* A road map for Oort Gnus @ 2001-04-14 10:31 Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen 2001-04-14 10:53 ` Alexandre Oliva ` (3 more replies) 0 siblings, 4 replies; 63+ messages in thread From: Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen @ 2001-04-14 10:31 UTC (permalink / raw) I think that we can say that we have a pretty feature-laden newsreader by now. And new features will be added, I'm sure, as we think of them. However, I don't think that is really what needs focus at this juncture. gnu.emacs.gnus is pretty busy. There seems to be quite a lot of new Gnus users -- my impression is that there's more new Gnus users now than ever before, which is pretty surprising. That view may be wrong, and it may just be that Gnus is attracting a new kind of user -- the kind that expects things to, like, work, and doesn't really put up with having to spend hours setting things up. This kind of user generates more traffic on the newsgroup than the hard-core computer hacker kind of person. Even so, I think Gnus should focus on ease of (initial) use. Ideally, someone who has never used Gnus before should be able to say `M-x gnus' and just having things work. That's not realistic, but I think it should be realistic to have the user spend less time than setting up, say, Outlook Express. There you have to maneuver through a quite large number of menus, and specify some quite bewildering settings, to get started. We can do better. However. Gnus is an Emacs newsreader. This is an important point. It is not our responsibility to explain Emacs to the user. It is not Outlook's responsibility to explain how to use a mouse, or what the "Start" menu in Windows means. Gnus runs under Emacs, and Emacs is its operating system. We must guide the user to appreciate the genius of Emacs; not to shield the user from its splendiferousness. These are quite general thoughts on Gnusiness, and I think there are probably many ways to achieve these goals. (If that's what we want to do. We may, perhaps, not want to do this.) Kai has suggested detecting whether the user is a first-time user, and then guiding her through the setup process. Per has suggested setup wizards. I have (on gnu.emacs.gnus, recently) suggested a different version of setup wizards. (I think. Perhaps I should repost it here?) So. Ideas? Thoughts? Flames? -- (domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.) larsi@gnus.org * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 63+ messages in thread
* Re: A road map for Oort Gnus 2001-04-14 10:31 A road map for Oort Gnus Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen @ 2001-04-14 10:53 ` Alexandre Oliva 2001-04-14 12:35 ` Per Abrahamsen 2001-04-14 10:57 ` A road map for Oort Gnus Robin S. Socha ` (2 subsequent siblings) 3 siblings, 1 reply; 63+ messages in thread From: Alexandre Oliva @ 2001-04-14 10:53 UTC (permalink / raw) On Apr 14, 2001, Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> wrote: > Kai has suggested detecting whether the user is a first-time user, > and then guiding her through the setup process. Per has suggested > setup wizards. I have (on gnu.emacs.gnus, recently) suggested a > different version of setup wizards. This would be definitely a good thing. I wonder if it would be hard to create such a wizard atop `custom'. I'm thinking of creating a sequence of customize screens with certain control decisions taken depending on certain variables customized in previous screens. I'm afraid I'm too far from being a custom expert to tell whether this is easy, or even feasible with the current custom features :-( -- Alexandre Oliva Enjoy Guarana', see http://www.ic.unicamp.br/~oliva/ Red Hat GCC Developer aoliva@{cygnus.com, redhat.com} CS PhD student at IC-Unicamp oliva@{lsd.ic.unicamp.br, gnu.org} Free Software Evangelist *Please* write to mailing lists, not to me ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 63+ messages in thread
* Re: A road map for Oort Gnus 2001-04-14 10:53 ` Alexandre Oliva @ 2001-04-14 12:35 ` Per Abrahamsen 2001-04-14 13:12 ` Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen 0 siblings, 1 reply; 63+ messages in thread From: Per Abrahamsen @ 2001-04-14 12:35 UTC (permalink / raw) Alexandre Oliva <oliva@lsd.ic.unicamp.br> writes: > This would be definitely a good thing. I wonder if it would be hard > to create such a wizard atop `custom'. That is basically what I suggested in <URL: http://www.dina.kvl.dk/~abraham/custom/gnus.html > except that it requires w3. That is, *don't* use your usual browser to see the above page, unless your usual browser if w3. Put the cursor above the URL, and type 'M-x w3-fetch <ret>'. It would need some more work to be really useful, but the real problem is that w3 is not integrated in Emacs. WM Perry hasn't time to do more than minimal maintainence, and nobody else have volunteered to take over w3 or w3 integration. I think using w3 would be the ultimate solution, but we could invent an ad-hoc markup language for the purpose. > I'm thinking of creating a sequence of customize screens with > certain control decisions taken depending on certain variables > customized in previous screens. I'm afraid I'm too far from being a > custom expert to tell whether this is easy, or even feasible with > the current custom features :-( Depending on how much control is needed, it could be build upon either custom or the widget library. I don't think the programming part will be that hard, the real challenge would be designing the wizards themselves. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 63+ messages in thread
* Re: A road map for Oort Gnus 2001-04-14 12:35 ` Per Abrahamsen @ 2001-04-14 13:12 ` Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen 2001-04-14 14:42 ` Wizards and W3 integration (was: Re: A road map for Oort Gnus) Per Abrahamsen 0 siblings, 1 reply; 63+ messages in thread From: Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen @ 2001-04-14 13:12 UTC (permalink / raw) Cc: William M. Perry Per Abrahamsen <abraham@dina.kvl.dk> writes: > It would need some more work to be really useful, but the real problem > is that w3 is not integrated in Emacs. WM Perry hasn't time to do > more than minimal maintainence, and nobody else have volunteered to > take over w3 or w3 integration. I think that w3 is an essential Emacs component. These days, most information is out there on the Web, and to access that, we need the URL library and the HTML parsing functions. In short, w3. It's going to become even more vital in the future, what with all these XML-RPC/SOAP thingies that are rearing their heads. Are anybody at the FSF dealing with these issues? It's not impossible that funding could be found for such a project, if that's the issue. (I suspect that it's more a question of time.) > I think using w3 would be the ultimate solution, but we could invent > an ad-hoc markup language for the purpose. I think that would be counter-productive. w3 is the way. Who do we bug to get things set in motion? (I've Cc'd this to Bill.) > Depending on how much control is needed, it could be build upon either > custom or the widget library. I don't think the programming part will > be that hard, the real challenge would be designing the wizards > themselves. If we had a proper framework for building wizards, I think writing the wizards themselves would be quite a lot of typing; yes, but not very complicated typing. I envision a kind of rule-based framework. "The user has input this and this information, and this and this exists on the system, so we present the user with this information and these choices." I don't think writing that kind of framework would be trivial... -- (domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.) larsi@gnus.org * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 63+ messages in thread
* Wizards and W3 integration (was: Re: A road map for Oort Gnus) 2001-04-14 13:12 ` Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen @ 2001-04-14 14:42 ` Per Abrahamsen 2001-04-14 15:22 ` Wizards and W3 integration Raymond Scholz ` (2 more replies) 0 siblings, 3 replies; 63+ messages in thread From: Per Abrahamsen @ 2001-04-14 14:42 UTC (permalink / raw) Cc: William M. Perry Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes: > Per Abrahamsen <abraham@dina.kvl.dk> writes: > > > It would need some more work to be really useful, but the real problem > > is that w3 is not integrated in Emacs. WM Perry hasn't time to do > > more than minimal maintainence, and nobody else have volunteered to > > take over w3 or w3 integration. > > I think that w3 is an essential Emacs component. That was my standpoint 7 years ago, and still is. > These days, most information is out there on the Web, and to access > that, we need the URL library and the HTML parsing functions. In > short, w3. It's going to become even more vital in the future, what > with all these XML-RPC/SOAP thingies that are rearing their heads. > > Are anybody at the FSF dealing with these issues? If "wishing someone would take up the project" counts as dealing, then yes. > It's not impossible that funding could be found for such a project, > if that's the issue. (I suspect that it's more a question of time.) I think so too. You need someone who is smart enough to understand both Emacs and W3, yet stupid enough to volunteer. Ops, did I say stupid? I meant, eh, "have time enough to spare". > > I think using w3 would be the ultimate solution, but we could invent > > an ad-hoc markup language for the purpose. > > I think that would be counter-productive. w3 is the way. I agree. However, that notion have delayed wizards for 7 years now. > Who do we bug to get things set in motion? (I've Cc'd this to > Bill.) I have CC'ed it to the Emacs developers list, both Setup Wizards and W3 integration are big questions that affect all of Emacs, not just Gnus. > > Depending on how much control is needed, it could be build upon either > > custom or the widget library. I don't think the programming part will > > be that hard, the real challenge would be designing the wizards > > themselves. > > If we had a proper framework for building wizards, I think writing the > wizards themselves would be quite a lot of typing; yes, but not very > complicated typing. It is not the typing that is hard, but the design. What are the really important questions for this application? Which things can be safely assume? How can we prensent the concept in a way the average user can understand? > I envision a kind of rule-based framework. "The user has input this > and this information, and this and this exists on the system, so we > present the user with this information and these choices." > > I don't think writing that kind of framework would be trivial... I envision a markup language with embedded widgets and embedded Lisp. Trivial stuff to implement, in fact, Bill Perry have already implemented it (not that W3 is trivial, but this part is). It just needs to be integrated, and an example wizard. As we get practical experience from writing wizards, we would write more widgets and more Lisp functions, making the progress evolutionary. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 63+ messages in thread
* Re: Wizards and W3 integration 2001-04-14 14:42 ` Wizards and W3 integration (was: Re: A road map for Oort Gnus) Per Abrahamsen @ 2001-04-14 15:22 ` Raymond Scholz 2001-04-14 15:45 ` Re[1]: Wizards and W3 integration (was: A road map for Oort Gnus) Eric M. Ludlam 2001-04-14 16:38 ` Wizards and W3 integration (was: " Eli Zaretskii 2 siblings, 0 replies; 63+ messages in thread From: Raymond Scholz @ 2001-04-14 15:22 UTC (permalink / raw) Per Abrahamsen <abraham@dina.kvl.dk> writes: > It is not the typing that is hard, but the design. What are the > really important questions for this application? Which things can be > safely assume? How can we prensent the concept in a way the average > user can understand? Just to second the idea of wizard like configuration for Gnubies and to increase my ego, I want to refer to a posting of mine on Robin's Gnus tutorial mailinglist some months ago. Back then, I was thinking of an online HTML formulars generated by a CGI script. So this comes close to the idea of using W3 for this task. https://mail.socha.net/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?5:mss:5:200012:kdbjlnbhehdagjnikpmh Cheers, Ray -- WYSIWYG is a step backwards. Human labor is used to do that which the computer can do better. (Andrew S. Tanenbaum) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 63+ messages in thread
