gnus-delay.el: let Gnus remind you of action items

gnus-delay.el: let Gnus remind you of action items

[Kai Großjohann]

I've committed this file to CVS.  Setup is simple, just insert these
two lines in ~/.gnus:

(require 'gnus-delay)
(gnus-delay-initialize)

After this, you can type `C-c C-j' (rather than `C-c C-c') to send a
message with a delay.  It asks you for the delay.  Possible delays are
like `3d' (3 days) or `7w' (7 weeks).  Internally, this works by
computing a deadline, inserting a special header with this deadline,
and dropping the message in nndraft:delayed.

Whenever you get new news in Gnus, it looks through nndraft:delayed
for any article where the time is up.

It often happens to me that I ask someone but that person might not
answer soon.  Since I tend to forget about this stuff, I can compose a
message to myself and delay it by, say, 7 days, and then Gnus will
remind me to look whether the person has answered.

With the recent change for annotations in nnml groups, you don't have
to actually send a mail, you can just compose a followup and insert
the right Newsgroups header.

What do you all think?

Please note that this is just a preliminary first implementation,
probably full of bugs.  But I'm sure you'll tell me :-) 

kai
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Re: gnus-delay.el: let Gnus remind you of action items

[Karl Kleinpaste]

Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai Großjohann) writes:
> What do you all think?

In principle, marvelous.  In practice...

Signaling: (wrong-number-of-arguments read-string 5)
  read-string("Length of delay (default `3d'): " nil nil "3d" nil)
  (list (read-string (format "Length of delay (default `%s'): " gnus-delay-default-delay) nil nil gnus-delay-default-delay nil))
  call-interactively(gnus-delay-article)

Under XEmacs 21.4, doc string for read-string:

| (read-string PROMPT &optional INITIAL-CONTENTS HISTORY DEFAULT-VALUE)
| 
| Documentation:
| Return a string from the minibuffer, prompting with string PROMPT.
| If non-nil, optional second arg INITIAL-CONTENTS is a string to insert
|  in the minibuffer before reading.
| Third arg HISTORY, if non-nil, specifies a history list.
| Fourth arg DEFAULT-VALUE is the default value.  If non-nil, it is used
|  for history command, and as the value to return if the user enters the
|  empty string.

Having just checked on XEmacs 21.1.14, I see it lacks even the
DEFAULT-VALUE parameter.  Perhaps use INITIAL-CONTENTS instead?

Also, I'd like the ability to specify minutes, hours, months, and
years.  (Yes, really.)

Re: gnus-delay.el: let Gnus remind you of action items

[Karl Kleinpaste]

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Karl Kleinpaste <karl@charcoal.com> writes:
> Having just checked on XEmacs 21.1.14, I see it lacks even the
> DEFAULT-VALUE parameter.  Perhaps use INITIAL-CONTENTS instead?

> Also, I'd like the ability to specify minutes, hours, months, and
> years.  (Yes, really.)

How about this?

I also wondered whether the string-match should be bounded in "^...$"
to ensure there's nothing "extra" added by the user.


