Re: Mutt/Gnus hybrid for mail?

[Peter Davis <pfd@pfdstudio.com>]

Thanks, Eric,

Comments below ...

Eric S Fraga <e.fraga@ucl.ac.uk> writes:

> On Tuesday,  9 Dec 2014 at 07:49, Peter Davis wrote:
>>
>
>> 3) delete the current message, and move to and read the next message.
>
> E
>
> These commands do exactly what you want, for me, when both summary and
> article windows are displayed and summary window is selected.

The 'E' command does not open the next message. It merely moves the
cursor in the Summary buffer. The Article buffer still displays the
just-expired message content. I have to press the spacebar to see the
next message. This may seem like a small point, but if I'm trying to
bang through lots of messages, it's an annoyance. Mutt wins on this.

>
>> If I'm on the last message in the mutt index and I delete that, mutt
>> simply closes the 'pager' view and just displays the index view for the
>> whole screen.
>
> In gnus, if you hit space or n to go to the next email, and if you
> happen to be at the last message, gnus will prompt to go to the next
> group if you hit the same key again.
>

Yes, I'm aware of that. I mentioned this mutt behavior because, if I can
somehow get gnus to actually display the next message, then being on the
last message in the Summary would require special handling.

>>
>> 2) Opening a group/mailbox
>>
>> In mutt, when I open a mailbox (group), I see an index of all the
>> messages in the mailbox, with the cursor positioned at the first unread,
>> if any. I like that,
>
> gnus does exactly this for me.
>

For me, Summary only shows the unread messages, and not even the rest of
the threads they belong to (unless I type 'A T').

>> but I'd settle for seeing all of the threads
>> containing any unread messages. As I understand it,
>> gnus-fetch-old-headers is supposed to do that, but I haven't found a way
>> to make it work, at least with Fastmail.fm IMAP.
>
> nothing to do with the source of emails.  have you tried enabling the
> gnus agent?
>
>>
>> For extra credit, in mutt's index (Summar) view, I can very easily
>> filter the list of messages with a few keystrokes. For instance, if I
>> type lpfd, I'll see just a list of messages whose headers contain
>> "pfd". Of course, this is not especially useful in gnus since the
>> Summary buffer doesn't show me a long list of earlier messages, but if I
>> could make that happen, it would be very useful.
>
> /spfd RET should do what you want.  You  may need to /o first.  then /w
> to pop back to previous view.
>

The 'l' command in mutt is not search, it's limit ... it limits the
display to messages matching some criteria. Admittedly I haven't
searched exhaustively for gnus features to mimic this, but I didn't see
any obvious ones. Of course, as I said, since only unread messages show
up in the Summary, this is not very useful in gnus.


> maybe post your .gnus.el?

Sure. Here it is. It's cobbled together from bits and pieces I found in
various places, so I'm sure it's not optimal.

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
;; @see http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/gnus/Expiring-Mail.html
;; press 'E' to expire email
(setq nnmail-expiry-target "INBOX.Trash")
(setq nnmail-expiry-wait 'immediate)
(setq user-mail-address "pfd@pfdstudio.com")
(setq user-full-name "Peter Davis")
(setq gnus-fetch-old-headers t)

(setq gnus-select-method
      '(nnimap "Fastmail" ; primary email
		(nnimap-address "mail.messagingengine.com")
		(nnimap-server-port 993)
		(nnimap-authenticator login)
		(nnimap-expunge-on-close 'never)
		(nnimap-stream ssl)
))

(setq gnus-article-browse-delete-temp t)
(setq gnus-fetch-old-headers t)
(setq message-sendmail-envelope-from 'header)
(setq send-mail-function 'smtpmail-send-it
      message-send-mail-function 'smtpmail-send-it)
(setq smtpmail-default-smtp-server "smtps-proxy.messagingengine.com"
      smtpmail-smtp-server "smtps-proxy.messagingengine.com"
      smtpmail-smtp-service 80
      smtpmail-starttls-credentials '(("smtps-proxy.messagingengine.com" 80 nil nil)))
(setq smtpmail-stream-type 'tls)

(setq fill-flowed-display-column nil)

(add-hook 'gnus-article-mode-hook
  (lambda ()
    (setq
     truncate-lines nil
     word-wrap t)))

(setq gnus-posting-styles
      '((".*"
         (name "Peter Davis")
         (address "pfd@pfdstudio.com")
         (BCC "pfd@pfdstudio.com"))))

(setq gnus-html-frame-width 180)
(defun my-message-mode-setup ()
  (setq fill-column 72)
  (turn-on-auto-fill))
(add-hook 'message-mode-hook 'my-message-mode-setup)

;;switch to gnus group buffer or start gnus
(defun my-switch-to-gnus-group-buffer ()
  "Switch to gnus group buffer if it exists, otherwise start gnus"
  (interactive)
  (if (or (not (fboundp 'gnus-alive-p))
          (not (gnus-alive-p)))
      (gnus)
    (switch-to-buffer "*Group*")))
(global-set-key (kbd "C-c n") 'my-switch-to-gnus-group-buffer)

(setq-default
     gnus-summary-line-format "%U%R%z %(%&user-date;  %-15,15f  %B%s%)\n"
     gnus-user-date-format-alist '((t . "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M"))
     gnus-summary-thread-gathering-function 'gnus-gather-threads-by-references
     gnus-thread-sort-functions '(gnus-thread-sort-by-date)
     gnus-sum-thread-tree-false-root ""
     gnus-sum-thread-tree-indent " "
     gnus-sum-thread-tree-leaf-with-other "├► "
     gnus-sum-thread-tree-root ""
     gnus-sum-thread-tree-single-leaf "└► "
     gnus-sum-thread-tree-vertical "│")
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---