Re: Never mind

[Don Croyle <croyle@gelemna.ft-wayne.in.us>]

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

> This is how it works:
> 
> You set up Gnus as a normal, online-reading newsreader -- the way you
> do today.  You fiddle until you are happy with how it works.  Then you
> decide that you want to read articles offline.
> 
> You then press a few magic keys to tell Gnus which servers are to be
> covered.  You press `J s' to download all the headers to all the
> groups from these servers, and some articles from some of the groups
> from these servers (and which articles to be downloaded is, of course,
> customizable in a gazillion ways (this is Gnus, after all)).  You then
> press `J j' (which toggles online/offline.)  You then hang up the
> modem and keep on reading.  You won't notice anything different -- all
> commands work as before.

Ok, I think I see the paradigm that you're working from.  Basically
the way that you're setting it up Gnus downloads everything that you
might reasonably want to read and becomes its own news server.  Yhis
is a one long pass approach, with a possible second pass to pick up
stuff that wasn't pulled down automatically.  QWK readers tend to work
this way, if I remember correctly.

The approach I'm used to seeing in an offline/disconnected reader is a
two pass approach.  First pass is a quick run through to grab headers,
second pass downloads whatever the user has specifically decided to
read.  This is the approach that I'm used to from TapCIS and OzCIS
(Compuserve specific offline readers) as well as Forte Agent.

With the two pass approach you control fairly exactly what gets
downloaded; with the one pass approach it just sort of happens.  The
two pass method is less transparent and requires more effort on the
part of the user, but it's more efficient.  Since my offline reading
habits were formed back when I was paying Compuserve US$12.50/hour for
2400 baud and storing things on 720K floppies, I've got a bias towards
efficiency.  YMMV.
-- 
I've always wanted to be a dilettante, but I've never quite been ready
to make the commitment.