Re: mail-sources versus select-methods

[Richard Riley <rileyrg@googlemail.com>]

david.goldberg6@verizon.net (Dave Goldberg) writes:

>> Leonidas Tsampros <ltsampros@upnet.gr> writes:
>>> Richard Riley <rileyrg@googlemail.com> writes:
>>>> Undoubtedly an incredibly naive question but why would one use
>>>> mail-sources over select-methods?
>>>> 
>
> One doesn't.  They are two complementary things.
>
Hi,

But one can. And I'm not clear what is best.

One does not have to set up mail-sources. It can all be done in
secondary methods - e.g see the nnimap select-method in the manual for
gmail:-


     (setq gnus-select-method
           '(nnimap "imap.gmail.com"))


> A backend is the entity from where Gnus reads email.  You pick your backends
> through select methods.  Some back ends work by communicating directly with a
> server, think nnimap, nntp.  Others, such as nnml or nnfolder, look for mail on
> the local system.  In most cases, these backends are just directories of files.
> The population of those directories can be done in a myriad of ways.  If Gnus is
> going to be doing the populating, the mail-sources specification is how you tell
> Gnus to do it.

Or via the select method/secondary select method as above. Or am I
seriously confused here? 

thanks

r.