gnus: Formatting Basics
9.4.1 Formatting Basics
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Each ‘%’ element will be replaced by some string or other when the
buffer in question is generated. ‘%5y’ means “insert the ‘y’ spec, and
pad with spaces to get a 5-character field”.
As with normal C and Emacs Lisp formatting strings, the numerical
modifier between the ‘%’ and the formatting type character will “pad”
the output so that it is always at least that long. ‘%5y’ will make the
field always (at least) five characters wide by padding with spaces to
the left. If you say ‘%-5y’, it will pad to the right instead.
You may also wish to limit the length of the field to protect against
particularly wide values. For that you can say ‘%4,6y’, which means
that the field will never be more than 6 characters wide and never less
than 4 characters wide.
Also Gnus supports some extended format specifications, such as
‘%&user-date;’.
Info Catalog
gnus: Formatting Variables
gnus: Mode Line Formatting