TODO suggestion: Cancel <number of articles> limit

TODO suggestion: Cancel <number of articles> limit

[Hallvard B Furuseth]

Once in a while, I wish for a command to cancel the <number of articles>
limit which is taken from the prefix argument when the group is entered.

It should not hide old articles, but it would make `/ D' and `/ *'
display all dormant / cached articles instead those inside the <number
of articles> limit.  It would have to show all ticked articles, since
there is no `gnus-summary-limit-include-ticked' command.  I don't care
if what it does about unread articles that were excluded by the old
limit; my interest is in the case when I'm looking at old articles.

What do people use that limit for, anyway?  It's good when I don't want
Gnus to show all the *unread* articles, but it's never what I want when
I use it to read recent *old* articles.


I thought of this because of the recent `show dormants' thread --
The TODO list contains the item

   *  command to display all dormant articles.

which I think is due to me.  Please erase that item and replace it with
my suggestion above; then `/ D' can be used to dispaly all dormants.

-- 
Hallvard

Re: TODO suggestion: Cancel <number of articles> limit

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Hallvard B Furuseth <h.b.furuseth@usit.uio.no> writes:

> Once in a while, I wish for a command to cancel the <number of articles>
> limit which is taken from the prefix argument when the group is entered.

Isn't that what `Z R' is for?

> What do people use that limit for, anyway?

If I have a group with 25000 articles and only want the last 10.

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

Re: TODO suggestion: Cancel <number of articles> limit

[Hallvard B Furuseth]

Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:
>> Once in a while, I wish for a command to cancel the <number of articles>
>> limit which is taken from the prefix argument when the group is entered.
> 
> Isn't that what `Z R' is for?

No, I mean - don't delete the articles that *are* in the buffer, just
don't limit anymore.  That is, errrm...  Maybe this is what I mean:

I don't want the "number of articles" limit to affect articles that are
marked somehow: ticked, dormant, cached articles.

Yea.  That's it.  Maybe.  Something like that, anyway.

>> What do people use that limit for, anyway?
> 
> If I have a group with 25000 articles and only want the last 10.

Yup.  I was thinking of *keeping* the limit after the group has been
entered and the initial articles to display have been chosen, sort of.
See above.

-- 
Hallvard

Re: TODO suggestion: Cancel <number of articles> limit

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Hallvard B Furuseth <h.b.furuseth@usit.uio.no> writes:

> I don't want the "number of articles" limit to affect articles that are
> marked somehow: ticked, dormant, cached articles.

You want `C-u 1 0 RET' to fetch the last ten unread articles, plus all
ticked, dormant and cached articles?

Uhm...  It's not something that I would want to use, I think.

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

Re: TODO suggestion: Cancel <number of articles> limit

[Hallvard B Furuseth]

Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:
>Hallvard B Furuseth <h.b.furuseth@usit.uio.no> writes:
> 
>> I don't want the "number of articles" limit to affect articles that are
>> marked somehow: ticked, dormant, cached articles.
> 
> You want `C-u 1 0 RET' to fetch the last ten unread articles, plus all
> ticked, dormant and cached articles?

No, the last ten unread articles, plus all ticked articles.
`/D' and `/*' would fetch all dormant and cached articles.

I want the "max number of articles" limit to be weaker than the "fetch
all dormants/ticked/cached" limit.

> Uhm...  It's not something that I would want to use, I think.

So how *do* you check out a single two-weeks-old dormant article in a
high-volume group?  Catchup, mark one article as unread, fetch that
unread article, and `/D'?

-- 
Hallvard

Re: TODO suggestion: Cancel <number of articles> limit

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Hallvard B Furuseth <h.b.furuseth@usit.uio.no> writes:

> So how *do* you check out a single two-weeks-old dormant article in a
> high-volume group?  Catchup, mark one article as unread, fetch that
> unread article, and `/D'?

Ok, I see your point.  I don't want to change the semantics of
`C-u 1 0 RET', though, so it would have to be a new command or
something...   Hm.

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

Re: TODO suggestion: Cancel <number of articles> limit

[Hallvard B Furuseth]

> Uhm...  It's not something that I would want to use, I think.

Did you notice that this is nearly the "Seeing just the cached articles"
thread in another guise?  Looks like what we are all asking for is a
command "enter a group without getting any articles (except ticked ones,
maybe)".  Without having to give that pesky prefix argument the way it
works now.  Which would let us use `/*' and `/D' (and /!:-).

-- 
Hallvard