the laborious bootstrap process

the laborious bootstrap process

[Darcy Brockbank]

I'm in the process of moving from a graphical mail package, to 
GNUS for email... 

So, I'm struggling through the wide array of lisp variables and
attempting to get GNUS customized to fit my needs. I've been unable
to get some simple questions answered, so I'm going to bounce them
around here to see if I can't get some help :-).

I'd like to:

(1) Run a spellchecker before sending mail. Has anyone hooked ispell
    to GNUS?

(2) I'd like to have it poll my mail server for new mail every
    five minutes or so, rather than having me do this manually. I
    can't seem to find anything to set this behaviour.

(3) This is shameful of me, but I can't seem to find out how to 
    read a mail message which has been marked read, and is no longer
    shown, but has not been expired. Something like a "show all read
    articles".

(4) I've been playing with the 'gnus-read-active-file' variable, and
    the values t, nil, and some all have pretty much the same result.
    The active file from my news server is about 1M, and takes about
    10 minutes to get here. I'm only interested in reading one
    newsgroup, and don't ever want to hear about others. What's the
    proper way of dealing with this?

Sorry if these are FAQable or whatever. I'm drowning in information
and settings and need to establish a foothold.

- darcy
   
-- 
Shameless Plug: http://www.quicken.com/quickenquoteslive/

Re: the laborious bootstrap process

[Karl Kleinpaste]

Darcy Brockbank <darcy@hasc.com> writes:
> (1) Run a spellchecker before sending mail. Has anyone hooked ispell
>     to GNUS?

You should be able to sic an appropriate ispell-* function on
message-send-hook.

> (2) I'd like to have it poll my mail server for new mail every
>     five minutes or so, rather than having me do this manually. I
>     can't seem to find anything to set this behaviour.

My choice, slurped out of gnu.emacs.gnus quite some time back, and
then modified to my personal taste:

;;
;; automatic mail scan without manual effort.
;;
;; level-specified group scanner.
(defun gnus-demon-scan-mail-or-news-and-update (level)
"Scan for new mail, updating the *Group* buffer."
  (let ((win (current-window-configuration)))
    (unwind-protect
        (save-window-excursion
          (save-excursion
            (when (gnus-alive-p)
              (save-excursion
                (set-buffer gnus-group-buffer)
                (gnus-group-get-new-news level)))))
      (set-window-configuration win))))
;;
;; level 2: only mail groups are scanned.
(defun gnus-demon-scan-mail-and-update ()
"Scan for new mail, updating the *Group* buffer."
  (gnus-demon-scan-mail-or-news-and-update 2))
(gnus-demon-add-handler 'gnus-demon-scan-mail-and-update 5 nil)
;;
;; level 3: mail and local news groups are scanned.
(defun gnus-demon-scan-news-and-update ()
"Scan for new mail, updating the *Group* buffer."
  (gnus-demon-scan-mail-or-news-and-update 3))
(gnus-demon-add-handler 'gnus-demon-scan-news-and-update 20 20)

Then I put personal mail on level 1, mailing lists on level 2, and
basic NNTP groups on level 3.  Look at what `S l' does in *Group*.
Default creation level is 3.

> (3) This is shameful of me, but I can't seem to find out how to 
>     read a mail message which has been marked read, and is no longer
>     shown, but has not been expired. Something like a "show all read
>     articles".

Enter a group with an argument: `C-u 250 SPC'.  Previously-read
messages are marked in *Summary* with `O' ("old") and are usually blue.

> (4) I've been playing with the 'gnus-read-active-file' variable, and
>     the values t, nil, and some all have pretty much the same result.
>     The active file from my news server is about 1M, and takes about
>     10 minutes to get here. I'm only interested in reading one
>     newsgroup, and don't ever want to hear about others. What's the
>     proper way of dealing with this?

Odd.  Mine is set to 'some, and I have no trouble with this.

Just a shot in the dark: Did you properly quote in your setting?
(setq gnus-read-active-file 'some)

Re: the laborious bootstrap process

[Steinar Bang]

>>>>> Karl Kleinpaste <karl@justresearch.com>:

> Darcy Brockbank <darcy@hasc.com> writes:

>> (2) I'd like to have it poll my mail server for new mail every
>> five minutes or so, rather than having me do this manually. I
>> can't seem to find anything to set this behaviour.

> My choice, slurped out of gnu.emacs.gnus quite some time back, and
> then modified to my personal taste:

A simpler version is simply:

;; daemonical mail and news fetch
(gnus-demon-add-rescan)

This one fetches mail if Gnus is left alone for one hour.  I guess the 
simplest setup to fetch mail every 5 minutes, would be something like
this:
	(gnus-demon-add-handler 'gnus-demon-scan-mail 5 t)

NB! This is not tested.

Re: the laborious bootstrap process

[Karl Kleinpaste]

Steinar Bang <sb@metis.no> writes:
> A simpler version is simply:
> (gnus-demon-add-rescan)
> This one fetches mail if Gnus is left alone for one hour.

That has the problem that it does not seem to update *Group* properly.
The reason that someone else created the functions I posted previously
was specifically to get around this problem.

Re: the laborious bootstrap process

[Steinar Bang]

>>>>> Karl Kleinpaste <karl@justresearch.com>:

> Steinar Bang <sb@metis.no> writes:
>> A simpler version is simply:
>> (gnus-demon-add-rescan)
>> This one fetches mail if Gnus is left alone for one hour.

> That has the problem that it does not seem to update *Group*
> properly.  The reason that someone else created the functions I
> posted previously was specifically to get around this problem.

I never noticed any problem with this, when I was using it.

Re: the laborious bootstrap process

[Jaap-Henk Hoepman]

On 13 Mar 2000 20:46:49 +0100 Steinar Bang <sb@metis.no> writes:
> >>>>> Karl Kleinpaste <karl@justresearch.com>:
> 
> > Darcy Brockbank <darcy@hasc.com> writes:
> 
> >> (2) I'd like to have it poll my mail server for new mail every
> >> five minutes or so, rather than having me do this manually. I
> >> can't seem to find anything to set this behaviour.
> 
> > My choice, slurped out of gnu.emacs.gnus quite some time back, and
> > then modified to my personal taste:
> 
> A simpler version is simply:
> 
> ;; daemonical mail and news fetch
> (gnus-demon-add-rescan)
> 
> This one fetches mail if Gnus is left alone for one hour.  I guess the 
> simplest setup to fetch mail every 5 minutes, would be something like
> this:
> 	(gnus-demon-add-handler 'gnus-demon-scan-mail 5 t)

I use

(gnus-demon-add-handler 'gnus-demon-scan-mail 5 nil)
(gnus-demon-add-handler 'gnus-demon-scan-news 5 nil)
(gnus-demon-init)

which will scan for new mail every 5 minutes, regardless of other emacs
activity.

Jaap-Henk

-- 
Jaap-Henk Hoepman             | Come sail your ships around me
Dept. of Computer Science     | And burn these bridges down
University of Twente          |       Nick Cave - "Ship Song"
Email: hoepman@cs.utwente.nl === WWW: www.cs.utwente.nl/~hoepman
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