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--- gnus-delay.el.~1~	Sat Jul 21 17:08:24 2001
+++ gnus-delay.el	Sun Jul 22 00:37:18 2001
@@ -41,22 +41,31 @@
 (defun gnus-delay-article (delay)
   "Delay this article by some time.
 DELAY is a string, giving the length of the time.  Possible values are
-like 3d (meaning 3 days) or 2w (meaning two weeks)."
+<digits><units> for <units> in minutes (`m'), hours (`h'), days (`d'),
+weeks (`w'), months (`M'), or years (`Y')."
   (interactive
-   (list (read-string (format "Length of delay (default `%s'): "
-                              gnus-delay-default-delay)
-                      nil nil gnus-delay-default-delay nil)))
+   (list (read-string "Length of delay (units in [mhdwMY]: " gnus-delay-default-delay)))
   (let (num unit days deadline)
-    (unless (string-match "\\([0-9]+\\)\\s-*\\([dw]\\)" delay)
+    (unless (string-match "\\([0-9]+\\)\\s-*\\([mhdwMY]\\)" delay)
       (error "Malformed delay `%s'" delay))
     (setq num (match-string 1 delay))
     (setq unit (match-string 2 delay))
-    (if (string= unit "w")
-        (setq delay (* 7 (string-to-number num)))
-      (setq delay (string-to-number num)))
+    ;; Start from seconds, then multiply into needed units.
+    (setq num (string-to-number num))
+    (if (string= unit "Y")
+       (setq delay (* num 60 60 24 365))
+      (if (string= unit "M")
+	  (setq delay (* num 60 60 24 30))
+	(if (string= unit "w")
+	    (setq delay (* num 60 60 24 7))
+	  (if (string= unit "d")
+	      (setq delay (* num 60 60 24))
+	    (if (string= unit "h")
+		(setq delay (* num 60 60))
+	      (setq delay (* num 60)))))))
     (setq deadline (message-make-date
                     (seconds-to-time (+ (time-to-seconds (current-time))
-                                        (* delay 24 60 60)))))
+                                        delay))))
     (message-add-header (format "%s: %s" gnus-delay-header deadline)))
   (set-buffer-modified-p t)
   (nndraft-request-create-group gnus-delay-group)

Re: gnus-delay.el: let Gnus remind you of action items

[Kai Großjohann]

On Sun, 22 Jul 2001, Karl Kleinpaste wrote:

> Karl Kleinpaste <karl@charcoal.com> writes:
>> Having just checked on XEmacs 21.1.14, I see it lacks even the
>> DEFAULT-VALUE parameter.  Perhaps use INITIAL-CONTENTS instead?
> 
>> Also, I'd like the ability to specify minutes, hours, months, and
>> years.  (Yes, really.)
> 
> How about this?

Nice.  I've installed it.

> I also wondered whether the string-match should be bounded in
> "^...$" to ensure there's nothing "extra" added by the user.

Not sure, either.  First, I had it in there, but then I took it out.
Without `$', the user can type `3days'.  Hm.

kai
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Re: gnus-delay.el: let Gnus remind you of action items

[Benjamin Rutt]

Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai Großjohann) writes:

> I've committed this file to CVS.  Setup is simple, just insert these
> two lines in ~/.gnus:
> 
> (require 'gnus-delay)
> (gnus-delay-initialize)

Neat.  I like this feature.  Although I would like to report the
following problem after cvs updating today:

0) I put the above two lines in my ~/.gnus.

1) I start to compose a message (mail or news, either one), and save
it off as a normal draft from message-mode with C-c C-d, and return to
*Group*.

2) I type "1 g" from *Group* as I always do to see if I have any new
   mail.

3) I get the following error message and backtrace, every other time I
   press "1 g" (i.e. on times 1, 3, 5, 7, ...).

   Signaling: (search-failed "^X-Gnus-Delayed:\\s-+")
  re-search-forward("^X-Gnus-Delayed:\\s-+")
  gnus-delay-send-drafts()
  run-hooks(gnus-get-new-news-hook)
  apply(run-hooks gnus-get-new-news-hook)
  gnus-run-hooks(gnus-get-new-news-hook)
  gnus-group-get-new-news(1)
* call-interactively(gnus-group-get-new-news)
  recursive-edit()
  byte-code("Æ\b!ˆÇ\x11È ˆÉÇ!ˆpÊË\x1a^[\x1cÌ ˆ+ebˆÍ ˆ`ÎÏ!ˆÐyˆ`|ˆÑ ˆ\r@Ò>ƒN
  debug(error (search-failed "^X-Gnus-Delayed:\\s-+"))
  re-search-forward("^X-Gnus-Delayed:\\s-+")
  gnus-delay-send-drafts()
  run-hooks(gnus-get-new-news-hook)
  apply(run-hooks gnus-get-new-news-hook)
  gnus-run-hooks(gnus-get-new-news-hook)
  gnus-group-get-new-news(1)
* call-interactively(gnus-group-get-new-news)

4) If I then delete the draft, this error goes away.

