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From: Steven L Baur <steve@miranova.com>
Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.gnus,gnu.emacs.help,comp.emacs.xemacs,comp.emacs,news.software.readers,comp.answers,news.answers
Subject: Gnus (Emacs Newsreader) FAQ
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Date: 19 Jun 1996 20:39:26 -0700
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Summary: Monthly posting of Gnus 5.x (formerly (ding) Gnus) FAQ
Keywords: faqs digest emacs gnus
Xref: news1.ucsd.edu gnu.emacs.gnus:7238 gnu.emacs.help:31794 comp.emacs.xemacs:9157 comp.emacs:18023 news.software.readers:26706 comp.answers:15441 news.answers:61505
Archive-name: gnus-faq
Posting-frequency: monthly (on or about the 19th)
Last-modified: June 19 20:24:00 PST 1996
URL: http://www.miranova.com/~steve/gnus-faq.html
[There's lots of good new stuff in Gnus 5.2+XEmacs scheduled to be
released on the 23rd. Expect a new look to this FAQ next month. -sb]
Gnus 5.x Frequently Asked Questions
------------------------------
Subject: Introduction
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 over 5 years
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, then you definitely want to investigate Gnus for
reading mail.
If you have a Web browser, the official hypertext version is at:
<URL:http://www.miranova.com/~steve/gnus-faq.html>. 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 my
(Steve Baur's) fault, sorry.
What's changed since last time?
Added questions about News and Mail directories, and color and
backgrounds. Added a question about organization of mail directories.
This file was last modified on June 19, 1996.
------------------------------
Subject: Table Of Contents
1. Installation
+ Q1.1 What is the latest version?
+ Q1.2 Where do I get Gnus?
+ Q1.3 What Emacs versions are required?
+ Q1.4 Where is timezone.el?
+ Q1.5 I get weird messages when running under XEmacs 19.13.
+ Q1.6 Unsubscribing from the mailing list
+ Q1.7 How do I run Gnus on both Emacs and XEmacs?
+ Q1.8 What resources are available?
+ Q1.9 Gnus hangs on connecting to NNTP server.
+ Q1.10 Mailcrypt 3.4 doesn't work
+ Q1.11 What other packages can I use with Gnus?
+ Q1.12 How do I make Gnus start faster?
+ Q1.13 I've upgraded to 5.2 and my hooks no longer work [New!]
2. Customizing Gnus
+ Q2.1 Custom doesn't work under XEmacs
+ Q2.2 How do I quote messages?
+ Q2.4 Any suggestions for all.SCORE?
+ Q2.5 How do I use yank-through when replying?
+ Q2.6 I don't like the default WWW browser
+ Q2.8 Moving between groups is slow.
+ Q2.9 Increasing score of favorite authors.
+ Q2.10 Multiple .signatures.
+ Q2.11 Gnus and compression hooks.
+ Q2.12 Using Gnus and other packages.
+ Q2.13 Changing Mail and News directories. [New!]
+ Q2.14 Gnus colors have problems with my background color.
[New!]
3. Reading News
+ Q3.1 Kill file to Score file conversion
+ Q3.2 Killing groups is slow
+ Q3.3 Using an authenticated NNTP server
+ Q3.4 Not reading the first article
+ Q3.5 Why aren't BBDB known posters marked in the summary
buffer?
+ Q3.6 Cross posted articles aren't marked read.
+ Q3.7 How do I read already read messages?
+ Q3.8 How can nntp be evil?
4. Reading Mail
+ Q4.1 What does buffer changed on disk mean?
+ Q4.2 How do you make articles un-expirable?
+ Q4.3 How do I delete bogus nnml: groups?
+ Q4.4 What happened to my new mail groups?
+ Q4.5 Not scoring mail groups
+ Q4.6 How to keep groups always visible?
+ Q4.7 Group renumbering [New!]
_________________________________________________________________
1. Installation
------------------------------
Subject: Q1.1 What is the latest version of Gnus?
There are two different versions of Gnus available now. The latest
(and greatest) general version is 5.2.22. While in alpha testing it
was called September Gnus.
Gnus 5.0.13 is included in the official distribution of Emacs
19.30/19.31 and has a version number of 5.1. Do not attempt to use
this release of Gnus with other Emacsen, as the necessary required
support has been stripped out of it.
Gnus 5 will be included standard with XEmacs 19.14 (scheduled to be
released on June 23). It appears that Gnus 5.2 will be the Gnus
bundled with it.
Plans for the next version are already underway. It has been codenamed
Red Gnus, and will (probably) have a version number of 5.4 & 5.5 when
released.
------------------------------
Subject: Q1.2 Where do I get Gnus?
