This is gnus, produced by makeinfo version 4.5 from gnus.texi. INFO-DIR-SECTION Emacs START-INFO-DIR-ENTRY * Gnus: (gnus). The newsreader Gnus. END-INFO-DIR-ENTRY This file documents Gnus, the GNU Emacs newsreader. Copyright (C) 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 Free Software Foundation, Inc. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with the Invariant Sections being none, with the Front-Cover texts being "A GNU Manual", and with the Back-Cover Texts as in (a) below. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License" in the Emacs manual. (a) The FSF's Back-Cover Text is: "You have freedom to copy and modify this GNU Manual, like GNU software. Copies published by the Free Software Foundation raise funds for GNU development." This document is part of a collection distributed under the GNU Free Documentation License. If you want to distribute this document separately from the collection, you can do so by adding a copy of the license to the document, as described in section 6 of the license.  File: gnus, Node: Bogofilter, Next: ifile spam filtering, Prev: Regular Expressions Header Matching, Up: Filtering Spam Using The Spam ELisp Package Bogofilter .......... - Variable: spam-use-bogofilter Set this variable if you want `spam-split' to use Eric Raymond's speedy Bogofilter. With a minimum of care for associating the `$' mark for spam articles only, Bogofilter training all gets fairly automatic. You should do this until you get a few hundreds of articles in each category, spam or not. The command `S t' in summary mode, either for debugging or for curiosity, shows the _spamicity_ score of the current article (between 0.0 and 1.0). Bogofilter determines if a message is spam based on a specific threshold. That threshold can be customized, consult the Bogofilter documentation. If the `bogofilter' executable is not in your path, Bogofilter processing will be turned off. You should not enable this if you use `spam-use-bogofilter-headers'. - Variable: spam-use-bogofilter-headers Set this variable if you want `spam-split' to use Eric Raymond's speedy Bogofilter, looking only at the message headers. It works similarly to `spam-use-bogofilter', but the `X-Bogosity' header must be in the message already. Normally you would do this with a procmail recipe or something similar; consult the Bogofilter installation documents for details. You should not enable this if you use `spam-use-bogofilter'. - Variable: gnus-group-spam-exit-processor-bogofilter Add this symbol to a group's `spam-process' parameter by customizing the group parameters or the `gnus-spam-process-newsgroups' variable. When this symbol is added to a group's `spam-process' parameter, spam-marked articles will be added to the Bogofilter spam database. - Variable: gnus-group-ham-exit-processor-bogofilter Add this symbol to a group's `spam-process' parameter by customizing the group parameters or the `gnus-spam-process-newsgroups' variable. When this symbol is added to a group's `spam-process' parameter, the ham-marked articles in _ham_ groups will be added to the Bogofilter database of non-spam messages. Note that this ham processor has no effect in _spam_ or _unclassified_ groups. - Variable: spam-bogofilter-database-directory This is the directory where Bogofilter will store its databases. It is not specified by default, so Bogofilter will use its own default database directory. The Bogofilter mail classifier is similar to `ifile' in intent and purpose. A ham and a spam processor are provided, plus the `spam-use-bogofilter' and `spam-use-bogofilter-headers' variables to indicate to spam-split that Bogofilter should either be used, or has already been used on the article. The 0.9.2.1 version of Bogofilter was used to test this functionality.  File: gnus, Node: ifile spam filtering, Next: spam-stat spam filtering, Prev: Bogofilter, Up: Filtering Spam Using The Spam ELisp Package ifile spam filtering .................... - Variable: spam-use-ifile Enable this variable if you want `spam-split' to use `ifile', a statistical analyzer similar to Bogofilter. - Variable: spam-ifile-all-categories Enable this variable if you want `spam-use-ifile' to give you all the ifile categories, not just spam/non-spam. If you use this, make sure you train ifile as described in its documentation. - Variable: spam-ifile-spam-category This is the category of spam messages as far as ifile is concerned. The actual string used is irrelevant, but you probably want to leave the default value of `spam'. - Variable: spam-ifile-database-path This is the filename for the ifile database. It is not specified by default, so ifile will use its own default database name. The ifile mail classifier is similar to Bogofilter in intent and purpose. A ham and a spam processor are provided, plus the `spam-use-ifile' variable to indicate to spam-split that ifile should be used. The 1.2.1 version of ifile was used to test this functionality.  File: gnus, Node: spam-stat spam filtering, Next: SpamOracle, Prev: ifile spam filtering, Up: Filtering Spam Using The Spam ELisp Package spam-stat spam filtering ........................ *Note Filtering Spam Using Statistics with spam-stat::. - Variable: spam-use-stat Enable this variable if you want `spam-split' to use spam-stat.el, an Emacs Lisp statistical analyzer. - Variable: gnus-group-spam-exit-processor-stat Add this symbol to a group's `spam-process' parameter by customizing the group parameters or the `gnus-spam-process-newsgroups' variable. When this symbol is added to a group's `spam-process' parameter, the spam-marked articles will be added to the spam-stat database of spam messages. - Variable: gnus-group-ham-exit-processor-stat Add this symbol to a group's `spam-process' parameter by customizing the group parameters or the `gnus-spam-process-newsgroups' variable. When this symbol is added to a group's `spam-process' parameter, the ham-marked articles in _ham_ groups will be added to the spam-stat database of non-spam messages. Note that this ham processor has no effect in _spam_ or _unclassified_ groups. This enables `spam.el' to cooperate with `spam-stat.el'. `spam-stat.el' provides an internal (Lisp-only) spam database, which unlike ifile or Bogofilter does not require external programs. A spam and a ham processor, and the `spam-use-stat' variable for `spam-split' are provided.  File: gnus, Node: SpamOracle, Next: Extending the spam elisp package, Prev: spam-stat spam filtering, Up: Filtering Spam Using The Spam ELisp Package Using SpamOracle with Gnus .......................... An easy way to filter out spam is to use SpamOracle. SpamOracle is an statistical mail filtering tool written by Xavier Leroy and needs to be installed separately. There are several ways to use SpamOracle with Gnus. In all cases, your mail is piped through SpamOracle in its _mark_ mode. SpamOracle will then enter an `X-Spam' header indicating whether it regards the mail as a spam mail or not. One possibility is to run SpamOracle as a `:prescript' from the *Note Mail Source Specifiers::, (*note SpamAssassin::). This method has the advantage that the user can see the _X-Spam_ headers. The easiest method is to make `spam.el' (*note Filtering Spam Using The Spam ELisp Package::) call SpamOracle. To enable SpamOracle usage by `spam.el', set the variable `spam-use-spamoracle' to `t' and configure the `nnmail-split-fancy' or `nnimap-split-fancy' as described in the section *Note Filtering Spam Using The Spam ELisp Package::. In this example the `INBOX' of an nnimap server is filtered using SpamOracle. Mails recognized as spam mails will be moved to `spam-split-group', `Junk' in this case. Ham messages stay in `INBOX': (setq spam-use-spamoracle t spam-split-group "Junk" nnimap-split-inbox '("INBOX") nnimap-split-rule 'nnimap-split-fancy nnimap-split-fancy '(| (: spam-split) "INBOX")) - Variable: spam-use-spamoracle Set to `t' if you want Gnus to enable spam filtering using SpamOracle. - Variable: spam-spamoracle-binary Gnus uses the SpamOracle binary called `spamoracle' found in the user's PATH. Using the variable `spam-spamoracle-binary', this can be customized. - Variable: spam-spamoracle-database By default, SpamOracle uses the file `~/.spamoracle.db' as a database to store its analyses. This is controlled by the variable `spam-spamoracle-database' which defaults to `nil'. That means the default SpamOracle database will be used. In case you want your database to live somewhere special, set `spam-spamoracle-database' to this path. SpamOracle employs a statistical algorithm to determine whether a message is spam or ham. In order to get good results, meaning few false hits or misses, SpamOracle needs training. SpamOracle learns the characteristics of your spam mails. Using the _add_ mode (training mode) one has to feed good (ham) and spam mails to SpamOracle. This can be done by pressing `|' in the Summary buffer and pipe the mail to a SpamOracle process or using `spam.el''s spam- and ham-processors, which is much more convenient. For a detailed description of spam- and ham-processors, *Note Filtering Spam Using The Spam ELisp Package::. - Variable: gnus-group-spam-exit-processor-spamoracle Add this symbol to a group's `spam-process' parameter by customizing the group parameter or the `gnus-spam-process-newsgroups' variable. When this symbol is added to a group's `spam-process' parameter, spam-marked articles will be sent to SpamOracle as spam samples. - Variable: gnus-group-ham-exit-processor-spamoracle Add this symbol to a group's `spam-process' parameter by customizing the group parameter or the `gnus-spam-process-newsgroups' variable. When this symbol is added to a grup's `spam-process' parameter, the ham-marked articles in _ham_ groups will be sent to the SpamOracle as samples of ham messages. Note that this ham processor has no effect in _spam_ or _unclassified_ groups. _Example:_ These are the Group Parameters of an group that has been classified as a ham group, meaning that it should only contain ham messages. ((spam-contents gnus-group-spam-classification-ham) (spam-process (gnus-group-spam-exit-processor-spamoracle))) For this group the `gnus-group-spam-exit-processor-spamoracle' is installed. If the group contains spam message (e.g. because SpamOracle has not had enough sample messages yet) and the user marks some messages as spam messages, these messages will be processed by `gnus-group-spam-exit-processor-spamoracle'. This processor sends the messages to SpamOracle as new samples for spam.  File: gnus, Node: Extending the spam elisp package, Prev: SpamOracle, Up: Filtering Spam Using The Spam ELisp Package Extending the spam elisp package ................................ Say you want to add a new back end called blackbox. For filtering incoming mail, provide the following: 1. code (defvar spam-use-blackbox nil "True if blackbox should be used.") Add (spam-use-blackbox . spam-check-blackbox) to `spam-list-of-checks'. 2. functionality Write the `spam-check-blackbox' function. It should return `nil' or `spam-split-group'. See the existing `spam-check-*' functions for examples of what you can do. Make sure to add `spam-use-blackbox' to `spam-list-of-statistical-checks' if Blackbox is a statistical mail analyzer that needs the full message body to operate. For processing spam and ham messages, provide the following: 1. code Note you don't have to provide a spam or a ham processor. Only provide them if Blackbox supports spam or ham processing. (defvar gnus-group-spam-exit-processor-blackbox "blackbox" "The Blackbox summary exit spam processor. Only applicable to spam groups.") (defvar gnus-group-ham-exit-processor-blackbox "blackbox" "The whitelist summary exit ham processor. Only applicable to non-spam (unclassified and ham) groups.") 