gnus on winxp

gnus on winxp

[Harry Putnam]

Any one here using gnus on winxp?  If so, any pointers you can give
me?  I'm just about to try setting it up, but since I'm pretty
unfamiliar with winXX, not sure how to get started.

Just finished trying out several windows news readers: forte-agent,
mozilla thunderbird. Each one has some untenable glaring weakness
compared to gnus.  With Forte one needs to do too much clickety clack
to get simple things done, and with thunderbird (and agent), the
search functions inside a newsgroup are really weak.

I've got emacs (21.3) installed and working.  But all that took was a
download and run it.

Re: gnus on winxp

[Peter Lee]

>>>> Harry Putnam writes:

    Harry> Any one here using gnus on winxp?  If so, any pointers you
    Harry> can give me?  I'm just about to try setting it up, but
    Harry> since I'm pretty unfamiliar with winXX, not sure how to get
    Harry> started.

I use Gnus on xp.  It sounds like you've used it before, just not on
xp.  I don't have anything specific in my .gnus for xp.  I use same
init file for both xp and linux.  I do have system-type specific code
in my .emacs, but nothing related to gnus.

Are you having a specific problem getting it working?

Re: gnus on winxp

[Jochen Küpper]

On Mon, 12 Apr 2004 10:57:26 -0500 Harry Putnam wrote:

Harry> Any one here using gnus on winxp? 

GNU Emacs 21.2.1 (i686-pc-cygwin, X toolkit) of 2003-01-23 on DRACO
No Gnus v0.2

Harry> If so, any pointers you can give me?

,----
| http://www.cygwin.com
`----

Greetings,
Jochen
-- 
Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit                http://www.Jochen-Kuepper.de
    Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité                GnuPG key: CC1B0B4D
        (Part 3 you find in my messages before fall 2003.)

Re: gnus on winxp

[Harry Putnam]

Peter Lee <pete_lee@swbell.net> writes:

[...]

> Are you having a specific problem getting it working?

Er...no.   I was just a little gun shy I guess.  I transferred my
.emacs, .gnus etc to win platform and it started without too much
fuss. I was able to identify the startup errors and fix them.

Jochen Küpper <jochen@fhi-berlin.mpg.de> writes:

> ,----
> | http://www.cygwin.com
> `----

I'm not currently using cygwin stuff.  May install it later if I get
too frustrated with windows way of doing things.

Thanks, but I was able to get it all working just by setting winxp
environment for home and moving my emacs stuff to C:\usr\local\.
Init files to C:\reader.

There is still one small stumbling block.  I see emacs expects its
lisp files where I extracted the tar package:

  C:\reader\emacs*

I wondered how to tell it to look in the usual unix location
/usr/local.  Only of course, in this case C:\usr\local.
I know how to set the load-path and stuff, but it seems something is
preset to make emacs look in extracted directory.

Maybe something in `default.el' to redirect?

Re: gnus on winxp

[Peter Lee]

>>>> Harry Putnam writes:

    Harry> There is still one small stumbling block.  I see emacs
    Harry> expects its lisp files where I extracted the tar package:

    Harry>   C:\reader\emacs*

    Harry> I wondered how to tell it to look in the usual unix
    Harry> location /usr/local.  Only of course, in this case
    Harry> C:\usr\local.  I know how to set the load-path and stuff,
    Harry> but it seems something is preset to make emacs look in
    Harry> extracted directory.

I'm guessing here, but try the variable source-directory.

,----[ C-h v source-directory RET ]
| source-directory's value is "e:/cvs/emacs/"
| 
| Directory in which Emacs sources were found when Emacs was built.
| You cannot count on them to still be there!
| 
| Defined in `~/.emacs'.
`----

Re: gnus on winxp

[Fabrice Popineau]

Harry>  Any one here using gnus on winxp?

(insert (emacs-version))
XEmacs 21.5  (beta16) "celeriac" [Lucid] (i586-pc-win32, Mule) of Wed Feb 25 2004 on ANSIBLE

(insert (gnus-version))
No Gnus v0.2

And _no_ cygwin.

Nothing really specific to Windows however in my settings.

-- 
Fabrice Popineau
------------------------
e-mail:       Fabrice.Popineau@supelec.fr  |  The difference between theory 
voice-mail:   +33 (0) 387764715            |  and practice, is that
surface-mail: Supelec, 2 rue E. Belin,     |  theoretically,
	      F-57070 Metz 	           |  there is no difference !

Re: gnus on winxp

[Frank Schmitt]

Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com> writes:

> Any one here using gnus on winxp?  If so, any pointers you can give
> me?  I'm just about to try setting it up, but since I'm pretty
> unfamiliar with winXX, not sure how to get started.
[...]
> I've got emacs (21.3) installed and working.  But all that took was a
> download and run it.

I'd suggest you go to http://www.crasseux.com/emacs/ and get the CVS
Emacs he compiled for Windows, as this gives you support for images
which 21.3 under Windows still lacks. Then get the Gnus Tarball,
extract it, call make.bat with the appropriate parameters and you
should be done. Oh, you probably want to set $HOME, this can be done
under Section System of the Windows Control Panel.

