Re: multiple nnmbox groups?

[David Hanak <dhanak@inf.bme.hu>]

On Tue, 30 Sep 2003, Ami Fischman wrote:

> Is it possible to have multiple nnmbox groups in a single gnus setup?  I
> can't seem to figure out how to create a group that uses nnmbox as the
> backend AND uses a particular file as its data source.
>
> The reason I want this is that I have procmail filter out certain things
> for certain reasons into separate mbox files.  Currently I have several
> nndoc groups, each of which comes from one mbox file, but
> ticks/marks/expiry/read status doesn't seem to get saved except in the
> adaptive scoring files.  So, a way to make nndoc remember my marks between
> sessions would be just as good.

What you are looking for is nnfolder (basically mbox format with a few
additional headers).  But splitting with procmail into groups which are
modified simultaneously by Gnus is not a very good idea.  For one, there is
the problem of locking, this can be solved.  For another, Gnus uses so
called active files to speed up group access, where it stores the index
number of the first and last articles.  If procmail appends a few messages
to a group, it will not be noticed by Gnus, unless you set
`nnfolder-ignore-active-file' to t, but then you lose the speed-up.

I suggest you use nnmail-split-fancy as nnmail-split-methods, it can do
everything procmail can.  If you still want to use procmail, use nnmaildir
instead, which allows simultaneous read and write access and doesn't use
active files.

David