Re: No Gnus todo item

[Simon Josefsson <jas@extundo.com>]

Ted Zlatanov <tzz@lifelogs.com> writes:

> On Thu, 08 May 2003, billw@wolfram.com wrote:
>> On Thu May 08 2003 at 06:07, Simon Josefsson <jas@extundo.com> said:
>> 
>>> Pressing M-x gnus RET should load gnus, load .newsrc.eld etc, and
>>> display the group buffer.  This shouldn't take longer than 5s.
>>> This is in line with the GUI design criteria "minimize time the
>>> user can't access the user interface".
>>>
>>> Fetching new mail, and updating the article counts should be done
>>> after pressing 'g'.
>> 
>> That's an excellent idea!  Occasionally, I get into a situation
>> where I need to load without downloading because I've screwed
>> something up, so I have to edit mail-sources temporarily to keep new
>> mail out of the mess.
>
> But that's confusing to new users, every MUA I have used will load new
> mail at startup.

Before displaying the user interface?  Most MUAs I recall using
(Mozilla, Evolution, Kmail, Outlook, Pine) display the GUI immediately
and then some of them (exceptions are Pine and Outlook, as far as I
can recall) will continue to update the message counts in the
background.

> May I suggest either a variable like gnus-startup-without-scan or a
> function gnus-fast?  The function seems the better solution.  You
> startup gnus with emacs -f gnus-fast and then `g' is still bound to
> the gnus function so things work like they always have.
>
> In fact, it seems like the gnus function already has a dont-connect
> parameter.  Is that not useful?

It is, and it may be tested by using M-x gnus-no-server RET or M-x
gnus-unplugged RET depending on preference.  I'm talking about the
default behavior.

Perhaps the idea doesn't make sense unless the asynchronous update of
read counts is implemented.  If so, the consider that implemented too,
when thinking about the feature.