2. functionality (defun spam-blackbox-register-spam-routine () (spam-generic-register-routine ;; the spam function (lambda (article) (let ((from (spam-fetch-field-from-fast article))) (when (stringp from) (blackbox-do-something-with-this-spammer from)))) ;; the ham function nil)) (defun spam-blackbox-register-ham-routine () (spam-generic-register-routine ;; the spam function nil ;; the ham function (lambda (article) (let ((from (spam-fetch-field-from-fast article))) (when (stringp from) (blackbox-do-something-with-this-ham-sender from)))))) Write the `blackbox-do-something-with-this-ham-sender' and `blackbox-do-something-with-this-spammer' functions. You can add more complex code than fetching the message sender, but keep in mind that retrieving the whole message takes significantly longer than the sender through `spam-fetch-field-from-fast', because the message senders are kept in memory by Gnus.  File: gnus, Node: Filtering Spam Using Statistics with spam-stat, Prev: Filtering Spam Using The Spam ELisp Package, Up: Thwarting Email Spam Filtering Spam Using Statistics with spam-stat ---------------------------------------------- Paul Graham has written an excellent essay about spam filtering using statistics: A Plan for Spam (http://www.paulgraham.com/spam.html). In it he describes the inherent deficiency of rule-based filtering as used by SpamAssassin, for example: Somebody has to write the rules, and everybody else has to install these rules. You are always late. It would be much better, he argues, to filter mail based on whether it somehow resembles spam or non-spam. One way to measure this is word distribution. He then goes on to describe a solution that checks whether a new mail resembles any of your other spam mails or not. The basic idea is this: Create a two collections of your mail, one with spam, one with non-spam. Count how often each word appears in either collection, weight this by the total number of mails in the collections, and store this information in a dictionary. For every word in a new mail, determine its probability to belong to a spam or a non-spam mail. Use the 15 most conspicuous words, compute the total probability of the mail being spam. If this probability is higher than a certain threshold, the mail is considered to be spam. Gnus supports this kind of filtering. But it needs some setting up. First, you need two collections of your mail, one with spam, one with non-spam. Then you need to create a dictionary using these two collections, and save it. And last but not least, you need to use this dictionary in your fancy mail splitting rules. * Menu: * Creating a spam-stat dictionary:: * Splitting mail using spam-stat:: * Low-level interface to the spam-stat dictionary::  File: gnus, Node: Creating a spam-stat dictionary, Next: Splitting mail using spam-stat, Up: Filtering Spam Using Statistics with spam-stat Creating a spam-stat dictionary ............................... Before you can begin to filter spam based on statistics, you must create these statistics based on two mail collections, one with spam, one with non-spam. These statistics are then stored in a dictionary for later use. In order for these statistics to be meaningful, you need several hundred emails in both collections. Gnus currently supports only the nnml back end for automated dictionary creation. The nnml back end stores all mails in a directory, one file per mail. Use the following: - Function: spam-stat-process-spam-directory Create spam statistics for every file in this directory. Every file is treated as one spam mail. - Function: spam-stat-process-non-spam-directory Create non-spam statistics for every file in this directory. Every file is treated as one non-spam mail. Usually you would call `spam-stat-process-spam-directory' on a directory such as `~/Mail/mail/spam' (this usually corresponds the the group `nnml:mail.spam'), and you would call `spam-stat-process-non-spam-directory' on a directory such as `~/Mail/mail/misc' (this usually corresponds the the group `nnml:mail.misc'). When you are using IMAP, you won't have the mails available locally, so that will not work. One solution is to use the Gnus Agent to cache the articles. Then you can use directories such as `"~/News/agent/nnimap/mail.yourisp.com/personal_spam"' for `spam-stat-process-spam-directory'. *Note Agent as Cache::. - Variable: spam-stat This variable holds the hash-table with all the statistics--the dictionary we have been talking about. For every word in either collection, this hash-table stores a vector describing how often the word appeared in spam and often it appeared in non-spam mails. If you want to regenerate the statistics from scratch, you need to reset the dictionary. - Function: spam-stat-reset Reset the `spam-stat' hash-table, deleting all the statistics. When you are done, you must save the dictionary. The dictionary may be rather large. If you will not update the dictionary incrementally (instead, you will recreate it once a month, for example), then you can reduce the size of the dictionary by deleting all words that did not appear often enough or that do not clearly belong to only spam or only non-spam mails. - Function: spam-stat-reduce-size Reduce the size of the dictionary. Use this only if you do not want to update the dictionary incrementally. - Function: spam-stat-save Save the dictionary. - Variable: spam-stat-file The filename used to store the dictionary. This defaults to `~/.spam-stat.el'.  