Re: agent/fetch only articles from certain levels

[Richard Riley <rileyrg@googlemail.com>]

Eric S Fraga <e.fraga@ucl.ac.uk> writes:

> asjo@koldfront.dk (Adam Sjøgren) writes:
>
>> On Fri, 25 Mar 2011 15:58:21 +0000, Eric wrote:
>>
>>> Richard Riley <rileyrg@googlemail.com> writes:
>>>> Eric S Fraga <e.fraga@ucl.ac.uk> writes:
>>
>>> [...]
>>
>>>>> I think I do understand.  You may wish to set not only
>>>>> gnus-activate-level but also gnus-activate-foreign-newsgroups to 5?  It
>>>>> defaults to 4, I believe.
>>>> 
>>>> That works yes! Wow. Thanks!  But "foreign group"? Why are they foreign
>>>> groups? They are groups attached to nntp servers defined in select
>>>> methods. Ye gods its complicated ;) ...
>>
>>> Somebody will correct me but I think /foreign/ groups refer to those
>>> where the actual content is stored remotely (nntp, nnimap) versus
>>> locally (nnml, nnmaildir).
>>
>> The manual says:
>>
>> ,----[ 10.4 Terminology - http://gnus.org/manual/gnus_366.html ]
>> |  native
>> |      Gnus will always use one method (and back end) as the native, or
>> |      default, way of getting news.
>> | 
>> |  foreign
>> |      You can also have any number of foreign groups active at the same
>> |      time. These are groups that use non-native non-secondary back ends
>> |      for getting news.
>> | 
>> |  secondary
>> |      Secondary back ends are somewhere half-way between being native and
>> |      being foreign, but they mostly act like they are native.
>> `----
>>
>>
>>   Best regards,
>>
>>     Adam
>
> Adam, thanks for the pointer to the relevant place in the manual.  My
> guess was basically completely wrong.  Oh well...
>
> However, I am not sure the documentation really explains anything at
> all.  It's the kind of documentation that makes sense if you already
> know what it is telling you and otherwise just sounds like a circular
> definition...  and, unfortunately, there are quite a few sections like
> this in the gnus manual.
>

This was my point as my comment about them not coming from secondary
select groups was indeed from the manual : hence the foreign group
active level variable should not have been relevant in this case. All
my nntp groups are from secondary backends.  Your comment about the
circular nature is also true : too frequently the manual describes what
the code does as opposed to what the function should do ;) <insert
"patches to manual welcome" reply as appropriate - the problem being all
too often, with something as complex as gnus, I dont have a clue as to
what it should say ;) - its only when you concentrate on an area, in
this place offline/agent usage that things become clearer from actually
using it "natively" ;)>

I'm getting strange looks in the "free wireless" lobby of the hotel now
as people tut and talk about "going outside" while I tinker with Gnus
;))