marking articles when reading them

marking articles when reading them

[Kai Großjohann]

Right now, reading a message marks it as read (or expirable, if
auto-expire is turned on, but I won't be talking about auto-expire for
the moment).

Of course, that's just the way that Gnus operates: it pretends your
mail is like news, and so reading a message should make it go away,
sort of.

But new Gnus users might not want this behavior.  For them, it would
be useful to tell Gnus to, say, tick a message when it is read, rather
than marking it as read.

I suggest the following: introduce a variable
`gnus-select-article-mark' (or somesuch).  This variable defaults to
gnus-read-mark.  And the functions gnus-summary-mark-unread-as-read
and gnus-summary-mark-read-and-unread-as-read use that variable rather
than the hard-coded gnus-read-mark.

Since this variable can be set in a group-local fashion, it would be
easy for users to define `important' mail groups, where the default
would be to keep the message when it is read.  And in mail groups that
contain mailing lists, the default behavior can be kept.

I used to use a similar behavior for a year or so (in the olden days
of (ding) Gnus), and a colleague still uses it.

What do you all think?

kai

PS: Should the variable be a group parameter for easy customization
    with `G c'?
-- 
I like BOTH kinds of music.

Re: marking articles when reading them

[David S. Goldberg]

> Since this variable can be set in a group-local fashion, it would be
> easy for users to define `important' mail groups, where the default
> would be to keep the message when it is read.  And in mail groups that
> contain mailing lists, the default behavior can be kept.

Why is the `(display . all)' group parameter insufficient for this?
Frankly, in the few groups I use it, I think it's preferable to
ticking everything because I want to use the tick for emphasis.
-- 
Dave Goldberg
Post: The Mitre Corporation\MS K207\202 Burlington Rd.\Bedford, MA 01730
Phone: 781-271-3887
Email: dsg@mitre.org

Re: marking articles when reading them

[Kai Großjohann]

dsg@mitre.org (David S. Goldberg) writes:

> > Since this variable can be set in a group-local fashion, it would be
> > easy for users to define `important' mail groups, where the default
> > would be to keep the message when it is read.  And in mail groups that
> > contain mailing lists, the default behavior can be kept.
> 
> Why is the `(display . all)' group parameter insufficient for this?

Well, I think expirable messages shouldn't (normally) be shown.
That's what I found when using this feature.

kai
-- 
I like BOTH kinds of music.

Re: marking articles when reading them

[Amos Gouaux]

>>>>> On 07 Jul 2000 11:37:02 -0400,
>>>>> David S Goldberg <dsg@mitre.org> (dsg) writes:

dsg> Why is the `(display . all)' group parameter insufficient for this?

I actually tend to do this for many of my mail folders.
Unfortunately, it can be a drag if the folder has thousands of
messages, as some of mine easily do.  Even my inbox can grow that
large pretty quickly.

Okay, so I set `gnus-large-newsgroup'.  Now I get prompted for how
many messages I want each time I enter a folder, because chances are
that folder has more than that many messages.

What I'd like to see, to go along with `(display . all)', is
something like `gnus-no-more-than-x-messages'.  This might be set to
a small value, like a couple of hundred or so, for faster folder
access.  Then if I wanted more of the messages, I could just do `C-u
M-g', and it would prompt me for how many messages to include.

dsg> Frankly, in the few groups I use it, I think it's preferable to
dsg> ticking everything because I want to use the tick for emphasis.

Precisely.  

Actually, I still use PINE or something to dig around in folders if
I want to find something particular.  One difficulty I have with
gnus/nnimap is that if I have *all* my folders listed in my
.newsrc.eld, starting up gnus hits the mail server rather hard as it
goes and digs through that long folder list of mine.  So I try to
keep gnus only knowledgeable about the folders that I frequently
access, which means I use another IMAP client to quickly query
something.

I suspect that I just haven't fully transitioned my thinking to how
gnus does things.  At least I find myself toggling back and forth
less frequently.

-- 
Amos

Re: marking articles when reading them

[Kai Großjohann]

On 31 Oct 2000, amos+lists.ding@utdallas.edu wrote:
> 
> What I'd like to see, to go along with `(display . all)', is
> something like `gnus-no-more-than-x-messages'.  This might be set to
> a small value, like a couple of hundred or so, for faster folder
> access.  Then if I wanted more of the messages, I could just do `C-u
> M-g', and it would prompt me for how many messages to include.

Does (setq gnus-fetch-old-headers 423) do the job?

> Actually, I still use PINE or something to dig around in folders if
> I want to find something particular.  One difficulty I have with
> gnus/nnimap is that if I have *all* my folders listed in my
> .newsrc.eld, starting up gnus hits the mail server rather hard as it
> goes and digs through that long folder list of mine.  So I try to
> keep gnus only knowledgeable about the folders that I frequently
> access, which means I use another IMAP client to quickly query
> something.

You can kill some groups, then Gnus won't query the server about
them.  But you have to use `j' in the group buffer to jump to them, or
`A k' to get a list of all killed groups.

But there is a potential problem with nnimap.  When you start Gnus,
does it say `checking mailbox foo' or does it say `updating info for
foo'?  The former is dramatically faster than the latter.

kai
-- 
I like BOTH kinds of music.

