`a' in a mail-and-news group

`a' in a mail-and-news group

[Kai Großjohann]

The nnimap backend is a mail-and-news backend, so it knows about the
Newsgroups header.  That's good.

However, if I do `a' in a shared IMAP group, I get an empty Newsgroups
header.  I can set the to-group parameter to the group name, then the
Newsgroups header is filled out correctly, but then following up
removes all the other mail addresses.

Here's what I would like:

  - `a' inserts the right Newsgroups header
  - `f' fills out To and Cc headers with sender and recipients of the
    original message and also adds a (filled-out) Newsgroups header
  - `r' fills out the To header and does not add a Newsgroups header

Of course, this should only happen for the shared groups, for my
personal groups it does not really make sense to add a Newsgroups
header.  For them, a Gcc header (as per gcc-self, say) is sufficient.

Ideas?

kai
-- 
I like BOTH kinds of music.

Re: `a' in a mail-and-news group

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai Großjohann) writes:

> However, if I do `a' in a shared IMAP group, I get an empty Newsgroups
> header.  I can set the to-group parameter to the group name, then the
> Newsgroups header is filled out correctly, but then following up
> removes all the other mail addresses.

Yup.

> Here's what I would like:
> 
>   - `a' inserts the right Newsgroups header
>   - `f' fills out To and Cc headers with sender and recipients of the
>     original message and also adds a (filled-out) Newsgroups header
>   - `r' fills out the To header and does not add a Newsgroups header

I don't think there's any easy way to do this.

I'm not familiar with the use of the Newsgroups header in nnimap.
(Well, I'm not familiar with nnimap at all, really.)  What does it do?

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
  larsi@gnus.org * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen

Re: `a' in a mail-and-news group

[Kai Großjohann]

Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:

> I'm not familiar with the use of the Newsgroups header in nnimap.
> (Well, I'm not familiar with nnimap at all, really.)  What does it
> do?

Well, maybe I was suggesting things without knowing what they do...
It appears that IMAP has personal folders and shared folders.  My own
personal folders are named INBOX and INBOX.foo, and I can see other
users' personal folders as user.jrl and user.jrl.foo.  Other folders
seem to be shared folders.

As far as I can tell, the IMAP server does not treat any of these
folders specially -- you can read and write them according to the
privileges you have.  But sendmail is configured to write mail for
user jrl in the folder user.jrl.  Cyrus also groks plus addressing, so
mail for jrl+foo@host ends up in user.jrl.foo.  And it is possible to
configure sendmail such that mail for bb+foo@host is saved in the foo
folder.

Since all folders seem to be treated the same way, I just thought
WIBNI if nnimap grokked the Newsgroups header and saved messages in
the right group?  Well, Simon implemented that.

And now I'm trying to make this feature even more useful :-)

Maybe we should be talking to some other IMAP users to see how things
are customarily done with other clients.

But in the meantime, is there some variable that I can set in an
appropriate hook to tell Gnus `insert To and Cc headers in this
message'?  I think my problem would be solved if C-c C-n actually
inserted the right newsgroup in the Newsgroups header.  Currently it
inserts an empty Newsgroups header.

kai
-- 
I like BOTH kinds of music.

Re: `a' in a mail-and-news group

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai Großjohann) writes:

> But in the meantime, is there some variable that I can set in an
> appropriate hook to tell Gnus `insert To and Cc headers in this
> message'?  I think my problem would be solved if C-c C-n actually
> inserted the right newsgroup in the Newsgroups header.  Currently it
> inserts an empty Newsgroups header.

`C-c C-n' just looks at the Newsgroups header of the message you're
responding to.  But you could, of course, alter it to insert the
current newsgroup name instead.

But if this is to be generally useful for other nnimap people, we
should heard whether anybody else has any suggestions...

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
  larsi@gnus.org * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen

Re: `a' in a mail-and-news group

[Kai Großjohann]

Kai Großjohann <Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE> writes:

> Here's what I would like:
> 
>   - `a' inserts the right Newsgroups header
>   - `f' fills out To and Cc headers with sender and recipients of the
>     original message and also adds a (filled-out) Newsgroups header
>   - `r' fills out the To header and does not add a Newsgroups header

The rest of the discussion has taken place on the Gnus list only, so
I'm resending the thread to the nnimap list.

kai
-- 
I like BOTH kinds of music.

Re: `a' in a mail-and-news group

[Simon Josefsson]

Kai Großjohann <Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE> writes:

> The nnimap backend is a mail-and-news backend, so it knows about the
> Newsgroups header.  That's good.
> 
> However, if I do `a' in a shared IMAP group, I get an empty Newsgroups
> header.  I can set the to-group parameter to the group name, then the
> Newsgroups header is filled out correctly, but then following up
> removes all the other mail addresses.

Hm. When I press 'a' in a shared IMAP mailbox I get a filled-out
Newsgroup line containing the current (nnimap-) group.

> Here's what I would like:
> 
>   - `a' inserts the right Newsgroups header

Done. :-)

>   - `f' fills out To and Cc headers with sender and recipients of the
>     original message and also adds a (filled-out) Newsgroups header
>   - `r' fills out the To header and does not add a Newsgroups header

Uhm, wouldn't followups be sent by mail then?  That isn't what you
would expect for shared IMAP mailboxes, surely? (Or is it? I don't use
shared IMAP mailboxes.)

I'm not sure if it's a good idea for Newsgroup: to mean one thing in
nntp groups and one in nnimap groups, so making it only add To/Cc
headers in shared IMAP mailboxes doesn't seem quite right to me.

Re: `a' in a mail-and-news group

[Kai Großjohann]

Simon Josefsson <jas@pdc.kth.se> writes:

> Kai Großjohann <Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE> writes:
> 
> >   - `f' fills out To and Cc headers with sender and recipients of the
> >     original message and also adds a (filled-out) Newsgroups header
> >   - `r' fills out the To header and does not add a Newsgroups header
> 
> Uhm, wouldn't followups be sent by mail then?  That isn't what you
> would expect for shared IMAP mailboxes, surely? (Or is it? I don't use
> shared IMAP mailboxes.)

I'm just looking at my own situation and I'm trying to get you to do
what is best for me.  That's not good; I now realize.  So I'd be happy
if there was _some_ way to get what I want, it needn't be the default.

Our situation is this: we have a project that a couple of us are
working on, and there are external partners (at another site) also
participating.  Now, when answering a message from an external
partner, we want the reply to go there as well as in our shared IMAP
mailbox.

This already works (sort of) with gcc-self.  But the Gcc header
doesn't show up in the resulting message.  Hm.  Maybe we should just
use Gcc and live with the results.  Hm.

There are also messages which aren't sent by mail to anyone -- they
are just for communication amongst us.  For these messages, the
Newsgroups header seems the most logical.  What should one do when
having one group which contains both `internal' and `external'
messages?

I'm getting confused...

kai
-- 
I like BOTH kinds of music.