From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.emacs.gnus.general/23539 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Per Bothner Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.gnus.general Subject: Re: some mail annoyances Date: 24 Jun 1999 14:19:19 -0700 Sender: owner-ding@hpc.uh.edu Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: coloc-standby.netfonds.no Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: main.gmane.org 1035161253 2567 80.91.224.250 (21 Oct 2002 00:47:33 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@main.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2002 00:47:33 +0000 (UTC) Cc: ding@gnus.org Return-Path: Original-Received: from farabi.math.uh.edu (farabi.math.uh.edu [129.7.128.57]) by sclp3.sclp.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id RAA17895 for ; Thu, 24 Jun 1999 17:15:01 -0400 (EDT) Original-Received: from sina.hpc.uh.edu (lists@Sina.HPC.UH.EDU [129.7.3.5]) by farabi.math.uh.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id QAB02374; Thu, 24 Jun 1999 16:13:59 -0500 (CDT) Original-Received: by sina.hpc.uh.edu (TLB v0.09a (1.20 tibbs 1996/10/09 22:03:07)); Thu, 24 Jun 1999 16:14:46 -0500 (CDT) Original-Received: from sclp3.sclp.com (root@sclp3.sclp.com [204.252.123.139]) by sina.hpc.uh.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id QAA21019 for ; Thu, 24 Jun 1999 16:14:36 -0500 (CDT) Original-Received: from magnus.bothner.com (root@adsl-216-102-199-253.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net [216.102.199.253]) by sclp3.sclp.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id RAA17847 for ; Thu, 24 Jun 1999 17:13:35 -0400 (EDT) Original-Received: by bothner.com via sendmail from stdin id (Debian Smail3.2.0.102) for ding@gnus.org; Thu, 24 Jun 1999 14:19:20 -0700 (PDT) Original-To: Per Bothner In-Reply-To: Per Bothner's message of "21 Jun 1999 17:36:24 -0700" Original-Lines: 30 User-Agent: Gnus/5.070084 (Pterodactyl Gnus v0.84) XEmacs/21.2(beta14) (Dionysos) Precedence: list X-Majordomo: 1.94.jlt7 Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.gnus.general:23539 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.gnus.general:23539 Thanks for the various reponses in this thread. I have gotten work-arounds for some of the annoyances, and I will see how they work out. I think various people have made many of the points I would make. However, let me make one last point (for now): Some have made the point that it is wrong to think of Gnus as a mail-reader - it is a news reader that is also great for reading mail. Trying to force Gnus into the mold of a mail reader violates its "philosophy". That may be the case, but it is wrong philosophy for general users. For almost everybody, mail is much more important than news. Everybody uses mail, but far from everybody uses news. Also, people *start* out dealing with email, and then maybe later they get to reading news. People depend on mail; almost no-one depends on news. Thus it is more important to get mail "right" than it is to get news right. What is the "right" interface will of course differ from person to person, which is why it is nice to be able to customize things. It would be nice if there was a "recommended" mail program, which is powerful, flexible - *and* easy to learn (including having a good introductory manual). Gnus *could* be that recommended mailer for everybody using Emacs. It is very close - it just needs a little bit of usability engineering, some tweaking of the defaults, and some better documentation It certainly has the power and flexibility. However, the defaults are a bit unnatural, the standard keybindings are optimized for news rather than mail, and there is no good introduction to using Gnus. (The latter should *start* by explaining how to use it for mail, since that is what people need *first*.) -- --Per Bothner bothner@pacbell.net per@bothner.com http://home.pacbell.net/bothner/