Re: Emacs resident looking for advice when Gnus blocks while fetching news

[William Henderson]

Garjola Dindi <garjola@garjola.net> writes:

> Hi,
>
> I have been using Gnus for more than a decade now and I am still
> learning useful things to improve my workflow.
>
> Since I live in emacs, my use of Gnus is highly integrated with org-mode
> (capture from Gnus, jump to messages from org-mode links, etc.)
>
> One thing that bothers me is the fact that Gnus blocks my emacs when
> fetching news, e-mails and RSS feeds (altough I use feed2imap for most
> of my feeds).
>
> I understand that some emacs users use 2 different emacs instances, one
> for Gnus and another one for the rest. In my case, I am not sure that
> that this would solve my issues cleanly because the integration
> mentioned above: I may and having conflicts if the same file is open by
> both instances.
>
> I am sure I am not the only one in this situation and I am therefore
> looking for advice on how to solve or at least enhance the situation.

OK, so this is my set up

[START FLUXBOX STARTUP INCLUSION]
My ~/.fluxbox/startup includes
 fetchmail -F -d 900 -f ~/.fetchmailrc &
 anymail &
[/START FLUXBOX STARTUP INCLUSION]


[START HOME DIRECTORY INCLUSION:
~/ contains .fetchmailrc
----
poll POPSERVER1 proto pop3 
   user USER1 password "PASSWORD" is MYLINUXSYSTEMUSERNAME here;
   user USER2 password "PASSWORD" is MYLINUXSYSTEMUSERNAME here;
   user USER3 password "PASSWORD" is MYLINUXSYSTEMUSERNAME here;
   user USER4 password "PASSWORD" is MYLINUXSYSTEMUSERNAME here;
   user USER5 password "PASSWORD" is MYLINUXSYSTEMUSERNAME here;
   user USER6 password "PASSWORD" is MYLINUXSYSTEMUSERNAME here;
   user USER7 password "PASSWORD" is MYLINUXSYSTEMUSERNAME here
poll IMAPSERVER1 proto imap
   user USER8 password "PASSWORD" is MYLINUXSYSTEMUSERNAME here   
poll POPSERVER2 proto pop3
   user USER9  password "PASSWORD" is MYLINUXSYSTEMUSERNAME here;
   user USER10 password "PASSWORD" is MYLINUXSYSTEMUSERNAME here;
   user USER11 password "PASSWORD" is MYLINUXSYSTEMUSERNAME here;
   user USER12 password "PASSWORD" is MYLINUXSYSTEMUSERNAME here;
   user USER13 password "PASSWORD" is MYLINUXSYSTEMUSERNAME here;
   user USER14 password "PASSWORD" is MYLINUXSYSTEMUSERNAME here;
   user USER15 password "PASSWORD" is MYLINUXSYSTEMUSERNAME here;
   user USER16 password "PASSWORD" is MYLINUXSYSTEMUSERNAME here;
   user USER17 password "PASSWORD" is MYLINUXSYSTEMUSERNAME here;
   user USER18 password "PASSWORD" is MYLINUXSYSTEMUSERNAME here;
   user USER19 password "PASSWORD" is MYLINUXSYSTEMUSERNAME here
poll POPSERVER3 proto pop3
   user USER20 password "velovelo" is MYLINUXSYSTEMUSERNAME here
[/START HOME DIRECTORY INCLUSION]


[START ROOT INCLUSION]
/root CONTAINS .fetchmailrc
----
poll POPSERVER1 proto pop3 
   user USER1 password "PASSWORD" is MYLINUXSYSTEMUSERNAME here;
   user USER2 password "PASSWORD" is MYLINUXSYSTEMUSERNAME here;
   user USER3 password "PASSWORD" is MYLINUXSYSTEMUSERNAME here;
   user USER4 password "PASSWORD" is MYLINUXSYSTEMUSERNAME here;
   user USER5 password "PASSWORD" is MYLINUXSYSTEMUSERNAME here;
   user USER6 password "PASSWORD" is MYLINUXSYSTEMUSERNAME here;
   user USER7 password "PASSWORD" is MYLINUXSYSTEMUSERNAME here
poll IMAPSERVER1 proto imap
   user USER8 password "PASSWORD" is MYLINUXSYSTEMUSERNAME here   
poll POPSERVER2 proto pop3
   user USER9  password "PASSWORD" is MYLINUXSYSTEMUSERNAME here;
   user USER10 password "PASSWORD" is MYLINUXSYSTEMUSERNAME here;
   user USER11 password "PASSWORD" is MYLINUXSYSTEMUSERNAME here;
   user USER12 password "PASSWORD" is MYLINUXSYSTEMUSERNAME here;
   user USER13 password "PASSWORD" is MYLINUXSYSTEMUSERNAME here;
   user USER14 password "PASSWORD" is MYLINUXSYSTEMUSERNAME here;
   user USER15 password "PASSWORD" is MYLINUXSYSTEMUSERNAME here;
   user USER16 password "PASSWORD" is MYLINUXSYSTEMUSERNAME here;
   user USER17 password "PASSWORD" is MYLINUXSYSTEMUSERNAME here;
   user USER18 password "PASSWORD" is MYLINUXSYSTEMUSERNAME here;
   user USER19 password "PASSWORD" is MYLINUXSYSTEMUSERNAME here
poll POPSERVER3 proto pop3
   user USER20 password "velovelo" is MYLINUXSYSTEMUSERNAME here
[/START ROOT INCLUSION

The .fetchmailrc in /root permits me to occasionally visually see what
is happening and if necessary log in webmail to a particualar server to
fic any snags.

You might get some comments about using "F" when starting fetchmail, but
this works for me.

The above dumps your emails into /var/spool/mail/MYLINUXSYSTEMUSERNAME

It then needs to be broght into GNUS via:
[1] "g"
[2] having in  ~/.gnus the following:
;; AUTOMATICALLY CHECK MAILPERIODICALLY
(add-hook 'gnus-startup-hook
  '(lambda ()
     (gnus-demon-init)
     (setq gnus-demon-timestep 1)  ;; each timestep is 1 second
     ;; Check for new mail every 300 timesteps (5 minute)
     (gnus-demon-add-handler 'gnus-demon-scan-news 300 t)
     (gnus-demon-add-handler 'gnus-demon-scan-mail 300 t)

     ;; Don't crash gnus if disconnected
     (defadvice gnus-demon-scan-news (around gnus-demon-timeout activate)
       "Timeout for Gnus."
       (with-timeout
       (120 (message "Gnus timed out."))
     ad-do-it))))

[ANYMAIL]
IN /usr/local/bin/anymail
----
filename=/var/spool/mail/inconnu
maxsize=0
filesize=$(stat -c%s "$filename")
if (( filesize > maxsize )); then
        xmessage -nearmouse "inconnu HAS MAIL"
else
        xmessage -nearmouse "NO MAIL for inconnu"
fi
[/ANYMAIL]

Hopefully the forgoing might be of some assistance to you.

You can then start other emacs functions with M-x (Like erc, editor,
etc)

ANYMAIL will tell you via xmessage if you have any mail.

-- 
William Henderson
aka Slackrat
http://billh.sdf.org/slackware.jpg
9HS5203 on HamSphere