6. Select Methods

A foreign group is a group not read by the usual (or default) means. It could be, for instance, a group from a different NNTP server, it could be a virtual group, or it could be your own personal mail group.

A foreign group (or any group, really) is specified by a name and a select method. To take the latter first, a select method is a list where the first element says what back end to use (e.g. nntp, nnspool, nnml) and the second element is the server name. There may be additional elements in the select method, where the value may have special meaning for the back end in question.

One could say that a select method defines a virtual server---so we do just that (see section 6.1 Server Buffer).

The name of the group is the name the back end will recognize the group as.

For instance, the group `soc.motss' on the NNTP server `some.where.edu' will have the name `soc.motss' and select method (nntp "some.where.edu"). Gnus will call this group `nntp+some.where.edu:soc.motss', even though the nntp back end just knows this group as `soc.motss'.

The different methods all have their peculiarities, of course.

6.1 Server Buffer		Making and editing virtual servers.
6.2 Getting News		Reading USENET news with Gnus.
6.3 Getting Mail		Reading your personal mail with Gnus.
6.4 Browsing the Web		Getting messages from a plethora of Web sources.
6.5 IMAP		Using Gnus as a IMAP client.
6.6 Other Sources		Reading directories, files, SOUP packets.
6.7 Combined Groups		Combining groups into one group.
6.8 Gnus Unplugged		Reading news and mail offline.