a mistake that can still be
corrected fairly easily.




^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 43+ messages in thread

* Re: Proposed new introductory section to the Gnus manual
  2019-09-09 19:48                   ` dick
  2019-09-10  2:36                     ` Eric Abrahamsen
@ 2019-09-10 20:39                     ` Adam Sjøgren
  2019-09-10 20:54                       ` dick
  2019-09-12  5:31                       ` Steinar Bang
  1 sibling, 2 replies; 43+ messages in thread
From: Adam Sjøgren @ 2019-09-10 20:39 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: ding

dick writes:

> I'm typical of most newcomers who merely want their cloud service, i.e.,
> Gmail, integrated into emacs.

If there is one thing I have learned about email over the past 25 years,
it is that no two people agree on how they want to handle their email.

What I want, some people think is nuts, and the other way around.

> I couldn't find anything authoritative for this pedestrian task.

See, from my perspective, I can't imagine why a user of Emacs would want
to gift all their email to Google.

To you it's "typical".

I'm sure we could go on with a looong list like that.

I once tried to write a beginners email-oriented tutorial, which even
contains a specific section on Gmail:

 · https://koldfront.dk/text/gnus-email-tutorial.html

But I never got around to finishing it, and interest has been low (might
correlate with quality, though :-))

> 1) As the built-in client, it needs to work out of the box.

I thought Rmail was the built-in email client?

> As it stands, you *must* know elisp to be a day-to-day Gnus user, and
> I'm looking to change that.

Cool - looking forward to see the fruits of your labour.


  Best regards,

    Adam

-- 
 "Sadly, these days, if you know the difference               Adam Sjøgren
  between a phillips- and a flat head screwdriver,       asjo@koldfront.dk
  you're a renaissance man."




^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 43+ messages in thread

* Re: Proposed new introductory section to the Gnus manual
  2019-09-10 20:39                     ` Adam Sjøgren
@ 2019-09-10 20:54                       ` dick
  2019-09-12  5:31                       ` Steinar Bang
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 43+ messages in thread
From: dick @ 2019-09-10 20:54 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: ding

AS> I thought Rmail was the built-in email client?

I stand corrected.




^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 43+ messages in thread

* Re: Proposed new introductory section to the Gnus manual
  2019-09-10 20:21                       ` dick
@ 2019-09-10 23:50                         ` Eric Abrahamsen
  2019-09-12 19:19                           ` Michael
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 43+ messages in thread
From: Eric Abrahamsen @ 2019-09-10 23:50 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: ding

dick <dick.r.chiang@gmail.com> writes:

> EA> Gnus has a lot of variables with
> EA> pretty convoluted value-structures. I wonder if its Customize support is
> EA> currently up to snuff
>
> It is not.  One such convoluted value-structure is `gnus-parameters`.
> Configuring that via the Customize interface is like digging a ditch with a
> toy shovel.  Even a basic parameter like `gnus-secondary-select-methods`
> requires knowledge of how a Gnus METHOD is composed.

Yeah, I suppose. Customize just wasn't meant to handle values that
complicated. Gnus also has its own home-grown (of course) "edit forms"
(gnus-eform.el) which currently just dump you in an elisp buffer where
you have to edit elisp forms, but could be smarter about
presenting/parsing complicated values in a user-friendly way.

> It bears repeating that introducing `gnus-secondary-select-methods` instead of
> vectorizing `gnus-select-method` was a mistake that can still be
> corrected fairly easily.

That's on my list of things to do, but as a user-facing change, it's at
the bottom of the list.




^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 43+ messages in thread

* Re: Proposed new introductory section to the Gnus manual
  2019-09-10 20:39                     ` Adam Sjøgren
  2019-09-10 20:54                       ` dick
@ 2019-09-12  5:31                       ` Steinar Bang
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 43+ messages in thread
From: Steinar Bang @ 2019-09-12  5:31 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: ding

>>>>> Adam Sjøgren <asjo@koldfront.dk>:

> What I want, some people think is nuts, and the other way around.

