Re: gnus-search configuration example for notmuch

[Eric Abrahamsen <eric@ericabrahamsen.net>]

Julien Cubizolles <j.cubizolles@free.fr> writes:

> Eric Abrahamsen <eric@ericabrahamsen.net> writes:
>
>> Julien Cubizolles <j.cubizolles@free.fr> writes:
>>
>>> I can't get gnus-search to use notmuch as its search engine for a
>>> maildir synced by offlineimap. Every search with G-G returns 
>>
>> Hi!
>>
>> It's not possible to use notmuch to index an nnimap server. notmuch
>> returns its search results as filenames, and nnimap needs its search
>> results as message ids. 
>
> Thank you, it all makes sense now. Maybe that's also why it doesn't work
> on nnml and nndraft either.
>
> What backend can you use gnus-search-notmuch with then ? And what search
> engines should you use with nnml and nndraft ? Am I right in assuming
> that with the right gnus-search-engines set up gnus-search could search
> through all backends and return the matching messages in a single
> nnselect group ?

To add to what everyone else has said: most of the mail backends (nnml,
nnmaildir, etc) keep their messages as files on the file system, so any
search engine that indexes files and gives you full filenames back as
search results (including notmuch, namazu, mairix) will work with them.
It's really nnimap that is a special case, as you're not supposed to
know or care where/how it stores its messages, and instead use the
client/server interface.

And yes, the whole point of gnus-search and nnselect is that you can
search any number of groups and servers, using a single search query and
getting the results in a single group.