Re: access things like slashdot only at specified times?

[Doug Bagley <doug@deja.com>]

Shenghuo ZHU <zsh@cs.rochester.edu> writes:
> John> in gnus-secondary-select-methods to be time-dependent.  As an
> John> alternative, I wouldn't mind if gnus only checked nnslashdot once a
> John> day.  I want the same to happen with one of my mail sources (a pop
> John> server that is down a lot and that I don't get a lot of mail from, so
> John> I would be happy to just check it once a day).
> 
> John> Has anyone done anything like this already?
> 
> You can use agent to cover nnslashdot, put `:plugged t' in those mail
> sources which need to be checked regularly and set
> gnus-agent-send-mail-function to message-send-mail-with-sendmail.
> 
> Between 10AM to 5PM, you can run gnus unplugged. Otherwise, plug it.

I have a different approach.  I only want nnslashdot to update when I
want to read it.  Normally, when I press "g", I want everything but
slashdot to update.

So here's what I did:

Instead of the recommended:

     (setq gnus-secondary-select-methods
           '((nnslashdot "")))

I did this:
- created a Slashdot topic
- customized the topic to subscribe to groups with nnslashdot in the name
- created the following lisp for my gnus:

(define-key gnus-group-mode-map "\M-s" 'kof:gnus-update-slashdot)
(defun kof:gnus-update-slashdot ()
  (interactive)
  (let* ((gnus-secondary-select-methods '((nnslashdot ""))))
    (gnus-group-get-new-news)
    (gnus-group-find-new-groups)))

Now, in the Group buffer, I just press M-s to update the slashdot
groups if I feel like reading slashdot (ain't all that often
sometimes). 

Cheers,
Doug