my vs maildir

my vs maildir

[prad]

our imap server stores mail in maildir.
i get them through claws-mail and save them locally as mh (because
that's what claws does).
however, i understand that with gnus i have a choice.

is maildir preferable to mh as far as indexers are concerned?
does gnus prefer working with maildir as well? (i recall reading that
nnml is faster than nnmh though i don't know if that has anything to do
with maildir).

this exercise is to establish the local storage format for emails over
several years so they can be indexed for the purpose of search and retrieval.
 
-- 
In friendship,
prad

Re: my vs maildir

[Brett Viren]

On Thu, Dec 30, 2010 at 4:59 PM, prad <prad@towardsfreedom.com> wrote:
> is maildir preferable to mh as far as indexers are concerned?

I think what is preferable depends on what your goals are.

In the past I used nnml for many years and it was just fine for how I
was using it (reading from a single account).  I've never looked into
using MH/nnmh.

For me, the indexer ("notmuch") dictated the store format and my
desire to read mail from multiple clients dictates how Gnus accesses
it.  The sweet spot for me is now:

  Primary machine: Procmail->Maildir->Dovecot->nnimap

  Satellite machine:
Maildir(primary)->Dovecot->OfflineIMAP->Dovecot->Maildir(satellite)->Dovecot->nnimap

The "notmuch" indexer runs from cron or by OfflineIMAP.

I find this a very satisfying, fast and usable setup.

-Brett.

Re: my vs maildir

[Tassilo Horn]

prad <prad@towardsfreedom.com> writes:

> our imap server stores mail in maildir.

So you get them from IMAP.  Why not simply access them with nnimap then?
IMAP has very good search facilities (Gnus nnir' search exploits them),
so I don't see a good reason to index them locally again (unless the
remote imap server doesn't do a good job here).

If you need to access your mails when you are offline, then you might
consider mirroring the remote imap server on a local imap server using
offlineimap, just like Richard suggested.

I did that for years, it worked fine, but I've switched back to plain
nnimap.  It's very fast since Lars rewrote it some weeks ago, and
basically, I'm always online.  And if I really go on a offline train
trip, I tick the mails I need before in Gnus.  Then they are accessible
also when offline.

Bye,
Tassilo

Re: my vs maildir

[prad]

prad <prad@towardsfreedom.com> writes:

> this exercise is to establish the local storage format for emails over
> several years so they can be indexed for the purpose of search and retrieval.
thx brett, tassilo and richard.

i've been trying out various things all day and think i've found a
reasonable solution (even though i had a connection to the remote imap
server which worked well yesterday):

1. used clawsmail to turn 40000+ mh emails into mbox
2. used mb2md to make mbox into maildir
3. put the cur new tmp into ~/Mail/inbox
4. served that through dovecot

before #4, i first tried to use nnmaildir to go right into the Mail
directly and it was very slow. so the imap server must be doing all
sorts of stuff behind the scene since things are super quick now! i
don't quite understand this because i'd have though direct access would
be fast, but i guess it means gnus has to do all the work without
dovecot lending a helping hand?

the only minor problem i have is that things haven't quite come out
sorted by date so when i ask for say 99 items, i don't get the most
recent 99 items as i do with the newsgroups or a direct connection to my
imap server as i did yesterday. somehow, the dovecot on the remote
server presents things ordered by date. so i guess some more studying and
tweaking is necessary though presumably gnus can do this as well with
something like:

(setq gnus-thread-sort-functions
      '((gnus-thread-sort-by-date)))


-- 
in friendship,
prad

Re: my vs maildir

[prad]

a problem that didn't seem to have an obvious solution was how to get my
sent emails back into the inbox, the purpose being so that the thread
stays intact as with a newsgroup.

i read that some people bcc themselves, but you apparently can't do that
in gnus (though you can in other things like vm and rmail).

then i came across this post by tassilo:
http://www.groupsrv.com/computers/about417740.html

and this exchange:
http://www.mail-archive.com/info-gnus-english@gnu.org/msg08483.html

after trying various permutations based on from the ideas there, something very
simple worked:

(setq gnus-parameters
      '(("^nnimap\\+Mail:INBOX"
         (gcc-self . t))))

this puts the sent mail right into my maildir ~/Mail/inbox/new something
i couldn't figure out how to do with things like nnmaildir (nnml gives
the wrong format of course).

this seems a much more direct way of doing things than figuring out bcc
- and because it is attached to my mail group, it won't pop posts i make
to newsgroups (like this one ... (fingers-crossed))

it works and i hope it is a good way to accomplish this goal.

