--- gnus-util.el	Sun Oct  7 13:49:04 2001
+++ gnus-util2.el	Wed Oct 17 20:26:40 2001
@@ -299,6 +299,68 @@
       (yes-or-no-p prompt)
     (message "")))
 
+;; By Frank Schmitt <ich@Frank-Schmitt.net>. Allows to have age-depending
+;; date representations. (e.g. just the time if it's from today, the day 
+;; of the week if it's within the last 7 days and the full date if it's older)
+(defun gnus-seconds-today ()
+"Returns the number of seconds passed today"
+(setq now (decode-time (current-time)))
+(+ (car now) (* (car (cdr now)) 60) (* (car (nthcdr 2 now)) 3600)))
+
+(defun gnus-seconds-month ()
+"Returns the number of seconds passed this month"
+(setq now (decode-time (current-time)))
+(+ (car now) (* (car (cdr now)) 60) (* (car (nthcdr 2 now)) 3600) (* (- (car (nthcdr 3 now)) 1) 3600 24)))
+
+(defun gnus-seconds-year ()
+"Returns the number of seconds passed this year"
+(setq now (decode-time (current-time)))
+(setq days (format-time-string "%j" (current-time)))
+(+ (car now) (* (car (cdr now)) 60) (* (car (nthcdr 2 now)) 3600) (* (- (string-to-number days) 1) 3600 24)))
+
+(defvar gnus-user-date-format-alist
+  '(((gnus-seconds-today) . "%k:%M")
+    (604800 . "%a %k:%M")                   ;;that's one week
+    ((gnus-seconds-month) . "%a %d")
+    ((gnus-seconds-year) . "%b %d")
+    (t . "%b %m '%y"))                      ;;this one is used when no other does match
+   "Alist of time in seconds and format specification used to display dates not older.
+The first element must be a number or a function returning a number. The second element
+is a format-specification as described in the documentation for format-time-string.
+The list must be ordered smallest number up. When there is an element, which is not a
+number, the corresponding format-specification will be used, disregarding any following
+elements.
+You can use the functions gnus-seconds-today, gnus-seconds-month, gnus-seconds-year 
+which will return the number of seconds which passed today/this month/this year.")
+
+(defun gnus-user-date (messy-date)
+  "Format the messy-date acording to gnus-user-date-format-alist.
+Returns \"  ?  \" if there's bad input or if an other error occurs.
+Input should look like this: \"Sun, 14 Oct 2001 13:34:39 +0200\"."
+  (condition-case ()
+      (progn
+	(setq messy-date (safe-date-to-time messy-date))
+	(setq now (current-time))
+	(setq my-format "%b %m '%y") ;;If we don't find something suitable we'll use this one
+	(setq high (lsh (- (car now) (car messy-date)) 16))
+	(if (and (> high -1) (= (logand high 65535) 0))  ;;overflow and bad input
+	    (progn
+	     (setq difference (+ high (- (car (cdr now)) (car (cdr messy-date)))))
+	     (setq templist gnus-user-data-format-alist)
+	     (setq top (eval (caar templist)))
+	     (while (and (numberp top)  (< top difference))
+	       (progn
+		 (setq templist (cdr templist))
+		 (setq top (eval (caar templist)))
+		 )
+	       )
+	     (if (stringp (cdr (car templist)))
+		 (setq my-format (cdr (car templist)))
+	       )))
+	  (format-time-string (eval my-format) messy-date))
+    (error "  ?   ")))
+;;end of Frank's code
+
 (defun gnus-dd-mmm (messy-date)
   "Return a string like DD-MMM from a big messy string."
   (condition-case ()