Re: some mail annoyances

[Dmitry Yaitskov <dimas@home.com>]

Per Abrahamsen <abraham@dina.kvl.dk> wrote:

<snip-snip>
> > * Bottom line:  Gnus is not usable as a mail reader for non-hacker
> > types.  There are just too many options, there is no introductory
> > manual, and the defaults are non-intuitive.  Even setting it up
> > so it suitable for non-hackers is difficult.  I ended up setting
> > up my boyfriend to use VM.  He is not 100% happy with VM, but
> > I don't see how gnus could be an option.  That is a shame.
> 
> VM is an excellent mail reader, and in itself a good reason why Gnus
> should keep working like a news reader.  If you want a mail reader
> that works according to normal mail reader conventions, VM is there.
> However, if you really want to treat your mailbox as a newsspool, Gnus
> is the answer.

I for example want a something that reads both mail and news, does it
well, and is more or less intuitive for both. I do not spend all that
much time reading either, and would much rather learn one good program
than two. Besides, news and mail are very closely related, so using
one prog for both seems natural. Hence I think making gnus as
intuitive as possible for both is "a good thing".

> > * In there any commend to re-number the messages in a mail folder?
> > I'm used to mhe, which would re-use numbers on expired messages,
> > and when teh numbers approaches 10000, I would run an mh command
> > to renumber the entire folder.  Yes, this is an esthetic issue,
> > not really important ...
> 
> You can't renumber the usenet messages, why should you be able to
> renumber mail messages? Makes no sense from the Gnus point of view.

Whereas I do not have a strong opinion about renumbering the messages, 
I honestly don't see how the impossibility of renumbering usenet
messages is relevant to the option of renumbering mail messages in
one's own folder. (And besides, somebody's already posted that it *is* 
possible). E.g. you can't delete (B del) a real news article, whereas
you certainly can do that to a mail message. So what?

-- 
Cheers,
-Dima.