File: gnus, Node: Splitting mail using spam-stat, Next: Low-level interface to the spam-stat dictionary, Prev: Creating a spam-stat dictionary, Up: Filtering Spam Using Statistics with spam-stat Splitting mail using spam-stat .............................. In order to use `spam-stat' to split your mail, you need to add the following to your `~/.gnus.el' file: (require 'spam-stat) (spam-stat-load) This will load the necessary Gnus code, and the dictionary you created. Next, you need to adapt your fancy splitting rules: You need to determine how to use `spam-stat'. The following examples are for the nnml back end. Using the nnimap back end works just as well. Just use `nnimap-split-fancy' instead of `nnmail-split-fancy'. In the simplest case, you only have two groups, `mail.misc' and `mail.spam'. The following expression says that mail is either spam or it should go into `mail.misc'. If it is spam, then `spam-stat-split-fancy' will return `mail.spam'. (setq nnmail-split-fancy `(| (: spam-stat-split-fancy) "mail.misc")) - Variable: spam-stat-split-fancy-spam-group The group to use for spam. Default is `mail.spam'. If you also filter mail with specific subjects into other groups, use the following expression. Only mails not matching the regular expression are considered potential spam. (setq nnmail-split-fancy `(| ("Subject" "\\bspam-stat\\b" "mail.emacs") (: spam-stat-split-fancy) "mail.misc")) If you want to filter for spam first, then you must be careful when creating the dictionary. Note that `spam-stat-split-fancy' must consider both mails in `mail.emacs' and in `mail.misc' as non-spam, therefore both should be in your collection of non-spam mails, when creating the dictionary! (setq nnmail-split-fancy `(| (: spam-stat-split-fancy) ("Subject" "\\bspam-stat\\b" "mail.emacs") "mail.misc")) You can combine this with traditional filtering. Here, we move all HTML-only mails into the `mail.spam.filtered' group. Note that since `spam-stat-split-fancy' will never see them, the mails in `mail.spam.filtered' should be neither in your collection of spam mails, nor in your collection of non-spam mails, when creating the dictionary! (setq nnmail-split-fancy `(| ("Content-Type" "text/html" "mail.spam.filtered") (: spam-stat-split-fancy) ("Subject" "\\bspam-stat\\b" "mail.emacs") "mail.misc"))  File: gnus, Node: Low-level interface to the spam-stat dictionary, Prev: Splitting mail using spam-stat, Up: Filtering Spam Using Statistics with spam-stat Low-level interface to the spam-stat dictionary ............................................... The main interface to using `spam-stat', are the following functions: - Function: spam-stat-buffer-is-spam Called in a buffer, that buffer is considered to be a new spam mail. Use this for new mail that has not been processed before. - Function: spam-stat-buffer-is-no-spam Called in a buffer, that buffer is considered to be a new non-spam mail. Use this for new mail that has not been processed before. - Function: spam-stat-buffer-change-to-spam Called in a buffer, that buffer is no longer considered to be normal mail but spam. Use this to change the status of a mail that has already been processed as non-spam. - Function: spam-stat-buffer-change-to-non-spam Called in a buffer, that buffer is no longer considered to be spam but normal mail. Use this to change the status of a mail that has already been processed as spam. - Function: spam-stat-save Save the hash table to the file. The filename used is stored in the variable `spam-stat-file'. - Function: spam-stat-load Load the hash table from a file. The filename used is stored in the variable `spam-stat-file'. - Function: spam-stat-score-word Return the spam score for a word. - Function: spam-stat-score-buffer Return the spam score for a buffer. - Function: spam-stat-split-fancy Use this function for fancy mail splitting. Add the rule `(: spam-stat-split-fancy)' to `nnmail-split-fancy' Make sure you load the dictionary before using it. This requires the following in your `~/.gnus.el' file: (require 'spam-stat) (spam-stat-load) Typical test will involve calls to the following functions: Reset: (setq spam-stat (make-hash-table :test 'equal)) Learn spam: (spam-stat-process-spam-directory "~/Mail/mail/spam") Learn non-spam: (spam-stat-process-non-spam-directory "~/Mail/mail/misc") Save table: (spam-stat-save) File size: (nth 7 (file-attributes spam-stat-file)) Number of words: (hash-table-count spam-stat) Test spam: (spam-stat-test-directory "~/Mail/mail/spam") Test non-spam: (spam-stat-test-directory "~/Mail/mail/misc") Reduce table size: (spam-stat-reduce-size) Save table: (spam-stat-save) File size: (nth 7 (file-attributes spam-stat-file)) Number of words: (hash-table-count spam-stat) Test spam: (spam-stat-test-directory "~/Mail/mail/spam") Test non-spam: (spam-stat-test-directory "~/Mail/mail/misc") Here is how you would create your dictionary: Reset: (setq spam-stat (make-hash-table :test 'equal)) Learn spam: (spam-stat-process-spam-directory "~/Mail/mail/spam") Learn non-spam: (spam-stat-process-non-spam-directory "~/Mail/mail/misc") Repeat for any other non-spam group you need... Reduce table size: (spam-stat-reduce-size) Save table: (spam-stat-save)  File: gnus, Node: Various Various, Prev: Thwarting Email Spam, Up: Various Various Various =============== `gnus-home-directory' All Gnus file and directory variables will be initialized from this variable, which defaults to `~/'. `gnus-directory' Most Gnus storage file and directory variables will be initialized from this variable, which defaults to the `SAVEDIR' environment variable, or `~/News/' if that variable isn't set. Note that Gnus is mostly loaded when the `~/.gnus.el' file is read. This means that other directory variables that are initialized from this variable won't be set properly if you set this variable in `~/.gnus.el'. Set this variable in `.emacs' instead. `gnus-default-directory' Not related to the above variable at all--this variable says what the default