more getting started questions

more getting started questions

[Eric S. Johansson]

here's a good one...

I've managed to get gnus setup for a newsreader (bet you didn't know it
could do that ;-) and it mostly works okay.  Unfortunately, something
happened and I can't figure out what it was.  Here's the scene.  I'm testing
out macros from NaturallySpeaking to drive gnus and my wife calls to me and
I answer without thinking about the microphone still being on.
NaturallySpeaking recognized something (God knows what was) and gnus merrily
accepts the text and does something in response.  I can't undo what was I
did!!!

One needs to keep in mind that using speech recognition is like having a
blind typist that randomly adds (or removes) words to what you're dictating.
It also gets very creative in terms of "not hearing you"...

anyway I now have the article summary that looks like this:

! +[   9: Mick Spencer        ] Body Shop Painting for Rockets
! +  [  21: Thoszhf             ]
! +    [  20: Greg Cisko          ]
! -      [  10: Connery             ]
! +        [  17: Ben                 ]
! -          [  14: David Weinshenker   ]
! +  [  41: Mark Uhlenkamp      ]
! +    [   2: OTAK15              ]
! +      [  12: Mark Uhlenkamp      ]

first off, is there a table telling me what characters in the first column
mean and characters in the second column mean.  In addition to the
exclamation point, I've seen an R and a Y.  I assume the R means the article
has been read.  As for the Y, I haven't a clue except it seems to be
something related to having killed articles.  Which leads me to my next
question.

I don't fully understand scoring yet but if my faint understandings correct,
killing a thread lowers its score which means I have to work harder to read
it?  Every time I don't read it further lowers its score?

I am making progress when still try to figure out everything that needs to
be set.

my .gnus file... glommed from examples on the net.  I know it's still
incomplete because every time I've followed up an article, it bitches at me
about having an incomplete setup.  I think that it just doesn't have my
e-mail address/domain to work with for the message ID and the from line.

---eric (it seemed like a good idea at the time)

------------
(setq gnus-select-method '(nntp "harvee.billerica.ma.us"))

 (setq
  ;; display threads in summary mode
  gnus-show-threads t
  ;; try to build threads by grabbing old headers
  gnus-fetch-old-headers nil
  ;; variable not documented
  gnus-gather-loose-threads t
  ;; list of functions for sorting threads
  ;; in the summary buffer
  gnus-thread-sort-functions
  ;; sort threads by root article number
  '(gnus-thread-sort-by-number
    ;; sort threads by root article score
    gnus-thread-sort-by-score)
  ;; variable not documented
  gnus-thread-hide-subjects nil
  ;; hide all threads initially
  gnus-thread-hide-subtree t
  ;; number that says how much
  ;; each sub-thread should be indented
  gnus-thread-indent-level 2)

(setq   gnus-use-adaptive-scoring t)
(defvar gnus-default-adaptive-score-alist
  '((gnus-unread-mark)
    (gnus-ticked-mark (from 4))
    (gnus-dormant-mark (from 5))
    (gnus-del-mark (from -4) (subject -1))
    (gnus-read-mark (from 1) (subject 1))
    (gnus-expirable-mark (from -1) (subject -1))
    (gnus-killed-mark (from -1) (subject -3))
    (gnus-kill-file-mark)
    (gnus-ancient-mark)
    (gnus-low-score-mark)
    (gnus-catchup-mark (subject -4) (from -1))
    )
  )

Re: more getting started questions

[Kai Großjohann]

"Eric S. Johansson" <esj@harvee.billerica.ma.us> writes:

> One needs to keep in mind that using speech recognition is like having a
> blind typist that randomly adds (or removes) words to what you're dictating.
> It also gets very creative in terms of "not hearing you"...
> 
> anyway I now have the article summary that looks like this:
> 
> ! +[   9: Mick Spencer        ] Body Shop Painting for Rockets
> ! +  [  21: Thoszhf             ]
> ! +    [  20: Greg Cisko          ]
> ! -      [  10: Connery             ]
> ! +        [  17: Ben                 ]
> ! -          [  14: David Weinshenker   ]
> ! +  [  41: Mark Uhlenkamp      ]
> ! +    [   2: OTAK15              ]
> ! +      [  12: Mark Uhlenkamp      ]

The `!' means that these messages are ticked.  Ticked means important,
and Gnus always shows you ticked articles.  There is a section in the
info file, `Marking Articles', which explains all about article
marks.  Ticked is just one of them.

> first off, is there a table telling me what characters in the first column
> mean and characters in the second column mean.  In addition to the
> exclamation point, I've seen an R and a Y.  I assume the R means the article
> has been read.  As for the Y, I haven't a clue except it seems to be
> something related to having killed articles.  Which leads me to my next
> question.

These marks are explained under `Read Articles' in the Gnus info file
section mentioned above.

> I don't fully understand scoring yet but if my faint understandings
> correct, killing a thread lowers its score which means I have to
> work harder to read it?  Every time I don't read it further lowers
> its score?

You are using adaptive scoring (because your .gnus file says so).
Adaptive scoring means that Gnus tries to score articles up and down
based on your reading preference.

If you don't want that, turn off adaptive scoring again (by removing
that line from your setup).

You have also told Gnus explicitly what to do when you read or don't
read which articles, by setting gnus-default-adaptive-score-alist.
See the documentation of that variable for more information.

Maybe you shouldn't just use snippets for your .gnus file if you don't
know what they do!  You don't have to understand the Lisp syntax of
everything, but at least try to know what each snippet is for.  It's
like having the car mechanic install a number of buttons and knobs in
your car, where you don't know what each button does.  What if you
accidentally hit one just before a red light and it turns out to be
the turbo button?  You don't have to know how the button works, just
what it does.

kai
-- 
Beware of flying birch trees.