-- 
Benjamin

Re: gnus-delay.el: let Gnus remind you of action items

[Didier Verna]

Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai Großjohann) wrote:

> I've committed this file to CVS.  Setup is simple, just insert these
> two lines in ~/.gnus:
> 
> (require 'gnus-delay)
> (gnus-delay-initialize)

        Kai, you put me to a point :-/. The new backend I promised to post 2
weeks ago does something similar. It is called nndiary, and lets you handle
messages as diary items: each message has its own crontab-like schedule and
pops up as new at the required time (timeS if the message is set to remind you
of something on a regular basis). You can also set up "reminders" which means
that the message will be able to pop up, like one week before, then 1 day
before the date and so on.

        It's a real backend, pretty much similar to nnml, which means that you
can also send diary messages to other people, and they will appear directly in
*their own* diary groups.

        I've been using it for almost a year now, I should probably have
posted it earlier, sorry :-( Still, I'm a bit reluctant to release what I have
now because I'll be on holiday from Aug. 9th to 31st so I won't be able to
answer questions or fix bugs until then.

-- 
Didier Verna, didier@lrde.epita.fr, http://www.lrde.epita.fr/~didier

EPITA / LRDE, 14-16 rue Voltaire   Tel.+33 (1) 53 14 59 47
94276 Le Kremlin-Bicêtre, France   Fax.+33 (1) 44 08 01 99   didier@xemacs.org

Re: gnus-delay.el: let Gnus remind you of action items

[Kai Großjohann]

On Mon, 30 Jul 2001, Didier Verna wrote:

> It's a real backend, pretty much similar to nnml, which means that
> you can also send diary messages to other people, and they will
> appear directly in *their own* diary groups.

Wow, that's quite cool.

I wonder if there is a place for both kinds of functionality?  The
intended use for gnus-delay.el is the thought `I want to be reminded
about this email in one week'.  And so you can put a followup right in
the same group (with the annotation stuff).

Maybe extra groups for this kind of thing would be another cool
function.

I wonder if your nndiary is a superset of the old nntodo that John
Wiegley doesn't have time to maintain anymore?  That would also be
nice.

kai
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Re: gnus-delay.el: let Gnus remind you of action items

[Didier Verna]

Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai Großjohann) wrote:

> I wonder if there is a place for both kinds of functionality? The intended
> use for gnus-delay.el is the thought `I want to be reminded about this email
> in one week'.

        Our purposes indeed are a bit different.

> And so you can put a followup right in the same group (with the annotation
> stuff).

        I don't understand what you mean by annotation here. What followup via
news has to do with the functionality you implemented ?

> I wonder if your nndiary is a superset of the old nntodo that John
> Wiegley doesn't have time to maintain anymore?  That would also be
> nice.

        I've never used nntodo, but I'll look at it.

-- 
Didier Verna, didier@lrde.epita.fr, http://www.lrde.epita.fr/~didier

EPITA / LRDE, 14-16 rue Voltaire   Tel.+33 (1) 53 14 59 47
94276 Le Kremlin-Bicêtre, France   Fax.+33 (1) 44 08 01 99   didier@xemacs.org

Re: gnus-delay.el: let Gnus remind you of action items

[Kai Großjohann]

On Mon, 30 Jul 2001, Didier Verna wrote:

> Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai Großjohann) wrote:
> 
>> I wonder if there is a place for both kinds of functionality? The
>> intended use for gnus-delay.el is the thought `I want to be
>> reminded about this email in one week'.
> 
> Our purposes indeed are a bit different.
> 
>> And so you can put a followup right in the same group (with the
>> annotation stuff).
> 
> I don't understand what you mean by annotation here. What followup
> via news has to do with the functionality you implemented ?

