Offline body retrieval

Offline body retrieval

[uzs452]

Hi,

I want to use
Quassia Gnus v0.15; nntp 5.0; nnvirtual 1.1; nnmh 1.0; nndraft 1.0

with a modem ppp-dialup. So I added
 
(add-hook 'gnus-summary-mode-hook 'gnus-pick-mode)
(gnus-agentize)

to ~/.gus.el. I can read news online without problems. But I want to dial
up, get new headers in all subscribed groups, get marked article bodies,
post my articles and disconnect from the net. I can mark articles for
download with J # (Mark as downloadable) in pick-mode. But how can I
download only these article bodies ? With /Agent/Fetch/All or
/Agent/Fetch/Group I get _all_ new articles with bodies. 

Is this feature not yet implemented or have I missed the obvious way ? IMO
this would become a FAQ if qgnus is out of beta.

Johannes Niess

Re: Offline body retrieval

[Mike McEwan]

uzs452@ibm.rhrz.uni-bonn.de writes:

> to ~/.gus.el. I can read news online without problems. But I want to dial
> up, get new headers in all subscribed groups, get marked article bodies,
> post my articles and disconnect from the net. I can mark articles for
> download with J # (Mark as downloadable) in pick-mode. But how can I
> download only these article bodies ? With /Agent/Fetch/All or
> /Agent/Fetch/Group I get _all_ new articles with bodies. 
> 
> Is this feature not yet implemented or have I missed the obvious way ? IMO
> this would become a FAQ if qgnus is out of beta.

  Yes, I would like to use Quassia as well. However, with each
iteration (and yes I *know* its only alpha), I download, install and
see if the 'agent' has been modified to behave in a way I can
comprehend :-).

  Amongst others, I've been having the same problems as yourself in
trying to selectively download news articles. The manual is, as yet
very scant, but the little information provided does seem to imply
that the agent can handle such things.

  I've also been unable to fathom out how to just obtain say the last
few hundred headers of newly subscribed groups, and not all 5000+ :-(.

  Fetching new news articles also has me stumped (and I think you're
beginning to understand why I'm still on 5.4.67 & leafnode :-)). I've
conducted comparisons between what leafnode downloads (via 5.4.67) and
what the agent downloads when I do a 'J u' or 'J s'. With very little
rhyme or reason (to me at least), the agent does not appear to fetch
as many new article headers/bodies, in-fact it usually downloads
nothing - I fruitlessly try a few more 'J u's and 'J s's, eventually
give up and retreat to the comfortable confines of 5.4.67 and await
the next Quassia release.

  I feel I must be missing something rather obvious here, so if anyone
can add to my sense of mental inadequacy, please do. Yes (again), I
know Quassia is still alpha, but I'd still like to use it for its
offline capabilities and get rid of leafnode. 

  Any info on how others are use 'agent' features, much appreciated.

-- 
Regards, Mike. 
 

Re: Offline body retrieval

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Mike McEwan <mike@lotusland.demon.co.uk> writes:

>   I've also been unable to fathom out how to just obtain say the last
> few hundred headers of newly subscribed groups, and not all 5000+ :-(.

Have the default agent category score down all old(er) articles.

>   Fetching new news articles also has me stumped (and I think you're
> beginning to understand why I'm still on 5.4.67 & leafnode :-)). I've
> conducted comparisons between what leafnode downloads (via 5.4.67) and
> what the agent downloads when I do a 'J u' or 'J s'. With very little
> rhyme or reason (to me at least), the agent does not appear to fetch
> as many new article headers/bodies, in-fact it usually downloads
> nothing - I fruitlessly try a few more 'J u's and 'J s's, eventually
> give up and retreat to the comfortable confines of 5.4.67 and await
> the next Quassia release.

`J u' downloads nothing?  What does it do, then?

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

Re: Offline body retrieval

[Mike McEwan]

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

> `J u' downloads nothing?  What does it do, then?

  Nothing - despite the fact that leafnode might download several
articles for the same newsgroup.

