new articles in a thread - how to auto-expand the thread?

new articles in a thread - how to auto-expand the thread?

[Peter Petersen]

Hi,

Something that I wondered for quite some time now:

How can I make Gnus automatically expand an otherwise collapsed thread
(with let's say 4 articles) when another, new, fifth article arrives.

The intention is clear:
I would like to easily see (when entering the group buffers) where the
new articles have gone, and especially whether there have been replies
to my own posts in a long, but collapsed thread.

With Forte Agent an existing thread has the colour "blue" when all its
articles have been seen or marked read, and as most of us know, read and
unread articles are always visible when entering a group.
When this thread gets new articles (be it one or more) the colour turns
from "blue" to "red", even if the thread still remains collapsed.

So how could one make Gnus behave in a comparable way?
- either by having the thread collapsed, but see a different font or
colour
or
- (as I asked above) have Gnus automatically expand the thread


By the way, this is a reply from Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen to a similar
question:

****
> This also occurs if, say, I've marked a message unread, then get a
> reply to it.  The summary buffer appears to have no new unread
> messages and I expand all threads to find the new message.

There is no function to unhide threads based on what they contain, I'm
afraid.
****

But this was in 1997.
I could imagine, things have improved here since that time...?



really hoping for answers
thanks

Peter

Re: new articles in a thread - how to auto-expand the thread?

[Peter Petersen]

* Peter Petersen <ppetersen@despammed.com> schrieb:

> How can I make Gnus automatically expand an otherwise collapsed thread
> (with let's say 4 articles) when another, new, fifth article arrives.
>
> The intention is clear:
> I would like to easily see (when entering the group buffers) where the
> new articles have gone, and especially whether there have been replies
> to my own posts in a long, but collapsed thread.
>
> With Forte Agent an existing thread has the colour "blue" when all its
> articles have been seen or marked read, and as most of us know, read and
> unread articles are always visible when entering a group.
> When this thread gets new articles (be it one or more) the colour turns
> from "blue" to "red", even if the thread still remains collapsed.
>
> So how could one make Gnus behave in a comparable way?
> - either by having the thread collapsed, but see a different font or
> colour
> or
> - (as I asked above) have Gnus automatically expand the thread


Doesn't anyone have an idea?

What I also noticed is that in threads with ticked articles I _normally_
(= most often) can easily see a newly inserted article because the
thread gets expanded, indeed!

On the other hand, this doesn't happen in 100% of the cases for threads
with ticked articles!?  What appears to be strange is that the last line
in a summary buffer (= the last thread) of article headers doesn't get
expanded (when one or more new articles have been inserted)! Earlier
threads, however, get expanded...

As to the last thread, one more observation:
If all threads before this last thread are ticked, the last thread will
be expanded, too, once a new article for this thread has arrived. If,
however, there is one single (or more) thread(s) in the entire summary
buffer that is _unread_ (but not ticked!), then the last thread will not
get expanded, if it has new articles!

Can anyone follow my maybe slightly chaotical description?


Here is an illustration:

!ticked thread
!another ticked thread
!another ticked thread
the last thread - with new articles arriving will get expanded

versus:

!ticked thread
an unticked and unread thread
!ticked thread
the last thread - with new articles arriving will NOT be expanded



Since I would really like to have a way to easily see whether the
threads I try to watch have something new I now use 2 work-arounds:

1) I use the "dormant" mark "?" because when I see the corresponding
   thread appear I know that a new article has arrived
2) I use "/." in order to quickly see the articles marked "unseen"


Is there no easier and more satisfying solution?
Like a changed colour (see my remarks about Forte Agent) as soon as a
(collapsed) thread has new articles.


thanks again
Peter