Standard way to use Gnus?

Standard way to use Gnus?

[David Masterson]

I'm sure everyone has there own preferences on how to use Gnus -- that's
the essense of Emacs, after all.  However, it's always instructive to
learn from others and find new methods of using such a powerful tool.
I've been around Emacs & Gnus for more 30 years (yes, I believe I used
GNUS when it was written for TECO/Emacs), but I was never an expert in
its usage.  I still tend to just basically C-n & Space through the
Summary buffer to read what I'm interested in and never really sat down
to figure out the more advanced tools in Gnus.

I'm now a little more curious.  The Gnus manual in Emacs is written as a
reference manual and covers a lot of complicated topics, but not in a
manner of taking the novice to an expert level step by step.  I'm
looking for more on why each of the pieces of Gnus exist and examples of
why I might want to use them.  Is there such a manual around somewhere?
-- 
David Masterson
Programmer At Large

Re: Standard way to use Gnus?

[Emanuel Berg]

David Masterson <dsmasterson@gmail.com> writes:

> I'm sure everyone has there own preferences on how
> to use Gnus -- that's the essense of Emacs, after
> all. However, it's always instructive to learn from
> others and find new methods of using such a powerful
> tool. I've been around Emacs & Gnus for more 30
> years (yes, I believe I used GNUS when it was
> written for TECO/Emacs), but I was never an expert
> in its usage. I still tend to just basically C-n &
> Space through the Summary buffer to read what I'm
> interested in and never really sat down to figure
> out the more advanced tools in Gnus.
>
> I'm now a little more curious. The Gnus manual in
> Emacs is written as a reference manual and covers a
> lot of complicated topics, but not in a manner of
> taking the novice to an expert level step by step.
> I'm looking for more on why each of the pieces of
> Gnus exist and examples of why I might want to use
> them. Is there such a manual around somewhere?

I don't know, but I would like to read it, if you find
it.

Generally though it is better to put the question like
this: what would you like to do? Or: what are you
doing, that you would like to do in another way? what
are you doing that you don't want to do? etc.

If you just want to be a more advanced user all over
the board, then indeed the reference manual should
keep you busy years to come :)

-- 
underground experts united

Re: Standard way to use Gnus?

[Non Gnuser]

On 2015-03-19, Bud Frede <frede@mouse-potato.com> wrote:
> David Masterson <dsmasterson@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> I'm sure everyone has there own preferences on how to use Gnus -- that's
>> the essense of Emacs, after all.  However, it's always instructive to
>> learn from others and find new methods of using such a powerful tool.
>> I've been around Emacs & Gnus for more 30 years (yes, I believe I used
>> GNUS when it was written for TECO/Emacs), but I was never an expert in
>> its usage.  I still tend to just basically C-n & Space through the
>> Summary buffer to read what I'm interested in and never really sat down
>> to figure out the more advanced tools in Gnus.

Likewise.

> I've used a number of other newsreaders over the years, and I think that
> has been helping me to learn Gnus.

Which ones have you used? I have used slrn for years now. Before that I
tried tin, Thunderbird, another few console ones (trn?) and a gui one I
can't remember the name of. I hated them all for various reasons. tin was
hard to configure and seemed to want to announce to the world it was tin.
Not sure if you can stop gnus from doing this, I see it in your post headers
too, and wasn't that flexible.  Thunderbird is badly bugridden and the
filtering didn't work that well and it was hard to get it to work with more
than one news server. The gui one was actually ok but I hate gui apps so I
must have blocked it out of my memory.

> I start looking into whether Gnus can offer a similar feature to one I'm
> used to in another newsreader. I then figure out how to do it, and often
> find that Gnus is more flexible than the others. While I'm searching
> around and poking through the docs, I almost always run across some other
> Gnus feature that I want to try too.

What I like about slrn is it's extremely fast and the scoring (killfiling)
is extremely powerful. It's a console app so it's easy to set up window
manager shortcuts to start it up pointed at different news servers 
and have multiple instances open at the same time, all connected to a
different news server. It's easy to pipe articles to other applications for
pre/post processing. The colors are customizable. slrn did have a huge
learning curve to get it the way I want. Now that I've done that over a long
period I'm too lazy to get gnus set up properly. I have used it from time to
time and it's neat because I have Emacs open all the time editing code and
for composing an email or letter or whatever it doesn't get any better than
Emacs for most text. Having that power available in gnus trumps newsreaders
that don't let you use an external editor. slrn does so I get all that.

