Re: example queries for nnir

[Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com>]

Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai Großjohann) writes:

[...]

> > Very unfamiliar with wais here, so any examples would be very usefull.
> 
> Using the example format file given in nnir.el, there are four fields:
> to, from, subject, and the global field.
> 
> The to field contains the To and Cc mail headers.  The from field
> contains the From mail header.  The subject field contains the Subject
> mail header.
> 
> The global field contains all of the above headers, plus the body of
> each message.

So, there is no way to search just the body by itself?

[...] snipped good examples


> > ;; . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The
> > ;; second variable to set is `nnir-search-engine'.  Choose one of the
> > ;; engines listed in `nnir-engines'.
> 
> I have now included an explicit pointer to the variable
> documentation.  I have also tried to beef up the documentation for
> nnir-engines.  Did it help?  New version on ftp server,
> ftp://ls6-ftp.cs.uni-dortmund.de/pub/src/emacs/

Checking that version, I see what is changed but it still doesn't make
it clear how using the engines in that alist might look when included
in nnir variables.

Going form this:
  nnir-engines's value is 
  ((glimpse nnir-run-glimpse
            ((group . "Group spec: ")))
   (wais nnir-run-waissearch nil)
   (excite nnir-run-excite-search nil)
   (imap nnir-run-imap nil))

to this:
(setq nnir-search-engine 'glimpse)

Is not apparent from nnir.el  comments, unless you know a little lisp.

Including some simple examples of actual settings might be more
usefull.  Indicating which are default setting would help too. Nnir.el
does this for the some of the variables pertaining to glimpse and wais
already.

Sorry, I started to send you a patch to include some of what I think
would be usefull but quickly discovered I didn't know enough about
nnir varilables to be accurate.

What I had in mind would look something like this:

### examples for inclusion in ~/.gnus

## variable nnir-mail-backend example settings:

## If gnus-secondary-select-methods is set to only one of either nnml
## or nnmh backend then nnir will default to that backend (Kai, is
## this true?)

## If more than one mail backend is used then nnir-mail-backend can be 
## set like this (must be nnml or nnmh):
## (setq nnir-mail-backend  '(BACKEND "NAME"))  <==(probably not accurate)
## (setq nnir-mail-backend '(nnml "my-server"))

## variable nnir-search-engines example settings:
## (setq nnir-search-engine 'BACKEND)
## (setq nnir-search-engine 'glimpse)
## (setq nnir-search-engine 'wais)

Similar examples following the sections on glimpse and wais, in there
`setq' format for inclusion in gnus would be nice too:
Something like:

(setq nnir-glimpse-remove-prefix "/PATH/DIRECTORY/")

or

(setq nnir-glimpse-home "/PATH/DIRECTORY/"/

It would also be handy if all nnir vars were settable with M-x
set-variable so users wouldn't have to go to customize or know the
elisp code to eval with M-: 

That would make it easier to experiment with various settings for a
given session.  M-x customize  is fairly cumbersome.