address lists?

address lists?

[Bud Rogers]

Is there a way either in gnus or bbdb to send mail to a small list of
addresses?  I'd like to send mail to the 4 or 5 members of a study group
using one address.  I know I could do it with /etc/aliases, but that
presumes root access.  Surely there's a simple gnus/bbdb method available
to ordinary users.


-- 

Bud Rogers <budr@sirinet.net>

Re: address lists?

[Kai Großjohann]

Bud Rogers <budr@sirinet.net> writes:

> Is there a way either in gnus or bbdb to send mail to a small list of
> addresses?

You can use `* m' to send a message to all the people displayed in the
BBDB buffer.  Adding a common notes entry to the people from your
study group is a convenient way to be able to display just those
people.

There's also a way to do it with the .mailrc file.  Gnus automatically
expands aliases from the .mailrc file if you hit SPC or TAB after
entering an alias into the To or Cc header.

> I'd like to send mail to the 4 or 5 members of a study group using
> one address.

That's a different question altogether and requires root access on
your machine.

You could, however, fake it like this:

    To: (my study group)
    Bcc: john, paul, judy

This way, the To header just contains a comment, and the Bcc header
will not be sent.  Hence, the recipients just see the To header.  This
would be straight forward to do with the .mailrc approach, and would
require some manual editing of the headers using the BBDB approach.
(But the editing involved could surely be automated with a kbd macro
or the like.)

kai
-- 
Life is hard and then you die.

Re: address lists?

[Jody M. Klymak]

>>>>> "BR" == Bud Rogers <budr@sirinet.net> writes:

    BR> Is there a way either in gnus or bbdb to send mail to a small
    BR> list of addresses?  I'd like to send mail to the 4 or 5
    BR> members of a study group using one address.  I know I could do
    BR> it with /etc/aliases, but that presumes root access.  Surely
    BR> there's a simple gnus/bbdb method available to ordinary users.

Hi Bud,

Use your .mailrc.  In mine I have 

alias folks \
"Name1 Lastname1 <name1@boo.com>", \
"Name4 Lastname4 <name4@boo4.com>", \
"Name3 Lastname3 <name3@boo3.com>", \
"Name2 Lastname2 <name2@boo2.com>"

Then I type "folks" on the To: line (or the Bcc: as Kai suggested),
and press <space> to get the completion.

Cheers,  Jody
-- 
Jody Klymak                         APL/School of Oceanography,
Doctoral Candidate                  University of Washington
mailto:jklymak@apl.washington.edu   (206)-685-9080
http://www.ocean.washington.edu/people/grads/jklymak/

Re: address lists?

[Henrik Holm]

[Bud Rogers:]
> Is there a way either in gnus or bbdb to send mail to a small
> list of addresses?  I'd like to send mail to the 4 or 5
> members of a study group using one address.  I know I could do
> it with /etc/aliases, but that presumes root access.  Surely
> there's a simple gnus/bbdb method available to ordinary users.

[Jody M. Klymak:]
> Use your .mailrc.  In mine I have 
> 
> alias folks \
> "Name1 Lastname1 <name1@boo.com>", \
> "Name4 Lastname4 <name4@boo4.com>", \
> "Name3 Lastname3 <name3@boo3.com>", \
> "Name2 Lastname2 <name2@boo2.com>"

Hi Bud, Jody and Kai,

There is also a way of doing this by utilizing BBDB only.  Some of my
BBDB posts contain the field `mail-alias'.  For instance, john, paul and
judy's BBDB posts contains the field `mail-alias' with the value
`mylist'.  Typing `mylist<SPC>' in the `To:' field of my message causes
`mylist' to be expanded to the mail addresses of john, paul and judy.
This provides the same functionality as having `mylist' specified in
.mailrc as described above, but I do not need to maintain two lists.

Also, I have added the line 
(add-hook 'message-setup-hook 'bbdb-define-all-aliases) 
to my .gnus .

You might want to have a look at the four last paragraphs of the *Mail
Sending Interfaces* node in the Info pages for BBDB.

This might be an important issue: my .mailrc is empty, since I've moved
all my addresses into the BBDB batabase.  I don't know wether that is
important, but it might be!

