Re: How difficult is it to start using gnus?

[Category 5 <catfive+nn@sdf1.org>]

Le Wang <lewang(at@)yahoo.com> writes:

> I've used Emacs and XEmacs for quite a while now.  Off and on, I set
> up gnus to read some news, and do some e-mail.  I guess I'm able to
> do the basic things, but it just seems every thing that I do in gnus
> is a real chore.  There are a lot of very cryptic commands to
> memorize.

As a relative emacs veteran this should be the last thing to deter
you.  =)  Seriously, there are indeed *many* commands in Gnus, but as
you might expect, it's very much like Unix or emacs itself in this
respect: the commands are there when you need them, but you only need
to know the simplest subset of them to get started doing useful
things.  You'll naturally pick up the more advanced commands as you
start looking for quicker and more flexible ways to accomplish tasks.

In fact Lars has done an outstanding job of laying out the command
bindings so that they're as intuitive as possible given their number.
In general related commands start with the same prefix; all
article-washing commands start with 'W', all mail-group-specific
commands with 'B', and so on.

One thing that helps a great deal when you're getting started is to
print out a copy of the Gnus reference booklet.  Here's one place to
get it: 

    http://www.thphy.uni-duesseldorf.de/~gnu/doc/gnusref/

Read the README.  The best thing is to get bk-lt-d.ps.gz and print it
out on a double-sided-capable printer.  Then just fold and staple and
you have a very nice pocket reference.  It's for an oldish version of
Gnus so some of the commands aren't exactly the same, but most of them
haven't changed much.

> I know from research that apparently gnus is the proper superset of
> all other news and mail readers.

This is very true.  It's powerful and complex and if you're not shy
you can do more with it than any other mail or news user agent.  It's
really more of a general message-processing system.  And great fun!

> Would anyone care to share their experience adapting to gnus coming
> from a GUI e-mail/news program (e.g. Outlook, Mozilla, etc)?

If you're used to working with emacs, you should be well-placed to
appreciate the power of Gnus.  I'm frankly mystified why such a person
would be concerned about adapting to a program like Gnus and instead
cleave to awful software like Outlook and the hideous mail- and
news-grinding cruft hacked into already overbloated GUI browsers as an
afterthought.  I can't even meaningfully compare such unfortunate
piles of hulking kludge to the likes of Gnus or mutt.  YMMV.  =)

> I have perused the manual, and I must say it's the funniest manual
> I've read by far. kudos to Lars.

Absolutely.  If it's not obvious, this is a very good sign that you're
about to have an eminently satisfying software experience.

> But is there a collection of .gnus files available somewhere that
> shows off the cool stuff gnus is capable of (I'm particularly
> interested in the how the principles of gnus have their environment
> set up)?

You can probably find a number of examples around online, and many
people will be happy to post sections of their configuration if you
ask about preferred ways of doing a particular thing.  Because one's
Gnus configuration tends to become quite tailored to one's personal
style and circumstances, and because it can become large and complex
as a consequence, asking for entire pre-prepared .gnus files may not
be especially meaningful.  Think of it as being like asking for
people's complete .emacs files: seeing them may give you some ideas,
but large sections are likely to be irrelevant to your own needs.

The best thing to do is jump in and start your own customisation
process, and ask for ideas and examples when you hit something
confusing.  It's also helpful to read this newsgroup regularly to get
a feel for how this process works.  The volume's not high and the tone
is friendly, so this shouldn't be much of a burden.

> What does ding mean?  I hear it a lot in the context of gnus.

You might want to read http://www.gnus.org/history.html.

> My experience with Emacs started with XEmacs, but I've played with
> GNU Emacs lately as well, and 21 is a huge step up.  What are some
> key features that I'd be giving up if I used one or the other?

In general you'll probably find that Gnus works quite well both with
XEmacs and GNU Emacs 21.  You lose some things with earlier GNU Emacs
versions, but they're the things you'd expect: colour on ttys and the
like.

> gnus or oort?

Oort Gnus is the current development release of Gnus.  Most people
feel that it's nevertheless quite stable.  You should be fine with it,
and have all the latest features and fixes besides.

> I'm under the impression that the standard way to handle e-mail to
> use procmail to do sorting, and gnus to manage.  Is this right?  Can
> gnus do the whole sh'bang?  What are some possible scenarios?

Gnus can absolutely do 'the whole shebang'.  Check out the 'Fancy Mail
Splitting' section of the Gnus Manual for one such approach.  It's
possible to use both procmail and Gnus, and it might be desirable in
some cases, but unless there's some special reason why you need
procmail you'll probably find Gnus more than capable of sorting and
filtering both incoming mail and news.

> As always your time and help is very much appreciated.

I hope we hear from you again!

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