gnus: Group Parameters
2.10 Group Parameters
=====================
The group parameters store information local to a particular group.
Use the ‘G p’ or the ‘G c’ command to edit group parameters of a
group. (‘G p’ presents you with a Lisp-based interface, ‘G c’ presents
you with a Customize-like interface. The latter helps avoid silly Lisp
errors.) You might also be interested in reading about topic parameters
(
Topic Parameters). Additionally, you can set group parameters
via the ‘gnus-parameters’ variable, see below.
Here’s an example group parameter list:
((to-address . "ding@gnus.org")
(auto-expire . t))
We see that each element consists of a “dotted pair”—the thing before
the dot is the key, while the thing after the dot is the value. All the
parameters have this form _except_ local variable specs, which are not
dotted pairs, but proper lists.
Some parameters have correspondent customizable variables, each of
which is an alist of regexps and values.
The following group parameters can be used:
‘to-address’
Address used by when doing followups and new posts.
(to-address . "some@where.com")
This is primarily useful in mail groups that represent closed
mailing lists—mailing lists where it’s expected that everybody that
writes to the mailing list is subscribed to it. Since using this
parameter ensures that the mail only goes to the mailing list
itself, it means that members won’t receive two copies of your
followups.
Using ‘to-address’ will actually work whether the group is foreign
or not. Let’s say there’s a group on the server that is called
‘fa.4ad-l’. This is a real newsgroup, but the server has gotten
the articles from a mail-to-news gateway. Posting directly to this
group is therefore impossible—you have to send mail to the mailing
list address instead.
See also ‘gnus-parameter-to-address-alist’.
‘to-list’
Address used when doing ‘a’ in that group.
(to-list . "some@where.com")
It is totally ignored when doing a followup—except that if it is
present in a news group, you’ll get mail group semantics when doing
‘f’.
If you do an ‘a’ command in a mail group and you have neither a
‘to-list’ group parameter nor a ‘to-address’ group parameter, then
a ‘to-list’ group parameter will be added automatically upon
sending the message if ‘gnus-add-to-list’ is set to ‘t’.
If this variable is set, ‘gnus-mailing-list-mode’ is turned on when
entering summary buffer.
See also ‘gnus-parameter-to-list-alist’.
‘subscribed’
If this parameter is set to ‘t’, Gnus will consider the to-address
and to-list parameters for this group as addresses of mailing lists
you are subscribed to. Giving Gnus this information is (only) a
first step in getting it to generate correct Mail-Followup-To
headers for your posts to these lists. The second step is to put
the following in your ‘.gnus.el’
(setq message-subscribed-address-functions
'(gnus-find-subscribed-addresses))
Mailing Lists (message)Mailing Lists, for a complete
treatment of available MFT support.
‘visible’
If the group parameter list has the element ‘(visible . t)’, that
group will always be visible in the Group buffer, regardless of
whether it has any unread articles.
This parameter cannot be set via ‘gnus-parameters’. See
‘gnus-permanently-visible-groups’ as an alternative.
‘broken-reply-to’
Elements like ‘(broken-reply-to . t)’ signals that ‘Reply-To’
headers in this group are to be ignored, and for the header to be
hidden if ‘reply-to’ is part of ‘gnus-boring-article-headers’.
This can be useful if you’re reading a mailing list group where the
listserv has inserted ‘Reply-To’ headers that point back to the
listserv itself. That is broken behavior. So there!
‘to-group’
Elements like ‘(to-group . "some.group.name")’ means that all posts
in that group will be sent to ‘some.group.name’.
‘newsgroup’
If you have ‘(newsgroup . t)’ in the group parameter list, Gnus
will treat all responses as if they were responses to news
articles. This can be useful if you have a mail group that’s
really a mirror of a news group.