-- 
in friendship,
prad

Re: my vs maildir

[Philipp Haselwarter]

I'll never understand why people prefer spamming their inboxes over
setting up a virtual group fed by 'inbox' and 'sent'...


-- 
Philipp Haselwarter

Re: my vs maildir

[Eric S Fraga]

Philipp Haselwarter <philipp.haselwarter@gmx.de> writes:

> I'll never understand why people prefer spamming their inboxes over
> setting up a virtual group fed by 'inbox' and 'sent'...

One reason for using self-Gcc, say, is that my different folders have
different expiry conditions and I would prefer my side of conversations
to expire under the same conditions.  Having all sent mail going into
one group and using virtual groups, as you suggest, would lead to
inconsistent expiration states.

Unless I have misunderstood you, which is always possible given my
level of understanding of all things gnus related... :(

-- 
: Eric S Fraga (GnuPG: 0xC89193D8FFFCF67D) in Emacs 23.2.1 + No Gnus v0.11

Re: my vs maildir

[Richard Riley]

Philipp Haselwarter <philipp.haselwarter@gmx.de> writes:

> I'll never understand why people prefer spamming their inboxes over
> setting up a virtual group fed by 'inbox' and 'sent'...

Could you outline the steps you use to do that please?

Re: my vs maildir

[Philipp Haselwarter]

Go to the group buffer, make a new virtual group, give it a name
"Conversations":

,----[ C-h k G V ]
| G V runs the command gnus-group-make-empty-virtual, which is an
| interactive compiled Lisp function in `gnus-group.el'.
| 
| It is bound to G V, <menu-bar> <Groups> <Foreign groups> <Make a
| virtual group...>.
| 
| (gnus-group-make-empty-virtual GROUP)
| 
| Create a new, fresh, empty virtual group.
| 
| [back]
`----


Put point over your "Inbox" and add it to "Conversations". Same for
"Sent".

,----[ C-h k G v ]
| G v runs the command gnus-group-add-to-virtual, which is an
| interactive compiled Lisp function in `gnus-group.el'.
| 
| It is bound to G v, <menu-bar> <Groups> <Foreign groups> <Add a group
| to a virtual...>.
| 
| (gnus-group-add-to-virtual N VGROUP)
| 
| Add the current group to a virtual group.
| 
| [back]
`----

Of course you need to populate "Sent" somehow.
For starters, look at `gnus-message-archive-group'. Be lazy, and dump
everything into one file/folder, or be fancy and set up a group for your
gmane posts, one for each imap account and one for your RSS feeds.


-- 
Philipp Haselwarter

Re: my vs maildir

[Brett Viren]

Two more things to consider:

On Sat, Jan 1, 2011 at 4:16 AM, prad <prad@towardsfreedom.com> wrote:

> (setq gnus-parameters
>      '(("^nnimap\\+Mail:INBOX"
>         (gcc-self . t))))
>
> this puts the sent mail right into my maildir ~/Mail/inbox/new something
> i couldn't figure out how to do with things like nnmaildir (nnml gives
> the wrong format of course).

Since I use procmail my INBOX is always pre-drained.  So, instead I use:

        ("myserv:.*" (gcc-self . t))

where "myserv" is the name given to nnimap when setting
gnus-secondary-select-methods.
With this, when I send mail while inside any group it will keep a copy
in that group and preserve threading.

The other tip I found (I think in the emacs wiki) was to avoid needing
an IMAP server to do IMAP:

(setq gnus-secondary-select-methods
      '(
        (nnimap "myserv"
                        (nnimap-stream shell)
    ... )

Then in your .emacs (and not .gnus) set:

; adjust as appropriate
(setq imap-shell-program '("MAIL=maildir:$HOME/Maildir /usr/lib/dovecot/imap"))

With this, gnus will execute IMAP directly.  It avoids needing to
provide authentication credentials and you don't need an IMAP server
listening on a port.

-Brett.

