-\input texinfo
-@c -*-texinfo-*-
-@c Copyright (C) 1995 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
-@setfilename gnus-faq.info
+@c \input texinfo @c -*-texinfo-*-
+@c Uncomment 1st line before texing this file alone.
+@c %**start of header
+@c Copyright (C) 1995, 2001-2015 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
+@c
+@c @setfilename gnus-faq.info
+@c @settitle Frequently Asked Questions
+@c @include docstyle.texi
+@c %**end of header
+@c
@node Frequently Asked Questions
@section Frequently Asked Questions
-This is the Gnus Frequently Asked Questions list.
-If you have a Web browser, the official hypertext version is at
-@file{http://www.ccs.neu.edu/software/gnus/}, and has
-probably been updated since you got this manual.
-
@menu
-* Installation FAQ:: Installation of Gnus.
-* Customization FAQ:: Customizing Gnus.
-* Reading News FAQ:: News Reading Questions.
-* Reading Mail FAQ:: Mail Reading Questions.
+* FAQ - Changes::
+* FAQ - Introduction:: About Gnus and this FAQ.
+* FAQ 1 - Installation FAQ:: Installation of Gnus.
+* FAQ 2 - Startup / Group buffer:: Start up questions and the
+ first buffer Gnus shows you.
+* FAQ 3 - Getting Messages:: Making Gnus read your mail
+ and news.
+* FAQ 4 - Reading messages:: How to efficiently read
+ messages.
+* FAQ 5 - Composing messages:: Composing mails or Usenet
+ postings.
+* FAQ 6 - Old messages:: Importing, archiving,
+ searching and deleting messages.
+* FAQ 7 - Gnus in a dial-up environment:: Reading mail and news while
+ offline.
+* FAQ 8 - Getting help:: When this FAQ isn't enough.
+* FAQ 9 - Tuning Gnus:: How to make Gnus faster.
+* FAQ - Glossary:: Terms used in the FAQ
+ explained.
@end menu
+@subheading Abstract
+
+This is the new Gnus Frequently Asked Questions list.
+
+Please submit features and suggestions to the
+@email{ding@@gnus.org, ding list}.
+
+@node FAQ - Changes
+@subsection Changes
+
-@node Installation FAQ
-@subsection Installation
@itemize @bullet
-@item
-Q1.1 What is the latest version of Gnus?
-The latest (and greatest) version is 5.0.10. You might also run
-across something called @emph{September Gnus}. September Gnus
-is the alpha version of the next major release of Gnus. It is currently
-not stable enough to run unless you are prepared to debug lisp.
+@item
+2008-06-15: Adjust for message-fill-column. Add x-face-file.
+Clarify difference between ding and gnu.emacs.gnus. Remove
+reference to discontinued service.
@item
-Q1.2 Where do I get Gnus?
+2006-04-15: Added tip on how to delete sent buffer on exit.
+@end itemize
-Any of the following locations:
+@node FAQ - Introduction
+@subsection Introduction
-@itemize @minus
-@item
-@file{ftp://ftp.ifi.uio.no/pub/emacs/gnus/gnus.tar.gz}
+This is the Gnus Frequently Asked Questions list.
+
+Gnus is a Usenet Newsreader and Electronic Mail User Agent implemented
+as a part of Emacs. It's been around in some form for almost a decade
+now, and has been distributed as a standard part of Emacs for much of
+that time. Gnus 5 is the latest (and greatest) incarnation. The
+original version was called GNUS, and was written by Masanobu UMEDA@.
+When autumn crept up in '94, Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen grew bored and
+decided to rewrite Gnus.
+
+Its biggest strength is the fact that it is extremely
+customizable. It is somewhat intimidating at first glance, but
+most of the complexity can be ignored until you're ready to take
+advantage of it. If you receive a reasonable volume of e-mail
+(you're on various mailing lists), or you would like to read
+high-volume mailing lists but cannot keep up with them, or read
+high volume newsgroups or are just bored, then Gnus is what you
+want.
+
+This FAQ was maintained by Justin Sheehy until March 2002. He
+would like to thank Steve Baur and Per Abrahamsen for doing a wonderful
+job with this FAQ before him. We would like to do the same: thanks,
+Justin!
+
+This version is much nicer than the unofficial hypertext
+versions that are archived at Utrecht, Oxford, Smart Pages, Ohio
+State, and other FAQ archives. See the resources question below
+if you want information on obtaining it in another format.
+
+The information contained here was compiled with the assistance
+of the Gnus development mailing list, and any errors or
+misprints are the Gnus team's fault, sorry.
+
+@node FAQ 1 - Installation FAQ
+@subsection Installation FAQ
+
+@menu
+* FAQ 1-1:: What is the latest version of Gnus?
+* FAQ 1-2:: What's new in 5.10?
+* FAQ 1-3:: Where and how to get Gnus?
+* FAQ 1-4:: What to do with the tarball now?
+* FAQ 1-5:: I sometimes read references to No Gnus and Oort Gnus,
+ what are those?
+* FAQ 1-6:: Which version of Emacs do I need?
+* FAQ 1-7:: How do I run Gnus on both Emacs and XEmacs?
+@end menu
+
+@node FAQ 1-1
+@subsubheading Question 1.1
+
+What is the latest version of Gnus?
+
+@subsubheading Answer
+
+Jingle please: Gnus 5.10 is released, get it while it's
+hot! As well as the step in version number is rather
+small, Gnus 5.10 has tons of new features which you
+shouldn't miss. The current release (5.13) should be at
+least as stable as the latest release of the 5.8 series.
+
+@node FAQ 1-2
+@subsubheading Question 1.2
+
+What's new in 5.10?
+
+@subsubheading Answer
+
+First of all, you should have a look into the file
+GNUS-NEWS in the toplevel directory of the Gnus tarball,
+there the most important changes are listed. Here's a
+short list of the changes I find especially
+important/interesting:
+
+@itemize @bullet
@item
-@file{ftp://ftp.pilgrim.umass.edu/pub/misc/ding/}
+Major rewrite of the Gnus agent, Gnus agent is now
+active by default.
@item
-@file{gopher://gopher.pilgrim.umass.edu/11/pub/misc/ding/}
+Many new article washing functions for dealing with
+ugly formatted articles.
@item
-@file{ftp://aphrodite.nectar.cs.cmu.edu/pub/ding-gnus/}
+Anti Spam features.
@item
-@file{ftp://ftp.solace.mh.se:/pub/gnu/elisp/}
+Message-utils now included in Gnus.
+@item
+New format specifiers for summary lines, e.g., %B for
+a complex trn-style thread tree.
@end itemize
-@item
-Q1.3 Which version of Emacs do I need?
+@node FAQ 1-3
+@subsubheading Question 1.3
-At least GNU Emacs 19.28, or XEmacs 19.12 is recommended. GNU Emacs
-19.25 has been reported to work under certain circumstances, but it
-doesn't @emph{officially} work on it. 19.27 has also been reported to
-work. Gnus has been reported to work under OS/2 as well as Unix.
+Where and how to get Gnus?
+@subsubheading Answer
-@item
-Q1.4 Where is timezone.el?
+Gnus is released independent from releases of Emacs and XEmacs.
+Therefore, the version bundled with Emacs or the version in XEmacs's
+package system might not be up to date (e.g., Gnus 5.9 bundled with Emacs
+21 is outdated).
+You can get the latest released version of Gnus from
+@uref{http://www.gnus.org/dist/gnus.tar.gz}
+or via anonymous FTP from
+@uref{ftp://ftp.gnus.org/pub/gnus/gnus.tar.gz}.
-Upgrade to XEmacs 19.13. In earlier versions of XEmacs this file was
-placed with Gnus 4.1.3, but that has been corrected.
+@node FAQ 1-4
+@subsubheading Question 1.4
+What to do with the tarball now?
-@item
-Q1.5 When I run Gnus on XEmacs 19.13 I get weird error messages.
+@subsubheading Answer
-You're running an old version of Gnus. Upgrade to at least version
-5.0.4.
+Untar it via @samp{tar xvzf gnus.tar.gz} and do the common
+@samp{./configure; make; make install} circle.
+(under MS-Windows either get the Cygwin environment from
+@uref{http://www.cygwin.com}
+which allows you to do what's described above or unpack the
+tarball with some packer (e.g., Winace from
+@uref{http://www.winace.com})
+and use the batch-file make.bat included in the tarball to install
+Gnus.) If you don't want to (or aren't allowed to) install Gnus
+system-wide, you can install it in your home directory and add the
+following lines to your ~/.xemacs/init.el or ~/.emacs:
+@example
+(add-to-list 'load-path "/path/to/gnus/lisp")
+(if (featurep 'xemacs)
+ (add-to-list 'Info-directory-list "/path/to/gnus/texi/")
+ (add-to-list 'Info-default-directory-list "/path/to/gnus/texi/"))
+@end example
+@noindent
-@item
-Q1.6 How do I unsubscribe from the Mailing List?
+Make sure that you don't have any Gnus related stuff
+before this line, on MS Windows use something like
+"C:/path/to/lisp" (yes, "/").
-Send an e-mail message to @file{ding-request@@ifi.uio.no} with the magic word
-@emph{unsubscribe} somewhere in it, and you will be removed.
+@node FAQ 1-5
+@subsubheading Question 1.5
-If you are reading the digest version of the list, send an e-mail message
-to @*
-@file{ding-rn-digests-d-request@@moe.shore.net}
-with @emph{unsubscribe} as the subject and you will be removed.
+I sometimes read references to No Gnus and Oort Gnus,
+what are those?
+@subsubheading Answer
-@item
-Q1.7 How do I run Gnus on both Emacs and XEmacs?
+Oort Gnus was the name of the development version of
+Gnus, which became Gnus 5.10 in autumn 2003. No Gnus is
+the name of the current development version which will
+once become Gnus 5.12 or Gnus 6. (If you're wondering why
+not 5.11, the odd version numbers are normally used for
+the Gnus versions bundled with Emacs)
+
+@node FAQ 1-6
+@subsubheading Question 1.6
+
+Which version of Emacs do I need?
+
+@subsubheading Answer
+
+Gnus 5.13 requires an Emacs version that is greater than or equal
+to Emacs 23.1 or XEmacs 21.1, although there are some features that
+only work on Emacs 24.
+
+@node FAQ 1-7
+@subsubheading Question 1.7
+
+How do I run Gnus on both Emacs and XEmacs?
+
+@subsubheading Answer
+
+You can't use the same copy of Gnus in both as the Lisp
+files are byte-compiled to a format which is different
+depending on which Emacs did the compilation. Get one copy
+of Gnus for Emacs and one for XEmacs.
+
+@node FAQ 2 - Startup / Group buffer
+@subsection Startup / Group buffer
+
+@menu
+* FAQ 2-1:: Every time I start Gnus I get a message "Gnus auto-save
+ file exists. Do you want to read it?", what does this mean and
+ how to prevent it?
+* FAQ 2-2:: Gnus doesn't remember which groups I'm subscribed to,
+ what's this?
+* FAQ 2-3:: How to change the format of the lines in Group buffer?
+* FAQ 2-4:: My group buffer becomes a bit crowded, is there a way to
+ sort my groups into categories so I can easier browse through
+ them?
+* FAQ 2-5:: How to manually sort the groups in Group buffer? How to
+ sort the groups in a topic?
+@end menu
+
+@node FAQ 2-1
+@subsubheading Question 2.1
+
+Every time I start Gnus I get a message "Gnus auto-save
+file exists. Do you want to read it?", what does this mean
+and how to prevent it?
+
+@subsubheading Answer
+
+This message means that the last time you used Gnus, it
+wasn't properly exited and therefore couldn't write its
+information to disk (e.g., which messages you read), you
+are now asked if you want to restore that information
+from the auto-save file.
+
+To prevent this message make sure you exit Gnus
+via @samp{q} in group buffer instead of
+just killing Emacs.
+
+@node FAQ 2-2
+@subsubheading Question 2.2
+
+Gnus doesn't remember which groups I'm subscribed to,
+what's this?
+
+@subsubheading Answer
+
+You get the message described in the q/a pair above while
+starting Gnus, right? It's an other symptom for the same
+problem, so read the answer above.
