@c \input texinfo @c -*-texinfo-*-
@c Uncomment 1st line before texing this file alone.
@c %**start of header
-@c Copyright (C) 1995, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008,
-@c 2009, 2010 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
+@c Copyright (C) 1995, 2001-2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
@c
@setfilename gnus-faq.info
@settitle Frequently Asked Questions
@section Frequently Asked Questions
@menu
-* FAQ - Changes::
+* 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
@subheading Abstract
This is the new Gnus Frequently Asked Questions list.
-If you have a Web browser, the official hypertext version is at
-@uref{http://my.gnus.org/FAQ/},
-the Docbook source is available from
-@uref{http://sourceforge.net/projects/gnus/, http://sourceforge.net}.
-
-Please submit features and suggestions to the
-@email{faq-discuss@@my.gnus.org, FAQ discussion list}.
-The list is protected against junk mail with
-@uref{http://smarden.org/qconfirm/index.html, qconfirm}. As
-a subscriber, your submissions will automatically pass. You can
-also subscribe to the list by sending a blank email to
-@email{faq-discuss-subscribe@@my.gnus.org, faq-discuss-subscribe@@my.gnus.org}
-and @uref{http://mail1.kens.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-browse?command=monthbythread%26list=faq-discuss, browse
-the archive (BROKEN)}.
+
+Please submit features and suggestions to the
+@email{ding@@gnus.org, ding list}.
@node FAQ - Changes
@subheading Changes
job with this FAQ before him. We would like to do the same - thanks,
Justin!
-If you have a Web browser, the official hypertext version is at:
-@uref{http://my.gnus.org/FAQ/}.
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
The information contained here was compiled with the assistance
of the Gnus development mailing list, and any errors or
-misprints are the my.gnus.org team's fault, sorry.
+misprints are the Gnus team's fault, sorry.
@node FAQ 1 - Installation FAQ
@subsection Installation FAQ
21 is outdated).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
+or via anonymous FTP from
@uref{ftp://ftp.gnus.org/pub/gnus/gnus.tar.gz}.
@node FAQ 1-4
@subsubheading Answer
-Untar it via @samp{tar xvzf gnus.tar.gz} and do the common
+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}
@subsubheading Answer
This message means that the last time you used Gnus, it
-wasn't properly exited and therefor couldn't write its
-informations to disk (e.g. which messages you read), you
-are now asked if you want to restore those informations
+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
@subsection Getting Messages
@menu
-* FAQ 3-1:: I just installed Gnus, started it via @samp{M-x gnus}
+* 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.
@node FAQ 3-1
@subsubheading Question 3.1
-I just installed Gnus, started it via
-@samp{M-x gnus}
+I just installed Gnus, started it via
+@samp{M-x gnus}
but it only says "nntp (news) open error", what to do?
@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 }
+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.
+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
.
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
+say
@example
chmod 600 ~/.authinfo
@end example
Some providers allow restricted anonymous access and full
access only after authorization. To make Gnus send authinfo
-to those servers append
+to those servers append
@example
force yes
@end example
@noindent
-
+
to the line for those servers in ~/.authinfo.
@node FAQ 3-6
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 therefor quite fast. However you might prefer a one
+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 ~/.gnus.el:
@end example
@noindent
-Now we need to tell Gnus, where to get it's mail from. If
+Now we need to tell Gnus, where to get its mail from. If
it's a POP3 server, then you need something like this:
@example
@subsubheading Answer
-If you enter the group by saying
+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}
(setq gnus-fetch-old-headers 'some)
@end example
@noindent
-
+
in ~/.gnus.el to load enough old articles to prevent teared threads, replace 'some with t to load
-all articles (Warning: Both settings enlarge the amount of data which is
+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}
+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,
@subsubheading Answer
-Say @samp{t}
+Say @samp{t}
to show all headers, one more
-@samp{t}
+@samp{t}
hides them again.
@node FAQ 4-4
@subsubheading Answer
-Say
-@samp{C-u g}
+Say
+@samp{C-u g}
to show the raw message
-@samp{g}
+@samp{g}
returns to normal view.