Re: my vs maildir

[prad]

Brett Viren <brett.viren@gmail.com> writes:

> Two more things to consider:
>
these ideas worked fantastically well, brett!!

i'm not using procmail yet - have to figure out that one today because i
want to do spam filtering with it ... right now with my new setup, i
don't mind receiving spam though. :D

certainly setting the "myserv" ties things together nicely.

i was glad i'd figured out dovecot to be able to get in with minimal
fuss, but thought it was a bit ironical that i'd need to do all this to
get into my own files, so your imap without running a server was really
great!

i'm puzzled though as to why it actually works. i thought the idea was
to have dovecot listen because a request to imap would come in, but the
emacs entry:

(setq imap-shell-program '("MAIL=maildir:$HOME/Maildir /usr/lib/dovecot/imap"))

would seem to appear to run imap every time you access gnu - which i
guess is the idea because you need to run it only once to get in.

again, thx for these tips!

-- 
in friendship,
prad

Re: my vs maildir

[Richard Riley]

prad <prad@towardsfreedom.com> writes:

> Brett Viren <brett.viren@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> Two more things to consider:
>>
> these ideas worked fantastically well, brett!!
>
> i'm not using procmail yet - have to figure out that one today because i
> want to do spam filtering with it ... right now with my new setup, i
> don't mind receiving spam though. :D
>
> certainly setting the "myserv" ties things together nicely.
>
> i was glad i'd figured out dovecot to be able to get in with minimal
> fuss, but thought it was a bit ironical that i'd need to do all this to
> get into my own files, so your imap without running a server was really
> great!
>
> i'm puzzled though as to why it actually works. i thought the idea was
> to have dovecot listen because a request to imap would come in, but the
> emacs entry:
>
> (setq imap-shell-program '("MAIL=maildir:$HOME/Maildir /usr/lib/dovecot/imap"))
>
> would seem to appear to run imap every time you access gnu - which i
> guess is the idea because you need to run it only once to get in.
>

Possibly you could post your set up? I am a little confused now. You are
running a local Dovecot? (on your machine or on a local server?).

If that is so then set your select method to talk to that using nnimap.

You then also don't need nnmairix. You can use dovecot's own indexing
via nnir.

You saying  "imap without running a server" is the bit that throws me.

regards

r.

Re: my vs maildir

[Philipp Haselwarter]

Well basically you need a server to open a port providing a socket that
your client can talk to. But if all of this is happening on one machine
it's a bit of a long way around.
Launching the `imap-shell-program' directly provides you with the same
interface you'd get if you were 
talking to your server over telnet but without having to do all the
networking fun.

This saves you some overhead and has the advantage that
you don't have to worry about security issues all that much; either
dovecot can read your files or it can not.
At least that's my understanding (guess) of what's happening :)

While your typical local imap server would look something like
--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
'(nnimap "localhost"
         (nnimap-stream network)
         (nnimap-server-port 143))
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

A minimal setup using the shell stream could be:
--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
(setq nnimap-shell-program "MAIL=maildir:$HOME/Maildir /usr/lib/dovecot/imap")
(setq gnus-select-method
      '(nnimap "localhost"
               (nnimap-stream shell)))
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---
NOTICE: `nnimap-shell-program' is a string, not a list


-- 
Philipp Haselwarter

Re: my vs maildir

[prad]

Richard Riley <rileyrg@googlemail.com> writes:

> Possibly you could post your set up? I am a little confused now. You are
> running a local Dovecot? (on your machine or on a local server?).
>
.emacs:
(setq imap-shell-program
  '("MAIL=maildir:$HOME/Mail /usr/lib/dovecot/imap"))

.gnus:
(setq gnus-parameters
      '(("Mail:.*" ;"^nnimap\\+Mail:INBOX"
         (gcc-self . t))))
(setq gnus-secondary-select-methods 
      '((nnimap "Mail" (nnimap-stream shell))))

those are the relevant parts to getting in with dovecot. there is no
dovecot running now which it was doing before and i had access to it
through .authinfo and my personal login data.


> You then also don't need nnmairix. You can use dovecot's own indexing
> via nnir.
>
i tried that last night, but haven't gotten it to work yet though it
looks pretty straight-forward to me. i may post questions later if i'm
not successful. however, i rather like mairix as indicated in my mairix
problems post and it may be more suitable as my emails grow - just
haven't gotten that to work fully either.

> You saying  "imap without running a server" is the bit that throws me.
>
ya that's the neat idea brett provided. it seems i can use imap from
dovecot without having a daemon running.

