Re: New to GNUS troubles in figuring how to get rings rolling

[TRS-80 <lists.trs-80@isnotmyreal.name>]

Björn Bidar via "Announcements and discussions for GNUS, the GNU Emacs
Usenet newsreader (in English)" <info-gnus-english@gnu.org> writes:

> I have been working on having Emails working inside Emacs.
> I've looked into a few solutions which seem to be the most used.
> These were offline mail solutions such as mu4e, those that can fetch
> mail themselves like gnus or wanderlust.

I did research for what seems like years, off and on, before taking the
plunge.  It seemed to me there was a lot of out of date, old info out
there in the Internet about Gnus.

> My current setup is that I have multiple clients that all connect over
> imap.  I want always sync the status of a message back to imap.

If you are using 'nnimap' back end, everything should 'just work'.

> These are mostly imap related.
> 1. How can I take the read status from imap into gnus and vice versa?
> 2. I tried to use ~nnimap-use-namespaces~ however it doesn't work.
>    My mail server supports the extension however the folders aren't
>    split accordingly.

I don't think you should need to do these contortions.  I followed some
basic config guidelines I found and everything 'just worked'.  But I am
by no means an expert, maybe someone else can address this point
specifically.

> 3. Can I make gnus design less archiaric?

You can do whatever you want, it's Emacs after all.  But will it be
worth the effort?

Personally, I try and grok the author's paradigm, before I go changing
things.  I took this approach to Emacs itself, and now Gnus.

Having said that, there were a couple things that even I found so
jarring, I had to modify right away.

> 4. Can I make imap folders appear as groups by subfolder? E.g.
>    if I have INBOX.Bar.Foo -> Bar will be a group.

Again I suggest to perhaps try to 'go with the flow' of what Gnus
provides, rather than fight against it.

Having said that, maybe 'Group Topics' section of manual may provide
what you are looking for?

> All in all it wasn't as bad as other said around the internet however
> the manual isn't as easy to digest: things are hard to find or out of
> date/not relevant to modern usage, this makes the manual harder to
> navigate.

I started keeping a 'cheat sheet' of commonly used keybindings and other
notes and I don't think I could get on without it.  There are simply too
many keybindings and commands.  I am still learning my way around, but
she's a hairy beast, as you say.

I don't think there is anything else out there that gives the power to
handle and organize email and news quite like Gnus though.  Which is why
I keep putting in the effort to learn as much as I can about this
strange, arcane beast.

Cheers,
TRS-80