(FWIW not on email, but... I came around to your view on git after
actually using it (I got my antipathy from Linus' initial postings when
he had to give up BitKeeper and started dissing existing version control
systems))




^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 43+ messages in thread

* Re: Proposed new introductory section to the Gnus manual
  2019-09-10 23:50                         ` Eric Abrahamsen
@ 2019-09-12 19:19                           ` Michael
  2019-09-13  9:19                             ` Eric Abrahamsen
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 43+ messages in thread
From: Michael @ 2019-09-12 19:19 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: ding


On 9/10/19 3:50 PM, Eric Abrahamsen wrote:
> dick <dick.r.chiang@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> EA> Gnus has a lot of variables with
>> EA> pretty convoluted value-structures. I wonder if its Customize support is
>> EA> currently up to snuff
>>
>> It is not.  One such convoluted value-structure is `gnus-parameters`.
>> Configuring that via the Customize interface is like digging a ditch with a
>> toy shovel.  Even a basic parameter like `gnus-secondary-select-methods`
>> requires knowledge of how a Gnus METHOD is composed.
> Yeah, I suppose. Customize just wasn't meant to handle values that
> complicated. Gnus also has its own home-grown (of course) "edit forms"
> (gnus-eform.el) which currently just dump you in an elisp buffer where
> you have to edit elisp forms, but could be smarter about
> presenting/parsing complicated values in a user-friendly way.
>
>> It bears repeating that introducing `gnus-secondary-select-methods` instead of
>> vectorizing `gnus-select-method` was a mistake that can still be
>> corrected fairly easily.
> That's on my list of things to do, but as a user-facing change, it's at
> the bottom of the list.
>
>
I really like Gnus and I have tried to use it a couple of times, but 
always gave up. It is getting harder for me, at my age, to 
remember/memorize all the different commands.

Not knowing lisp is for me also a hindrance.

However, I want to thank you for working on the introduction and the 
quick guide. It has given me a better understanding. With that, and the 
added links posted, I'm getting more familiar with how to use Gnus and 
close to using it for all my news and email :)

I'd love to help since I'm just an old retired man, but don't know 
enough to help :)


Again, thanks for the improvements. Much appreciated for this relative 
newbie.





^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 43+ messages in thread

* Re: Proposed new introductory section to the Gnus manual
  2019-09-12 19:19                           ` Michael
@ 2019-09-13  9:19                             ` Eric Abrahamsen
  2019-09-13 15:08                               ` Eric S Fraga
                                                 ` (2 more replies)
  0 siblings, 3 replies; 43+ messages in thread
From: Eric Abrahamsen @ 2019-09-13  9:19 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: ding

Michael <beriah@opensuse.us> writes:

> On 9/10/19 3:50 PM, Eric Abrahamsen wrote:
>> dick <dick.r.chiang@gmail.com> writes:
>>
>>> EA> Gnus has a lot of variables with
>>> EA> pretty convoluted value-structures. I wonder if its Customize support is
>>> EA> currently up to snuff
>>>
>>> It is not.  One such convoluted value-structure is `gnus-parameters`.
>>> Configuring that via the Customize interface is like digging a ditch with a
>>> toy shovel.  Even a basic parameter like `gnus-secondary-select-methods`
>>> requires knowledge of how a Gnus METHOD is composed.
>> Yeah, I suppose. Customize just wasn't meant to handle values that
>> complicated. Gnus also has its own home-grown (of course) "edit forms"
>> (gnus-eform.el) which currently just dump you in an elisp buffer where
>> you have to edit elisp forms, but could be smarter about
>> presenting/parsing complicated values in a user-friendly way.
>>
>>> It bears repeating that introducing `gnus-secondary-select-methods` instead of
>>> vectorizing `gnus-select-method` was a mistake that can still be
>>> corrected fairly easily.
>> That's on my list of things to do, but as a user-facing change, it's at
>> the bottom of the list.
>>
>>
> I really like Gnus and I have tried to use it a couple of times, but
> always gave up. It is getting harder for me, at my age, to 
> remember/memorize all the different commands.

