From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.emacs.gnus.general/50143 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Kevin Greiner Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.gnus.general Subject: Re: nnimap usage model Date: Sun, 16 Feb 2003 12:41:55 -0600 Sender: owner-ding@hpc.uh.edu Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: main.gmane.org 1045420912 12936 80.91.224.249 (16 Feb 2003 18:41:52 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@main.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 16 Feb 2003 18:41:52 +0000 (UTC) Return-path: Original-Received: from malifon.math.uh.edu ([129.7.128.13]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 18kTjZ-0003MN-00 for ; Sun, 16 Feb 2003 19:41:49 +0100 Original-Received: from sina.hpc.uh.edu ([129.7.128.10] ident=lists) by malifon.math.uh.edu with esmtp (Exim 3.20 #1) id 18kTk3-0005wQ-00; Sun, 16 Feb 2003 12:42:19 -0600 Original-Received: by sina.hpc.uh.edu (TLB v0.09a (1.20 tibbs 1996/10/09 22:03:07)); Sun, 16 Feb 2003 12:43:17 -0600 (CST) Original-Received: from sclp3.sclp.com (sclp3.sclp.com [66.230.238.2]) by sina.hpc.uh.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id MAA13919 for ; Sun, 16 Feb 2003 12:43:03 -0600 (CST) Original-Received: (qmail 6347 invoked by alias); 16 Feb 2003 18:42:00 -0000 Original-Received: (qmail 6342 invoked from network); 16 Feb 2003 18:42:00 -0000 Original-Received: from quimby.gnus.org (80.91.224.244) by 66.230.238.6 with SMTP; 16 Feb 2003 18:42:00 -0000 Original-Received: from news by quimby.gnus.org with local (Exim 3.12 #1 (Debian)) id 18kTvR-0007bj-00 for ; Sun, 16 Feb 2003 19:54:05 +0100 Original-To: ding@gnus.org Original-Path: not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnus.ding Original-Lines: 124 Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: 42.0012159.lodgenet.net Original-X-Trace: quimby.gnus.org 1045421645 29246 12.18.119.42 (16 Feb 2003 18:54:05 GMT) Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet@quimby.gnus.org Original-NNTP-Posting-Date: 16 Feb 2003 18:54:05 GMT User-Agent: Gnus/5.090016 (Oort Gnus v0.16) Emacs/21.2 Cancel-Lock: sha1:q4d1+YchMI4E5zJe/5mLyvl0lek= Precedence: list X-Majordomo: 1.94.jlt7 Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.gnus.general:50143 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.gnus.general:50143 David Abrahams writes: > Kevin Greiner writes: > >> David Abrahams writes: >> >>> Thanks for your reply, Kevin >>> >>> Kevin Greiner writes: >>> >>>> The agent has three faces and a format specifier to highlight articles >>>> that have NOT been downloaded. The faces appear by default while the >>>> format specifier must be added through customization. >>> >>> Hmm, I'll see if I can track that down. Could you elaborate on what >>> you mean by "appear by default", and where the customization for the >>> format specifier can be found? >> >> The variable gnus-summary-highlight controls how an article is >> highlighted in the summary. It contains a list of conditions and >> faces over which Gnus will iterate to the first true condition >> then select that face. If you don't want to use faces to highlight >> the undownloaded articles, you should customize gnus-summary-highlight >> to delete the three cons cells that refer to the >> gnus*undownloaded-face. > > Yes, thanks, I understood all that from your previous postings; I > don't think it really answers my questions, though. Should I rephrase > them? I thought they were fairly precisely worded and I'm not sure I > can do better. Well, "appear by default" is handled by the value of gnus-summary-highlight. As for changing the format specifier, see gnus-undownloaded-mark below. > >>>> If you don't like using colors to indicate the undownloaded articles, >>>> you can customize gnus-summary-highlight. Just remove the three cons >>>> cells that refer to gnus*undownloaded-face. >>>> >>>> If you want to use +/- markers you can add %O to gnus-summary-line-format. >>> >>> I'll consider that as an alternative; it might be preferable. >>> >>>> You're the first to describe newly downloaded articles as being marked >>>> as "ancient". >>> >>> I think I was mis-describing the marks; the face used for ancient >>> articles looks a lot like the one used for un-downloaded articles on >>> NTEmacs when you don't use Courier New :( >> >> You can change the characters used by customizing >> gnus-undownloaded-mark and gnus-downloaded-mark. The +/- were >> selected for historical reasons. > > I understand that; I wasn't using the article marks in my > summary-line-format; I was just referring to the face (i.e. colors) > used. Well, gnus-summary-highlight names the faces being used. Once you know the face, you can customize it with M-x customize-face. > >>> NOTE: also, I'm not really sure what I'm getting from >>> gnus-agent-cache. All I can find in the documentation says "the agent >>> is also a big cache!" Can somebody explain what that means? >> >> It is an internal switch for temporarily disabling the agent. You >> should leave it set to t. Gnus will bind it to nil as appropriate >> times. > > Boy, that just makes it even more mysterious! Well, Kai's answer was much better. It just goes to show that I should stick to writing code. > > The "hate" part of my love-hate relationship with GNUs is mostly due > to not being able to get a clear and precise understanding of the > system architecture and consequently, how to make it do what I want. > I've tried to RTFM, which is imposing enough already. I'd hate to > think that the only way to really understand things is to use the > source, Luke. Well, Dave, I'm not sure what manual you were using but from the comments that you've made in this thread, something is wrong with it. For example, you previously stated that the only documentation you could find for gnus-agent-cache was "the agent is also a big cache!". I just browsed the online info pages and found that "the agent is also a big cache!" appears on '(gnus) Gnus Unplugged' where it is a navigation link to the '(gnus) Agent as Cache' page. On that page, I found the following description: When Gnus is plugged, it is not efficient to download headers or articles from the server again, if they are already stored in the Agent. So, Gnus normally only downloads headers once, and stores them in the Agent. These headers are later used when generating the summary buffer, regardless of whether you are plugged or unplugged. Articles are not cached in the Agent by default though (that would potentially consume lots of disk space), but if you have already downloaded an article into the Agent, Gnus will not download the article from the server again but use the locally stored copy instead. This behaviour can be controlled by `gnus-agent-cache' (*Note Agent Variables::). English is my first language and I admittedly had to read this twice. However, the last part of the paragraph reiterates a rather concise description of gnus-agent-cache: "if you have already downloaded an article into the Agent, Gnus will not download the article from the server again but use the locally stored copy instead. This behaviour can be controlled by `gnus-agent-cache'" This page also had a link to the '(gnus) Agent Variables' page where I found: `gnus-agent-cache' Variable to control whether use the locally stored NOV and articles when plugged, e.g. essentially using the Agent as a cache. The default is non-nil, which means to use the Agent as a cache. Kevin