Re: gnu linux clients capable of virtual groups

[Ivan Shmakov]

>>>>> John F Morse <john@example.invalid> writes:
>>>>> Anonymous wrote:

        [Cross-posting to news:gnu.emacs.gnus.]

[...]

 >> I'll describe the problem, rather than the solution.  When a user is
 >> subscribed to 100 newsgroups, it is *very* cumbersome to visit each
 >> newsgroup to see if there is anything interesting on a daily basis.

[...]

 >> Those would be "virtual" newsgroups, because the user creates them
 >> and only the client knows about them, not the outside world.

 >> It's a bit of a surprise that Windows clients (which tend to cater
 >> for simple one-click users) have clients that can configure virtual
 >> newsgroups, while text-based gnu linux tools are falling short on
 >> the power and configurability.

 > That might be possible, but I'm unaware of any newsreader, Linux, Mac
 > or Windows that can do such a thing.

        Gnus (which runs on top of Emacs) can do it, and is available
        for all the mentioned platforms.  This feature is accessed via
        the M-x gnus-group-make-empty-virtual and M-x
        gnus-group-add-to-virtual commands in the *Groups* buffer.

[...]

 > For someone who does read a lot of articles, from many newsgroups,
 > this would certainly generate a lot of confusion.  Sorting by date
 > and time would wreck any thread display with everything intermixed.

        Huh?

[...]

 > One possible trouble would be replying.  The newsreader would need to
 > know the real newsgroup so it could post back into it.  Perhaps by
 > evaluating the disposition of the reply by using the Newsgroups:
 > header field.

        Due to the support of cross-posting in Usenet, it's not only
        "virtual" groups that need such a feature, as when posting a
        follow-up to a cross-posted article, the currently selected
        group won't be the only one the follow needs to go to.

        Furthermore, should an article be selected, e. g., by traversing
        References: (which Gnus allows one to do), it may happen that
        the current article doesn't belong to the current group at all.

 > Again, threading could be a nightmare without using the References:
 > header field.

        ?  I don't know of any sensible way to thread, other than by
        relying on References:.

[...]

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