A hindrance for users at any age :) There are whole aspects of Gnus
(scoring, spam, agent categories, etc) that I have never touched, simply
because I couldn't be bothered with the learning curve.

> Not knowing lisp is for me also a hindrance.
>
> However, I want to thank you for working on the introduction and the
> quick guide. It has given me a better understanding. With that, and
> the added links posted, I'm getting more familiar with how to use Gnus
> and close to using it for all my news and email :)
>
> I'd love to help since I'm just an old retired man, but don't know
> enough to help :)

With all due respect, your ignorance of Gnus might be just the thing we
need :) I think most people on this list remember that the early
experience was bad, but don't really remember the details, or what would
have helped. If you kept an eye on discussion here, and piped up
whenever a bit of information seemed a) nonsensical or b) just the thing
you needed to figure out a problem, that might be the biggest help you
could provide.

For instance, what part of my intro (and the other links posted in this
thread) was most useful?

Thanks!
Eric




^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 43+ messages in thread

* Re: Proposed new introductory section to the Gnus manual
  2019-09-13  9:19                             ` Eric Abrahamsen
@ 2019-09-13 15:08                               ` Eric S Fraga
  2019-09-13 16:54                               ` Michael
  2019-09-13 18:24                               ` Bob Newell
  2 siblings, 0 replies; 43+ messages in thread
From: Eric S Fraga @ 2019-09-13 15:08 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: ding

On Friday, 13 Sep 2019 at 17:19, Eric Abrahamsen wrote:

[...]

> A hindrance for users at any age :) There are whole aspects of Gnus
> (scoring, spam, agent categories, etc) that I have never touched, simply
> because I couldn't be bothered with the learning curve.

Yes, these are not necessarily the easiest things to pick up in gnus but
boy are they worth it!  Scoring (both adaptive and user specified) alone
keeps me from moving to any other MUA.  If you have any significant
volume of email &/or news, it just makes it all manageable.

-- 
Eric S Fraga via Emacs 27.0.50 & org 9.2.4 on Debian 10.0




^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 43+ messages in thread

* Re: Proposed new introductory section to the Gnus manual
  2019-09-13  9:19                             ` Eric Abrahamsen
  2019-09-13 15:08                               ` Eric S Fraga
@ 2019-09-13 16:54                               ` Michael
  2019-09-16  2:51                                 ` Eric Abrahamsen
  2019-09-13 18:24                               ` Bob Newell
  2 siblings, 1 reply; 43+ messages in thread
From: Michael @ 2019-09-13 16:54 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: ding


On 9/13/19 1:19 AM, Eric Abrahamsen wrote:
> Michael <beriah@opensuse.us> writes:
>
>> On 9/10/19 3:50 PM, Eric Abrahamsen wrote:
>>> dick <dick.r.chiang@gmail.com> writes:
>>>
>>>> EA> Gnus has a lot of variables with
>>>> EA> pretty convoluted value-structures. I wonder if its Customize support is
>>>> EA> currently up to snuff
>>>>
>>>> It is not.  One such convoluted value-structure is `gnus-parameters`.
>>>> Configuring that via the Customize interface is like digging a ditch with a
>>>> toy shovel.  Even a basic parameter like `gnus-secondary-select-methods`
>>>> requires knowledge of how a Gnus METHOD is composed.
>>> Yeah, I suppose. Customize just wasn't meant to handle values that
>>> complicated. Gnus also has its own home-grown (of course) "edit forms"
>>> (gnus-eform.el) which currently just dump you in an elisp buffer where
>>> you have to edit elisp forms, but could be smarter about
>>> presenting/parsing complicated values in a user-friendly way.
>>>
>>>> It bears repeating that introducing `gnus-secondary-select-methods` instead of
>>>> vectorizing `gnus-select-method` was a mistake that can still be
>>>> corrected fairly easily.
>>> That's on my list of things to do, but as a user-facing change, it's at
>>> the bottom of the list.
>>>
>>>
>> I really like Gnus and I have tried to use it a couple of times, but
>> always gave up. It is getting harder for me, at my age, to
>> remember/memorize all the different commands.
> A hindrance for users at any age :) There are whole aspects of Gnus
> (scoring, spam, agent categories, etc) that I have never touched, simply
> because I couldn't be bothered with the learning curve.
>
>> Not knowing lisp is for me also a hindrance.
>>
>> However, I want to thank you for working on the introduction and the
>> quick guide. It has given me a better understanding. With that, and
>> the added links posted, I'm getting more familiar with how to use Gnus
>> and close to using it for all my news and email :)
>>
>> I'd love to help since I'm just an old retired man, but don't know
>> enough to help :)
> With all due respect, your ignorance of Gnus might be just the thing we
> need :) I think most people on this list remember that the early
> experience was bad, but don't really remember the details, or what would
> have helped. If you kept an eye on discussion here, and piped up
> whenever a bit of information seemed a) nonsensical or b) just the thing
> you needed to figure out a problem, that might be the biggest help you
> could provide.
>
> For instance, what part of my intro (and the other links posted in this
> thread) was most useful?
>
> Thanks!
> Eric
>
>
Ok, here are some thoughts while reading the intro and comments:

I actually laughed, and liked, the "DON"T PANIC", but how about adding 
one sentence with something like, "Here is some brief help to get you 
started using Gnus". Something brief and easy, before delving into the 
origin of Gnus?

"tick" is mentioned a couple of times, but what is a "tick"? At this 
point, would a more generic term suffice, such as "mark" or "flag" since 
this is the intro?

I like the improvement comments that others have mentioned and that you 
have agreed with, so no need to add anything to them :)


I am very glad for the part mentioning what to type when Gnus has 
started. I do have a "code" comment/question about this. When I start 
Gnus, I see the menu bar and Gnus mascot/icon/whatever it's called. So, 
how about a line under the menu showing different keyboard keys to type, 
such as "q", "L", "AA", "r or R", "f" and what each means? It could be a 
line that could be removed via customization when the experienced user 
didn't need it there?

A number of times when I would start, I couldn't figure out how to get 
out of where I was at to get back to beginning screen (or wherever). So, 
I would just just quit gnus/emacs and wait some time before trying 
again. A line similar to above might help newbies when first starting 
if/when they start and get confused and don't know what to do :)


Ok I'll quit for now.

Thanks for allowing my input.





^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 43+ messages in thread

* Re: Proposed new introductory section to the Gnus manual
  2019-09-13  9:19                             ` Eric Abrahamsen
  2019-09-13 15:08                               ` Eric S Fraga
  2019-09-13 16:54                               ` Michael
@ 2019-09-13 18:24                               ` Bob Newell
  2019-09-13 18:39                                 ` Change input method or smtp server depending on addressee (was: Proposed new introductory section to the Gnus manual) Jorge A. Alfaro-Murillo
  2019-09-16  2:55                                 ` Proposed new introductory section to the Gnus manual Eric Abrahamsen
  2 siblings, 2 replies; 43+ messages in thread
From: Bob Newell @ 2019-09-13 18:24 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: ding

Eric Abrahamsen <eric@ericabrahamsen.net> writes:
>
> A hindrance for users at any age :) There are whole aspects of Gnus
> (scoring, spam, agent categories, etc) that I have never touched,
> simply
> because I couldn't be bothered with the learning curve.

As an old retiree myself --- even with 10 years experience with
Gnus-- there are aspects that I too haven't explored, scoring
being the most prominent among them.

And yet my gnus startup file is over 1000 lines of elisp (maybe
half of it comment lines, but still) ... but that does
underscore the point that without at least some ability with
elisp, using gnus is probably not feasible.

There might be a way to change that, but would a 'generic' gnus
miss the point? We use gnus because it's amazing and does crazy
stuff ... what other client would allow me (just as one small example)
to set my input method to French, German, or Hawaiian depending
on the addressee, let alone choose my smtp server based on a
similar criterion? (Certain people ALWAYS get email from my
preciously preserved AOL address!)