+
+@node FAQ 2-3
+@subsubheading Question 2.3
+
+How to change the format of the lines in Group buffer?
-The basic answer is to byte-compile under XEmacs, and then you can
-run under either Emacsen. There is, however, a potential version
-problem with easymenu.el with Gnu Emacs prior to 19.29.
+@subsubheading Answer
-Per Abrahamsen <abraham@@dina.kvl.dk> writes :@*
-The internal easymenu.el interface changed between 19.28 and 19.29 in
-order to make it possible to create byte compiled files that can be
-shared between Gnu Emacs and XEmacs. The change is upward
-compatible, but not downward compatible.
-This gives the following compatibility table:
+You've got to tweak the value of the variable
+gnus-group-line-format. See the manual node "Group Line
+Specification" for information on how to do this. An
+example for this (guess from whose .gnus :-)):
@example
-Compiled with: | Can be used with:
-----------------+--------------------------------------
-19.28 | 19.28 19.29
-19.29 | 19.29 XEmacs
-XEmacs | 19.29 XEmacs
+(setq gnus-group-line-format "%P%M%S[%5t]%5y : %(%g%)\n")
@end example
+@noindent
-If you have Gnu Emacs 19.28 or earlier, or XEmacs 19.12 or earlier, get
-a recent version of auc-menu.el from
-@file{ftp://ftp.iesd.auc.dk/pub/emacs-lisp/auc-menu.el}, and install it
-under the name easymenu.el somewhere early in your load path.
+@node FAQ 2-4
+@subsubheading Question 2.4
+My group buffer becomes a bit crowded, is there a way to
+sort my groups into categories so I can easier browse
+through them?
-@item
-Q1.8 What resources are available?
-
-There is the newsgroup Gnu.emacs.gnus. Discussion of Gnus 5.x is now
-taking place there. There is also a mailing list, send mail to
-@file{ding-request@@ifi.uio.no} with the magic word @emph{subscribe}
-somewhere in it.
-
-@emph{NOTE:} the traffic on this list is heavy so you may not want to be
-on it (unless you use Gnus as your mailer reader, that is). The mailing
-list is mainly for developers and testers.
-
-Gnus has a home World Wide Web page at@*
-@file{http://www.ifi.uio.no/~larsi/ding.html}.
-
-Gnus has a write up in the X Windows Applications FAQ at@*
-@file{http://www.ee.ryerson.ca:8080/~elf/xapps/Q-III.html}.
-
-The Gnus manual is also available on the World Wide Web. The canonical
-source is in Norway at@*
-@file{http://www.ifi.uio.no/~larsi/ding-manual/gnus_toc.html}.
-
-There are three mirrors in the United States:
-@enumerate
-@item
-@file{http://www.miranova.com/gnus-man/}
+@subsubheading Answer
-@item
-@file{http://www.pilgrim.umass.edu/pub/misc/ding/manual/gnus_toc.html}
+Gnus offers the topic mode, it allows you to sort your
+groups in, well, topics, e.g., all groups dealing with
+Linux under the topic linux, all dealing with music under
+the topic music and all dealing with scottish music under
+the topic scottish which is a subtopic of music.
-@item
-@file{http://www.rtd.com/~woo/gnus/}
+To enter topic mode, just hit t while in Group buffer. Now
+you can use @samp{T n} to create a topic
+at point and @samp{T m} to move a group to
+a specific topic. For more commands see the manual or the
+menu. You might want to include the %P specifier at the
+beginning of your gnus-group-line-format variable to have
+the groups nicely indented.
-@end enumerate
+@node FAQ 2-5
+@subsubheading Question 2.5
-PostScript copies of the Gnus Reference card are available from@*
-@file{ftp://ftp.cs.ualberta.ca/pub/oolog/gnus/}. They are mirrored at@*
-@file{ftp://ftp.pilgrim.umass.edu/pub/misc/ding/refcard/} in the
-United States. And@*
-@file{ftp://marvin.fkphy.uni-duesseldorf.de/pub/gnus/}
-in Germany.
-
-An online version of the Gnus FAQ is available at@*
-@file{http://www.miranova.com/~steve/gnus-faq.html}. Off-line formats
-are also available:@*
-ASCII: @file{ftp://ftp.miranova.com/pub/gnus/gnus-faq}@*
-PostScript: @file{ftp://ftp.miranova.com/pub/gnus/gnus-faq.ps}.
+How to manually sort the groups in Group buffer? How to
+sort the groups in a topic?
+@subsubheading Answer
-@item
-Q1.9 Gnus hangs on connecting to NNTP server
+Move point over the group you want to move and
+hit @samp{C-k}, now move point to the
+place where you want the group to be and
+hit @samp{C-y}.
-I am running XEmacs on SunOS and Gnus prints a message about Connecting
-to NNTP server and then just hangs.
+@node FAQ 3 - Getting Messages
+@subsection Getting Messages
-Ben Wing <wing@@netcom.com> writes :@*
-I wonder if you're hitting the infamous @emph{libresolv} problem.
-The basic problem is that under SunOS you can compile either
-with DNS or NIS name lookup libraries but not both. Try
-substituting the IP address and see if that works; if so, you
-need to download the sources and recompile.
+@menu
+* FAQ 3-1:: I just installed Gnus, started it via @samp{M-x gnus}
+ but it only says "nntp (news) open error", what to do?
+* FAQ 3-2:: I'm working under Windows and have no idea what
+ ~/.gnus.el means.
+* FAQ 3-3:: My news server requires authentication, how to store
+ user name and password on disk?
+* FAQ 3-4:: Gnus seems to start up OK, but I can't find out how to
+ subscribe to a group.
+* FAQ 3-5:: Gnus doesn't show all groups / Gnus says I'm not allowed
+ to post on this server as well as I am, what's that?
+* FAQ 3-6:: I want Gnus to fetch news from several servers, is this
+ possible?
+* FAQ 3-7:: And how about local spool files?
+* FAQ 3-8:: OK, reading news works now, but I want to be able to
+ read my mail with Gnus, too. How to do it?
+* FAQ 3-9:: And what about IMAP?
+* FAQ 3-10:: At the office we use one of those MS Exchange servers,
+ can I use Gnus to read my mail from it?
+* FAQ 3-11:: Can I tell Gnus not to delete the mails on the server it
+ retrieves via POP3?
+@end menu
+@node FAQ 3-1
+@subsubheading Question 3.1
-@item
-Q1.10 Mailcrypt 3.4 doesn't work
+I just installed Gnus, started it via
+@samp{M-x gnus}
+but it only says "nntp (news) open error", what to do?
-This problem is verified to still exist in Gnus 5.0.9 and Mailcrypt 3.4.
-The answer comes from Peter Arius
-<arius@@immd2.informatik.uni-erlangen.de>.
+@subsubheading Answer
-I found out that mailcrypt uses
-@code{gnus-eval-in-buffer-window}, which is a macro.
-It seems as if you have
-compiled mailcrypt with plain old GNUS in load path, and the XEmacs byte
-compiler has inserted that macro definition into
-@file{mc-toplev.elc}.
-The solution is to recompile @file{mc-toplev.el} with Gnus 5 in
-load-path, and it works fine.
+You've got to tell Gnus where to fetch the news from. Read
+the documentation for information on how to do this. As a
+first start, put those lines in @file{~/.gnus.el}:
-Steve Baur <steve@@miranova.com> adds :@*
-The problem also manifests itself if neither GNUS 4 nor Gnus 5 is in the
-load-path.
+@example
+(setq gnus-select-method '(nntp "news.yourprovider.net"))
+(setq user-mail-address "you@@yourprovider.net")
+(setq user-full-name "Your Name")
+@end example
+@noindent
+
+@node FAQ 3-2
+@subsubheading Question 3.2
+
+I'm working under Windows and have no idea what @file{~/.gnus.el} means.
+
+@subsubheading Answer
+
+The ~/ means the home directory where Gnus and Emacs look
+for the configuration files. However, you don't really
+need to know what this means, it suffices that Emacs knows
+what it means :-) You can type
+@samp{C-x C-f ~/.gnus.el RET }
+(yes, with the forward slash, even on Windows), and
+Emacs will open the right file for you. (It will most
+likely be new, and thus empty.)
+However, I'd discourage you from doing so, since the
+directory Emacs chooses will most certainly not be what
+you want, so let's do it the correct way.
+The first thing you've got to do is to
+create a suitable directory (no blanks in directory name
+please), e.g., c:\myhome. Then you must set the environment
+variable HOME to this directory. To do this under Windows 9x
+or Me include the line
+@example
+SET HOME=C:\myhome
+@end example
+@noindent
-@item
-Q1.11 What other packages work with Gnus?
+in your autoexec.bat and reboot. Under NT, 2000 and XP, hit
+Winkey+Pause/Break to enter system options (if it doesn't work, go
+to Control Panel -> System -> Advanced). There you'll find the
+possibility to set environment variables. Create a new one with
+name HOME and value C:\myhome. Rebooting is not necessary.
-@itemize @minus
-@item
-Mailcrypt.
+Now to create @file{~/.gnus.el}, say
+@samp{C-x C-f ~/.gnus.el RET C-x C-s}.
+in Emacs.
-Mailcrypt is an Emacs interface to PGP. It works, it installs
-without hassle, and integrates very easily. Mailcrypt can be
-obtained from@*
-@file{ftp://cag.lcs.mit.edu/pub/patl/mailcrypt-3.4.tar.gz}.
+@node FAQ 3-3
+@subsubheading Question 3.3
-@item
-Tools for Mime.
-
-Tools for Mime is an Emacs MUA interface to MIME. Installation is
-a two-step process unlike most other packages, so you should
-be prepared to move the byte-compiled code somewhere. There
-are currently two versions of this package available. It can
-be obtained from@*
-@file{ftp://ftp.jaist.ac.jp/pub/GNU/elisp/}.
-Be sure to apply the supplied patch. It works with Gnus through
-version 5.0.9. In order for all dependencies to work correctly
-the load sequence is as follows:
-@lisp
- (load "tm-setup")
- (load "gnus")
- (load "mime-compose")
-@end lisp
-
-@emph{NOTE:} Loading the package disables citation highlighting by
-default. To get the old behavior back, use the @kbd{M-t} command.
+My news server requires authentication, how to store
+user name and password on disk?
-@end itemize
+@subsubheading Answer
-@end itemize
+Create a file ~/.authinfo which includes for each server a line like this
+@example
+machine news.yourprovider.net login YourUserName password YourPassword
+@end example
+@noindent
+.
+Make sure that the file isn't readable to others if you
+work on a OS which is capable of doing so. (Under Unix
+say
+@example
+chmod 600 ~/.authinfo
+@end example
+@noindent
-@node Customization FAQ
-@subsection Customization
+in a shell.)
-@itemize @bullet
-@item
-Q2.1 Custom Edit does not work under XEmacs
+@node FAQ 3-4
+@subsubheading Question 3.4
-The custom package has not been ported to XEmacs.
+Gnus seems to start up OK, but I can't find out how to
+subscribe to a group.
+@subsubheading Answer
-@item
-Q2.2 How do I quote messages?
+If you know the name of the group say @samp{U
+name.of.group RET} in group buffer (use the
+tab-completion Luke). Otherwise hit ^ in group buffer,
+this brings you to the server buffer. Now place point (the
+cursor) over the server which carries the group you want,
+hit @samp{RET}, move point to the group
+you want to subscribe to and say @samp{u}
+to subscribe to it.
-I see lots of messages with quoted material in them. I am wondering
-how to have Gnus do it for me.
+@node FAQ 3-5
+@subsubheading Question 3.5
-This is Gnus, so there are a number of ways of doing this. You can use
-the built-in commands to do this. There are the @kbd{F} and @kbd{R}
-keys from the summary buffer which automatically include the article
-being responded to. These commands are also selectable as @i{Followup
-and Yank} and @i{Reply and Yank} in the Post menu.
+Gnus doesn't show all groups / Gnus says I'm not allowed to
+post on this server as well as I am, what's that?
-@kbd{C-c C-y} grabs the previous message and prefixes each line with
-@code{ail-indentation-spaces} spaces or @code{mail-yank-prefix} if that is
-non-nil, unless you have set your own @code{mail-citation-hook}, which will
-be called to do the job.