directory of all Gnus buffers should be. If you issue commands like `C-x C-f', the prompt you'll get starts in the current buffer's default directory. If this variable is `nil' (which is the default), the default directory will be the default directory of the buffer you were in when you started Gnus. `gnus-verbose' This variable is an integer between zero and ten. The higher the value, the more messages will be displayed. If this variable is zero, Gnus will never flash any messages, if it is seven (which is the default), most important messages will be shown, and if it is ten, Gnus won't ever shut up, but will flash so many messages it will make your head swim. `gnus-verbose-backends' This variable works the same way as `gnus-verbose', but it applies to the Gnus back ends instead of Gnus proper. `nnheader-max-head-length' When the back ends read straight heads of articles, they all try to read as little as possible. This variable (default 4096) specifies the absolute max length the back ends will try to read before giving up on finding a separator line between the head and the body. If this variable is `nil', there is no upper read bound. If it is `t', the back ends won't try to read the articles piece by piece, but read the entire articles. This makes sense with some versions of `ange-ftp' or `efs'. `nnheader-head-chop-length' This variable (default 2048) says how big a piece of each article to read when doing the operation described above. `nnheader-file-name-translation-alist' This is an alist that says how to translate characters in file names. For instance, if `:' is invalid as a file character in file names on your system (you OS/2 user you), you could say something like: (setq nnheader-file-name-translation-alist '((?: . ?_))) In fact, this is the default value for this variable on OS/2 and MS Windows (phooey) systems. `gnus-hidden-properties' This is a list of properties to use to hide "invisible" text. It is `(invisible t intangible t)' by default on most systems, which makes invisible text invisible and intangible. `gnus-parse-headers-hook' A hook called before parsing headers. It can be used, for instance, to gather statistics on the headers fetched, or perhaps you'd like to prune some headers. I don't see why you'd want that, though. `gnus-shell-command-separator' String used to separate two shell commands. The default is `;'. `gnus-invalid-group-regexp' Regexp to match "invalid" group names when querying user for a group name. The default value catches some *really* invalid group names who could possibly mess up Gnus internally (like allowing `:' in a group name, which is normally used to delimit method and group). IMAP users might want to allow `/' in group names though.  File: gnus, Node: The End, Next: Appendices, Prev: Various, Up: Top The End ******* Well, that's the manual--you can get on with your life now. Keep in touch. Say hello to your cats from me. My *ghod*--I just can't stand goodbyes. Sniffle. Ol' Charles Reznikoff said it pretty well, so I leave the floor to him: *Te Deum* Not because of victories I sing, having none, but for the common sunshine, the breeze, the largess of the spring. Not for victory but for the day's work done as well as I was able; not for a seat upon the dais but at the common table.  File: gnus, Node: Appendices, Next: Index, Prev: The End, Up: Top Appendices ********** * Menu: * XEmacs:: Requirements for installing under XEmacs. * History:: How Gnus got where it is today. * On Writing Manuals:: Why this is not a beginner's guide. * Terminology:: We use really difficult, like, words here. * Customization:: Tailoring Gnus to your needs. * Troubleshooting:: What you might try if things do not work. * Gnus Reference Guide:: Rilly, rilly technical stuff. * Emacs for Heathens:: A short introduction to Emacsian terms. * Frequently Asked Questions:: The Gnus FAQ  File: gnus, Node: XEmacs, Next: History, Up: Appendices XEmacs ====== XEmacs is distributed as a collection of packages. You should install whatever packages the Gnus XEmacs package requires. The current requirements are `gnus', `w3', `mh-e', `mailcrypt', `rmail', `eterm', `mail-lib', `xemacs-base', `sh-script' and `fsf-compat'. The `misc-games' package is required for Morse decoding.  File: gnus, Node: History, Next: On Writing Manuals, Prev: XEmacs, Up: Appendices History ======= GNUS was written by Masanobu UMEDA. When autumn crept up in '94, Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen grew bored and decided to rewrite Gnus. If you want to investigate the person responsible for this outrage, you can point your (feh!) web browser to `http://quimby.gnus.org/'. This is also the primary distribution point for the new and spiffy versions of Gnus, and is known as The Site That Destroys Newsrcs And Drives People Mad. During the first extended alpha period of development, the new Gnus was called "(ding) Gnus". "(ding)" is, of course, short for "ding is not Gnus", which is a total and utter lie, but who cares? (Besides, the "Gnus" in this abbreviation should probably be pronounced "news" as UMEDA intended, which makes it a more appropriate name, don't you think?) In any case, after spending all that energy on coming up with a new and spunky name, we decided that the name was _too_ spunky, so we renamed it back again to "Gnus". But in mixed case. "Gnus" vs. "GNUS". New vs. old. * Menu: * Gnus Versions:: What Gnus versions have been released. * Other Gnus Versions:: Other Gnus versions that also have been released. * Why?:: What's the point of Gnus? * Compatibility:: Just how compatible is Gnus with GNUS? * Conformity:: Gnus tries to conform to all standards. * Emacsen:: Gnus can be run on a few modern Emacsen. * Gnus Development:: How Gnus is developed. * Contributors:: Oodles of people. * New Features:: Pointers to some of the new stuff in Gnus.  