Re: `gnus-unseen-mark' everywhere

[Simon Josefsson <jas@extundo.com>]

prj@po.cwru.edu (Paul Jarc) writes:

> Simon Josefsson <jas@extundo.com> wrote:
>> Consider a nnml folder which two persons access.  The recent mark,
>> maintained by nnml.el, is the same for both persons (now, actually,
>> nnml doesn't set the recent mark, but for sake of argument).  The
>> seen mark however cannot be stored in the backend because they would
>> become the same for both persons.
>
> You're making assumptions about how sharing can be done that happen to
> be false for nnmaildir.  In a shared nnmaildir group, typically the
> marks are all not shared and only the messages are, but it's also
> possible to share some kinds of marks and not others.

This seems to be the same as for nnimap.

> If other backends cannot do this, then I think it should be those
> backends that decide to not store (nor update Gnus's copy of) the
> seen marks, rather than Gnus that assumes that backends are
> incapable of handling it properly.

Ah.  Hm, I think I understand what you are saying.  If the backend
doesn't support the distinction between per-user and global marks, it
should rely on .newsrc.eld and not touch the mark. Nnml/nnfolder would
not store seen in .marks, and would not reset the info handed to it
via nnchoke-request-update-info.  I think I agree now. :-) It wouldn't
change how anything would work.  Yes.

The gnus-article-unpropagatable-p etc stuff should be moved into
nnml/nnfolder (perhaps nnmail) then, because we wouldn't want `seen'
marks to be stored in nnml .marks.  Hm, but this means the backends
has knowledge about the semantics of marks, which is wrong as well.

So, either Gnus assumes that backends should only handle global marks
(current solution), or the assumption is that backends need to be
aware that, e.g., seen marks should not be stored in the backend if it
can only provide global marks.  It would be nice if the backend
wouldn't have to make that kind of distinction (because the backend
shouldn't have to "understand" all flags Gnus uses).

Ok, I now convinced myself that none of the solutions is good.  Time
to sleep..