wish: nnmarc.el ?

wish: nnmarc.el ?

[Ami Fischman]

Has anyone given any thought to supporting the mailing list archives at
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com?  They seem to have a large set of lists
(including several I'm interested in, obviously).  I could add the lists I
care about to mail-archive.com, but then I don't get a backlog of messages,
which I find very helpful (usually more than a current subscription).

Thanks,
-- 
  Ami Fischman
  usenet@fischman.org

Re: wish: nnmarc.el ?

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Ami Fischman <usenet@fischman.org> writes:

> Has anyone given any thought to supporting the mailing list archives at
> http://marc.theaimsgroup.com?  They seem to have a large set of lists
> (including several I'm interested in, obviously).  I could add the lists I
> care about to mail-archive.com, but then I don't get a backlog of messages,
> which I find very helpful (usually more than a current subscription).

I've had a quick look at the interface, and it seems quite sane.  The
HTML can be parsed easily, and each message has a unique indentifier,
so that Gnus can build id<->number maps for each group.

However, there is no overview over how many messages exists in each
mailing list archive, so implementing `nnmarc-request-list' can't be
done.  An `M-g'-like action will have to be taken to get the number of
articles in each archive, so if you subscribe to a lot of these
groups, it'll be somewhat slow.

If anybody else wants to implement this, I'm all for it.  :-)  If not,
I'll see what I can do later...

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

Re: wish: nnmarc.el ?

[Ami Fischman]

Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:

> However, there is no overview over how many messages exists in each
> mailing list archive, so implementing `nnmarc-request-list' can't be
> done.  An `M-g'-like action will have to be taken to get the number of
> articles in each archive, so if you subscribe to a lot of these
> groups, it'll be somewhat slow.

I'm not sure what you mean by the last sentence.  Indeed, I believe marc
will only show a month's index at a time, but gnus could be programmed to
ask for all the months that show up in the list page (i.e.,
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=openssh-unix-dev&r=1&w=2 ).  This would only
have to happen once per group (since presumabely old months don't acquire
new messages) and could happen the first time a group is subscribed.
Thereafter only the current month (or the current month and any months
between now and the last time the group was queried) would have to be
retrieved.

Or are you saying something completely seperate?

> If anybody else wants to implement this, I'm all for it.  :-)  If not,
> I'll see what I can do later...

I took a crack at it this afternoon (before posting originally), trying to
add source to nnwarchive.el, but quickly realized I really didn't understand
the purpose of each of the elements in the sources list.  While I would like
for you (or someone else) to implement this, I would also accept an
explanation as to how to add sources to nnwarchive :)

Thanks,
-- 
  Ami Fischman
  usenet@fischman.org

Re: wish: nnmarc.el ?

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Ami Fischman <usenet@fischman.org> writes:

>> However, there is no overview over how many messages exists in each
>> mailing list archive, so implementing `nnmarc-request-list' can't be
>> done.  An `M-g'-like action will have to be taken to get the number of
>> articles in each archive, so if you subscribe to a lot of these
>> groups, it'll be somewhat slow.
>
> I'm not sure what you mean by the last sentence.  Indeed, I believe marc
> will only show a month's index at a time, but gnus could be programmed to
> ask for all the months that show up in the list page (i.e.,
> http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=openssh-unix-dev&r=1&w=2 ).  This would only
> have to happen once per group (since presumabely old months don't acquire
> new messages) and could happen the first time a group is subscribed.
> Thereafter only the current month (or the current month and any months
> between now and the last time the group was queried) would have to be
> retrieved.
>
> Or are you saying something completely seperate?

Yes.  :-)  If you do `nnmarc-request-list' (if, for instance, you use
the browsing command -- `B nnmarc'), then that command would have to
do quite a lot of work to present a good overview.  But this is by no
means a showstopper; it's a limitation shared by some other web-based
back-ends.

> I took a crack at it this afternoon (before posting originally), trying to
> add source to nnwarchive.el, but quickly realized I really didn't understand
> the purpose of each of the elements in the sources list.  While I would like
> for you (or someone else) to implement this, I would also accept an
> explanation as to how to add sources to nnwarchive :)

Uhm...  Er...  ShengHuo?  :-)

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

Re: wish: nnmarc.el ?

[ShengHuo ZHU]

Ami Fischman <usenet@fischman.org> writes:

[...]

> I took a crack at it this afternoon (before posting originally), trying to
> add source to nnwarchive.el, but quickly realized I really didn't understand
> the purpose of each of the elements in the sources list.  While I would like
> for you (or someone else) to implement this, I would also accept an
> explanation as to how to add sources to nnwarchive :)

Having a quick look http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/, I found the site is
similar to mail-archive. So you can use mail-archive as a template.
The elements in the definition are as following:

address:  basically just a name, e.g. marc.theaimsgroup.com ;

open-url: a url to login the web site. For marc, it is nil ;

list-url: the url to list all groups, e.g. 
          http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/;

list-dissect: a function to analysis the list-url page and update
              nnwarchive-groups ;

list-groups: a function to update nnwarchive-groups for given groups .

xover-url: the url (pattern) to list the overview, e.g.
       http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=openssh-unix-dev&r=1&b=200201&w=2

xover-last-url: similar to xover-url but only for the last page of
                the overview.

xover-dissect:  a function to analysis xover-url page;

article-url:  the url (pattern) of a certain article, e.g.
  http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=openssh-unix-dev&m=101147459718342&w=2

article-dissect: a function to reformat article-url page

xover-files: a function to control which xover-url pages to fetch

authentication: set to nil

article-offset: a number used to map Gnus article number to the real
    article number.

I hope it helps you to implement the feature. Anyway, I think it would
be better if you put your code into the CVS, then I (or someone else)
can help to debug it later.  (Actually, I am afraid I have little time
to do so in a month. And I really got to find some time to fix the
yahoogroups feature. :-( )

ShengHuo