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--- The Detailed Node Listing ---
Starting Gnus
New Groups
Group Buffer
Group Buffer Format
Group Topics
Misc Group Stuff
Summary Buffer
Summary Buffer Format
Choosing Articles
Reply, Followup and Post
Marking Articles
Threading
Customizing Threading
Decoding Articles
Decoding Variables
Article Treatment
Alternative Approaches
Various Summary Stuff
Article Buffer
Composing Messages
Select Methods
Server Buffer
Getting News
NNTP
Getting Mail
Mail Sources
Choosing a Mail Back End
Browsing the Web
IMAP
Other Sources
Document Groups
SOUP
Combined Groups
Email Based Diary
The NNDiary Back End
The Gnus Diary Library
Gnus Unplugged
Agent Categories
Agent Commands
Scoring
GroupLens
Advanced Scoring
Various
Formatting Variables
Image Enhancements
Thwarting Email Spam
Spam Package
Spam Statistics Package
Appendices
History
New Features
Customization
Gnus Reference Guide
Back End Interface
Various File Formats
Emacs for Heathens
If you are haven't used Emacs much before using Gnus, read Emacs for Heathens first.
If your system administrator has set things up properly, starting Gnus
and reading news is extremely easy—you just type M-x gnus in
your Emacs. If not, you should customize the variable
gnus-select-method as described in Finding the News. For a
minimal setup for posting should also customize the variables
user-full-name and user-mail-address.
If you want to start Gnus in a different frame, you can use the command M-x gnus-other-frame instead.
If things do not go smoothly at startup, you have to twiddle some variables in your ~/.gnus.el file. This file is similar to ~/.emacs, but is read when Gnus starts.
If you puzzle at any terms used in this manual, please refer to the terminology section (see Terminology).
The gnus-select-method variable says where Gnus should look for
news. This variable should be a list where the first element says
how and the second element says where. This method is your
native method. All groups not fetched with this method are
foreign groups.
For instance, if the `news.somewhere.edu' NNTP server is where you want to get your daily dosage of news from, you'd say:
(setq gnus-select-method '(nntp "news.somewhere.edu"))
If you want to read directly from the local spool, say:
(setq gnus-select-method '(nnspool ""))
If you can use a local spool, you probably should, as it will almost
certainly be much faster. But do not use the local spool if your
server is running Leafnode (which is a simple, standalone private news
server); in this case, use (nntp "localhost").
If this variable is not set, Gnus will take a look at the
NNTPSERVER environment variable. If that variable isn't set,
Gnus will see whether gnus-nntpserver-file
(/etc/nntpserver by default) has any opinions on the matter.
If that fails as well, Gnus will try to use the machine running Emacs
as an NNTP server. That's a long shot, though.
If gnus-nntp-server is set, this variable will override
gnus-select-method. You should therefore set
gnus-nntp-server to nil, which is what it is by default.
You can also make Gnus prompt you interactively for the name of an
NNTP server. If you give a non-numerical prefix to gnus
(i.e., C-u M-x gnus), Gnus will let you choose between the servers
in the gnus-secondary-servers list (if any). You can also just
type in the name of any server you feel like visiting. (Note that this
will set gnus-nntp-server, which means that if you then M-x
gnus later in the same Emacs session, Gnus will contact the same
server.)
However, if you use one NNTP server regularly and are just interested in a couple of groups from a different server, you would be better served by using the B command in the group buffer. It will let you have a look at what groups are available, and you can subscribe to any of the groups you want to. This also makes .newsrc maintenance much tidier. See Foreign Groups.
A slightly different approach to foreign groups is to set the
gnus-secondary-select-methods variable. The select methods
listed in this variable are in many ways just as native as the
gnus-select-method server. They will also be queried for active
files during startup (if that's required), and new newsgroups that
appear on these servers will be subscribed (or not) just as native
groups are.
For instance, if you use the nnmbox back end to read your mail,
you would typically set this variable to
(setq gnus-secondary-select-methods '((nnmbox "")))
If no startup files exist (see Startup Files), Gnus will try to determine what groups should be subscribed by default.
If the variable gnus-default-subscribed-newsgroups is set, Gnus
will subscribe you to just those groups in that list, leaving the rest
killed. Your system administrator should have set this variable to
something useful.
