Is this an off-the wall suggestion or what?

Is this an off-the wall suggestion or what?

[Harry Putnam]

Note: Sorry to repost but feared this message was hidden under a
misleading subject.
Comments please...


Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com> writes:

> I want to search my collection of ding articles for any instance of
> messages containing information about using message IDs.  I want to do
> the same in Gnus.emacs.gnus.
> 
> I don't want to have to find the messages one by one and read enough
> to see if they are about what I want to know.
> 
> I want to find all instances that contain the info and then be able to
> look at the subject lines and authors in a summary buffer.
> A limited view of the findings.
> 
> Can this be done with currant Quassia-gnus?
> 

There seems to be very little interest in having the ability to generate
a limited view based on a regexp search of text bodies of messages.
Glimpse has been proposed several times as a way to get that result.

In my view Glimpse would be a very weak sister compared to a built in
ability to generate a limited view on the basis of regexp search of
bodies.

With Quassias new abilities as off line reader it now makes sense to be
able to search a group (even across groups) for regexp in bodies and be
presented with a limited view in summary buffer of the findings.
With many articles stored on disk (at least temp.) then a search of this
kind is fast  and very usefull.

Kiboze groups have also been proposed as a similar technique- although
my reading of the sections on it indicate it would be considerably more
involved than a simple regexp search.

I have only limited experience with gnus and emacs or computing in
general so maybe there are reasons why a regexp search of bodies with
limited view is not a practical possiblity.

Is this an off the wall suggestion or what?

-- 

Harry Putnam  reader@newsguy.com

Re: Is this an off-the wall suggestion or what?

[Hrvoje Niksic]

Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com> writes:

> There seems to be very little interest in having the ability to
> generate a limited view based on a regexp search of text bodies of
> messages.

If it means anything to (or anyone), I support you.  It would
definitely be cool to type, say, `/ b' and be able to limit view based 
on a body-search regexp.

The current `M-s' command is good, but it doesn't create a limit.

-- 
Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic@srce.hr> | Student at FER Zagreb, Croatia
--------------------------------+--------------------------------
Idle RAM is the Devil's playground.

Re: Is this an off-the wall suggestion or what?

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic@srce.hr> writes:

> If it means anything to (or anyone), I support you.  It would
> definitely be cool to type, say, `/ b' and be able to limit view based 
> on a body-search regexp.

I've added this to the todo list.

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

Re: Is this an off-the wall suggestion or what?

[Lloyd Zusman]

Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com> writes:

> Note: Sorry to repost but feared this message was hidden under a
> misleading subject.
> Comments please...
> 
> 
> Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com> writes:
> 
> > I want to search my collection of ding articles for any instance of
> > messages containing information about using message IDs.  I want to do
> > the same in Gnus.emacs.gnus.
> > 
> > I don't want to have to find the messages one by one and read enough
> > to see if they are about what I want to know.
> > 
> > I want to find all instances that contain the info and then be able to
> > look at the subject lines and authors in a summary buffer.
> > A limited view of the findings.
> > 
> > Can this be done with currant Quassia-gnus?
> > 
> 
> [ ... ]
> 
> With Quassias new abilities as off line reader it now makes sense to be
> able to search a group (even across groups) for regexp in bodies and be
> presented with a limited view in summary buffer of the findings.
> With many articles stored on disk (at least temp.) then a search of this
> kind is fast  and very usefull.
> 
> [ ... ]
> 
> Is this an off the wall suggestion or what?

I also would find this to be very useful.  I download news via a
cron-based background process, so all the news I access is within a
local spool at the time it's being read.  The functionality you
suggest would run fast under this configuration.

I already make use of `gnus-summary-search-article-forward' to find
individual articles whose bodies contain strings that match regexps
of my choosing.  This function already gets us part of the way there
towards the capabilities you are suggesting.