  OK - how's it all supposed to work? I start gnus 'unplugged', start
my ppp link and then go 'J j' (gnus-plugged). 'J s' or 'J u' results
in all too quick 'finished fetching new news' (or whatever). 'g'
doesn't update the unread article numbers in the group buffer, but '3
g' does. *Then* 'J s' or 'J u' will download new articles and I can
then go 'J j', select the requisite group and read new articles.

  Now here's another frustrating thing - when I then 'q' out of the
summary buffer and then 'q' out of gnus altogether, the new articles
mysteriously vanish when I start gnus up again. I've also managed to
achieve the same undesirable result by merely 'q'ing from the summary
buffer and then performing 'g' - ...poof, the unread article count
goes down for said group, taking the new articles with it!!?

  I'm really not having much fun here as I decided to leap from the
shores of 5.4.67 & leafnode and become fully 'agentized' with Quassia
0.17. I may require a little hand-holding here. What precisely should
I be doing in a normal Quassia gnus session to obtain and retain new
news articles? Is it (or can it be) 'gnus-unplugged' -> ppp link up ->
'J j' -> 'J s' or 'J u' and watch it all flood in, or do I have to do
a 'g' or 'numeric-prefix  g' first and then proceed?

  The initial population of my newsgroups with articles was fine its
just getting the new stuff to go in there with them.
  
  TIA for some details here, or should I clamber back on the shores of
5.4.67 and await the full ocean-going Quassia ;-).
  
-- 
Mike.

Re: Offline body retrieval

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Mike McEwan <mike@lotusland.demon.co.uk> writes:

>   OK - how's it all supposed to work? I start gnus 'unplugged', start
> my ppp link and then go 'J j' (gnus-plugged). 'J s' or 'J u' results
> in all too quick 'finished fetching new news' (or whatever). 'g'
> doesn't update the unread article numbers in the group buffer, but '3
> g' does. *Then* 'J s' or 'J u' will download new articles and I can
> then go 'J j', select the requisite group and read new articles.

What is your `gnus-read-active-file' variable?

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

Re: Offline body retrieval

[Mike McEwan]

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

> Mike McEwan <mike@lotusland.demon.co.uk> writes:
> 
> >   OK - how's it all supposed to work? I start gnus 'unplugged', start
> > my ppp link and then go 'J j' (gnus-plugged). 'J s' or 'J u' results
> > in all too quick 'finished fetching new news' (or whatever). 'g'
> > doesn't update the unread article numbers in the group buffer, but '3
> > g' does. *Then* 'J s' or 'J u' will download new articles and I can
> > then go 'J j', select the requisite group and read new articles.
> 
> What is your `gnus-read-active-file' variable?
> 
 'some'

-- 
Mike.

Re: Offline body retrieval

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Mike McEwan <mike@lotusland.demon.co.uk> writes:

> > What is your `gnus-read-active-file' variable?
> > 
>  'some'

That's what I also use.  I'm unable to reproduce this bug.  Try
running Emacs with -q.

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

Re: Offline body retrieval

[Mike McEwan]

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

> Mike McEwan <mike@lotusland.demon.co.uk> writes:
> 
> > > What is your `gnus-read-active-file' variable?
> > > 
> >  'some'
> 
> That's what I also use.  I'm unable to reproduce this bug.  Try
> running Emacs with -q.
> 

  Well I tried `xemacs -q' and loaded my .gnus manually. No joy.This
was to try and rule out anything strange in my .emacs right?  I've
included my environment details below just in case anything jumps
out. Interesting reading eh :-)

  I have noticed a few things, but I'm still at a loss as to what the
controlling factors are. As mentioned previously, 'g' in the group
buffer does not appear to update the unread article count (at least
most of the time - I may have seen it do so once or twice). A '3 g' in
the group buffer *does* update the unread article count and I can then
download these articles with a 'J s' or 'J u'.

  Again, as previously mentioned, I can then go 'J j' and read the
downloaded articles. Upon restarting gnus or conducting a 'g',
however, the unread article count appears to revert to the figures
that were correct *before* I downloaded the new articles. Looking in
~/News/agent/nntp/somewhere.com/agent.lib/active reveals that the
numbers in respect of a given newsgroup do indeed reflect the number
of unread articles *prior* to the last download??? The .agentview,
.overview and article files in the /somewhere.com news hierarchy *do*
show/contain the last downloaded articles.