The limitations of non-programmable clients show themselves
quickly. Even the more 'advanced' ones fall far short.

-- 
Bob Newell
Honolulu, Hawai`i
* Via Gnus/BBDB/Org/Emacs/Linux *



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 43+ messages in thread

* Change input method or smtp server depending on addressee (was: Proposed new introductory section to the Gnus manual)
  2019-09-13 18:24                               ` Bob Newell
@ 2019-09-13 18:39                                 ` Jorge A. Alfaro-Murillo
  2019-09-14 17:38                                   ` Change input method or smtp server depending on addressee Štěpán Němec
                                                     ` (2 more replies)
  2019-09-16  2:55                                 ` Proposed new introductory section to the Gnus manual Eric Abrahamsen
  1 sibling, 3 replies; 43+ messages in thread
From: Jorge A. Alfaro-Murillo @ 2019-09-13 18:39 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: ding

Bob Newell writes:

> We use gnus because it's amazing and does crazy stuff ... what 
> other client would allow me (just as one small example) to set 
> my input method to French, German, or Hawaiian depending on the 
> addressee, let alone choose my smtp server based on a similar 
> criterion? (Certain people ALWAYS get email from my preciously 
> preserved AOL address!)

That sounds very useful, would you care to share more about how 
you do it?

Best,
-- 
Jorge.




^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 43+ messages in thread

* Re: Change input method or smtp server depending on addressee
  2019-09-13 18:39                                 ` Change input method or smtp server depending on addressee (was: Proposed new introductory section to the Gnus manual) Jorge A. Alfaro-Murillo
@ 2019-09-14 17:38                                   ` Štěpán Němec
  2019-09-16 18:26                                     ` Bob Newell
  2019-09-16  8:52                                   ` Robert Pluim
  2019-12-20 12:54                                   ` 황병희
  2 siblings, 1 reply; 43+ messages in thread
From: Štěpán Němec @ 2019-09-14 17:38 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Jorge A. Alfaro-Murillo; +Cc: ding

On Fri, 13 Sep 2019 14:39:05 -0400
Jorge A. Alfaro-Murillo wrote:

> Bob Newell writes:
>
>> We use gnus because it's amazing and does crazy stuff ... what other
>> client would allow me (just as one small example) to set my input
>> method to French, German, or Hawaiian depending on the addressee,
>> let alone choose my smtp server based on a similar criterion?
>> (Certain people ALWAYS get email from my preciously preserved AOL
>> address!)
>
> That sounds very useful, would you care to share more about how you do
> it?

I'm curious about Bob's (or anyone's) way, too. Here's how I do the
input method (and the related spell checking) part (I have no need for
the smtp server part) (`my-message-determine-language' below goes into
`message-setup-hook'):

(defun my-message-determine-language ()
  ;; adapted from `ispell-message'
  (save-excursion
    (let ((end-of-headers
           (copy-marker
            (or (re-search-forward
                 (concat "^" (regexp-quote mail-header-separator) "$")
                 nil t)
		(re-search-forward "^$" nil t)
		(point-min))))
          (dictionary-alist ispell-message-dictionary-alist)
          dict)
      (while dictionary-alist
        (goto-char (point-min))
        (if (re-search-forward (caar dictionary-alist) end-of-headers t)
	    (setq dict (cdar dictionary-alist)
                  ispell-local-dictionary dict
	          dictionary-alist nil)
	  (setq dictionary-alist (cdr dictionary-alist))))
      (my-message-determine-input-method dict))))

(defun my-message-determine-input-method (&optional lang)
  (push (setq evil-input-method (pcase (or lang ispell-local-dictionary)
                                  ("english")
                                  ("viet" "vietnamese-telex")
                                  (_ "czech")))
        input-method-history))

-- 
Štěpán



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 43+ messages in thread

* Re: Proposed new introductory section to the Gnus manual
  2019-09-13 16:54                               ` Michael
@ 2019-09-16  2:51                                 ` Eric Abrahamsen
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 43+ messages in thread
From: Eric Abrahamsen @ 2019-09-16  2:51 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: ding

Michael <beriah@opensuse.us> writes:

[...]