Since she hasn't, Gnus will just subscribe you to a few arbitrarily picked groups (i.e., `*.newusers'). (Arbitrary is defined here as whatever Lars thinks you should read.)
You'll also be subscribed to the Gnus documentation group, which should help you with most common problems.
If gnus-default-subscribed-newsgroups is t, Gnus will just
use the normal functions for handling new groups, and not do anything
special.
If the default server is down, Gnus will understandably have some problems starting. However, if you have some mail groups in addition to the news groups, you may want to start Gnus anyway.
Gnus, being the trusting sort of program, will ask whether to proceed without a native select method if that server can't be contacted. This will happen whether the server doesn't actually exist (i.e., you have given the wrong address) or the server has just momentarily taken ill for some reason or other. If you decide to continue and have no foreign groups, you'll find it difficult to actually do anything in the group buffer. But, hey, that's your problem. Blllrph!
If you know that the server is definitely down, or you just want to read
your mail without bothering with the server at all, you can use the
gnus-no-server command to start Gnus. That might come in handy
if you're in a hurry as well. This command will not attempt to contact
your primary server—instead, it will just activate all groups on level
1 and 2. (You should preferably keep no native groups on those two
levels.) Also see Group Levels.
You might want to run more than one Emacs with more than one Gnus at the same time. If you are using different .newsrc files (e.g., if you are using the two different Gnusae to read from two different servers), that is no problem whatsoever. You just do it.
The problem appears when you want to run two Gnusae that use the same .newsrc file.
To work around that problem some, we here at the Think-Tank at the Gnus Towers have come up with a new concept: Masters and slaves. (We have applied for a patent on this concept, and have taken out a copyright on those words. If you wish to use those words in conjunction with each other, you have to send $1 per usage instance to me. Usage of the patent (Master/Slave Relationships In Computer Applications) will be much more expensive, of course.)
Anyway, you start one Gnus up the normal way with M-x gnus (or however you do it). Each subsequent slave Gnusae should be started with M-x gnus-slave. These slaves won't save normal .newsrc files, but instead save slave files that contain information only on what groups have been read in the slave session. When a master Gnus starts, it will read (and delete) these slave files, incorporating all information from them. (The slave files will be read in the sequence they were created, so the latest changes will have precedence.)
Information from the slave files has, of course, precedence over the information in the normal (i.e., master) .newsrc file.
If the .newsrc* files have not been saved in the master when the slave starts, you may be prompted as to whether to read an auto-save file. If you answer “yes”, the unsaved changes to the master will be incorporated into the slave. If you answer “no”, the slave may see some messages as unread that have been read in the master.
If you are satisfied that you really never want to see any new groups,
you can set gnus-check-new-newsgroups to nil. This will
also save you some time at startup. Even if this variable is
nil, you can always subscribe to the new groups just by pressing
U in the group buffer (see Group Maintenance). This variable
is ask-server by default. If you set this variable to
always, then Gnus will query the back ends for new groups even
when you do the g command (see Scanning New Messages).
Gnus normally determines whether a group is new or not by comparing the
list of groups from the active file(s) with the lists of subscribed and
dead groups. This isn't a particularly fast method. If
gnus-check-new-newsgroups is ask-server, Gnus will ask the
server for new groups since the last time. This is both faster and
cheaper. This also means that you can get rid of the list of killed
groups altogether, so you may set gnus-save-killed-list to
nil, which will save time both at startup, at exit, and all over.
Saves disk space, too. Why isn't this the default, then?
Unfortunately, not all servers support this command.
I bet I know what you're thinking now: How do I find out whether my
server supports ask-server? No? Good, because I don't have a
fail-safe answer. I would suggest just setting this variable to
ask-server and see whether any new groups appear within the next
few days. If any do, then it works. If none do, then it doesn't
work. I could write a function to make Gnus guess whether the server
supports ask-server, but it would just be a guess. So I won't.
You could telnet to the server and say HELP and see
whether it lists `NEWGROUPS' among the commands it understands. If
it does, then it might work. (But there are servers that lists
`NEWGROUPS' without supporting the function properly.)
This variable can also be a list of select methods. If so, Gnus will
issue an ask-server command to each of the select methods, and
subscribe them (or not) using the normal methods. This might be handy
if you are monitoring a few servers for new groups. A side effect is
that startup will take much longer, so you can meditate while waiting.
