From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.emacs.gnus.user/154 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Kester Clegg Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.gnus.user Subject: Re: Gnus email. -For dummies type information. Date: 27 Mar 2002 13:11:26 +0000 Organization: Rolls Royce UTC, Dept. of Computer Science, University of York, UK Message-ID: References: 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 1138667241 5828 80.91.229.2 (31 Jan 2006 00:27:21 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2006 00:27:21 +0000 (UTC) Original-X-From: nobody Tue Jan 17 17:27:10 2006 Original-Path: quimby.gnus.org!news.ccs.neu.edu!news.dfci.harvard.edu!news.cis.ohio-state.edu!news.ems.psu.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news.uchicago.edu!newsswitch.lcs.mit.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news-han1.dfn.de!news-ber1.dfn.de!fu-berlin.de!server1.netnews.ja.net!news.york.ac.uk!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.gnus Original-Sender: kc11@york.ac.uk Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: pc310.cs.york.ac.uk Original-X-Trace: pump1.york.ac.uk 1017234684 15502 144.32.40.101 (27 Mar 2002 13:11:24 GMT) Original-X-Complaints-To: abuse@york.ac.uk Original-NNTP-Posting-Date: 27 Mar 2002 13:11:24 GMT User-Agent: Gnus/5.09 (Gnus v5.9.0) Emacs/21.1 Original-Xref: bridgekeeper.physik.uni-ulm.de gnus-emacs-gnus:294 Original-Lines: 40 X-Gnus-Article-Number: 294 Tue Jan 17 17:27:10 2006 Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.gnus.user:154 Archived-At: Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai Großjohann) writes: > Simon Josefsson writes: > > > But providing a sample .gnus is perhaps a good idea altough quite > > un-emacsishy in style. > > Yes, I now found another reason against a sample file: people who do > simple customizations can just do M-x customize RET. > But won't this write to your .emacs file? I don't have a .gnus file, so a sample could easily be provided where everything is commented to explain how the example configuration would work but is commented out by default. I seem to distantly remember Xemacs providing this menu option for a sample .emacs file, maybe something similar could be done for .gnus? I actually think the areas where people really need help are the more complex areas, like filtering, archiving, posting styles, scoring, etc. and it's in these areas people would benefit from seeing example configuration code. The argument that people should understand what they have in their .emacs is a bit weak, given that customising emacs / gnus is so fraught with complexity. It's very easy to mess up your .emacs and to put conflicting things in there. Because it's complex, people need help and a well laid out sample configuration would do that. Just imagine if samba users had to start coding the smb.conf from scratch tomorrow? There'd be uproar, but that is exactly what we currently have with emacs / gnus today. -- ************************************************************************ Kester Clegg Dept. of Computer Science, Research Assistant (UTC) University of York, Tel (01904) 43 27 49 email: kester at cs.york.ac.uk ************************************************************************