Reply to self behavior

Reply to self behavior

[Yuri D'Elia]

Still tweaking GNUS in the spare time here.

I'm trying to replicate an useful feature of mutt (and some other
mailers): if you reply to yourself (in the sent mail folder at least),
mutt would actually create a followup of your message with the original
recipients instead of actually creating an email for yourself (mostly, I
use this feature to correct or clarify myself on some points exactly
0.01 seconds I sent the message - of course).

Ideas?

Re: Reply to self behavior

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Yuri D'Elia <wavexx@users.sf.net> writes:

> This is caused by (use-hard-newlines) actually. Since quoted and pasted
> text has no 'hard' newlines, it gets unwrapped. This makes replies to
> not-flowed messages substantially impossible.
>
> I don't think that's really expected.

No, that's really awful.  I know that I've seen other people post with
format=flowed (and `use-hard-newlines'), and they don't seem to have
this problem.  But I don't know the details.  Anybody?

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
  larsi@gnus.org * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen

Re: Reply to self behavior

[Philipp Haselwarter]

On Sun, 02 Jan 2011 12:51:03 +0100, David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org> said:

DK> Yuri D'Elia <wavexx@users.sf.net> writes:

>> On Sun, 02 Jan 2011 08:40:33 +0100, Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen wrote:
>>> Yuri D'Elia <wavexx@users.sf.net> writes: > >>>> (_real_
>> format=flowed support anyone? it's supported since 199? in >>>>
>> outlook) >>> >>> What doesn't work? And what is format=flowed? Why
>> would you want it?  >> >> format=flowed encodes hard-newlines in the
>> message, while still wrapping >> the source of the message to 80
>> columns. This allow compliant readers to >> either show the wrapped
>> text or flow the content to the window's >> margins.  > > In what way
>> doesn't format=flowed work in Gnus?  I think that was
>>> implemented at least a decade ago, but it may have bitrotted in
>> the mean > time...
>> 
>> After reading the sources, I was able to achieve flowed zenity with
>> the following:
>> 
>> (setq fill-flowed-display-column nil) (add-hook 'message-mode-hook
>> (lambda () (turn-off-auto-fill) (setq truncate-lines nil)
>> (use-hard-newlines))) (add-hook 'gnus-article-mode-hook (lambda ()
>> (setq truncate-lines nil))) My only complaint is that
>> use-hard-newlines' shouldn't be necessary.  Any line longer than
>> `fill-flowed-encode-column' should trigger a format=flowed message
>> automatically instead of generating a warning.

DK> That's the worst comb quoting and unreadable run-in garbage I've
DK> seen in a long time.

DK> Impressive that you managed to create it using gnus.

DK> -- David Kastrup

Remarkable, indeed! Almost better than .newsrc.eld =)


-- 
Philipp Haselwarter

Re: Reply to self behavior

[Yuri D'Elia]

On Sun, 02 Jan 2011 12:51:03 +0100, David Kastrup wrote:
>> (setq fill-flowed-display-column nil)  (add-hook 'message-mode-hook
>> (lambda () (turn-off-auto-fill) (setq truncate-lines nil)
>> (use-hard-newlines)))  (add-hook 'gnus-article-mode-hook (lambda ()
>> (setq truncate-lines nil)))  My only complaint is that
>> use-hard-newlines' shouldn't be necessary.
>> Any line longer than `fill-flowed-encode-column' should trigger a
>> format=flowed message automatically instead of generating a warning.
>
> That's the worst comb quoting and unreadable run-in garbage I've seen in
> a long time.
>
> Impressive that you managed to create it using gnus.

I'm impressed, too :P

This is caused by (use-hard-newlines) actually. Since quoted and pasted
text has no 'hard' newlines, it gets unwrapped. This makes replies to
not-flowed messages substantially impossible.

I don't think that's really expected. I was thinking of manually adding
'hard' properties to newlines in `message-mode-hook', but I don't think
that would actually be sufficient.

A safer approach could be replacing all newlines with 'hard' newlines in
`message-send-hook' then setting `use-hard-newlines' manually to trick
Gnus into sending a flowed message.

Not fun.