> I don't know whether it would be productive for you to try another
> newsreader or not. The only other thing I can think of is to check
> through the newsgroups and see what parts of Gnus other people are
> discussing. This newsgroup is probably the best for that, but there
> might be something worthwhile in news.software.readers as well.

Unfortunately the noise level in n.s.r can be quite high at times and there
are several certified netkooks there. This ng is a lot better but also a lot
less active.

> Oh, I thought of something else! Do you ever run across any of those
> "which newsreader do you recommend?" threads in other newsgroups? Check
> and see what people recommend and why, and see if you can come up with
> why Gnus should be recommended and how it compares with the others. I
> don't know if you'll want to actually post your recommendation at this
> point, but just going through the exercise of composing it could be
> helpful.

I think if I spent more time with gnus I could get it to do most of the
things I want but I don't know how good the killfiling is and I don't know
whether it can easily work with multiple news servers (and stop advertising
itself!)

Re: Standard way to use Gnus?

[Adam Sjøgren]

Non writes:

> I think if I spent more time with gnus I could get it to do most of the
> things I want but I don't know how good the killfiling is

Gnus has scoring, which can be as simple as a killfile, and very
complex, even adaptive, if that is what you want.

I only use two levels: articles I want to be automatically marked as
read (but still show up in lists) and articles I don't even want to know
existed.

Details: http://gnus.org/manual/gnus_90.html#Scoring

> and I don't know whether it can easily work with multiple news servers

It can - I am only using 2 currently, but I used to use 3 and 4 - no
problem.

> (and stop advertising itself!)

You tell Gnus not to include the User-Agent header, by customizing
message-required-mail-headers and/or message-required-news-headers.


  Best regards,

    Adam

-- 
 "Hey, maybe they could figure out a way to make me           Adam Sjøgren
  care about how many stop bits I'm using, that'd be     asjo@koldfront.dk
  so retro!"


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Re: Standard way to use Gnus?

[Emanuel Berg]

asjo@koldfront.dk (Adam Sjøgren) writes:

> Gnus has scoring, which can be as simple as a
> killfile, and very complex, even adaptive, if that
> is what you want.

If you mean the KILL file that has a syntax like this

    (gnus-kill "From" "L. Amer" '(gnus-summary-mark-as-read nil "X") t)
    (gnus-kill ... )
    ...
    (gnus-expunge "X")

- then that functionality is indeed useful but I don't
like the mixture of data and code in this case. It is
too simple, and too basic, and comes in to big a
quantity to be done in Elisp.

Just killing posts based on header qualities should
only involve a list of what is to be killed.

But the Elisp way might be useful for more elaborate
uses, so I'm not saying it should be removed, only
simplified alongside.

Compare the KILL syntax (which is Elisp) to that of
the ~/.mailrc file which provides aliases for
message-mode:

    alias john    "John DiFool <difool@incal.com>"
    alias kate    "Katherine Moss <mossy@km.com>"
    alias friends john kate

That file can also be put into conf-space-mode to make
it look good.

Other than that, I miss a fast way to insert to the
KILL file from an article buffer. Like
"gnus-article-kill-author" that would forever expunge
that e-mail from your system. Just extract header
data, make a line, and append it to a file.

It shouldn't be difficult to solve (either problem),
so I'll read the scoring section in the manual right
now to see if anyone did. To be concluded...

> I only use two levels: articles I want to be
> automatically marked as read (but still show up in
> lists) and articles I don't even want to know
> existed.

Yes, the system seems super powerful. Too powerful,
perhaps. Well, perhaps it was written in the heydays
of Usenet when there were zillion of posts everywhere.
Nowadays what I can see most groups are pretty serious
with at most one or two oddballs who you can easily
kill manually if they get on your nerves.

-- 
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Re: Standard way to use Gnus?