Use the mantra “dingnusdingnusdingnus” to achieve permanent bliss.
What Gnus does when it encounters a new group is determined by the
gnus-subscribe-newsgroup-method variable.
This variable should contain a function. This function will be called with the name of the new group as the only parameter.
Some handy pre-fab functions are:
gnus-subscribe-zombiesgnus-subscribe-randomlygnus-subscribe-alphabeticallygnus-subscribe-hierarchicallygnus-subscribe-alphabetically is slight.
gnus-subscribe-alphabetically will subscribe new groups in a strictly
alphabetical fashion, while this function will enter groups into its
hierarchy. So if you want to have the `rec' hierarchy before the
`comp' hierarchy, this function will not mess that configuration
up. Or something like that.
gnus-subscribe-interactivelygnus-subscribe-killedgnus-subscribe-topicssubscribe topic
parameter (see Topic Parameters). For instance, a subscribe
topic parameter that looks like
"nnslashdot"
will mean that all groups that match that regex will be subscribed under that topic.
If no topics match the groups, the groups will be subscribed in the top-level topic.
A closely related variable is
gnus-subscribe-hierarchical-interactive. (That's quite a
mouthful.) If this variable is non-nil, Gnus will ask you in a
hierarchical fashion whether to subscribe to new groups or not. Gnus
will ask you for each sub-hierarchy whether you want to descend the
hierarchy or not.
One common mistake is to set the variable a few paragraphs above
(gnus-subscribe-newsgroup-method) to
gnus-subscribe-hierarchical-interactive. This is an error. This
will not work. This is ga-ga. So don't do it.
A nice and portable way to control which new newsgroups should be subscribed (or ignored) is to put an options line at the start of the .newsrc file. Here's an example:
options -n !alt.all !rec.all sci.all
This line obviously belongs to a serious-minded intellectual scientific
person (or she may just be plain old boring), because it says that all
groups that have names beginning with `alt' and `rec' should
be ignored, and all groups with names beginning with `sci' should
be subscribed. Gnus will not use the normal subscription method for
subscribing these groups.
gnus-subscribe-options-newsgroup-method is used instead. This
variable defaults to gnus-subscribe-alphabetically.
If you don't want to mess with your .newsrc file, you can just
set the two variables gnus-options-subscribe and
gnus-options-not-subscribe. These two variables do exactly the
same as the .newsrc `options -n' trick. Both are regexps,
and if the new group matches the former, it will be unconditionally
subscribed, and if it matches the latter, it will be ignored.
Yet another variable that meddles here is
gnus-auto-subscribed-groups. It works exactly like
gnus-options-subscribe, and is therefore really superfluous,
but I thought it would be nice to have two of these. This variable is
more meant for setting some ground rules, while the other variable is
used more for user fiddling. By default this variable makes all new
groups that come from mail back ends (nnml, nnbabyl,
nnfolder, nnmbox, nnmh, and nnmaildir)
subscribed. If you don't like that, just set this variable to
nil.
New groups that match this regexp are subscribed using
gnus-subscribe-options-newsgroup-method.
Sometimes it is necessary to move from one NNTP server to another. This happens very rarely, but perhaps you change jobs, or one server is very flaky and you want to use another.
Changing the server is pretty easy, right? You just change
gnus-select-method to point to the new server?
Wrong!
Article numbers are not (in any way) kept synchronized between different
NNTP servers, and the only way Gnus keeps track of what articles
you have read is by keeping track of article numbers. So when you
change gnus-select-method, your .newsrc file becomes
worthless.
Gnus provides a few functions to attempt to translate a .newsrc file from one server to another. They all have one thing in common—they take a looong time to run. You don't want to use these functions more than absolutely necessary.
If you have access to both servers, Gnus can request the headers for all
the articles you have read and compare Message-IDs and map the
article numbers of the read articles and article marks. The M-x
gnus-change-server command will do this for all your native groups. It
will prompt for the method you want to move to.
You can also move individual groups with the M-x gnus-group-move-group-to-server command. This is useful if you want to move a (foreign) group from one server to another.
If you don't have access to both the old and new server, all your marks and read ranges have become worthless. You can use the M-x gnus-group-clear-data-on-native-groups command to clear out all data that you have on your native groups. Use with caution.
Clear the data from the current group only—nix out marks and the
list of read articles (gnus-group-clear-data).
