Gnus command to read old Gmane threads

Gnus command to read old Gmane threads

[Reiner Steib]

Hi,

often I use <http://search.gmane.org/> to find some old messages.
While the web interface is much better than Google Groups', it is
still not as convenient as Gnus, of course.  ;-)

As URLs like
<http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.gnus.general/65087/focus=65114>
expose the relevant article numbers (at least approximately) and
<http://gmane.org/export.php> explains mbox export, I added the
following command to Gnus:

,----[ <f1> f gnus-group-read-ephemeral-gmane-group RET ]
| gnus-group-read-ephemeral-gmane-group is an interactive Lisp
| function in `gnus-group.el'. 
| (gnus-group-read-ephemeral-gmane-group group start end)
| 
| Read articles from Gmane group group as an ephemeral group.
| start and end specify the articles range.  The articles are
| downloaded via HTTP using the URL specified by
| `gnus-group-gmane-group-download-format'.
`----

I.e. with `M-x gnus-group-read-ephemeral-gmane-group RET
gmane.emacs.gnus.general RET 65087 RET 65114 RET' you can read the
thread in Gnus.

Ideas for improvement:

- When called interactively, maybe instead of reading END, the user
  could enter the range.

- It should be possible to enter URLs like
  <http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.gnus.general/65087/focus=65114>
  and Gnus should parse GROUP, START and END from this.
  
- If Gmane could supply "minimal and maximum article number of this
  thread [or MID]" somehow, we could use these values.

Comments?

Bye, Reiner.
-- 
       ,,,
      (o o)
---ooO-(_)-Ooo---  |  PGP key available  |  http://rsteib.home.pages.de/

Re: Gnus command to read old Gmane threads

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Reiner Steib <reinersteib+gmane@imap.cc> writes:

> As URLs like
> <http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.gnus.general/65087/focus=65114>
> expose the relevant article numbers (at least approximately) and
> <http://gmane.org/export.php> explains mbox export, I added the
> following command to Gnus:

[...]

> - If Gmane could supply "minimal and maximum article number of this
>   thread [or MID]" somehow, we could use these values.

Well, I could add something to thread.gmane.org to output NOV lines
instead of HTML, I guess.  That would be faster to parse, and you
wouldn't need a specific command just to get the article number range. 

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
  larsi@gnus.org * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen