Gnus bugs and some annoyances ...

[Stefan Waldherr <swa@cs.cmu.edu>]

Hi,

I think that there are some flaws the way gnus handles it's article
numbers. Moving articles from one group to the other does not always have the
expected results. Consider this:

   `M-x gnus RET' to start gnus
   Enter folder `swa'
   Mark all articles with `#' (say 2 0 0 #)
   `B m temp RET' to move all mails to nnml:temp
   `c' to catchup
   `j nnml:temp RET' to jump to nnml:temp
   `RET' on the `nnml:temp' line yields `Can't select group'
   This is bug #1 (nnml:temp was not created by the moving process -- it
   existed before).

   `q' to quit gnus
   `M-x gnus RET' to start gnus
   Oops, `nnml:temp' shows x new messages.
   I enter the group and hit `c' to catchup.
   I mark all articles again with `#' and move it back to `swa'.
   Now the articles numbers start with >> 1. I would have expected,
   that they start with 1, since the group is empty.
   This is bug #2.

   Weird is at this point, that I can enter `swa' and find the 
   articles there (remember I couldn't do it the other way round).

Also I grepped thru dejanews and found that other people were wondering about
this: the way gnus determines the number of articles with maxn-minn isn't
particular smart since you could have deleted some articles in between. Is
there a particular reason why the number of articles are determined that way?
It is annoying because I have one folder with four mails and -- you might have
guessed it --- with very high article numbers. Now, any time I enter this
folder, gnus asks me `How many articles...'? MH has a nice feature where you
can pack folder (pack as in renumber all articles so that there is no gap in
the sequence of numbers). Could such a thing be of use for gnus?

Another issue is gnus speed: from time to time I'm simply waiting too long for
gnus to do something. For example: slurping mail. `nnml: Reading incoming
mail...'  stays in the message buffer for quite some time. Is there some code
that can be cleaned up wrt incorporating mail? Do other people experience such
delays?

--Stefan
-- 
Stefan Waldherr                office +1 (412) 268-3837
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