After changing servers, you must move the cache hierarchy away,
since the cached articles will have wrong article numbers, which will
affect which articles Gnus thinks are read.
gnus-group-clear-data-on-native-groups will ask you if you want
to have it done automatically; for gnus-group-clear-data, you
can use M-x gnus-cache-move-cache (but beware, it will move the
cache for all groups).
Most common Unix news readers use a shared startup file called .newsrc. This file contains all the information about what groups are subscribed, and which articles in these groups have been read.
Things got a bit more complicated with gnus. In addition to keeping the .newsrc file updated, it also used a file called .newsrc.el for storing all the information that didn't fit into the .newsrc file. (Actually, it also duplicated everything in the .newsrc file.) gnus would read whichever one of these files was the most recently saved, which enabled people to swap between gnus and other newsreaders.
That was kinda silly, so Gnus went one better: In addition to the .newsrc and .newsrc.el files, Gnus also has a file called .newsrc.eld. It will read whichever of these files that are most recent, but it will never write a .newsrc.el file. You should never delete the .newsrc.eld file—it contains much information not stored in the .newsrc file.
You can turn off writing the .newsrc file by setting
gnus-save-newsrc-file to nil, which means you can delete
the file and save some space, as well as exiting from Gnus faster.
However, this will make it impossible to use other newsreaders than
Gnus. But hey, who would want to, right? Similarly, setting
gnus-read-newsrc-file to nil makes Gnus ignore the
.newsrc file and any .newsrc-SERVER files, which can be
convenient if you use a different news reader occasionally, and you
want to read a different subset of the available groups with that
news reader.
If gnus-save-killed-list (default t) is nil, Gnus
will not save the list of killed groups to the startup file. This will
save both time (when starting and quitting) and space (on disk). It
will also mean that Gnus has no record of what groups are new or old,
so the automatic new groups subscription methods become meaningless.
You should always set gnus-check-new-newsgroups to nil or
ask-server if you set this variable to nil (see New Groups). This variable can also be a regular expression. If that's
the case, remove all groups that do not match this regexp before
saving. This can be useful in certain obscure situations that involve
several servers where not all servers support ask-server.
The gnus-startup-file variable says where the startup files are.
The default value is ~/.newsrc, with the Gnus (El Dingo) startup
file being whatever that one is, with a `.eld' appended.
If you want version control for this file, set
gnus-backup-startup-file. It respects the same values as the
version-control variable.
gnus-save-newsrc-hook is called before saving any of the newsrc
files, while gnus-save-quick-newsrc-hook is called just before
saving the .newsrc.eld file, and
gnus-save-standard-newsrc-hook is called just before saving the
.newsrc file. The latter two are commonly used to turn version
control on or off. Version control is on by default when saving the
startup files. If you want to turn backup creation off, say something like:
(defun turn-off-backup ()
(set (make-local-variable 'backup-inhibited) t))
(add-hook 'gnus-save-quick-newsrc-hook 'turn-off-backup)
(add-hook 'gnus-save-standard-newsrc-hook 'turn-off-backup)
When Gnus starts, it will read the gnus-site-init-file
(.../site-lisp/gnus-init by default) and gnus-init-file
(~/.gnus by default) files. These are normal Emacs Lisp files
and can be used to avoid cluttering your ~/.emacs and
site-init files with Gnus stuff. Gnus will also check for files
with the same names as these, but with .elc and .el
suffixes. In other words, if you have set gnus-init-file to
~/.gnus, it will look for ~/.gnus.elc, ~/.gnus.el,
and finally ~/.gnus (in this order). If Emacs was invoked with
the -q or --no-init-file options (see Initial Options), Gnus doesn't read
gnus-init-file.
Whenever you do something that changes the Gnus data (reading articles, catching up, killing/subscribing groups), the change is added to a special dribble buffer. This buffer is auto-saved the normal Emacs way. If your Emacs should crash before you have saved the .newsrc files, all changes you have made can be recovered from this file.
If Gnus detects this file at startup, it will ask the user whether to read it. The auto save file is deleted whenever the real startup file is saved.
If gnus-use-dribble-file is nil, Gnus won't create and
maintain a dribble buffer. The default is t.
Gnus will put the dribble file(s) in gnus-dribble-directory. If
this variable is nil, which it is by default, Gnus will dribble
into the directory where the .newsrc file is located. (This is
normally the user's home directory.) The dribble file will get the same
file permissions as the .newsrc file.