Re: Reply to self behavior

[David Kastrup]

Yuri D'Elia <wavexx@users.sf.net> writes:

> On Sun, 02 Jan 2011 08:40:33 +0100, Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen wrote: 
>> Yuri D'Elia <wavexx@users.sf.net> writes: > >>>> (_real_ 
> format=flowed support anyone? it's supported since 199? in >>>>
> outlook) >>> >>> What doesn't work? And what is format=flowed? Why
> would you want it?  >> >> format=flowed encodes hard-newlines in the
> message, while still wrapping >> the source of the message to 80
> columns. This allow compliant readers to >> either show the wrapped
> text or flow the content to the window's >> margins.  > > In what way
> doesn't format=flowed work in Gnus?  I think that was 
>> implemented at least a decade ago, but it may have bitrotted in 
> the mean > time...  
>
> After reading the sources, I was able to achieve flowed zenity with
> the following:
>
> (setq fill-flowed-display-column nil)  (add-hook 'message-mode-hook
> (lambda () (turn-off-auto-fill) (setq truncate-lines nil)
> (use-hard-newlines)))  (add-hook 'gnus-article-mode-hook (lambda ()
> (setq truncate-lines nil)))  My only complaint is that
> use-hard-newlines' shouldn't be necessary.
> Any line longer than `fill-flowed-encode-column' should trigger a
> format=flowed message automatically instead of generating a warning.

That's the worst comb quoting and unreadable run-in garbage I've seen in
a long time.

Impressive that you managed to create it using gnus.

-- 
David Kastrup

Re: Reply to self behavior

[Yuri D'Elia]

On Sun, 02 Jan 2011 12:32:31 +0100, Yuri D'Elia wrote: > After 
reading the sources, I was able to achieve flowed zenity with the 
> following: > > (setq fill-flowed-display-column nil) (add-hook 
'message-mode-hook > (lambda () (turn-off-auto-fill) (setq 
truncate-lines nil) > (use-hard-newlines))) (add-hook 
gnus-article-mode-hook (lambda () > (setq truncate-lines nil))) My 
only complaint is that > `use-hard-newlines' shouldn't be 
necessary.  Any line longer than > `fill-flowed-encode-column' 
should trigger a format=flowed message > automatically instead of 
generating a warning. 

Herm, it doesn't seem to work at all with NNTP :/
I though gmane did some exceptions, but it doesn't.
Oh well..

Re: Reply to self behavior

[Yuri D'Elia]

On Sun, 02 Jan 2011 08:40:33 +0100, Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen wrote: 
> Yuri D'Elia <wavexx@users.sf.net> writes: > >>>> (_real_ 
format=flowed support anyone? it's supported since 199? in >>>> 
outlook) >>> >>> What doesn't work? And what is format=flowed? Why 
would you want it?  >> >> format=flowed encodes hard-newlines in 
the message, while still wrapping >> the source of the message to 
80 columns. This allow compliant readers to >> either show the 
wrapped text or flow the content to the window's >> margins.  > > 
In what way doesn't format=flowed work in Gnus?  I think that was 
> implemented at least a decade ago, but it may have bitrotted in 
the mean > time...  

After reading the sources, I was able to achieve flowed zenity 
with the following:

(setq fill-flowed-display-column nil)  (add-hook 
'message-mode-hook (lambda () (turn-off-auto-fill) (setq 
truncate-lines nil) (use-hard-newlines)))  (add-hook 
'gnus-article-mode-hook (lambda () (setq truncate-lines nil)))  My 
only complaint is that `use-hard-newlines' shouldn't be necessary.
Any line longer than `fill-flowed-encode-column' should trigger a 
format=flowed message automatically instead of generating a 
warning.

Re: Reply to self behavior

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Yuri D'Elia <wavexx@users.sf.net> writes:

>>> (_real_ format=flowed support anyone? it's supported since 199? in
>>> outlook)
>>
>> What doesn't work? And what is format=flowed? Why would you want it?
>
> format=flowed encodes hard-newlines in the message, while still wrapping
> the source of the message to 80 columns. This allow compliant readers to
> either show the wrapped text or flow the content to the window's
> margins.

In what way doesn't format=flowed work in Gnus?  I think that was
implemented at least a decade ago, but it may have bitrotted in the mean
time... 

