gnus-secondary-select-methods: what's the point?

gnus-secondary-select-methods: what's the point?

[David Abrahams]

Hi all,

I'm trying to figure out what the point is of setting up
gnus-secondary-select-methods.  I can go into my *Servers* buffer and
add servers that will persist across sessions without ever changing it.
So what does it really do?

Many thanks in advance,

-- 
Dave Abrahams
BoostPro Computing
http://www.boostpro.com

Re: gnus-secondary-select-methods: what's the point?

[David Engster]

David Abrahams <dave@boostpro.com> writes:
> I'm trying to figure out what the point is of setting up
> gnus-secondary-select-methods.  I can go into my *Servers* buffer and
> add servers that will persist across sessions without ever changing it.
> So what does it really do?

There isn't much difference between secondary and foreign groups. My
guess would be that native, secondary and foreign groups more or less
evolved historically, but I might be wrong.

Regarding gnus-secondary-select-methods, you probably already found the
following remark in the docs:

,----
|    A slightly different approach to foreign groups is to set the
| `gnus-secondary-select-methods' variable.  The select methods listed in
| this variable are in many ways just as native as the
| `gnus-select-method' server.  They will also be queried for active
| files during startup (if that's required), and new newsgroups that
| appear on these servers will be subscribed (or not) just as native
| groups are.
`----

In a nutshell, I see the following differences:

* native method: doesn't have a prefix and will be ignored if you start
  through gnus-no-server (only for groups with level >2).

* secondary methods: do have a prefix, will not be ignored by
  gnus-no-server (?).

* foreign methods: won't be queried for new groups on startup. Server
  vanishes if you unsubscribe from all its groups.

Otherwise, it's more or less a matter of taste. Some people like to have
their full configuration in .gnus, and not in .newsrc.eld, since the
latter isn't meant to be edited by hand.

-David

Re: gnus-secondary-select-methods: what's the point?

[Mark Plaksin]

David Engster <deng@randomsample.de> writes:

> In a nutshell, I see the following differences:
>
> * native method: doesn't have a prefix and will be ignored if you start
>   through gnus-no-server (only for groups with level >2).
>
> * secondary methods: do have a prefix, will not be ignored by
>   gnus-no-server (?).
>
> * foreign methods: won't be queried for new groups on startup. Server
>   vanishes if you unsubscribe from all its groups.
>
> Otherwise, it's more or less a matter of taste.

There's a big difference for me with IMAP.  If my groups are foreign
then checking for new messages is very slow.  When they're not foreign I
get "nnimap: Quickly checking mailbox BLAH" and it really is much quicker.

Re: gnus-secondary-select-methods: what's the point?

[David Engster]

Mark Plaksin <happy@usg.edu> writes:
> There's a big difference for me with IMAP.  If my groups are foreign
> then checking for new messages is very slow.  When they're not foreign I
> get "nnimap: Quickly checking mailbox BLAH" and it really is much quicker.

The "quickly checking" means that nnimap checks the STATUS of the
mailboxes asynchronously, and this is controlled by
nnimap-retrieve-groups-asynchronous. I only skimmed through
nnimap-retrieve-groups, but I don't see how this behavior could depend
on the server being foreign or not.

-David

Re: gnus-secondary-select-methods: what's the point?

[Mark Plaksin]

David Engster <deng@randomsample.de> writes:

> Mark Plaksin <happy@usg.edu> writes:
>
>> There's a big difference for me with IMAP.  If my groups are foreign
>> then checking for new messages is very slow.  When they're not foreign I
>> get "nnimap: Quickly checking mailbox BLAH" and it really is much quicker.
>
> The "quickly checking" means that nnimap checks the STATUS of the
> mailboxes asynchronously, and this is controlled by
> nnimap-retrieve-groups-asynchronous. I only skimmed through
> nnimap-retrieve-groups, but I don't see how this behavior could depend
> on the server being foreign or not.

Interesting.  nnimap-retrieve-groups-asynchronous is the default (t) for
me.  I'd love to be wrong about foreign IMAP groups being slow :)  But
making them non-foreign is the only way I've been able to get "Quickly
checking".

Re: gnus-secondary-select-methods: what's the point?