If gnus-always-read-dribble-file is non-nil, Gnus will
read the dribble file on startup without querying the user.
When Gnus starts, or indeed whenever it tries to determine whether new articles have arrived, it reads the active file. This is a very large file that lists all the active groups and articles on the server.
Before examining the active file, Gnus deletes all lines that match the
regexp gnus-ignored-newsgroups. This is done primarily to reject
any groups with bogus names, but you can use this variable to make Gnus
ignore hierarchies you aren't ever interested in. However, this is not
recommended. In fact, it's highly discouraged. Instead, see New Groups for an overview of other variables that can be used instead.
The active file can be rather Huge, so if you have a slow network, you
can set gnus-read-active-file to nil to prevent Gnus from
reading the active file. This variable is some by default.
Gnus will try to make do by getting information just on the groups that you actually subscribe to.
Note that if you subscribe to lots and lots of groups, setting this
variable to nil will probably make Gnus slower, not faster. At
present, having this variable nil will slow Gnus down
considerably, unless you read news over a 2400 baud modem.
This variable can also have the value some. Gnus will then
attempt to read active info only on the subscribed groups. On some
servers this is quite fast (on sparkling, brand new INN servers that
support the LIST ACTIVE group command), on others this isn't fast
at all. In any case, some should be faster than nil, and
is certainly faster than t over slow lines.
Some news servers (old versions of Leafnode and old versions of INN, for
instance) do not support the LIST ACTIVE group. For these
servers, nil is probably the most efficient value for this
variable.
If this variable is nil, Gnus will ask for group info in total
lock-step, which isn't very fast. If it is some and you use an
NNTP server, Gnus will pump out commands as fast as it can, and
read all the replies in one swoop. This will normally result in better
performance, but if the server does not support the aforementioned
LIST ACTIVE group command, this isn't very nice to the server.
If you think that starting up Gnus takes too long, try all the three different values for this variable and see what works best for you.
In any case, if you use some or nil, you should definitely
kill all groups that you aren't interested in to speed things up.
Note that this variable also affects active file retrieval from secondary select methods.
gnus-load-hookgnus-before-startup-hookgnus-startup-hookgnus-started-hookgnus-setup-news-hookgnus-check-bogus-newsgroupsnil, Gnus will check for and delete all bogus groups at
startup. A bogus group is a group that you have in your
.newsrc file, but doesn't exist on the news server. Checking for
bogus groups can take quite a while, so to save time and resources it's
best to leave this option off, and do the checking for bogus groups once
in a while from the group buffer instead (see Group Maintenance).
gnus-inhibit-startup-messagenil, the startup message won't be displayed. That way,
your boss might not notice as easily that you are reading news instead
of doing your job. Note that this variable is used before
~/.gnus.el is loaded, so it should be set in .emacs instead.
gnus-no-groups-messagegnus-play-startup-jinglenil, play the Gnus jingle at startup.
gnus-startup-jinglenil. The
default is `Tuxedomoon.Jingle4.au'.
The group buffer lists all (or parts) of the available groups. It is the first buffer shown when Gnus starts, and will never be killed as long as Gnus is active.
You can customize the Group Mode tool bar, see M-x customize-apropos RET gnus-group-tool-bar. This feature is only available in Emacs.
The tool bar icons are now (de)activated correctly depending on the
cursor position. Therefore, moving around in the Group Buffer is
slower. You can disable this via the variable
gnus-group-update-tool-bar. Its default value depends on your
Emacs version.
The default format of the group buffer is nice and dull, but you can make it as exciting and ugly as you feel like.
Here's a couple of example group lines:
25: news.announce.newusers
* 0: alt.fan.andrea-dworkin
Quite simple, huh?
You can see that there are 25 unread articles in `news.announce.newusers'. There are no unread articles, but some ticked articles, in `alt.fan.andrea-dworkin' (see that little asterisk at the beginning of the line?).
You can change that format to whatever you want by fiddling with the
gnus-group-line-format variable. This variable works along the
lines of a format specification, which is pretty much the same as
a printf specifications, for those of you who use (feh!) C.
See Formatting Variables.
`%M%S%5y:%B%(%g%)\n' is the value that produced those lines above.