File: gnus, Node: Gnus Versions, Next: Other Gnus Versions, Up: History Gnus Versions ------------- The first "proper" release of Gnus 5 was done in November 1995 when it was included in the Emacs 19.30 distribution (132 (ding) Gnus releases plus 15 Gnus 5.0 releases). In May 1996 the next Gnus generation (aka. "September Gnus" (after 99 releases)) was released under the name "Gnus 5.2" (40 releases). On July 28th 1996 work on Red Gnus was begun, and it was released on January 25th 1997 (after 84 releases) as "Gnus 5.4" (67 releases). On September 13th 1997, Quassia Gnus was started and lasted 37 releases. If was released as "Gnus 5.6" on March 8th 1998 (46 releases). Gnus 5.6 begat Pterodactyl Gnus on August 29th 1998 and was released as "Gnus 5.8" (after 99 releases and a CVS repository) on December 3rd 1999. On the 26th of October 2000, Oort Gnus was begun. If you happen upon a version of Gnus that has a prefixed name - "(ding) Gnus", "September Gnus", "Red Gnus", "Quassia Gnus", "Pterodactyl Gnus", "Oort Gnus" - don't panic. Don't let it know that you're frightened. Back away. Slowly. Whatever you do, don't run. Walk away, calmly, until you're out of its reach. Find a proper released version of Gnus and snuggle up to that instead.  File: gnus, Node: Other Gnus Versions, Next: Why?, Prev: Gnus Versions, Up: History Other Gnus Versions ------------------- In addition to the versions of Gnus which have had their releases coordinated by Lars, one major development has been Semi-gnus from Japan. It's based on a library called SEMI, which provides MIME capabilities. These Gnusae are based mainly on Gnus 5.6 and Pterodactyl Gnus. Collectively, they are called "Semi-gnus", and different strains are called T-gnus, ET-gnus, Nana-gnus and Chaos. These provide powerful MIME and multilingualization things, especially important for Japanese users.  File: gnus, Node: Why?, Next: Compatibility, Prev: Other Gnus Versions, Up: History Why? ---- What's the point of Gnus? I want to provide a "rad", "happening", "way cool" and "hep" newsreader, that lets you do anything you can think of. That was my original motivation, but while working on Gnus, it has become clear to me that this generation of newsreaders really belong in the stone age. Newsreaders haven't developed much since the infancy of the net. If the volume continues to rise with the current rate of increase, all current newsreaders will be pretty much useless. How do you deal with newsgroups that have thousands of new articles each day? How do you keep track of millions of people who post? Gnus offers no real solutions to these questions, but I would very much like to see Gnus being used as a testing ground for new methods of reading and fetching news. Expanding on UMEDA-san's wise decision to separate the newsreader from the back ends, Gnus now offers a simple interface for anybody who wants to write new back ends for fetching mail and news from different sources. I have added hooks for customizations everywhere I could imagine it being useful. By doing so, I'm inviting every one of you to explore and invent. May Gnus never be complete. `C-u 100 M-x all-hail-emacs' and `C-u 100 M-x all-hail-xemacs'.  File: gnus, Node: Compatibility, Next: Conformity, Prev: Why?, Up: History Compatibility ------------- Gnus was designed to be fully compatible with GNUS. Almost all key bindings have been kept. More key bindings have been added, of course, but only in one or two obscure cases have old bindings been changed. Our motto is: In a cloud bones of steel. All commands have kept their names. Some internal functions have changed their names. The `gnus-uu' package has changed drastically. *Note Decoding Articles::. One major compatibility question is the presence of several summary buffers. All variables relevant while reading a group are buffer-local to the summary buffer they belong in. Although many important variables have their values copied into their global counterparts whenever a command is executed in the summary buffer, this change might lead to incorrect values being used unless you are careful. All code that relies on knowledge of GNUS internals will probably fail. To take two examples: Sorting `gnus-newsrc-alist' (or changing it in any way, as a matter of fact) is strictly verboten. Gnus maintains a hash table that points to the entries in this alist (which speeds up many functions), and changing the alist directly will lead to peculiar results. Old hilit19 code does not work at all. In fact, you should probably remove all hilit code from all Gnus hooks (`gnus-group-prepare-hook' and `gnus-summary-prepare-hook'). Gnus provides various integrated functions for highlighting. These are faster and more accurate. To make life easier for everybody, Gnus will by default remove all hilit calls from all hilit hooks. Uncleanliness! Away! Packages like `expire-kill' will no longer work. As a matter of fact, you should probably remove all old GNUS packages (and other code) when you start using Gnus. More likely than not, Gnus already does what you have written code to make GNUS do. (Snicker.) Even though old methods of doing things are still supported, only the new methods are documented in this manual. If you detect a new method of doing something while reading this manual, that does not mean you have to stop doing it the old way. Gnus understands all GNUS startup files. Overall, a casual user who hasn't written much code that depends on GNUS internals should suffer no problems. If problems occur, please let me know by issuing that magic command `M-x gnus-bug'. If you are in the habit of sending bug reports _very_ often, you may find the helpful help buffer annoying after a while. If so, set `gnus-bug-create-help-buffer' to `nil' to avoid having it pop up at you.  