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

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

[Didier Verna]

        Well, say I have a topic folder related to text processing. This
folder contains these groups to which I'm subscribed.

0: comp.text.tex                                         24739
0: comp.text.pdf                                          9246
0: comp.text.xml                                          3355
0: fr.comp.text.tex                                       4039

        Now, I don't actually want to read pdf and xml. But I'd like them to
stay visible in the folder, if, one day, you never know. So I thought I'd
unsubscribe these two. I typed `u' on the groups and they appeared in italic.

        But now, I still get new messages in these groups when I type `g', and
I can still enter them and read as before. The only thing that appears to have
changed is the face in which they're displayed ;-)


        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.


-- 
    /     /   _   _       Didier Verna        http://www.inf.enst.fr/~verna/
 - / / - / / /_/ /     ENST, INFRES C201.1       mailto:verna@inf.enst.fr
/_/ / /_/ / /__ /        46 rue Barrault        Tel.   +33 (1) 45 81 73 46
                       75013 Paris, France      Fax.   +33 (1) 45 81 31 19

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

[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.

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

[Didier Verna]

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David.Mentre@irisa.fr (David Mentré) wrote:

> 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.

        Yeah, right. I've just found out that the gnus group buffer moving
commands act as if unsubscribed groups didn't exists (while they're still
visible). So that's part of what I wanted, sort of.


-- 
    /     /   _   _       Didier Verna        http://www.inf.enst.fr/~verna/
 - / / - / / /_/ /     ENST, INFRES C201.1       mailto:verna@inf.enst.fr
/_/ / /_/ / /__ /        46 rue Barrault        Tel.   +33 (1) 45 81 73 46
                       75013 Paris, France      Fax.   +33 (1) 45 81 31 19

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

[Jack Vinson]

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

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

didi,

Unsubscribed groups are simply groups that don't normally show up in the
*Group* buffer unless you hit 'L' (gnus-group-list-all-groups).  This
function lists all groups with a "level" of "unsubscribed"
(gnus-level-unsubscribed) or lower.  Normal, subscribed groups are level 3.
Zombie groups are level 8 (gnus-level-zombie), and Killed are level 9
(gnus-level-killed).

Many Gnusers have set their mail groups to level 2 or 1, so they can do 
'C-u 2 g' in the *Group* buffer to only get new mail and not touch their
news server.

The fonts selected for your *Group* buffer highlighting are defined in
gnus-group-highlight.

-- 
Jack Vinson
Zippy: The FALAFEL SANDWICH lands on my HEAD and I become a VEGETARIAN...