Re: Never mind

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org>]

Stainless Steel Rat <ratinox@peorth.gweep.net> writes:

> Lars> The "@" here means that it has not been downloaded; not that it has
> Lars> been marked for downloading.
> 
> Okay, I think I see the problem, and it hinges on different ideas on how an
> offline news reader should work.  Articles to be downloaded should both be
> marked for downloading manually as well automatically.  This is the way
> most (if not all) offline newsreaders operate, and it will work for Gnus
> with the least amount of alteration to how Gnus functions.
> 
> So...
> 
> Gnus retrieves header information for groups for which automatic marking
> for download is to be performed.  Articles to be automatically downloaded
> are mrked for downloading (@).  Such @-marked articles may be downloaded at
> this time, either by automatic or manual invocation of the agent.

No -- I think I must have problems putting these concepts into words,
for some reason.

This is how it works:

You set up Gnus as a normal, online-reading newsreader -- the way you
do today.  You fiddle until you are happy with how it works.  Then you
decide that you want to read articles offline.

You then press a few magic keys to tell Gnus which servers are to be
covered.  You press `J s' to download all the headers to all the
groups from these servers, and some articles from some of the groups
from these servers (and which articles to be downloaded is, of course,
customizable in a gazillion ways (this is Gnus, after all)).  You then
press `J j' (which toggles online/offline.)  You then hang up the
modem and keep on reading.  You won't notice anything different -- all
commands work as before.

When you want to rescan news, you connect the modem, `J j', `g',
`J s', and hang up the modem and press `J j'.  Repeat.  Repeat.
Repeat. 

The issue here is what to do about articles in groups covered by the
agent that you have chosen not to download.  These articles will be
displayed in the summary buffer (since the agent always fetches all
headers to all the groups).  These articles will be marked with "@" in
the first column, and normal reading commands will skip past them,
just like "!"-marked articles.  To mark these as downloadable, you use
the `@' command, which will set an "X" mark in the third column.
(Perhaps this should be the other way around, or something.)

> User may select groups at this time.  Summary buffers may cluster articles
> that have been @-marked and downloaded in a convenient fashion much as how
> low-scored but not expunged articles are clustered when sorting by score,
> or not, at the user's convenience.  Better still... Gnus will be required
> to keep a list of articles in each group that are @-marked and downloaded.
> Hiding and unhiding all the articles that are not in either of these lists
> is probably easier to accomplish than weird-assed pseudo-sorting algorithms.

Again, I don't see why clumping together undowloaded articles in the
summary buffer would be useful.  You'd almost have to switch off
threading to have that happen reliably, which is why sorting on score
is so worthless.

> Gnus' behaviour when selecting articles that have not been
> downloaded depends on the agent's current operating mode.  If the
> agent is in online mode the article will be downloaded immediately,
> regardless of @ marks (the @ mark will be cleared if it is set and
> the article is downloaded).

When Gnus is online, the agent doesn't do anything.  It's (for all
intents and purposes) non-existent, expect for the `J s' (etc.)
commands. 

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
  larsi@gnus.org * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen