Hi,

I've been looking at this problem, since I too want my threads to
be sorted so that the thread with the most recent message will
appear at the bottom of my summary buffer.  I'm using this :

(setq gnus-thread-sort-functions
      '((not gnus-thread-sort-by-most-recent-number)))

(setq gnus-summary-make-false-root 'adopt)        ; (the default)

The problem seems to be that despite the "adoption" method
for making a false root to gather orphaned threads, 
gnus-thread-highest-number only looks at the non-adopted
messages in the thread.

I found a work-around that does the trick for me.  The thread
gathering process gathers lower threads up to the higher thread.
If this could be reversed (since the thread sorting order is also
reversed), that would solve the problem.

This can be accomplished in gnus-sum.el:gnus-summary-prepare
like this :

+++ gnus-sum.el Sat Jul 13 15:27:48 2002
@@ -3470,9 +3470,11 @@
       (gnus-summary-prepare-threads
        (if gnus-show-threads
           (gnus-sort-gathered-threads
-           (funcall gnus-summary-thread-gathering-function
-                    (gnus-sort-threads
-                     (gnus-cut-threads (gnus-make-threads)))))
+           (reverse
+            (funcall gnus-summary-thread-gathering-function
+                     (reverse
+                      (gnus-sort-threads
+                       (gnus-cut-threads (gnus-make-threads)))))))
         ;; Unthreaded display.
         (gnus-sort-articles gnus-newsgroup-headers))))
     (setq gnus-newsgroup-data (nreverse gnus-newsgroup-data))

I'm sure there's a better way, since this will only do good things
for those of us with the most recent messages at the bottom of the
buffer.

-Truxton


Ken Raeburn <raeburn@raeburn.org> writes:

> Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai Großjohann) writes:
>> Ken Raeburn <raeburn@raeburn.org> writes:
>>> I'm trying to change the way my mail groups are sorted.  I've been
>>> gathering threads by subject, and sorting by date.  What I'd like to
>>> do instead is sort by "last date the thread way active".
>
> s/way/was/
>
>> I wonder if the following does the trick?
>>
>> (when (fboundp 'gnus-thread-sort-by-most-recent-number)
>>   (setq gnus-thread-sort-functions '((not gnus-thread-sort-by-most-recent-number))))
>>
>> Though it's not by date...
>
> I overlooked that, I guess, and wrote the equivalent for date parsing
> while working on this.  That gets the initial sorting more or less
> right, but just the threads as pulled together based on message-ids;
> when threads with similar subjects are then collected together, the
> ordering in that phase doesn't come out the way I want it:
>
> E.  43380 30-Apr[  15:Stainless Steel] Re: Are the latest Oort features better 
> E.      43387 01-May<  31:Karl Eichwalder> 
> E.      43388 01-May<  10:Per Abrahamsen > 
> E.          43395 01-May[  13:Kai Großjohann ] 
> E.          43412 01-May[  21:Daniel Pittman ] 
> E.              43418 02-May[  12:Kai Großjohann ] 
> E.                  43419 02-May[  18:Daniel Pittman ] 
> E   43341 30-Apr[  12:Lars Bjønnes   ] Can topic parameters set group level?
> E       43365 30-Apr[  14:Josh Huber     ] 
> E.          43383 30-Apr[  22:Lars Bjønnes   ] 
> E.              43386 30-Apr[  28:Josh Huber     ] 
>  .  43406 01-May[  19:Oystein Viggen ] bug with imap in newest ognus snapshot
>  .      43408 01-May[  10:Simon Josefsson] 
>  .          43409 01-May[  11:Oystein Viggen ] 
>  .  43400 01-May[  17:Bill White     ] fast email downloading?
>  .      43417 02-May[  22:Kai Großjohann ] 
>
> In this case, I want the "Oort features" thread placed based on the
> highest number in all the gathered threads (43419), not the highest
> number in the first thread (43380).
>
> Ken