-- 
Did you ever realize how much text fits in eighty columns? If you now consider
that a signature usually consists of up to four lines, this gives you enough
space to spread a tremendous amount of information with your messages. So seize
this opportunity and don't waste your signature with bullshit nobody will read.

Re: gnus on winxp

[Yair Friedman]

On Mon, 12 Apr 2004 10:57:26 -0500, 
Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com> writes:

> Any one here using gnus on winxp?  If so, any pointers you can give
> me?  I'm just about to try setting it up, but since I'm pretty
> unfamiliar with winXX, not sure how to get started.

After few years working in windows the only windows related
customization I have is:

(if (eq system-type 'windows-nt) ;; Many NT programs don't like forwardslashes 
    (setq mm-path-name-rewrite-functions '(convert-standard-filename)))

Setting .mailcap was the most difficult task.

Re: gnus on winxp

[Michael Schierl]

Frank Schmitt <ich@Frank-Schmitt.net> writes:

> I'd suggest you go to http://www.crasseux.com/emacs/ and get the CVS
> Emacs he compiled for Windows, as this gives you support for images
> which 21.3 under Windows still lacks.

The precompiled Emacs available from http://nqmacs.sf.net/ seems to
support images as well - at least I can see Face headers since I
updated to it. (X-Face does not work due to some missing icontopbm
binary (or similar). Smilies work as well , but i switched them off as
soon as I saw one ;-)

Michael

Re: gnus on winxp

[Frank Schmitt]

Michael Schierl <schierlm-usenet@gmx.de> writes:

> Frank Schmitt <ich@Frank-Schmitt.net> writes:
>
>> I'd suggest you go to http://www.crasseux.com/emacs/ and get the CVS
>> Emacs he compiled for Windows, as this gives you support for images
>> which 21.3 under Windows still lacks.
>
> The precompiled Emacs available from http://nqmacs.sf.net/ seems to
> support images as well - at least I can see Face headers since I
> updated to it. (X-Face does not work due to some missing icontopbm
> binary (or similar). Smilies work as well , but i switched them off as
> soon as I saw one ;-)

You can fix the X-Face problem by installing the appropriate tools from
gnuwin32.sourceforge.net (I think they are in compface and netpbm) and
placing the following in .emacs (it replaces the call to icontopbm which
I couldn't find with xbmtopbm):

       (eval-after-load 'compface 
	 (defun uncompface (face)
	   "Convert FACE to pbm. Modified by Frank Schmitt"
	   (with-temp-buffer
	     (insert face)
	     (and (eq 0 (apply 'call-process-region (point-min) (point-max)
			       "uncompface"
			       'delete '(t nil) nil "-X" nil))
		  (progn
		    (goto-char (point-min))
		    (eq 0 (call-process-region (point-min) (point-max)
					       "xbmtopbm"
					       'delete '(t nil)))
		    )
		  (buffer-string)))))))


-- 
Did you ever realize how much text fits in eighty columns? If you now consider
that a signature usually consists of up to four lines, this gives you enough
space to spread a tremendous amount of information with your messages. So seize
this opportunity and don't waste your signature with bullshit nobody will read.

Re: gnus on winxp

[Markus Knittig]

Quote [ Michael Schierl * 3877. September 1993 ]

> (X-Face does not work due to some missing icontopbm
> binary (or similar).

Gnus CVS contains a ELisp-based uncompface program...

Best regards,
 Markus

Re: gnus on winxp

[Michael Schierl]

Frank Schmitt <ich@Frank-Schmitt.net> writes:

> You can fix the X-Face problem by installing the appropriate tools from
> gnuwin32.sourceforge.net (I think they are in compface and netpbm) and
> placing the following in .emacs (it replaces the call to icontopbm which
> I couldn't find with xbmtopbm):

icontopbm is in netpbm, but hereit complains about 

invalid input file -- premature EOF



>        (eval-after-load 'compface 
> 	 (defun uncompface (face)
> 	   "Convert FACE to pbm. Modified by Frank Schmitt"
> 	   (with-temp-buffer
> 	     (insert face)
> 	     (and (eq 0 (apply 'call-process-region (point-min) (point-max)
> 			       "uncompface"
> 			       'delete '(t nil) nil "-X" nil))
> 		  (progn
> 		    (goto-char (point-min))
> 		    (eq 0 (call-process-region (point-min) (point-max)
> 					       "xbmtopbm"
> 					       'delete '(t nil)))
> 		    )
> 		  (buffer-string)))))))

After removing the last two closing parens and adding a quote at the
beginning of the second line, i.e.

(eval-after-load 'compface 
  '(defun uncompface (face)
    "Convert FACE to pbm. Modified by Frank Schmitt"
    (with-temp-buffer
      (insert face)
      (and (eq 0 (apply 'call-process-region (point-min) (point-max)
			"uncompface"
			       'delete '(t nil) nil "-X" nil))
	   (progn
	     (goto-char (point-min))
	     (eq 0 (call-process-region (point-min) (point-max)
					"xbmtopbm"
					'delete '(t nil)))
	     )
	   (buffer-string)))))

it works fine. Thanks.

Michael