Re: requirements

[Wes Hardaker <wjhardaker@ucdavis.edu>]

(sorry for starting this discussion and then disappearing...  Got
sick)

>>>>> On 04 Jul 2000 12:20:23 +0200, Simon Josefsson <simon@josefsson.org> said:

Simon> Wes Hardaker <wjhardaker@ucdavis.edu> writes:
>> IE, I'd love to have gnus automatically download and cache all
>> articles in the agentized groups and only download new
>> headers/articles when it didn't have cached copies.  This way, lots of 
>> network traffic would be saved.  It wouldn't even have to open a
>> connection to the imap server if no new articles were known to exist.
>> If it tried to open a connection and failed, the articles wouldn't be
>> available then.  Sort of an automated agent system is what I'm
>> looking for.

Simon> It already keeps a cache of headers, going one step further
Simon> isn't difficult.

You know what I don't understand?  Why, if nnimap caches the headers
(NOV), is entering a group *so* much faster when unplugged than when
plugged?
 
Simon> However, having support for downloading only unread mail (or
Simon> the generic solution with "Agent categories") would be
Simon> difficult.  But I don't really see the point, I want everything
Simon> to be downloaded.  The only problem with downloading everything
Simon> is that disk space is wasted and that it might be slow in huge
Simon> folders the first time you download things.

Well, I'm on the fence with this.  At times I want everything
downloaded (and certain groups are set up that way for agent use using 
categories).  I have 55 imap folders.  Some of those I probably don't
want to download all the time because they are mailing lists I don't
read frequently enough to want to waste the disk space, so I'm more
likely to want to download only small articles....  33 megs of space
doesn't seem like much till my laptop hard drive gets full then I'm
itching for something to nuke (I should really just replace the
drive.  6 gig isn't enough.  Hmm...  I could nuke that /dos directory).

Simon> OTOH it would be confusing to have two disconnected modes in Gnus.

Well, and thats why my original article said maybe this is more of a
gnus thing.  We need maybe a "gnus-semi-plugged" state where it tries
to cache everything for us.  I think this should be done by
manipulating the agent.

Simon> I'm going for the Agent approach now.  If articles was saved in
Simon> the Agent when you read them (plugged), things would pretty
Simon> much be the way we want, I think.

Yep.

Simon> Perhaps we can tie nnimap and the Agent together, so that
Simon> nnagent keep the overview and article cache for nnimap
Simon> seemlessly.

Thats not a bad idea.
-- 
"Ninjas aren't dangerous.  They're more afraid of you than you are of them."