@node FAQ 4-5
@example
(eval-after-load "mm-decode"
- '(progn
+ '(progn
(add-to-list 'mm-discouraged-alternatives "text/html")
(add-to-list 'mm-discouraged-alternatives "text/richtext")))
@end example
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. You can find detailed instructions on how to do it on
-@uref{http://my.gnus.org/node/view/224, my.gnus.org}
+faces.
@node FAQ 4-12
@subsubheading Question 4.12
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}
+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
@subsubheading Answer
You've got to play around with the variable
-gnus-summary-line-format. It's value is a string of
+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 it's sub-nodes. There
+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.
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
+send to all groups whose rules match. If you
don't want that (you probably don't want), say
@example
("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\\|adress@@two.invalid\\)")
+ ("Inbox" "^\\(CC:\\|To:\\).*\\(my\ name\\|address@@one.invalid\\|address@@two.invalid\\)")
("Spam" "")))
@end example
@noindent
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
+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/mimosa/personnel/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
+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
(setq ispell-program-name "aspell")
@end example
@noindent
-
+
in your Emacs configuration file.
If you want your outgoing messages to be spell-checked, say
(ispell-change-dictionary "english")))))
@end example
@noindent
-
+
in ~/.gnus.el. Change "^de\\." and "deutsch8" to something
that suits your needs.
node "Mail Aliases" in Message (not Gnus) manual for
details.
-However, what you really want is the Insidious Big Brother
+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 ~/.gnus.el, to activate bbdb for Gnus:
@example
(require 'bbdb)
-;;If you don't live in Northern America, you should disable the
+;;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:
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
+package from
@uref{ftp://ftp.cs.indiana.edu:/pub/faces/, this site}.
and create the actual X-face by saying
@end example
@noindent
-If you can't use compface, there's an online X-face converter at
+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 from
@uref{http://www.xs4all.nl/~walterln/winface/}.
@noindent
in ~/.gnus.el. If you use Gnus 5.9 or earlier, you can use this
-instead (works for newer versions as well):
+instead (works for newer versions as well):
@example
(eval-after-load "message"
in Gnus. Here comes nnir 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 trough
+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 sound
cool to you get nnir.el from
when you're online.
Let's talk about Unix systems first: For the news part,
-the easiest solution is a small nntp server like
+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/products/INN/, inn}.
+server like
+@uref{http://www.isc.org/products/INN/, inn}.
Then you want to fetch your Mail, popular choices
are @uref{http://www.catb.org/~esr/fetchmail/, fetchmail}
-and @uref{http://www.qcc.ca/~charlesc/software/getmail-3.0/, getmail}.
+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.exim.org/, exim} or
@uref{http://www.qmail.org/, qmail}.
-On windows boxes I'd vote for
-@uref{http://www.tglsoft.de/, Hamster},
+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
@subsubheading Answer
-The two most important ones are the
+The most important one is the
@uref{http://www.gnus.org, official Gnus website}.
-and it's sister site
-@uref{http://my.gnus.org, my.gnus.org (MGO)},
-hosting an archive of lisp snippets, howtos, a (not
-really finished) tutorial and this FAQ.
Tell me about other sites which are interesting.
@subsubheading Answer
There's the newsgroup gnu.emacs.gnus (also available as
-@uref{http://dir.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.gnus.user,
+@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.
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,
+@uref{http://dir.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.gnus.general,
gmane.emacs.gnus.general} from news.gmane.org.
@node FAQ 8-5
@subsubheading Answer
Say @samp{M-x gnus-bug}, this will start
-a message to the
+a message to the
@email{bugs@@gnus.org, gnus bug mailing list}
including information about your environment which make
it easier to help you.
@subsubheading Answer
-The reason for this could be the way Gnus reads it's
+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 ~/.gnus.el (say
at the bottom of your ~/.gnus.el, this will make gnus
byte-compile things like
-gnus-summary-line-format.
+gnus-summary-line-format.
then you could increase the value of gc-cons-threshold
by saying something like
(setq gnus-use-correct-string-widths nil)
@end example
@noindent
-
+
in ~/.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
projects / gnus / blobdiff