Personal mail lists with gnus plus bbdb

Personal mail lists with gnus plus bbdb

[Harry Putnam]

I'm getting a little confused about how to create a mailling list
using gnus and bbdb.

The directions talk as if `mail-abbrevs.el' is required to make it
work.  But I see that code is apparently not part of gnus, emacs  or
bbdb distributions.  So wondering if this info in the manual is out of
date or something.

At least mail-abbrevs.el it is not on my system with gnus from cvs,
emacs-23 and most recent bbdb installed.

It appears it might be part of xemacs distro... but not sure about
that since I don't use xemacs

At any rate, just adding an aliase to a few bbdb entries, saving bbdb,
then putting the alias in the To: field seems to not have the desired
effect, and doesn't expand with M-tab (bbdb-complete-name as is described 
in the bbdb manual

Googling `mail-abbrevs.el... isn't even turning up somewhere to
download it.

Can any one describe how they use bbdb with gnus to create mailling lists?

Re: Personal mail lists with gnus plus bbdb

[David Engster]

Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com> writes:
> I'm getting a little confused about how to create a mailling list
> using gnus and bbdb.
>
> The directions talk as if `mail-abbrevs.el' is required to make it
> work.  But I see that code is apparently not part of gnus, emacs  or
> bbdb distributions.  So wondering if this info in the manual is out of
> date or something.
>
> At least mail-abbrevs.el it is not on my system with gnus from cvs,
> emacs-23 and most recent bbdb installed.

It's mailabbrev.el, and is part of Emacs.

> At any rate, just adding an aliase to a few bbdb entries, saving bbdb,
> then putting the alias in the To: field seems to not have the desired
> effect, and doesn't expand with M-tab (bbdb-complete-name as is described 
> in the bbdb manual

Did you put something like

(add-hook 'message-setup-hook 'bbdb-define-all-aliases)

in your .gnus?

-David

Re: Personal mail lists with gnus plus bbdb

[Richard Riley]

Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com> writes:

> I'm getting a little confused about how to create a mailling list
> using gnus and bbdb.
>
> The directions talk as if `mail-abbrevs.el' is required to make it
> work.  But I see that code is apparently not part of gnus, emacs  or
> bbdb distributions.  So wondering if this info in the manual is out of
> date or something.
>
> At least mail-abbrevs.el it is not on my system with gnus from cvs,
> emacs-23 and most recent bbdb installed.
>
> It appears it might be part of xemacs distro... but not sure about
> that since I don't use xemacs
>
> At any rate, just adding an aliase to a few bbdb entries, saving bbdb,
> then putting the alias in the To: field seems to not have the desired
> effect, and doesn't expand with M-tab (bbdb-complete-name as is described 
> in the bbdb manual
>
> Googling `mail-abbrevs.el... isn't even turning up somewhere to
> download it.
>
> Can any one describe how they use bbdb with gnus to create mailling
> lists?

Do this:

,----
| (add-hook 'message-mode-hook (lambda () (abbrev-mode 1)))
| ; for alias field - useful for mailing lists
| ;; (add-hook 'message-setup-hook 'bbdb-define-all-aliases)
| (bbdb-define-all-aliases)
`----

I do the aliases once but change the comment accordingly.

Then just add an alias to people you want in their bbdb entries by
pressing "a" and then adding the alias - lets say "church".

Then when you send a mail shot out just type "church" into the to/Bcc
field and enter to expand it to all the bbdb entries with the alias of
"church".


regards

r.


-- 
Google Talk : rileyrgdev@googlemail.com  http://www.google.com/talk

Re: Personal mail lists with gnus plus bbdb

[Harry Putnam]

David Engster <deng@randomsample.de> writes:

[...]

>> At least mail-abbrevs.el it is not on my system with gnus from cvs,
>> emacs-23 and most recent bbdb installed.
>
> It's mailabbrev.el, and is part of Emacs.

I guess its a typo in the bbdb manual.

