Re: Gnus search

[Andrew Cohen <cohen@andy.bu.edu>]

I am considering significant changes to nnir to improve the searching
experience. I have added gmane searching but this has exposed some
weaknesses in the current interface, so I would like to get some advice
on potential changes.

Currently nnir searches are initiated from the group buffer in one of
two ways:

1. If any groups are process-marked only these groups are searched.

2. If no groups are process marked then all opened servers are
   searched. Some search engines (imap) are only capable of searching a
   single group at a time so the search is restricted to the group on
   the current line. Others (swish, freewais, namazu) can only search
   the whole database, so that's what they do.

With only one search engine available (as has been the case for me
forever) I never noticed this, and assumed that nnir was just searching
the group on the current line. But I now have both imap and gmane
searching available, and without process-marking groups all searches now
search both backends. This is usually not what I want.

So---how about changing the behavior in case 2:

2. If no groups are process-marked search only the group on the current
   line (using the appropriate backend). 

and possibly adding 

3. If no groups are process-marked and no group is on the current line,
   search all opened servers (which might take awhile). The user can put
   point on the last line of the group buffer for example. 

This last addition might not be a great idea, and its only relevant if
anyone continues to use the relevant search engines. So is anyone using:

swish
wais
hyrex
namazu


Can any of these be removed?

Regards,
Andy