* Re[1]: Wizards and W3 integration (was: A road map for Oort Gnus) 2001-04-14 14:42 ` Wizards and W3 integration (was: Re: A road map for Oort Gnus) Per Abrahamsen 2001-04-14 15:22 ` Wizards and W3 integration Raymond Scholz @ 2001-04-14 15:45 ` Eric M. Ludlam 2001-04-14 16:38 ` Wizards and W3 integration (was: " Eli Zaretskii 2 siblings, 0 replies; 63+ messages in thread From: Eric M. Ludlam @ 2001-04-14 15:45 UTC (permalink / raw) Cc: paulk, ding, emacs-devel, wmperry >>> Per Abrahamsen <abraham@dina.kvl.dk> seems to think that: >Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes: > >> Per Abrahamsen <abraham@dina.kvl.dk> writes: >> [ ... ] >> > Depending on how much control is needed, it could be build upon either >> > custom or the widget library. I don't think the programming part will >> > be that hard, the real challenge would be designing the wizards >> > themselves. >> >> If we had a proper framework for building wizards, I think writing the >> wizards themselves would be quite a lot of typing; yes, but not very >> complicated typing. > >It is not the typing that is hard, but the design. What are the >really important questions for this application? Which things can be >safely assume? How can we prensent the concept in a way the average >user can understand? > >> I envision a kind of rule-based framework. "The user has input this >> and this information, and this and this exists on the system, so we >> present the user with this information and these choices." >> >> I don't think writing that kind of framework would be trivial... > >I envision a markup language with embedded widgets and embedded Lisp. >Trivial stuff to implement, in fact, Bill Perry have already >implemented it (not that W3 is trivial, but this part is). It just >needs to be integrated, and an example wizard. As we get practical >experience from writing wizards, we would write more widgets and more >Lisp functions, making the progress evolutionary. [ ... ] Hello, On the concept of wizards, dialog boxes, what have you, Paul Kinnucan has a small wizard library, and a dialog box library which he wrote for dealing with the complexities of the JDE, and all the options it has. (I added Paul the CC list above so he can correct me if I make an error.) The dialog box stuff (which I am guessing would interest you most, since his wizards are targeted at code generation using tempo) is based on EIEIO (which I wrote, so naturally I think it's cool. FSF even has papers for it.) The idea is that he has several classes the create and manage dialog boxes using custom's widgets. To make a specific dialog box, you can inherit from a base class, and make a specific instance. This whole system is then wired into the `interactive' command to extra spiffy effect. So, the long and short of it is the `markup language' would be Emacs Lisp, but I doubt that would bum any Emacs hackers out. If it does, the FSF just so happens to have papers for my parser generator which would be perfect for parsing a simple deterministic invented data-language. Not to bomb William Perry's efforts or anything, HTML is great at this stuff too, and I like w3 in general. Just another angle where some solutions already exist. Eric -- Eric Ludlam: zappo@gnu.org, eric@siege-engine.com Home: www.ultranet.com/~zappo Siege: www.siege-engine.com Emacs: http://cedet.sourceforge.net GNU: www.gnu.org ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 63+ messages in thread
* Re: Wizards and W3 integration (was: Re: A road map for Oort Gnus) 2001-04-14 14:42 ` Wizards and W3 integration (was: Re: A road map for Oort Gnus) Per Abrahamsen 2001-04-14 15:22 ` Wizards and W3 integration Raymond Scholz 2001-04-14 15:45 ` Re[1]: Wizards and W3 integration (was: A road map for Oort Gnus) Eric M. Ludlam @ 2001-04-14 16:38 ` Eli Zaretskii 2001-04-16 16:49 ` Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen 2 siblings, 1 reply; 63+ messages in thread From: Eli Zaretskii @ 2001-04-14 16:38 UTC (permalink / raw) Cc: ding, emacs-devel, wmperry > From: Per Abrahamsen <abraham@dina.kvl.dk> > Date: 14 Apr 2001 16:42:18 +0200 > > I have CC'ed it to the Emacs developers list, both Setup Wizards and > W3 integration are big questions that affect all of Emacs, not just > Gnus. Windows users might know what setup wizards are (assuming that _I_ understood you correctly), but others probably don't. Regardless, someone should probably post a summary of the problem and previous discussions for those on emacs-devel who don't read ding. Also, Richard Stallman doesn't read emacs-devel, so if you want his opinion, CC him directly. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 63+ messages in thread
* Re: Wizards and W3 integration (was: Re: A road map for Oort Gnus) 2001-04-14 16:38 ` Wizards and W3 integration (was: " Eli Zaretskii @ 2001-04-16 16:49 ` Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen 2001-04-16 19:05 ` Eli Zaretskii ` (2 more replies) 0 siblings, 3 replies; 63+ messages in thread From: Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen @ 2001-04-16 16:49 UTC (permalink / raw) Cc: abraham, ding, emacs-devel, wmperry "Eli Zaretskii" <eliz@is.elta.co.il> writes: > Windows users might know what setup wizards are (assuming that _I_ > understood you correctly), but others probably don't. Regardless, > someone should probably post a summary of the problem and previous > discussions for those on emacs-devel who don't read ding. A "setup wizard" is a program that guides you through setting up something. As opposed to preference settings, a wizard lets you take only certain steps, and checks that the steps are reasonable. Let's take the simplest wizard possible: Starting reading news (and only news) with Gnus. The wizard would ask (after checking the environment as determining that the user has no previous preference) -- "do you want to read news from a local spool or from a news server?" If the user answers "local spool", the wizard would check whether there is a spool in any of the usual places, and if it finds one, it will suggest using that spool. If not, it will tell the user, and let the user determine what to do. (For instance, going back to choosing a news server.) The user says "news server", the wizard will try pinging "news.<isp-name>" to see whether that exists, and if it does, present that as the choice, and if not, etc. Ideally, a wizard should let the user press "Ok" several times, and the user should then have something that works. The name "setup wizard" sucks, though. "Setup Saint" would be much better. "Let Saint Ignucious Guide You." With a nice iconic Ignucious. Or something. Perhaps not. -- (domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.) larsi@gnus.org * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 63+ messages in thread
* Re: Wizards and W3 integration (was: Re: A road map for Oort Gnus) 2001-04-16 16:49 ` Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen @ 2001-04-16 19:05 ` Eli Zaretskii 2001-04-17 10:57 ` Per Abrahamsen 2001-04-16 20:28 ` Kai Großjohann 2001-04-16 20:57 ` Wizards and W3 integration Robin S. Socha 2 siblings, 1 reply; 63+ messages in thread From: Eli Zaretskii @ 2001-04-16 19:05 UTC (permalink / raw) Cc: abraham, ding, emacs-devel, wmperry > From: Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> > Date: 16 Apr 2001 18:49:12 +0200 > > Let's take the simplest wizard possible: Starting reading news (and > only news) with Gnus. The wizard would ask (after checking the > environment as determining that the user has no previous preference) > -- "do you want to read news from a local spool or from a news > server?" If the user answers "local spool", the wizard would check > whether there is a spool in any of the usual places, and if it finds > one, it will suggest using that spool. If not, it will tell the user, > and let the user determine what to do. (For instance, going back to > choosing a news server.) The user says "news server", the wizard will > try pinging "news.<isp-name>" to see whether that exists, and if it > does, present that as the choice, and if not, etc. Thanks for a nice summary. Given this description, I don't understand how did you get to discussing HTML and W3. This sounds like a possible extension of Customize, plus some glue to go through several options in a predefined order. Am I missing something? > Ideally, a wizard should let the user press "Ok" several times, and > the user should then have something that works. If the user needs just to press OK, then that user doesn't need a wizard: the defaults should be automatic. But this is nitpicking on my part, really. > The name "setup wizard" sucks, though. As does every buzzword Microsoft invents... > "Setup Saint" would be much > better. "Let Saint Ignucious Guide You." iGNUcious? ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 63+ messages in thread
* Re: Wizards and W3 integration (was: Re: A road map for Oort Gnus) 2001-04-16 19:05 ` Eli Zaretskii @ 2001-04-17 10:57 ` Per Abrahamsen 2001-04-17 13:25 ` Eli Zaretskii 0 siblings, 1 reply; 63+ messages in thread From: Per Abrahamsen @ 2001-04-17 10:57 UTC (permalink / raw) [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1556 bytes --] "Eli Zaretskii" <eliz@is.elta.co.il> writes: > Given this description, I don't understand how did you get to > discussing HTML and W3. This sounds like a possible extension of > Customize, plus some glue to go through several options in a > predefined order. Am I missing something? Basically, there are four proposals. #1. To use HTML with embedded customize widgets and Emacs Lisp as the basis for the saints. Basically, an interactive tutorial where you can set the options directly from the tutorial using embedded customize widget, with the smartness (if any) programmed with embedded Emacs Lisp. This is already implemented in Bill Perrys W3. Demonstration at <URL: http://www.dina.kvl.dk/~abraham/custom/gnus.html > (one embedded customize widget, no smartness). The page only make sense with Emacs W3. In your words, we would use HTML as the glue between the options. #2. Some kind of rule based knowledge base, proposed by Lars. I have no idea what this would #3. Use the saint foundation developed for JDE. Apparently, this is an Emacs Lisp only solution using a library build on top of customize and eieio. #4. A pure customize solution. The customize framework already allows special purpose groups with existing options listed in a specific order. I wrote one for Gnus as a demonstration, which I have attached to this message. Load the file, and type 'M-x gnus-virgin <ret>'. ... My preference is #1, but even though it is already implemented, it is mostly useless as long as w3 is not integrated in Emacs. [-- Attachment #2: Gnus Saint --] [-- Type: application/emacs-lisp, Size: 4262 bytes --] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 63+ messages in thread
* Re: Wizards and W3 integration (was: Re: A road map for Oort Gnus) 2001-04-17 10:57 ` Per Abrahamsen @ 2001-04-17 13:25 ` Eli Zaretskii 2001-04-17 13:43 ` Per Abrahamsen 2001-04-17 13:57 ` William M. Perry 0 siblings, 2 replies; 63+ messages in thread From: Eli Zaretskii @ 2001-04-17 13:25 UTC (permalink / raw) Cc: ding, emacs-devel, wmperry On 17 Apr 2001, Per Abrahamsen wrote: > Basically, there are four proposals. > > #1. To use HTML with embedded customize widgets and Emacs Lisp as the > basis for the saints. Basically, an interactive tutorial where you > can set the options directly from the tutorial using embedded > customize widget, with the smartness (if any) programmed with embedded > Emacs Lisp. [...] > My preference is #1 Could you tell why? Basically what I don't understand is how does HTML come into the equation. That is, why does it make sense to use HTML for such a purpose? ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 63+ messages in thread
* Re: Wizards and W3 integration (was: Re: A road map for Oort Gnus) 2001-04-17 13:25 ` Eli Zaretskii @ 2001-04-17 13:43 ` Per Abrahamsen 2001-04-17 15:13 ` Eli Zaretskii 2001-04-17 13:57 ` William M. Perry 1 sibling, 1 reply; 63+ messages in thread From: Per Abrahamsen @ 2001-04-17 13:43 UTC (permalink / raw) Eli Zaretskii <eliz@is.elta.co.il> writes: > Could you tell why? Basically what I don't understand is how does HTML > come into the equation. That is, why does it make sense to use HTML for > such a purpose? Why use a markup language as glue, or why use HTML as the markup language? Reasons to use a markup language as glue: ----------------------------------------- I'm more interested in the documentation aspects of the saint, than in the smartness aspect of the saint. In most cases, I prefer the saint to tell the user what to do, instead of just doing it. It doesn't hurt if the user learn the basic options during setup, so he easier can change them later. Markup languages are much better for documentation than Emacs Lisp or knowledge bases, that is why I prefer a markup language. Reasons to use HTML as a markup. -------------------------------- W3 already exists and its forms are based on the same widget library as customize which made it easier to . Also, HTML is well known, making it easier to get people to write saints. And because of the url library, everyone can write saints and place them on their homepage. For example, Gnus is very popular and has some very enthusiastic promoters in Germany. They would most likely create a German saint for Gnus, and link to it from the existing German Gnus pages. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 63+ messages in thread
* Re: Wizards and W3 integration (was: Re: A road map for Oort Gnus) 2001-04-17 13:43 ` Per Abrahamsen @ 2001-04-17 15:13 ` Eli Zaretskii 2001-04-17 15:34 ` Per Abrahamsen 0 siblings, 1 reply; 63+ messages in thread From: Eli Zaretskii @ 2001-04-17 15:13 UTC (permalink / raw) Cc: ding, emacs-devel, wmperry > From: Per Abrahamsen <abraham@dina.kvl.dk> > Date: 17 Apr 2001 15:43:30 +0200 > > Eli Zaretskii <eliz@is.elta.co.il> writes: > > > Could you tell why? Basically what I don't understand is how does HTML > > come into the equation. That is, why does it make sense to use HTML for > > such a purpose? > > Why use a markup language as glue, or why use HTML as the markup language? The former. > Reasons to use a markup language as glue: > ----------------------------------------- > > I'm more interested in the documentation aspects of the saint, than in > the smartness aspect of the saint. In most cases, I prefer the saint > to tell the user what to do, instead of just doing it. Thanks, I think I understand now. I was thinking about the other type of saint (the one which does the setup after asking some simple questions, instead of telling the user what to do). > Also, HTML is well known, making it easier to get people to write > saints. Well, assuming that the saind is written by the package author/maintainer, I think they would know enough Lisp as well. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 63+ messages in thread
* Re: Wizards and W3 integration (was: Re: A road map for Oort Gnus) 2001-04-17 15:13 ` Eli Zaretskii @ 2001-04-17 15:34 ` Per Abrahamsen 2001-04-17 15:44 ` Kai Großjohann 2001-04-17 15:45 ` Laura Conrad 0 siblings, 2 replies; 63+ messages in thread From: Per Abrahamsen @ 2001-04-17 15:34 UTC (permalink / raw) "Eli Zaretskii" <eliz@is.elta.co.il> writes: > Well, assuming that the saind is written by the package > author/maintainer, I think they would know enough Lisp as well. But Lisp is not a markup language. And the assumption is rarely true, as far as I can see most free software tutorials are written by someone else than the programmer. I suspect that the qualifications for writing robust and flexible software and easy to understand tutorials are very different. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 63+ messages in thread
* Re: Wizards and W3 integration (was: Re: A road map for Oort Gnus) 2001-04-17 15:34 ` Per Abrahamsen @ 2001-04-17 15:44 ` Kai Großjohann 2001-04-17 15:45 ` Laura Conrad 1 sibling, 0 replies; 63+ messages in thread From: Kai Großjohann @ 2001-04-17 15:44 UTC (permalink / raw) Cc: ding, emacs-devel, wmperry On 17 Apr 2001, Per Abrahamsen wrote: > And the assumption is rarely true, as far as I can see most free > software tutorials are written by someone else than the programmer. Maybe saints occupy a middle ground between gods^H^H^H^Hprogrammers and mere mortals^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hnonprogrammers. kai -- Be indiscrete. Do it continuously. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 63+ messages in thread
* Re: Wizards and W3 integration (was: Re: A road map for Oort Gnus) 2001-04-17 15:34 ` Per Abrahamsen 2001-04-17 15:44 ` Kai Großjohann @ 2001-04-17 15:45 ` Laura Conrad 1 sibling, 0 replies; 63+ messages in thread From: Laura Conrad @ 2001-04-17 15:45 UTC (permalink / raw) >>>>> "Per" == Per Abrahamsen <abraham@dina.kvl.dk> writes: Per> "Eli Zaretskii" <eliz@is.elta.co.il> writes: >> Well, assuming that the saind is written by the package >> author/maintainer, I think they would know enough Lisp as well. Per> But Lisp is not a markup language. Per> And the assumption is rarely true, as far as I can see most free Per> software tutorials are written by someone else than the programmer. I Per> suspect that the qualifications for writing robust and flexible Per> software and easy to understand tutorials are very different. Also, even if you have both sets of qualifications, right after designing and implementing a complicated piece of software isn't the best time to write the instructions for the beginner. -- Laura (mailto:lconrad@laymusic.org) http://www.laymusic.org : Putting live music back in the living room. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 63+ messages in thread
* Re: Wizards and W3 integration (was: Re: A road map for Oort Gnus) 2001-04-17 13:25 ` Eli Zaretskii 2001-04-17 13:43 ` Per Abrahamsen @ 2001-04-17 13:57 ` William M. Perry 2001-04-17 15:04 ` Eli Zaretskii 1 sibling, 1 reply; 63+ messages in thread From: William M. Perry @ 2001-04-17 13:57 UTC (permalink / raw) Cc: Per Abrahamsen, ding, emacs-devel Eli Zaretskii <eliz@is.elta.co.il> writes: > On 17 Apr 2001, Per Abrahamsen wrote: > > > Basically, there are four proposals. > > > > #1. To use HTML with embedded customize widgets and Emacs Lisp as the > > basis for the saints. Basically, an interactive tutorial where you > > can set the options directly from the tutorial using embedded > > customize widget, with the smartness (if any) programmed with embedded > > Emacs Lisp. > [...] > > My preference is #1 > > Could you tell why? Basically what I don't understand is how does HTML > come into the equation. That is, why does it make sense to use HTML for > such a purpose? One reason could be for linking to other web sites with specific information about where you are in the wizard. The current :link stuff in custom isn't really sufficient. Links should be in the flow of the main text, not at the end in a see-also section. Unfortunately with w3 effectively orphaned until I find some time to get the savannah pages set up and recruit some people to replace me, I think using an XML file for the description of the steps in the wizard and an elisp interface to draw text & links & widgets from that is the best way to go. -bp ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 63+ messages in thread
* Re: Wizards and W3 integration (was: Re: A road map for Oort Gnus) 2001-04-17 13:57 ` William M. Perry @ 2001-04-17 15:04 ` Eli Zaretskii 0 siblings, 0 replies; 63+ messages in thread From: Eli Zaretskii @ 2001-04-17 15:04 UTC (permalink / raw) Cc: abraham, ding, emacs-devel > From: wmperry@gnu.org (William M. Perry) > Date: 17 Apr 2001 08:57:20 -0500 > > > > Could you tell why? Basically what I don't understand is how does HTML > > come into the equation. That is, why does it make sense to use HTML for > > such a purpose? > > One reason could be for linking to other web sites with specific > information about where you are in the wizard. The setup wizards I've seen didn't need any links to Web sites. What would they be used for? suggestions to upgrade? ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 63+ messages in thread
* Re: Wizards and W3 integration (was: Re: A road map for Oort Gnus) 2001-04-16 16:49 ` Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen 2001-04-16 19:05 ` Eli Zaretskii @ 2001-04-16 20:28 ` Kai Großjohann 2001-04-16 20:57 ` Wizards and W3 integration Robin S. Socha 2 siblings, 0 replies; 63+ messages in thread From: Kai Großjohann @ 2001-04-16 20:28 UTC (permalink / raw) Cc: Eli Zaretskii, abraham, ding, emacs-devel, wmperry On 16 Apr 2001, Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen wrote: > The name "setup wizard" sucks, though. "Setup Saint" would be much > better. "Let Saint Ignucious Guide You." With a nice iconic > Ignucious. Or something. Way to go! kai -- Be indiscrete. Do it continuously. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 63+ messages in thread
* Re: Wizards and W3 integration 2001-04-16 16:49 ` Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen 2001-04-16 19:05 ` Eli Zaretskii 2001-04-16 20:28 ` Kai Großjohann @ 2001-04-16 20:57 ` Robin S. Socha 2001-04-17 7:05 ` Eli Zaretskii 2 siblings, 1 reply; 63+ messages in thread From: Robin S. Socha @ 2001-04-16 20:57 UTC (permalink / raw) Cc: Eli Zaretskii, abraham, ding, emacs-devel, wmperry * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes: > The name "setup wizard" sucks, though. "Setup Saint" would be much > better. "Let Saint Ignucious Guide You." With a nice iconic > Ignucious. Or something. Emacs is ugly enough as it is. Don't bring RMS into this. Please. -- Robin S. Socha <http://my.gnus.org/> ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 63+ messages in thread
* Re: Wizards and W3 integration 2001-04-16 20:57 ` Wizards and W3 integration Robin S. Socha @ 2001-04-17 7:05 ` Eli Zaretskii 2001-04-17 6:12 ` Norbert Koch 2001-04-17 14:02 ` Robin S. Socha 0 siblings, 2 replies; 63+ messages in thread From: Eli Zaretskii @ 2001-04-17 7:05 UTC (permalink / raw) Cc: Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen, abraham, ding, emacs-devel, wmperry On 16 Apr 2001, Robin S. Socha wrote: > * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes: > > > The name "setup wizard" sucks, though. "Setup Saint" would be much > > better. "Let Saint Ignucious Guide You." With a nice iconic > > Ignucious. Or something. > > Emacs is ugly enough as it is. Don't bring RMS into this. Please. I think Emacs is the cleanest, prettiest piece of software ever written in the history of mankind, and RMS is the nicest and greatest person I've ever met. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 63+ messages in thread
* Re: Wizards and W3 integration 2001-04-17 7:05 ` Eli Zaretskii @ 2001-04-17 6:12 ` Norbert Koch 2001-04-17 14:02 ` Robin S. Socha 1 sibling, 0 replies; 63+ messages in thread From: Norbert Koch @ 2001-04-17 6:12 UTC (permalink / raw) Eli Zaretskii <eliz@is.elta.co.il> writes: >> Emacs is ugly enough as it is. Don't bring RMS into this. Please. > > I think Emacs is the cleanest, prettiest piece of software ever > written in the history of mankind, and RMS is the nicest and greatest > person I've ever met. Next thing you tell us is that you'd like to run all your apps on a certain, err, OS created in Redmond :-) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 63+ messages in thread
* Re: Wizards and W3 integration 2001-04-17 7:05 ` Eli Zaretskii 2001-04-17 6:12 ` Norbert Koch @ 2001-04-17 14:02 ` Robin S. Socha 2001-04-17 14:14 ` Michael Livshin 1 sibling, 1 reply; 63+ messages in thread From: Robin S. Socha @ 2001-04-17 14:02 UTC (permalink / raw) * Eli Zaretskii <eliz@is.elta.co.il> [010417 02:03]: > On 16 Apr 2001, Robin S. Socha wrote: > > * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes: > > > The name "setup wizard" sucks, though. "Setup Saint" would be much > > > better. "Let Saint Ignucious Guide You." With a nice iconic > > > Ignucious. Or something. > > > > Emacs is ugly enough as it is. Don't bring RMS into this. Please. > > I think Emacs is the cleanest, prettiest piece of software ever > written in the history of mankind, Yeah, right, like http://my.gnus.org/mig.php?currDir=./Gnus/Kai_Grossjohann&pageType=image&image=ss-article.png OTOH, we have XEmacs, whichi is good, because XEmacs ist pretty: http://my.gnus.org/mig.php?currDir=./Gnus/Robin_S_Socha/GTK-XEmacs&pageType=image&image=group-buffer-chrome.gif > and RMS is the nicest and greatest person I've ever met. He may be nice and great. But, I mean, ummm... how to put it... http://www.stallman.org/saintignucius.jpg is not a really pretty sight to behold. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 63+ messages in thread
* Re: Wizards and W3 integration 2001-04-17 14:02 ` Robin S. Socha @ 2001-04-17 14:14 ` Michael Livshin 2001-04-17 14:29 ` Robin S. Socha 0 siblings, 1 reply; 63+ messages in thread From: Michael Livshin @ 2001-04-17 14:14 UTC (permalink / raw) "Robin S. Socha" <rsocha@kens.com> writes: > Yeah, right, like > http://my.gnus.org/mig.php?currDir=./Gnus/Kai_Grossjohann&pageType=image&image=ss-article.png > > OTOH, we have XEmacs, whichi is good, because XEmacs ist pretty: > > http://my.gnus.org/mig.php?currDir=./Gnus/Robin_S_Socha/GTK-XEmacs&pageType=image&image=group-buffer-chrome.gif the only immediately visible differences between these two pictures are: * the second one features a toolbar. this is not very important. * the second one features red text on almost-black background. this is both ugly and, much more importantly, unreadable. so I'll just assume you are sarcastic, OK? > He may be nice and great. But, I mean, ummm... how to put it... > http://www.stallman.org/saintignucius.jpg is not a really pretty sight > to behold. you are either sarcastic to a sick degree or you just can't bear a sight of RMS for some deep psychological reason. why? what has he done to you? I'd rather stare at a thousand pictures of RMS than read red text on black background. hell, I'd rather have my eyes clawed out than read red text on black background. --mike, who also happens to use XEmacs but apparently for different reasons. -- (only legal replies to this address are accepted) Debugging? Klingons do not debug. Our software does not coddle the weak. -- Klingon Programmer ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 63+ messages in thread
* Re: Wizards and W3 integration 2001-04-17 14:14 ` Michael Livshin @ 2001-04-17 14:29 ` Robin S. Socha 2001-04-17 14:35 ` [noise] " Michael Livshin 0 siblings, 1 reply; 63+ messages in thread From: Robin S. Socha @ 2001-04-17 14:29 UTC (permalink / raw) * Michael Livshin <mlivshin@yahoo.com> [010417 10:19]: > "Robin S. Socha" <rsocha@kens.com> writes: > > He may be nice and great. But, I mean, ummm... how to put it... > > http://www.stallman.org/saintignucius.jpg is not a really pretty sight > > to behold. > > you are either sarcastic to a sick degree or you just can't bear a > sight of RMS for some deep psychological reason. Sick, Michael. Very sick. And you need a new irony detector. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 63+ messages in thread
* [noise] Re: Wizards and W3 integration 2001-04-17 14:29 ` Robin S. Socha @ 2001-04-17 14:35 ` Michael Livshin 0 siblings, 0 replies; 63+ messages in thread From: Michael Livshin @ 2001-04-17 14:35 UTC (permalink / raw) "Robin S. Socha" <robin@socha.net> writes: > * Michael Livshin <mlivshin@yahoo.com> [010417 10:19]: > > "Robin S. Socha" <rsocha@kens.com> writes: > > > > He may be nice and great. But, I mean, ummm... how to put it... > > > http://www.stallman.org/saintignucius.jpg is not a really pretty sight > > > to behold. > > > > you are either sarcastic to a sick degree or you just can't bear a > > sight of RMS for some deep psychological reason. > > Sick, Michael. Very sick. And you need a new irony detector. color me thick, then. where's the alleged irony? and what's your point, while you are at it? that all those fluffy naive newbies will flee at the sight of St. iGNUcious? I don't think so. -- (only legal replies to this address are accepted) This program posts news to billions of machines throughout the galaxy. Your message will cost the net enough to bankrupt your entire planet. As a result your species will be sold into slavery. Be sure you know what you are doing. Are you absolutely sure you want to do this? [yn] y ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 63+ messages in thread
* Re: A road map for Oort Gnus 2001-04-14 10:31 A road map for Oort Gnus Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen 2001-04-14 10:53 ` Alexandre Oliva @ 2001-04-14 10:57 ` Robin S. Socha 2001-04-14 13:15 ` Harry Putnam ` (3 more replies) 2001-04-14 10:58 ` Kai Großjohann 2001-04-14 13:58 ` NAGY Andras 3 siblings, 4 replies; 63+ messages in thread From: Robin S. Socha @ 2001-04-14 10:57 UTC (permalink / raw) * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> [010414 06:35]: > gnu.emacs.gnus is pretty busy. There seems to be quite a lot of new > Gnus users -- my impression is that there's more new Gnus users now > than ever before, which is pretty surprising. It isn't. Count the German-speaking ones. A couple of people in the de.ALL hierarchy have been very, ummm... noisy over the last few years. And with sites like http://go.to/wingnus/, Gnus is becoming usable for Wintendo users, too. > That view may be wrong, and it may just be that Gnus is attracting a > new kind of user -- the kind that expects things to, like, work, and > doesn't really put up with having to spend hours setting things up. > This kind of user generates more traffic on the newsgroup than the > hard-core computer hacker kind of person. Hence the idea to put up resources.gnus.org - Gnus rules supreme, but the new breed of users is also much used to WWW instead of news. They are also used to communities, hence my playing around with http://socha.net/. The tool I use there is pretty much ideal for a site that is geared towards newbies. > Even so, I think Gnus should focus on ease of (initial) use. Ideally, > someone who has never used Gnus before should be able to say `M-x > gnus' and just having things work. That's not realistic, but I think > it should be realistic to have the user spend less time than setting > up, say, Outlook Express. Why is it unrealistic? If M-x gnus checked for "gnus-never-used-before" and opened a simplified version of M-x customize gnus, it would work. > There you have to maneuver through a quite large number of menus, and > specify some quite bewildering settings, to get started. We can do > better. Make a poll. I mean it. Ask people what they need to have set up to make their stuff work. I'm sure that 90% or more will go: "newsserver, username and organization, mail source, IMAP". Put it in that customize buffer. Done. > These are quite general thoughts on Gnusiness, and I think there are > probably many ways to achieve these goals. (If that's what we want to > do. We may, perhaps, not want to do this.) Kai has suggested > detecting whether the user is a first-time user, and then guiding her > through the setup process. Per has suggested setup wizards. That was /ME/!!!1 *harrump* It's still a very valid point, though. > I have (on gnu.emacs.gnus, recently) suggested a different version of > setup wizards. (I think. Perhaps I should repost it here?) Please do. > So. Ideas? Thoughts? Flames? I think that Gnus is pretty much perfect now. I couldn't think of any substantial things missing. It's the periphery that could do with some improvements: * Website for new users; * Link farm with ratings, good explanations etc.; * a tutorial (Kai and Matthias have improved the stuff we're working on, take a look at http://www.kens.com/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/gnus-tutorial/). You can join the mailing list here: mailto:gnus-tutorial-subscribe@socha.net The archvives are here: https://mail.socha.net/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?5 Documentation is very boring, but I think it's needed. Flame away ;-) Robin ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 63+ messages in thread
* Re: A road map for Oort Gnus 2001-04-14 10:57 ` A road map for Oort Gnus Robin S. Socha @ 2001-04-14 13:15 ` Harry Putnam 2001-04-14 13:19 ` Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen ` (2 subsequent siblings) 3 siblings, 0 replies; 63+ messages in thread From: Harry Putnam @ 2001-04-14 13:15 UTC (permalink / raw) Cc: ding "Robin S. Socha" <rsocha@kens.com> writes: > I think that Gnus is pretty much perfect now. I couldn't think of any > substantial things missing. It's the periphery that could do with some > improvements: Not sure what Robin counts as periphery, but since about quassia-16 or so (pre Robin I think..) the `agent' has been a factor, more or less central depending on the type hookup people have. Or there desire to be able to manipulate news on disk. That area is still `unfinished'. It needs to have the many niceties that are possible with the nnml backend extended to it. It needs: 1) sophisticated expiry 2) In group editing 3) Hand deletion in place if desired 4) Movement of messages from one group to another if desired Most importantly 5) gnus-agent-generate-nov-databases In general and in specific groups In brief, every kind of file manipulation that pertains to mail files on disk. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 63+ messages in thread
* Re: A road map for Oort Gnus 2001-04-14 10:57 ` A road map for Oort Gnus Robin S. Socha 2001-04-14 13:15 ` Harry Putnam @ 2001-04-14 13:19 ` Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen 2001-04-16 0:06 ` Albert Krusbersky 2001-04-14 16:04 ` Per Abrahamsen 2001-04-17 8:49 ` A road map for Oort Gnus Christoph Rohland 3 siblings, 1 reply; 63+ messages in thread From: Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen @ 2001-04-14 13:19 UTC (permalink / raw) "Robin S. Socha" <rsocha@kens.com> writes: > It isn't. Count the German-speaking ones. A couple of people in the > de.ALL hierarchy have been very, ummm... noisy over the last few years. Gee. I wonder who that could be. :-) > And with sites like http://go.to/wingnus/, Gnus is becoming usable for > Wintendo users, too. Gosh. I had no idea. "Genug davon, sich belehren zu lassen, daß Gnus der Newsreader der Götter sei?" :-) > > Even so, I think Gnus should focus on ease of (initial) use. Ideally, > > someone who has never used Gnus before should be able to say `M-x > > gnus' and just having things work. That's not realistic, but I think > > it should be realistic to have the user spend less time than setting > > up, say, Outlook Express. > > Why is it unrealistic? If M-x gnus checked for "gnus-never-used-before" > and opened a simplified version of M-x customize gnus, it would work. Yes, that's what I meant. It's unrealistic to have `M-x gnus' work without gathering information from the user first. > > These are quite general thoughts on Gnusiness, and I think there are > > probably many ways to achieve these goals. (If that's what we want to > > do. We may, perhaps, not want to do this.) Kai has suggested > > detecting whether the user is a first-time user, and then guiding her > > through the setup process. Per has suggested setup wizards. > > That was /ME/!!!1 *harrump* It's still a very valid point, though. :-) -- (domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.) larsi@gnus.org * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 63+ messages in thread