+@subsubheading Answer
-You might also consider the Supercite package, which allows for pretty
-arbitrarily complex quoting styles. Some people love it, some people
-hate it.
+Some providers allow restricted anonymous access and full
+access only after authorization. To make Gnus send authinfo
+to those servers append
+@example
+force yes
+@end example
+@noindent
-@item
-Q2.3 How can I keep my nnvirtual:* groups sorted?
+to the line for those servers in ~/.authinfo.
-How can I most efficiently arrange matters so as to keep my nnvirtual:*
-(etc) groups at the top of my group selection buffer, whilst keeping
-everything sorted in alphabetical order.
-
-If you don't subscribe often to new groups then the easiest way is to
-first sort the groups and then manually kill and yank the virtuals
-wherever you want them.
+@node FAQ 3-6
+@subsubheading Question 3.6
+I want Gnus to fetch news from several servers, is this possible?
-@item
-Q2.4 Any good suggestions on stuff for an all.SCORE file?
+@subsubheading Answer
-Here is a collection of suggestions from the Gnus mailing list.
+Of course. You can specify more sources for articles in the
+variable gnus-secondary-select-methods. Add something like
+this in @file{~/.gnus.el}:
-@enumerate
-@item
-From ``Dave Disser'' <disser@@sdd.hp.com>@*
-I like blasting anything without lowercase letters. Weeds out most of
-the make $$ fast, as well as the lame titles like ``IBM'' and ``HP-UX''
-with no further description.
-@lisp
- (("Subject"
- ("^\\(Re: \\)?[^a-z]*$" -200 nil R)))
-@end lisp
+@example
+(add-to-list 'gnus-secondary-select-methods
+ '(nntp "news.yourSecondProvider.net"))
+(add-to-list 'gnus-secondary-select-methods
+ '(nntp "news.yourThirdProvider.net"))
+@end example
+@noindent
-@item
-From ``Peter Arius'' <arius@@immd2.informatik.uni-erlangen.de>@*
-The most vital entries in my (still young) all.SCORE:
-@lisp
-(("xref"
- ("alt.fan.oj-simpson" -1000 nil s))
- ("subject"
- ("\\<\\(make\\|fast\\|big\\)\\s-*\\(money\\|cash\\|bucks?\\)\\>" -1000 nil r)
- ("$$$$" -1000 nil s)))
-@end lisp
+@node FAQ 3-7
+@subsubheading Question 3.7
-@item
-From ``Per Abrahamsen'' <abraham@@dina.kvl.dk>@*
-@lisp
-(("subject"
- ;; CAPS OF THE WORLD, UNITE
- ("^..[^a-z]+$" -1 nil R)
- ;; $$$ Make Money $$$ (Try work)
- ("$" -1 nil s)
- ;; I'm important! And I have exclamation marks to prove it!
- ("!" -1 nil s)))
-@end lisp
+And how about local spool files?
-@item
-From ``heddy boubaker'' <boubaker@@cenatls.cena.dgac.fr>@*
-I would like to contribute with mine.
-@lisp
-(
- (read-only t)
- ("subject"
- ;; ALL CAPS SUBJECTS
- ("^\\([Rr][Ee]: +\\)?[^a-z]+$" -1 nil R)
- ;; $$$ Make Money $$$
- ("$$" -10 nil s)
- ;; Empty subjects are worthless!
- ("^ *\\([(<]none[>)]\\|(no subject\\( given\\)?)\\)? *$" -10 nil r)
- ;; Sometimes interesting announces occur!
- ("ANN?OU?NC\\(E\\|ING\\)" +10 nil r)
- ;; Some people think they're on mailing lists
- ("\\(un\\)?sub?scribe" -100 nil r)
- ;; Stop Micro$oft NOW!!
- ("\\(m\\(icro\\)?[s$]\\(oft\\|lot\\)?-?\\)?wind?\\(ows\\|aube\\|oze\\)?[- ]*\\('?95\\|NT\\|3[.]1\\|32\\)" -1001 nil r)
- ;; I've nothing to buy
- ("\\(for\\|4\\)[- ]*sale" -100 nil r)
- ;; SELF-DISCIPLINED people
- ("\\[[^a-z0-9 \t\n][^a-z0-9 \t\n]\\]" +100 nil r)
- )
- ("from"
- ;; To keep track of posters from my site
- (".dgac.fr" +1000 nil s))
- ("followup"
- ;; Keep track of answers to my posts
- ("boubaker" +1000 nil s))
- ("lines"
- ;; Some people have really nothing to say!!
- (1 -10 nil <=))
- (mark -100)
- (expunge -1000)
- )
-@end lisp
+@subsubheading Answer
-@item
-From ``Christopher Jones'' <cjones@@au.oracle.com>@*
-The sample @file{all.SCORE} files from Per and boubaker could be
-augmented with:
-@lisp
- (("subject"
- ;; No junk mail please!
- ("please ignore" -500 nil s)
- ("test" -500 nil e))
- )
-@end lisp
+No problem, this is just one more select method called
+nnspool, so you want this:
-@item
-From ``Brian Edmonds'' <edmonds@@cs.ubc.ca>@*
-Augment any of the above with a fast method of scoring down
-excessively cross posted articles.
-@lisp
- ("xref"
- ;; the more cross posting, the exponentially worse the article
- ("^xref: \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+" -1 nil r)
- ("^xref: \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+" -2 nil r)
- ("^xref: \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+" -4 nil r)
- ("^xref: \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+" -8 nil r)
- ("^xref: \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+" -16 nil r)
- ("^xref: \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+" -32 nil r)
- ("^xref: \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+" -64 nil r)
- ("^xref: \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+" -128 nil r)
- ("^xref: \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+" -256 nil r)
- ("^xref: \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+ \\S-+" -512 nil r))
-@end lisp
-
-@end enumerate
+@example
+(add-to-list 'gnus-secondary-select-methods '(nnspool ""))
+@end example
+@noindent
+Or this if you don't want an NNTP Server as primary news source:
-@item
-Q2.5 What do I use to yank-through when replying?
+@example
+(setq gnus-select-method '(nnspool ""))
+@end example
+@noindent
-You should probably reply and followup with @kbd{R} and @kbd{F}, instead
-of @kbd{r} and @kbd{f}, which solves your problem. But you could try
-something like:
+Gnus will look for the spool file in /usr/spool/news, if you
+want something different, change the line above to something like this:
@example
-(defconst mail-yank-ignored-headers
- "^.*:"
- "Delete these headers from old message when it's inserted in a reply.")
+(add-to-list 'gnus-secondary-select-methods
+ '(nnspool ""
+ (nnspool-directory "/usr/local/myspoolddir")))
@end example
+@noindent
+
+This sets the spool directory for this server only.
+You might have to specify more stuff like the program used
+to post articles, see the Gnus manual on how to do this.
+
+@node FAQ 3-8
+@subsubheading Question 3.8
+
+OK, reading news works now, but I want to be able to read my mail
+with Gnus, too. How to do it?
+
+@subsubheading Answer
+
+That's a bit harder since there are many possible sources
+for mail, many possible ways for storing mail and many
+different ways for sending mail. The most common cases are
+these: 1: You want to read your mail from a pop3 server and
+send them directly to a SMTP Server 2: Some program like
+fetchmail retrieves your mail and stores it on disk from
+where Gnus shall read it. Outgoing mail is sent by
+Sendmail, Postfix or some other MTA@. Sometimes, you even
+need a combination of the above cases.
+
+However, the first thing to do is to tell Gnus in which way
+it should store the mail, in Gnus terminology which back end
+to use. Gnus supports many different back ends, the most
+commonly used one is nnml. It stores every mail in one file
+and is therefore quite fast. However you might prefer a one
+file per group approach if your file system has problems with
+many small files, the nnfolder back end is then probably the
+choice for you. To use nnml add the following to @file{~/.gnus.el}:
+@example
+(add-to-list 'gnus-secondary-select-methods '(nnml ""))
+@end example
+@noindent
-@item
-Q2.6 I don't like the default WWW browser
+As you might have guessed, if you want nnfolder, it's
-Now when choosing an URL Gnus starts up a W3 buffer, I would like it
-to always use Netscape (I don't browse in text-mode ;-).
+@example
+(add-to-list 'gnus-secondary-select-methods '(nnfolder ""))
+@end example
+@noindent
-@enumerate
-@item
-Activate `Customize...' from the `Help' menu.
+Now we need to tell Gnus, where to get its mail from. If
+it's a POP3 server, then you need something like this:
-@item
-Scroll down to the `WWW Browser' field.
+@example
+(eval-after-load "mail-source"
+ '(add-to-list 'mail-sources '(pop :server "pop.YourProvider.net"
+ :user "yourUserName"
+ :password "yourPassword")))
+@end example
+@noindent
-@item
-Click `mouse-2' on `WWW Browser'.
+Make sure @file{~/.gnus.el} isn't readable to others if you store
+your password there. If you want to read your mail from a
+traditional spool file on your local machine, it's
-@item
-Select `Netscape' from the pop up menu.
+@example
+(eval-after-load "mail-source"
+ '(add-to-list 'mail-sources '(file :path "/path/to/spool/file"))
+@end example
+@noindent
-@item
-Press `C-c C-c'
+If it's a Maildir, with one file per message as used by
+postfix, Qmail and (optionally) fetchmail it's
-@end enumerate
+@example
+(eval-after-load "mail-source"
+ '(add-to-list 'mail-sources '(maildir :path "/path/to/Maildir/"
+ :subdirs ("cur" "new")))
+@end example
+@noindent
-If you are using XEmacs then to specify Netscape do
-@lisp
- (setq gnus-button-url 'gnus-netscape-open-url)
-@end lisp
+And finally if you want to read your mail from several files
+in one directory, for example because procmail already split your
+mail, it's
+@example
+(eval-after-load "mail-source"
+ '(add-to-list 'mail-sources
+ '(directory :path "/path/to/procmail-dir/"
+ :suffix ".prcml")))
+@end example
+@noindent
-@item
-Q2.7 What, if any, relation is between ``ask-server'' and ``(setq
-gnus-read-active-file 'some)''?
+Where :suffix ".prcml" tells Gnus only to use files with the
+suffix .prcml.
-In order for Gnus to show you the complete list of newsgroups, it will
-either have to either store the list locally, or ask the server to
-transmit the list. You enable the first with
+OK, now you only need to tell Gnus how to send mail. If you
+want to send mail via sendmail (or whichever MTA is playing
+the role of sendmail on your system), you don't need to do
+anything. However, if you want to send your mail to an
+SMTP Server you need the following in your @file{~/.gnus.el}
-@lisp
- (setq gnus-save-killed-list t)
-@end lisp
+@example
+(setq send-mail-function 'smtpmail-send-it)
+(setq message-send-mail-function 'smtpmail-send-it)
+(setq smtpmail-default-smtp-server "smtp.yourProvider.net")
+@end example
+@noindent
-and the second with
+@node FAQ 3-9
+@subsubheading Question 3.9
-@lisp
- (setq gnus-read-active-file t)
-@end lisp
+And what about IMAP?
-If both are disabled, Gnus will not know what newsgroups exists. There
-is no option to get the list by casting a spell.
+@subsubheading Answer
+There are two ways of using IMAP with Gnus. The first one is
+to use IMAP like POP3, that means Gnus fetches the mail from
+the IMAP server and stores it on disk. If you want to do
+this (you don't really want to do this) add the following to
+@file{~/.gnus.el}
-@item
-Q2.8 Moving between groups is slow.
+@example
+(add-to-list 'mail-sources '(imap :server "mail.mycorp.com"
+ :user "username"
+ :pass "password"
+ :stream network
+ :authentication login
+ :mailbox "INBOX"
+ :fetchflag "\\Seen"))
+@end example
+@noindent
-Per Abrahamsen <abraham@@dina.kvl.dk> writes:@*
+You might have to tweak the values for stream and/or
+authentication, see the Gnus manual node "Mail Source
+Specifiers" for possible values.
-Do you call @code{define-key} or something like that in one of the
-summary mode hooks? This would force Emacs to recalculate the keyboard
-shortcuts. Removing the call should speed up @kbd{M-x gnus-summary-mode
-RET} by a couple of orders of magnitude. You can use
+If you want to use IMAP the way it's intended, you've got to
+follow a different approach. You've got to add the nnimap
+back end to your select method and give the information
+about the server there.