-- 
in friendship,
prad

Re: my vs maildir

[Richard Riley]

prad <prad@towardsfreedom.com> writes:

> Richard Riley <rileyrg@googlemail.com> writes:
>
>> Possibly you could post your set up? I am a little confused now. You are
>> running a local Dovecot? (on your machine or on a local server?).
>>
> .emacs:
> (setq imap-shell-program
>   '("MAIL=maildir:$HOME/Mail /usr/lib/dovecot/imap"))
>
> .gnus:
> (setq gnus-parameters
>       '(("Mail:.*" ;"^nnimap\\+Mail:INBOX"
>          (gcc-self . t))))
> (setq gnus-secondary-select-methods 
>       '((nnimap "Mail" (nnimap-stream shell))))
>
> those are the relevant parts to getting in with dovecot. there is no
> dovecot running now which it was doing before and i had access to it
> through .authinfo and my personal login data.
>
>> You then also don't need nnmairix. You can use dovecot's own indexing
>> via nnir.
>>
> i tried that last night, but haven't gotten it to work yet though it
> looks pretty straight-forward to me. i may post questions later if i'm
> not successful. however, i rather like mairix as indicated in my mairix
> problems post and it may be more suitable as my emails grow - just
> haven't gotten that to work fully either.

I doubt it will be since dovecot does the indexing for you as mails are
added. Mairix is then yet another piece in the jigsaw - I used to use it
but if Dovecot can index why not use that? Here's an extract from my
dovecot.conf : this iis the thing that provides the indexing.


,----
| protocol imap {
|       mail_plugins = fts fts_squat
|       listen = *:143
|       ssl_listen = *:993
|     }
| 
|     plugin {
|      fts = squat
|      fts_squat = partial=4 full=10
|     }
`----


>
>> You saying  "imap without running a server" is the bit that throws me.
>>
> ya that's the neat idea brett provided. it seems i can use imap from
> dovecot without having a daemon running.

Why would you do that? The overhead of Dovecot running is pretty
low. Doing it that way you incur the overhead of startup. With it being
a server other programs like offlineimap can then talk to it when
fetching your email and then storing it locally in dovecot for your
email client to retrieve using imap. 

Just some other ideas you might consider.

Re: my vs maildir

[Brett Viren]

On Sun, Jan 2, 2011 at 3:02 PM, Richard Riley <rileyrg@googlemail.com> wrote:

> Why would you do that? The overhead of Dovecot running is pretty
> low. Doing it that way you incur the overhead of startup. With it being
> a server other programs like offlineimap can then talk to it when
> fetching your email and then storing it locally in dovecot for your
> email client to retrieve using imap.

I've tried it both ways.  The only noticeable difference to me is the
lack of needing to provide authentication when imap is called
directly.  After start up I don't notice any speed or functionality
difference compared to talking to it over a socket.

Running a server when it is not actually needed is frowned upon where
I work so there is that, somewhat intangible, benefit for me.

-Brett.

Re: my vs maildir

[Richard Riley]

Brett Viren <brett.viren@gmail.com> writes:

> On Sun, Jan 2, 2011 at 3:02 PM, Richard Riley <rileyrg@googlemail.com> wrote:
>
>> Why would you do that? The overhead of Dovecot running is pretty
>> low. Doing it that way you incur the overhead of startup. With it being
>> a server other programs like offlineimap can then talk to it when
>> fetching your email and then storing it locally in dovecot for your
>> email client to retrieve using imap.
>
> I've tried it both ways.  The only noticeable difference to me is the
> lack of needing to provide authentication when imap is called
> directly.  After start up I don't notice any speed or functionality
> difference compared to talking to it over a socket.
>
> Running a server when it is not actually needed is frowned upon where
> I work so there is that, somewhat intangible, benefit for me.
>


If its company policy then yes I see. But really, the overhead is about
zero. When its not needed it sits there consuming pretty much nothing as
all such servers/daemons/services should. And of course the benefits are
:

offlineimap can talk to it with no special start and connect bootstrap

other machines can talk to it (if you want) e.g your dev machine on the
desk could have the router routing imap to it so you can read your email
from anywhere in the word.

