Re: Wishlist for oGnus

[lconrad@world.std.com]

>>>>> "Karl" == Karl Kleinpaste <karl@justresearch.com> writes:

    Karl> Most of what I want is mail-specific.

    Karl> * Baby's First Mail In Gnus.  

(lots of good ideas snipped)

Another aspect of starting to use mail in gnus that intimidates
first-time users is how to find the groups once you've started
splitting them.  The manual says:

    manual> Getting Started Reading Mail 
    manual> ----------------------------

    manual>    It's quite easy to use Gnus to read your new mail.  You
    manual>    just plonk
    manual> the mail backend of your choice into
    manual> `gnus-secondary-select-methods', and things will happen
    manual> automatically.  ...
    manual>    You will probably want to split the mail into several
    manual>    groups, though:

    manual>      (setq nnmail-split-methods
    manual>            '(("junk" "^From:.*Lars Ingebrigtsen")
    manual>              ("crazy"
    manual>              "^Subject:.*die\\|^Organization:.*flabby")
    manual>              ("other" "")))

    manual>    This will result in three new `nnml' mail groups being
    manual>    created:
    manual> `nnml:junk', `nnml:crazy', and `nnml:other'.  All the mail
    manual> that doesn't fit into the first two groups will be placed
    manual> in the last group.

    manual>    This should be sufficient for reading mail with Gnus.

Let me quote from a recent gnu.emacs.gnus posting:

    newbie> I am sorry if this has been asked. I tried reading the
    newbie> manual, but haven't found a solution. The problem, I am
    newbie> having is with reading mail from my ISP using "nnml"
    newbie> backend.  Gnus on startup connects to my ISP, ans gathers
    newbie> the mail, but does not display it in the group buffer. I
    newbie> tried the command, "A z" to display zombies and I get the
    newbie> response saying, No zombies.

    kai> The following should be tried in this order: `F', `A k', `A
    kai> z', `A A'.  Type `u' on a group to subscribe to it.  In the
    kai> long lists, you may wish to use `C-s nnml' to search for this
    kai> string.

I think the right thing is to change the behavior of gnus so that the
example in the manual "just works", and people don't have to try
several undocumented key sequences in the right order to find their
mail.  I don't know what the best way to do this would be -- maybe
changing the default level for a newly created nnml group?

If we don't do that, I think adding documentation about how to find
the groups created by nnmail-split-methods to the Getting Started
Reading Mail  section of the manual would be a good idea.  

-- 
Laura (mailto:lconrad@world.std.com , http://www.world.std.com/~lconrad/ )
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