gnus-group-line-format questions

gnus-group-line-format questions

[John H Palmieri]

I have two questions about formatting lines in the Group buffer:

1. Is it possible to use different formatting for different parts of
   the buffer?  For instance, I would like lines for mail groups
   formatted differently from news groups.

2. I happen to have mail groups with names like "Mail/IMAP/gnus", and
   I would like them to be displayed without the "Mail/IMAP/" part.
   Is that possible?

I guess both of these might be doable if there were a
user-customizable specifier that takes the group name as an argument,
but I don't think there is such a thing.  Or is there?  Can I access
the group name somehow within gnus-user-format-function-X?  Or can I
use "Advanced Formatting" somehow (something like %~(form
(gnus-group-group-name)))?

(Would it make sense if gnus-user-format-function-X were passed the
group name, when used in gnus-group-line-format?  As it is, I think
it's just a dummy variable, carrying no information.)

-- 
J. H. Palmieri
Dept of Mathematics, Box 354350    mailto:palmieri@math.washington.edu
University of Washington           http://www.math.washington.edu/~palmieri/
Seattle, WA 98195-4350

Re: gnus-group-line-format questions

[Danny Siu]

John,

I defined a custom format function for displaying my IMAP mail group names
in group buffer.  Notice that "%(%-20uG%)" in my gnus-group-line-format.

(setq gnus-group-line-format "%m%M%S%P%2L [!%-3T ?%-3I] %4y: %(%-20uG%) %20ue\n")

;; Just the trailing group name
(defun gnus-user-format-function-G (arg)
  (if (string-match "/[^/]+$" gnus-tmp-qualified-group)
        (substring gnus-tmp-qualified-group (+ (match-beginning 0) 1))
      gnus-tmp-qualified-group))


This is related but not exactly what you are looking for but you may find
useful when dealing with long IMAP folder name.

I have a rather long custom function for splitting mails with nnfolders,
which uses a flat single level mailboxe naming convention.  But after
switching to IMAP, I reorganized my 100+ mailboxes into sub-folders and it
would be a pain for me to fix up my custom mail split function.  Rather, I
wrote the following defadvice to patch up my original mail split function
for matching the correspoding IMAP mailboxes, assuming each and all IMAP
mailboxes has unique name.

(defun dsiu-gnus-all-groups (method &optional remove)
  (let ((alist gnus-newsrc-alist)
        (prefix (regexp-quote (gnus-group-prefixed-name "" method)))
        groups
        group match)
    (while  (setq group (car (pop alist)))
      (when (string-match prefix group)
        (setq groups (cons (if remove (substring group (match-end 0)) group) groups))))
    (reverse groups)))

(defun dsiu-gnus-find-canonical-group (method group)
  (let ((alist (dsiu-gnus-all-groups method t))
        (ends (concat "/" (regexp-quote group) "$"))
        (found nil)
        cg)
    (while (and (not found)
                (setq cg (pop alist)))
      (setq found (string-match ends cg)))
    (if found cg group)))

(defun dsiu-gnus-get-imap-method ()
  (list (quote nnimap) 
        (eval (cadr (assoc 'nnimap gnus-secondary-select-methods)))))

(defadvice split-dannys-mail (after canonicalize-imap-group-name activate)
  "patch my split function to use canonical imap group name"
  (let ((orig ad-return-value))
    (setq ad-return-value 
          (list (dsiu-gnus-find-canonical-group (dsiu-gnus-get-imap-method)
                                                (car ad-return-value))))))


Hope this helps,
-- 
Danny Siu

John H Palmieri writes:

  John> I have two questions about formatting lines in the Group buffer:
  John> 1. Is it possible to use different formatting for different parts of
  John>    the buffer?  For instance, I would like lines for mail groups
  John>    formatted differently from news groups.

  John> 2. I happen to have mail groups with names like "Mail/IMAP/gnus",
  John>    and I would like them to be displayed without the "Mail/IMAP/"
  John>    part.  Is that possible?

  John> I guess both of these might be doable if there were a
  John> user-customizable specifier that takes the group name as an
  John> argument, but I don't think there is such a thing.  Or is there?
  John> Can I access the group name somehow within
  John> gnus-user-format-function-X?  Or can I use "Advanced Formatting"
  John> somehow (something like %~(form (gnus-group-group-name)))?

  John> (Would it make sense if gnus-user-format-function-X were passed the
  John> group name, when used in gnus-group-line-format?  As it is, I think
  John> it's just a dummy variable, carrying no information.)

  John> --
  John> J. H. Palmieri
  John> Dept of Mathematics, Box 354350 mailto:palmieri@math.washington.edu
  John> University of Washington http://www.math.washington.edu/~palmieri/
  John> Seattle, WA 98195-4350

Re: gnus-group-line-format questions

[John H Palmieri]

Thanks, this is more or less exactly what I wanted.  In particular,
knowing that I have access to the variable gnus-tmp-qualified-group
lets me do just the sort of thing I want.

Danny Siu <dsiu@adobe.com> writes:

> John,
>
> I defined a custom format function for displaying my IMAP mail group names
> in group buffer.  Notice that "%(%-20uG%)" in my gnus-group-line-format.
>
> (setq gnus-group-line-format "%m%M%S%P%2L [!%-3T ?%-3I] %4y: %(%-20uG%) %20ue\n")
>
> ;; Just the trailing group name
> (defun gnus-user-format-function-G (arg)
>   (if (string-match "/[^/]+$" gnus-tmp-qualified-group)
>         (substring gnus-tmp-qualified-group (+ (match-beginning 0) 1))
>       gnus-tmp-qualified-group))
>
>
> This is related but not exactly what you are looking for but you may find
> useful when dealing with long IMAP folder name.

-- 
J. H. Palmieri
Dept of Mathematics, Box 354350    mailto:palmieri@math.washington.edu
University of Washington           http://www.math.washington.edu/~palmieri/
Seattle, WA 98195-4350