>> For instance, what part of my intro (and the other links posted in this
>> thread) was most useful?
>>
>> Thanks!
>> Eric
>>
>>
> Ok, here are some thoughts while reading the intro and comments:
>
> I actually laughed, and liked, the "DON"T PANIC", but how about adding
> one sentence with something like, "Here is some brief help to get you 
> started using Gnus". Something brief and easy, before delving into the
> origin of Gnus?

The Info format allows for subheadings, so this could be something like
"Don't Panic:\tYour First Twenty Minutes With Gnus" or something like that.

> "tick" is mentioned a couple of times, but what is a "tick"? At this
> point, would a more generic term suffice, such as "mark" or "flag"
> since this is the intro?

I agree "flag" is likely to be more generally understood.

> I like the improvement comments that others have mentioned and that
> you have agreed with, so no need to add anything to them :)
>
>
> I am very glad for the part mentioning what to type when Gnus has
> started. I do have a "code" comment/question about this. When I start 
> Gnus, I see the menu bar and Gnus mascot/icon/whatever it's called.
> So, how about a line under the menu showing different keyboard keys to
> type, such as "q", "L", "AA", "r or R", "f" and what each means? It
> could be a line that could be removed via customization when the
> experienced user didn't need it there?
>
> A number of times when I would start, I couldn't figure out how to get
> out of where I was at to get back to beginning screen (or wherever).
> So, I would just just quit gnus/emacs and wait some time before trying 
> again. A line similar to above might help newbies when first starting
> if/when they start and get confused and don't know what to do :)

A sort of "quick keys" popup sounds like a great idea. Gnus already
provides a "H" keymap prefix for help-related things, so "H h" could
always pop up the quick keys tips.

Then we could have a customization option to always display the popup.

[btw, "q" is almost always the key you want to "back out of" wherever
you've gotten. This is what I meant by "vim-style tutorial": the most
important information is always how to quit!]

> Thanks for allowing my input.

All input is allowed, but not all input is processed :)




^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 43+ messages in thread

* Re: Proposed new introductory section to the Gnus manual
  2019-09-13 18:24                               ` Bob Newell
  2019-09-13 18:39                                 ` Change input method or smtp server depending on addressee (was: Proposed new introductory section to the Gnus manual) Jorge A. Alfaro-Murillo
@ 2019-09-16  2:55                                 ` Eric Abrahamsen
  2019-09-16 18:34                                   ` Bob Newell
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 43+ messages in thread
From: Eric Abrahamsen @ 2019-09-16  2:55 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: ding

Bob Newell <bobnewell@bobnewell.net> writes:

> Eric Abrahamsen <eric@ericabrahamsen.net> writes:
>>
>> A hindrance for users at any age :) There are whole aspects of Gnus
>> (scoring, spam, agent categories, etc) that I have never touched,
>> simply
>> because I couldn't be bothered with the learning curve.
>
> As an old retiree myself --- even with 10 years experience with
> Gnus-- there are aspects that I too haven't explored, scoring
> being the most prominent among them.
>
> And yet my gnus startup file is over 1000 lines of elisp (maybe
> half of it comment lines, but still) ... but that does
> underscore the point that without at least some ability with
> elisp, using gnus is probably not feasible.
>
> There might be a way to change that, but would a 'generic' gnus
> miss the point? We use gnus because it's amazing and does crazy
> stuff ... what other client would allow me (just as one small example)
> to set my input method to French, German, or Hawaiian depending
> on the addressee, let alone choose my smtp server based on a
> similar criterion? (Certain people ALWAYS get email from my
> preciously preserved AOL address!)
>
> The limitations of non-programmable clients show themselves
> quickly. Even the more 'advanced' ones fall far short.

Oh I definitely agree, and have no intention of reducing Gnus'
user-facing complexity. But I think a bit more hand-holding for newbies
couldn't hurt. It was truly frustrating in the beginning.




^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 43+ messages in thread

* Re: Change input method or smtp server depending on addressee
  2019-09-13 18:39                                 ` Change input method or smtp server depending on addressee (was: Proposed new introductory section to the Gnus manual) Jorge A. Alfaro-Murillo
  2019-09-14 17:38                                   ` Change input method or smtp server depending on addressee Štěpán Němec
@ 2019-09-16  8:52                                   ` Robert Pluim
  2019-12-20 12:54                                   ` 황병희
  2 siblings, 0 replies; 43+ messages in thread
From: Robert Pluim @ 2019-09-16  8:52 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Jorge A. Alfaro-Murillo; +Cc: ding

>>>>> On Fri, 13 Sep 2019 14:39:05 -0400, "Jorge A. Alfaro-Murillo" <jorge.alfaro-murillo@yale.edu> said:

    Jorge> Bob Newell writes:
    >> We use gnus because it's amazing and does crazy stuff ... what other
    >> client would allow me (just as one small example) to set my input
    >> method to French, German, or Hawaiian depending on the addressee,
    >> let alone choose my smtp server based on a similar criterion?
    >> (Certain people ALWAYS get email from my preciously preserved AOL
    >> address!)

    Jorge> That sounds very useful, would you care to share more about how you do
    Jorge> it?

I suspect Bob does this with gnus-posting-styles. Something like (untested)

'(((header "From\\|To" "frenchuser@foo.com")
   (eval (toggle-input-method "french-prefix"))))

You can do similar shenanigans for the smtp server in
gnus-posting-styles by setting the "X-Message-SMTP-Method" header. See
(info "(gnus)Posting Styles")

Robert



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 43+ messages in thread

* Re: Change input method or smtp server depending on addressee
  2019-09-14 17:38                                   ` Change input method or smtp server depending on addressee Štěpán Němec
@ 2019-09-16 18:26                                     ` Bob Newell
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 43+ messages in thread
From: Bob Newell @ 2019-09-16 18:26 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: ding

Štěpán Němec <stepnem@gmail.com> writes:

> I'm curious about Bob's (or anyone's) way, too.

Rather than put the code inline, I've put all the details
about adaptive language input methods here:

http://www.bobnewell.net/publish/35years/gnuhacks.html#org2389251

Note that BBDB is part of the picture.

Hope it proves a least a bit useful.

-- 
Bob Newell
Honolulu, Hawai`i
* Via Gnus/BBDB/Org/Emacs/Linux *



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 43+ messages in thread

* Re: Proposed new introductory section to the Gnus manual
  2019-09-16  2:55                                 ` Proposed new introductory section to the Gnus manual Eric Abrahamsen
@ 2019-09-16 18:34                                   ` Bob Newell
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 43+ messages in thread
From: Bob Newell @ 2019-09-16 18:34 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Eric Abrahamsen; +Cc: ding

Eric Abrahamsen <eric@ericabrahamsen.net> writes:

> Oh I definitely agree, and have no intention of reducing Gnus'
> user-facing complexity. But I think a bit more hand-holding for newbies
> couldn't hurt. It was truly frustrating in the beginning.

I should clarify that I'm in no way advocating gnus being
some sort of elitist club, to which one must earn entry by
becoming proficient in elisp and undergoing initiation rites
which include the pain and suffering nearly all of us felt at
the outset (and often well beyond).

Hand-holding for newbies is a great idea. And perhaps a
carefully curated selection of sample .gnus files would really
go a long way. There are various things out there now, but
they are by turns scattered, contradictory, and at times
outdated.

I'll stand with my assertion that, if you're going to truly
benefit from gnus and make it sing and dance to the exact tune
you desire, you'll have to reach a certain level with elisp,
perhaps something between advanced beginner and intermediate
(though I won't try to define these). But that's further
along. If you don't get past square one, it's all moot.