,----
|   Mailing Lists and Mail Aliases
|   ------------------------------
| 
|   If you are using Jamie Zawinski's `mail-abbrevs.el' package, which
|   uses the word-abbrev mechanism for mail aliases, then you can store
|   your mail aliases in the BBDB instead of duplicating the information
|   elsewhere.
`----

[...]

> Did you put something like
>
> (add-hook 'message-setup-hook 'bbdb-define-all-aliases)
>
> in your .gnus?

No, I got too worried about not having the library...

But now it works fine... thanks.

Richard Riley <rileyrgdev@gmail.com> writes:

[...]

> ,----
> | (add-hook 'message-mode-hook (lambda () (abbrev-mode 1)))
> | ; for alias field - useful for mailing lists
> | ;; (add-hook 'message-setup-hook 'bbdb-define-all-aliases)
> | (bbdb-define-all-aliases)
> `----

Working fine now... thanks.

Re: Personal mail lists with gnus plus bbdb

[Adrian Lanz]

>>>>> On Thu, 21 Jan 2010 19:42:17 +0100
>>>>> Richard Riley <rileyrgdev@gmail.com> writes:

    > Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com> writes:
    >> I'm getting a little confused about how to create a mailling list
    >> using gnus and bbdb.
    >> 
    >> The directions talk as if `mail-abbrevs.el' is required to make
    >> it work.  But I see that code is apparently not part of gnus,
    >> emacs or bbdb distributions.  So wondering if this info in the
    >> manual is out of date or something.
    >> 
    >> At least mail-abbrevs.el it is not on my system with gnus from
    >> cvs, emacs-23 and most recent bbdb installed.
    >> 
    >> It appears it might be part of xemacs distro... but not sure
    >> about that since I don't use xemacs
    >> 
    >> At any rate, just adding an aliase to a few bbdb entries, saving
    >> bbdb, then putting the alias in the To: field seems to not have
    >> the desired effect, and doesn't expand with M-tab
    >> (bbdb-complete-name as is described in the bbdb manual
    >> 
    >> Googling `mail-abbrevs.el... isn't even turning up somewhere to
    >> download it.
    >> 
    >> Can any one describe how they use bbdb with gnus to create
    >> mailling lists?

    > Do this:

    > ,---- | (add-hook 'message-mode-hook (lambda () (abbrev-mode 1)))
    > | ; for alias field - useful for mailing lists | ;; (add-hook
    > 'message-setup-hook 'bbdb-define-all-aliases) |
    > (bbdb-define-all-aliases) `----

    > I do the aliases once but change the comment accordingly.

    > Then just add an alias to people you want in their bbdb entries by
    > pressing "a" and then adding the alias - lets say "church".

    > Then when you send a mail shot out just type "church" into the
    > to/Bcc field and enter to expand it to all the bbdb entries with
    > the alias of "church".

Any idea, how to get alias completion? Typing "chur" into the To/Bcc
field and pressing the tab key would expand "chur" to church or give me
list of possible completions. At the moment, I get only a list of single
entry completions.

Best, Adrian.


    > regards

    > r.


    > -- Google Talk : rileyrgdev@googlemail.com
    > http://www.google.com/talk

Re: Personal mail lists with gnus plus bbdb

[Richard Riley]

Adrian Lanz <lanz@wsl.ch> writes:

>>>>>> On Thu, 21 Jan 2010 19:42:17 +0100
>>>>>> Richard Riley <rileyrgdev@gmail.com> writes:
>
>
>     > Then when you send a mail shot out just type "church" into the
>     > to/Bcc field and enter to expand it to all the bbdb entries with
>     > the alias of "church".
>
> Any idea, how to get alias completion? Typing "chur" into the To/Bcc
> field and pressing the tab key would expand "chur" to church or give me
> list of possible completions. At the moment, I get only a list of single
> entry completions.
>

I'm not sure its practical since completion is more generally used for
normal bbdb email addresses.

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