From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.emacs.gnus.general/41602 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: prj@po.cwru.edu (Paul Jarc) Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.gnus.general Subject: Re: `gnus-unseen-mark' everywhere Date: Fri, 04 Jan 2002 20:00:27 -0500 Organization: What did you have in mind? A short, blunt, human pyramid? Sender: owner-ding@hpc.uh.edu Message-ID: References: <86elld3ptd.fsf@i2d.home> <86666nc1a0.fsf@i2d.home> NNTP-Posting-Host: coloc-standby.netfonds.no Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: main.gmane.org 1035176973 7068 80.91.224.250 (21 Oct 2002 05:09:33 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@main.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2002 05:09:33 +0000 (UTC) Return-Path: Original-Received: (qmail 8574 invoked from network); 5 Jan 2002 01:01:31 -0000 Original-Received: from malifon.math.uh.edu (mail@129.7.128.13) by mastaler.com with SMTP; 5 Jan 2002 01:01:31 -0000 Original-Received: from sina.hpc.uh.edu ([129.7.128.10] ident=lists) by malifon.math.uh.edu with esmtp (Exim 3.20 #1) id 16MfCZ-0006zb-00; Fri, 04 Jan 2002 19:00:47 -0600 Original-Received: by sina.hpc.uh.edu (TLB v0.09a (1.20 tibbs 1996/10/09 22:03:07)); Fri, 04 Jan 2002 19:00:39 -0600 (CST) Original-Received: from sclp3.sclp.com (qmailr@sclp3.sclp.com [209.196.61.66]) by sina.hpc.uh.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id TAA11161 for ; Fri, 4 Jan 2002 19:00:26 -0600 (CST) Original-Received: (qmail 7835 invoked by alias); 5 Jan 2002 01:00:28 -0000 Original-Received: (qmail 7825 invoked from network); 5 Jan 2002 01:00:28 -0000 Original-Received: from multivac.student.cwru.edu (HELO multivac.cwru.edu) (qmail-remote@129.22.96.25) by gnus.org with SMTP; 5 Jan 2002 01:00:28 -0000 Original-Received: (qmail 25221 invoked by uid 500); 5 Jan 2002 01:00:49 -0000 Original-To: ding@gnus.org In-Reply-To: (Simon Josefsson's message of "Fri, 04 Jan 2002 23:44:35 +0100") Mail-Copies-To: nobody Mail-Followup-To: ding@gnus.org Original-Lines: 70 User-Agent: Gnus/5.090005 (Oort Gnus v0.05) Emacs/20.7 (i386-redhat-linux-gnu) Precedence: list X-Majordomo: 1.94.jlt7 Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.gnus.general:41602 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.gnus.general:41602 Simon Josefsson wrote: > If a article is seen or not is determined by Gnus. Yes, but I'm thinking of a user who doesn't care whether Gnus thinks it has seen the article before, and might find the "seen" mark a convenient way of representing some other information instead. > Now, seen marks might be stored in the backend but if the backend > would start to modify the value, it would have the same semantics as > recent, no? I think that would depend on what sort of action would automatically set or unset the mark, if any. > Well, OK, a backend could use different algorithms for deciding which > articles are seen and which are recent, but then we would have to > invent another mark that reflects Gnus's opinion and not the > backend's. No, users who like "seen" the way it is would simply not abuse it to make it mean something different. If backends were to store "seen" marks, but never change them automatically, then the semantics would be unaffected. > I'm not sure that having two backend-controlled marks that indicate > readedness is needed. If the mark is being abused, then it may well have nothing to do with readness. > Right, seen is used as an indicator to the user to display what Gnus > thinks of the article. Recent is used as an indicator to the user to > display what the backend thinks of the article. If the user is in control of the marks, then the marks mean whatever the user wants them to mean. (But that includes the possibility of the meanings you describe, if that's what the user wants.) >> - Gnus does not make it easy for the user to define arbitrary new mark >> types. > > I think it is pretty easy. Just write a command, jas-add-flonk-mark, > that adds a mark to the current article (using either the backend > interface or modifying the group info or modifying a summary local > variable, depending on what you want). Then write a summary buffer %U > function to display the mark. Ah, I didn't know that. But are we sure that no part of Gnus will break when finding a mark it has never heard of? And does the manual say we can rely on that? >> a user might want to adjust the meaning of "seen" in such a way >> that the backend could have the most up-to-date copy. > > Isn't controlling the recent mark in the backend enough? User-defined marks are enough. "Recent" is partly under the control of the server behind the backend (when there is one), so it might not be easily subverted. > Just write a function that queries the user for a name of the mark and > set it. I guess Group Info wasn't made to support this usage, but the > only problem would be slowing things down. If another data structure > for group info was used, it would be fast. What's wrong with the group info data structure? Why would it be any slower for user-defined marks than for standard marks? paul