From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.emacs.gnus.general/79355 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Dave Abrahams Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.gnus.general Subject: Gnus Questions #1: Article Expiry Date: Sun, 03 Jul 2011 19:30:23 -0400 Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1309735851 1265 80.91.229.12 (3 Jul 2011 23:30:51 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 3 Jul 2011 23:30:51 +0000 (UTC) To: ding@gnus.org Original-X-From: ding-owner+M27651@lists.math.uh.edu Mon Jul 04 01:30:45 2011 Return-path: Envelope-to: ding-account@gmane.org Original-Received: from util0.math.uh.edu ([129.7.128.18]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1QdW7g-0000no-UH for ding-account@gmane.org; Mon, 04 Jul 2011 01:30:45 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.math.uh.edu) by util0.math.uh.edu with smtp (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1QdW7d-0002wJ-7m; Sun, 03 Jul 2011 18:30:41 -0500 Original-Received: from mx2.math.uh.edu ([129.7.128.33]) by util0.math.uh.edu with esmtps (TLSv1:AES256-SHA:256) (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1QdW7c-0002w9-1B for ding@lists.math.uh.edu; Sun, 03 Jul 2011 18:30:40 -0500 Original-Received: from quimby.gnus.org ([80.91.231.51]) by mx2.math.uh.edu with esmtps (TLSv1:AES256-SHA:256) (Exim 4.76) (envelope-from ) id 1QdW7a-00036c-Lp for ding@lists.math.uh.edu; Sun, 03 Jul 2011 18:30:39 -0500 Original-Received: from lo.gmane.org ([80.91.229.12]) by quimby.gnus.org with esmtp (Exim 4.72) (envelope-from ) id 1QdW7Z-0003GH-Ai for ding@gnus.org; Mon, 04 Jul 2011 01:30:37 +0200 Original-Received: from list by lo.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1QdW7Y-0000kz-QQ for ding@gnus.org; Mon, 04 Jul 2011 01:30:36 +0200 Original-Received: from 207-172-223-249.c3-0.smr-ubr3.sbo-smr.ma.static.cable.rcn.com ([207.172.223.249]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Mon, 04 Jul 2011 01:30:36 +0200 Original-Received: from dave by 207-172-223-249.c3-0.smr-ubr3.sbo-smr.ma.static.cable.rcn.com with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Mon, 04 Jul 2011 01:30:36 +0200 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Original-Lines: 133 Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: 207-172-223-249.c3-0.smr-ubr3.sbo-smr.ma.static.cable.rcn.com User-Agent: Gnus/5.110018 (No Gnus v0.18) Emacs/23.3 (darwin) Cancel-Lock: sha1:uStdsXN5/EAWD3pTNBEgnmLSAPM= X-Spam-Score: -4.9 (----) List-ID: Precedence: bulk Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.gnus.general:79355 Archived-At: Hi Lars and all, I am attempting a return to Gnus... ...but I've decided that this time around I can't afford to do that without actually grokking the system I'm using. I've been reading carefully through the manual and doing some experiments so I can verify my understanding, such as it is. I'm also growing a list of questions. I'll try to separate them by topic and contribute doc patches on the basis of the answers. Please also correct any false statements below: * What's the difference between marking an article "expirable (E)" and `marking it expired' as described by [[info:gnus#Spam and Ham Processors]]? * [[info:gnus#Expiring Mail]] and [[info:gnus#Group Parameters]] both mention articles being `put through the expiry process,' but that process is never spelled out. What exactly is involved? * I presume that "expiring" an article means the same as "putting the article through the expiry process" (?) * What's the difference between `gnus-summary-expire-articles' and `gnus-summary-expire-articles-now'? The documentation doesn't make that clear. * What's the point of backend-specific expiry settings like nnfolder-inhibit-expiry (I'm referring to the `nnfolder-' part when I say `backend-specific')? Don't we have enough other ways to say "this group/server isn't expirable?" * [[info:gnus#Expiring Mail]] mentions `having auto expiry switched on' but doesn't say how to do that. Are we talking about the auto-expire group parameter here, or something else? * "Total Expire" and "Auto Expire" * The main point of using "Total Expire" instead of "Auto Expire" seems to be that with "total expire" you can keep a distinction between expirable (`E') and other marks that indicate an article was read... until expiry actually runs. At that point, if you're using total expire they're all treated the same. With "auto expire," on the other hand, you know that only articles marked `E' will be put through the expiry process. * From [[info:gnus#Adaptive Scoring]] I think I conclude that adaptive scoring takes effect at expiry time, and "auto-expire" changes all read marks to `E' too early for adaptive scoring to do its work. Is that right? * [[info:gnus#Expiring Mail]] seems to contradict my understanding, though: it claims that "auto-expire" gives me "more marks to work with." ,---- | Another advantage of auto-expire is that you get more marks to work | with: for the articles that are supposed to stick around, you can | still choose between tick and dormant and read marks. But with | total-expire, you only have dormant and ticked to choose from `---- Okay, now that I read it again I think it's saying that with "auto-expire," if I can somehow produce a mark other than `E' for an article that's been read,, that article can persist even if it's neither dormant or ticked. That's fine as far as it goes but mentioning it seems almost pointless, since Gnus is going to automatically mark everything I read as `E'. What am I missing? * This (from [[info:gnus#Expiring Mail]]) seems confusing for what I think are related reasons: ,---- | Note that making a group auto-expirable doesn't mean that all read | articles are expired--only the articles marked as expirable will be | expired `---- If auto-expire automatically marks articles expirable when you read them, doesn't that /necessarily/ mean all read articles are expired (except articles you read in the past?). Is there a common usage model where people set auto-expire and then use some explicit commands to change the read mark on some of their articles after Gnus has already marked them `E'? * Aren't there a bajillion other ways to do the following, including by customizing the "auto-expire" group parameter? Why would I do it as below (see [[info:gnus#Expiring Mail]]) instead? ,---- | To avoid having articles marked as read marked as | expirable automatically, you can put something like the following in | your `~/.gnus.el' file: | | (remove-hook 'gnus-mark-article-hook | 'gnus-summary-mark-read-and-unread-as-read) | (add-hook 'gnus-mark-article-hook 'gnus-summary-mark-unread-as-read) | `---- * How does the expire-age group parameter come into play? - Does it prevent me from marking articles as expirable for a period? - Does it prevent auto-expire from marking articles expirable? - Does it simply exempt articles that are too young from expiry? * Suggestion: Rename `gnus-auto-expirable-newsgroups' `gnus-auto-expirable-groups' since, generally, auto-expire only applies to mail and not to nntp. * As far as I can tell, the user experience of Agent expiry is completely different from that of regular article expiry. This isn't explained anywhere, but IIUC from experiments, agent expiry doesn't delete any mail except from the agent's cache. Instead it merely flushes (some part of) the agent's cache. Is that right? I and several of my friends have long been plagued by the symptom that if I delete an IMAP message in some other mail client, it still hangs around in Gnus. I've beat my head against `gnus-agent-regenerate[-group]' and `gnus-agent-flush-*' and other trix for years trying to correct it, but never found a reliable formula. Agent expiry seems to be the key. I think. Have I got that right? Thanks for taking the time with these questions, -- Dave Abrahams BoostPro Computing http://www.boostpro.com