-@lisp
-(define-key gnus-summary-mode-map KEY COMMAND)
-@end lisp
+@example
+(add-to-list 'gnus-secondary-select-methods
+ '(nnimap "Give the baby a name"
+ (nnimap-address "imap.yourProvider.net")
+ (nnimap-port 143)
+ (nnimap-list-pattern "archive.*")))
+@end example
+@noindent
-in your @file{.gnus} instead.
+Again, you might have to specify how to authenticate to the
+server if Gnus can't guess the correct way, see the Manual
+Node "IMAP" for detailed information.
-@end itemize
+@node FAQ 3-10
+@subsubheading Question 3.10
+At the office we use one of those MS Exchange servers, can I use
+Gnus to read my mail from it?
-@node Reading News FAQ
-@subsection Reading News
+@subsubheading Answer
-@itemize @bullet
-@item
-Q3.1 How do I convert my kill files to score files?
+Offer your administrator a pair of new running shoes for
+activating IMAP on the server and follow the instructions
+above.
-A kill-to-score translator was written by Ethan Bradford
-<ethanb@@ptolemy.astro.washington.edu>. It is available from@*
-@file{http://baugi.ifi.uio.no/~larsi/ding-various/gnus-kill-to-score.el}.
+@node FAQ 3-11
+@subsubheading Question 3.11
+Can I tell Gnus not to delete the mails on the server it
+retrieves via POP3?
-@item
-Q3.2 My news server has a lot of groups, and killing groups is painfully
-slow.
+@subsubheading Answer
-Don't do that then. The best way to get rid of groups that should be
-dead is to edit your newsrc directly. This problem will be addressed
-in the near future.
+Yes, if the POP3 server supports the UIDL control (maybe almost servers
+do it nowadays). To do that, add a @code{:leave VALUE} pair to each
+POP3 mail source. See @pxref{Mail Source Specifiers} for VALUE.
+@node FAQ 4 - Reading messages
+@subsection Reading messages
-@item
-Q3.3 How do I use an NNTP server with authentication?
+@menu
+* FAQ 4-1:: When I enter a group, all read messages are gone. How to
+ view them again?
+* FAQ 4-2:: How to tell Gnus to show an important message every time
+ I enter a group, even when it's read?
+* FAQ 4-3:: How to view the headers of a message?
+* FAQ 4-4:: How to view the raw unformatted message?
+* FAQ 4-5:: How can I change the headers Gnus displays by default at
+ the top of the article buffer?
+* FAQ 4-6:: I'd like Gnus NOT to render HTML-mails but show me the
+ text part if it's available. How to do it?
+* FAQ 4-7:: Can I use some other browser than shr to render my
+ HTML-mails?
+* FAQ 4-8:: Is there anything I can do to make poorly formatted
+ mails more readable?
+* FAQ 4-9:: Is there a way to automatically ignore posts by specific
+ authors or with specific words in the subject? And can I
+ highlight more interesting ones in some way?
+* FAQ 4-10:: How can I disable threading in some (e.g., mail-) groups,
+ or set other variables specific for some groups?
+* FAQ 4-11:: Can I highlight messages written by me and follow-ups to
+ those?
+* FAQ 4-12:: The number of total messages in a group which Gnus
+ displays in group buffer is by far to high, especially in mail
+ groups. Is this a bug?
+* FAQ 4-13:: I don't like the layout of summary and article buffer,
+ how to change it? Perhaps even a three pane display?
+* FAQ 4-14:: I don't like the way the Summary buffer looks, how to
+ tweak it?
+* FAQ 4-15:: How to split incoming mails in several groups?
+* FAQ 4-16:: How can I ensure more contrast when viewing HTML mail?
+@end menu
-Put the following into your .gnus:
-@lisp
- (add-hook 'nntp-server-opened-hook 'nntp-send-authinfo)
-@end lisp
+@node FAQ 4-1
+@subsubheading Question 4.1
+When I enter a group, all read messages are gone. How to view them again?
-@item
-Q3.4 Not reading the first article.
+@subsubheading Answer
-How do I avoid reading the first article when a group is selected?
+If you enter the group by saying
+@samp{RET}
+in group buffer with point over the group, only unread and ticked messages are loaded. Say
+@samp{C-u RET}
+instead to load all available messages. If you want only the 300 newest say
+@samp{C-u 300 RET}
-@enumerate
-@item
-Use @kbd{RET} to select the group instead of @kbd{SPC}.
+Loading only unread messages can be annoying if you have threaded view enabled, say
-@item
-@code{(setq gnus-auto-select first nil)}
+@example
+(setq gnus-fetch-old-headers 'some)
+@end example
+@noindent
-@item
-Luis Fernandes <elf@@mailhost.ee.ryerson.ca>writes:@*
-This is what I use...customize as necessary...
+in @file{~/.gnus.el} to load enough old articles to prevent teared threads, replace 'some with @code{t} to load
+all articles (Warning: Both settings enlarge the amount of data which is
+fetched when you enter a group and slow down the process of entering a group).
+
+If you already use Gnus 5.10, you can say
+@samp{/o N}
+In summary buffer to load the last N messages, this feature is not available in 5.8.8
+
+If you don't want all old messages, but the parent of the message you're just reading,
+you can say @samp{^}, if you want to retrieve the whole thread
+the message you're just reading belongs to, @samp{A T} is your friend.
+
+@node FAQ 4-2
+@subsubheading Question 4.2
+
+How to tell Gnus to show an important message every time I
+enter a group, even when it's read?
+
+@subsubheading Answer
+
+You can tick important messages. To do this hit
+@samp{u} while point is in summary buffer
+over the message. When you want to remove the mark, hit
+either @samp{d} (this deletes the tick
+mark and set's unread mark) or @samp{M c}
+(which deletes all marks for the message).
+
+@node FAQ 4-3
+@subsubheading Question 4.3
+
+How to view the headers of a message?
+
+@subsubheading Answer
+
+Say @samp{t}
+to show all headers, one more
+@samp{t}
+hides them again.
+
+@node FAQ 4-4
+@subsubheading Question 4.4
+
+How to view the raw unformatted message?
+
+@subsubheading Answer
+
+Say
+@samp{C-u g}
+to show the raw message
+@samp{g}
+returns to normal view.
+
+@node FAQ 4-5
+@subsubheading Question 4.5
+
+How can I change the headers Gnus displays by default at
+the top of the article buffer?
+
+@subsubheading Answer
+
+The variable gnus-visible-headers controls which headers
+are shown, its value is a regular expression, header lines
+which match it are shown. So if you want author, subject,
+date, and if the header exists, Followup-To and MUA / NUA
+say this in @file{~/.gnus.el}:
+
+@example
+(setq gnus-visible-headers
+ '("^From" "^Subject" "^Date" "^Newsgroups" "^Followup-To"
+ "^User-Agent" "^X-Newsreader" "^X-Mailer"))
+@end example
+@noindent
+
+@node FAQ 4-6
+@subsubheading Question 4.6
+
+I'd like Gnus NOT to render HTML-mails but show me the
+text part if it's available. How to do it?
+
+@subsubheading Answer
+
+Say
+
+@example
+(eval-after-load "mm-decode"
+ '(progn
+ (add-to-list 'mm-discouraged-alternatives "text/html")
+ (add-to-list 'mm-discouraged-alternatives "text/richtext")))
+@end example
+@noindent
+
+in @file{~/.gnus.el}. If you don't want HTML rendered, even if there's no text alternative add
+
+@example
+(setq mm-automatic-display (remove "text/html" mm-automatic-display))
+@end example
+@noindent
+
+too.
+
+@node FAQ 4-7
+@subsubheading Question 4.7
+
+Can I use some other browser than w3m to render my HTML-mails?
+
+@subsubheading Answer
+
+Only if you use Gnus 5.10 or younger. In this case you've got the
+choice between shr, w3m, links, lynx and html2text, which
+one is used can be specified in the variable
+mm-text-html-renderer, so if you want links to render your
+mail say
+
+@example
+(setq mm-text-html-renderer 'links)
+@end example
+@noindent
+
+@node FAQ 4-8
+@subsubheading Question 4.8
+
+Is there anything I can do to make poorly formatted mails
+more readable?
+
+@subsubheading Answer
+
+Gnus offers you several functions to "wash" incoming mail, you can
+find them if you browse through the menu, item
+Article->Washing. The most interesting ones are probably "Wrap
+long lines" (@samp{W w}), "Decode ROT13"
+(@samp{W r}) and "Outlook Deuglify" which repairs
+the dumb quoting used by many users of Microsoft products
+(@samp{W Y f} gives you full deuglify.
+See @samp{W Y C-h} or have a look at the menus for
+other deuglifications). Outlook deuglify is only available since
+Gnus 5.10.
+
+@node FAQ 4-9
+@subsubheading Question 4.9
+
+Is there a way to automatically ignore posts by specific
+authors or with specific words in the subject? And can I
+highlight more interesting ones in some way?
+
+@subsubheading Answer
+
+You want Scoring. Scoring means, that you define rules
+which assign each message an integer value. Depending on
+the value the message is highlighted in summary buffer (if
+it's high, say +2000) or automatically marked read (if the
+value is low, say -800) or some other action happens.
+
+There are basically three ways of setting up rules which assign
+the scoring-value to messages. The first and easiest way is to set
+up rules based on the article you are just reading. Say you're
+reading a message by a guy who always writes nonsense and you want
+to ignore his messages in the future. Hit
+@samp{L}, to set up a rule which lowers the score.
+Now Gnus asks you which the criteria for lowering the Score shall
+be. Hit @samp{?} twice to see all possibilities,
+we want @samp{a} which means the author (the from
+header). Now Gnus wants to know which kind of matching we want.
+Hit either @samp{e} for an exact match or
+@samp{s} for substring-match and delete afterwards
+everything but the name to score down all authors with the given
+name no matter which email address is used. Now you need to tell
+Gnus when to apply the rule and how long it should last, hit
+@samp{p} to apply the rule now and let it last
+forever. If you want to raise the score instead of lowering it say
+@samp{I} instead of @samp{L}.
+
+You can also set up rules by hand. To do this say @samp{V
+f} in summary buffer. Then you are asked for the name
+of the score file, it's name.of.group.SCORE for rules valid in
+only one group or all.Score for rules valid in all groups. See the
+Gnus manual for the exact syntax, basically it's one big list
+whose elements are lists again. the first element of those lists
+is the header to score on, then one more list with what to match,
+which score to assign, when to expire the rule and how to do the
+matching. If you find me very interesting, you could add the
+following to your all.Score:
+
+@example
+(("references" ("hschmi22.userfqdn.rz-online.de" 500 nil s))
+ ("message-id" ("hschmi22.userfqdn.rz-online.de" 999 nil s)))
+@end example
+@noindent
+
+This would add 999 to the score of messages written by me
+and 500 to the score of messages which are a (possibly
+indirect) answer to a message written by me. Of course
+nobody with a sane mind would do this :-)
+
+The third alternative is adaptive scoring. This means Gnus
+watches you and tries to find out what you find
+interesting and what annoying and sets up rules
+which reflect this. Adaptive scoring can be a huge help
+when reading high traffic groups. If you want to activate
+adaptive scoring say
+
+@example
+(setq gnus-use-adaptive-scoring t)
+@end example
+@noindent
+
+in @file{~/.gnus.el}.
+
+@node FAQ 4-10
+@subsubheading Question 4.10
+
+How can I disable threading in some (e.g., mail-) groups, or
+set other variables specific for some groups?
+
+@subsubheading Answer
+
+While in group buffer move point over the group and hit
+@samp{G c}, this opens a buffer where you
+can set options for the group. At the bottom of the buffer
+you'll find an item that allows you to set variables
+locally for the group. To disable threading enter
+gnus-show-threads as name of variable and @code{nil} as
+value. Hit button done at the top of the buffer when
+you're ready.
+
+@node FAQ 4-11
+@subsubheading Question 4.11
+
+Can I highlight messages written by me and follow-ups to
+those?
