Re: Better handling of reply configuration

[dsg@mitre.org (David S. Goldberg)]

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> One of the few areas where gnus is awkward is the handling of
> frames/windows when replying to mail.  I've looked over the gnus
> configuration capabilities, but either it doesn't offer quite enough
> or I'm too ignorant to use it correctly (yes, probably the latter).  I
> also searched in various places and came up basically empty.

No, you're right.  It is awkward.  This has come up before on the
mailing list but there's no real satisfying solution.  As you've
already worked out with Kai, the defaults (in a single frame) are
pretty reasonable.

> 1. Giving the reply its own frame.  This would work fine, but I've had
>    a heck of a time getting the frame to go away (delete or iconify)
>    when done and having the original frame be unaffected by the reply
>    creation.  It would also be nice for general mail composition, not
>    just replying.

It gets really weird when you want to have your message buffer in a
different frame.  I use the following which works quite well, but I
feel like I shouldn't have had to do so much work to get it that way.

I use a large window dedicated to Gnus.  I put my group, article and
summary configs here for illustration 


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This is my message config.  The trick is to get the message
composition buffer in a separate frame while leaving the original
frame intact.  There should be a better way.  I started to hack at
something back in early pgnus days but didn't have time to do it
justice.  When ognus gets going, I hope to get back to it.


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First ignore the name in the frame params.  I use that to get fvwm2 to
give the window a specific icon in my fvwm2 icon manager.  The key is
the if statement.  The message config is used when you do an m in
either the group or summary buffers to generate a new mail.  So if
there's a live summary buffer, I assume I'm in summary mode and I
enforce the summary configuration in the main frame and put the
message buffer in a new one.  If there's no summary, I enforce the
group configuration on the main frame.  Similar for the post
configuration.  For reply, reply-yank, forward and draft I do
essentially the same thing except there's no need to check for summary
mode.  In those cases I force article configuration (except for draft
which is summary) on the main frame and put the message in the new
frame.  Here's reply-yank to illustrate it.


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I don't remove the message frame after sending.  I write a lot of
email and find that the time spent rebuilding new frames is a
waste.  However, I believe you can use message-sent-hook to either
delete or iconfiy the frame.  Just make sure to select the right
frame for deleting or iconifying :-)

hth,
-- 
Dave Goldberg
Post: The Mitre Corporation\MS B325\202 Burlington Rd.\Bedford, MA 01730
Phone: 781-271-3887
Email: dsg@mitre.org