[Adam Sjøgren]

Emanuel writes:

> asjo@koldfront.dk (Adam Sjøgren) writes:
>
>> Gnus has scoring, which can be as simple as a
>> killfile, and very complex, even adaptive, if that
>> is what you want.

> If you mean the KILL file that has a syntax like this

No. I meant what I wrote, and linked to.

> Yes, the system seems super powerful. Too powerful,
> perhaps.

"Too powerful"? I don't think that is in the Gnus vocabulary.


  :-),

   Adam

-- 
 "Hey, maybe they could figure out a way to make me           Adam Sjøgren
  care about how many stop bits I'm using, that'd be     asjo@koldfront.dk
  so retro!"


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interface to KILL file (was: Re: Standard way to use Gnus?)

[Emanuel Berg]

Emanuel Berg <embe8573@student.uu.se> writes:

> Other than that, I miss a fast way to insert to the
> KILL file from an article buffer.
> Like "gnus-article-kill-author" that would forever
> expunge that e-mail from your system. Just extract
> header data, make a line, and append it to a file.

I got something to this extent but it assumes the type
of KILL file I described and not (apparently) what was
originally refered to.

Here is the code in context - not that there is any
(context), but anyway:

    http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573/conf/emacs-init/gnus/lamer.el

By the way, "lamer" isn't exactly a good word for it.
Rather, plonks should be spammers, flamers/haters, and
such folks. And when this is used, no one should be
told it happened. It doesn't make the *plonk*
sound, even.

In terms of the code, the most interesting thing was
the iso-8859-1 thing which deal with the strange

    =?iso-8859-1?q? ... ?=

enclosure - this is describe here:

    https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_mono/emacs-mime.html

at the entry fro `mail-encode-encoded-word-string'.

The code:

(defun lamer ()
  (interactive)
  (save-window-excursion
    (if (string= major-mode "gnus-summary-mode") ; so possible to invoke in
                 (gnus-summary-select-article) ) ; summary as well as article mode
    (let*((killfile (format "%s%s" gnus-directory gnus-kill-file-name))
          (header "From")
          (header-value
           (mail-decode-encoded-word-string      ; handle special iso-8859-1 chars
            (gnus-article-header-value header))) ; in header, e.g. 'ü'
          (entry
           (format
            "(gnus-kill \"%s\" \"%s\" \'(gnus-summary-mark-as-read nil \"X\") t)\n"
            header header-value)) )
      (if (not (file-exists-p killfile))
          (with-temp-file killfile (insert "(gnus-expunge \"X\")\n")) )
      (with-current-buffer (find-file-noselect killfile t) ; NOWARN
        (revert-buffer t t) ; IGNORE-AUTO NOCONFIRM
        (goto-char (point-min))
        (insert entry)
        (save-buffer) ))))

-- 
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Re: Standard way to use Gnus?

[Non Gnuser]

On 2015-03-19, Adam Sj??gren <asjo@koldfront.dk> wrote:
> Non writes:
>
>> I think if I spent more time with gnus I could get it to do most of the
>> things I want but I don't know how good the killfiling is
>
> Gnus has scoring, which can be as simple as a killfile, and very
> complex, even adaptive, if that is what you want.
>
> I only use two levels: articles I want to be automatically marked as
> read (but still show up in lists) and articles I don't even want to know
> existed.
>
> Details: http://gnus.org/manual/gnus_90.html#Scoring
>
>> and I don't know whether it can easily work with multiple news servers
>
> It can - I am only using 2 currently, but I used to use 3 and 4 - no
> problem.
>
>> (and stop advertising itself!)
>
> You tell Gnus not to include the User-Agent header, by customizing
> message-required-mail-headers and/or message-required-news-headers.
>
>
>   Best regards,
>
>     Adam

Thanks for the links. I'll check into this and perhaps flog myself into
gnusing once again to see if I warm up to it.

Bill

>

Re: Standard way to use Gnus?

[Jeffrey DeLeo]

A couple of things come to mind:

Topics: You can group all related email/newsgoups together (see: "Group
Topics" in Gnus manual). 

Gwene: Gwene creates a news group out of RSS feeds. So you can bring all
your disparate feeds into one place, Gnus. Take a look at:
http://gwene.org/about.php

Re: Standard way to use Gnus?

