Washing mail permanently

Washing mail permanently

[Fredrik Glöckner]

I would like a function that cleans some of my mail archive
permanently, that is: It should remove (long) signatures, remove
surplus quotations and so on to save disk space.  My mail archives are
in nnml format, and some of the actual files are compressed.

Have anybody got experience as to how such a function should look
like?  Is there support in Gnus for doing such things?

Fredrik

Re: Washing mail permanently

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Fredrik "Glöckner" <fredrik.glockner@bio.uio.no> writes:

> I would like a function that cleans some of my mail archive
> permanently, that is: It should remove (long) signatures, remove
> surplus quotations and so on to save disk space.  My mail archives are
> in nnml format, and some of the actual files are compressed.
> 
> Have anybody got experience as to how such a function should look
> like?  Is there support in Gnus for doing such things?

There isn't any support for doing this, but it could be done from
Gnus.  In essence: go through all nnml groups, select all articles,
and for each article, run the required washing functions, delete the
invisible text and do an `nnml-request-replace-article'.

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

Re: Washing mail permanently

[Paul Franklin]

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>>>>> Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen writes:

 > Fredrik "Glöckner" <fredrik.glockner@bio.uio.no> writes:

 >> I would like a function that cleans some of my mail archive
 >> permanently, that is: It should remove (long) signatures, remove
 >> surplus quotations and so on to save disk space.  My mail archives are
 >> in nnml format, and some of the actual files are compressed.

 >> Have anybody got experience as to how such a function should look
 >> like?  Is there support in Gnus for doing such things?

 > There isn't any support for doing this, but it could be done from
 > Gnus.  In essence: go through all nnml groups, select all articles,
 > and for each article, run the required washing functions, delete the
 > invisible text and do an `nnml-request-replace-article'.

Hmm.  At least for some washing functions, this is fairly easy, due to 
what might actually be a bug.

Take this example:
	W q e C-c C-c
(This word-wraps the current message, edits it, and immediately exits
from editing.)

Even though you didn't make any changes while editing, the message
gets saved, and it's now word-wrapped forever.

I regularly take advantage of this feature (misfeature?).

--Paul

Re: Washing mail permanently

[Kai Grossjohann]

>>>>> On 04 Jan 1998, Paul Franklin said:

  Paul> Take this example:
  Paul> 	W q e C-c C-c
  Paul> (This word-wraps the current message, edits it, and immediately exits
  Paul> from editing.)

  Paul> Even though you didn't make any changes while editing, the message
  Paul> gets saved, and it's now word-wrapped forever.

This is nice.  But I think that Gnus needs an article editing function
which edits the original representation.  Suppose you were using a
MIME package which transformed an important attached file into "Press
C-c C-c here to unpack file" or "[application/x-latex]" or something.
Not too good!

How about e editing the original article, and C-u e editing the
displayed version of it?

kai
-- 
Kai Grossjohann, Informatik VI        grossjohann@ls6.cs.uni-dortmund.de
Uni Dortmund, D-44221 Dortmund        http://ls6-www.cs.uni-dortmund.de/
                                      Vox +49 231 755 5670, Fax -2405
I like both kinds of music.

Re: Washing mail permanently

[Steinar Bang]

>>>>> Kai Grossjohann <grossjohann@charly.cs.uni-dortmund.de>:

> This is nice.  But I think that Gnus needs an article editing function
> which edits the original representation.  Suppose you were using a
> MIME package which transformed an important attached file into "Press
> C-c C-c here to unpack file" or "[application/x-latex]" or something.
> Not too good!

Quite!

Actually this has happened to me from time to time with Gnus+TM, when
I have forgotten to do M-t before editing the article.

As Kai says: not too good!

Re: Washing mail permanently

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Kai Grossjohann <grossjohann@charly.cs.uni-dortmund.de> writes:

> How about e editing the original article, and C-u e editing the
> displayed version of it?

I've put something like this on the todo list.

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