Re: automatic mail checking & notify

[David Benjamin <dbjag@aolnorth.com>]

Thanks very much for the pointers to display-time.el, Picons, and Xfaces.
The display-time.el code was very educational, however the Picons and Xfaces
stuff isn't of use to since I'm running on WIN32, and mail works different.

Perhaps I could bother everyone for a second question.  I've a small piece
of code below which will check every X seconds for articles of subscribedness
level Y, this is perfect for what I want.  I can make all important
stop-what-your-doing-and-read-me mail groups at level 1 or so and limit
interruptions for mail directly to me and, of course, any and all
postings to alt.hygiene.male.

However, I'm stuck as to how to detect whether any new mail has actually
been recieved for the groups fetched.  Is there a way to detect new mail
for a level of subscription or, failing that, for a specific group?

Again, thanks very much for your help.  Gnus is good.

Dave Benjamin
dbjag@aolnorth.com

--

(defvar check-gnus-timer nil)

(defvar check-gnus-interval 300
  "* Seconds between gnus-checks.")

(defvar check-gnus-level 1
  "* Gnus level to check.")

(defun check-gnus ()  
  ""
  (interactive)
  (and check-gnus-timer (cancel-timer check-gnus-timer))
  (setq check-gnus-timer
	(run-at-time nil check-gnus-interval 'check-gnus-event-handler)))

(defun check-gnus-event-handler ()
  (message (concat (current-time-string) "- check-gnus - checking mail..."))

  ; hmm. perhaps I should save current state here for comparison after check?

  (gnus-group-get-new-news check-gnus-level)

  ; insert here:
  ; clever piece of code that will detect if new mail has been
  ; received, and play an amusing sound, like this...

  (call-process "playsnd" nil t nil "s:\\buzzly.wav")
)

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