clarification of deleting articles

[Adrian Kubala <adrian@sixfingeredman.net>]

This is for anybody who, like me, is confused by "B <del>" (aka
`gnus-summary-delete-article'). These comments apply to Oort 0.06.

1. Despite all outward indications, this does not delete articles, it
   expires them.
2. It respects settings to nnmail-expiry-target, but does not respect
   the group parameter expiry-target.

The following snippet does something I felt was more consistent and
understandable:

;;; start code
;; Make forced summary deletion and expiration work more intuitively.

(define-key gnus-summary-mode-map [(?B) (delete)]
            'my-gnus-summary-delete-article)
(define-key gnus-summary-mode-map [(?B) (?E)]
            'my-gnus-summary-expire-article)

(defun my-gnus-summary-expire-article (&optional n)
  "Expire the N next (mail) articles.
If N is negative, delete backwards.
If N is nil and articles have been marked with the process mark,
expire these instead."
  (interactive "P")
  ;; respect expiry-target!
  (let ((nnmail-expiry-target
         (or (gnus-group-find-parameter gnus-newsgroup-name
              'expiry-target)
             nnmail-expiry-target)))
    (gnus-summary-delete-article n)))

(defun my-gnus-summary-delete-article (&optional n)
  "Delete the N next (mail) articles.
If N is negative, delete backwards.
If N is nil and articles have been marked with the process mark,
delete these instead."
  (interactive "P")
  (let ((nnmail-expiry-target 'delete))
    (gnus-summary-delete-article n)))

;;; end code

I filed a bug report about this, but since it's arguably not a bug I
don't know if it will ever be officially changed.

adrian