Re: How to use Maildir for everything? How to duplicate behaviour of mutt?

[Juhapekka Tolvanen]

prj@po.cwru.edu (Paul Jarc) writes:

> Juhapekka Tolvanen <FUBAR.juhtolv@iki.fi.SNAFU.invalid> wrote:

>> First thing I need is this: When I hit "o" to save my News article, I
>> want to save it that article to ~/News so that each group has one
>> Maildir-folder.

> Apparently there is no maildir-format saver function.  But you could
> use B c to copy an article to an nnmaildir group.  So you could put
> together a command that creates the nnmaildir group corresponding to
> the current group, if it doesn't already exist, and then calls
> gnus-summary-copy-article to put the article there.

I'm sorry, but I can not code in elisp. Any takers?

Maybe that command could be bound to key "o".

>> And how can I convert those News articles I already have there to
>> Maildir-format? According to file-command they are in emacs
>> RMAIL-format.

> You could temporarily create an nnbabyl server to access those as Gnus
> groups, and use B c to copy the articles to nnmaildir groups.

Argh... Do you know any other ways to convert from RMAIL-format to mbox
or Maildir? I can use mbox-format as intermediate format and then
convert that to Maildir.

>> [When I stop reading my INBOX, read mails are moved to
>> ~/Maildir.save/read/ if I give permission.]

> I think you could do something like that with auto-expire in your
> inbox group, with the "read" group as the expiry target.  I'm not sure
> if you could make it prompt you for moving the messages, though.

Okay. Maybe that feature is not very important.

>> [When I leave text editor, and decide to postpone sending my E-Mail, it
>> is saved to ~/Maildir.save/postponed/ if don't give permission for
>> cancelling that E-Mail]

> Gnus has a specialized backend for drafts.  It's not maildir, but it
> does use one file per message.

Okay. Maybe that is not too big problem, except in this situation: I
start writing some E-mail under mutt and postpone it. Then I go on
editing it from Gnus. Or vice versa.

>> [When I send my E-Mail, a copy of it is saved to
>> ~/Maildir.save/sent-mail-YYYY-MM where YYYY is substituted with
>> number of year and YY is substituted with number of month (leading
>> zero included)]

> That can be done with a little Lisp.  I've never done it, so I don't
> know the details.

I reiterate: I can not code in elisp. Any takers?

>> my_hdr From: Juhapekka Tolvanen <juhtolv@cc.jyu.fi>
>> my_hdr Reply-To: Juhapekka Tolvanen <juhtolv@iki.fi>

>> [Those headers are added to each mail]

> I do this with posting styles, but there are other ways too.

Here are my current posting styles from ~/.gnus.el :

(setq gnus-posting-styles
      '(
                (".*"
                 (name "Juhapekka Tolvanen")
         (address "SNAFU.juhtolv@iki.fi.FUBAR.invalid")
                 )
                )
          )


I tried this, but then I commented it way, because it caused leaving
signature away:

;;(setq gnus-posting-styles
;;  '(
;;      (".*"  ;;default
;;     (name "Juhapekka Tolvanen")
;;     (organization "")
;;     (address "juhtolv@cc.jyu.fi")
;;     ("Reply-To" "juhtolv@iki.fi")
;;     (signature-file "~/.signature")
;;       )
;;    ((message-news-p)  ;;Usenet news?
;;     (address "SNAFU.juhtolv@iki.fi.FUBAR.invalid")
;;     ("Reply-To" "SNAFU.juhtolv@iki.fi.FUBAR.invalid")
;;     (signature-file "~/.signature")
;;       )
;;    ((message-mail-p)  ;;mail?
;;     (address "juhtolv@cc.jyu.fi")
;;     ("Reply-To" "juhtolv@iki.fi")
;;     (signature-file "~/.signature")
;;       )
;;      )
;;)

What am I doing wrong?

>> [during editing I can edit all headers, too]
>
> I think that's always true in Gnus, except there are some fields like
> Date and Message-ID that are regenerated when you send the message.

Okay. 

>> # If unset and you are replying to a message sent by you, Mutt will
>> # assume that you want to reply to the recipients of that message
>> # rather than to yourself.

> If you use followup instead of reply, Gnus will construct a message
> addressed to the sender and recipients, but then will remove your own
> address.

Okay.

>> [First ignore all headers when reading some E-Mail]
> ...
>> [Then unignore some headers]
>
> See the variable gnus-visible-headers.

Okay. Is it possible to change order of shown headers? Is it possible to
see all headers when reading News article but only selected when reading
E-Mail -messages.

>> (add-to-list 'gnus-secondary-select-methods '(nnmaildir ""))
>
> Make that:
> (add-to-list 'gnus-secondary-select-methods
>              '(nnmaildir "" (directory "~/Maildir.save")))
>
>> (add-to-list 'mail-sources '(maildir :path "/var/mail/juhtolv/" :subdirs 
>> ("cur" "new") ) )
>>
>> But I don't want it to delete mail from my INBOX when I stop reading
>> it. I want to copy each mail manually to right folder.

> Then you should access that maildir as an nnmaildir group, not a
> mail-source.  You can make a symlink like ~/Maildir.save/inbox ->
> /var/mail/juhtolv.

Alright... I am getting there. I start carefully. Hence, I created a
directory called ~/Maildir.gnus, first and I copied a directory called
"ibid" from ~/.Maildir.save to ~/.Maildir.gnus . Then I created symbolic
link that points from ~/.Maildir.gnus/INBOX to /var/mail/juhtolv . And I
put this to my ~/.gnus.el :

(add-to-list 'gnus-secondary-select-methods
             '(nnmaildir "" (directory "~/Maildir.gnus")))


If I start Gnus and hit "L", there are these "groups", too:

       0: nnmaildir:INBOX
       0: nnmaildir:ibid

And if I choose them, I really can read those E-Mails there. And E-Mails
of INBOX really stay there, when I leave that folder. They just go from
/var/mail/juhtolv/new to /var/mail/juhtolv/cur . And same happens when
reading that folder called "ibid".

Now, I want to be sure, that my Gnus never expires my E-Mails
automatically. I am used to do this: I sometimes burn my mailfolders to
CD-R. Then I delete old my E-Mails by hand.

>> BTW is Gnus the only emacs-based MUA Maildir-support?

> There's also VM, perhaps others as well.

Are you really sure that VM has Maildir-support? BTW I just realised,
that Wanderlust has some Maildir-support. But I don't know if it can
read and write Maildir-folders.


-- 
Juhapekka "naula" Tolvanen * http colon slash slash iki dot fi slash juhtolv
"halpojen hoitojen maailma uljas haluaa taistosi latistaa, mielesi
lipeävedellä valkaistuun ruotuunsa, joka on hautausmaa"                  CMX