The latest version is available via anonymous FTP or <URL:
ftp://ftp.ifi.uio.no/pub/emacs/gnus/gnus.tar.gz>. You can also fetch
it from the North American mirrors:
<URL:ftp://ftp.pilgrim.umass.edu/pub/misc/ding/>,
<URL:http://www.pilgrim.umass.edu/pub/misc/ding/>,
<URL:gopher://gopher.pilgrim.umass.edu/11/pub/misc/ding/>, or
<URL:ftp://aphrodite.nectar.cs.cmu.edu/pub/ding-gnus/> or
<URL:ftp://ftp.statsci.com/pub/users/scott/ding-gnus/>. The last site
should only be used as a last resort.
------------------------------
Subject: Q1.3 Which version of Emacs do I need?
Prior to Gnus 5.2, at least GNU Emacs 19.28, or XEmacs 19.12 was
recommended. GNU Emacs 19.25 has been reported to work under certain
circumstances, but it doesn't officially work on it. 19.27 has also
been reported to work.
Because of Gnus 5.2's use of Common Lisp features present only in
late-model emacsen, it will only work with Emacs 19.30 or later, and
XEmacs 19.13 or later.
Gnus has been reported to work under VMS, OS/2, and Microsoft Windows
NT 3.51, as well as Unix.
OS/2 requires
(setq gnus-score-file-suffix "score")
(setq gnus-adaptive-file-suffix "adapt")
in the user's .gnus.
Ed Mccreary <forge@neosoft.com> writes:
[For Microsoft Windows NT] Be sure to grab the nttcp.exe file needed
to perform the winsock communication and configure emacs to use it
instead of the default tcp. You will also need to put
(setq tcp-program-name "nttcp")
in your _emacs file. Jack Vinson <jvinson@cheux.ecs.umass.edu> writes:
Actually, any TCP program will work. I have tcp.exe from the people
who are doing win32 ports of Gnu software. I found it at
<URL:ftp://microlib.cc.utexas.edu/microlib/nt/gnu/gnubin.tar.Z>. Be
warned that this is a large (7mb) archive of all sorts of stuff,
including (for some reason) all the e-lisp files you will ever want. I
just downloaded it and extracted the functions I wanted.
------------------------------
Subject: Q1.4 Where is timezone.el?
Upgrade to XEmacs 19.13. In earlier versions of XEmacs this file was
placed with Gnus 4.1.3, but that has been corrected.
------------------------------
Subject: Q1.5 When I run Gnus on XEmacs 19.13 I get weird error messages.
You're running an old version of Gnus. Upgrade to at least version
5.0.4.
------------------------------
Subject: Q1.6 How do I unsubscribe from the Mailing List?
Send an e-mail message to <URL: mailto:ding-request@ifi.uio.no> with
the magic word unsubscribe somewhere in it, and you will be removed.
If you are reading the digest version of the list, send an e-mail
message to <URL:mailto:ding-rn-digests-request@bluesky.net> with
unsubscribe as the subject and you will be removed.
------------------------------
Subject: Q1.7 How do I run Gnus on both Emacs and XEmacs?
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.
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:
Compiled with: | Can be used with:
----------------+--------------------------------------
19.28 | 19.28 19.29
19.29 | 19.29 XEmacs
XEmacs | 19.29 XEmacs
If you have Gnu Emacs 19.28 or earlier, or XEmacs 19.12 or earlier,
get a recent version of auc-menu.el from
<URL: 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.
------------------------------
Subject: 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
ding-request@ifi.uio.no with the magic word subscribe somewhere in it.
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.
Jason L Tibbitts III <tibbs@hpc.uh.edu> writes:
Archives of the Ding mailing list are easily accessible by using
gnus-group-make-archive-group, by default bound to G a in the Group
buffer. This presents you with a group containing the 500 most recent
articles from the mailing list. When called with a prefix argument, as
in C-u G a, the entire (rather huge) archive is fetched. The archives
are made available via FTP by Jason Tibbitts (tibbs@uh.edu); complain
to him about problems with access. The magic of accessing the archives
is provided by Gnus.
A digestified version of the list is available by sending a mail
message to <URL:mailto:ding-rn-digests-request@bluesky.net> with the
word subscribe in the Subject field. Digests are sent every few days.
Archives are available via SmartList commands, just use the above
address with a Subject of help to get details.
This mailing list is now mirrored on the World Wide Web at
<URL: http://www.miranova.com/gnus-list/>. The archives date back to
mid August, are separated by month for access speed, and were
assembled with the Hypermail 1.02 utility.
Gnus has a home World Wide Web page at
<URL: http://www.ifi.uio.no/~larsi/ding.html>. A Gnus tips page exists
at
<URL: http://www.fuentez.com/public-info/ding/ding.html>.
Ketil Z Malde <ketil@ii.uib.no> has a page on mail filtering using
Gnus:
<URL:http://www.ii.uib.no/~ketil/mailsorting.html>.
There is a Gnus info page at
<URL:http://www.miranova.com/~steve/gnus-local.html>.
