Re: Being forced to deal with message numbers and frustrated

[Sam Falkner <samf@central.sun.com>]

Since I use caching on mail groups, I'll throw in my usage habits just
for the record.  I'm not saying it's the one true way, or the best
way, or even unique, but it's what I currently like to do.

Two reasons I'm doing this: (1) maybe someone else will get an idea
that they like from it, and (2) I'd hate for the semantics to change
such that I couldn't do what I like.  I don't think (2) is likely, but 
it's my fault if I didn't speak up.

                                * * *

I use topics, and occasionally set parameters on both groups and
topics via `G p'.  I set total-expire to be non-nil at the top of my
mail hierarchy.

Under mail I have a `reference' topic, and in this topic, I set
`total-expire' to nil, and set `expiry-wait' to something like a year.
I set `visible' to non-nil, since these groups never get newly
arriving mail, so they almost never have unread messages.  Normally,
the reference topic is unexpanded, except when I want to go looking
for something.

When reading mail, and I see a message I want to keep, I have two ways
I can do it, depending on how I'll try to find it.

If the mail got auto-split into a special group, I use `*' to throw it
into the cache.  This is just like I do for NNTP news, and these are
the mail groups that I don't distinguish at all from news.  Yes, there
are initially two copies of the same message, but one will eventually
expire and the other won't.

If the message to be kept landed in my `misc' folder, I move it (via
`B m') into one of the groups in my `reference' topic.  For example,
our cafeteria at work announces their holiday schedule for the rest of
the year.  So I throw it into my `work.policy' folder (or whatever).
Since it has a limited lifespan, I can also mark it `E' before I move
it there, and it'll last for a year.

                                * * *

I like this scheme.  My only gripe about caching (I've mentioned
before) is that when I change NNTP servers, I have to deal with my
cached articles manually.  Usually, I move the cache directories aside
and ignore it for a while; then, renumber the files in the cache
directory to be 1-n (compact; unlikely to clash with existing message
numbers), move the directories into place, and rebuild the cache
active and nov files.  Since I don't change NNTP servers very often, I
don't mind too much that this is inconvenient.  But with mail, I have
no complaints at all.

- Sam