Tassilo Horn <tassilo@member.fsf.org> writes:
>> Would it make sense for Gnus to (kind of) collect all the "important"
>> messages (to be determined somehow), and then display them at the end?
>> Somehow?
>
> That makes sense for any package, but not every package should need to
> implement something like it.  So it would be cool to extend the
> `message' mechanism in emacs, so that it allows for different severities
> (debug, info, warning?) and assign messages to packages, so that I could
> restrict *Messages* to show only warning messages from Gnus...

Hmm, but how would the user use this? I mean, what presumably happens at
the moment is that Jo Bloggs types M-x gnus, waits a second (while
watching flickering stuff at the bottom of the screen) then sees that
some groups have '*'s rather than numbers. If he[1] knows a reasonable
amount about emacs then, swearing to himself, he goes to *Messages*. If
he's lucky, the messages haven't yet scrolled out of the buffer. Next
time he hits 'g' or types M-x gnus, everything mysteriously works (the
server or net connection is back up).

Now, how would a proposal to allow the user to filter only warning-level
messages help Jo?

I'm not sure whether Lars's idea is perfect, but it seems that whatever
solution chosen, it should be one that the user doesn't have to
configure. Especially since Gnus interacts with the outside world via
the network so is going to be exposed to all sorts of transient faults.


Rupert


[1] Or she. Hence it being Jo not Joe.