I changed nnml such that you can put a `Newsgroups: mail.misc' header
into your message and post, and then the message will appear in
nnml:mail.misc.

If you create followups to a message using the above mentioned method,
then you can think of the followups as a kind of annotation.  For
example, you could (setq gnus-thread-ignore-subject t), and then put
the annotation in the Subject header, and then you will see it right
in the Summary buffer.

>> I wonder if your nndiary is a superset of the old nntodo that John
>> Wiegley doesn't have time to maintain anymore?  That would also be
>> nice.
> 
> I've never used nntodo, but I'll look at it.

It does not provide much functionality.  Mainly, you can put articles
in groups, and assign a priority to each article.  The summary buffer
format is slightly changed (From header is replaced with priority).
The summary buffer can be sorted by priority, in addition to date and
article number.

kai
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Re: gnus-delay.el: let Gnus remind you of action items

[Amos Gouaux]

>>>>> On Mon, 30 Jul 2001 12:34:13 +0200,
>>>>> Didier Verna <didier@lrde.epita.fr> (drv) writes:

drv>         It's a real backend, pretty much similar to nnml, which means that you
drv> can also send diary messages to other people, and they will appear directly in
drv> *their own* diary groups.

Hmmm.  Maybe another tangent might be nnical?

-- 
Amos

Re: gnus-delay.el: let Gnus remind you of action items

[Kai Großjohann]

On Mon, 30 Jul 2001, Amos Gouaux wrote:
>>>>>> On Mon, 30 Jul 2001 12:34:13 +0200,
>>>>>> Didier Verna <didier@lrde.epita.fr> (drv) writes:
> 
> drv>         It's a real backend, pretty much similar to nnml, which
> drv>         means that you can also send diary messages to other
> drv>         people, and they will appear directly in *their own*
> drv>         diary groups.
> 
> Hmmm.  Maybe another tangent might be nnical?

Cool.  And nnplan.  (Does anybody here know Plan?  I think the
functionality is nifty, but the UI is less than convincing, in
places.)

And then, isn't there a vCalendar file format and protocol, or
something?

kai
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Re: gnus-delay.el: let Gnus remind you of action items

[Christoph Conrad]

Hello Kai,

    Kai> And then, isn't there a vCalendar file format and protocol,
    Kai> or something?

http://www.imc.org/pdi/ points to:
    
* RFC 2445: Internet Calendaring and Scheduling Core Object
  Specification (iCalendar)

* RFC 2446: iCalendar Transport-Independent Interoperability Protocol
  (iTIP): Scheduling Events, BusyTime, To-dos and Journal Entries

* RFC 2447: iCalendar Message-based Interoperability Protocol (iMIP)

Best regards,
Christoph Conrad

Re: gnus-delay.el: let Gnus remind you of action items

[Didier Verna]

Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai Großjohann) wrote:

> I changed nnml such that you can put a `Newsgroups: mail.misc' header
> into your message and post, and then the message will appear in
> nnml:mail.misc.
> 
> If you create followups to a message using the above mentioned method,
> then you can think of the followups as a kind of annotation.  For
> example, you could (setq gnus-thread-ignore-subject t), and then put
> the annotation in the Subject header, and then you will see it right
> in the Summary buffer.

	OK.

>>> I wonder if your nndiary is a superset of the old nntodo that John
>>> Wiegley doesn't have time to maintain anymore?  That would also be
>>> nice.
>> 
>> I've never used nntodo, but I'll look at it.
> 
> It does not provide much functionality.  Mainly, you can put articles
> in groups, and assign a priority to each article.  The summary buffer
> format is slightly changed (From header is replaced with priority).
> The summary buffer can be sorted by priority, in addition to date and
> article number.

	I guess nndiary can do all that. You just have to consider that the
dates of your diary entries represent priorities, like, the farthest date, the
lowest priority or so.