NOTE: I am not currently using pGnus (I'm using Gnus 5.7).  If anything
I have mentioned above does not apply to pGnus, please correct me,
anyone!

Henrik.

-- 
Henrik Holm, Research fellow    ---    Dept. of Telecommunications, NTNU
mailto:Henrik.Holm@tele.ntnu.no  -  http://www.tele.ntnu.no/users/henrik
                            Currently visiting Dept. of Informatics, UiB

Re: address lists?

[Jody M. Klymak]

>>>>> "HH" == Henrik Holm <henrikh@ii.uib.no> writes:

Hi Henrik,

    HH> There is also a way of doing this by utilizing BBDB only.
    HH> Some of my BBDB posts contain the field `mail-alias'.  For
    HH> instance, john, paul and judy's BBDB posts contains the field
    HH> `mail-alias' with the value `mylist'.  Typing `mylist<SPC>' in
    HH> the `To:' field of my message causes `mylist' to be expanded
    HH> to the mail addresses of john, paul and judy.  This provides
    HH> the same functionality as having `mylist' specified in .mailrc
    HH> as described above, but I do not need to maintain two lists.

I use BBDB for most things, but not for lists.  Is there an efficient
way of making your list, or do you have to search on each of john, paul,
judy's names and enter the list entry manually?  The nice thing about the
.mailrc is you simply type the lists in right there.  It also makes
them fairly easy to manage.  I'm not sure what you mean by "two lists"
since I only use the .mailrc for lists.

    HH> This might be an important issue: my .mailrc is empty, since
    HH> I've moved all my addresses into the BBDB batabase.  I don't
    HH> know wether that is important, but it might be!

Not for my set-up.  I have both BBDB and .mailrc w/o any problems.

Cheers,  Jody
-- 
Jody Klymak                         APL/School of Oceanography,
Doctoral Candidate                  University of Washington
mailto:jklymak@apl.washington.edu   (206)-685-9080
http://www.ocean.washington.edu/people/grads/jklymak/

Re: address lists?

[Norbert Koch]

"Jody M. Klymak" <jklymak@apl.washington.edu> writes:

> I use BBDB for most things, but not for lists.  Is there an efficient
> way of making your list, or do you have to search on each of john, paul,
> judy's names and enter the list entry manually?  The nice thing about the
> .mailrc is you simply type the lists in right there.  It also makes
> them fairly easy to manage.  I'm not sure what you mean by "two lists"
> since I only use the .mailrc for lists.

I assume you already have a field mail-alias with your bbdb-records. 
Now, if you append the name of the (list) alias to the fields of those
people in the list, you can type the list and get it expanded.

Umpf, does this make sense?

Norbert.

Re: address lists?

[Jody M. Klymak]

>>>>> "lykos" == Norbert Koch <n.koch@eai-delta.de> writes:

    "Jody M. Klymak" <jklymak@apl.washington.edu> writes:
    >> I use BBDB for most things, but not for lists.  Is there an
    >> efficient way of making your list, or do you have to search on
    >> each of john, paul, judy's names and enter the list entry
    >> manually?  The nice thing about the .mailrc is you simply type
    >> the lists in right there.  It also makes them fairly easy to
    >> manage.  I'm not sure what you mean by "two lists" since I only
    >> use the .mailrc for lists.

    lykos> I assume you already have a field mail-alias with your
    lykos> bbdb-records.  Now, if you append the name of the (list)
    lykos> alias to the fields of those people in the list, you can
    lykos> type the list and get it expanded.

    lykos> Umpf, does this make sense?

Yes, I understand how it works once it is set-up. My question is
whether I am missing something about the set-up process.  Going
through my bbdb finding all the list members, and then adding the
list name to mail-alias seems like a lot of work compared to typing
the list name followed by a list fo recipients.  Is there an easier
way? - perhaps an elisp snippet bbdb-mannage-list that lets me enter a
list name and then type (with completion of course!) the members of my
list?  That would be useful.  Instead however, I simply use .mailrc.
My mailing list needs are meager anyhow.

