From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.emacs.gnus.user/1068 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Simon Josefsson Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.gnus.user Subject: Re: What's the difference between gnus-recent-mark and gnus-unseen-mark? Date: Sun, 08 Sep 2002 17:30:48 +0200 Message-ID: References: <87u1l476rl.fsf@harris.sdo.us.ray.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1138667898 9619 80.91.229.2 (31 Jan 2006 00:38:18 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2006 00:38:18 +0000 (UTC) Original-X-From: nobody Tue Jan 17 17:28:35 2006 Original-Path: quimby.gnus.org!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.gnus Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: 178.230.13.217.in-addr.dgcsystems.net Original-X-Trace: quimby.gnus.org 1031501250 19024 217.13.230.178 (8 Sep 2002 16:07:30 GMT) Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet@quimby.gnus.org Original-NNTP-Posting-Date: 8 Sep 2002 16:07:30 GMT User-Agent: Gnus/5.090008 (Oort Gnus v0.08) Emacs/21.3.50 (i686-pc-linux-gnu) Cancel-Lock: sha1:Z3bkHRa6ZxHG7Fw4JkuAZHGihwY= Original-Xref: bridgekeeper.physik.uni-ulm.de gnus-emacs-gnus:1208 Original-Lines: 34 X-Gnus-Article-Number: 1208 Tue Jan 17 17:28:35 2006 Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.gnus.user:1068 Archived-At: Steven E. Harris writes: > Having upgraded to Oort 0.07 yesterday, I noticed that my nnimap > groups use a leading 'N' to indicate unseen messages, while the rest > of my groups still use the '.' (period). I had grown accustomed to the > more discreet '.' and find the 'N' a little noisy. > > Before I force these two marks back to the same character, I'd like to > know what the difference is supposed to be. The Gnus manual alludesą > to guns-recent-mark being determined by the back-end, while > gnus-unseen-mark is used otherwise. Why does this implementation > detail yield a different user interface? Because the semantics are different, so it is not only a implementation detail. I actually find this distinction useful, but maybe not everyone does and it should be removed. Example where the semantics differ: Usually I get N for new mail in IMAP groups. This is fine (but I could agree N is a bit noicy, what about using `,' instead?). When I have read IMAP mail using another IMAP mail reader (I often read via Squirrelmail web mail) I don't get the N but I do get a . instead. This distinguish it from other read mail. Since I often postpone answering to some message until I use gnus, this distinction allows me to locate already-read-but-not-read-with-gnus mail. I think there are other scenarios as well, although I don't use them. E.g., in public folders which many people read, the \Recent mark disappears once the first person reads the mail (probably depends on server too). In this case, having the . flag helps to locate "new" mail. Perhaps the documentation could be improved to convey this stuff in a clearer way. Suggestions?