[Q] same message in multiple groups & expiry

[Q] same message in multiple groups & expiry

[Kai Grossjohann]

Hi there,

I'm thinking about revising my strategy of dealing with mail.  Up to
now, I had few folders and have put each mail into exactly one
folder.  This has saved me from lots of potential problems that arise
if you put messages into several folders at once.

(FWIW, I do not use total-expire.)

If a message has been put into groups A and B by the splitting process
there are a number of operations that I'd like to perform with the
message, while in group A.  I'll formulate the operations in terms of
"copies" (even though they might be hard links or whatnot), and I'll
disregard nnmail-expiry-wait and speak as if a message marked as
expirable will be deleted from disk immediately.

(1) Remove the group A copy but keep the group B copy.  Mark the group
    B copy as read or dormant or something (optional).

(2) Delete all copies of this message.

(3) Move the group A copy into group C but keep the group B copy as it
    is.  I don't care what mark the group B copy will have.

(4) Remove all copies of this message and put a new copy of it into
    group C.

(5) Put an additional copy into group C.

Also, I'm unsure of what the following operations will do:

  - Mark as expirable; does this correspond to (1) or (2), or
    something else entirely?

  - "B c" should be fairly clear, it's operation (5), isn't it.

  - "B m"; does this correspond to (3) or to (4)?

How does total-expire interact with all of this?

How have your experiences been with splitting mail to be put into
several groups?

tia,
kai
-- 
A large number of young women don't trust men with beards.
(BFBS Radio)

Re: [Q] same message in multiple groups & expiry

[Colin Rafferty]

Kai Grossjohann writes:

> I'm thinking about revising my strategy of dealing with mail.  Up to
> now, I had few folders and have put each mail into exactly one
> folder.  This has saved me from lots of potential problems that arise
> if you put messages into several folders at once.

What problems are these?  I haven't seen any in close to two years of
using Gnus.

> (FWIW, I do not use total-expire.)

> If a message has been put into groups A and B by the splitting process
> there are a number of operations that I'd like to perform with the
> message, while in group A.  I'll formulate the operations in terms of
> "copies" (even though they might be hard links or whatnot), and I'll
> disregard nnmail-expiry-wait and speak as if a message marked as
> expirable will be deleted from disk immediately.

> (1) Remove the group A copy but keep the group B copy.  Mark the group
>     B copy as read or dormant or something (optional).

If you enter group A and read the article, all its cross-postings are
marked as read everywhere (just as a cross-posted new article).

The article in group B will be marked read, but without total-expire, it 
will not be marked as expirable.

> (2) Delete all copies of this message.

Difficult.  Reading the article in A will expire the article in group B
if and only if group B is total-expire.

Otherwise, you would need to roll your own (as far as I know).  Of
course, there is an Xref field in the article in A, so that can help a
little.

> (3) Move the group A copy into group C but keep the group B copy as it
>     is.  I don't care what mark the group B copy will have.

`B m' (gnus-summary-move-article).

The group B article version will be marked read if and only if the group 
A article was marked as read before you move it.

> (4) Remove all copies of this message and put a new copy of it into
>     group C.

Well, the remove all copies is tough (see (2)), but putting a new copy
into group C would be just `e'dit the article, and then `B m'ove it.

> (5) Put an additional copy into group C.

`B c' (gnus-summary-copy-article).

> Also, I'm unsure of what the following operations will do:

>   - Mark as expirable; does this correspond to (1) or (2), or
>     something else entirely?

It corresponds to (1).  The "read" mark is set if and only if you have
the "read" mark in group A.

>   - "B c" should be fairly clear, it's operation (5), isn't it.

Exactly.

>   - "B m"; does this correspond to (3) or to (4)?

It corresponds to (3).

> How does total-expire interact with all of this?

It automatically does what you want for (2), but not what you want for (1).

> How have your experiences been with splitting mail to be put into
> several groups?

Pretty good.  I have total-expire set in my groups that mail is split
into, and different expiration times set for different classes of
groups.

I would suggest total-expire with intelligent expiration times.  I use
`?' on articles that I really want to keep forever, or I just `B c' them
into "archive" groups that do not match `gnus-total-expirable-newsgroups'.

I hope that this has helped.

-- 
Colin

Re: [Q] same message in multiple groups & expiry

[Justin Sheehy]

Kai Grossjohann <grossjohann@charly.cs.uni-dortmund.de> writes:

> (1) Remove the group A copy but keep the group B copy.  Mark the group
>     B copy as read or dormant or something (optional).
> 
> (2) Delete all copies of this message.

>   - Mark as expirable; does this correspond to (1) or (2), or
>     something else entirely?

Not exactly either.

Marking as expirable just marks it as expirable, it doesn't delete.

The expiry process will expire any articles that are marked expirable
and are older than expiry-wait.  This is similar to (1) above.

Total-expire removes the need for the expirable mark.

With total expire, articles that are marked read and are older than
expiry-wait are deleted.

-- 
Justin Sheehy

In a cloud bones of steel.