* Re: A road map for Oort Gnus 2001-04-14 13:19 ` Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen @ 2001-04-16 0:06 ` Albert Krusbersky 0 siblings, 0 replies; 63+ messages in thread From: Albert Krusbersky @ 2001-04-16 0:06 UTC (permalink / raw) Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes: > "Robin S. Socha" <rsocha@kens.com> writes: > > > It isn't. Count the German-speaking ones. A couple of people in the > > de.ALL hierarchy have been very, ummm... noisy over the last few years. > > Gee. I wonder who that could be. :-) > > > And with sites like http://go.to/wingnus/, Gnus is becoming usable for > > Wintendo users, too. > > Gosh. I had no idea. "Genug davon, sich belehren zu lassen, daß Gnus > der Newsreader der Götter sei?" :-) > My way (as native german speaking blond man ;-) ) to a Linux-System was via XEmacs 21.2 for Windows with gnus and the famos Hamster as local News- and Mail-Server. I was dissatisfied with the behavior of OutlookExpress, and an other Hamsteruser told me to give XEmacs/gnus a Chance. I did the Download, installed XEmacs and tried to run gnus. After some mails changed with Michael and the Book "Emacs in 24 hours" i got gnus running. Reading the dinglist was also helpful. In January i changed my Operating System (von Betrübssystem to Betriebssystem (can't translate it)). The most easy Part was to migrate my mails from Windows to Linux. Under Windows i also used the concept of Homedirectory. I burned the custumization Files and Mail- and News Filestructure on CDRom. These files were copied in my Linux Home-Directory and that was it. No Messages lost! And the Sorting- and Scoring-Rules are working fine. The only change was to tell gnus running agentised. Give the Windows-User a Chance to taste the smell of the World of Linux ;-) Maybe one or more will show Bill Gates their Back. I believe, with the comming Registration Policy of M*crosoft, more and more users look for alternatives. An "easy initalising" script will be helpful, because for GUI-Users, there is competition (Konkurrenz) by KMail and KNode. They have the Look and Feel of Outlook Excess. Just my 2 cents Albert. -- Don't take your Organs to Heaven, Heaven knows we need them here. Organspende rettet Leben. We have 2 Ears and 1 Tounge to listen twice before speaking once, but I'm wondering to have only 2 Eyes but 10 Fingers to write on Keyboard ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 63+ messages in thread
* Re: A road map for Oort Gnus 2001-04-14 10:57 ` A road map for Oort Gnus Robin S. Socha 2001-04-14 13:15 ` Harry Putnam 2001-04-14 13:19 ` Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen @ 2001-04-14 16:04 ` Per Abrahamsen 2001-04-15 13:20 ` Robin S. Socha 2001-04-17 8:49 ` A road map for Oort Gnus Christoph Rohland 3 siblings, 1 reply; 63+ messages in thread From: Per Abrahamsen @ 2001-04-14 16:04 UTC (permalink / raw) "Robin S. Socha" <rsocha@kens.com> writes: > Make a poll. I mean it. Ask people what they need to have set up to make > their stuff work. I'm sure that 90% or more will go: "newsserver, > username and organization, mail source, IMAP". Put it in that customize > buffer. Done. Hmm... Ok, try the code below. What a markup language would by us over a pure customize solution (like the one below) would to get rid of the too general and lispy doc strings and maybe some more of the customize artifacts, and getting the options closer (in the buffer) to their English description. My "imap" explanation is probably off, I have never used imap. ;;; gnus-virgin.el --- Run Gnus for the very first time. ;; ;; Copyright (C) 2001 Free Software Foundation, Inc. ;; ;; Author: Per Abrahamsen <abraham@dina.kvl.dk> ;; Keywords: news, mail, help ;; ;; This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify ;; it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by ;; the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or ;; (at your option) any later version. ;; ;; This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, ;; but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of ;; MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the ;; GNU General Public License for more details. ;; ;; You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License ;; along with this program; if not, write to the ;; Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, ;; Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA. ;;; Comments: ;; ;; Gentle introduction to Gnus. ;;; Code: (defcustom gnus-virgin t "Non-nil (on) means user haven't finished Gnus setup yet. Set this option to false if you want to avoid getting this buffer next time you start Gnus. That is, you *must* unset this flag in order to start Gnus for real." :type 'boolean) (makunbound 'gnus-virgin) (defgroup gnus-virgin '((gnus-virgin custom-variable) (user-full-name custom-variable) (user-mail-address custom-variable) (message-user-organization custom-variable) (gnus-select-method custom-variable) (gnus-secondary-select-methods custom-variable)) "Setup Gnus for the very first time. This buffer contains the options that most people need to set in order to use Gnus for reading Mail and Usenet newsgroups. You should look at each of the options below (use the \"Show\" buttons when needed), set their value as appropriate, and then press the \"Save for Future Sessions\" button. Viola! Gnus should be ready to use. You can then start Gnus by typing with `M-x gnus <ret>'. If you ever want to revisit these option, type `M-x customize-group <ret> gnus-virgin <ret>'. Please note that there are many more options in Gnus than those listed below. Just about everything about Gnus is customizable. To see all the options, type `M-x customize-group <ret> gnus <ret>'. Now about the individual options: \"Virgin\": Set this to off using the Toggle button, efter you have finished with the other options. \"User Full Name\" and \"User Mail Address\": Type in your name and e-mail address in the text fields. \"Message User Organization\": Select \"String\" by clicking the right mouse button on the Value Menu, then enter the name of the organization you want to be associated with in your mail and news messages. \"Select Method\": Select \"nntp\" from teh Value Menu, then type in the name of your news server in the text field below. If you don't know the name of your news server, ask your ISP. \"Secondary Select Methods\": This one has two purposes, reading mail and connecting to specialized news servers. Here is how to use it for mail. Ignore it if you don't want to use Gnus for reading mail. If you *do* want to use Gnus for mail, be warned that Gnus will download all your mail so you can't use other mailers as well. Stil here? Good. Gnus as a mail reader is strange, but cool. Type the Ins button. A \"Select Method\" entry should appear. Now select \"nnimap\" from the Value Menu and type the name of the server you want to read mail from. Again, your ISP should know the correct name. Using it for extra news servers is similar. Push the Ins button to get a new \"Select Method\" entry. Select \"nntp\" from the Value Menu. Write the address of the server you want to connect to in the text field below. Repeat for each server you want to read news. Try for example \"quimby.gnus.org\", a server that onbly carry Gnus releated newsgroups." :link '(custom-manual "(gnus)Top") :link '(url-link :tag "Development Page" "http://www.gnus.org/") :prefix "gnus-" :group 'gnus :group 'wizards) (defun gnus-virgin () "Setup gnus for the very first time. Please be gentle. Or just run it if already experienced." (interactive) (if gnus-virgin (customize-group 'gnus-virgin) (call-interactively 'gnus))) ;;; gnus-virgin.el ends here ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 63+ messages in thread
* Re: A road map for Oort Gnus 2001-04-14 16:04 ` Per Abrahamsen @ 2001-04-15 13:20 ` Robin S. Socha 2001-04-15 22:58 ` Kai Großjohann 0 siblings, 1 reply; 63+ messages in thread From: Robin S. Socha @ 2001-04-15 13:20 UTC (permalink / raw) * Per Abrahamsen <abraham@dina.kvl.dk> writes: > Hmm... Ok, try the code below. Ummmm... Signaling: (void-variable gnus-virgin) (if gnus-virgin (customize-group (quote gnus-virgin)) (call-interactively (quote gnus))) (lambda nil "Setup gnus for the very first time. Please be gentle. \nOr just run it if already experienced." (interactive) (if gnus-virgin (customize-group ...) (call-interactively ...)))() call-interactively(gnus-virgin) command-execute(gnus-virgin t) execute-extended-command(nil) call-interactively(execute-extended-command) -- Robin S. Socha Visit http://socha.net/gnus/ and submit your Gnus links ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 63+ messages in thread
* Re: A road map for Oort Gnus 2001-04-15 13:20 ` Robin S. Socha @ 2001-04-15 22:58 ` Kai Großjohann 2001-04-15 23:30 ` Samuel Padgett 0 siblings, 1 reply; 63+ messages in thread From: Kai Großjohann @ 2001-04-15 22:58 UTC (permalink / raw) Cc: ding On 15 Apr 2001, Robin S. Socha wrote: > Signaling: (void-variable gnus-virgin) How can this be? There's a defcustom for it! kai -- Be indiscrete. Do it continuously. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 63+ messages in thread
* Re: A road map for Oort Gnus 2001-04-15 22:58 ` Kai Großjohann @ 2001-04-15 23:30 ` Samuel Padgett 2001-04-16 7:50 ` gnus-virgin.el (was: Re: A road map for Oort Gnus) Per Abrahamsen 0 siblings, 1 reply; 63+ messages in thread From: Samuel Padgett @ 2001-04-15 23:30 UTC (permalink / raw) Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai Großjohann) writes: > On 15 Apr 2001, Robin S. Socha wrote: > > > Signaling: (void-variable gnus-virgin) > > How can this be? There's a defcustom for it! And a matching `makunbound'... Sam -- Room service? Send up a larger room. -- Groucho Marx ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 63+ messages in thread
* gnus-virgin.el (was: Re: A road map for Oort Gnus) 2001-04-15 23:30 ` Samuel Padgett @ 2001-04-16 7:50 ` Per Abrahamsen 2001-04-16 13:23 ` gnus-virgin.el Robin S. Socha 2001-04-17 10:52 ` gnus-virgin.el (was: Re: A road map for Oort Gnus) Didier Verna 0 siblings, 2 replies; 63+ messages in thread From: Per Abrahamsen @ 2001-04-16 7:50 UTC (permalink / raw) Oops, I accidently left some debug code in. ;;; gnus-virgin.el --- Run Gnus for the very first time. ;; ;; Copyright (C) 2001 Free Software Foundation, Inc. ;; ;; Author: Per Abrahamsen <abraham@dina.kvl.dk> ;; Keywords: news, mail, help ;; ;; This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify ;; it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by ;; the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or ;; (at your option) any later version. ;; ;; This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, ;; but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of ;; MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the ;; GNU General Public License for more details. ;; ;; You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License ;; along with this program; if not, write to the ;; Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, ;; Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA. ;;; Comments: ;; ;; Gentle introduction to Gnus. ;;; Code: (defcustom gnus-virgin t "Non-nil (on) means user haven't finished Gnus setup yet. Set this option to false if you want to avoid getting this buffer next time you start Gnus. That is, you *must* unset this flag in order to start Gnus for real." :type 'boolean) (defgroup gnus-virgin '((gnus-virgin custom-variable) (user-full-name custom-variable) (user-mail-address custom-variable) (message-user-organization custom-variable) (gnus-select-method custom-variable) (gnus-secondary-select-methods custom-variable)) "Setup Gnus for the very first time. This buffer contains the options that most people need to set in order to use Gnus for reading Mail and Usenet newsgroups. You should look at each of the options below (use the \"Show\" buttons when needed), set their value as appropriate, and then press the \"Save for Future Sessions\" button. Viola! Gnus should be ready to use. You can then start Gnus by typing with `M-x gnus <ret>'. If you ever want to revisit these option, type `M-x customize-group <ret> gnus-virgin <ret>'. Please note that there are many more options in Gnus than those listed below. Just about everything about Gnus is customizable. To see all the options, type `M-x customize-group <ret> gnus <ret>'. Now about the individual options: \"Virgin\": Set this to off using the Toggle button, efter you have finished with the other options. \"User Full Name\" and \"User Mail Address\": Type in your name and e-mail address in the text fields. \"Message User Organization\": Select \"String\" by clicking the right mouse button on the Value Menu, then enter the name of the organization you want to be associated with in your mail and news messages. \"Select Method\": Select \"nntp\" from teh Value Menu, then type in the name of your news server in the text field below. If you don't know the name of your news server, ask your ISP. \"Secondary Select Methods\": This one has two purposes, reading mail and connecting to specialized news servers. Here is how to use it for mail. Ignore it if you don't want to use Gnus for reading mail. If you *do* want to use Gnus for mail, be warned that Gnus will download all your mail so you can't use other mailers as well. Stil here? Good. Gnus as a mail reader is strange, but cool. Type the Ins button. A \"Select Method\" entry should appear. Now select \"nnimap\" from the Value Menu and type the name of the server you want to read mail from. Again, your ISP should know the correct name. Using it for extra news servers is similar. Push the Ins button to get a new \"Select Method\" entry. Select \"nntp\" from the Value Menu. Write the address of the server you want to connect to in the text field below. Repeat for each server you want to read news. Try for example \"quimby.gnus.org\", a server that onbly carry Gnus releated newsgroups." :link '(custom-manual "(gnus)Top") :link '(url-link :tag "Development Page" "http://www.gnus.org/") :prefix "gnus-" :group 'gnus :group 'wizards) (defun gnus-virgin () "Setup gnus for the very first time. Please be gentle. Or just run it if already experienced." (interactive) (if gnus-virgin (customize-group 'gnus-virgin) (call-interactively 'gnus))) ;;; gnus-virgin.el ends here ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 63+ messages in thread
* Re: gnus-virgin.el 2001-04-16 7:50 ` gnus-virgin.el (was: Re: A road map for Oort Gnus) Per Abrahamsen @ 2001-04-16 13:23 ` Robin S. Socha 2001-04-17 10:52 ` gnus-virgin.el (was: Re: A road map for Oort Gnus) Didier Verna 1 sibling, 0 replies; 63+ messages in thread From: Robin S. Socha @ 2001-04-16 13:23 UTC (permalink / raw) * Per Abrahamsen <abraham@dina.kvl.dk> writes: > Oops, I accidently left some debug code in. Very nice. I like that a lot! -- Robin S. Socha, Evil Link Collector Got anything Gnus-ish? Submit your stuff here: <http://socha.net/gnus/> ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 63+ messages in thread
* Re: gnus-virgin.el (was: Re: A road map for Oort Gnus) 2001-04-16 7:50 ` gnus-virgin.el (was: Re: A road map for Oort Gnus) Per Abrahamsen 2001-04-16 13:23 ` gnus-virgin.el Robin S. Socha @ 2001-04-17 10:52 ` Didier Verna 2001-04-17 11:02 ` Per Abrahamsen 2001-04-17 12:00 ` Kai Großjohann 1 sibling, 2 replies; 63+ messages in thread From: Didier Verna @ 2001-04-17 10:52 UTC (permalink / raw) Cc: ding Per Abrahamsen wrote: > Sessions\" button. Viola! Gnus should be ready to use. You can then ^^^^^ Voilà ! Note: Viola basically means "raped" in French ;-) -- Didier Verna, didier@lrde.epita.fr, http://www.lrde.epita.fr/~didier EPITA / LRDE, 14-16 rue Voltaire Tel.+33 (1) 53 14 59 47 94276 Le Kremlin-Bicêtre, France Fax.+33 (1) 44 08 01 99 didier@xemacs.org ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 63+ messages in thread
* Re: gnus-virgin.el (was: Re: A road map for Oort Gnus) 2001-04-17 10:52 ` gnus-virgin.el (was: Re: A road map for Oort Gnus) Didier Verna @ 2001-04-17 11:02 ` Per Abrahamsen 2001-04-17 12:00 ` Kai Großjohann 1 sibling, 0 replies; 63+ messages in thread From: Per Abrahamsen @ 2001-04-17 11:02 UTC (permalink / raw) Didier Verna <didier@lrde.epita.fr> writes: > Per Abrahamsen wrote: > > > Sessions\" button. Viola! Gnus should be ready to use. You can then > ^^^^^ > > Voilà ! > > Note: Viola basically means "raped" in French ;-) Well, excuse my French. (I always wanted to say that). Fixed. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 63+ messages in thread
* Re: gnus-virgin.el (was: Re: A road map for Oort Gnus) 2001-04-17 10:52 ` gnus-virgin.el (was: Re: A road map for Oort Gnus) Didier Verna 2001-04-17 11:02 ` Per Abrahamsen @ 2001-04-17 12:00 ` Kai Großjohann 2001-04-17 12:30 ` Didier Verna ` (2 more replies) 1 sibling, 3 replies; 63+ messages in thread From: Kai Großjohann @ 2001-04-17 12:00 UTC (permalink / raw) On 17 Apr 2001, Didier Verna wrote: > Note: Viola basically means "raped" in French ;-) Viola means largish violin in German. For whatever that's worth :-) (The smallest instrument is a violin, then comes a viola, then the violoncello. Not sure what all these are in English.) Hm. http://dict.leo.org/ tells me it's the same in English as in German. Go figure... I wonder if that has anything to do with the package title we're talking about? kai -- Be indiscrete. Do it continuously. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 63+ messages in thread
* Re: gnus-virgin.el (was: Re: A road map for Oort Gnus) 2001-04-17 12:00 ` Kai Großjohann @ 2001-04-17 12:30 ` Didier Verna 2001-04-17 17:12 ` Colin Marquardt 2001-04-17 21:04 ` Stainless Steel Rat 2 siblings, 0 replies; 63+ messages in thread From: Didier Verna @ 2001-04-17 12:30 UTC (permalink / raw) Cc: ding Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai Großjohann) wrote: > Viola means largish violin in German. For whatever that's worth :-) > (The smallest instrument is a violin, then comes a viola, then the > violoncello. Not sure what all these are in English.) A "viola" is a "viole" in French, which is also the present time for the verb "to rape". > I wonder if that has anything to do with the package title we're > talking about? ROTFL ! -- Didier Verna, didier@lrde.epita.fr, http://www.lrde.epita.fr/~didier EPITA / LRDE, 14-16 rue Voltaire Tel.+33 (1) 53 14 59 47 94276 Le Kremlin-Bicêtre, France Fax.+33 (1) 44 08 01 99 didier@xemacs.org ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 63+ messages in thread
* Re: gnus-virgin.el (was: Re: A road map for Oort Gnus) 2001-04-17 12:00 ` Kai Großjohann 2001-04-17 12:30 ` Didier Verna @ 2001-04-17 17:12 ` Colin Marquardt 2001-04-17 21:04 ` Stainless Steel Rat 2 siblings, 0 replies; 63+ messages in thread From: Colin Marquardt @ 2001-04-17 17:12 UTC (permalink / raw) Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai Großjohann) writes: > I wonder if that has anything to do with the package title we're > talking about? No idea :-) ... but I propose the following change: ;;; gnus-virgin.el --- To boldly frobnicate what no newbie has grokked before. Cheers, Colin ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 63+ messages in thread
* Re: gnus-virgin.el (was: Re: A road map for Oort Gnus) 2001-04-17 12:00 ` Kai Großjohann 2001-04-17 12:30 ` Didier Verna 2001-04-17 17:12 ` Colin Marquardt @ 2001-04-17 21:04 ` Stainless Steel Rat 2 siblings, 0 replies; 63+ messages in thread From: Stainless Steel Rat @ 2001-04-17 21:04 UTC (permalink / raw) * Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai Großjohann) on Tue, 17 Apr 2001 | Viola means largish violin in German. For whatever that's worth :-) | (The smallest instrument is a violin, then comes a viola, then the | violoncello. Not sure what all these are in English.) Nearly the same, though "cello violin" is usually shortened to "cello". -- Rat <ratinox@peorth.gweep.net> \ If Happy Fun Ball begins to smoke, get Minion of Nathan - Nathan says Hi! \ away immediately. Seek shelter and cover PGP Key: at a key server near you! \ head. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 63+ messages in thread
* Re: A road map for Oort Gnus 2001-04-14 10:57 ` A road map for Oort Gnus Robin S. Socha ` (2 preceding siblings ...) 2001-04-14 16:04 ` Per Abrahamsen @ 2001-04-17 8:49 ` Christoph Rohland 2001-04-17 15:09 ` Amos Gouaux 3 siblings, 1 reply; 63+ messages in thread From: Christoph Rohland @ 2001-04-17 8:49 UTC (permalink / raw) Cc: ding Hi Robin, On Sat, 14 Apr 2001, Robin S. Socha wrote: > Make a poll. I mean it. Ask people what they need to have set up to > make their stuff work. I'm sure that 90% or more will go: > "newsserver, username and organization, mail source, IMAP". Put it > in that customize buffer. Done. Fine, we agree IMAP is important. [...] > I think that Gnus is pretty much perfect now. I couldn't think of > any substantial things missing. Oh boy, IMNSHO that's simply not true. Gnus is far away from perfection (like any mail reader I know of). I am using Gnus since several year and a lot. But I am still struggling often. I have three major technical points: 1) Consistency of options: There are way too many different locations where the same information is stored. Two examples: Cached and agentized messages, information on the mail server in the various select message variables and in .newsrsc.eld. 2) Error recovery: It simply screws up it's different caches too often if something failes or changes in unpredicted ways. 3) IMAP support is far from perfect. Specially if you do unplugged work a lot over slow links, like I do. I know that there is no perfect mail reader. But look at the imap capabilities of mulberry and try it offline and you will see what I mean: Partly downloading, moving/creating/deleting messages while offline. I do not know if handling of uidvalidity issuesis working in mulberry but it is a nightmare in Gnus. Don't get me wrong: Gnus is still the best mailreader I know of but there is a lot room for improvement. Greetings Christoph ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 63+ messages in thread
* Re: A road map for Oort Gnus 2001-04-17 8:49 ` A road map for Oort Gnus Christoph Rohland @ 2001-04-17 15:09 ` Amos Gouaux 2001-04-17 15:31 ` Simon Josefsson 2001-04-17 15:39 ` Kai Großjohann 0 siblings, 2 replies; 63+ messages in thread From: Amos Gouaux @ 2001-04-17 15:09 UTC (permalink / raw) >>>>> On 17 Apr 2001 10:49:14 +0200, >>>>> Christoph Rohland <cr@sap.com> (cr) writes: cr> 1) Consistency of options: There are way too many different locations cr> where the same information is stored. Two examples: Cached and cr> agentized messages, information on the mail server in the various cr> select message variables and in .newsrsc.eld. Perhaps there's a way to do this and I just haven't stumbled onto it yet, but how do you update or alter a server listed in gnus-secondary-select-methods? I wanted to alter the settings for an IMAP server I'm using, and ran into much difficulty. At the time I guessed it was because things are so hardcoded in the .newsrsc.eld. cr> Don't get me wrong: Gnus is still the best mailreader I know of but cr> there is a lot room for improvement. I love it too. Though, when a member of our group asked about it (being frustrated with PINE), I kinda cringed because it has taken me quite a bit of time fiddling with things to get them close to what I want, and typically I've found folks too impatient for that kind of effort. One thing I'd like to see, and I know it came up before, the ability to only download parts of a message. That's one thing IMAP is really nice for. Though I realize this gets back to the dependency of the backend stuff. -- Amos ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 63+ messages in thread
* Re: A road map for Oort Gnus 2001-04-17 15:09 ` Amos Gouaux @ 2001-04-17 15:31 ` Simon Josefsson 2001-04-18 13:17 ` Christoph Rohland 2001-04-17 15:39 ` Kai Großjohann 1 sibling, 1 reply; 63+ messages in thread From: Simon Josefsson @ 2001-04-17 15:31 UTC (permalink / raw) Cc: ding Amos Gouaux <amos+lists.ding@utdallas.edu> writes: > Perhaps there's a way to do this and I just haven't stumbled onto it > yet, but how do you update or alter a server listed in > gnus-secondary-select-methods? I wanted to alter the settings for > an IMAP server I'm using, and ran into much difficulty. At the time > I guessed it was because things are so hardcoded in the .newsrsc.eld. Quit gnus, update gnus-secondary-select-method and search'n'replace your .newsrc.eld. :-( You could also C-k the groups, make the change, restart gnus, and resubscribe to them. Otherwise (I think) Gnus will create a new ephemeral server a'la nnimap+yourserver+yourmailbox because it didn't find the .newsrc.eld server definition in g-s-m or g-s-s-m, and there will be one network connection for each IMAP group. But I've never experienced this with nntp or nnmail-backends, I wonder why? ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 63+ messages in thread