+
+@subsubheading Answer
+
+Stop those "Can I ..." questions, the answer is always yes
+in Gnus Country :-). It's a three step process: First we
+make faces (specifications of how summary-line shall look
+like) for those postings, then we'll give them some
+special score and finally we'll tell Gnus to use the new
+faces.
+
+@node FAQ 4-12
+@subsubheading Question 4.12
+
+The number of total messages in a group which Gnus
+displays in group buffer is by far to high, especially in
+mail groups. Is this a bug?
+
+@subsubheading Answer
+
+No, that's a matter of design of Gnus, fixing this would
+mean reimplementation of major parts of Gnus'
+back ends. Gnus thinks "highest-article-number @minus{}
+lowest-article-number = total-number-of-articles". This
+works OK for Usenet groups, but if you delete and move
+many messages in mail groups, this fails. To cure the
+symptom, enter the group via @samp{C-u RET}
+(this makes Gnus get all messages), then
+hit @samp{M P b} to mark all messages and
+then say @samp{B m name.of.group} to move
+all messages to the group they have been in before, they
+get new message numbers in this process and the count is
+right again (until you delete and move your mail to other
+groups again).
+
+@node FAQ 4-13
+@subsubheading Question 4.13
+
+I don't like the layout of summary and article buffer, how
+to change it? Perhaps even a three pane display?
+
+@subsubheading Answer
+
+You can control the windows configuration by calling the
+function gnus-add-configuration. The syntax is a bit
+complicated but explained very well in the manual node
+"Window Layout". Some popular examples:
+
+Instead 25% summary 75% article buffer 35% summary and 65%
+article (the 1.0 for article means "take the remaining
+space"):
+
+@example
+(gnus-add-configuration
+ '(article (vertical 1.0 (summary .35 point) (article 1.0))))
+@end example
+@noindent
+
+A three pane layout, Group buffer on the left, summary
+buffer top-right, article buffer bottom-right:
+
+@example
+(gnus-add-configuration
+ '(article
+ (horizontal 1.0
+ (vertical 25
+ (group 1.0))
+ (vertical 1.0
+ (summary 0.25 point)
+ (article 1.0)))))
+(gnus-add-configuration
+ '(summary
+ (horizontal 1.0
+ (vertical 25
+ (group 1.0))
+ (vertical 1.0
+ (summary 1.0 point)))))
+@end example
+@noindent
+
+@node FAQ 4-14
+@subsubheading Question 4.14
+
+I don't like the way the Summary buffer looks, how to tweak it?
+
+@subsubheading Answer
+
+You've got to play around with the variable
+gnus-summary-line-format. Its value is a string of
+symbols which stand for things like author, date, subject
+etc. A list of the available specifiers can be found in the
+manual node "Summary Buffer Lines" and the often forgotten
+node "Formatting Variables" and its sub-nodes. There
+you'll find useful things like positioning the cursor and
+tabulators which allow you a summary in table form, but
+sadly hard tabulators are broken in 5.8.8.
+
+Since 5.10, Gnus offers you some very nice new specifiers,
+e.g., %B which draws a thread-tree and %&user-date which
+gives you a date where the details are dependent of the
+articles age. Here's an example which uses both:
+
+@example
+(setq gnus-summary-line-format ":%U%R %B %s %-60=|%4L |%-20,20f |%&user-date; \n")
+@end example
+@noindent
+
+resulting in:
+
+@example
+:O Re: [Richard Stallman] rfc2047.el | 13 |Lars Magne Ingebrigt |Sat 23:06
+:O Re: Revival of the ding-patches list | 13 |Lars Magne Ingebrigt |Sat 23:12
+:R > Re: Find correct list of articles for a gro| 25 |Lars Magne Ingebrigt |Sat 23:16
+:O \-> ... | 21 |Kai Grossjohann | 0:01
+:R > Re: Cry for help: deuglify.el - moving stuf| 28 |Lars Magne Ingebrigt |Sat 23:34
+:O \-> ... | 115 |Raymond Scholz | 1:24
+:O \-> ... | 19 |Lars Magne Ingebrigt |15:33
+:O Slow mailing list | 13 |Lars Magne Ingebrigt |Sat 23:49
+:O Re: '@@' mark not documented | 13 |Lars Magne Ingebrigt |Sat 23:50
+:R > Re: Gnus still doesn't count messages prope| 23 |Lars Magne Ingebrigt |Sat 23:57
+:O \-> ... | 18 |Kai Grossjohann | 0:35
+:O \-> ... | 13 |Lars Magne Ingebrigt | 0:56
+@end example
+@noindent
+
+@node FAQ 4-15
+@subsubheading Question 4.15
+
+How to split incoming mails in several groups?
-@lisp
-;;; Don't auto-select first article if reading sources, or archives or
-;;; jobs postings, etc. and just display the summary buffer
+@subsubheading Answer
+
+Gnus offers two possibilities for splitting mail, the easy
+nnmail-split-methods and the more powerful Fancy Mail
+Splitting. I'll only talk about the first one, refer to
+the manual, node "Fancy Mail Splitting" for the latter.
+
+The value of nnmail-split-methods is a list, each element
+is a list which stands for a splitting rule. Each rule has
+the form "group where matching articles should go to",
+"regular expression which has to be matched", the first
+rule which matches wins. The last rule must always be a
+general rule (regular expression .*) which denotes where
+articles should go which don't match any other rule. If
+the folder doesn't exist yet, it will be created as soon
+as an article lands there. By default the mail will be
+send to all groups whose rules match. If you
+don't want that (you probably don't want), say
+
+@example
+(setq nnmail-crosspost nil)
+@end example
+@noindent
+
+in @file{~/.gnus.el}.
+
+An example might be better than thousand words, so here's
+my nnmail-split-methods. Note that I send duplicates in a
+special group and that the default group is spam, since I
+filter all mails out which are from some list I'm
+subscribed to or which are addressed directly to me
+before. Those rules kill about 80% of the Spam which
+reaches me (Email addresses are changed to prevent spammers
+from using them):
+
+@example
+(setq nnmail-split-methods
+ '(("duplicates" "^Gnus-Warning:.*duplicate")
+ ("XEmacs-NT" "^\\(To:\\|CC:\\).*localpart@@xemacs.invalid.*")
+ ("Gnus-Tut" "^\\(To:\\|CC:\\).*localpart@@socha.invalid.*")
+ ("tcsh" "^\\(To:\\|CC:\\).*localpart@@mx.gw.invalid.*")
+ ("BAfH" "^\\(To:\\|CC:\\).*localpart@@.*uni-muenchen.invalid.*")
+ ("Hamster-src" "^\\(CC:\\|To:\\).*hamster-sourcen@@yahoogroups.\\(de\\|com\\).*")
+ ("Tagesschau" "^From: tagesschau <localpart@@www.tagesschau.invalid>$")
+ ("Replies" "^\\(CC:\\|To:\\).*localpart@@Frank-Schmitt.invalid.*")
+ ("EK" "^From:.*\\(localpart@@privateprovider.invalid\\|localpart@@workplace.invalid\\).*")
+ ("Spam" "^Content-Type:.*\\(ks_c_5601-1987\\|EUC-KR\\|big5\\|iso-2022-jp\\).*")
+ ("Spam" "^Subject:.*\\(This really work\\|XINGA\\|ADV:\\|XXX\\|adult\\|sex\\).*")
+ ("Spam" "^Subject:.*\\(\=\?ks_c_5601-1987\?\\|\=\?euc-kr\?\\|\=\?big5\?\\).*")
+ ("Spam" "^X-Mailer:\\(.*BulkMailer.*\\|.*MIME::Lite.*\\|\\)")
+ ("Spam" "^X-Mailer:\\(.*CyberCreek Avalanche\\|.*http\:\/\/GetResponse\.com\\)")
+ ("Spam" "^From:.*\\(verizon\.net\\|prontomail\.com\\|money\\|ConsumerDirect\\).*")
+ ("Spam" "^Delivered-To: GMX delivery to spamtrap@@gmx.invalid$")
+ ("Spam" "^Received: from link2buy.com")
+ ("Spam" "^CC: .*azzrael@@t-online.invalid")
+ ("Spam" "^X-Mailer-Version: 1.50 BETA")
+ ("Uni" "^\\(CC:\\|To:\\).*localpart@@uni-koblenz.invalid.*")
+ ("Inbox" "^\\(CC:\\|To:\\).*\\(my\ name\\|address@@one.invalid\\|address@@two.invalid\\)")
+ ("Spam" "")))
+@end example
+@noindent
+
+@node FAQ 4-16
+@subsubheading Question 4.16
+
+How can I ensure more contrast when viewing HTML mail?
+
+@subsubheading Answer
+
+Gnus' built-in simple HTML renderer (you use it if the value of
+@code{mm-text-html-renderer} is @code{shr}) uses the colors which are
+declared in the HTML mail. However, it adjusts them in order to
+prevent situations like dark gray text on black background. In case
+the results still have a too low contrast for you, increase the values
+of the variables @code{shr-color-visible-distance-min} and
+@code{shr-color-visible-luminance-min}.
+
+@node FAQ 5 - Composing messages
+@subsection Composing messages
+
+@menu
+* FAQ 5-1:: What are the basic commands I need to know for sending
+ mail and postings?
+* FAQ 5-2:: How to enable automatic word-wrap when composing
+ messages?
+* FAQ 5-3:: How to set stuff like From, Organization, Reply-To,
+ signature...?
+* FAQ 5-4:: Can I set things like From, Signature etc. group based on
+ the group I post too?
+* FAQ 5-5:: Is there a spell-checker? Perhaps even on-the-fly
+ spell-checking?
+* FAQ 5-6:: Can I set the dictionary based on the group I'm posting
+ to?
+* FAQ 5-7:: Is there some kind of address-book, so I needn't
+ remember all those email addresses?
+* FAQ 5-8:: Sometimes I see little images at the top of article
+ buffer. What's that and how can I send one with my postings,
+ too?
+* FAQ 5-9:: Sometimes I accidentally hit r instead of f in
+ newsgroups. Can Gnus warn me, when I'm replying by mail in
+ newsgroups?
+* FAQ 5-10:: How to tell Gnus not to generate a sender header?
+* FAQ 5-11:: I want Gnus to locally store copies of my send mail and
+ news, how to do it?
+* FAQ 5-12:: I want Gnus to kill the buffer after successful sending
+ instead of keeping it alive as "Sent mail to...", how to do it?
+* FAQ 5-13:: People tell me my Message-IDs are not correct, why
+ aren't they and how to fix it?
+@end menu
+
+@node FAQ 5-1
+@subsubheading Question 5.1
+
+What are the basic commands I need to know for sending mail and postings?
+
+@subsubheading Answer
+
+To start composing a new mail hit @samp{m}
+either in Group or Summary buffer, for a posting, it's
+either @samp{a} in Group buffer and
+filling the Newsgroups header manually
+or @samp{a} in the Summary buffer of the
+group where the posting shall be send to. Replying by mail
+is
+@samp{r} if you don't want to cite the
+author, or import the cited text manually and
+@samp{R} to cite the text of the original
+message. For a follow up to a newsgroup, it's
+@samp{f} and @samp{F}
+(analogously to @samp{r} and
+@samp{R}).
+
+Enter new headers above the line saying "--text follows
+this line--", enter the text below the line. When ready
+hit @samp{C-c C-c}, to send the message,
+if you want to finish it later hit @samp{C-c
+C-d} to save it in the drafts group, where you
+can start editing it again by saying @samp{D
+e}.
+
+@node FAQ 5-2
+@subsubheading Question 5.2
+
+How to enable automatic word-wrap when composing messages?
+
+@subsubheading Answer
+
+Starting from No Gnus, automatic word-wrap is already enabled by
+default, see the variable message-fill-column.
+
+For other versions of Gnus, say
+
+@example
+(unless (boundp 'message-fill-column)
+ (add-hook 'message-mode-hook
+ (lambda ()
+ (setq fill-column 72)
+ (turn-on-auto-fill))))
+@end example
+@noindent
+
+in @file{~/.gnus.el}.
+
+You can reformat a paragraph by hitting @samp{M-q}
+(as usual).
+
+@node FAQ 5-3
+@subsubheading Question 5.3
+
+How to set stuff like From, Organization, Reply-To, signature...?
+
+@subsubheading Answer
+
+There are other ways, but you should use posting styles
+for this. (See below why).
