Group parameters

Group parameters

[Ian Zimmerman]

I have Gnus installed on 2 computers ("desktop" and "laptop").  I would
like my groups to have exactly the same parameters in both cases.  It
doesn't have to be completely automatic, but not completely manual,
either; that is, I want to avoid doing G c on each group on each
computer and entering the same things.  The shape of the solution I have
in mind is that after customizing a group on one computer I execute a
magic command foo (inside Emacs or otherwise) and the changes propagate
to the other.  (This is how I handle many other situations, with foo ==
unison).

However, the way Gnus saves the group parameters unfortunately doesn't
easily allow such solution: it saves them into the newsrc.eld file along
with, and interspersed with, other data that is clearly instance
specific, so I cannot just sync the whole file.  I guess I could use the
gnus-parameters variable and read it from a different file, maybe
.emacs.  But that still has 2 big disadvantages: 1. I am condemned to
use plain Lisp to set the parameters instead of Customize, and 2. I
cannot see a way to export the parameters I have already accumulated so I
would have to start by translating them manually (for each group).

Presumably 2 can be solved with some personal Lisp code, but 1 would
remain.  Does anyone have a helpful idea?

Re: Group parameters

[Kevin Brubeck Unhammer]

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Ian Zimmerman <itz@buug.org> writes:

> I have Gnus installed on 2 computers ("desktop" and "laptop").  I would
> like my groups to have exactly the same parameters in both cases.  It
> doesn't have to be completely automatic, but not completely manual,
> either; that is, I want to avoid doing G c on each group on each
> computer and entering the same things.  The shape of the solution I have
> in mind is that after customizing a group on one computer I execute a
> magic command foo (inside Emacs or otherwise) and the changes propagate
> to the other.  (This is how I handle many other situations, with foo ==
> unison).

I don't know if it's completely transferrable to "G c", since I've never
used that, but I use unison to sync which messages are read and which
groups are subscribed to (I have .emacs and friends in git instead,
since I prefer version history there). I guess my setup would sync "G c"
settings too if they are in newsrc.

my ~/.unison/default.prf:
path=.newsrc
path=.newsrc.eld
path=.Mail
path=.News
ignore=Name temp.*
ignore=Name .*~
ignore=Name *.tmp

my ~/.emacs:
(setq gnus-directory "~/.News")
(setq message-directory "~/.Mail/")

I also run (shell-command "unison --args") in
`gnus-after-exiting-gnus-hook'.

> However, the way Gnus saves the group parameters unfortunately doesn't
> easily allow such solution: it saves them into the newsrc.eld file along
> with, and interspersed with, other data that is clearly instance
> specific, so I cannot just sync the whole file.  I guess I could use the
> gnus-parameters variable and read it from a different file, maybe
> .emacs.  But that still has 2 big disadvantages: 1. I am condemned to
> use plain Lisp to set the parameters instead of Customize, and 2. I
> cannot see a way to export the parameters I have already accumulated so I
> would have to start by translating them manually (for each group).
>
> Presumably 2 can be solved with some personal Lisp code, but 1 would
> remain.  Does anyone have a helpful idea?

If you're planning on being subscribed to the same groups on both
machines, why not take a backup and just try it out?

For me it has worked fairly well. I'm probably syncing some stuff I
shouldn't be syncing (I still don't really know what goes into
~/.newsrc{,.eld}), but I think the most serious problems I've had so far
is occasionally having to mark things as read that I'm sure I already
marked as read on the other computer.


-- 
Kevin Brubeck Unhammer

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Re: Group parameters

[William Gardella]

Hello all,

Kevin Brubeck Unhammer <unhammer-VaTbYqLCNhc@public.gmane.org> writes:

> ...
>
> If you're planning on being subscribed to the same groups on both
> machines, why not take a backup and just try it out?
>
> For me it has worked fairly well. I'm probably syncing some stuff I
> shouldn't be syncing (I still don't really know what goes into
> ~/.newsrc{,.eld}), but I think the most serious problems I've had so far
> is occasionally having to mark things as read that I'm sure I already
> marked as read on the other computer.

I think Kevin's proposed solution should be pretty safe.  ~/.newsrc.eld
contains mostly stuff that you probably want to sync anyway, like saving
your place (which articles are read) in groups that you read, cached
information of active files on news servers, etc.  For maximum
parallelism between the two instances, you'd probably also want to sync
the ~/News directory, as this is where the Gnus agent, article cache,
marks and saved articles for most groups go.

Unison or some other kind of synchronization run while Gnus is not
running should be fine, but there is even a safe way to do this if you
are using some kind of live sync (like DropBox or SparkleShare or
something) while Gnus is still running.  See (info "(gnus) Slave
Gnusae"); initialized as a slave, the local Gnus will act like there is
another Gnus using the ~/newsrc* files and try to avoid breaking them,
making its own temp newsrcs instead.

-WGG

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