Re: Is gnus a good tool for me? How do I start?

[Kevin Brubeck Unhammer]

Marcin Borkowski <marcin.mbork.borkowski@gmail.com> writes:

> Hello,
>
> I am a medium-time (say, 10 years or so experience) Emacs user,
> although I am neither a programmer or a computer scientist... I use
> Emacs mainly for editing (La)TeX files, but I'd like to start using it
> for email reading and writing, too. I could not find too many
> introductory reading on the Gnus site, and that's why I'm asking here.
> Feel free to tell me to RTFM in case I missed one;).

The gnus info file (C-h i) is actually quite an entertaining read ;)

> My questions are:
> * Is it possible to use Gnus to write/read emails on a remote server,
> using IMAP?

I think you'll need the newest Gnus for remote IMAP to be fast (last
time I tried that, with Gmail, I found it too slow, but they say it's
much better in new versions). If you do this, I think you only need to
use your imap server address as a gnus-select-method, e.g. put this in
~/.gnus

(setq gnus-select-method
      '(nnimap "somename"
               (nnimap-address "mail.something.com")
               (nnimap-server-port 443)
               (nnimap-stream ssl)))

; and I highly recommend adding these if you want to subscribing to
; newsgroups and blogs without clogging your inbox:
(setq gnus-secondary-select-methods '((nntp "news.gmane.org")
                                      (nntp "news.gwene.org")


The info file has more examples under the IMAP section.

> * Is it possible to use Gnus (possibly as a front-end only) to archive
> emails in a local Maildir?

I do this, if I understand you correctly. I originally followed
http://roland.entierement.nu/blog/2010/09/08/gnus-dovecot-offlineimap-search-a-howto.html
but if you follow that guide, put "status_backend = sqlite" into your
offlineimap.rc and don't add the imaputil.flagsmaildir2imap and
imaputil.flagsimap2maildir hacks. Too bad that blog doesn't allow
commenting, because it's still a high-ranked search hit.

> * If the answer to above questions was yes, what are the best
> resources to read in order to be able to start using gnus as an email
> client, without spending a year on learning elisp, specs of the imap
> protocol etc – I'd prefer it to Just Work™ ;) ?

I use gnus and I hardly understand anything about imap (though I know
some elisp). I haven't come across any recommendable guides on how to
best use Gnus yet though, would love to see one myself since I doubt I'm
using it to the fullest extent.


BTW, if you want to _send_ email with gnus (or emacs at all), you'll
want something like this in your ~/.emacs or ~/.gnus:

(require 'smtpmail)
(setq message-send-mail-function 'smtpmail-send-it
      smtpmail-starttls-credentials '(("mail.something.com" 587 nil nil))
      smtpmail-default-smtp-server "mail.something.com"
      smtpmail-smtp-server "mail.something.com"
      smtpmail-smtp-service 587
      ;; Increase the limit for warning on maximum attachment sizes to
      ;; 19mb or whatever:
      message-send-mail-partially-limit (* 19 1024 1024))

;; you can put your password and username into a gpg encrypted file if
;; you want:
(setq smtpmail-auth-credentials (expand-file-name "~/.netrc.gpg"))



HTH,
-Kevin