That said I wasnt even aware of the reconnect and go shell method so its
informative all round;)

Re: my vs maildir

[Philipp Haselwarter]

On Sun, 02 Jan 2011 22:10:30 +0100, Richard Riley
<rileyrg@googlemail.com> said: 

---8<---[snipped 28 lines]---8<---

RR> other machines can talk to it (if you want) e.g your dev machine on
RR> the desk could have the router routing imap to it so you can read
RR> your email from anywhere in the word.

Just another open port, another socket you're blasting your passwords
through. If you set up dovecot properly to use imaps, I guess you should
be good. But I think the shell method is preferable to plain auth. For
you LAN: wrap ssh around the dovecot command.

That being said - I also still run dovecot as server: for
offlineimap. Dno if offlineimap could do without a server, guess I'll
have to take a look.

Anyone?


-- 
Philipp Haselwarter

Re: my vs maildir

[Brett Viren]

On Sun, Jan 2, 2011 at 9:54 PM, Philipp Haselwarter
<philipp.haselwarter@gmx.de> wrote:
>
> That being said - I also still run dovecot as server: for
> offlineimap. Dno if offlineimap could do without a server, guess I'll
> have to take a look.

It can.  Here is an example of IMAP-to-IMAP sync using direct calls
instead of server connections.  The remote goes through SSH.

[Repository LocalIMAP]
type = IMAP
preauthtunnel = MAIL=maildir:$HOME/Maildir /usr/lib/dovecot/imap
holdconnectionopen = yes


[Repository RemoteIMAP]
type = IMAP
remotehost = localhost          #use SSH tunnel
remoteuser = USERNAME
preauthtunnel = ssh -q REMOTEHOST 'MAIL=maildir:$HOME/Maildir
/usr/lib/dovecot/imap'
maxconnections = 3


Adjust as appropriate.

-Brett.

Re: my vs maildir

[Richard Riley]

Brett Viren <brett.viren@gmail.com> writes:

> On Sun, Jan 2, 2011 at 9:54 PM, Philipp Haselwarter
> <philipp.haselwarter@gmx.de> wrote:
>>
>> That being said - I also still run dovecot as server: for
>> offlineimap. Dno if offlineimap could do without a server, guess I'll
>> have to take a look.
>
> It can.  Here is an example of IMAP-to-IMAP sync using direct calls
> instead of server connections.  The remote goes through SSH.
>
> [Repository LocalIMAP]
> type = IMAP
> preauthtunnel = MAIL=maildir:$HOME/Maildir /usr/lib/dovecot/imap
> holdconnectionopen = yes
>
> [Repository RemoteIMAP]
> type = IMAP
> remotehost = localhost          #use SSH tunnel
> remoteuser = USERNAME
> preauthtunnel = ssh -q REMOTEHOST 'MAIL=maildir:$HOME/Maildir
> /usr/lib/dovecot/imap'
> maxconnections = 3
>
> Adjust as appropriate.
>
> -Brett.
>

Out of idle curiosity, Why do you need to specifiy Maildir paths or even
MAIL settings? If its IMAP just talk through IMAP the underlying storage
should be of no interest to the client.

Re: my vs maildir

[David Brown]

On Mon, Jan 03 2011, Richard Riley wrote:

> Brett Viren <brett.viren@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> On Sun, Jan 2, 2011 at 9:54 PM, Philipp Haselwarter
>> preauthtunnel = ssh -q REMOTEHOST 'MAIL=maildir:$HOME/Maildir
>> /usr/lib/dovecot/imap'
>
> Out of idle curiosity, Why do you need to specifiy Maildir paths or even
> MAIL settings? If its IMAP just talk through IMAP the underlying storage
> should be of no interest to the client.

When you invoke the imap server directly, it doesn't read any
configuration files, and must be told what mail directories to serve.

David

Re: my vs maildir

[Richard Riley]

David Brown <davidb@davidb.org> writes:

> On Mon, Jan 03 2011, Richard Riley wrote:
>
>> Brett Viren <brett.viren@gmail.com> writes:
>>
>>> On Sun, Jan 2, 2011 at 9:54 PM, Philipp Haselwarter
>>> preauthtunnel = ssh -q REMOTEHOST 'MAIL=maildir:$HOME/Maildir
>>> /usr/lib/dovecot/imap'
>>
>> Out of idle curiosity, Why do you need to specifiy Maildir paths or even
>> MAIL settings? If its IMAP just talk through IMAP the underlying storage
>> should be of no interest to the client.
>
> When you invoke the imap server directly, it doesn't read any
> configuration files, and must be told what mail directories to serve.
>
> David

Thats interesting. I would have thought there would be at least a switch
(defaulting to true) which tells it to use the proper
/etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf. In fact that, or something similar, must
exist or you would need to specify things like virtual users, legal
authentication modes etc too.