There should always be a colon on the line; the cursor always moves to the colon after performing an operation. See Positioning Point. Nothing else is required—not even the group name. All displayed text is just window dressing, and is never examined by Gnus. Gnus stores all real information it needs using text properties.
(Note that if you make a really strange, wonderful, spreadsheet-like layout, everybody will believe you are hard at work with the accounting instead of wasting time reading news.)
Here's a list of all available format characters:
Gnus uses this estimation because the NNTP protocol provides
efficient access to max-number and min-number but getting
the true unread message count is not possible efficiently. For
hysterical raisins, even the mail back ends, where the true number of
unread messages might be available efficiently, use the same limited
interface. To remove this restriction from Gnus means that the back
end interface has to be changed, which is not an easy job. If you
want to work on this, please contact the Gnus mailing list.
gnus-read-active-file or use the group buffer M-d
command.
gnus-group-uncollapsed-levels
variable says how many levels to leave at the end of the group name.
The default is 1—this will mean that group names like
`gnu.emacs.gnus' will be shortened to `g.e.gnus'.
gnus-new-mail-mark) if there has arrived new mail to
the group lately.
gnus-process-mark) if the group is process marked.
gnus-user-format-function-`X', where `X' is the letter
following `%u'. The function will be passed a single dummy
parameter as argument. The function should return a string, which will
be inserted into the buffer just like information from any other
specifier.
All the “number-of” specs will be filled with an asterisk (`*') if no info is available—for instance, if it is a non-activated foreign group, or a bogus native group.
The mode line can be changed by setting
gnus-group-mode-line-format (see Mode Line Formatting). It
doesn't understand that many format specifiers:
Highlighting in the group buffer is controlled by the
gnus-group-highlight variable. This is an alist with elements
that look like (form . face). If form evaluates to
something non-nil, the face will be used on the line.
Here's an example value for this variable that might look nice if the background is dark:
(cond (window-system
(setq custom-background-mode 'light)
(defface my-group-face-1
'((t (:foreground "Red" :bold t))) "First group face")
(defface my-group-face-2
'((t (:foreground "DarkSeaGreen4" :bold t)))
"Second group face")
(defface my-group-face-3
'((t (:foreground "Green4" :bold t))) "Third group face")
(defface my-group-face-4
'((t (:foreground "SteelBlue" :bold t))) "Fourth group face")
(defface my-group-face-5
'((t (:foreground "Blue" :bold t))) "Fifth group face")))
(setq gnus-group-highlight
'(((> unread 200) . my-group-face-1)
((and (< level 3) (zerop unread)) . my-group-face-2)
((< level 3) . my-group-face-3)
((zerop unread) . my-group-face-4)
(t . my-group-face-5)))
Also see Faces and Fonts.
Variables that are dynamically bound when the forms are evaluated include:
groupunreadmethodmailplevelscoretickedtotaltopicWhen the forms are evaled, point is at the beginning of the line
of the group in question, so you can use many of the normal Gnus
functions for snarfing info on the group.
gnus-group-update-hook is called when a group line is changed.
It will not be called when gnus-visual is nil. This hook
calls gnus-group-highlight-line by default.
All movement commands understand the numeric prefix and will behave as expected, hopefully.
gnus-group-next-unread-group).
gnus-group-prev-unread-group).
gnus-group-next-group).
gnus-group-prev-group).
gnus-group-next-unread-group-same-level).
gnus-group-prev-unread-group-same-level).
Three commands for jumping to groups:
gnus-group-jump-to-group). Killed groups can be jumped to, just
like living groups.
gnus-group-best-unread-group).
gnus-group-first-unread-group).
If gnus-group-goto-unread is nil, all the movement
commands will move to the next group, not the next unread group. Even
the commands that say they move to the next unread group. The default
is t.
gnus-group-read-group). If there are no
unread articles in the group, or if you give a non-numerical prefix to
this command, Gnus will offer to fetch all the old articles in this
group from the server. If you give a numerical prefix n, n
determines the number of articles Gnus will fetch. If n is
positive, Gnus fetches the n newest articles, if n is
negative, Gnus fetches the abs(n) oldest articles.
Thus, SPC enters the group normally, C-u SPC offers old articles, C-u 4 2 SPC fetches the 42 newest articles, and C-u - 4 2 SPC fetches the 42 oldest ones.