* Re: A road map for Oort Gnus 2001-04-17 15:31 ` Simon Josefsson @ 2001-04-18 13:17 ` Christoph Rohland 0 siblings, 0 replies; 63+ messages in thread From: Christoph Rohland @ 2001-04-18 13:17 UTC (permalink / raw) Hi Simon, On 17 Apr 2001, Simon Josefsson wrote: > Quit gnus, update gnus-secondary-select-method and search'n'replace > your .newsrc.eld. :-( You could also C-k the groups, make the > change, restart gnus, and resubscribe to them. You see my argument ;-) Keep up the good work Christoph ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 63+ messages in thread
* Re: A road map for Oort Gnus 2001-04-17 15:09 ` Amos Gouaux 2001-04-17 15:31 ` Simon Josefsson @ 2001-04-17 15:39 ` Kai Großjohann 1 sibling, 0 replies; 63+ messages in thread From: Kai Großjohann @ 2001-04-17 15:39 UTC (permalink / raw) Cc: ding On 17 Apr 2001, Amos Gouaux wrote: > Perhaps there's a way to do this and I just haven't stumbled onto it > yet, but how do you update or alter a server listed in > gnus-secondary-select-methods? I have (nnml "") listed in gnus-secondary-select-methods, and the string `(nnml' occurs nowhere in my ~/.newsrc.eld. But to do that, I had to edit .newsrc.eld manually to replace all occurrences of (nnml "") for the groups with "nnml:". (The select method a group comes from is stored with each group, that's the spot I mean.) Newly subscribed groups should have the server name automatically. kai -- Be indiscrete. Do it continuously. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 63+ messages in thread
* Re: A road map for Oort Gnus 2001-04-14 10:31 A road map for Oort Gnus Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen 2001-04-14 10:53 ` Alexandre Oliva 2001-04-14 10:57 ` A road map for Oort Gnus Robin S. Socha @ 2001-04-14 10:58 ` Kai Großjohann 2001-04-14 13:22 ` Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen 2001-04-17 17:47 ` Didier Verna 2001-04-14 13:58 ` NAGY Andras 3 siblings, 2 replies; 63+ messages in thread From: Kai Großjohann @ 2001-04-14 10:58 UTC (permalink / raw) Another thing that's missing is the user manual for Gnus. And there are a number of areas in Gnus where there are different ways to achieve the same thing. Maybe we should standardize on one way to do it? Some group-specific settings can be in the group parameters, others need to be in the Local Variables section of the group parameters. But it doesn't work for all variables -- the variables which are used from the message buffers don't work as local variables from the group parameters. Then there is the possibility of setting things from gnus-summary-mode-hook and from message-mode-hook. And then there is gnus-parameters. A second issue is the server specifications. It seems that it is possible to put server specs like (nnml "foo" ...parameters...) in gnus-secondary-select-methods, but it's also possible to create the "nnml:foo" server from the server buffer and then add the string "nnml:foo" to gnus-secondary-select-methods. A third issue is gnus-outgoing-message-group versus gnus-message-archive-group which more or less do the same thing. I'm sure there are other areas with similar non-orthogonality. kai -- Be indiscrete. Do it continuously. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 63+ messages in thread
* Re: A road map for Oort Gnus 2001-04-14 10:58 ` Kai Großjohann @ 2001-04-14 13:22 ` Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen 2001-04-14 13:42 ` Michael Livshin 2001-04-17 18:08 ` Didier Verna 2001-04-17 17:47 ` Didier Verna 1 sibling, 2 replies; 63+ messages in thread From: Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen @ 2001-04-14 13:22 UTC (permalink / raw) Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai Großjohann) writes: > Another thing that's missing is the user manual for Gnus. Yeah. But with the tutorial that you and Robert's working on now, I think we may be on our way to be getting something like that. A tutorial web page can be molded into a user manual with some care... > And there are a number of areas in Gnus where there are different ways > to achieve the same thing. Maybe we should standardize on one way to > do it? The things you mention are that way for (more or less) good reasons. For instance, you have the group parameters, but you also have variables that match on group names that give the same results as group parameters. The reason for that being that some users like to write Lisp code, and others like to type `G c' on fifty groups. And so on. Since people are different, there has to be different ways of doing things. -- (domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.) larsi@gnus.org * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 63+ messages in thread
* Re: A road map for Oort Gnus 2001-04-14 13:22 ` Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen @ 2001-04-14 13:42 ` Michael Livshin 2001-04-15 23:01 ` Kai Großjohann 2001-04-17 18:08 ` Didier Verna 1 sibling, 1 reply; 63+ messages in thread From: Michael Livshin @ 2001-04-14 13:42 UTC (permalink / raw) Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes: > For instance, you have the group parameters, but you also have > variables that match on group names that give the same results as > group parameters. The reason for that being that some users like to > write Lisp code, and others like to type `G c' on fifty groups. And > so on. Since people are different, there has to be different ways of > doing things. now, that's not so simple. take me for instance. I'm your tipical mouse hating customize avoider. I have this humongous pile of fancy-splitting rules (along with some helper functions and macros and stuff) that help me sort the incoming mail into the various mailing list groups etc. when I first heard about the existance of a way to split mail according to `mail-to'/`list-to' group parameters, I thought "hey, nice, I'd like to migrate to that". well, it's been a year now, and I still haven't done that, and I still keep adding rules to the fancy-split pile for every mailing list I subscribe to. I'd rather there was a way to say `M-x gnus-dwim-grok-fancy-split-rules-and-set-group-parameters-accordingly'. I don't know how feasible it is to write such a thing, but I'd rather not use fancy splitting on the mail that goes into mailing lists. so from my POV, there is at least one "it" in Gnus for which there is one way too many to do it -- but it might be that automatic migration is just impossible. sorry for rambling, --mike -- (only legal replies to this address are accepted) Who's afraid of the garbage collector? ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 63+ messages in thread
* Re: A road map for Oort Gnus 2001-04-14 13:42 ` Michael Livshin @ 2001-04-15 23:01 ` Kai Großjohann 0 siblings, 0 replies; 63+ messages in thread From: Kai Großjohann @ 2001-04-15 23:01 UTC (permalink / raw) On 14 Apr 2001, Michael Livshin wrote: > I'd rather there was a way to say `M-x > gnus-dwim-grok-fancy-split-rules-and-set-group-parameters-accordingly'. What if you have a fancy split rule that looks at the Subject header? What if you have a complicated nested if/else structure, only parts of which can be converted? It should be possible to do something which works for a number of cases, but I think it's necessary to at least have some graceful failure mode in case nnmail-split-fancy turns out to be too complex for the mechanism to handle. I don't know how to implement that graceful failure, though. kai -- Be indiscrete. Do it continuously. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 63+ messages in thread
* Re: A road map for Oort Gnus 2001-04-14 13:22 ` Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen 2001-04-14 13:42 ` Michael Livshin @ 2001-04-17 18:08 ` Didier Verna 2001-04-17 18:05 ` Kai Großjohann 1 sibling, 1 reply; 63+ messages in thread From: Didier Verna @ 2001-04-17 18:08 UTC (permalink / raw) Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen wrote: > The things you mention are that way for (more or less) good reasons. > For instance, you have the group parameters, but you also have > variables that match on group names that give the same results as > group parameters. The reason for that being that some users like to > write Lisp code, and others like to type `G c' on fifty groups. And > so on. Since people are different, there has to be different ways of > doing things. Having different ways to do things is indeed a good thing (*not* to be able to type G c fifty times, though :-). I even think there are somes places at which more ways to do things would be required. For instance, I have on my gnus todo list an entry saying "add a gnus-group-parameters variable", for when that makes sense of course (not timestamp and stuff). This should be the usual list of (REGEXP VALUE) pairs, the regexp matching group names, and the value being group parameters. The inheritance being: local group-parameters <- topic parameters <- gnus-group-parameters pretty much like posting styles, actually. Having different ways to do it is indeed important but maybe not for what you're saying here, Lars (people preferring custom or list code). It is important because there are so many ways to organize your Gnus session that there's no reason why things should be orthogonal. For instance, I have a group buffer that is sorted by Mail / News, but then, I have an XEmacs Mail topic which contains mostly mailing lists, but also some newsgroups... Without these many ways to do things, it would be a nightmare to setup your preferences in a concise (though complex) way. The question of actually mastering the Ways, and using them efficiently is another story. -- Didier Verna, didier@lrde.epita.fr, http://www.lrde.epita.fr/~didier EPITA / LRDE, 14-16 rue Voltaire Tel.+33 (1) 53 14 59 47 94276 Le Kremlin-Bicêtre, France Fax.+33 (1) 44 08 01 99 didier@xemacs.org ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 63+ messages in thread
* Re: A road map for Oort Gnus 2001-04-17 18:08 ` Didier Verna @ 2001-04-17 18:05 ` Kai Großjohann 2001-04-17 18:21 ` Didier Verna 0 siblings, 1 reply; 63+ messages in thread From: Kai Großjohann @ 2001-04-17 18:05 UTC (permalink / raw) On 17 Apr 2001, Didier Verna wrote: > For instance, I have on my gnus todo list an entry saying "add a > gnus-group-parameters variable", for when that makes sense of course > (not timestamp and stuff). This should be the usual list of (REGEXP > VALUE) pairs, the regexp matching group names, and the value being > group parameters. Is gnus-parameters good enough? kai -- Be indiscrete. Do it continuously. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 63+ messages in thread
* Re: A road map for Oort Gnus 2001-04-17 18:05 ` Kai Großjohann @ 2001-04-17 18:21 ` Didier Verna 0 siblings, 0 replies; 63+ messages in thread From: Didier Verna @ 2001-04-17 18:21 UTC (permalink / raw) Cc: ding Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai Großjohann) wrote: > Is gnus-parameters good enough? F*ck :-) This one is neither defcustom'ed nor documented so I missed it. That's not exactly removing an entry from my todo list, rather modifying its contents ;-) -- Didier Verna, didier@lrde.epita.fr, http://www.lrde.epita.fr/~didier EPITA / LRDE, 14-16 rue Voltaire Tel.+33 (1) 53 14 59 47 94276 Le Kremlin-Bicêtre, France Fax.+33 (1) 44 08 01 99 didier@xemacs.org ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 63+ messages in thread
