Re: miscellaneous Gnus questions

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@ifi.uio.no>]

jbw@cs.bu.edu (Joe Wells) writes:

> 1. What keys/command do I use to re-scan all groups from a particular
>    server?  (For example, I want to rescan all of my nnml groups without
>    rescanning any nntp or nndir groups.)  I know there are commands to (1)
>    re-scan all groups on a particular level and (2) re-scan a particular
>    group (does this ever affect other groups?), but that is not what I
>    want.

There is no command to re-scan a particular server.
`(gnus-request-scan SERVER)' will do that for you.  Perhaps there
should be a command as well?

> 2. What is the difference between gnus-subscribe-alphabetically and
>    gnus-subscribe-hierarchically?  I have read the documentation and
>    looked at the source code yet clarity eludes me.

You and me both.  This is definitely a function that has survived
unscathed from GNUS 4.1:

(defun gnus-subscribe-hierarchically (newgroup)
  "Subscribe new NEWSGROUP and insert it in hierarchical newsgroup order."
  ;; Basic ideas by mike-w@cs.aukuni.ac.nz (Mike Williams)
  (save-excursion
    (set-buffer (find-file-noselect gnus-current-startup-file))
    (let ((groupkey newgroup)
	  before)
      (while (and (not before) groupkey)
	(goto-char (point-min))
	(let ((groupkey-re
	       (concat "^\\(" (regexp-quote groupkey) ".*\\)[!:]")))
	  (while (and (re-search-forward groupkey-re nil t)
		      (progn
			(setq before (match-string 1))
			(string< before newgroup)))))
	;; Remove tail of newsgroup name (eg. a.b.c -> a.b)
	(setq groupkey
	      (if (string-match "^\\(.*\\)\\.[^.]+$" groupkey)
		  (substring groupkey (match-beginning 1) (match-end 1)))))
      (gnus-subscribe-newsgroup newgroup before))))

Uhm.  What does it do?

> 3. How do I arrange for articles to be marked as expirable from a score
>    file without affecting the treatment of articles by ordinary reading?

You can't do that.

> 4. How do I arrange for score-file changes to be specified by a score
>    file?  What I want to do is completely wipe out all trace of the
>    existence of a particular person.

Score on "followup".

> 5. For mail groups, the "%R" format spec for gnus-group-line-format counts
>    all messages that have ever existed in the group, including those which
>    have been destroyed by the "B DEL" command.  The information it uses
>    seems to come from the active file.  Is there some way to get an
>    accurate count of the *existing* read messages from the "%R" format
>    spec?

Nope.  This is on the Red Gnus todo list, though.

> 6. In the summary buffer, what is difference between "M P b" and "M P a"?
>    They seem to do the same thing and the documentation strings (from "C-h
>    k") are not enlightening.

`M P a' marks all articles in "series" order while `M P b' marks all
articles in the order they appear in the buffer.

-- 
  "Yes.  The journey through the human heart 
     would have to wait until some other time."