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Gnus Manual

The Gnus Newsreader

• Starting Up: Finding news can be a pain.
• Group Buffer: Selecting, subscribing and killing groups.
• Summary Buffer: Reading, saving and posting articles.
• Article Buffer: Displaying and handling articles.
• Composing Messages: Information on sending mail and news.
• Select Methods: Gnus reads all messages from various select methods.
• Scoring: Assigning values to articles.
• Various: General purpose settings.
• The End: Farewell and goodbye.
• Appendices: Terminology, Emacs intro, FAQ, History, Internals.
• GNU Free Documentation License: The license for this documentation.
• Index: Variable, function and concept index.
• Key Index: Key Index.

Other related manuals

• Message: Composing messages.
• Emacs-MIME: Composing messages; MIME-specific parts.
• Sieve: Managing Sieve scripts in Emacs.
• PGG: PGP/MIME with Gnus.

--- The Detailed Node Listing ---

Starting Gnus

• Finding the News: Choosing a method for getting news.
• The First Time: What does Gnus do the first time you start it?
• The Server is Down: How can I read my mail then?
• Slave Gnusae: You can have more than one Gnus active at a time.
• Fetching a Group: Starting Gnus just to read a group.
• New Groups: What is Gnus supposed to do with new groups?
• Changing Servers: You may want to move from one server to another.
• Startup Files: Those pesky startup files---.newsrc.
• Auto Save: Recovering from a crash.
• The Active File: Reading the active file over a slow line Takes Time.
• Startup Variables: Other variables you might change.

New Groups

• Checking New Groups: Determining what groups are new.
• Subscription Methods: What Gnus should do with new groups.
• Filtering New Groups: Making Gnus ignore certain new groups.

Group Buffer

• Group Buffer Format: Information listed and how you can change it.
• Group Maneuvering: Commands for moving in the group buffer.
• Selecting a Group: Actually reading news.
• Subscription Commands: Unsubscribing, killing, subscribing.
• Group Data: Changing the info for a group.
• Group Levels: Levels? What are those, then?
• Group Score: A mechanism for finding out what groups you like.
• Marking Groups: You can mark groups for later processing.
• Foreign Groups: Creating and editing groups.
• Group Parameters: Each group may have different parameters set.
• Listing Groups: Gnus can list various subsets of the groups.
• Sorting Groups: Re-arrange the group order.
• Group Maintenance: Maintaining a tidy .newsrc file.
• Browse Foreign Server: You can browse a server. See what it has to offer.
• Exiting Gnus: Stop reading news and get some work done.
• Group Topics: A folding group mode divided into topics.
• Misc Group Stuff: Other stuff that you can to do.

Group Buffer Format

• Group Line Specification: Deciding how the group buffer is to look.
• Group Mode Line Specification: The group buffer mode line.
• Group Highlighting: Having nice colors in the group buffer.

Group Topics

• Topic Commands: Interactive E-Z commands.
• Topic Variables: How to customize the topics the Lisp Way.
• Topic Sorting: Sorting each topic individually.
• Topic Topology: A map of the world.
• Topic Parameters: Parameters that apply to all groups in a topic.

Misc Group Stuff

• Scanning New Messages: Asking Gnus to see whether new messages have arrived.
• Group Information: Information and help on groups and Gnus.
• Group Timestamp: Making Gnus keep track of when you last read a group.
• File Commands: Reading and writing the Gnus files.
• Sieve Commands: Managing Sieve scripts.