[David Abrahams]

on Tue May 26 2009, David Engster <deng-AT-randomsample.de> wrote:

> In a nutshell, I see the following differences:
>
> * native method: doesn't have a prefix and will be ignored if you start
>   through gnus-no-server (only for groups with level >2).
>
> * secondary methods: do have a prefix, will not be ignored by
>   gnus-no-server (?).
>
> * foreign methods: won't be queried for new groups on startup. Server
>   vanishes if you unsubscribe from all its groups.

Oh, that one's interesting.  My IMAP server is the native method right
now, and the startup query can be painful to wait through!

> Otherwise, it's more or less a matter of taste. Some people like to have
> their full configuration in .gnus, and not in .newsrc.eld, since the
> latter isn't meant to be edited by hand.

The *full* configuration?  Does that mean it's possible to store the
subscriptions in .gnus as well?

-- 
Dave Abrahams
BoostPro Computing
http://www.boostpro.com

Re: gnus-secondary-select-methods: what's the point?

[David Abrahams]

on Tue May 26 2009, Mark Plaksin <happy-AT-usg.edu> wrote:

> David Engster <deng@randomsample.de> writes:
>
>> In a nutshell, I see the following differences:
>>
>> * native method: doesn't have a prefix and will be ignored if you start
>>   through gnus-no-server (only for groups with level >2).
>>
>> * secondary methods: do have a prefix, will not be ignored by
>>   gnus-no-server (?).
>>
>> * foreign methods: won't be queried for new groups on startup. Server
>>   vanishes if you unsubscribe from all its groups.
>>
>> Otherwise, it's more or less a matter of taste.
>
> There's a big difference for me with IMAP.  If my groups are foreign
> then checking for new messages is very slow.  When they're not foreign I
> get "nnimap: Quickly checking mailbox BLAH" and it really is much quicker.

OK, scratch that idea ;-)

-- 
Dave Abrahams
BoostPro Computing
http://www.boostpro.com

Re: gnus-secondary-select-methods: what's the point?

[David Engster]

[To whoever is moderating this list: please discard my old posting,
which got stalled due to containing a word that begins with "unsub" and
ends with "scribe" in the 4th line...]

David Abrahams <dave@boostpro.com> writes:
> on Tue May 26 2009, David Engster <deng-AT-randomsample.de> wrote:
>> * foreign methods: won't be queried for new groups on startup. Server
>>   vanishes if you [DELETED] from all its groups.
>
> Oh, that one's interesting.  My IMAP server is the native method right
> now, and the startup query can be painful to wait through!

Does setting

(setq gnus-read-active-file nil
      gnus-check-new-newsgroups nil)

speed that up?

>> Otherwise, it's more or less a matter of taste. Some people like to have
>> their full configuration in .gnus, and not in .newsrc.eld, since the
>> latter isn't meant to be edited by hand.
>
> The *full* configuration?  Does that mean it's possible to store the
> subscriptions in .gnus as well?

Uhm... I don't think so. Better make that "most of the configuration". ;-)

-David

Re: gnus-secondary-select-methods: what's the point?

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Wed, 27 May 2009 11:58:35 -0400 Mark Plaksin <happy@mcplaksin.org> wrote: 

MP> David Engster <deng@randomsample.de> writes:
>> Mark Plaksin <happy@usg.edu> writes:
>> 
>>> There's a big difference for me with IMAP.  If my groups are foreign
>>> then checking for new messages is very slow.  When they're not foreign I
>>> get "nnimap: Quickly checking mailbox BLAH" and it really is much quicker.
>> 
>> The "quickly checking" means that nnimap checks the STATUS of the
>> mailboxes asynchronously, and this is controlled by
>> nnimap-retrieve-groups-asynchronous. I only skimmed through
>> nnimap-retrieve-groups, but I don't see how this behavior could depend
>> on the server being foreign or not.

MP> Interesting.  nnimap-retrieve-groups-asynchronous is the default (t) for
MP> me.  I'd love to be wrong about foreign IMAP groups being slow :)  But
MP> making them non-foreign is the only way I've been able to get "Quickly
MP> checking".

I've noticed this too (or rather, I use foreign IMAP groups and have
never noticed "Quickly checking").  It's annoyed me a lot but I have not
investigated in depth, unfortunately, assuming the server was just being
slow.

Ted