online vs offline available articles conflict resolution

online vs offline available articles conflict resolution

[Neil Crellin]

I've just been burnt both ways by this and am wondering if there can't
be some sort of optional warning to prevent it or at least make it
less painful.

Online beating offline: If I haven't done a "J s" recently enough and
accidentally enter a group for which I've seen article numbers online
I've not read, gnus treats them as if already expired I guess, and I
have a devil of a time finding which articles I hadn't already read
next time I'm online.

Offline beating online: This can cause the same problem in reverse.
Having diligently loaded the Agent for several weeks but having no
time to catch up in fa.linux.kernel, I could pleasantly read through
the last 10k articles offline at my leisure.  Today I entered the
group while online, and the server only has 1.5k articles and gnus
updated my number of unread articles due to the articles expired on
the server.  Presumably I can still go back and read them offline
after some pain, but I wish I didn't have to keep getting caught in
one or other of these contortions.

Is there some way of making this less painful?  Perhaps if visiting
groups while offline there were some metadatum kept regarding the last
known to be downloaded article the Agent grabbed, and not killing
anything in a range past that?  What about the other way?  When there
are unread articles available in the Agent but not on the server, it
seems a crime to mark those as expired and unavailable.

-- 
Neil Crellin <neilc@wallaby.cc>

Re: online vs offline available articles conflict resolution

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Neil Crellin <neilc@cadabra.com> writes:

> Online beating offline: If I haven't done a "J s" recently enough and
> accidentally enter a group for which I've seen article numbers online
> I've not read, gnus treats them as if already expired I guess, and I
> have a devil of a time finding which articles I hadn't already read
> next time I'm online.

Yes, that's a pain.

> Is there some way of making this less painful?  Perhaps if visiting
> groups while offline there were some metadatum kept regarding the last
> known to be downloaded article the Agent grabbed, and not killing
> anything in a range past that?  What about the other way?  When there
> are unread articles available in the Agent but not on the server, it
> seems a crime to mark those as expired and unavailable.

The problem with the Agent is that is Almost Works.  I mean, I use it
constantly, and with my usage pattern, and if I'm careful, I see no
glitches.

Fixing it up completely is something, I think, that will require a
redesign. 

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