Re: requirements

[Simon Josefsson <simon@josefsson.org>]

Wes Hardaker <wjhardaker@ucdavis.edu> writes:

> 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?

Nnimap updates flags when entering the summary buffer, I think this is
what's taking so long.  `nnimap-retrieve-headers' should be fast.

If Gnus didn't insist on having article flags in .newsrc.eld and only
queried for flags when they were used[1], things would be much
quicker.  But this is a major change.

[1] Right now most things do use all flags.  So to really fix things,
many many things would need to be rewritten not to assume all flags
are available localy.

> 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).

This would require the Agent, so we can forget about the
nnimap-does-it's-own-disconnected-mode thing for now.

> 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.

Yup.  I think this is the best way.