Disappear Marks

Disappear Marks

[Kenneth Jacker]

[Debian Sarge / Emacs v21.4.1 /  Gnus v5.10.7]

I swear someone else posted about this, but I can't find the original article.

Marks that I'm placing on articles/letters (e.g., `!') are not being
retained.  I'll go back to groups where I know I've marked articles,
and they are *gone*.

Is anyone else seeing this?

Thanks,

  -Kenneth
-- 
Prof Kenneth H Jacker       khj@cs.appstate.edu
Computer Science Dept       www.cs.appstate.edu/~khj
Appalachian State Univ
Boone, NC  28608  USA        

Re: Disappear Marks

[khjacker]

Sorry to reply to my own posting (and from Google, no less!), but my
original article about "Disappearing Marks" disappeared!  I.e., I
"marked" it with a `!`, but it "went away" ...

Some new info ... it appears that marks for *emails* do remain, it is
only those from newsgroups that "go away".

Help!

  -Kenneth

Re: Disappear Marks

[David Kastrup]

khjacker@gmail.com writes:

> Sorry to reply to my own posting (and from Google, no less!), but my
> original article about "Disappearing Marks" disappeared!  I.e., I
> "marked" it with a `!`, but it "went away" ...
>
> Some new info ... it appears that marks for *emails* do remain, it is
> only those from newsgroups that "go away".

Of course articles don't remain longer than the server stores them.
If you want to cache them locally, use *

* runs the command gnus-cache-enter-article
   which is an interactive compiled Lisp function in `gnus-cache'.
It is bound to *, <menu-bar> <Article> <Cache> <Enter article>.
(gnus-cache-enter-article &optional N)

Enter the next N articles into the cache.
If not given a prefix, use the process marked articles instead.
Returns the list of articles entered.

[back]


-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum

Re: Disappear Marks

[Kenneth Jacker]

  dak> Of course articles don't remain longer than the server stores them.

Yes, this I know.

  dak> If you want to cache them locally, use *

Hmmm ... I've been using `!' for *years*, and articles have been "cached".

Though I might be using the wrong terminology, the effect upon
returning to a group was I still had access to the '!'ed articles.

I never used `*' ... don't understand this ...

  dak> * runs the command gnus-cache-enter-article
  dak>    which is an interactive compiled Lisp function in `gnus-cache'.

That's pretty clear.


Maybe there's some command (that's gone from my ".gnus.el") that also
allowed `!' to do the same thing as `*'?

Or, could the behavior of `!' and `*' changed in more recent versions
of 'gnus'?

Thanks for your efforts to help me with this!

  -Kenneth

Re: Disappear Marks

[David Kastrup]

Kenneth Jacker <khj@be.cs.appstate.edu> writes:

>   dak> Of course articles don't remain longer than the server stores them.
>
> Yes, this I know.

Apparently not.

>   dak> If you want to cache them locally, use *
>
> Hmmm ... I've been using `!' for *years*, and articles have been
> "cached".

Then you have used a server with long article store previously.

> Though I might be using the wrong terminology, the effect upon
> returning to a group was I still had access to the '!'ed articles.

Luck.

> I never used `*' ... don't understand this ...
>
>   dak> * runs the command gnus-cache-enter-article
>   dak>    which is an interactive compiled Lisp function in `gnus-cache'.
>
> That's pretty clear.
>
>
> Maybe there's some command (that's gone from my ".gnus.el") that also
> allowed `!' to do the same thing as `*'?

Both are orthogonal.  * determines where the article is stored, !
determines how it is shown in the list.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum

Re: Disappear Marks

[Kenneth Jacker]

  dak> Kenneth Jacker <khj@be.cs.appstate.edu> writes:
  dak> Of course articles don't remain longer than the server stores them.
  >> 
  >> Yes, this I know.

  dak> Apparently not.

Ouch!  ;-)

I did know that the news server had a limited time of storage, but
(obviously!) I did *not* really understand the difference between `!' and '*'.

  dak> Both are orthogonal.  * determines where the article is stored, !
  dak> determines how it is shown in the list.

Yes, looking again at the 'info' pages, I see:

     `!'
          Marked as ticked (`gnus-ticked-mark').
     
          "Ticked articles" are articles that will remain visible always.


What's incredible is that I have not noticed this until now!  Maybe my
local NNTP server recently shortened the retention period ... 

But no matter.  Thanks, David, for clearing this up for me!

I now understand.

On to using `*' ... thanks again!

  -Kenneth

Re: Disappear Marks

[Kenneth Jacker]

A little bit more about this "marks thing" ...

  khj> Maybe there's some command (that's gone from my ".gnus.el")
  khj> that also allowed `!' to do the same thing as `*'?

I think that *this* is the explanation.

Reading more in 'info' I see:

    To turn caching on, set `gnus-use-cache' to `t'.  By default, all
    articles ticked or marked as dormant will then be copied over to
    your local cache (`gnus-cache-directory').

Currently, "C-h v gnus-cache-directory" returns `passive', *not* `t'.


I have a hunch that I lost my prior setting of `gnus-use-cache' during
a reinstall of Debian some months ago.  If I understand the above
correctly, my use of `!` *would* have provided the caching behavior
that I currently lack.

So maybe I wasn't *completely* wrong!  ;-)

  -Kenneth