  Shouldn't the .../somewhere.com/agent.lib/active file reflect what
is contained in the agent news hierarchy files?

  Much puzzled.

-- 
Mike.  

Quassia Gnus v0.17; nntp 5.0; nnvirtual 1.1; nnml 1.0; nnmh 1.0; nndoc
1.0; nndraft 1.0; nnfolder 1.0; nnagent 1.0 XEmacs 19.16 "Lille"
[Lucid] (i386-pc-linux) of Sun Nov 2 1997 on lotusland.demon.co.uk

------------------ Environment follows ------------------

(setq gnus-select-method
      '(nntp "news.demon.co.uk"))
(setq gnus-message-archive-group "Sent_News-Postings_&_Mail")
(setq gnus-secondary-select-methods
      '((nnml "")))
(setq gnus-article-display-hook
      '(gnus-article-highlight gnus-article-hide-headers-if-wanted
gnus-article-hide-boring-headers gnus-article-treat-overstrike
gnus-article-maybe-highlight gnus-article-display-x-face
gnus-smiley-display))
(setq gnus-plugged nil)
(setq gnus-thread-sort-functions
      '(gnus-thread-sort-by-number gnus-thread-sort-by-subject
gnus-thread-sort-by-date gnus-thread-sort-by-score))
(setq gnus-summary-mode-hook
      '(gnus-agent-mode gnus-xmas-switch-horizontal-scrollbar-off
gnus-xmas-setup-summary-toolbar gnus-xmas-summary-menu-add))
(setq gnus-group-mode-hook
      '(gnus-agent-mode gnus-xmas-setup-group-toolbar gnus-xmas-group-menu-add))
(setq gnus-article-x-face-command
      'gnus-xmas-article-display-xface)
(setq gnus-article-mode-hook
      '(gnus-xmas-article-menu-add))
(setq gnus-setup-news-hook
      '(gnus-agent-queue-setup))
(setq gnus-asynchronous nil)
;; (makeunbound 'gnus-use-article-prefetch)
;; (makeunbound 'gnus-prefetched-article-deletion-strategy)
;; (makeunbound 'gnus-use-header-prefetch)
;; (makeunbound 'gnus-async-prefetch-article-p)
;; (makeunbound 'gnus-global-score-files)
;; (makeunbound 'gnus-score-file-single-match-alist)
;; (makeunbound 'gnus-score-file-multiple-match-alist)
;; (makeunbound 'gnus-score-file-suffix)
;; (makeunbound 'gnus-adaptive-file-suffix)
;; (makeunbound 'gnus-score-find-score-files-function)
;; (makeunbound 'gnus-score-interactive-default-score)
;; (makeunbound 'gnus-score-expiry-days)
;; (makeunbound 'gnus-update-score-entry-dates)
;; (makeunbound 'gnus-orphan-score)
;; (makeunbound 'gnus-decay-scores)
;; (makeunbound 'gnus-decay-score-function)
;; (makeunbound 'gnus-score-decay-constant)
;; (makeunbound 'gnus-score-decay-scale)
;; (makeunbound 'gnus-home-score-file)
;; (makeunbound 'gnus-home-adapt-file)
;; (makeunbound 'gnus-default-adaptive-score-alist)
;; (makeunbound 'gnus-ignored-adaptive-words)
;; (makeunbound 'gnus-default-ignored-adaptive-words)
;; (makeunbound 'gnus-default-adaptive-word-score-alist)
;; (makeunbound 'gnus-score-mimic-keymap)
;; (makeunbound 'gnus-score-exact-adapt-limit)
;; (makeunbound 'gnus-score-uncacheable-files)
;; (makeunbound 'gnus-score-default-header)
;; (makeunbound 'gnus-score-default-type)
;; (makeunbound 'gnus-score-default-fold)
;; (makeunbound 'gnus-score-default-duration)
;; (makeunbound 'gnus-score-after-write-file-function)
;; (makeunbound 'gnus-topic-mode)
(setq gnus-topic-mode-hook
      '(gnus-xmas-topic-menu-add))
;; (makeunbound 'gnus-topic-line-format)
;; (makeunbound 'gnus-topic-indent-level)
;; (makeunbound 'gnus-topic-display-empty-topics)
(setq nnmail-split-methods
      '(("GNUS" "^To:.*gnus")
	("GNUS" "^CC:.*gnus")
	("GNUS" "^To:.*ding")
	("GNUS" "^CC:.*ding")
	("INCOMING" "")))
(setq nnmail-spool-file "~/Mail/INBOX")
(setq message-from-style
      'angles)
(setq message-required-news-headers
      '(From Newsgroups Subject Date Message-ID
	     (optional . Organization)
	     Lines
	     (optional . X-Newsreader)
	     X-No-Archive))
(setq message-send-mail-function
      'gnus-agent-send-mail)
(setq message-post-method
      '(nnspool ""))
(setq message-setup-hook
      '((lambda nil
	  (if
	      (message-news-p)
	      (setq message-signature-file "~/.signature-news")
	    (setq message-signature-file "~/.signature-mail")))))
(setq message-mode-hook
      '(message-xmas-maybe-fontify))
(setq message-header-setup-hook
      '(gnus-inews-insert-archive-gcc gnus-inews-insert-gcc))
(setq message-signature-file "~/.signature-mail")

