Re: mutt vs gnus

Re: mutt vs gnus

[Reiner Steib]

On Wed, Jul 10 2002, Erwan David wrote:

> I use mutt with emacs (gnuclient in fact), except when I'm on a slow
> link. In this case I am gald I can switch to vi.

"emacs -nw"?

> One of the thing I cannit stand is an autistic mailer which cannot
> work on system mailbox or mailboxes in which mail arrives, but need to
> take the mail and put it elsewhere in its own format where standard
> low level tools won't be able to cope with it.

Depending on the other MUA you're planning to use, you can choose a
suitable Gnus backend. AFAIK, nnmaildir should even allow concurrent
use of Gnus and other MUAs. Or use nnimap. nnfolder stores mail in
standard Unix mailbox format, so you can read them with most Unix MUAs
(but do _not_ write to them behind Gnus' back). 

> Same thing for news : how can I decipher .newsrc.eld in order to get
> the list of read message if I want to change reader ?

,----[ C-h v gnus-save-newsrc-file RET ]
| gnus-save-newsrc-file's value is t
| 
| Documentation:
| *Non-nil means that Gnus will save the `.newsrc' file.
| Gnus always saves its own startup file, which is called
| ".newsrc.eld".  The file called ".newsrc" is in a format that can
| be readily understood by other newsreaders.  If you don't plan on
| using other newsreaders, set this variable to nil to save some time on
| exit.
`----

Bye, Reiner.
-- 
       ,,,
      (o o)
---ooO-(_)-Ooo--- PGP key available via WWW   http://rsteib.home.pages.de/

Re: mutt vs gnus

[Sherilyn]

[Followup to myself]
Sherilyn <sherilyn@suespammers.org> writes:

> Erwan David <erwan@rail.eu.org> writes:
> 
> [...]
> 
> > There is a tendency in gnus to make you prisoner of it.
> > 
> > Same thing for news : how can I decipher .newsrc.eld in order to get
> > the list of read message if I want to change reader ?
> > 
> I thought I'd have a look at .newsrc.eld.  
> 
> ;; Never delete this file -- if you want to force Gnus to read the
> ;; .newsrc file (if you have one), touch .newsrc instead.
> 
> I've never tried this, but it sounds like a reasonable compromise.
> 
Duh!  It doesn't say that the .newsrc file will be kept up to date. :)
Would be nice to check the code and make sure it does that, I suppose.

Having said that, the format of .newsrc.eld seems fairly
straightforward, and it should be pretty easy to write some perl or
whatever to parse the file for nntp newsgroups and read the lists of
read postings.  It's easier to write that kind of thing in lisp, of
course, but that isn't lisp's fault.

-- 
Sherilyn
http://www.greedycorporate.com/minority-report/
Free reliable text-only posting news accounts: http://news.cis.dfn.de/

Re: mutt vs gnus

[Erwan David]

Simon Josefsson <jas@extundo.com> writes:

> Erwan David <erwan@rail.eu.org> writes:
>
>>> Depending on the other MUA you're planning to use, you can choose a
>>> suitable Gnus backend. AFAIK, nnmaildir should even allow concurrent
>>> use of Gnus and other MUAs. Or use nnimap. nnfolder stores mail in
>>> standard Unix mailbox format, so you can read them with most Unix MUAs
>>> (but do _not_ write to them behind Gnus' back). 
>>
>>   So I cannot use /var/mail/$user
>
> Doesn't nnmbox:/var/mail/$user work?  Or nndoc:/var/mail/$user?  Some
> systems have maildirs in /var/mail, then nnmaildir:/var/mail/$user
> should work.

No, since mail arrives in it, even when reading it. And I want to
*work* with it, ie. delete some messages, etc, which nndoc cannot do.


-- 
"Stuck? You're an *alien*," said Johnny. "Aliens don't get stuck in
air ducts. It's practically a well-known fact."
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Only You Can Save Mankind)

Movemail, nnmail (was mutt vs gnus)

[Sherilyn]

Simon Josefsson <jas@extundo.com> writes:

> Erwan David <erwan@rail.eu.org> writes:
> 
> > Simon Josefsson <jas@extundo.com> writes:
> >
> >> Erwan David <erwan@rail.eu.org> writes:
> >>
> >>>> Depending on the other MUA you're planning to use, you can choose a
> >>>> suitable Gnus backend. AFAIK, nnmaildir should even allow concurrent
> >>>> use of Gnus and other MUAs. Or use nnimap. nnfolder stores mail in
> >>>> standard Unix mailbox format, so you can read them with most Unix MUAs
> >>>> (but do _not_ write to them behind Gnus' back). 
> >>>
> >>>   So I cannot use /var/mail/$user
> >>
> >> Doesn't nnmbox:/var/mail/$user work?  Or nndoc:/var/mail/$user?  Some
> >> systems have maildirs in /var/mail, then nnmaildir:/var/mail/$user
> >> should work.
> >
> > No, since mail arrives in it, even when reading it. And I want to
> > *work* with it, ie. delete some messages, etc, which nndoc cannot do.
> 
> Ok.  If your system uses maildir it would work though, I think.
> Having several applications (possibly on different hosts) working on
> the same file seems to be asking for trouble.
> 
> Are POSIX file lock operations available in elisp?  I guess it would
> be possible to make this work.

The following is based on a brief scan of the emacs 20.7 source tree.

The way MUAs deal with this is generally to use a specialised movemail
program, which is supposed to deal with spool file locking properly.
Emacs comes with its own movemail, which is used, according to the
emacs 20.7 Debianized sourcei I just downloaded, by lisp/mail/rmail.el and
lisp/gnus/nnmail.el.  This is configured for the target system's locking
conventions and setuid/setgid requirements during emacs configuration
and installation.  pop3.el provides a POP-based alternative, but you'd
need to run a POP3 daemon to use that method.

When you do a nnmail-get-new-mail in Gnus, nnmail.el uses movemail
(you can define an external one if you don't like emacs' own) to move
email from the mail spool to a 'crashbox' from which the mail split,
if there is one, can be performed.

nnbabyl.el, nnfolder.el, nnmbox.el, nnmh.el and nnml.el all use the
nnmail-get-new-mail function.

See lib-src/movemail.c and the abovementioned lisp code.
-- 
Sherilyn
http://www.greedycorporate.com/minority-report/
Free reliable text-only posting news accounts: http://news.cis.dfn.de/

Re: mutt vs gnus

[Erwan David]

Benjamin Rutt <rutt+news@cis.ohio-state.edu> writes:

> But even if these operations were available, you would need to make
> sure that emacs and all mail servers (I'll say mail servers here b/c I
> don't really understand the difference between MTA/MDA) lock the same
> bytes of the same file with the same flags.  This is called advisory
> locking, and there's no guarantee all programs will cooperate, if the
> programs come from different parties.

When emacs takes mail from an incoming spool how does it operate ?
Why would the locking mechanism used at this part be useless for
*working* syncing those mailboxes ?

-- 
"Chain letters," said the Tyrant. "The Chain Letter to the Ephebians.
Forget Your Gods. Be Subjugated. Learn to Fear. Do not break the chain --
the last people who did woke up one morning to find fifty thousand armed
men on their lawn."
        -- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)

Re: mutt vs gnus

[Erwan David]

Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai Großjohann) writes:

> Erwan David <erwan@rail.eu.org> writes:
>
>>   So I cannot use /var/mail/$user, nor any mailbox in which my
>> procmail would write...
>
> If you tell Gnus to fetch mail from /var/mail/$user and store it in
> ~/Mail, then you can use mutt from time to time to read
> /var/mail/$user.  Gnus won't know you did that since Gnus expects the
> file to change -- it's where sendmail drops incoming mail after all.

But I want my mailer to let part of the mail in /var/mail/$user,
delete some, when i decide, etc...

-- 
"Woof bloody woof."
        -- Gaspode the Wonder Dog
           (Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures)

Re: mutt vs gnus

[Kai Großjohann]

Erwan David <erwan@rail.eu.org> writes:

> But I want my mailer to let part of the mail in /var/mail/$user,
> delete some, when i decide, etc...

Well, Gnus does not leave mail in /var/mail/$user, and this is a good
thing.  The problem is that Emacs does not provide good filelocking,
and what if a new mail arrives while Gnus is editing the file?

kai
-- 
A large number of young women don't trust men with beards.  (BFBS Radio)

Re: mutt vs gnus

[Erwan David]

Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai Großjohann) writes:

>
> Well, Gnus does not leave mail in /var/mail/$user, and this is a good
> thing.

Which I disagree.

>  The problem is that Emacs does not provide good filelocking,
> and what if a new mail arrives while Gnus is editing the file?

I understand the problem, but prefer to stay with a mailer suitable to
my way of dealing with mail.

-- 
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 ma amchien MacOS sous Linux. c'et preuve du succes de Linux, si il
 arrive à attirer les imbeciles, c'est qu'il est enfin pret à percer pour
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