Re: my vs maildir

[Dan Christensen]

I invoke imap directly using

  dovecot --exec-mail imap

and it reads the config file.  I do it like this because it appears
to be faster than using a socket, possibly in part because it avoids
authentication and encryption.  I even find it faster when I connect
to a remote server (using the above with ssh).

Dan

Re: my vs maildir

[Brett Viren]

On Mon, Jan 3, 2011 at 8:50 AM, Richard Riley <rileyrg@googlemail.com> wrote:

> Out of idle curiosity, Why do you need to specifiy Maildir paths or even
> MAIL settings? If its IMAP just talk through IMAP the underlying storage
> should be of no interest to the client.

Dunno.  Some howto I found showed to do it this way and it worked.  I
wasn't interested in deconstructing it.

-Brett.

Re: my vs maildir

[Richard Riley]

Philipp Haselwarter <philipp.haselwarter@gmx.de> writes:

> On Sun, 02 Jan 2011 22:10:30 +0100, Richard Riley
> <rileyrg@googlemail.com> said: 
>
> ---8<---[snipped 28 lines]---8<---
>
> RR> other machines can talk to it (if you want) e.g your dev machine on
> RR> the desk could have the router routing imap to it so you can read
> RR> your email from anywhere in the word.
>
> Just another open port, another socket you're blasting your passwords
> through. If you set up dovecot properly to use imaps, I guess you
> should

Its encrypted. Not an issue. And using different ports is nothing more
than a placebo against any serious hacker. You either trust these
services or you dont. I do. Risk v Gain etc.

> be good. But I think the shell method is preferable to plain auth. For
> you LAN: wrap ssh around the dovecot command.
>
> That being said - I also still run dovecot as server: for
> offlineimap. Dno if offlineimap could do without a server, guess I'll
> have to take a look.
>
> Anyone?

I cant think of a single valid reason to not run it as a server tbh.

Re: my vs maildir

[prad]

Richard Riley <rileyrg@googlemail.com> writes:

> Here's an extract from my
> dovecot.conf : this iis the thing that provides the indexing.
>
>
> ,----
> | protocol imap {
> |       mail_plugins = fts fts_squat
> |       listen = *:143
> |       ssl_listen = *:993
> |     }
> | 
> |     plugin {
> |      fts = squat
> |      fts_squat = partial=4 full=10
> |     }
> `----
>
ok thx for this richard.

i have mairix working now (as per my other thread mairix problems), but
since i was unsuccessful with nnir i think i'll give this a try later. i
would like to see what it offers.

the only thing is it looks like i'll have to set the dovecot server
going again, which is not a problem and look into this fts_squat thing.

i downloaded nnir.el late last night and tried to byte compile it as
they suggested, but that didn't work.

-- 
in friendship,
prad

Re: my vs maildir

[Richard Riley]

prad <prad@towardsfreedom.com> writes:

> Richard Riley <rileyrg@googlemail.com> writes:
>
>> Here's an extract from my
>> dovecot.conf : this iis the thing that provides the indexing.
>>
>>
>> ,----
>> | protocol imap {
>> |       mail_plugins = fts fts_squat
>> |       listen = *:143
>> |       ssl_listen = *:993
>> |     }
>> | 
>> |     plugin {
>> |      fts = squat
>> |      fts_squat = partial=4 full=10
>> |     }
>> `----
>>
> ok thx for this richard.
>
> i have mairix working now (as per my other thread mairix problems), but
> since i was unsuccessful with nnir i think i'll give this a try later. i
> would like to see what it offers.
>
> the only thing is it looks like i'll have to set the dovecot server
> going again, which is not a problem and look into this fts_squat thing.
>
> i downloaded nnir.el late last night and tried to byte compile it as
> they suggested, but that didn't work.

downloaded it? it comes with gnus I think.