Re: marking articles when reading them

[Amos Gouaux]

>>>>> On 01 Nov 2000 00:35:24 +0100,
>>>>> Kai Großjohann <Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE> (kg) writes:

kg> Does (setq gnus-fetch-old-headers 423) do the job?

Doesn't seem to....

kg> You can kill some groups, then Gnus won't query the server about
kg> them.  But you have to use `j' in the group buffer to jump to them, or
kg> `A k' to get a list of all killed groups.

I'll fiddle with this some more.  Currently I have 
`(setq gnus-save-newsrc-file nil)',  so I'm not sure what nnimap
would do for folders that are not listed in .newsrc.eld.  I suppose
I could do `A A', but that sucks in all the nntp groups as well.

kg> But there is a potential problem with nnimap.  When you start Gnus,
kg> does it say `checking mailbox foo' or does it say `updating info for
kg> foo'?  The former is dramatically faster than the latter.

`checking mailbox foo', but I've got a ton of them.  We've also got
a bunch of shared folders as well.  What also takes a while is the
subsequent `Listing subscribed mailboxes on ....'.


-- 
Amos

Re: marking articles when reading them

[Kai Großjohann]

On 01 Nov 2000, amos+lists.ding@utdallas.edu wrote:

> `checking mailbox foo', but I've got a ton of them.  We've also got
> a bunch of shared folders as well.  What also takes a while is the
> subsequent `Listing subscribed mailboxes on ....'.

I don't get that last one.  Where does it come from?

kai
-- 
I like BOTH kinds of music.

Re: marking articles when reading them

[Amos Gouaux]

>>>>> On 02 Nov 2000 11:18:04 +0100,
>>>>> Kai Großjohann <Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE> (kg) writes:

>> subsequent `Listing subscribed mailboxes on ....'.

kg> I don't get that last one.  Where does it come from?

Oh, I get this `Listing subscribed mailboxes on ....' when first
starting up gnus.  You don't see that?  If it matters, I've got my
nnimap inbox listed in gnus-secondary-select-methods.

-- 
Amos

Re: marking articles when reading them

[François Pinard]

[Kai Großjohann]

> it would be useful to tell Gnus to, say, tick a message when it is read,
> rather than marking it as read.  [...] in a group-local fashion [...]

Great idea, I also felt (fuzzily) that need.  I change marks a lot, and
often to tick.  This might especially useful if one could also decide on
the fly what the behaviour in a group would be, temporarily overriding
group customisation.

-- 
François Pinard   http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~pinard

Re: marking articles when reading them

[Amos Gouaux]

>>>>> On Fri, 7 Jul 2000 17:12:45 +0200,
>>>>> Kai Großjohann <Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE> (kg) writes:

kg> Right now, reading a message marks it as read (or expirable, if
kg> auto-expire is turned on, but I won't be talking about auto-expire for
kg> the moment).

kg> Of course, that's just the way that Gnus operates: it pretends your
kg> mail is like news, and so reading a message should make it go away,
kg> sort of.

kg> But new Gnus users might not want this behavior.  For them, it would
kg> be useful to tell Gnus to, say, tick a message when it is read, rather
kg> than marking it as read.

Must admit, when first using gnus/nnimap for mail reading, this did
take some getting used to.

kg> I suggest the following: introduce a variable
kg> `gnus-select-article-mark' (or somesuch).  This variable defaults to
kg> gnus-read-mark.  And the functions gnus-summary-mark-unread-as-read
kg> and gnus-summary-mark-read-and-unread-as-read use that variable rather
kg> than the hard-coded gnus-read-mark.

Would that then tick all read messages?  If so, wouldn't that negate
the usefulness of having such a flag?  Or perhaps you're meaning yet
another read-but-dont-submerge flag?

-- 
Amos

Re: marking articles when reading them

[Kai Großjohann]

On 31 Oct 2000, amos+lists.ding@utdallas.edu wrote:
> 
> kg> I suggest the following: introduce a variable
> kg> `gnus-select-article-mark' (or somesuch).  This variable
> kg> defaults to gnus-read-mark.  And the functions
> kg> gnus-summary-mark-unread-as-read and
> kg> gnus-summary-mark-read-and-unread-as-read use that variable
> kg> rather than the hard-coded gnus-read-mark.
> 
> Would that then tick all read messages?  If so, wouldn't that negate
> the usefulness of having such a flag?  Or perhaps you're meaning yet
> another read-but-dont-submerge flag?

It would tick all messages that a user selects for reading.

The consequence is that there are the following marks:

space -- the user hasn't seen this message yet, it's new, fresh
`!' -- the user has read the message
`E' -- the user has marked the message for deletion
`r' -- user has read the message, wants to keep it but not show

I think that this is mostly what a run-of-the-mill mail reader does.
For example, I think VM marks fresh messages with `N', read messages
with space, and I'm not sure about the deletion mark.  A
run-of-the-mill mail reader might not have an equivalent of the Gnus
`r' mark, though.

This is crippling Gnus, I know.  But if it makes people happy...

kai
-- 
I like BOTH kinds of music.