gnus: nnmairix caveats
8.2.9 nnmairix caveats
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• You can create a secondary ‘nnml’ server just for nnmairix, but
then you have to explicitly set the corresponding server variable
‘nnml-get-new-mail’ to ‘nil’. Otherwise, new mail might get put
into this secondary server (and would never show up again). Here’s
an example server definition:
(nnml "mairix" (nnml-directory "mairix") (nnml-get-new-mail nil))
(The ‘nnmaildir’ back end also has a server variable
‘get-new-mail’, but its default value is ‘nil’, so you don’t have
to explicitly set it if you use a ‘nnmaildir’ server just for
mairix.)
• If you use the Gnus registry: don’t use the registry with
‘nnmairix’ groups (put them in ‘gnus-registry-unfollowed-groups’;
this is the default). Be _extra careful_ if you use
‘gnus-registry-split-fancy-with-parent’; mails which are split into
‘nnmairix’ groups are usually gone for good as soon as you check
the group for new mail (yes, it has happened to me...).
• Therefore: _Never ever_ put “real” mails into ‘nnmairix’ groups
(you shouldn’t be able to, anyway).
• If you use the Gnus agent (
Gnus Unplugged): don’t agentize
‘nnmairix’ groups (though I have no idea what happens if you do).
• mairix does only support us-ascii characters.
• ‘nnmairix’ uses a rather brute force method to force Gnus to
completely reread the group on the mail back end after mairix was
called—it simply deletes and re-creates the group on the mail back
end. So far, this has worked for me without any problems, and I
don’t see how ‘nnmairix’ could delete other mail groups than its
own, but anyway: you really should have a backup of your mail
folders.
• All necessary information is stored in the group parameters (
Group Parameters). This has the advantage that no active file is
needed, but also implies that when you kill a ‘nnmairix’ group, it
is gone for good.
• If you create and kill a lot of ‘nnmairix’ groups, the
“zz_mairix-*” groups will accumulate on the mail back end server.
To delete old groups which are no longer needed, call
‘nnmairix-purge-old-groups’. Note that this assumes that you don’t
save any “real” mail in folders of the form
‘zz_mairix-<NAME>-<NUMBER>’. You can change the prefix of
‘nnmairix’ groups by changing the variable ‘nnmairix-group-prefix’.
• The following only applies if you _don’t_ use the mentioned patch
for mairix (Propagating marks):
A problem can occur when using ‘nnmairix’ with maildir folders and
comes with the fact that maildir stores mail flags like ‘Seen’ or
‘Replied’ by appending chars ‘S’ and ‘R’ to the message file name,
respectively. This implies that currently you would have to update
the mairix database not only when new mail arrives, but also when
mail flags are changing. The same applies to new mails which are
indexed while they are still in the ‘new’ folder but then get moved
to ‘cur’ when Gnus has seen the mail. If you don’t update the
database after this has happened, a mairix query can lead to
symlinks pointing to non-existing files. In Gnus, these messages
will usually appear with “(none)” entries in the header and can’t
be accessed. If this happens to you, using ‘G b u’ and updating
the group will usually fix this.
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gnus: nnmairix tips and tricks
gnus: nnmairix