Perhaps instead of a limited view in the summary buffer, this could be
done via some sort of virtual newsgroup: the user enters a regexp in
the summary buffer, and all articles which have bodies (or headers and
bodies) that match this regexp will appear as entries in a newly
created, ad hoc newsgroup.  I think that such an ad hoc newsgroup
might be easier to implement in Gnus as it stands today than 
a limited view in the summary buffer.

To discourage abuse of something like this, perhaps by default, it
would only work in cases where Gnus can determine that the news
resides on a locally accessible disk ... with a variable to override
this behavior for those who really want to do so.  And imagine what
would happen if someone used this within `nnkiboze' groups!!! ...
perhaps it would have to be necessary to invoke some kind of
complicated-to-code-and-hard-to-remember mumbo-jumbo before this
feature could be used in `nnkiboze' groups.

But all in all, I consider this to be worthwhile functionality.

-- 
 Lloyd Zusman
 ljz@asfast.com

Re: Is this an off-the wall suggestion or what?

[Harry Putnam]

Harry writes:

> > 
> > With Quassias new abilities as off line reader it now makes sense to be
> > able to search a group (even across groups) for regexp in bodies and be
> > presented with a limited view in summary buffer of the findings.
> > With many articles stored on disk (at least temp.) then a search of this
> > kind is fast  and very usefull.

Lloyd Zusman <ljz@asfast.com> writes:
> 
> I also would find this to be very useful.  I download news via a
> cron-based background process, so all the news I access is within a
> local spool at the time it's being read.  The functionality you
> suggest would run fast under this configuration.
> 
> I already make use of `gnus-summary-search-article-forward' to find
> individual articles whose bodies contain strings that match regexps
> of my choosing.  This function already gets us part of the way there
> towards the capabilities you are suggesting.
> 
> Perhaps instead of a limited view in the summary buffer, this could be
> done via some sort of virtual newsgroup: the user enters a regexp in
> the summary buffer, and all articles which have bodies (or headers and
> bodies) that match this regexp will appear as entries in a newly
> created, ad hoc newsgroup.  I think that such an ad hoc newsgroup
> might be easier to implement in Gnus as it stands today than 
> a limited view in the summary buffer.

One possible problem with using the above suggestion instead of a
"limited" view would be the easy and speed with which a reader could
change the regexp and thereby the summary buffer.  Currently it would
seem possible to use any number of searches and then pop them off the
stack as can be done now with limited views based on regexp.

Since Lars seems willing to consider putting this "OTL" I will elaborate
a little more (hopefully some will be interested):

1. Why not have it arranged so that a regexp based limited view could be
aimed against any of the full range of headers, not just subject and
author, but done with a mechanism similar to the one currently used to
create the regexp for score files in a group?  Or by hand

2.  Regexp search of bodies conducted in current group with ability to
create a limited view based on the regexp.

3.  Regexp search of bodies conducted in several or all groups with
summary lines and originating group info appearing in a new frame with
this format (or similar):

Originating newsgroup        author         summary-line

Comp.Qgnus.suggest           Harry          new search capability
Comp.Qgnus.suggest           Harry          Congrats to Lars for so much work

Comp.os.linux.newbie         Ralph F.       How to click on button
comp.os.linux.newbie         Carol J.       Which side of RH disk is up?


Where the summary lines would be buttons that when selected would call
up the full article in a split window with the cursor on the regexp
string.  Just as a normal summary buffer does, but with the added cursor
positioning.

-- 

Harry Putnam  reader@newsguy.com

Re: Is this an off-the wall suggestion or what?

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com> writes:

> 1. Why not have it arranged so that a regexp based limited view could be
> aimed against any of the full range of headers, not just subject and
> author, but done with a mechanism similar to the one currently used to
> create the regexp for score files in a group?  Or by hand
> 
> 2.  Regexp search of bodies conducted in current group with ability to
> create a limited view based on the regexp.

These are on the todo list.

> 3.  Regexp search of bodies conducted in several or all groups with
> summary lines and originating group info appearing in a new frame with
> this format (or similar):

This is not, however.  Much too much work.

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