Re: Entering groups

[Slackat]

"Robert D. Crawford" <rdc1x@comcast.net> writes:

> Slackrat <slackrat4Q@azurservers.com> writes:
> 
> > I'm new to gnus and seem to be having a few problems
> 
> Let's see if we can clear things up for you.
> 
> > Firstly, if my groups are not 'permanently visible' I need to know how      
> > to make a particular group visible
> 
> One way to do this would be to use the 'L' command to list all groups,
> then use C-s to search for the group you wish to enter.

Thank you for the L/l tip

I wonder how I missed that one since I have spent a considerable
length of time browsing and testing key-bindings

However, I am now running emacs/gnus/w3m/erc under X and it is very
helpful since the menus are quite navigable with the mouse
notwithstanding me being an old CLI afficionado

> 
> > Secondly, even  if a group is visible, it seems to be impossible to
> > get into the group to post an article or to send an email if there is
> > not already at least one post in the group
> 
> I am not sure why you cannot enter a group with no articles.  If I try
> to enter a group with 0 unread articles, it askes me how many articles I
> wish to view or something of the kind.  Read on to solve the problem of
> article posting you mention.
> 
> There is no need to be in a group to post an article to a group.  If in
> the Group buffer, hitting 'a' will start a news article.  You can then
> enter the name of the group you wish to post to, using the TAB key to
> complete the group name.

The UseNet newsgroups are really no problem, but TAB completion does
not seem to work for me. Are there any special pre-requisites?.

And even supposing that it did work, would my Posting Styles to any
particular group be honoured?

> 
> As far as mail, you can do the same thing, only with the 'm' key from
> the Group buffer.
> 

'm' does in fact open up an email template but contains just the
Default information/headers/etc

But having got the L/l as a tool now, it is much easier to use gnus.

However, it is still impossible to enter a group that has no emails in
it

I have overcome this by putting a 'dummy' placeholder in the group
when I subscribe to it, which then creates the group on disk


Perhaps I am tackling the job rongly, but this is what I do:
Take for instance my SPF-VERIFY email group

I knew from the outset that I would from time to time beat out a test
post to verify that my SPF record was OK, so I subscribed to the
group, set up my inbound Mail Split, then my outbound Posting Style.

Upon attempting to enter the group, I cannot because (a) it does not
actually exist on disk and (b), even if it did exist, it would have no
emails in it and so still be unusable for outbound traffic

Solution? Put in the Placeholder as above and everything is just Peachy

EXPIRABLE EMAILS

Expiry is no problem with UseNet groups as a simple Catchup disappears
them and they presumably eventually die a natural death when the nntp
server zaps them

It's a bit of a drag when the server is busy and slow pulling in the
prior items on a busy, long-retention newsgroup such as
rec.bicycles.racing, but I will live with that having enabled that
specific option in my configs myself

However, auto expire ('immediate) on email groups presents a problem.
I don't want to preserve the UCE forwarded from my Toronto FreeNnet
account for any longer than it takes to determine that there are no
desired emails burried in the junk, so I expire it immediately, and
after some investigation discovered (setq nnmail-keep-last-article t) 
which is perfect. Not that I want to post to this particular group,
but I do want to post into other groups that would be treated
similarly

So everything so far is ticking over nicely

BUT

I have (setq nnmail-expiry-target "nnml:mail.graveyard") and trying to
delete the articles/emails in this group with the Backend 'd' merely
appends the whole contents af the group to be appended again to the
end

How do I purge this group please?

Also could you confirm that my Expirable items will disappear in one
week as per the HowTo's I have read, or is there something needs to be
done specifically to enable this instead of relying upon what is said
to be the Default of seven days? 

BROWSING and TEXT RENDERING

This appears in my configs:
;; I WOULD LIKE IT TO ALWAYS USE W3M
;; #################################
;;(setq browse-url-browser-function 'netscape)
;; (setq mm-text-html-renderer 'w3m)
(setq nnmail-text-html-renderer 'w3m)


Now  leaving (setq browse-url-browser-function 'netscape) uncommented
causes gnus to growl at me

Changing it to 'Opera produces similar results

Attempting to modify the code in browse-url.el to work for Opera
produced no results so, since Netscape, Mozilla, FireFox, ThunderBird
and their ilk are banished from my system, I symlinked Opera to
Netscape and can now merrily view URLs contained in inbound items

However, I had no luck with rerndering HTML which is embedded in an
item. W3M is installed and M-x w3m callable. Beautiful, but how do I
get it to render the HTML text within an article or email?

Otherwise I really do not need it since the item can be saved with a
few keystrokes as an .HTML file and viewed by clicking it in
FileRunner, my X replacement for mc


> Other things you should know...
> 
> C-h m while in the Group/Summary/Article buffers will give you
> mode-specific help.  You should read this information, as it is very
> helpful and concise.  

Thanks for the tip
> 
> Read the gnus info manual.  The info system is very nice.  Learning to
> use it will make you very happy.  To get into the gnus info manual, and
> any other info manual, use these commands:
> 
> C-h i 
> 
> this will go to the top level of the info system.  Then you can either
> search for "gnus" or you can hit the 'm' key to get to a menu item, in
> this case gnus.

Been there and got the T-Shirt

I never ask for help until I have INFOd, RTFMd, HOWTO'd, SEARCHd
and IRCd, you may be sure of that.

___
So in actual fact, gnus, erc, w3m and the ide are up and running much
more than acceptably and I am most happy with the results I have
obtained from the hours spent upon the project. I am now really into
the fine tuning stage

-- 
Slackrat
AKA Bill Henderson
[No _4Q_ for direct email]
emacs/gnus config [http://azurservers.com/gnus]