	Hmmm, that just gave me a weird idea: since nndiary can handle
periodic schedules[1], you could then have todo entries with a saw priority
waveform: the entry has a top-level priority and if you don't treat it
immediately, the priority decreases progressively until the next month where
it pops up as toplevel again :-)


Footnotes: 
[1]  you can set up a message that says "I have to pay my apartment's rent
the 1st of each month", and the message will pop up each month regularly.

-- 
Didier Verna, didier@lrde.epita.fr, http://www.lrde.epita.fr/~didier

EPITA / LRDE, 14-16 rue Voltaire   Tel.+33 (1) 53 14 59 47
94276 Le Kremlin-Bicêtre, France   Fax.+33 (1) 44 08 01 99   didier@xemacs.org

Re: gnus-delay.el: let Gnus remind you of action items

[Kai Großjohann]

This nndiary stuff sounds mouth-watering.  I'm looking forward to
seeing it!
kai
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Re: gnus-delay.el: let Gnus remind you of action items

[Jason R. Mastaler]

This is extremely cool Kai, thanks.  I've added a handler for this to
`gnus-demon-handlers' to periodically send delayed drafts and it's
working great.

I do have some suggestions that you might consider implementing:

- First, I'm not thrilled with the X-Gnus-Delayed header being added
  to the message.  Perhaps this could be made optional?

- Also, it would be very nice to be able to specify a specific time
  instead of only a specific date or delay from current time.  I'm
  thinking something in the form HH:MM to run a job at a specific time
  of day would be nice (If that time is already past, the next day is
  assumed.)  This is similar to how `at' works.

Thanks.

-- 
(TMDA - http://tmda.sourceforge.net/)
(OSI-certified SPAM reduction system)

Re: gnus-delay.el: let Gnus remind you of action items

[Kai Großjohann]

"Jason R. Mastaler" <jason-dated-998507522.ec37c7@mastaler.com> writes:

> This is extremely cool Kai, thanks.  I've added a handler for this to
> `gnus-demon-handlers' to periodically send delayed drafts and it's
> working great.
>
> I do have some suggestions that you might consider implementing:
>
> - First, I'm not thrilled with the X-Gnus-Delayed header being added
>   to the message.  Perhaps this could be made optional?

gnus-delay uses this header for knowing when the article is due.  How
should gnus-delay store this information, if not in the header?

> - Also, it would be very nice to be able to specify a specific time
>   instead of only a specific date or delay from current time.  I'm
>   thinking something in the form HH:MM to run a job at a specific time
>   of day would be nice (If that time is already past, the next day is
>   assumed.)  This is similar to how `at' works.

Ah, yes.  More flexibility with time specs.  Hm.  Lessee...

kai
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Re: gnus-delay.el: let Gnus remind you of action items

[Kai Großjohann]

"Jason R. Mastaler" <jason-dated-998507522.ec37c7@mastaler.com> writes:

> - Also, it would be very nice to be able to specify a specific time
>   instead of only a specific date or delay from current time.  I'm
>   thinking something in the form HH:MM to run a job at a specific time
>   of day would be nice (If that time is already past, the next day is
>   assumed.)  This is similar to how `at' works.

./done

kai
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Re: gnus-delay.el: let Gnus remind you of action items

[Jason R. Mastaler]

On Wed, 15 Aug 2001, Kai Großjohann wrote:

> gnus-delay uses this header for knowing when the article is due.

Oh OK, I didn't realize this.

> Ah, yes.  More flexibility with time specs.  Hm.  Lessee...

Excellent, thanks!

-- 
(TMDA - http://tmda.sourceforge.net/)
(OSI-certified SPAM reduction system)

Re: gnus-delay.el: let Gnus remind you of action items

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai Großjohann) writes:

> I've committed this file to CVS.  Setup is simple, just insert these
> two lines in ~/.gnus:
>
> (require 'gnus-delay)
> (gnus-delay-initialize)

Trés cool.  And I'm sure the documentation will materialize, as if by
magic, in some .texi file one of these days.  :-)

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

Re: gnus-delay.el: let Gnus remind you of action items

[Kai Großjohann]

Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:

> Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai Großjohann) writes:
>
>> I've committed this file to CVS.  Setup is simple, just insert these
>> two lines in ~/.gnus:
>>
>> (require 'gnus-delay)
>> (gnus-delay-initialize)
>
> Trés cool.  And I'm sure the documentation will materialize, as if by
> magic, in some .texi file one of these days.  :-)

Done.