When you are in the group (in the Summary buffer), you can type
M-g to fetch new articles, or C-u M-g to also show the old
ones.
gnus-group-select-group). Takes the same arguments as
gnus-group-read-group—the only difference is that this command
does not display the first unread article automatically upon group
entry.
gnus-group-quick-select-group). No
scoring/killing will be performed, there will be no highlights and no
expunging. This might be useful if you're in a real hurry and have to
enter some humongous group. If you give a 0 prefix to this command
(i.e., 0 M-RET), Gnus won't even generate the summary buffer,
which is useful if you want to toggle threading before generating the
summary buffer (see Summary Generation Commands).
gnus-group-visible-select-group).
gnus-group-select-group-ephemerally). Even threading has been
turned off. Everything you do in the group after selecting it in this
manner will have no permanent effects.
The gnus-large-newsgroup variable says what Gnus should
consider to be a big group. If it is nil, no groups are
considered big. The default value is 200. If the group has more
(unread and/or ticked) articles than this, Gnus will query the user
before entering the group. The user can then specify how many
articles should be fetched from the server. If the user specifies a
negative number (-n), the n oldest articles will be
fetched. If it is positive, the n articles that have arrived
most recently will be fetched.
gnus-large-ephemeral-newsgroup is the same as
gnus-large-newsgroup, but is only used for ephemeral
newsgroups.
If gnus-auto-select-first is non-nil, select an article
automatically when entering a group with the SPACE command.
Which article this is is controlled by the
gnus-auto-select-subject variable. Valid values for this
variable are:
unreadfirstunseenunseen-or-unreadbestThis variable can also be a function. In that case, that function will be called to place point on a subject line.
If you want to prevent automatic selection in some group (say, in a
binary group with Huge articles) you can set the
gnus-auto-select-first variable to nil in
gnus-select-group-hook, which is called when a group is
selected.
gnus-group-unsubscribe-current-group).
gnus-group-unsubscribe-group).
gnus-group-kill-group).
gnus-group-yank-group).
gnus-group-transpose-groups). This isn't
really a subscription command, but you can use it instead of a
kill-and-yank sequence sometimes.
gnus-group-kill-region).
gnus-group-kill-all-zombies).
gnus-group-kill-level).
These groups can't be yanked back after killing, so this command should
be used with some caution. The only time where this command comes in
really handy is when you have a .newsrc with lots of unsubscribed
groups that you want to get rid off. S C-k on level 7 will
kill off all unsubscribed groups that do not have message numbers in the
.newsrc file.
Also see Group Levels.
gnus-group-catchup-current).
gnus-group-catchup-group-hook is called when catching up a group from
the group buffer.
gnus-group-catchup-current-all).
gnus-group-clear-data).
All groups have a level of subscribedness. For instance, if a group is on level 2, it is more subscribed than a group on level 5. You can ask Gnus to just list groups on a given level or lower (see Listing Groups), or to just check for new articles in groups on a given level or lower (see Scanning New Messages).
Remember: The higher the level of the group, the less important it is.
Gnus considers groups from levels 1 to
gnus-level-subscribed (inclusive) (default 5) to be subscribed,
gnus-level-subscribed (exclusive) and
gnus-level-unsubscribed (inclusive) (default 7) to be
unsubscribed, gnus-level-zombie to be zombies (walking dead)
(default 8) and gnus-level-killed to be killed (completely dead)
(default 9). Gnus treats subscribed and unsubscribed groups exactly the
same, but zombie and killed groups have no information on what articles
you have read, etc, stored. This distinction between dead and living
groups isn't done because it is nice or clever, it is done purely for
reasons of efficiency.
It is recommended that you keep all your mail groups (if any) on quite low levels (e.g. 1 or 2).
Maybe the following description of the default behavior of Gnus helps to understand what these levels are all about. By default, Gnus shows you subscribed nonempty groups, but by hitting L you can have it show empty subscribed groups and unsubscribed groups, too. Type l to go back to showing nonempty subscribed groups again. Thus, unsubscribed groups are hidden, in a way.
Zombie and killed groups are similar to unsubscribed groups in that they are hidden by default. But they are different from subscribed and unsubscribed groups in that Gnus doesn't ask the news server for information (number of messages, number of unread messages) on zombie and killed groups. Normally, you use C-k to kill the groups you aren't interested in. If most groups are killed, Gnus is faster.