+This example should make the syntax clear:
+
+@example
+(setq gnus-posting-styles
+ '((".*"
+ (name "Frank Schmitt")
+ (address "me@@there.invalid")
+ (organization "Hamme net, kren mer och nimmi")
+ (signature-file "~/.signature")
+ ("X-SampleHeader" "foobar")
+ (eval (setq some-variable "Foo bar")))))
+@end example
+@noindent
+
+The ".*" means that this settings are the default ones
+(see below), valid values for the first element of the
+following lists are signature, signature-file,
+organization, address, name or body. The attribute name
+can also be a string. In that case, this will be used as
+a header name, and the value will be inserted in the
+headers of the article; if the value is @code{nil}, the header
+name will be removed. You can also say (eval (foo bar)),
+then the function foo will be evaluated with argument bar
+and the result will be thrown away.
+
+@node FAQ 5-4
+@subsubheading Question 5.4
+
+Can I set things like From, Signature etc group based on the group I post too?
+
+@subsubheading Answer
+
+That's the strength of posting styles. Before, we used ".*"
+to set the default for all groups. You can use a regexp
+like "^gmane" and the following settings are only applied
+to postings you send to the gmane hierarchy, use
+".*binaries" instead and they will be applied to postings
+send to groups containing the string binaries in their
+name etc.
+
+You can instead of specifying a regexp specify a function
+which is evaluated, only if it returns true, the
+corresponding settings take effect. Two interesting
+candidates for this are message-news-p which returns t if
+the current Group is a newsgroup and the corresponding
+message-mail-p.
+
+Note that all forms that match are applied, that means in
+the example below, when I post to
+gmane.mail.spam.spamassassin.general, the settings under
+".*" are applied and the settings under message-news-p and
+those under "^gmane" and those under
+"^gmane\\.mail\\.spam\\.spamassassin\\.general$". Because
+of this put general settings at the top and specific ones
+at the bottom.
+
+@example
+(setq gnus-posting-styles
+ '((".*" ;;default
+ (name "Frank Schmitt")
+ (organization "Hamme net, kren mer och nimmi")
+ (signature-file "~/.signature"))
+ ((message-news-p) ;;Usenet news?
+ (address "mySpamTrap@@Frank-Schmitt.invalid")
+ (reply-to "hereRealRepliesOnlyPlease@@Frank-Schmitt.invalid"))
+ ((message-mail-p) ;;mail?
+ (address "usedForMails@@Frank-Schmitt.invalid"))
+ ("^gmane" ;;this is mail, too in fact
+ (address "usedForMails@@Frank-Schmitt.invalid")
+ (reply-to nil))
+ ("^gmane\\.mail\\.spam\\.spamassassin\\.general$"
+ (eval (set (make-local-variable 'message-sendmail-envelope-from)
+ "Azzrael@@rz-online.de")))))
+@end example
+@noindent
+
+@node FAQ 5-5
+@subsubheading Question 5.5
+
+Is there a spell-checker? Perhaps even on-the-fly spell-checking?
+
+@subsubheading Answer
+
+You can use ispell.el to spell-check stuff in Emacs. So the
+first thing to do is to make sure that you've got either
+@uref{http://fmg-www.cs.ucla.edu/fmg-members/geoff/ispell.html, ispell}
+or @uref{http://aspell.sourceforge.net/, aspell}
+installed and in your Path. Then you need
+@uref{http://www.kdstevens.com/~stevens/ispell-page.html, ispell.el}
+and for on-the-fly spell-checking
+@uref{http://www-sop.inria.fr/members/Manuel.Serrano/flyspell/flyspell.html, flyspell.el}.
+Ispell.el is shipped with Emacs and available through the XEmacs package system,
+flyspell.el is shipped with Emacs and part of XEmacs text-modes package which is
+available through the package system, so there should be no need to install them
+manually.
+
+Ispell.el assumes you use ispell, if you choose aspell say
+
+@example
+(setq ispell-program-name "aspell")
+@end example
+@noindent
+
+in your Emacs configuration file.
+
+If you want your outgoing messages to be spell-checked, say
+
+@example
+(add-hook 'message-send-hook 'ispell-message)
+@end example
+@noindent
+
+In your @file{~/.gnus.el}, if you prefer on-the-fly spell-checking say
+
+@example
+(add-hook 'message-mode-hook (lambda () (flyspell-mode 1)))
+@end example
+@noindent
+
+@node FAQ 5-6
+@subsubheading Question 5.6
+
+Can I set the dictionary based on the group I'm posting to?
+
+@subsubheading Answer
+
+Yes, say something like
+
+@example
(add-hook 'gnus-select-group-hook
- (function
- (lambda ()
- (cond ((string-match "sources" gnus-newsgroup-name)
- (setq gnus-auto-select-first nil))
- ((string-match "jobs" gnus-newsgroup-name)
- (setq gnus-auto-select-first nil))
- ((string-match "comp\\.archives" gnus-newsgroup-name)
- (setq gnus-auto-select-first nil))
- ((string-match "reviews" gnus-newsgroup-name)
- (setq gnus-auto-select-first nil))
- ((string-match "announce" gnus-newsgroup-name)
- (setq gnus-auto-select-first nil))
- ((string-match "binaries" gnus-newsgroup-name)
- (setq gnus-auto-select-first nil))
- (t
- (setq gnus-auto-select-first t))))))
-@end lisp
+ (lambda ()
+ (cond
+ ((string-match
+ "^de\\." (gnus-group-real-name gnus-newsgroup-name))
+ (ispell-change-dictionary "deutsch8"))
+ (t
+ (ispell-change-dictionary "english")))))
+@end example
+@noindent
-@item
-Per Abrahamsen <abraham@@dina.kvl.dk> writes:@*
-Another possibility is to create an @file{all.binaries.all.SCORE} file
-like this:
+in @file{~/.gnus.el}. Change "^de\\." and "deutsch8" to something
+that suits your needs.
-@lisp
-((local
- (gnus-auto-select-first nil)))
-@end lisp
+@node FAQ 5-7
+@subsubheading Question 5.7
-and insert
-@lisp
- (setq gnus-auto-select-first t)
-@end lisp
+Is there some kind of address-book, so I needn't remember
+all those email addresses?
-in your @file{.gnus}.
+@subsubheading Answer
-@end enumerate
+There's an very basic solution for this, mail aliases.
+You can store your mail addresses in a ~/.mailrc file using a simple
+alias syntax:
-@item
-Q3.5 Why aren't BBDB known posters marked in the summary buffer?
+@example
+alias al "Al <al@@english-heritage.invalid>"
+@end example
+@noindent
-Brian Edmonds <edmonds@@cs.ubc.ca> writes:@*
-Due to changes in Gnus 5.0, @file{bbdb-gnus.el} no longer marks known
-posters in the summary buffer. An updated version, @file{gnus-bbdb.el}
-is available at the locations listed below. This package also supports
-autofiling of incoming mail to folders specified in the BBDB. Extensive
-instructions are included as comments in the file.
+Then typing your alias (followed by a space or punctuation
+character) on a To: or Cc: line in the message buffer will
+cause Gnus to insert the full address for you. See the
+node "Mail Aliases" in Message (not Gnus) manual for
+details.
-Send mail to @file{majordomo@@edmonds.home.cs.ubc.ca} with the following
-line in the body of the message: @emph{get misc gnus-bbdb.el}.
+However, what you really want is the Insidious Big Brother
+Database bbdb. Get it through the XEmacs package system or from
+@uref{http://bbdb.sourceforge.net/, bbdb's homepage}.
+Now place the following in @file{~/.gnus.el}, to activate bbdb for Gnus:
-Or get it from the World Wide Web:@*
-@file{http://www.cs.ubc.ca/spider/edmonds/gnus-bbdb.el}.
+@example
+(require 'bbdb)
+(bbdb-initialize 'gnus 'message)
+@end example
+@noindent
-@end itemize
+Now you probably want some general bbdb configuration,
+place them in ~/.emacs:
+@example
+(require 'bbdb)
+;;If you don't live in Northern America, you should disable the
+;;syntax check for telephone numbers by saying
+(setq bbdb-north-american-phone-numbers-p nil)
+;;Tell bbdb about your email address:
+(setq bbdb-user-mail-names
+ (regexp-opt '("Your.Email@@here.invalid"
+ "Your.other@@mail.there.invalid")))
+;;cycling while completing email addresses
+(setq bbdb-complete-name-allow-cycling t)
+;;No popup-buffers
+(setq bbdb-use-pop-up nil)
+@end example
+@noindent
+
+Now you should be ready to go. Say @samp{M-x bbdb RET
+RET} to open a bbdb buffer showing all
+entries. Say @samp{c} to create a new
+entry, @samp{b} to search your BBDB and
+@samp{C-o} to add a new field to an
+entry. If you want to add a sender to the BBDB you can
+also just hit @kbd{:} on the posting in the summary buffer and
+you are done. When you now compose a new mail,
+hit @samp{TAB} to cycle through know
+recipients.
+
+@node FAQ 5-8
+@subsubheading Question 5.8
+
+Sometimes I see little images at the top of article
+buffer. What's that and how can I send one with my
+postings, too?
+
+@subsubheading Answer
+
+Those images are called X-Faces. They are 48*48 pixel b/w
+pictures, encoded in a header line. If you want to include
+one in your posts, you've got to convert some image to a
+X-Face. So fire up some image manipulation program (say
+Gimp), open the image you want to include, cut out the
+relevant part, reduce color depth to 1 bit, resize to
+48*48 and save as bitmap. Now you should get the compface
+package from
+@uref{ftp://ftp.cs.indiana.edu:/pub/faces/, this site}.
+and create the actual X-face by saying
-@node Reading Mail FAQ
-@subsection Reading Mail
+@example
+cat file.xbm | xbm2ikon | compface > file.face
+cat file.face | sed 's/\\/\\\\/g;s/\"/\\\"/g;' > file.face.quoted
+@end example
+@noindent
-@itemize @bullet
-@item
-Q4.1 What does the message ``Buffer has changed on disk'' mean in a mail
-group?
+If you can't use compface, there's an online X-face converter at
+@uref{http://www.dairiki.org/xface/}.
+If you use MS Windows, you could also use the WinFace program,
+which used to be available from
+@indicateurl{http://www.xs4all.nl/~walterln/winface/}.
+Now you only have to tell Gnus to include the X-face in your postings by saying
-Your filter program should not deliver mail directly to your folders,
-instead it should put the mail into spool files. Gnus will then move
-the mail safely from the spool files into the folders. This will
-eliminate the problem. Look it up in the manual, in the section
-entitled ``Mail & Procmail''.
+@example
+(setq message-default-headers
+ (with-temp-buffer
+ (insert "X-Face: ")
+ (insert-file-contents "~/.xface")
+ (buffer-string)))
+@end example
+@noindent
+in @file{~/.gnus.el}. If you use Gnus 5.10, you can simply add an entry
-@item
-Q4.2 How do you make articles un-expirable?
+@example
+(x-face-file "~/.xface")
+@end example
+@noindent
-I am using nnml to read news and have used
-@code{gnus-auto-expirable-newsgroups} to automagically expire articles
-in some groups (Gnus being one of them). Sometimes there are
-interesting articles in these groups that I want to keep. Is there any
-way of explicitly marking an article as un-expirable - that is mark it
-as read but not expirable?
+to gnus-posting-styles.
-Use @kbd{u}, @kbd{!}, @kbd{d} or @kbd{M-u} in the summary buffer. You
-just remove the @kbd{E} mark by setting some other mark. It's not
-necessary to tick the articles.
+@node FAQ 5-9
+@subsubheading Question 5.9
+Sometimes I accidentally hit r instead of f in
+newsgroups. Can Gnus warn me, when I'm replying by mail in
+newsgroups?
-@item
-Q4.3 How do I delete bogus nnml: groups?
+@subsubheading Answer
-My problem is that I have various mail (nnml) groups generated while
-experimenting with Gnus. How do I remove them now? Setting the level to
-9 does not help. Also @code{gnus-group-check-bogus-groups} does not
-recognize them.