Gnus has a write up in the X Windows Applications FAQ at:
<URL: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
<URL: http://www.ifi.uio.no/~larsi/ding-manual/gnus_toc.html>
There are four mirrors in the United States:
<URL: http://www.c2.org/~mrblond/gnus/>
<URL: http://www.miranova.com/gnus-man/>
<URL: http://www.pilgrim.umass.edu/pub/misc/ding/manual/gnus_toc.html>
<URL: http://www.rtd.com/~woo/gnus/>
PostScript copies of the Gnus Reference card are available from
<URL: ftp://ftp.cs.ualberta.ca/pub/oolog/gnus/>. They are mirrored at
<URL: ftp://ftp.pilgrim.umass.edu/pub/misc/ding/refcard/>. In the
United States. And
<URL: http://www.thphy.uni-duesseldorf.de/~gnu/doc/gnusref/>
in Germany.
An online version of the Gnus FAQ is available at
<URL: http://www.miranova.com/~steve/gnus-faq.html>. Off-line formats
are also available:
ASCII: <URL: ftp://ftp.miranova.com/pub/gnus/gnus-faq>.
PostScript: <URL: ftp://ftp.miranova.com/pub/gnus/gnus-faq.ps>
------------------------------
Subject: Q1.9 Gnus hangs on connecting to NNTP server
I am running XEmacs on SunOS and Gnus prints a message about
Connecting to NNTP server and then just hangs.
Ben Wing <wing@netcom.com> writes :
I wonder if you're hitting the infamous 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.
------------------------------
Subject: Q1.10 Mailcrypt 3.4 doesn't work
Is Gnus in your load-path?
Patrick LoPresti <patl@lcs.mit.edu > writes :
Note that this is not a bug in either Gnus or Mailcrypt; you cannot
expect any file to byte-compile correctly if required packages are not
in your load path. (Or, worse, if a completely different version of
the package is in the load path at compile-time than at run-time.)
Moreover, this need is documented in the Mailcrypt INSTALL file, so
the problem is really just a failure to follow directions...
------------------------------
Subject: Q1.11 What other packages work with Gnus?
Mailcrypt
Mailcrypt is an Emacs interface to PGP, written by Patrick LoPresti
<patl@lcs.mit.edu> and Jin Choi <jin@atype.com>. It works, it installs
without hassle, and integrates very easily. Mailcrypt can be obtained
from
<URL: http://cag-www.lcs.mit.edu/mailcrypt/>.
Tools for Mime
Tools for Mime is an Emacs MUA interface to MIME written by MORIOKA
Tomohiko <morioka@jaist.ac.jp>, and KOBAYASHI Shuhei
<shuhei-k@jaist.ac.jp>. It can be obtained from
<URL: ftp://ftp.jaist.ac.jp/pub/GNU/elisp/mime/>. It has mirrors at:
<URL: ftp://ftp.nis.co.jp/pub/gnu/emacs-lisp/tm/> (Japan), and
<URL: ftp://ftp.nisiq.net/pub/gnu/emacs-lisp/tm/> (USA).
Be sure to apply the supplied patch. It works with Gnus through
version 5.0.15 and September Gnus. In order for all dependencies to
work correctly the load sequence is as follows:
(load "tm-setup")
(load "gnus")
(load "mime-compose")
In September Gnus, gnus-setup.el automates this task, and there is no
special patch to apply.
Caveat Emptor: Loading the package disables citation highlighting by
default. To get the old behavior back, use the M-t command.
Group Lens
Group Lens is a collaborative filtering system that helps you work
together with other people to find the quality news articles out of
the huge volume of news articles generated every day. It was written
by Brad Miller <bmiller@cs.umn.edu> as his PhD thesis. It is now
distributed as a standard part of September Gnus. A copy for Gnus 5
can be obtained at:
<URL: http://www.cs.umn.edu/Research/GroupLens/>. GroupLens has its
own FAQ at <URL: http://www.cs.umn.edu/Research/GroupLens/glfaq.html>.
Insidious Big Brother Database
BBDB is a rolodex-like database program for GNU Emacs written by Jamie
Zawinski <jwz@netscape.com> of Netscape fame. BBDB can be found at
<URL:
ftp://archive.cis.ohio-state.edu:/pub/gnu/emacs/elisp-archive/packages
/bbdb-1.50.tar.Z>. You should also pick up gnus-bbdb from Brian
Edmonds:
<URL: http://www.cs.ubc.ca/spider/edmonds/usenet/gnus-bbdb.el>.
------------------------------
Subject: Q1.12 How do I make Gnus start faster?
Pranav Kumar Tiwari <pktiwari@eos.ncsu.edu> writes :
I posted the same query recently and I got an answer to it. I am going
to repeat the answer. What you need is a newer version of gnus,
version 5.0.4+. I am using 5.0.12 and it works fine with me with the
following settings:
(setq gnus-check-new-newsgroups nil
gnus-read-active-file 'some
gnus-nov-is-evil nil
gnus-select-method '(nntp gnus-nntp-server))