Summary Buffer

• Summary Buffer Format: Deciding how the summary buffer is to look.
• Summary Maneuvering: Moving around the summary buffer.
• Choosing Articles: Reading articles.
• Paging the Article: Scrolling the current article.
• Reply Followup and Post: Posting articles.
• Delayed Articles: Send articles at a later time.
• Marking Articles: Marking articles as read, expirable, etc.
• Limiting: You can limit the summary buffer.
• Threading: How threads are made.
• Sorting the Summary Buffer: How articles and threads are sorted.
• Asynchronous Fetching: Gnus might be able to pre-fetch articles.
• Article Caching: You may store articles in a cache.
• Persistent Articles: Making articles expiry-resistant.
• Article Backlog: Having already read articles hang around.
• Saving Articles: Ways of customizing article saving.
• Decoding Articles: Gnus can treat series of (uu)encoded articles.
• Article Treatment: The article buffer can be mangled at will.
• MIME Commands: Doing MIMEy things with the articles.
• Charsets: Character set issues.
• Article Commands: Doing various things with the article buffer.
• Summary Sorting: Sorting the summary buffer in various ways.
• Finding the Parent: No child support? Get the parent.
• Alternative Approaches: Reading using non-default summaries.
• Tree Display: A more visual display of threads.
• Mail Group Commands: Some commands can only be used in mail groups.
• Various Summary Stuff: What didn't fit anywhere else.
• Exiting the Summary Buffer: Returning to the Group buffer, or reselecting the current group.
• Crosspost Handling: How crossposted articles are dealt with.
• Duplicate Suppression: An alternative when crosspost handling fails.
• Security: Decrypt and Verify.
• Mailing List: Mailing list minor mode.

Summary Buffer Format

• Summary Buffer Lines: You can specify how summary lines should look.
• To From Newsgroups: How to not display your own name.
• Summary Buffer Mode Line: You can say how the mode line should look.
• Summary Highlighting: Making the summary buffer all pretty and nice.

Choosing Articles

• Choosing Commands: Commands for choosing articles.
• Choosing Variables: Variables that influence these commands.

Reply, Followup and Post

• Summary Mail Commands: Sending mail.
• Summary Post Commands: Sending news.
• Summary Message Commands: Other Message-related commands.
• Canceling and Superseding

Marking Articles

• Unread Articles: Marks for unread articles.
• Read Articles: Marks for read articles.
• Other Marks: Marks that do not affect readedness.
• Setting Marks: How to set and remove marks.
• Generic Marking Commands: How to customize the marking.
• Setting Process Marks: How to mark articles for later processing.

Threading

• Customizing Threading: Variables you can change to affect the threading.
• Thread Commands: Thread based commands in the summary buffer.

Customizing Threading

• Loose Threads: How Gnus gathers loose threads into bigger threads.
• Filling In Threads: Making the threads displayed look fuller.
• More Threading: Even more variables for fiddling with threads.
• Low-Level Threading: You thought it was over... but you were wrong!

Decoding Articles

• Uuencoded Articles: Uudecode articles.
• Shell Archives: Unshar articles.
• PostScript Files: Split PostScript.
• Other Files: Plain save and binhex.
• Decoding Variables: Variables for a happy decoding.
• Viewing Files: You want to look at the result of the decoding?

Decoding Variables

• Rule Variables: Variables that say how a file is to be viewed.
• Other Decode Variables: Other decode variables.
• Uuencoding and Posting: Variables for customizing uuencoding.

Article Treatment

• Article Highlighting: You want to make the article look like fruit salad.
• Article Fontisizing: Making emphasized text look nice.
• Article Hiding: You also want to make certain info go away.
• Article Washing: Lots of way-neat functions to make life better.
• Article Header: Doing various header transformations.
• Article Buttons: Click on URLs, Message-IDs, addresses and the like.
• Article Button Levels: Controlling appearance of buttons.
• Article Date: Grumble, UT!
• Article Display: Display various stuff---X-Face, Picons, Smileys
• Article Signature: What is a signature?
• Article Miscellanea: Various other stuff.

Alternative Approaches

• Pick and Read: First mark articles and then read them.
• Binary Groups: Auto-decode all articles.

Various Summary Stuff

• Summary Group Information: Information oriented commands.
• Searching for Articles: Multiple article commands.
• Summary Generation Commands
• Really Various Summary Commands: Those pesky non-conformant commands.

Article Buffer

• Hiding Headers: Deciding what headers should be displayed.
• Using MIME: Pushing articles through MIME before reading them.
• Customizing Articles: Tailoring the look of the articles.
• Article Keymap: Keystrokes available in the article buffer.
• Misc Article: Other stuff.

Composing Messages

• Mail: Mailing and replying.
• Posting Server: What server should you post and mail via?
• POP before SMTP: You cannot send a mail unless you read a mail.
• Mail and Post: Mailing and posting at the same time.
• Archived Messages: Where Gnus stores the messages you've sent.
• Posting Styles: An easier way to specify who you are.
• Drafts: Postponing messages and rejected messages.
• Rejected Articles: What happens if the server doesn't like your article?
• Signing and encrypting: How to compose secure messages.

