Store meta information with backends?

[Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai Großjohann)]

I think it would be advantageous for some people to be able to store
information with the backends.  (nnmail-derived backends could offer
the option of storing stuff in .newsrc.eld like it is now.)

For IMAP, the benefit is obvious.  It already requires all information
to be in the backend, after all.

But this would be nice for other backends, too.  For example, suppose
I rsync my ~/Mail directory between home and work, but at home I'm
using a different NNTP server, and at home I read my Hotmail mail.

Then I could tell Gnus to store all the meta information from the nnml
backend in some place that's rsynced along with ~/Mail.

We could add some functions to the backend interface, and wherever
Gnus now accesses the ~/.newsrc.eld information, we modify it to go to
the backend functions instead.

I'm not suggesting to entirely replace the current storage format; we
could offer a server parameter which tells the backend functions to
save stuff in ~/.newsrc.eld.

What do you all think?

kai
-- 
I like BOTH kinds of music.