[Glyn Millington]

David Masterson <dsmasterson@gmail.com> writes:

> I'm sure everyone has there own preferences on how to use Gnus -- that's
> the essense of Emacs, after all.  However, it's always instructive to
> learn from others and find new methods of using such a powerful tool.
> I've been around Emacs & Gnus for more 30 years (yes, I believe I used
> GNUS when it was written for TECO/Emacs), but I was never an expert in
> its usage.  I still tend to just basically C-n & Space through the
> Summary buffer to read what I'm interested in and never really sat down
> to figure out the more advanced tools in Gnus.
>
> I'm now a little more curious.  The Gnus manual in Emacs is written as a
> reference manual and covers a lot of complicated topics, but not in a
> manner of taking the novice to an expert level step by step.  I'm
> looking for more on why each of the pieces of Gnus exist and examples of
> why I might want to use them.  Is there such a manual around somewhere?

In a word, no!

I have found that the best way to learn is to look at the configuration
used by others and see what use they make of Gnus' amazing flexibility.

What kind of use are you curious about? Do you use Gnus for mail or just
as a newsreader? RSS feeds? Mailing lists? Are you using pop or imap?
Scoring/killing posts? A few clues about possible directions of
travel/interest might elicit more help!

atb

Glyn

Re: Standard way to use Gnus?

[David Masterson]

Glyn Millington <glyn.millington@gmail.com> writes:

> What kind of use are you curious about? Do you use Gnus for mail or
> just as a newsreader? RSS feeds? Mailing lists? Are you using pop or
> imap?  Scoring/killing posts? A few clues about possible directions of
> travel/interest might elicit more help!

In a word -- maybe.  I was deliberately open-ended because I really
haven't used these items with Gnus and I wanted to see if there was a
manual to lead you thru these things with examples.  My off-the-cuff
directions might be:

1. Finding and reading newsgroups
2. Scoring/killing to reduce noise
3. Mail reading (POP/IMAP)
4. Mailing list management
5. Advanced message conversion (GIFs, PSs, etc.)
6. Tricks (username icons, etc.)

Some in-depth .emacs examples would be good.

-- 
David Masterson
Programmer At Large

Re: Standard way to use Gnus?

[Glyn Millington]

David Masterson <dsmasterson@gmail.com> writes:

> Glyn Millington <glyn.millington@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> What kind of use are you curious about? Do you use Gnus for mail or
>> just as a newsreader? RSS feeds? Mailing lists? Are you using pop or
>> imap?  Scoring/killing posts? A few clues about possible directions of
>> travel/interest might elicit more help!
>
> In a word -- maybe.  I was deliberately open-ended because I really
> haven't used these items with Gnus and I wanted to see if there was a
> manual to lead you thru these things with examples.  My off-the-cuff
> directions might be:
>
> 1. Finding and reading newsgroups
> 2. Scoring/killing to reduce noise
> 3. Mail reading (POP/IMAP)
> 4. Mailing list management
> 5. Advanced message conversion (GIFs, PSs, etc.)
> 6. Tricks (username icons, etc.)

Well there is the Gnus tutorial here:

http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/GnusTutorial#toc1

It is rather old now but should get you started.

You can find guidance on most of the above on the Emacs wiki too

http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/CategoryGnus


>
> Some in-depth .emacs examples would be good.

I have found these helpful - in no special order -

http://www.esperi.org.uk/~nix/xemacs/personal/personal.html

http://bzg.fr/emacs.html

https://github.com/jwiegley/dot-emacs

http://sachachua.com/blog/tag/gnus/#post-4905

atb


Glyn

Re: Standard way to use Gnus?

[David Masterson]

Glyn Millington <glyn.millington@gmail.com> writes:

> David Masterson <dsmasterson@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> Some in-depth .emacs examples would be good.
>
> I have found these helpful - in no special order -
>
> http://www.esperi.org.uk/~nix/xemacs/personal/personal.html
>
> http://bzg.fr/emacs.html
>
> https://github.com/jwiegley/dot-emacs
>
> http://sachachua.com/blog/tag/gnus/#post-4905

Whoa!  Those are going to take some time to wade thru.  :-)

Thanks
-- 
David Masterson
Programmer At Large