list level not respected by gnus-group-get-new-news [was: Emacs 28.2 gnus: nntp read marks lost after going offline and online again]

[Dan Christensen <jdc@uwo.ca>]

On Jun 25, 2023, Steinar Bang <sb@dod.no> wrote:

>> So are you saying that `2 g' works fine for you, but the code you
>> posted does not work?  That seems really strange.
>
> No. I was trying to say that I observed the exact same behaviour as you did.
>
> Both the function I posted and '2 g' had the same result: groups on
> levels greater than 2 disappeared.
>
> But '3 g' made them reappear (at least the ones on level 3).

In the first message you said that the groups lost their marks, so
I was still under the impression that that was the issue.  If the
groups are just not being *displayed*, then `3 l' will show the groups
on levels <= 3.  Indeed, digging around shows this commit from two
years ago:

  https://github.com/emacs-mirror/emacs/commit/7f9ca3b2f4f1a9800d7557f64e25bb3ee5059cba

where lines 4208-4209 are changed from

  (gnus-group-list-groups (and (numberp arg)
                               (max (car gnus-group-list-mode) arg)))

to

  (gnus-group-list-groups (and (numberp arg) arg))

So the current list level is not taken into account any more.  I also
find this a bit annoying, to tell you the truth.  Even more, the new
code goes on to make this permanent:

    (when gnus-group-use-permanent-levels
      (setq gnus-group-use-permanent-levels (gnus-group-default-level arg)))))

Do others think it makes sense to hide groups currently being displayed
just because I refreshed groups at a lower level?

(I've changed the subject to reflect what's really going on here.)

Dan