Re: Been using gnus for years, still don't know what it's all about

[David.Mentre@irisa.fr (David Mentré)]

Didier Verna <verna@inf.enst.fr> writes:

>         So the obvious conclusion is that I have _no clue_ /at all/ what group
> subscription is :-/ So please somebody, explain to a poor french dumb blonde
> what, in the gnus sense, "killed groups", "[un]subscribed groups" etc are.

Roughly, we can say that each group has a level (from 1 to 9 IIRC). The
lower is the level, the more subscribed your are to it.

Now, let's look at subscription. Each subcribe, killed, ... group has a
predefined level :

 - normal news group : 3
 - normal mail group : 3
 - unsubcribed group : 6
 - killed group : 9
 - ...

So, each time you execute a command, it acts on the set of groups of a
certain level and below. Sucribing, killing commands change in fact
group level.

So, when to press the 'g' key, unsubscribed groups (level 6) are still
requested for last article. When you enter into them, read articles are
not saved in the news.elc file.

For more exact information see gnus info doc, node: Group Levels

[...]
   Gnus considers groups from levels 1 to `gnus-level-subscribed'
(inclusive) (default 5) to be subscribed, `gnus-level-subscribed'
(exclusive) and `gnus-level-unsubscribed' (inclusive) (default 7) to be
unsubscribed, `gnus-level-zombie' to be zombies (walking dead) (default
8) and `gnus-level-killed' to be killed (completely dead) (default 9).
Gnus treats subscribed and unsubscribed groups exactly the same, but
zombie and killed groups have no information on what articles you have
read, etc, stored.  This distinction between dead and living groups
isn't done because it is nice or clever, it is done purely for reasons
of efficiency.
[...]

I hope it is clear.

Best regards,
david
-- 
 David.Mentre@irisa.fr -- http://www.irisa.fr/prive/dmentre/
 Opinions expressed here are only mine.