You did download nognus or not?

http://git.gnus.org/cgit/gnus.git/

Please note that you must call (gnus-load) e.g

,----
|   (load "gnus-load")  ;; Needed if using  nognus.
|   (setq Info-directory-list Info-default-directory-list)
|   (add-to-list 'Info-directory-list "~/builds/src/gnus/texi/")
`----

-- 
☘ http://www.shamrockirishbar.com, http://splash-of-open-sauce.blogspot.com/ http://www.richardriley.net

Re: my vs maildir

[prad]

Richard Riley <rileyrg@googlemail.com> writes:

> downloaded it? it comes with gnus I think.
>
> You did download nognus or not?
>
nognus???
never heard of it - i must be a real newbie!!

> http://git.gnus.org/cgit/gnus.git/
>
though i think you may have mentioned the .git in the other newsgroup,
but i didn't look into it because i got gnus from by distribution.

so nognus must be the git version i guess.

> Please note that you must call (gnus-load) e.g
>
ok thx again! i'll look into it later this week.

-- 
in friendship,
prad

Re: my vs maildir

[Brett Viren]

On Mon, Jan 3, 2011 at 3:28 PM, prad <prad@towardsfreedom.com> wrote:

> so nognus must be the git version i guess.

The gnus development versioning totally confused me for a long time
(still does).    I think this may be an intentional effect.

Quote:

   If you happen upon a version of Gnus that has a prefixed name --
"(ding) Gnus", "September Gnus", "Red Gnus", "Quassia Gnus",
"Pterodactyl Gnus", "Oort Gnus", "No Gnus" -- don't panic. Don't let
it know that you're frightened. Back away. Slowly. Whatever you do,
don't run. Walk away, calmly, until you're out of its reach. Find a
proper released version of Gnus and snuggle up to that instead.[1]


-Brett.

[1] http://www.gnus.org/manual/gnus_349.html#SEC352
[2] see also: http://www.gnus.org/manual/gnus_355.html#SEC358

Re: my vs maildir

[Yuri D'Elia]

On Mon, 3 Jan 2011 18:10:10 -0500, Brett Viren wrote:
> Quote:
>
>    If you happen upon a version of Gnus that has a prefixed name --
> "(ding) Gnus", "September Gnus", "Red Gnus", "Quassia Gnus",
> "Pterodactyl Gnus", "Oort Gnus", "No Gnus" -- don't panic. Don't let
> it know that you're frightened. Back away. Slowly. Whatever you do,
> don't run. Walk away, calmly, until you're out of its reach. Find a
> proper released version of Gnus and snuggle up to that instead.[1]

I'm still waiting for "Kitteh Gnus".

"Kitteh Gnus wants m0ar news!"

Don't forget 2011 is the year of the lolcat.

Re: my vs maildir

[Richard Riley]

Brett Viren <brett.viren@gmail.com> writes:

> On Mon, Jan 3, 2011 at 3:28 PM, prad <prad@towardsfreedom.com> wrote:
>
>> so nognus must be the git version i guess.
>
> The gnus development versioning totally confused me for a long time
> (still does).    I think this may be an intentional effect.

I think you might be right. Why not just call it "development Gnus" or
something?

Re: my vs maildir

[Adam Sjøgren]

On Tue, 04 Jan 2011 00:57:59 +0100, Richard wrote:

> Why not just call it "development Gnus" or something?

That sounds quite work-ey?


  :-),

   Adam

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

Re: my vs maildir

[Richard Riley]

prad <prad@towardsfreedom.com> writes:

> our imap server stores mail in maildir.
> i get them through claws-mail and save them locally as mh (because
> that's what claws does).
> however, i understand that with gnus i have a choice.
>
> is maildir preferable to mh as far as indexers are concerned?
> does gnus prefer working with maildir as well? (i recall reading that
> nnml is faster than nnmh though i don't know if that has anything to do
> with maildir).
>
> this exercise is to establish the local storage format for emails over
> several years so they can be indexed for the purpose of search and retrieval.

Move them all into the imap server (dovecot for example). You could do
that with Gnus! It does the indexing for you with fts_squat I think it
is and nnir. I dont know the details, I just know it works
well. Certainly less hassle than Mairix. How the imap server stores it
should be immaterial to you I think. (Dovecot can and does store it as
maildir but I cant comment on the advisability of accessing the dovecot
maildir directly): then simply configure an IMAP connection to local
host and/or remote imap host.