Re: Offline body retrieval

[Mike McEwan]

  Apologies for following up to myself here, but I'm still trying to
get to the bottom of things with the `agent', albeit rather
fruitlessly.

  Can anyone tell me what the difference in processing is between
conducting a `g' in the group buffer and a `3 g' if all my subscribed
groups are at level 3?

  Quassia still seems reluctant to fetch new articles with 'g', but
will happily update the unread article count and fetch them with `3
g'. The `agent.lib' active file however, does not appear to be updated 
when using this method.

  I can see that the articles have been successfully downloaded in the 
`agent.lib' history. Why doesn't the `active' file reflect this?

-- 
Mike. 

    

Re: Offline body retrieval

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Mike McEwan <mike@lotusland.demon.co.uk> writes:

>   Can anyone tell me what the difference in processing is between
> conducting a `g' in the group buffer and a `3 g' if all my subscribed
> groups are at level 3?

`3 g' will ask each and every group for info, while `g' only requests
the active file.

>   Quassia still seems reluctant to fetch new articles with 'g', but
> will happily update the unread article count and fetch them with `3
> g'. The `agent.lib' active file however, does not appear to be updated 
> when using this method.

Yes.

What's your `gnus-read-active-file' variable?

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

Re: Offline body retrieval

[Mike McEwan]

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

> Mike McEwan <mike@lotusland.demon.co.uk> writes:
> >
> >   Quassia still seems reluctant to fetch new articles with 'g', but
> > will happily update the unread article count and fetch them with `3
> > g'. The `agent.lib' active file however, does not appear to be updated 
> > when using this method.
> 
> Yes.

  What I meant to say was that the `agent.lib' active file does not
get updated having conducted a `3 g' to update the unread article
count, and *then* a `J s' (or `J u').
> 
> What's your `gnus-read-active-file' variable?

  Well I realise you've been away from this list a while, but it's
still `some' :-).

-- 
Mike.

Re: Offline body retrieval

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Mike McEwan <mike@lotusland.demon.co.uk> writes:

> > >   Quassia still seems reluctant to fetch new articles with 'g', but
> > > will happily update the unread article count and fetch them with `3
> > > g'. The `agent.lib' active file however, does not appear to be updated 
> > > when using this method.
> > 
> > Yes.
> 
>   What I meant to say was that the `agent.lib' active file does not
> get updated having conducted a `3 g' to update the unread article
> count, and *then* a `J s' (or `J u').

Yes.  :-)

I'm not saying that this is correct behavior at all, but that is the
current that of affairs.  The agent will not put things into its
active file when doing `M-g' (or `3 g', which is the same thing, only
on a larger scale).

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

Re: Offline body retrieval

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

uzs452@ibm.rhrz.uni-bonn.de writes:

> But how can I download only these article bodies ? With
> /Agent/Fetch/All or /Agent/Fetch/Group I get _all_ new articles with
> bodies.

Make the default agent category contain just `false'.  Then no
articles will be downloaded.  Mark the articles you want to be
downloaded with the `@' command.

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