+Put this in @file{~/.gnus.el}:
-Removing mail groups is tricky at the moment. (It's on the to-do list,
-though.) You basically have to kill the groups in Gnus, shut down Gnus,
-edit the active file to exclude these groups, and probably remove the
-nnml directories that contained these groups as well. Then start Gnus
-back up again.
+@example
+(setq gnus-confirm-mail-reply-to-news t)
+@end example
+@noindent
+if you already use Gnus 5.10, if you still use 5.8.8 or
+5.9 try this instead:
-@item
-Q4.4 What happened to my new mail groups?
+@example
+(eval-after-load "gnus-msg"
+ '(unless (boundp 'gnus-confirm-mail-reply-to-news)
+ (defadvice gnus-summary-reply (around reply-in-news activate)
+ "Request confirmation when replying to news."
+ (interactive)
+ (when (or (not (gnus-news-group-p gnus-newsgroup-name))
+ (y-or-n-p "Really reply by mail to article author? "))
+ ad-do-it))))
+@end example
+@noindent
-I got new mail, but I have
-never seen the groups they should have been placed in.
+@node FAQ 5-10
+@subsubheading Question 5.10
-They are probably there, but as zombies. Press @kbd{A z} to list
-zombie groups, and then subscribe to the groups you want with @kbd{u}.
-This is all documented quite nicely in the user's manual.
+How to tell Gnus not to generate a sender header?
+@subsubheading Answer
-@item
-Q4.5 Not scoring mail groups
+Since 5.10 Gnus doesn't generate a sender header by
+default. For older Gnus' try this in @file{~/.gnus.el}:
+
+@example
+(eval-after-load "message"
+ '(add-to-list 'message-syntax-checks '(sender . disabled)))
+@end example
+@noindent
-How do you @emph{totally} turn off scoring in mail groups?
+@node FAQ 5-11
+@subsubheading Question 5.11
-Use an nnbabyl:all.SCORE (or nnmh, or nnml, or whatever) file containing:
+I want Gnus to locally store copies of my send mail and
+news, how to do it?
+
+@subsubheading Answer
+
+You must set the variable gnus-message-archive-group to do
+this. You can set it to a string giving the name of the
+group where the copies shall go or like in the example
+below use a function which is evaluated and which returns
+the group to use.
@example
-((adapt ignore)
- (local (gnus-use-scoring nil))
- (exclude-files "all.SCORE"))
+(setq gnus-message-archive-group
+ '((if (message-news-p)
+ "nnml:Send-News"
+ "nnml:Send-Mail")))
@end example
+@noindent
-@end itemize
+@node FAQ 5-12
+@subsubheading Question 5.12
+
+I want Gnus to kill the buffer after successful sending instead of keeping
+it alive as "Sent mail to...", how to do it?
+
+@subsubheading Answer
+
+Add this to your ~/.gnus:
+
+@example
+(setq message-kill-buffer-on-exit t)
+@end example
+@noindent
+
+@node FAQ 5-13
+@subsubheading Question 5.13
+
+People tell me my Message-IDs are not correct, why
+aren't they and how to fix it?
+
+@subsubheading Answer
+
+The message-ID is a unique identifier for messages you
+send. To make it unique, Gnus need to know which machine
+name to put after the "@@". If the name of the machine
+where Gnus is running isn't suitable (it probably isn't
+at most private machines) you can tell Gnus what to use
+by saying:
+
+@example
+(setq message-user-fqdn "yourmachine.yourdomain.tld")
+@end example
+@noindent
+
+in @file{~/.gnus.el}. If you use Gnus 5.9 or earlier, you can use this
+instead (works for newer versions as well):
+
+@example
+(eval-after-load "message"
+ '(let ((fqdn "yourmachine.yourdomain.tld"));; <-- Edit this!
+ (if (boundp 'message-user-fqdn)
+ (setq message-user-fqdn fqdn)
+ (gnus-message 1 "Redefining `message-make-fqdn'.")
+ (defun message-make-fqdn ()
+ "Return user’s fully qualified domain name."
+ fqdn))))
+@end example
+@noindent
+
+If you have no idea what to insert for
+"yourmachine.yourdomain.tld", you've got several
+choices. You can either ask your provider if he allows
+you to use something like
+yourUserName.userfqdn.provider.net, or you can use
+somethingUnique.yourdomain.tld if you own the domain
+yourdomain.tld, or you can register at a service which
+gives private users a FQDN for free.
+
+Finally you can tell Gnus not to generate a Message-ID
+for News at all (and letting the server do the job) by saying
+
+@example
+(setq message-required-news-headers
+ (remove' Message-ID message-required-news-headers))
+@end example
+@noindent
+
+you can also tell Gnus not to generate Message-IDs for mail by saying
+
+@example
+(setq message-required-mail-headers
+ (remove' Message-ID message-required-mail-headers))
+@end example
+@noindent
+
+, however some mail servers don't generate proper
+Message-IDs, too, so test if your Mail Server behaves
+correctly by sending yourself a Mail and looking at the Message-ID.
+
+@node FAQ 6 - Old messages
+@subsection Old messages
+
+@menu
+* FAQ 6-1:: How to import my old mail into Gnus?
+* FAQ 6-2:: How to archive interesting messages?
+* FAQ 6-3:: How to search for a specific message?
+* FAQ 6-4:: How to get rid of old unwanted mail?
+* FAQ 6-5:: I want that all read messages are expired (at least in
+ some groups). How to do it?
+* FAQ 6-6:: I don't want expiration to delete my mails but to move
+ them to another group.
+@end menu
+
+@node FAQ 6-1
+@subsubheading Question 6.1
+
+How to import my old mail into Gnus?
+
+@subsubheading Answer
+
+The easiest way is to tell your old mail program to
+export the messages in mbox format. Most Unix mailers
+are able to do this, if you come from the MS Windows
+world, you may find tools at
+@uref{http://mbx2mbox.sourceforge.net/}.
+
+Now you've got to import this mbox file into Gnus. To do
+this, create a nndoc group based on the mbox file by
+saying @samp{G f /path/file.mbox RET} in
+Group buffer. You now have read-only access to your
+mail. If you want to import the messages to your normal
+Gnus mail groups hierarchy, enter the nndoc group you've
+just created by saying @samp{C-u RET}
+(thus making sure all messages are retrieved), mark all
+messages by saying @samp{M P b} and
+either copy them to the desired group by saying
+@samp{B c name.of.group RET} or send them
+through nnmail-split-methods (respool them) by saying
+@samp{B r}.
+
+@node FAQ 6-2
+@subsubheading Question 6.2
+
+How to archive interesting messages?
+
+@subsubheading Answer
+
+If you stumble across an interesting message, say in
+gnu.emacs.gnus and want to archive it there are several
+solutions. The first and easiest is to save it to a file
+by saying @samp{O f}. However, wouldn't
+it be much more convenient to have more direct access to
+the archived message from Gnus? If you say yes, put this
+snippet by Frank Haun <pille3003@@fhaun.de> in
+@file{~/.gnus.el}:
+
+@example
+(defun my-archive-article (&optional n)
+ "Copies one or more article(s) to a corresponding ‘nnml:’ group, e.g.,
+‘gnus.ding’ goes to ‘nnml:1.gnus.ding’. And ‘nnml:List-gnus.ding’ goes
+to ‘nnml:1.List-gnus-ding’.
+
+Use process marks or mark a region in the summary buffer to archive
+more then one article."
+ (interactive "P")
+ (let ((archive-name
+ (format
+ "nnml:1.%s"
+ (if (featurep 'xemacs)
+ (replace-in-string gnus-newsgroup-name "^.*:" "")
+ (replace-regexp-in-string "^.*:" "" gnus-newsgroup-name)))))
+ (gnus-summary-copy-article n archive-name)))
+@end example
+@noindent
+
+You can now say @samp{M-x
+my-archive-article} in summary buffer to
+archive the article under the cursor in a nnml
+group. (Change nnml to your preferred back end)
+
+Of course you can also make sure the cache is enabled by saying
+
+@example
+(setq gnus-use-cache t)
+@end example
+@noindent
+
+then you only have to set either the tick or the dormant
+mark for articles you want to keep, setting the read
+mark will remove them from cache.
+
+@node FAQ 6-3
+@subsubheading Question 6.3
+
+How to search for a specific message?
+
+@subsubheading Answer
+
+There are several ways for this, too. For a posting from
+a Usenet group the easiest solution is probably to ask
+@uref{http://groups.google.com, groups.google.com},
+if you found the posting there, tell Google to display
+the raw message, look for the message-id, and say
+@samp{M-^ the@@message.id RET} in a
+summary buffer.
+Since Gnus 5.10 there's also a Gnus interface for
+groups.google.com which you can call with
+@samp{G W}) in group buffer.
+
+Another idea which works for both mail and news groups
+is to enter the group where the message you are
+searching is and use the standard Emacs search
+@samp{C-s}, it's smart enough to look at
+articles in collapsed threads, too. If you want to
+search bodies, too try @samp{M-s}
+instead. Further on there are the
+gnus-summary-limit-to-foo functions, which can help you,
+too.
+
+Of course you can also use grep to search through your
+local mail, but this is both slow for big archives and
+inconvenient since you are not displaying the found mail
+in Gnus. Here nnir comes into action. Nnir is a front end
+to search engines like swish-e or swish++ and
+others. You index your mail with one of those search
+engines and with the help of nnir you can search through
+the indexed mail and generate a temporary group with all
+messages which met your search criteria. If this sounds
+cool to you, get nnir.el from
+@c FIXME Isn't this file in Gnus?
+@ignore
+@c Dead link 2013/7.
+@uref{ftp://ls6-ftp.cs.uni-dortmund.de/pub/src/emacs/}
+or
+@end ignore
+@uref{ftp://ftp.is.informatik.uni-duisburg.de/pub/src/emacs/}.
+Instructions on how to use it are at the top of the file.
+
+@node FAQ 6-4
+@subsubheading Question 6.4
+
+How to get rid of old unwanted mail?
+
+@subsubheading Answer
+
+You can of course just mark the mail you don't need
+anymore by saying @samp{#} with point
+over the mail and then say @samp{B DEL}
+to get rid of them forever. You could also instead of
+actually deleting them, send them to a junk-group by
+saying @samp{B m nnml:trash-bin} which
+you clear from time to time, but both are not the intended
+way in Gnus.
+
+In Gnus, we let mail expire like news expires on a news
+server. That means you tell Gnus the message is
+expirable (you tell Gnus "I don't need this mail
+anymore") by saying @samp{E} with point
+over the mail in summary buffer. Now when you leave the
+group, Gnus looks at all messages which you marked as
+expirable before and if they are old enough (default is
+older than a week) they are deleted.
+
+@node FAQ 6-5
+@subsubheading Question 6.5
+
+I want that all read messages are expired (at least in
+some groups). How to do it?
+
+@subsubheading Answer
+
+If you want all read messages to be expired (e.g., in
+mailing lists where there's an online archive), you've
+got two choices: auto-expire and
+total-expire. Auto-expire means, that every article
+which has no marks set and is selected for reading is
+marked as expirable, Gnus hits @samp{E}
+for you every time you read a message. Total-expire
+follows a slightly different approach, here all article
+where the read mark is set are expirable.
+
+To activate auto-expire, include auto-expire in the
+Group parameters for the group. (Hit @samp{G
+c} in summary buffer with point over the
+group to change group parameters). For total-expire add
+total-expire to the group-parameters.
+
+Which method you choose is merely a matter of taste:
+Auto-expire is faster, but it doesn't play together with
+Adaptive Scoring, so if you want to use this feature,
+you should use total-expire.
+
+If you want a message to be excluded from expiration in
+a group where total or auto expire is active, set either
+tick (hit @samp{u}) or dormant mark (hit
+@samp{u}), when you use auto-expire, you
+can also set the read mark (hit
+@samp{d}).
+
+@node FAQ 6-6
+@subsubheading Question 6.6
+
+I don't want expiration to delete my mails but to move them
+to another group.
+
+@subsubheading Answer
+
+Say something like this in @file{~/.gnus.el}:
+
+@example
+(setq nnmail-expiry-target "nnml:expired")
+@end example
+@noindent
+
+(If you want to change the value of nnmail-expiry-target
+on a per group basis see the question "How can I disable
+threading in some (e.g., mail-) groups, or set other
+variables specific for some groups?")