Select Methods

• Server Buffer: Making and editing virtual servers.
• Getting News: Reading USENET news with Gnus.
• Getting Mail: Reading your personal mail with Gnus.
• Browsing the Web: Getting messages from a plethora of Web sources.
• IMAP: Using Gnus as a IMAP client.
• Other Sources: Reading directories, files, SOUP packets.
• Combined Groups: Combining groups into one group.
• Email Based Diary: Using mails to manage diary events in Gnus.
• Gnus Unplugged: Reading news and mail offline.

Server Buffer

• Server Buffer Format: You can customize the look of this buffer.
• Server Commands: Commands to manipulate servers.
• Example Methods: Examples server specifications.
• Creating a Virtual Server: An example session.
• Server Variables: Which variables to set.
• Servers and Methods: You can use server names as select methods.
• Unavailable Servers: Some servers you try to contact may be down.

Getting News

• NNTP: Reading news from an NNTP server.
• News Spool: Reading news from the local spool.

NNTP

• Direct Functions: Connecting directly to the server.
• Indirect Functions: Connecting indirectly to the server.
• Common Variables: Understood by several connection functions.

Getting Mail

• Mail in a Newsreader: Important introductory notes.
• Getting Started Reading Mail: A simple cookbook example.
• Splitting Mail: How to create mail groups.
• Mail Sources: How to tell Gnus where to get mail from.
• Mail Back End Variables: Variables for customizing mail handling.
• Fancy Mail Splitting: Gnus can do hairy splitting of incoming mail.
• Group Mail Splitting: Use group customize to drive mail splitting.
• Incorporating Old Mail: What about the old mail you have?
• Expiring Mail: Getting rid of unwanted mail.
• Washing Mail: Removing cruft from the mail you get.
• Duplicates: Dealing with duplicated mail.
• Not Reading Mail: Using mail back ends for reading other files.
• Choosing a Mail Back End: Gnus can read a variety of mail formats.

Mail Sources

• Mail Source Specifiers: How to specify what a mail source is.
• Mail Source Customization: Some variables that influence things.
• Fetching Mail: Using the mail source specifiers.

Choosing a Mail Back End

• Unix Mail Box: Using the (quite) standard Un*x mbox.
• Rmail Babyl: Emacs programs use the Rmail Babyl format.
• Mail Spool: Store your mail in a private spool?
• MH Spool: An mhspool-like back end.
• Maildir: Another one-file-per-message format.
• Mail Folders: Having one file for each group.
• Comparing Mail Back Ends: An in-depth looks at pros and cons.

Browsing the Web

• Archiving Mail
• Web Searches: Creating groups from articles that match a string.
• Slashdot: Reading the Slashdot comments.
• Ultimate: The Ultimate Bulletin Board systems.
• Web Archive: Reading mailing list archived on web.
• RSS: Reading RDF site summary.
• Customizing W3: Doing stuff to Emacs/W3 from Gnus.

IMAP

• Splitting in IMAP: Splitting mail with nnimap.
• Expiring in IMAP: Expiring mail with nnimap.
• Editing IMAP ACLs: Limiting/enabling other users access to a mailbox.
• Expunging mailboxes: Equivalent of a ``compress mailbox'' button.
• A note on namespaces: How to (not) use IMAP namespace in Gnus.
• Debugging IMAP: What to do when things don't work.

Other Sources

• Directory Groups: You can read a directory as if it was a newsgroup.
• Anything Groups: Dired? Who needs dired?
• Document Groups: Single files can be the basis of a group.
• SOUP: Reading soup packets ``offline''.
• Mail-To-News Gateways: Posting articles via mail-to-news gateways.

Document Groups

• Document Server Internals: How to add your own document types.

SOUP

• SOUP Commands: Commands for creating and sending soup packets
• SOUP Groups: A back end for reading soup packets.
• SOUP Replies: How to enable nnsoup to take over mail and news.

Combined Groups

• Virtual Groups: Combining articles from many groups.
• Kibozed Groups: Looking through parts of the newsfeed for articles.