-- 
Bob Newell
Honolulu, Hawai`i
* Via Gnus/BBDB/Org/Emacs/Linux *



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 43+ messages in thread

* Re: Change input method or smtp server depending on addressee
  2019-09-13 18:39                                 ` Change input method or smtp server depending on addressee (was: Proposed new introductory section to the Gnus manual) Jorge A. Alfaro-Murillo
  2019-09-14 17:38                                   ` Change input method or smtp server depending on addressee Štěpán Němec
  2019-09-16  8:52                                   ` Robert Pluim
@ 2019-12-20 12:54                                   ` 황병희
  2 siblings, 0 replies; 43+ messages in thread
From: 황병희 @ 2019-12-20 12:54 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: The Gnus

[sorry for late,,,]

"Jorge A. Alfaro-Murillo" <jorge.alfaro-murillo@yale.edu> writes:

> Bob Newell writes:
>
>> We use gnus because it's amazing and does crazy stuff ... what other
>> client would allow me (just as one small example) to set my input
>> method to French, German, or Hawaiian depending on the addressee,
>> let alone choose my smtp server based on a similar criterion?
>> (Certain people ALWAYS get email from my preciously preserved AOL
>> address!)
>
> That sounds very useful, would you care to share more about how you do
> it?

Me too.
As CJK user, i want that this content is added within offical documents.

Sincerely,

-- 
^고맙습니다 _地平天成_ 감사합니다_^))//



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 43+ messages in thread

end of thread, other threads:[~2019-12-20 12:54 UTC | newest]

Thread overview: 43+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed)
-- links below jump to the message on this page --
2019-08-18 23:26 Proposed new introductory section to the Gnus manual Eric Abrahamsen
2019-08-19  0:34 ` dick.r.chiang
2019-08-19  1:06   ` Eric Abrahamsen
2019-08-19  2:46     ` Bob Newell
2019-08-19  7:01       ` Eric S Fraga
2019-08-20  4:26         ` Eric Abrahamsen
2019-08-20 11:37           ` dick
2019-09-09  8:13             ` Eric Abrahamsen
2019-09-09 11:52               ` dick
2019-09-09 18:39                 ` Bob Newell
2019-09-09 19:48                   ` dick
2019-09-10  2:36                     ` Eric Abrahamsen
2019-09-10 20:21                       ` dick
2019-09-10 23:50                         ` Eric Abrahamsen
2019-09-12 19:19                           ` Michael
2019-09-13  9:19                             ` Eric Abrahamsen
2019-09-13 15:08                               ` Eric S Fraga
2019-09-13 16:54                               ` Michael
2019-09-16  2:51                                 ` Eric Abrahamsen
2019-09-13 18:24                               ` Bob Newell
2019-09-13 18:39                                 ` Change input method or smtp server depending on addressee (was: Proposed new introductory section to the Gnus manual) Jorge A. Alfaro-Murillo
2019-09-14 17:38                                   ` Change input method or smtp server depending on addressee Štěpán Němec
2019-09-16 18:26                                     ` Bob Newell
2019-09-16  8:52                                   ` Robert Pluim
2019-12-20 12:54                                   ` 황병희
2019-09-16  2:55                                 ` Proposed new introductory section to the Gnus manual Eric Abrahamsen
2019-09-16 18:34                                   ` Bob Newell
2019-09-10 20:39                     ` Adam Sjøgren
2019-09-10 20:54                       ` dick
2019-09-12  5:31                       ` Steinar Bang
2019-09-07 19:50           ` Adam Sjøgren
2019-09-08 17:00             ` Bob Newell
2019-08-19 16:01       ` Adam Sjøgren
2019-08-19 18:04         ` Bob Newell
2019-08-19 18:09           ` Adam Sjøgren
2019-08-20  4:29         ` Eric Abrahamsen
2019-09-07 19:44           ` Adam Sjøgren
2019-08-19 16:16       ` Eric S Fraga
2019-08-20  7:08       ` Bjørn Mork
2019-08-20  9:51         ` Eric S Fraga
2019-08-20 10:32           ` Bjørn Mork
2019-08-20 10:55             ` Eric S Fraga
2019-08-19 17:55 ` Adam Sjøgren

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