Getting rid of the primary/secondary distinction (was: Streamlining first-time Gnus usage)

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org>]

Julien Danjou <julien@danjou.info> writes:

> Or we just force every methods to have a prefix, so we only handle
> something that looks like current secondary methods?

Yes, I think that would be clearer.  Then there wouldn't be any subtle
issues of which method gets to be unprefixed and stuff.

However, I don't know how I'd like having all the groups be prefixed.
Then I think the group buffer, at least, should be displayed
differently.  Perhaps just do everything, er, like so:

imap      4342244: misc.unanswered
nntp           23: gmane.discuss
nntp            *: gnu.emacs.gnus

and not mention the complete prefixed name...

However, commands that expect group names will still expect group names,
so people would have to deal with the complete names at some point.
Although it's easier now, since the completion code has gotten so much
better.  I never type a complete name with `j' any more, but just some
random string from the middle of the group name.

This would actually be really easy to implement.

`gnus-select-method' would just default to nnnil, as Adam suggested.
`gnus-methods' would default to `gnus-secondary-select-methods' (for
legacy purposes).  So new users would only use `gnus-methods', while
older users could continue to use their old stuff.

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