Why does Gnus distinguish between zombie and killed groups? Well, when a new group arrives on the server, Gnus by default makes it a zombie group. This means that you are normally not bothered with new groups, but you can type A z to get a list of all new groups. Subscribe the ones you like and kill the ones you don't want. (A k shows a list of killed groups.)
If you want to play with the level variables, you should show some care. Set them once, and don't touch them ever again. Better yet, don't touch them at all unless you know exactly what you're doing.
Two closely related variables are gnus-level-default-subscribed
(default 3) and gnus-level-default-unsubscribed (default 6),
which are the levels that new groups will be put on if they are
(un)subscribed. These two variables should, of course, be inside the
relevant valid ranges.
If gnus-keep-same-level is non-nil, some movement commands
will only move to groups of the same level (or lower). In
particular, going from the last article in one group to the next group
will go to the next group of the same level (or lower). This might be
handy if you want to read the most important groups before you read the
rest.
If this variable is best, Gnus will make the next newsgroup the
one with the best level.
All groups with a level less than or equal to
gnus-group-default-list-level will be listed in the group buffer
by default.
If gnus-group-list-inactive-groups is non-nil, non-active
groups will be listed along with the unread groups. This variable is
t by default. If it is nil, inactive groups won't be
listed.
If gnus-group-use-permanent-levels is non-nil, once you
give a level prefix to g or l, all subsequent commands will
use this level as the “work” level.
Gnus will normally just activate (i. e., query the server about) groups
on level gnus-activate-level or less. If you don't want to
activate unsubscribed groups, for instance, you might set this variable
to 5. The default is 6.
You would normally keep important groups on high levels, but that scheme is somewhat restrictive. Don't you wish you could have Gnus sort the group buffer according to how often you read groups, perhaps? Within reason?
This is what group score is for. You can have Gnus assign a score to each group through the mechanism described below. You can then sort the group buffer based on this score. Alternatively, you can sort on score and then level. (Taken together, the level and the score is called the rank of the group. A group that is on level 4 and has a score of 1 has a higher rank than a group on level 5 that has a score of 300. (The level is the most significant part and the score is the least significant part.))
If you want groups you read often to get higher scores than groups you
read seldom you can add the gnus-summary-bubble-group function to
the gnus-summary-exit-hook hook. This will result (after
sorting) in a bubbling sort of action. If you want to see that in
action after each summary exit, you can add
gnus-group-sort-groups-by-rank or
gnus-group-sort-groups-by-score to the same hook, but that will
slow things down somewhat.
If you want to perform some command on several groups, and they appear subsequently in the group buffer, you would normally just give a numerical prefix to the command. Most group commands will then do your bidding on those groups.
However, if the groups are not in sequential order, you can still perform a command on several groups. You simply mark the groups first with the process mark and then execute the command.
gnus-group-mark-group).
gnus-group-unmark-group).
gnus-group-unmark-all-groups).
gnus-group-mark-region).
gnus-group-mark-buffer).
gnus-group-mark-regexp).
Also see Process/Prefix.
If you want to execute some command on all groups that have been marked
with the process mark, you can use the M-&
(gnus-group-universal-argument) command. It will prompt you for
the command to be executed.
Below are some group mode commands for making and editing general foreign
groups, as well as commands to ease the creation of a few
special-purpose groups. All these commands insert the newly created
groups under point—gnus-subscribe-newsgroup-method is not
consulted.
Changes from the group editing commands are stored in
~/.newsrc.eld (gnus-startup-file). An alternative is the
variable gnus-parameters, See Group Parameters.
gnus-group-make-group). Gnus will prompt you
for a name, a method and possibly an address. For an easier way
to subscribe to NNTP groups (see Browse Foreign Server).
gnus-group-read-ephemeral-group). Gnus
will prompt you for a name, a method and an address.
gnus-group-rename-group). This is valid only on some
groups—mail groups mostly. This command might very well be quite slow
on some back ends.
gnus-group-customize).
gnus-group-edit-group-method).
gnus-group-edit-group-parameters).
gnus-group-edit-group).
gnus-group-make-directory-group).
gnus-group-make-help-group).
gnus-group-make-archive-group). By
default a group pointing to the most recent articles will be created
(gnus-group-recent-archive-directory), but given a prefix, a full
group will be created from gnus-group-archive-directory.