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
  larsi@gnus.org * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen

Re: Reply to self behavior

[Yuri D'Elia]

On Wed, 22 Dec 2010 23:13:02 +0100, Adam Sjøgren wrote:
> On Wed, 22 Dec 2010 22:46:45 +0100, Yuri wrote:
>
>> (_real_ format=flowed support anyone? it's supported since 199? in
>> outlook)
>
> What doesn't work? And what is format=flowed? Why would you want it?

format=flowed encodes hard-newlines in the message, while still wrapping
the source of the message to 80 columns. This allow compliant readers to
either show the wrapped text or flow the content to the window's
margins.

For the composer, it means no more auto-fill required, no wrap achtung!s
required for long URLs, and (with some message-mode magic) easier
quoting since you would only have one quotation mark per
paragraph.

For the reader, it means customizable wrapping behavior.

Claws-Mail has good support for format=flowed that works exactly like
this.

I'm all for format=flowed. Even if you don't know it yet, you want it
too ;)

Re: Reply to self behavior

[Reiner Steib]

On Thu, Dec 23 2010, Yuri D'Elia wrote:

> On Thu, 23 Dec 2010 08:23:09 +0100
> Reiner Steib <reinersteib+gmane@imap.cc> wrote:
>
>> > Aaand, while I'm at it: is there a hook that is called whenever a backend
>> > receives new mail? [...]

>> ,----[ <f1> v nnmail-prepare-save-mail-hook RET ]
[...]
>> | Documentation:
>> | Hook called before saving mail.
>> `----
>
> I can't test it right now, but this only works for mail backends I guess?
> Does it work for nnimap? 

Probably not.  But you didn't mention IMAP before.  ;-)

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

Re: Reply to self behavior

[Richard Riley]

Reiner Steib <reinersteib+gmane@imap.cc> writes:

> On Wed, Dec 22 2010, Yuri D'Elia wrote:
>
>> Aaand, while I'm at it: is there a hook that is called whenever a backend
>> receives new mail? I'm trying to integrate emacs with the "awesome"
>> window manager. gnus-biff and gnus-notify seem to check every group
>> manually - I was looking for something more straightforward.
>
> ,----[ <f1> v nnmail-prepare-save-mail-hook RET ]
> | nnmail-prepare-save-mail-hook is a variable defined in `nnmail.el'.
> | Its value is 
> | (rs-gnus-notify-have-new-mail)
> | 
> | Documentation:
> | Hook called before saving mail.
> `----
>
> Bye, Reiner.

This is pretty clunky compared to using something like Mail
Notification (Gnome) since it requires Gnus to fetch the mail in
order for you to know there is mail there I think.

Better, for me, is to run a local dovecot server and have Mail
Notifications (Biff etc) monitor THAT inbox using dbus or whatever it is
they use for instant notification.

regards

r.

Re: Reply to self behavior

[Yuri D'Elia]

On Thu, 23 Dec 2010 08:23:09 +0100
Reiner Steib <reinersteib+gmane@imap.cc> wrote:

> > Aaand, while I'm at it: is there a hook that is called whenever a backend
> > receives new mail? I'm trying to integrate emacs with the "awesome"
> > window manager. gnus-biff and gnus-notify seem to check every group
> > manually - I was looking for something more straightforward.
> 
> ,----[ <f1> v nnmail-prepare-save-mail-hook RET ]
> | nnmail-prepare-save-mail-hook is a variable defined in `nnmail.el'.
> | Its value is 
> | (rs-gnus-notify-have-new-mail)
> | 
> | Documentation:
> | Hook called before saving mail.
> `----

I can't test it right now, but this only works for mail backends I guess?
Does it work for nnimap? I never saw any kind of notification of new mail.

Re: Reply to self behavior

[Reiner Steib]

On Wed, Dec 22 2010, Yuri D'Elia wrote:

> Aaand, while I'm at it: is there a hook that is called whenever a backend
> receives new mail? I'm trying to integrate emacs with the "awesome"
> window manager. gnus-biff and gnus-notify seem to check every group
> manually - I was looking for something more straightforward.

,----[ <f1> v nnmail-prepare-save-mail-hook RET ]
| nnmail-prepare-save-mail-hook is a variable defined in `nnmail.el'.
| Its value is 
| (rs-gnus-notify-have-new-mail)
| 
| Documentation:
| Hook called before saving mail.
`----

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

Re: Reply to self behavior

[Dan Christensen]

Karl Kleinpaste <invalid@kleinpaste.org> writes:

> $ wc Mail/.private/.gnus.el
>   801  2563 37404 Mail/.private/.gnus.el

That's practically *empty*!  I regularly create single split-rules that
large, not to mention the occasional 30k regular expression.  