‘gcc-self’
If ‘(gcc-self . t)’ is present in the group parameter list, newly
composed messages will be ‘gcc’d to the current group. If
‘(gcc-self . none)’ is present, no ‘Gcc:’ header will be generated,
if ‘(gcc-self . "group")’ is present, this string will be inserted
literally as a ‘Gcc:’ header. It should be a group name. The
‘gcc-self’ value may also be a list of strings and ‘t’, e.g.,
‘(gcc-self "group1" "group2" t)’ means to ‘gcc’ the newly composed
message into the groups ‘"group1"’ and ‘"group2"’, and into the
current group. The ‘gcc-self’ parameter takes precedence over any
default ‘Gcc’ rules as described later (Archived Messages),
with the exception for messages to resend.
*Caveat*: Adding ‘(gcc-self . t)’ to the parameter list of ‘nntp’
groups (or the like) isn’t valid. An ‘nntp’ server doesn’t accept
articles.
‘auto-expire’
If the group parameter has an element that looks like ‘(auto-expire
. t)’, all articles read will be marked as expirable. For an
alternative approach, Expiring Mail.
See also ‘gnus-auto-expirable-newsgroups’.
‘total-expire’
If the group parameter has an element that looks like
‘(total-expire . t)’, all read articles will be put through the
expiry process, even if they are not marked as expirable. Use with
caution. Unread, ticked and dormant articles are not eligible for
expiry.
See also ‘gnus-total-expirable-newsgroups’.
‘expiry-wait’
If the group parameter has an element that looks like ‘(expiry-wait
. 10)’, this value will override any ‘nnmail-expiry-wait’ and
‘nnmail-expiry-wait-function’ (Expiring Mail) when expiring
expirable messages. The value can either be a number of days (not
necessarily an integer) or the symbols ‘never’ or ‘immediate’.
‘expiry-target’
Where expired messages end up. This parameter overrides
‘nnmail-expiry-target’.
‘score-file’
Elements that look like ‘(score-file . "file")’ will make ‘file’
into the current score file for the group in question. All
interactive score entries will be put into this file.
‘adapt-file’
Elements that look like ‘(adapt-file . "file")’ will make ‘file’
into the current adaptive file for the group in question. All
adaptive score entries will be put into this file.
‘admin-address’
When unsubscribing from a mailing list you should never send the
unsubscription notice to the mailing list itself. Instead, you’d
send messages to the administrative address. This parameter allows
you to put the admin address somewhere convenient.
‘display’
Elements that look like ‘(display . MODE)’ say which articles to
display on entering the group. Valid values are:
‘all’
Display all articles, both read and unread.
‘an integer’
Display the last INTEGER articles in the group. This is the
same as entering the group with ‘C-u INTEGER’.
‘default’
Display the default visible articles, which normally includes
unread and ticked articles.
‘an array’
Display articles that satisfy a predicate.
Here are some examples:
‘[unread]’
Display only unread articles.
‘[not expire]’
Display everything except expirable articles.
‘[and (not reply) (not expire)]’
Display everything except expirable and articles you’ve
already responded to.
The available operators are ‘not’, ‘and’ and ‘or’. Predicates
include ‘tick’, ‘unsend’, ‘undownload’, ‘unread’, ‘dormant’,
‘expire’, ‘reply’, ‘killed’, ‘bookmark’, ‘score’, ‘save’,
‘cache’, ‘forward’, and ‘unseen’.
The ‘display’ parameter works by limiting the summary buffer to the
subset specified. You can pop the limit by using the ‘/ w’ command
(Limiting).
‘comment’
Elements that look like ‘(comment . "This is a comment")’ are
arbitrary comments on the group. You can display comments in the
group line (Group Line Specification).
‘charset’
Elements that look like ‘(charset . iso-8859-1)’ will make
‘iso-8859-1’ the default charset; that is, the charset that will be
used for all articles that do not specify a charset.
See also ‘gnus-group-charset-alist’.
‘ignored-charsets’
Elements that look like ‘(ignored-charsets x-unknown iso-8859-1)’
will make ‘iso-8859-1’ and ‘x-unknown’ ignored; that is, the
default charset will be used for decoding articles.