Alas, I'm afraid I might have b0rked the Texinfo rather badly.  I ran
the `update all nodes' and `update every menu' commands given to me by
AUC-TeX (but I think they're part of the normal Texinfo mode, too).

I had to adjust stuff later on.  For example, the previously mentioned
commands inserted references to a node `The Manual' which doesn't
exist in the Info version, so makeinfo was not happy.

If this was something I shouldn't have done, I'm sorry.  What should I
have done instead?  I'll repair the damage.

kai
-- 
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Re: gnus-delay.el: let Gnus remind you of action items

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai Großjohann) writes:

> Alas, I'm afraid I might have b0rked the Texinfo rather badly.  I ran
> the `update all nodes' and `update every menu' commands given to me by
> AUC-TeX (but I think they're part of the normal Texinfo mode, too).

I never run those commands.  They, er, make stuff happen.  :-)

> If this was something I shouldn't have done, I'm sorry.  What should I
> have done instead?  I'll repair the damage.

Just revert back to the previous version or something.

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

Re: gnus-delay.el: let Gnus remind you of action items

[Kai Großjohann]

Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai Großjohann) writes:

> Alas, I'm afraid I might have b0rked the Texinfo rather badly.  I ran
> the `update all nodes' and `update every menu' commands given to me by
> AUC-TeX (but I think they're part of the normal Texinfo mode, too).

Okay, I've now compared the new version with the old one, and it seems
that the @node command shouldn't have prev, next, up pointers.  I've
removed those.  I've also cleaned up the menus a bit that were created
with the `update every menu' command.

I hope all is well now.

I'm sorry for this mistake.

kai
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Re: gnus-delay.el: let Gnus remind you of action items

[Simon Josefsson]

Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai Großjohann) writes:

> After this, you can type `C-c C-j' (rather than `C-c C-c') to send a
> message with a delay.  It asks you for the delay.  Possible delays are
> like `3d' (3 days) or `7w' (7 weeks).  Internally, this works by
> computing a deadline, inserting a special header with this deadline,
> and dropping the message in nndraft:delayed.

I just read RFC 2852 which makes it possible for SMTP clients to
specify when a mail should be delivered.  Maybe RFC 2852 support could
be a todo item for gnus-delay.  Just an idea.

(Recent sendmail betas support the extension.)

Re: gnus-delay.el: let Gnus remind you of action items

[Simon Josefsson]

Simon Josefsson <jas@extundo.com> writes:

>> After this, you can type `C-c C-j' (rather than `C-c C-c') to send a
>> message with a delay.  It asks you for the delay.  Possible delays are
>> like `3d' (3 days) or `7w' (7 weeks).  Internally, this works by
>> computing a deadline, inserting a special header with this deadline,
>> and dropping the message in nndraft:delayed.
>
> I just read RFC 2852 which makes it possible for SMTP clients to
> specify when a mail should be delivered.  Maybe RFC 2852 support could
> be a todo item for gnus-delay.  Just an idea.

Oops, I misunderstood the RFC. :)  It just makes it possible to tell
the MTA what to do if the mail cannot be delivered within a certain
amount of time (which seems less useful).  Sorry about the noise.

Re: gnus-delay.el: let Gnus remind you of action items

[Kai Großjohann]

Simon Josefsson <jas@extundo.com> writes:

> I just read RFC 2852 which makes it possible for SMTP clients to
> specify when a mail should be delivered.  Maybe RFC 2852 support could
> be a todo item for gnus-delay.  Just an idea.

Whee.  Nifty.  Gotta read that RFC.

kai
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