* Re: A road map for Oort Gnus 2001-04-14 10:58 ` Kai Großjohann 2001-04-14 13:22 ` Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen @ 2001-04-17 17:47 ` Didier Verna 2001-04-17 18:04 ` Kai Großjohann 1 sibling, 1 reply; 63+ messages in thread From: Didier Verna @ 2001-04-17 17:47 UTC (permalink / raw) Cc: ding Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai Großjohann) wrote: > It seems that it is possible to put server specs like (nnml "foo" > ...parameters...) in gnus-secondary-select-methods, but it's also > possible to create the "nnml:foo" server from the server buffer and > then add the string "nnml:foo" to gnus-secondary-select-methods. BTW, what exactly is different between using gnus-secondary-select-methods and setting up servers in the server buffer (apart from the fact that secondary methods are read-only) ? Maybe virtual servers not in g-s-s-m are not opened at startup ? -- Didier Verna, didier@lrde.epita.fr, http://www.lrde.epita.fr/~didier EPITA / LRDE, 14-16 rue Voltaire Tel.+33 (1) 53 14 59 47 94276 Le Kremlin-Bicêtre, France Fax.+33 (1) 44 08 01 99 didier@xemacs.org ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 63+ messages in thread
* Re: A road map for Oort Gnus 2001-04-17 17:47 ` Didier Verna @ 2001-04-17 18:04 ` Kai Großjohann 0 siblings, 0 replies; 63+ messages in thread From: Kai Großjohann @ 2001-04-17 18:04 UTC (permalink / raw) On 17 Apr 2001, Didier Verna wrote: > BTW, what exactly is different between using > gnus-secondary-select-methods and setting up servers in the server > buffer (apart from the fact that secondary methods are read-only) ? > Maybe virtual servers not in g-s-s-m are not opened at startup ? Gnus checks for new groups in secondary servers, but not in foreign servers. kai -- Be indiscrete. Do it continuously. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 63+ messages in thread
* Re: A road map for Oort Gnus 2001-04-14 10:31 A road map for Oort Gnus Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen ` (2 preceding siblings ...) 2001-04-14 10:58 ` Kai Großjohann @ 2001-04-14 13:58 ` NAGY Andras 2001-04-14 21:51 ` Steinar Bang ` (2 more replies) 3 siblings, 3 replies; 63+ messages in thread From: NAGY Andras @ 2001-04-14 13:58 UTC (permalink / raw) Consider the big Gnus<->backend interface redesign too, in order to be able to support `modern' backends with full functionality and good performance (yes, I mean IMAP). As far as I can see, this basically means these things: - extend the interface to allow more complex `questions' to the backend (i.e. number of new messages, flagged messages etc, instead of the nntp-like low and high article number only) - let the backend store readness and other status settings, if it is able to, and do not redundantly store them in the frontend in this case. - OTOH, let the backend to store certain backend-specific info in the frontend if it needs to (e.g. uidvalidity in the case of IMAP, which is currently stored as a group parameter and looks quite ugly as such). - wrapper backend around backends understating the old protocol only, for backwards compatibility. Andras ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 63+ messages in thread
* Re: A road map for Oort Gnus 2001-04-14 13:58 ` NAGY Andras @ 2001-04-14 21:51 ` Steinar Bang 2001-04-15 23:02 ` Kai Großjohann 2001-04-16 21:10 ` Paul Jarc 2 siblings, 0 replies; 63+ messages in thread From: Steinar Bang @ 2001-04-14 21:51 UTC (permalink / raw) >>>>> NAGY Andras <nagya@inf.elte.hu>: > Consider the big Gnus<->backend interface redesign too, in order to > be able to support `modern' backends with full functionality and > good performance (yes, I mean IMAP). I'll second that. Both the backend redesign, and the emphasis on improving IMAP speed. > As far as I can see, this basically means these things: [snip!] One thing left out: making the interface with the backend/server be asynchronous. This could allow (much) improved IMAP performance, as well as avoid locking up Gnus and all of emacs while updating or retrieving articles from backends. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 63+ messages in thread
* Re: A road map for Oort Gnus 2001-04-14 13:58 ` NAGY Andras 2001-04-14 21:51 ` Steinar Bang @ 2001-04-15 23:02 ` Kai Großjohann 2001-04-16 6:01 ` Amos Gouaux 2001-04-16 21:10 ` Paul Jarc 2 siblings, 1 reply; 63+ messages in thread From: Kai Großjohann @ 2001-04-15 23:02 UTC (permalink / raw) On 14 Apr 2001, NAGY Andras wrote: > Consider the big Gnus<->backend interface redesign too, in order to > be able to support `modern' backends with full functionality and > good performance (yes, I mean IMAP). Seconded. This would allow one to store everything in one place, and so maybe it would even become feasible to take some folders on the road, and Gnus would know what to do with them (because the flags and everything is stored inside the folder). kai -- Be indiscrete. Do it continuously. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 63+ messages in thread
* Re: A road map for Oort Gnus 2001-04-15 23:02 ` Kai Großjohann @ 2001-04-16 6:01 ` Amos Gouaux 2001-04-16 18:06 ` Doug Alcorn 0 siblings, 1 reply; 63+ messages in thread From: Amos Gouaux @ 2001-04-16 6:01 UTC (permalink / raw) >>>>> On 16 Apr 2001 01:02:43 +0200, >>>>> Kai Großjohann <Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE> (kg) writes: kg> On 14 Apr 2001, NAGY Andras wrote: >> Consider the big Gnus<->backend interface redesign too, in order to >> be able to support `modern' backends with full functionality and >> good performance (yes, I mean IMAP). kg> Seconded. This would allow one to store everything in one place, and kg> so maybe it would even become feasible to take some folders on the kg> road, and Gnus would know what to do with them (because the flags and kg> everything is stored inside the folder). Back in the nnimap list days, wasn't there some discussion about the UID issue... news message IDs... ints.. ???? With the increasing popularity of IMAP, I should think these kinds of tweaks would further the growth of gnus. -- Amos ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 63+ messages in thread
* Re: A road map for Oort Gnus 2001-04-16 6:01 ` Amos Gouaux @ 2001-04-16 18:06 ` Doug Alcorn 0 siblings, 0 replies; 63+ messages in thread From: Doug Alcorn @ 2001-04-16 18:06 UTC (permalink / raw) Amos Gouaux <amos+lists.ding@utdallas.edu> writes: > With the increasing popularity of IMAP, I should think these kinds > of tweaks would further the growth of gnus. As one that has been looking for IMAP client alternatives, this is an area that Gnus is already way out ahead on. Providing server side storage of many things that are done client side now (group parameters, etc) could make Gnus the definitive IMAP client. -- (__) Doug Alcorn (mailto:doug@lathi.net http://www.lathi.net) oo / PGP 02B3 1E26 BCF2 9AAF 93F1 61D7 450C B264 3E63 D543 |_/ If you're a capitalist and you have the best goods and they're free, you don't have to proselytize, you just have to wait. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 63+ messages in thread
* Re: A road map for Oort Gnus 2001-04-14 13:58 ` NAGY Andras 2001-04-14 21:51 ` Steinar Bang 2001-04-15 23:02 ` Kai Großjohann @ 2001-04-16 21:10 ` Paul Jarc 2 siblings, 0 replies; 63+ messages in thread From: Paul Jarc @ 2001-04-16 21:10 UTC (permalink / raw) NAGY Andras <nagya@inf.elte.hu> writes: > Consider the big Gnus<->backend interface redesign too, in order to be > able to support `modern' backends with full functionality and good > performance (yes, I mean IMAP). Perspective of a backend author: I'd like to see an interface that doesn't require backends to maintain state independently of Gnus. E.g., nnchoke-open-server would be passed the full select method, and would return one of: (success server-object) (transient-failure "Error message describing what failed") (more-serious-failure "Error message describing what failed") ... where the server-object is opaque to Gnus and meaningful to the backend, and is passed back to the backend functions for operations on that server; the backend wouldn't need to have a notion of a "currently active server". Similarly for groups - nnchoke-request-{list,groups} would return an alist whose keys are interned group names, and whose data are opaque group objects. Or maybe an obarray instead of an alist; I'm not sure which would be faster most of the time. The opaque group object would be handed back to the backend functions (with its associated server) for operations on that group. All data should be passed back to Gnus through function return values, not nntp-server-buffer. Some backends will easily be able to structure the data into, e.g., NOV vectors, so it won't have to be dumped into text form just to be extracted back out again. Other backends will have NOV text to deal with, so they can use a common set of NOV-text-parsing functions. For example. > - extend the interface to allow more complex `questions' to the > backend (i.e. number of new messages, flagged messages etc, instead of > the nntp-like low and high article number only) Also, more complex actions, like "move/copy article 123 from group foo to group bar". > - let the backend store readness and other status settings, if it is > able to, This is already done... > and do not redundantly store them in the frontend in this case. ... but this is not. > - OTOH, let the backend to store certain backend-specific info in the > frontend if it needs to Each backend could maintain its own data on disk, independently of Gnus and other backends, maybe. paul ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 63+ messages in thread
end of thread, other threads:[~2001-04-18 13:17 UTC | newest] Thread overview: 63+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed) -- links below jump to the message on this page -- 2001-04-14 10:31 A road map for Oort Gnus Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen 2001-04-14 10:53 ` Alexandre Oliva 2001-04-14 12:35 ` Per Abrahamsen 2001-04-14 13:12 ` Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen 2001-04-14 14:42 ` Wizards and W3 integration (was: Re: A road map for Oort Gnus) Per Abrahamsen 2001-04-14 15:22 ` Wizards and W3 integration Raymond Scholz 2001-04-14 15:45 ` Re[1]: Wizards and W3 integration (was: A road map for Oort Gnus) Eric M. Ludlam 2001-04-14 16:38 ` Wizards and W3 integration (was: " Eli Zaretskii 2001-04-16 16:49 ` Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen 2001-04-16 19:05 ` Eli Zaretskii 2001-04-17 10:57 ` Per Abrahamsen 2001-04-17 13:25 ` Eli Zaretskii 2001-04-17 13:43 ` Per Abrahamsen 2001-04-17 15:13 ` Eli Zaretskii 2001-04-17 15:34 ` Per Abrahamsen 2001-04-17 15:44 ` Kai Großjohann 2001-04-17 15:45 ` Laura Conrad 2001-04-17 13:57 ` William M. Perry 2001-04-17 15:04 ` Eli Zaretskii 2001-04-16 20:28 ` Kai Großjohann 2001-04-16 20:57 ` Wizards and W3 integration Robin S. Socha 2001-04-17 7:05 ` Eli Zaretskii 2001-04-17 6:12 ` Norbert Koch 2001-04-17 14:02 ` Robin S. Socha 2001-04-17 14:14 ` Michael Livshin 2001-04-17 14:29 ` Robin S. Socha 2001-04-17 14:35 ` [noise] " Michael Livshin 2001-04-14 10:57 ` A road map for Oort Gnus Robin S. Socha 2001-04-14 13:15 ` Harry Putnam 2001-04-14 13:19 ` Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen 2001-04-16 0:06 ` Albert Krusbersky 2001-04-14 16:04 ` Per Abrahamsen 2001-04-15 13:20 ` Robin S. Socha 2001-04-15 22:58 ` Kai Großjohann 2001-04-15 23:30 ` Samuel Padgett 2001-04-16 7:50 ` gnus-virgin.el (was: Re: A road map for Oort Gnus) Per Abrahamsen 2001-04-16 13:23 ` gnus-virgin.el Robin S. Socha 2001-04-17 10:52 ` gnus-virgin.el (was: Re: A road map for Oort Gnus) Didier Verna 2001-04-17 11:02 ` Per Abrahamsen 2001-04-17 12:00 ` Kai Großjohann 2001-04-17 12:30 ` Didier Verna 2001-04-17 17:12 ` Colin Marquardt 2001-04-17 21:04 ` Stainless Steel Rat 2001-04-17 8:49 ` A road map for Oort Gnus Christoph Rohland 2001-04-17 15:09 ` Amos Gouaux 2001-04-17 15:31 ` Simon Josefsson 2001-04-18 13:17 ` Christoph Rohland 2001-04-17 15:39 ` Kai Großjohann 2001-04-14 10:58 ` Kai Großjohann 2001-04-14 13:22 ` Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen 2001-04-14 13:42 ` Michael Livshin 2001-04-15 23:01 ` Kai Großjohann 2001-04-17 18:08 ` Didier Verna 2001-04-17 18:05 ` Kai Großjohann 2001-04-17 18:21 ` Didier Verna 2001-04-17 17:47 ` Didier Verna 2001-04-17 18:04 ` Kai Großjohann 2001-04-14 13:58 ` NAGY Andras 2001-04-14 21:51 ` Steinar Bang 2001-04-15 23:02 ` Kai Großjohann 2001-04-16 6:01 ` Amos Gouaux 2001-04-16 18:06 ` Doug Alcorn 2001-04-16 21:10 ` Paul Jarc
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