Email Based Diary

• The NNDiary Back End: Basic setup and usage.
• The Gnus Diary Library: Utility toolkit on top of nndiary.
• Sending or Not Sending: A final note on sending diary messages.

The NNDiary Back End

• Diary Messages: What makes a message valid for nndiary.
• Running NNDiary: NNDiary has two modes of operation.
• Customizing NNDiary: Bells and whistles.

The Gnus Diary Library

• Diary Summary Line Format: A nicer summary buffer line format.
• Diary Articles Sorting: A nicer way to sort messages.
• Diary Headers Generation: Not doing it manually.
• Diary Group Parameters: Not handling them manually.

Gnus Unplugged

• Agent Basics: How it all is supposed to work.
• Agent Categories: How to tell the Gnus Agent what to download.
• Agent Commands: New commands for all the buffers.
• Agent Visuals: Ways that the agent may effect your summary buffer.
• Agent as Cache: The Agent is a big cache too.
• Agent Expiry: How to make old articles go away.
• Agent Regeneration: How to recover from lost connections and other accidents.
• Agent and IMAP: How to use the Agent with IMAP.
• Outgoing Messages: What happens when you post/mail something?
• Agent Variables: Customizing is fun.
• Example Setup: An example ~/.gnus.el file for offline people.
• Batching Agents: How to fetch news from a cron job.
• Agent Caveats: What you think it'll do and what it does.

Agent Categories

• Category Syntax: What a category looks like.
• Category Buffer: A buffer for maintaining categories.
• Category Variables: Customize'r'Us.

Agent Commands

• Group Agent Commands: Configure groups and fetch their contents.
• Summary Agent Commands: Manually select then fetch specific articles.
• Server Agent Commands: Select the servers that are supported by the agent.

Scoring

• Summary Score Commands: Adding score entries for the current group.
• Group Score Commands: General score commands.
• Score Variables: Customize your scoring. (My, what terminology).
• Score File Format: What a score file may contain.
• Score File Editing: You can edit score files by hand as well.
• Adaptive Scoring: Big Sister Gnus knows what you read.
• Home Score File: How to say where new score entries are to go.
• Followups To Yourself: Having Gnus notice when people answer you.
• Scoring On Other Headers: Scoring on non-standard headers.
• Scoring Tips: How to score effectively.
• Reverse Scoring: That problem child of old is not problem.
• Global Score Files: Earth-spanning, ear-splitting score files.
• Kill Files: They are still here, but they can be ignored.
• Converting Kill Files: Translating kill files to score files.
• GroupLens: Getting predictions on what you like to read.
• Advanced Scoring: Using logical expressions to build score rules.
• Score Decays: It can be useful to let scores wither away.

GroupLens

• Using GroupLens: How to make Gnus use GroupLens.
• Rating Articles: Letting GroupLens know how you rate articles.
• Displaying Predictions: Displaying predictions given by GroupLens.
• GroupLens Variables: Customizing GroupLens.

Advanced Scoring

• Advanced Scoring Syntax: A definition.
• Advanced Scoring Examples: What they look like.
• Advanced Scoring Tips: Getting the most out of it.

Various

• Process/Prefix: A convention used by many treatment commands.
• Interactive: Making Gnus ask you many questions.
• Symbolic Prefixes: How to supply some Gnus functions with options.
• Formatting Variables: You can specify what buffers should look like.
• Window Layout: Configuring the Gnus buffer windows.
• Faces and Fonts: How to change how faces look.
• Compilation: How to speed Gnus up.
• Mode Lines: Displaying information in the mode lines.
• Highlighting and Menus: Making buffers look all nice and cozy.
• Buttons: Get tendinitis in ten easy steps!
• Daemons: Gnus can do things behind your back.
• NoCeM: How to avoid spam and other fatty foods.
• Undo: Some actions can be undone.
• Predicate Specifiers: Specifying predicates.
• Moderation: What to do if you're a moderator.
• Image Enhancements: Modern versions of Emacs/XEmacs can display images.
• Fuzzy Matching: What's the big fuzz?
• Thwarting Email Spam: Simple ways to avoid unsolicited commercial email.
• Spam Package: A package for filtering and processing spam.
• Other modes: Interaction with other modes.
• Various Various: Things that are really various.

