Re: How to set up Emacs as a mail client (with mail saved/filed on an IMAP server)

[N. Jackson]

Tassilo Horn <tsdh@gnu.org> writes:
> Hi!

Hi Tassilo, thank you for your response.

>> I'd like to be able to see both my read and unread mail in my inbox
>> and have the two distinguished in some way.

> ,----[ C-h v gnus-fetch-old-headers RET ]

How would I go about setting this for (a) specific (server or) servers,
or for (a) specific (group or) groups, or for a specific retrieval method
(i.e. just for nnimap and not for nntp), rather than globally for all of
Gnus?

Restricting the scope of settings is part of the Gnus puzzle that I
haven't figured out yet.

> You can also enter the summary buffer using `C-u <number> RET' instead
> of just `RET'.  That will show you the latest <number> of articles in
> the group, no matter if new or read.

This doesn't quite work for me as I don't know the total number of
messages. However this suggestion led me to discover that I can do a /o
command (gnus-summary-insert-old-articles) and a M-C-t command
(gnus-summary-toggle-threads) (to turn off threading) in the Summary
Buffer when I open my inbox (or other mail folder). This gives me
exactly the view that I want. :)

Now I just need to learn how to configure things so that this is the
view I get automatically in mail folders/groups.

> Of course Gnus does IMAP.

Well, this is very good news. :) After initially being taken aback by
the bluntness of this communication, it encouraged me to dig a bit
deeper. I'm a lot more familiar with Gnus now (after using it as a
newsreader for six months) than I was when I initially tried to set it
up for mail, and things have gone much more smoothly this time
around. After working with it the last couple of days, I almost have it
set up satisfactorily. :)

However, there isn't really any "of course" about it; and "does IMAP" is
not well defined. However, it's looking as if Gnus's IMAP support does the
things that I need.

> ,----[ (info "(gnus)Using IMAP") ]

These three nodes I had read through several times and they don't seem
especially useful beyond getting IMAP mail to behave roughly like POP3
mail.

> Seems you are using `mail-sources' instead of nnimap.

Nope. I was using nnimap. I just didn't have the other pieces of the
puzzle for viewing mail folders / filing mail / and browsing to filed
mail. Those pieces are now almost all in place.
 
>> Did I miss something, or am I correct in thinking Gnus lacks the
>> ability to interact with an IMAP server in that way?

> Yes, you are wrong.

Indeed. Thank you for your insistence on this. I had previously given up
because it didn't seem worth struggling to try get Gnus to do something
if it might not be capable of it. Knowing that it is so capable gave
me the encouragement to find out how to do it! 

> Bye, Tassilo

Bye Tassilo, and thank you.

N.