See also ‘gnus-group-ignored-charsets-alist’.
‘posting-style’
You can store additional posting style information for this group
here (Posting Styles). The format is that of an entry in
the ‘gnus-posting-styles’ alist, except that there’s no regexp
matching the group name (of course). Style elements in this group
parameter will take precedence over the ones found in
‘gnus-posting-styles’.
For instance, if you want a funky name and signature in this group
only, instead of hacking ‘gnus-posting-styles’, you could put
something like this in the group parameters:
(posting-style
(name "Funky Name")
("X-Message-SMTP-Method" "smtp smtp.example.org 587")
("X-My-Header" "Funky Value")
(signature "Funky Signature"))
If you’re using topics to organize your group buffer (Group
Topics), note that posting styles can also be set in the topics
parameters. Posting styles in topic parameters apply to all groups
in this topic. More precisely, the posting-style settings for a
group result from the hierarchical merging of all posting-style
entries in the parameters of this group and all the topics it
belongs to.
‘post-method’
If it is set, the value is used as the method for posting message
instead of ‘gnus-post-method’.
‘mail-source’
If it is set, and the setting of ‘mail-sources’ includes a ‘group’
mail source (Mail Sources), the value is a mail source for
this group.
‘banner’
An item like ‘(banner . REGEXP)’ causes any part of an article that
matches the regular expression REGEXP to be stripped. Instead of
REGEXP, you can also use the symbol ‘signature’ which strips the
last signature or any of the elements of the alist
‘gnus-article-banner-alist’.
‘sieve’
This parameter contains a Sieve test that should match incoming
mail that should be placed in this group. From this group
parameter, a Sieve ‘IF’ control structure is generated, having the
test as the condition and ‘fileinto "group.name";’ as the body.
For example, if the ‘INBOX.list.sieve’ group has the ‘(sieve
address "sender" "sieve-admin@extundo.com")’ group parameter, when
Commands::) the following Sieve code is generated:
if address "sender" "sieve-admin@extundo.com" {
fileinto "INBOX.list.sieve";
}
To generate tests for multiple email-addresses use a group
parameter like ‘(sieve address "sender" ("name@one.org"
Commands::) Sieve code like the following is generated:
if address "sender" ["name@one.org", "else@two.org"] {
fileinto "INBOX.list.sieve";
}
You can also use regexp expansions in the rules:
(sieve header :regex "list-id" "<c++std-\\1.accu.org>")
See Sieve Commands for commands and variables that might be
of interest in relation to the sieve parameter.
The Sieve language is described in RFC 3028. Emacs Sieve
(sieve)Top.
‘(agent parameters)’
If the agent has been enabled, you can set any of its parameters to
control the behavior of the agent in individual groups. See Agent
Parameters in Category Syntax. Most users will choose to
set agent parameters in either an agent category or group topic to
minimize the configuration effort.
‘(VARIABLE FORM)’
You can use the group parameters to set variables local to the
group you are entering. If you want to turn threading off in
‘news.answers’, you could put ‘(gnus-show-threads nil)’ in the
group parameters of that group. ‘gnus-show-threads’ will be made
into a local variable in the summary buffer you enter, and the form
‘nil’ will be ‘eval’ed there.
Note that this feature sets the variable locally to the summary
buffer if and only if VARIABLE has been bound as a variable.
Otherwise, only evaluating the form will take place. So, you may
want to bind the variable in advance using ‘defvar’ or other if the
result of the form needs to be set to it.