 1598  7008 67662 /home/jdc/Gnus/.gnus.el

:-)

Dan

Re: Reply to self behavior

[Adam Sjøgren]

On Wed, 22 Dec 2010 22:46:45 +0100, Yuri wrote:

> (_real_ format=flowed support anyone? it's supported since 199? in
> outlook)

What doesn't work? And what is format=flowed? Why would you want it?

The fine manual says that use-hard-newlines enables it when composing?
Not that reading the documentation of that makes me any wiser.


  Best regards,

-- 
 "Accept the mystery!"                                        Adam Sjøgren
                                                         asjo@koldfront.dk

Re: Reply to self behavior

[Yuri D'Elia]

On Wed, 22 Dec 2010 15:18:55 -0600, Tommy Kelly wrote:
>> You know, I went away from Gnus around 4-5 years ago because my .gnus
>> reached >10k. I was fairly proficient back then but figured there *had*
>> to be a mail client with those 10k as defaults. Also, I wanted something
>> that had GUI written all over it.
>
> That's a lot of .gnus. It sounds like you were a bit of a ninja. Why
> give that up simply for a GUI?

Not just for the GUI of course, I tried all sorts of clients.
I'm particularly fond of mutt and slrn.

It's just that there seems no end to customizing Gnus. At some point I
was wondering whether, just maybe, there was a better way to read mail
(as in 'mail as news', emacs interface, groups, hooks, etc), and whether
this way would require less customization overall.

If you fire up mutt, it's email-1-2-3! And the defaults are quite
good. Learning Gnus requires quite some effort. Customizing Gnus even
more. After investing so much time you become entrenched. How many Gnus
users actually gave wanderlust a try, for example? (and vice-versa?)

I had the impression that Gnus was a sealed world in need of some fresh
air. After taking a look around, I'd say there is room for improvement
in some areas (_real_ format=flowed support anyone? it's supported since
199? in outlook), but overall the flexibility you have pays off.

But if you are an average user with average needs, finding an existing
client which works almost the way you want is waaay faster (and there is
a lot to choose from).

> My theory as to why I should try it now when I gave up in the past is
> that now I'm more determined to push through this initial learning phase
> to get (I hope) to a level of competency where I can at least do
> *slightly* better than the other clients I've used, before developing
> enough ability to be able to do a *lot* better.

Honestly, it's quite easy to do better than thunderbird, gmail (and most
GTK linux client anyway). And that's unfortunate, because a GUI *should*
give you more in the same space.

A serious contender, in my opinion, would be mutt and maybe some other
console-based clients.

Re: Reply to self behavior

[Karl Kleinpaste]

Yuri D'Elia <wavexx@users.sf.net> writes:
> You know, I went away from Gnus around 4-5 years ago because my .gnus
> reached >10k

$ wc Mail/.private/.gnus.el
  801  2563 37404 Mail/.private/.gnus.el

Piker. :-)

Re: Reply to self behavior

[Tommy Kelly]

Yuri writes:

> You know, I went away from Gnus around 4-5 years ago because my .gnus
> reached >10k. I was fairly proficient back then but figured there *had*
> to be a mail client with those 10k as defaults. Also, I wanted something
> that had GUI written all over it.

That's a lot of .gnus. It sounds like you were a bit of a ninja. Why
give that up simply for a GUI? 

For my paert, I previously used Gnus but never with anything like that
kind of .gnus. I moved via Outlook, Evolution, Thunderbird and
eventually to Gmail (via the web interface).

But I've decided to give Gnus another try for two reasons:

1. No matter how far I stray, I keep coming back to wanting a life as
close as possible to plaintext. (I lived in emacs-wiki, then planner,
then muse for while, coming back to org-mode via a foray into OneNote
and EverNote)

2. I've yet to find another client that promises the filtering
(splitting) power of Gnus. Ironically that's where I'm spending most of
my energies, but I know that whatever I want to do is *possible*. More
than can be said for pretty much everything else.

