archive of sent messages: how to get to appear in Group buffer?

[Gernot Hassenpflug]

Hello,

I'm using gnus v.10.5.7 in Emacs 21.4.1 on an Intel Pentium III
running GNU/Linux Debian Sarge kernel 2.4.27-2.

After several attempts to improve mail reading in gnus, I have things
almost exactly where I want them (still GnuPG to set up). I am having
trouble with subscribing to the groups where I am archiving my own
messages though. I read the gnus manual section on sending mail, and
also looked on the web (where similar examples abound).

Below then is the code in my .gnus.el file where I ask the program to
store my written mails and news postings:

*---*

;; Save mail into a folder called sent-mail:

(setq gnus-message-archive-method
      '(nnfolder "sent-mail"
                (nnfolder-directory   "~/Mail/sent-mail")
                (nnfolder-active-file "~/Mail/sent-mail/active")
                (nnfolder-get-new-mail nil)
                (nnfolder-inhibit-expiry t)))

;; decide where under sent-mail to store messages depending on which
;; group I am in:

(setq gnus-message-archive-group 
      '(("^rec.martial" "sent-to-martial-arts")
        ("^rec.models" "sent-to-models")
        ("^sci.military.naval" "sent-to-naval")
        (".*" "sent-to-misc")))

*---*

I expect to get an nnfolder in my Group buffer called sent-mail, whose
physical location is in the directory ~/Mail/sent-mail. This is the
first time I am using nnfolder, so I am not clear as to whether
nnfolder "sent-mail" is a top-level folder directory, or one single
nnfolder. Going on the the next bit of the code, in this directory I
expect to see the nnfolders sent-to-martial-arts,
sent-to-models,sent-to-naval, and sent-to-misc, where the actual
messages will be stored in nnfolder format.

When I use command-line tools to look at the messages, they are indeed
located in the places indicated:

gernot@hase:~/Mail/sent-mail$ ls -al
total 36
drwxr-xr-x   2 gernot gernot 4096 2005-06-08 02:20 .
drwxr-xr-x  76 gernot gernot 4096 2005-06-08 01:57 ..
-rw-r--r--   1 gernot gernot   66 2005-06-08 02:20 active
-rw-r--r--   1 gernot gernot 2542 2005-06-08 02:08 sent-to-martial-arts
-rw-------   1 gernot gernot  187 2005-06-08 02:08 sent-to-martial-arts.nov
-rw-r--r--   1 gernot gernot    0 2005-06-08 02:08 sent-to-martial-arts~
-rw-r--r--   1 gernot gernot 2285 2005-06-08 02:20 sent-to-misc
-rw-------   1 gernot gernot  232 2005-06-08 02:20 sent-to-misc.nov
-rw-r--r--   1 gernot gernot    0 2005-06-08 02:20 sent-to-misc~
-rw-r--r--   1 gernot gernot 1862 2005-06-08 01:43 sent-to-naval
-rw-------   1 gernot gernot  578 2005-06-08 01:43 sent-to-naval.nov
-rw-r--r--   1 gernot gernot    0 2005-06-08 01:43 sent-to-naval~

OK, so far excellent, at least I know the messages are being stored
safely. However, I cannot seem to be able to subscribe to my own
groups in an editable manner. I.e., although I can use G D or G d to
access them in read-only mode, I cannot get gnus to list them as
editable mail or news groups from the Group buffer. I have tried F,
and have tried various foreign group subscription methods.

So, I thought, if nnfolder is a mail group, then maybe I have to tell
Gnus to fetch mail there, exactly like my other mail sources. In that
case, I need to put, in addition to the code above, requisite mail
source code into my .gnus.el. However, I did not see this in any of
the many example .gnus files I have looked at on the web. Can anyone
clarify for me what is going on here, or point me to some more
documentation? I am especially confused still by the meaning of
nnfolder "sent-mail" in relation to gnus-message-archive-group.

Any help would be very much appreciated. Thank you in advance.
Gratefully,
        Gernot Hassenpflug
-- 
G Hassenpflug RASC, Kyoto University
<myfirstname><at>rish.kyoto-u.ac.jp