+
+@node FAQ 7 - Gnus in a dial-up environment
+@subsection Gnus in a dial-up environment
+
+@menu
+* FAQ 7-1:: I don't have a permanent connection to the net, how can I
+ minimize the time I've got to be connected?
+* FAQ 7-2:: So what was this thing about the Agent?
+* FAQ 7-3:: I want to store article bodies on disk, too. How to do
+ it?
+* FAQ 7-4:: How to tell Gnus not to try to send mails / postings
+ while I'm offline?
+@end menu
+
+@node FAQ 7-1
+@subsubheading Question 7.1
+
+I don't have a permanent connection to the net, how can
+I minimize the time I've got to be connected?
+
+@subsubheading Answer
+
+You've got basically two options: Either you use the
+Gnus Agent (see below) for this, or you can install
+programs which fetch your news and mail to your local
+disk and Gnus reads the stuff from your local
+machine.
+
+If you want to follow the second approach, you need a
+program which fetches news and offers them to Gnus, a
+program which does the same for mail and a program which
+receives the mail you write from Gnus and sends them
+when you're online.
+
+Let's talk about Unix systems first: For the news part,
+the easiest solution is a small nntp server like
+@uref{http://www.leafnode.org/, Leafnode} or
+@uref{http://infa.abo.fi/~patrik/sn/, sn},
+of course you can also install a full featured news
+server like
+@uref{http://www.isc.org/software/inn/, inn}.
+Then you want to fetch your Mail, popular choices
+are @uref{http://www.catb.org/~esr/fetchmail/, fetchmail}
+and @uref{http://pyropus.ca/software/getmail/, getmail}.
+You should tell those to write the mail to your disk and
+Gnus to read it from there. Last but not least the mail
+sending part: This can be done with every MTA like
+@uref{http://www.sendmail.org/, sendmail},
+@uref{http://www.qmail.org/, postfix},
+@uref{http://www.exim.org/, exim} or
+@uref{http://www.qmail.org/, qmail}.
+
+On windows boxes I'd vote for
+@uref{http://www.tglsoft.de/, Hamster},
+it's a small freeware, open-source program which fetches
+your mail and news from remote servers and offers them
+to Gnus (or any other mail and/or news reader) via nntp
+respectively POP3 or IMAP@. It also includes a smtp
+server for receiving mails from Gnus.
+
+@node FAQ 7-2
+@subsubheading Question 7.2
+
+So what was this thing about the Agent?
+
+@subsubheading Answer
+
+The Gnus agent is part of Gnus, it allows you to fetch
+mail and news and store them on disk for reading them
+later when you're offline. It kind of mimics offline
+newsreaders like Forte Agent. If you want to use
+the Agent place the following in @file{~/.gnus.el} if you are
+still using 5.8.8 or 5.9 (it's the default since 5.10):
+
+@example
+(setq gnus-agent t)
+@end example
+@noindent
+
+Now you've got to select the servers whose groups can be
+stored locally. To do this, open the server buffer
+(that is press @samp{^} while in the
+group buffer). Now select a server by moving point to
+the line naming that server. Finally, agentize the
+server by typing @samp{J a}. If you
+make a mistake, or change your mind, you can undo this
+action by typing @samp{J r}. When
+you're done, type 'q' to return to the group buffer.
+Now the next time you enter a group on a agentized
+server, the headers will be stored on disk and read from
+there the next time you enter the group.
+
+@node FAQ 7-3
+@subsubheading Question 7.3
+
+I want to store article bodies on disk, too. How to do it?
+
+@subsubheading Answer
+
+You can tell the agent to automatically fetch the bodies
+of articles which fulfill certain predicates, this is
+done in a special buffer which can be reached by
+saying @samp{J c} in group
+buffer. Please refer to the documentation for
+information which predicates are possible and how
+exactly to do it.
+
+Further on you can tell the agent manually which
+articles to store on disk. There are two ways to do
+this: Number one: In the summary buffer, process mark a
+set of articles that shall be stored in the agent by
+saying @samp{#} with point over the
+article and then type @samp{J s}. The
+other possibility is to set, again in the summary
+buffer, downloadable (%) marks for the articles you
+want by typing @samp{@@} with point over
+the article and then typing @samp{J u}.
+What's the difference? Well, process marks are erased as
+soon as you exit the summary buffer while downloadable
+marks are permanent. You can actually set downloadable
+marks in several groups then use fetch session ('J s' in
+the GROUP buffer) to fetch all of those articles. The
+only downside is that fetch session also fetches all of
+the headers for every selected group on an agentized
+server. Depending on the volume of headers, the initial
+fetch session could take hours.
+
+@node FAQ 7-4
+@subsubheading Question 7.4
+
+How to tell Gnus not to try to send mails / postings
+while I'm offline?
+
+@subsubheading Answer
+
+All you've got to do is to tell Gnus when you are online
+(plugged) and when you are offline (unplugged), the rest
+works automatically. You can toggle plugged/unplugged
+state by saying @samp{J j} in group
+buffer. To start Gnus unplugged say @samp{M-x
+gnus-unplugged} instead of
+@samp{M-x gnus}. Note that for this to
+work, the agent must be active.
+
+@node FAQ 8 - Getting help
+@subsection Getting help
+
+@menu
+* FAQ 8-1:: How to find information and help inside Emacs?
+* FAQ 8-2:: I can't find anything in the Gnus manual about X (e.g.,
+ attachments, PGP, MIME...), is it not documented?
+* FAQ 8-3:: Which websites should I know?
+* FAQ 8-4:: Which mailing lists and newsgroups are there?
+* FAQ 8-5:: Where to report bugs?
+* FAQ 8-6:: I need real-time help, where to find it?
+@end menu
+
+@node FAQ 8-1
+@subsubheading Question 8.1
+
+How to find information and help inside Emacs?
+
+@subsubheading Answer
+
+The first stop should be the Gnus manual (Say
+@samp{C-h i d m Gnus RET} to start the
+Gnus manual, then walk through the menus or do a
+full-text search with @samp{s}). Then
+there are the general Emacs help commands starting with
+C-h, type @samp{C-h ? ?} to get a list
+of all available help commands and their meaning. Finally
+@samp{M-x apropos-command} lets you
+search through all available functions and @samp{M-x
+apropos} searches the bound variables.
+
+@node FAQ 8-2
+@subsubheading Question 8.2
+
+I can't find anything in the Gnus manual about X
+(e.g., attachments, PGP, MIME...), is it not documented?
+
+@subsubheading Answer
+
+There's not only the Gnus manual but also the manuals for message,
+emacs-mime, sieve, EasyPG Assistant, and pgg. Those packages are
+distributed with Gnus and used by Gnus but aren't really part of core
+Gnus, so they are documented in different info files, you should have
+a look in those manuals, too.
+
+@node FAQ 8-3
+@subsubheading Question 8.3
+
+Which websites should I know?
+
+@subsubheading Answer
+
+The most important one is the
+@uref{http://www.gnus.org, official Gnus website}.
+
+Tell me about other sites which are interesting.
+
+@node FAQ 8-4
+@subsubheading Question 8.4
+
+Which mailing lists and newsgroups are there?
+
+@subsubheading Answer
+
+There's the newsgroup gnu.emacs.gnus (also available as
+@uref{http://dir.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.gnus.user,
+gmane.emacs.gnus.user}) which deals with general Gnus
+questions. If you have questions about development versions of
+Gnus, you should better ask on the ding mailing list, see below.
+
+If you want to stay in the big8,
+news.software.readers is also read by some Gnus
+users (but chances for qualified help are much better in
+the above groups). If you speak German, there's
+de.comm.software.gnus.
+
+The ding mailing list (ding@@gnus.org) deals with development of
+Gnus. You can read the ding list via NNTP, too under the name
+@uref{http://dir.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.gnus.general,
+gmane.emacs.gnus.general} from news.gmane.org.
+
+@node FAQ 8-5
+@subsubheading Question 8.5
+
+Where to report bugs?
+
+@subsubheading Answer
+
+Say @samp{M-x gnus-bug}, this will start
+a message to the
+@email{bugs@@gnus.org, gnus bug mailing list}
+including information about your environment which make
+it easier to help you.
+
+@node FAQ 8-6
+@subsubheading Question 8.6
+
+I need real-time help, where to find it?
+
+@subsubheading Answer
+
+Point your IRC client to irc.freenode.net, channel #gnus.
+
+@node FAQ 9 - Tuning Gnus
+@subsection Tuning Gnus
+
+@menu
+* FAQ 9-1:: Starting Gnus is really slow, how to speed it up?
+* FAQ 9-2:: How to speed up the process of entering a group?
+* FAQ 9-3:: Sending mail becomes slower and slower, what's up?
+@end menu
+
+@node FAQ 9-1
+@subsubheading Question 9.1
+
+Starting Gnus is really slow, how to speed it up?
+
+@subsubheading Answer
+
+The reason for this could be the way Gnus reads its
+active file, see the node "The Active File" in the Gnus
+manual for things you might try to speed the process up.
+An other idea would be to byte compile your @file{~/.gnus.el} (say
+@samp{M-x byte-compile-file RET ~/.gnus.el
+RET} to do it). Finally, if you have require
+statements in your .gnus, you could replace them with
+eval-after-load, which loads the stuff not at startup
+time, but when it's needed. Say you've got this in your
+@file{~/.gnus.el}:
+
+@example
+(require 'message)
+(add-to-list 'message-syntax-checks '(sender . disabled))
+@end example
+@noindent
+
+then as soon as you start Gnus, message.el is loaded. If
+you replace it with
+
+@example
+(eval-after-load "message"
+ '(add-to-list 'message-syntax-checks '(sender . disabled)))
+@end example
+@noindent
+
+it's loaded when it's needed.
+
+@node FAQ 9-2
+@subsubheading Question 9.2
+
+How to speed up the process of entering a group?
+
+@subsubheading Answer
+
+A speed killer is setting the variable
+gnus-fetch-old-headers to anything different from @code{nil},
+so don't do this if speed is an issue. To speed up
+building of summary say
+
+@example
+(gnus-compile)
+@end example
+@noindent
+
+at the bottom of your @file{~/.gnus.el}, this will make gnus
+byte-compile things like
+gnus-summary-line-format.
+then you could increase the value of gc-cons-threshold
+by saying something like
+
+@example
+(setq gc-cons-threshold 3500000)
+@end example
+@noindent
+
+in ~/.emacs. If you don't care about width of CJK
+characters or use Gnus 5.10 or younger together with a
+recent GNU Emacs, you should say
+
+@example
+(setq gnus-use-correct-string-widths nil)
+@end example
+@noindent
+
+in @file{~/.gnus.el} (thanks to Jesper harder for the last
+two suggestions). Finally if you are still using 5.8.8
+or 5.9 and experience speed problems with summary
+buffer generation, you definitely should update to
+5.10 since there quite some work on improving it has
+been done.
+
+@node FAQ 9-3
+@subsubheading Question 9.3
+
+Sending mail becomes slower and slower, what's up?
+
+@subsubheading Answer
+
+The reason could be that you told Gnus to archive the
+messages you wrote by setting
+gnus-message-archive-group. Try to use a nnml group
+instead of an archive group, this should bring you back
+to normal speed.
+
+@node FAQ - Glossary
+@subsection Glossary
+
+@table @dfn
+
+@item ~/.gnus.el
+When the term @file{~/.gnus.el} is used it just means your Gnus
+configuration file. You might as well call it @file{~/.gnus} or
+specify another name.
+
+@item Back End
+In Gnus terminology a back end is a virtual server, a layer
+between core Gnus and the real NNTP-, POP3-, IMAP- or
+whatever-server which offers Gnus a standardized interface
+to functions like "get message", "get Headers" etc.
+
+@item Emacs
+When the term Emacs is used in this FAQ, it means either GNU
+Emacs or XEmacs.
+
+@item Message
+In this FAQ message means a either a mail or a posting to a
+Usenet Newsgroup or to some other fancy back end, no matter
+of which kind it is.
+
+@item MUA
+MUA is an acronym for Mail User Agent, it's the program you
+use to read and write e-mails.
+@item NUA
+NUA is an acronym for News User Agent, it's the program you
+use to read and write Usenet news.
+@end table
projects / gnus / blobdiff