Cheers,  Jody


-- 
Jody Klymak                         APL/School of Oceanography,
Doctoral Candidate                  University of Washington
mailto:jklymak@apl.washington.edu   (206)-685-9080
http://www.ocean.washington.edu/people/grads/jklymak/

Re: address lists?

[Kai Großjohann]

Jody M. Klymak <jklymak@apl.washington.edu> writes:

> Yes, I understand how it works once it is set-up. My question is
> whether I am missing something about the set-up process.  Going
> through my bbdb finding all the list members, and then adding the
> list name to mail-alias seems like a lot of work compared to typing
> the list name followed by a list fo recipients.

You're right.  .mailrc is simple and as such good for simple needs.  I
think you _could_ make it so that the right people are displayed in
the BBDB buffer and then use kbd macros to add the mail-alias field to
each record, but since you're happy with .mailrc already, this would
be too much trouble, I guess.

kai
-- 
Life is hard and then you die.

Re: address lists?

[Colin Rafferty]

Jody M Klymak writes:

> I use BBDB for most things, but not for lists.  Is there an efficient
> way of making your list, or do you have to search on each of john, paul,
> judy's names and enter the list entry manually?  

Unfortunately, you have to add it manually for each entry in your
list.

> The nice thing about the .mailrc is you simply type the lists in
> right there.  

However, you have to know the email addresses of each of the people
that you want to put in your list.  This means that you have to look
them up anyway in bbdb.  At least, that's my view.

> It also makes them fairly easy to manage.  

To see the list `mylist' just type:

        M-x bbdb-notes RET mail-alias RET mylist RET

There's everyone in your mailing list, along with all the nice notes.

One problem with the .mailrc method is if one of the people on your
list changes addresses.  You now have to make the change in both .bbdb
and .mailrc.

-- 
Colin Rafferty
BBDB Evangelist

Re: address lists?

[Henrik Holm]

On 25 Oct 1999 09:24:16 -0700, Jody M. Klymak wrote:

> >>>>> "HH" == Henrik Holm <henrikh@ii.uib.no> writes:

Hi Jody,

>     HH> [...]  This provides
>     HH> the same functionality as having `mylist' specified in .mailrc
>     HH> as described above, but I do not need to maintain two lists.
> 
> I use BBDB for most things, but not for lists.  

I am sorry, I did not make myself sufficiently clear... and I used
the term `list' for two things, which is bad.  I consider BBDB
to be my `address list' -- and before I got to know BBDB, `.mailrc' was
my address list.  So that is why I was talking about `two lists'.  

> Is there an efficient way of making your list, or do you have to
> search on each of john, paul, judy's names and enter the list entry
> manually?  The nice thing about the .mailrc is you simply type the
> lists in right there.

You're perfectly right, I do have to search on each of john, paul, judy's
names (and maybe even entering them into the BBDB if they're not there,
of course), and then C-o the field mail-alias containing the list name.
This might be a bit more work than typing the list in the .mailrc.

> It also makes them fairly easy to manage.  I'm not sure what you mean
> by "two lists" since I only use the .mailrc for lists.

Here is where I confused you with my speaking of `two lists'.  When john
is in the .mailrc file in addition to the BBDB, I have to maintain his
entry both places.  That is, if john changes his email address, I have
to change both .mailrc and BBDB.

>     HH> This might be an important issue: my .mailrc is empty, since
>     HH> I've moved all my addresses into the BBDB batabase.  I don't
>     HH> know wether that is important, but it might be!
> 
> Not for my set-up.  I have both BBDB and .mailrc w/o any problems.

That is good.  There might be a problem if lists (and aliases) are
implemented in both the BBDB and .mailrc, but since you don't utilise
the mail-alias field in BBDB it is certainly not a problem.

I hope I managed to explain better this time... it is certainly not my
intention to criticise the .mailrc way of maintaining lists!

Regards, Henrik

-- 
Henrik Holm, Research fellow    ---    Dept. of Telecommunications, NTNU
mailto:Henrik.Holm@tele.ntnu.no  -  http://www.tele.ntnu.no/users/henrik
                            Currently visiting Dept. of Informatics, UiB