File: gnus, Node: Conformity, Next: Emacsen, Prev: Compatibility, Up: History Conformity ---------- No rebels without a clue here, ma'am. We conform to all standards known to (wo)man. Except for those standards and/or conventions we disagree with, of course. *RFC (2)822* There are no known breaches of this standard. *RFC 1036* There are no known breaches of this standard, either. *Son-of-RFC 1036* We do have some breaches to this one. _X-Newsreader_ _User-Agent_ These are considered to be "vanity headers", while I consider them to be consumer information. After seeing so many badly formatted articles coming from `tin' and `Netscape' I know not to use either of those for posting articles. I would not have known that if it wasn't for the `X-Newsreader' header. *USEFOR* USEFOR is an IETF working group writing a successor to RFC 1036, based on Son-of-RFC 1036. They have produced a number of drafts proposing various changes to the format of news articles. The Gnus towers will look into implementing the changes when the draft is accepted as an RFC. *MIME - RFC 2045-2049 etc* All the various MIME RFCs are supported. *Disposition Notifications - RFC 2298* Message Mode is able to request notifications from the receiver. *PGP - RFC 1991 and RFC 2440* RFC 1991 is the original PGP message specification, published as an informational RFC. RFC 2440 was the follow-up, now called Open PGP, and put on the Standards Track. Both document a non-MIME aware PGP format. Gnus supports both encoding (signing and encryption) and decoding (verification and decryption). *PGP/MIME - RFC 2015/3156* RFC 2015 (superseded by 3156 which references RFC 2440 instead of RFC 1991) describes the MIME-wrapping around the RF 1991/2440 format. Gnus supports both encoding and decoding. *S/MIME - RFC 2633* RFC 2633 describes the S/MIME format. *IMAP - RFC 1730/2060, RFC 2195, RFC 2086, RFC 2359, RFC 2595, RFC 1731* RFC 1730 is IMAP version 4, updated somewhat by RFC 2060 (IMAP 4 revision 1). RFC 2195 describes CRAM-MD5 authentication for IMAP. RFC 2086 describes access control lists (ACLs) for IMAP. RFC 2359 describes a IMAP protocol enhancement. RFC 2595 describes the proper TLS integration (STARTTLS) with IMAP. RFC 1731 describes the GSSAPI/Kerberos4 mechanisms for IMAP. If you ever notice Gnus acting non-compliant with regards to the texts mentioned above, don't hesitate to drop a note to Gnus Towers and let us know.  File: gnus, Node: Emacsen, Next: Gnus Development, Prev: Conformity, Up: History Emacsen ------- Gnus should work on : * Emacs 20.7 and up. * XEmacs 21.1 and up. This Gnus version will absolutely not work on any Emacsen older than that. Not reliably, at least. Older versions of Gnus may work on older Emacs versions. There are some vague differences between Gnus on the various platforms--XEmacs features more graphics (a logo and a toolbar)--but other than that, things should look pretty much the same under all Emacsen.  File: gnus, Node: Gnus Development, Next: Contributors, Prev: Emacsen, Up: History Gnus Development ---------------- Gnus is developed in a two-phased cycle. The first phase involves much discussion on the `ding@gnus.org' mailing list, where people propose changes and new features, post patches and new back ends. This phase is called the "alpha" phase, since the Gnusae released in this phase are "alpha releases", or (perhaps more commonly in other circles) "snapshots". During this phase, Gnus is assumed to be unstable and should not be used by casual users. Gnus alpha releases have names like "Red Gnus" and "Quassia Gnus". After futzing around for 50-100 alpha releases, Gnus is declared "frozen", and only bug fixes are applied. Gnus loses the prefix, and is called things like "Gnus 5.6.32" instead. Normal people are supposed to be able to use these, and these are mostly discussed on the `gnu.emacs.gnus' newsgroup. Some variable defaults differ between alpha Gnusae and released Gnusae. In particular, `mail-source-delete-incoming' defaults to `nil' in alpha Gnusae and `t' in released Gnusae. This is to prevent lossage of mail if an alpha release hiccups while handling the mail. The division of discussion between the ding mailing list and the Gnus newsgroup is not purely based on publicity concerns. It's true that having people write about the horrible things that an alpha Gnus release can do (sometimes) in a public forum may scare people off, but more importantly, talking about new experimental features that have been introduced may confuse casual users. New features are frequently introduced, fiddled with, and judged to be found wanting, and then either discarded or totally rewritten. People reading the mailing list usually keep up with these rapid changes, while people on the newsgroup can't be assumed to do so.  File: gnus, Node: Contributors, Next: New Features, Prev: Gnus Development, Up: History Contributors ------------ The new Gnus version couldn't have been done without the help of all the people on the (ding) mailing list. Every day for over a year I have gotten billions of nice bug reports from them, filling me with joy, every single one of them. Smooches. The people on the list have been tried beyond endurance, what with my "oh, that's a neat idea , yup, I'll release it right away no wait, that doesn't work at all , yup, I'll ship that one off right away no, wait, that absolutely does not work" policy for releases. Micro$oft--bah. Amateurs. I'm _much_ worse. (Or is that "worser"? "much worser"? "worsest"?) I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Academy for... oops, wrong show. * Masanobu UMEDA--the writer of the original GNUS. * Shenghuo Zhu--uudecode.el, mm-uu.el, rfc1843.el, webmail.el, nnwarchive and many, many other things connected with MIME and other types of en/decoding, as well as general bug