My theory as to why I should try it now when I gave up in the past is
that now I'm more determined to push through this initial learning phase
to get (I hope) to a level of competency where I can at least do
*slightly* better than the other clients I've used, before developing
enough ability to be able to do a *lot* better.

Tommy

Re: Reply to self behavior

[Yuri D'Elia]

On Wed, 22 Dec 2010 13:24:41 -0600, Tommy Kelly wrote:
> Yuri writes:
>
>> ... it sounds obvious in retrospect
>
> Can I propose this as the new motto for Gnus :-)

You know, I went away from Gnus around 4-5 years ago because my .gnus
reached >10k. I was fairly proficient back then but figured there *had*
to be a mail client with those 10k as defaults. Also, I wanted something
that had GUI written all over it.

I'm now back, disillusioned and begging for mercy. There is no such
client[*]. Be patient while I rebuild those 10k of pure elisp bliss.

Aaand, while I'm at it: is there a hook that is called whenever a backend
receives new mail? I'm trying to integrate emacs with the "awesome"
window manager. gnus-biff and gnus-notify seem to check every group
manually - I was looking for something more straightforward.

Bests

[*] I should really gave wanderlust a longer try, but I tried several
times to configure imap over ssl and failed.

Re: Reply to self behavior

[Adam Sjøgren]

On Wed, 22 Dec 2010 19:54:31 +0100, Yuri wrote:

> Ha! I never actually tried to follow-up myself, I unconsciously
> restricted that to news. It works as intended.

I was a little worried that you had when you used the phrase "follow up"
in your question that you had tried F, but...

>> Try F on one of your own emails and see if it doesn't work out-of-the-box?

> Thanks again, it sounds obvious in retrospect :)

:-)


  Best regards,

    Adam

-- 
 "Accept the mystery!"                                        Adam Sjøgren
                                                         asjo@koldfront.dk

Re: Reply to self behavior

[Tommy Kelly]

Yuri writes:

> ... it sounds obvious in retrospect

Can I propose this as the new motto for Gnus :-)

t

Re: Reply to self behavior

[Yuri D'Elia]

On Wed, 22 Dec 2010 18:59:15 +0100, Adam Sjøgren wrote:
> That is what happens when I follow up (f/F) to my own emails in Gnus. If
> I reply (r/R), I send email to myself.

Ha! I never actually tried to follow-up myself, I unconsciously
restricted that to news. It works as intended.

> | message-dont-reply-to-names is a variable defined in `message.el'.
> | Its value is 
> | "\\(asjo\\|adsj\\)@\\(koldfront.dk\\|asjo.org\\)"
> | Original value was nil
> | 
> | Documentation:
> | *Addresses to prune when doing wide replies.
> | This can be a regexp or a list of regexps.  Also, a value of nil means
> | exclude your own user name only.

I posted another thread about this variable.

> Try F on one of your own emails and see if it doesn't work out-of-the-box?

Thanks again, it sounds obvious in retrospect :)

Re: Reply to self behavior

[Adam Sjøgren]

On Wed, 22 Dec 2010 18:34:03 +0100, Yuri wrote:

> Still tweaking GNUS in the spare time here.

(It's "Gnus" :-))

> I'm trying to replicate an useful feature of mutt (and some other
> mailers): if you reply to yourself (in the sent mail folder at least),
> mutt would actually create a followup of your message with the original
> recipients instead of actually creating an email for yourself

That is what happens when I follow up (f/F) to my own emails in Gnus. If
I reply (r/R), I send email to myself.

I don't think I have configured anything to get that behaviour; one
related variable is, though:

,----[ C-h v message-dont-reply-to-names RET ]
| message-dont-reply-to-names is a variable defined in `message.el'.
| Its value is 
| "\\(asjo\\|adsj\\)@\\(koldfront.dk\\|asjo.org\\)"
| Original value was nil
| 
| Documentation:
| *Addresses to prune when doing wide replies.
| This can be a regexp or a list of regexps.  Also, a value of nil means
| exclude your own user name only.
| [...]
`----

[...]

> Ideas?

Try F on one of your own emails and see if it doesn't work out-of-the-box?


  Best regards,

    Adam

-- 
 "Accept the mystery!"                                        Adam Sjøgren
                                                         asjo@koldfront.dk