Re: Entering groups

[Robert D. Crawford]

Slackat <slackrat4Q@azurservers.com> writes:

> Thank you for the L/l tip

No problem.

> 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

Blasphemy!  Using a mouse in emacs... what would rms say?

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

Not that I can recall.  I've been using this particular set-up for
quite a while now and some of the configuration issues that I might have
run into are long forgotten.  Maybe someone else can shed light on
this. 

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

I can't help you here, as I only use two posting styles, the default and
one in a mail group.  I am not sure if you can change a posting style
after the message buffer is created.

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

I'm still at a loss here.  I thought about it a bit and I think the
reason I never had this problem might have been that I imported a _lot_
of mail from pine.

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

As long as there is a workaround.

> 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

Something that can be taken care of in group parameters?  Not sure, as I
just hold on to the messages for x days and then they are deleted or
not, depending on the group.  If you check this graveyard every x days,
why don't you just set the expiry target to delete and set the wait time
to something reasonable.  

> 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? 

I have never seen anything in gnus that was set as the default that did
not work as advertised.

> BROWSING and TEXT RENDERING
>
> This appears in my configs:
> ;; I WOULD LIKE IT TO ALWAYS USE W3M

For browsing _and_rendering?

> ;;(setq browse-url-browser-function 'netscape)

You do know that this line is commented, right?

I am not sure if this is what you intend.  Check the documentation for
browse-url-browser-function.    The argument should be a function.  If
you are trying to use w3m to browse, set it to w3m-browse-url.

> ;; (setq mm-text-html-renderer 'w3m)

If you wish w3m to render the html mail, this is correct, after you uncomment.

> (setq nnmail-text-html-renderer 'w3m)

I think this might be from a version of gnus  earlier than the one that
I am using.  I looked in my .gnus.el file, one that I have been using
for several versions and I do not see this variable anywhere.Also,
trying to look up that variable returns nothing.

> 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

Hmmm, forget what I said above.  could it be that 'netscape' is a
function in browse-url that calls netscape with the url?

> 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?

Uncomment (setq mm-text-html-renderer 'w3m) and all should be fine.  

> 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

Too many steps.  Not very emacsy.  

> 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.

Right on!  Good to see that there are still people that do not expect
all the answers without putting forth any effort.

> 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

This stage never ends.  I use emacs for the _only_ interface to my
computer and have been for a while.  Before that I used it for text and
mail/news.  I still customize things on a pretty regular basis.  You are
not static, why should your editor be?

take care,
rdc
-- 
Robert D. Crawford                                      rdc1x@comcast.net

Please ignore previous fortune.