But some variables are evaluated in the article buffer, or in the
message buffer (of a reply or followup or otherwise newly created
message). As a workaround, it might help to add the variable in
question to ‘gnus-newsgroup-variables’. Various Summary
Stuff. So if you want to set ‘message-from-style’ via the group
parameters, then you may need the following statement elsewhere in
your ‘~/.gnus.el’ file:
(add-to-list 'gnus-newsgroup-variables 'message-from-style)
A use for this feature is to remove a mailing list identifier tag
in the subject fields of articles. E.g., if the news group
nntp+news.gnus.org:gmane.text.docbook.apps
has the tag ‘DOC-BOOK-APPS:’ in the subject of all articles, this
tag can be removed from the article subjects in the summary buffer
for the group by putting ‘(gnus-list-identifiers "DOCBOOK-APPS:")’
into the group parameters for the group.
This can also be used as a group-specific hook function. If you
want to hear a beep when you enter a group, you could put something
like ‘(dummy-variable (ding))’ in the parameters of that group. If
‘dummy-variable’ has been bound (see above), it will be set to the
(meaningless) result of the ‘(ding)’ form.
Alternatively, since the VARIABLE becomes local to the group, this
pattern can be used to temporarily change a hook. For example, if
the following is added to a group parameter
(gnus-summary-prepared-hook
(lambda nil (local-set-key "d" (local-key-binding "n"))))
when the group is entered, the ’d’ key will not mark the article as
expired.
Group parameters can be set via the ‘gnus-parameters’ variable too.
But some variables, such as ‘visible’, have no effect (For this case see
‘gnus-permanently-visible-groups’ as an alternative.). For example:
(setq gnus-parameters
'(("mail\\..*"
(gnus-show-threads nil)
(gnus-use-scoring nil)
(gnus-summary-line-format
"%U%R%z%I%(%[%d:%ub%-23,23f%]%) %s\n")
(gcc-self . t)
(display . all))
("^nnimap:\\(foo.bar\\)$"
(to-group . "\\1"))
("mail\\.me"
(gnus-use-scoring t))
("list\\..*"
(total-expire . t)
(broken-reply-to . t))))
All clauses that matches the group name will be used, but the last
setting “wins”. So if you have two clauses that both match the group
name, and both set, say ‘display’, the last setting will override the
first.
Parameters that are strings will be subjected to regexp substitution,
as the ‘to-group’ example shows.
By default, whether comparing the group name and one of those regexps
specified in ‘gnus-parameters’ is done in a case-sensitive manner or a
case-insensitive manner depends on the value of ‘case-fold-search’ at
the time when the comparison is done. The value of ‘case-fold-search’
is typically ‘t’; it means, for example, the element ‘("INBOX\\.FOO"
(total-expire . t))’ might be applied to both the ‘INBOX.FOO’ group and
the ‘INBOX.foo’ group. If you want to make those regexps always
case-sensitive, set the value of the ‘gnus-parameters-case-fold-search’
variable to ‘nil’. Otherwise, set it to ‘t’ if you want to compare them
always in a case-insensitive manner.
You can define different sorting to different groups via
‘gnus-parameters’. Here is an example to sort an NNTP group by reverse
date to see the latest news at the top and an RSS group by subject. In
this example, the first group is the Debian daily news group
‘gmane.linux.debian.user.news’ from news.gmane.org. The RSS group
corresponds to the Debian weekly news RSS feed
<http://packages.debian.org/unstable/newpkg_main.en.rdf>, RSS.
(setq
gnus-parameters
'(("nntp.*gmane\\.debian\\.user\\.news"
(gnus-show-threads nil)
(gnus-article-sort-functions '((not gnus-article-sort-by-date)))
(gnus-use-adaptive-scoring nil)
(gnus-use-scoring nil))
("nnrss.*debian"
(gnus-show-threads nil)
(gnus-article-sort-functions 'gnus-article-sort-by-subject)
(gnus-use-adaptive-scoring nil)
(gnus-use-scoring t)
(gnus-score-find-score-files-function 'gnus-score-find-single)
(gnus-summary-line-format "%U%R%z%d %I%(%[ %s %]%)\n"))))
Info Catalog
gnus: Foreign Groups
gnus: Group Buffer
gnus: Listing Groups