fixing, new functionality and stuff. * Per Abrahamsen--custom, scoring, highlighting and SOUP code (as well as numerous other things). * Luis Fernandes--design and graphics. * Joe Reiss--creator of the smiley faces. * Justin Sheehy--the FAQ maintainer. * Erik Naggum--help, ideas, support, code and stuff. * Wes Hardaker--`gnus-picon.el' and the manual section on "picons" (*note Picons::). * Kim-Minh Kaplan--further work on the picon code. * Brad Miller--`gnus-gl.el' and the GroupLens manual section (*note GroupLens::). * Sudish Joseph--innumerable bug fixes. * Ilja Weis--`gnus-topic.el'. * Steven L. Baur--lots and lots and lots of bugs detections and fixes. * Vladimir Alexiev--the refcard and reference booklets. * Felix Lee & Jamie Zawinski--I stole some pieces from the XGnus distribution by Felix Lee and JWZ. * Scott Byer--`nnfolder.el' enhancements & rewrite. * Peter Mutsaers--orphan article scoring code. * Ken Raeburn--POP mail support. * Hallvard B Furuseth--various bits and pieces, especially dealing with .newsrc files. * Brian Edmonds--`gnus-bbdb.el'. * David Moore--rewrite of `nnvirtual.el' and many other things. * Kevin Davidson--came up with the name "ding", so blame him. * François Pinard--many, many interesting and thorough bug reports, as well as autoconf support. This manual was proof-read by Adrian Aichner, with Ricardo Nassif, Mark Borges, and Jost Krieger proof-reading parts of the manual. The following people have contributed many patches and suggestions: Christopher Davis, Andrew Eskilsson, Kai Grossjohann, Kevin Greiner, Jesper Harder, Paul Jarc, Simon Josefsson, David Kċgedal, Richard Pieri, Fabrice Popineau, Daniel Quinlan, Michael Shields, Reiner Steib, Jason L. Tibbitts, III, Jack Vinson, Katsumi Yamaoka, and Teodor Zlatanov. Also thanks to the following for patches and stuff: Jari Aalto, Adrian Aichner, Vladimir Alexiev, Russ Allbery, Peter Arius, Matt Armstrong, Marc Auslander, Miles Bader, Alexei V. Barantsev, Frank Bennett, Robert Bihlmeyer, Chris Bone, Mark Borges, Mark Boyns, Lance A. Brown, Rob Browning, Kees de Bruin, Martin Buchholz, Joe Buehler, Kevin Buhr, Alastair Burt, Joao Cachopo, Zlatko Calusic, Massimo Campostrini, Castor, David Charlap, Dan Christensen, Kevin Christian, Jae-you Chung, James H. Cloos, Jr., Laura Conrad, Michael R. Cook, Glenn Coombs, Andrew J. Cosgriff, Neil Crellin, Frank D. Cringle, Geoffrey T. Dairiki, Andre Deparade, Ulrik Dickow, Dave Disser, Rui-Tao Dong, Joev Dubach, Michael Welsh Duggan, Dave Edmondson, Paul Eggert, Mark W. Eichin, Karl Eichwalder, Enami Tsugutomo, Michael Ernst, Luc Van Eycken, Sam Falkner, Nelson Jose dos Santos Ferreira, Sigbjorn Finne, Sven Fischer, Paul Fisher, Decklin Foster, Gary D. Foster, Paul Franklin, Guy Geens, Arne Georg Gleditsch, David S. Goldberg, Michelangelo Grigni, Dale Hagglund, D. Hall, Magnus Hammerin, Kenichi Handa, Raja R. Harinath, Yoshiki Hayashi, P. E. Jareth Hein, Hisashige Kenji, Scott Hofmann, Marc Horowitz, Gunnar Horrigmo, Richard Hoskins, Brad Howes, Miguel de Icaza, François Felix Ingrand, Tatsuya Ichikawa, Ishikawa Ichiro, Lee Iverson, Iwamuro Motonori, Rajappa Iyer, Andreas Jaeger, Adam P. Jenkins, Randell Jesup, Fred Johansen, Gareth Jones, Greg Klanderman, Karl Kleinpaste, Michael Klingbeil, Peter Skov Knudsen, Shuhei Kobayashi, Petr Konecny, Koseki Yoshinori, Thor Kristoffersen, Jens Lautenbacher, Martin Larose, Seokchan Lee, Joerg Lenneis, Carsten Leonhardt, James LewisMoss, Christian Limpach, Markus Linnala, Dave Love, Mike McEwan, Tonny Madsen, Shlomo Mahlab, Nat Makarevitch, Istvan Marko, David Martin, Jason R. Mastaler, Gordon Matzigkeit, Timo Metzemakers, Richard Mlynarik, Lantz Moore, Morioka Tomohiko, Erik Toubro Nielsen, Hrvoje Niksic, Andy Norman, Fred Oberhauser, C. R. Oldham, Alexandre Oliva, Ken Olstad, Masaharu Onishi, Hideki Ono, Ettore Perazzoli, William Perry, Stephen Peters, Jens-Ulrik Holger Petersen, Ulrich Pfeifer, Matt Pharr, Andy Piper, John McClary Prevost, Bill Pringlemeir, Mike Pullen, Jim Radford, Colin Rafferty, Lasse Rasinen, Lars Balker Rasmussen, Joe Reiss, Renaud Rioboo, Roland B. Roberts, Bart Robinson, Christian von Roques, Markus Rost, Jason Rumney, Wolfgang Rupprecht, Jay Sachs, Dewey M. Sasser, Conrad Sauerwald, Loren Schall, Dan Schmidt, Ralph Schleicher, Philippe Schnoebelen, Andreas Schwab, Randal L. Schwartz, Danny Siu, Matt Simmons, Paul D. Smith, Jeff Sparkes, Toby Speight, Michael Sperber, Darren Stalder, Richard Stallman, Greg Stark, Sam Steingold, Paul Stevenson, Jonas Steverud, Paul Stodghill, Kiyokazu Suto, Kurt Swanson, Samuel Tardieu, Teddy, Chuck Thompson, Tozawa Akihiko, Philippe Troin, James Troup, Trung Tran-Duc, Jack Twilley, Aaron M. Ucko, Aki Vehtari, Didier Verna, Vladimir Volovich, Jan Vroonhof, Stefan Waldherr, Pete Ware, Barry A. Warsaw, Christoph Wedler, Joe Wells, Lee Willis, and Lloyd Zusman. For a full overview of what each person has done, the ChangeLogs included in the Gnus alpha distributions should give ample reading (550kB and counting). Apologies to everybody that I've forgotten, of which there are many, I'm sure. Gee, that's quite a list of people. I guess that must mean that there actually are people who are using Gnus. Who'd'a thunk it!  File: gnus, Node: New Features, Prev: Contributors, Up: History New Features ------------ * Menu: * ding Gnus:: New things in Gnus 5.0/5.1, the first new Gnus. * September Gnus:: The Thing Formally Known As Gnus 5.2/5.3. * Red Gnus:: Third time best---Gnus 5.4/5.5. * Quassia Gnus:: Two times two is four, or Gnus 5.6/5.7. * Pterodactyl Gnus:: Pentad also starts with P, AKA Gnus 5.8/5.9. * Oort Gnus:: It's big. It's far out. Gnus 5.10. These lists are, of course, just _short_ overviews of the _most_ important new features. No, really. There are tons more. Yes, we have feeping creaturism in full effect.