Formatting Variables

• Formatting Basics: A formatting variable is basically a format string.
• Mode Line Formatting: Some rules about mode line formatting variables.
• Advanced Formatting: Modifying output in various ways.
• User-Defined Specs: Having Gnus call your own functions.
• Formatting Fonts: Making the formatting look colorful and nice.
• Positioning Point: Moving point to a position after an operation.
• Tabulation: Tabulating your output.
• Wide Characters: Dealing with wide characters.

Image Enhancements

• X-Face: Display a funky, teensy black-and-white image.
• Face: Display a funkier, teensier colored image.
• Smileys: Show all those happy faces the way they were meant to be shown.
• Picons: How to display pictures of what you're reading.
• XVarious: Other XEmacsy Gnusey variables.

Thwarting Email Spam

• The problem of spam: Some background, and some solutions
• Anti-Spam Basics: Simple steps to reduce the amount of spam.
• SpamAssassin: How to use external anti-spam tools.
• Hashcash: Reduce spam by burning CPU time.

Spam Package

• Spam Package Introduction
• Filtering Incoming Mail
• Detecting Spam in Groups
• Spam and Ham Processors
• Spam Package Configuration Examples
• Spam Back Ends
• Extending the Spam package
• Spam Statistics Package

Spam Statistics Package

• Creating a spam-stat dictionary
• Splitting mail using spam-stat
• Low-level interface to the spam-stat dictionary

Appendices

• XEmacs: Requirements for installing under XEmacs.
• History: How Gnus got where it is today.
• On Writing Manuals: Why this is not a beginner's guide.
• Terminology: We use really difficult, like, words here.
• Customization: Tailoring Gnus to your needs.
• Troubleshooting: What you might try if things do not work.
• Gnus Reference Guide: Rilly, rilly technical stuff.
• Emacs for Heathens: A short introduction to Emacsian terms.
• Frequently Asked Questions: The Gnus FAQ

History

• Gnus Versions: What Gnus versions have been released.
• Other Gnus Versions: Other Gnus versions that also have been released.
• Why?: What's the point of Gnus?
• Compatibility: Just how compatible is Gnus with gnus?
• Conformity: Gnus tries to conform to all standards.
• Emacsen: Gnus can be run on a few modern Emacsen.
• Gnus Development: How Gnus is developed.
• Contributors: Oodles of people.
• New Features: Pointers to some of the new stuff in Gnus.

New Features

• ding Gnus: New things in Gnus 5.0/5.1, the first new Gnus.
• September Gnus: The Thing Formally Known As Gnus 5.2/5.3.
• Red Gnus: Third time best---Gnus 5.4/5.5.
• Quassia Gnus: Two times two is four, or Gnus 5.6/5.7.
• Pterodactyl Gnus: Pentad also starts with P, AKA Gnus 5.8/5.9.
• Oort Gnus: It's big. It's far out. Gnus 5.10/5.11.

Customization

• Slow/Expensive Connection: You run a local Emacs and get the news elsewhere.
• Slow Terminal Connection: You run a remote Emacs.
• Little Disk Space: You feel that having large setup files is icky.
• Slow Machine: You feel like buying a faster machine.

Gnus Reference Guide

• Gnus Utility Functions: Common functions and variable to use.
• Back End Interface: How Gnus communicates with the servers.
• Score File Syntax: A BNF definition of the score file standard.
• Headers: How Gnus stores headers internally.
• Ranges: A handy format for storing mucho numbers.
• Group Info: The group info format.
• Extended Interactive: Symbolic prefixes and stuff.
• Emacs/XEmacs Code: Gnus can be run under all modern Emacsen.
• Various File Formats: Formats of files that Gnus use.

Back End Interface

• Required Back End Functions: Functions that must be implemented.
• Optional Back End Functions: Functions that need not be implemented.
• Error Messaging: How to get messages and report errors.
• Writing New Back Ends: Extending old back ends.
• Hooking New Back Ends Into Gnus: What has to be done on the Gnus end.
• Mail-like Back Ends: Some tips on mail back ends.

Various File Formats

• Active File Format: Information on articles and groups available.
• Newsgroups File Format: Group descriptions.

Emacs for Heathens

• Keystrokes: Entering text and executing commands.
• Emacs Lisp: The built-in Emacs programming language.