From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.emacs.gnus.general/23437 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Per Abrahamsen Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.gnus.general Subject: Re: some mail annoyances Date: 22 Jun 1999 14:53:35 +0200 Organization: The Church of Emacs Sender: owner-ding@hpc.uh.edu Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: coloc-standby.netfonds.no Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: main.gmane.org 1035161170 2011 80.91.224.250 (21 Oct 2002 00:46:10 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@main.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2002 00:46:10 +0000 (UTC) Cc: ding@gnus.org Return-Path: Original-Received: from bart.math.uh.edu (bart.math.uh.edu [129.7.128.48]) by sclp3.sclp.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id IAA27022 for ; Tue, 22 Jun 1999 08:55:07 -0400 (EDT) Original-Received: from sina.hpc.uh.edu (lists@Sina.HPC.UH.EDU [129.7.3.5]) by bart.math.uh.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id HAB32658; Tue, 22 Jun 1999 07:54:34 -0500 (CDT) Original-Received: by sina.hpc.uh.edu (TLB v0.09a (1.20 tibbs 1996/10/09 22:03:07)); Tue, 22 Jun 1999 07:54:54 -0500 (CDT) Original-Received: from sclp3.sclp.com (root@sclp3.sclp.com [204.252.123.139]) by sina.hpc.uh.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id HAA09455 for ; Tue, 22 Jun 1999 07:54:43 -0500 (CDT) Original-Received: from sheridan.dina.kvl.dk (sheridan.dina.kvl.dk [130.225.40.227]) by sclp3.sclp.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id IAA26979 for ; Tue, 22 Jun 1999 08:53:43 -0400 (EDT) Original-Received: from my.dina.kvl.dk (my.dina.kvl.dk [130.225.40.137]) by sheridan.dina.kvl.dk (8.9.0.Beta5/8.9.0.Beta5) with SMTP id OAA18330; Tue, 22 Jun 1999 14:53:56 +0200 Original-Received: by my.dina.kvl.dk (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id OAA22429; Tue, 22 Jun 1999 14:53:35 +0200 Original-To: Per Bothner X-Face: +kRV2]2q}lixHkE{U)mY#+6]{AH=yN~S9@IFiOa@X6?GM|8MBp/ In-Reply-To: Per Bothner's message of "21 Jun 1999 17:36:24 -0700" Original-Lines: 75 User-Agent: Gnus/5.070084 (Pterodactyl Gnus v0.84) Emacs/20.3 Precedence: list X-Majordomo: 1.94.jlt7 Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.gnus.general:23437 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.gnus.general:23437 Per Bothner writes: > * If in the Summary group, I do M-g in my mail group to check for new > mail, after new mail is read, point does to the *following* group. > That's silly default; point should stay at the group I just got > more mail for. Not if you want to fetch new messages for several groups, I do that often for foreign nntp groups. > * As far as I can tell, there is no command to get new mail/news > from the summary buffer. This means I have to quit the Summary > buffer, type M-g, then back up, and *then* type space. As > well as being inconvenient, it inefficient for Gnus to re-load > the existing messages. M-g works in the summary buffer. > * If I enter a group, point normally goes to the first unread message. > But if (say) there is only a single new message, that message becomes > the last line in the window, while point goes to the *middle* of the > window. When the list of ticked messages is long, it starts showing > the first old message, rather than the first new message. I haven't noticed that. > * In general, the Gnus defaults for mail are quite clumsy. > For example, there should be a single command to delete (make > expirable) messages and move to the next. I ended up doing: > > (add-hook 'gnus-summary-mode-hook 'my-alter-summary-map) > (defun my-alter-summary-map () > (local-set-key "d" 'gnus-summary-put-mark-as-expirable-next)) Use `E' for that. > More generally, for mail the natural classification is old messages, > new messages, and deleted messages. Once I have deleted a > message, I normally don't want to see it. However, I would like > to be able to see old messages. If I do plain space in the Group > buffer, I only see new and ticked messages. But if I do ^U-space > I get *all* the messages, including the expired ones. This means > that to get what I consider normal behavior (as in most other MUAs) > I must take one of two acrtions for each new message: Either tick it > if I want to save it, or delete it (make expireable) otherwise. > Sometimes I forget. This is not very friendly. You can set `Expiry Wait' to `immidiate' and `Display' to `all' in the group properties (G c). However, more important: Gnus is not mail reader. It is a news reader, which happens to handle mail as well. As long as you keep thinking in the news paradigm, Gnus is very friendly. > * Bottom line: Gnus is not usable as a mail reader for non-hacker > types. There are just too many options, there is no introductory > manual, and the defaults are non-intuitive. Even setting it up > so it suitable for non-hackers is difficult. I ended up setting > up my boyfriend to use VM. He is not 100% happy with VM, but > I don't see how gnus could be an option. That is a shame. VM is an excellent mail reader, and in itself a good reason why Gnus should keep working like a news reader. If you want a mail reader that works according to normal mail reader conventions, VM is there. However, if you really want to treat your mailbox as a newsspool, Gnus is the answer. > * In there any commend to re-number the messages in a mail folder? > I'm used to mhe, which would re-use numbers on expired messages, > and when teh numbers approaches 10000, I would run an mh command > to renumber the entire folder. Yes, this is an esthetic issue, > not really important ... You can't renumber the usenet messages, why should you be able to renumber mail messages? Makes no sense from the Gnus point of view.