Re: Overbearing undownloaded face

[Kevin Greiner <kgreiner@xpediantsolutions.com>]

David S Goldberg <david.goldberg6@verizon.net> writes:

>>>>>> On Fri, 02 May 2003 18:19:19 +0200, Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen
>>>>>> <larsi@gnus.org> said:
>
>> Simon Josefsson <jas@extundo.com> writes:
>>> Yup.  I've been using this, perhaps the defaults should be changed?
>>> Currently undownloadable marks is more important than, say, tick
>>> marks, which doesn't seem right to me.  And I was used to the black
>>> marks on unread messages.
>
>> But you wouldn't tick undownloaded messages, would you?  (If I
>> understand you right...)
>
> Actually, I do so all the time.  I only download if i plan to work
> offline, which is only when I travel.  I'm plugged 95% of the time so
> don't need to download.  Moreover, I'm in control of the expiry as I'm
> using nnimap.

Right, that's how you use the agent.  While it is a perfectly valid
approach, it's based on different assumptions that those descibed in
the manual.  In fact, from what you described.  Why aren't you leaving
your server unagentized for your normal usage then agentizing when
preparing to go offline?  It's only four extra keystokes.

I personally pay by the month but many Gnus users pay by the minute
for their net access.  If you payed by the minute, I'd assume that you
would want minimize the expense of using Gnus.  With the agent, you
can do just that:

1) Start Gnus plugged to execute gnus-agent-fetch-session.  In a
   continuous sequence of requests, the agent will fetch all of the
   new headers and, in groups where you've authorized it, articles
   that match your selection criteria.
2) Go offline and unplugged to browse articles and compose replies
   without incurring unnecessary connection costs.  At this point, all
   of the articles that you are interested in will be displayed in
   their usual faces as they have been downloaded.  If you do see the
   undownloaded face, then you'll know that you'll have to go online
   again before you can read it.
3) Go online and plugged to upload your responses.


Personnally, I use the agent as a cache to improve performance.  So
I've added gnus-agent-fetch-selected-article to
gnus-select-article-hook.  That means that the first time I read an
article, it's fetched into the agent.  So, for me, unread articles are
either marked with the undownloaded or unread face depending on
whether I've used a fetch command to fetch a block of articles.  All
other articles are displayed in their traditional faces.

So, it all depends on how you choose to use the agent.c

Kevin