Re: configuring gnus-agent to download everything

[Simon Josefsson]

Mark Thomas <mthomas@cmu.edu> writes:

> I'm running Gnus 5.10.6 in XEmacs 21.4.15 inside of X11 on Mac OSX 10.3.7.
>
> I'm using nnimap backend, and I'm trying to configure the agent to
> download and cache to my laptop *all* articles from the last 4 months.
> (I guess I'm trying to emulate an nnml environment with a 4month
> expiry, but I want to leave the articles on the server so I can get to
> them on occasion with other imap clients.)

This is similar to my setup, although I never expire anything.

> My setup includes the following:
>
>   ;; use the agent.
>   (setq gnus-agent t)

Remove, it is not needed.

>   ;; if article is in cache, use it instead of from server
>   (setq gnus-agent-cache t)

Ditto.

>   ;; when connected, read article should also be put into the agent
>   (add-hook 'gnus-select-article-hook
>             'gnus-agent-fetch-selected-article)

This is required.

>   ;; agent predicate decides when to download an article
>   (setq gnus-agent-consider-all-articles t)

As is this.

>   ;; don't automatically expire
>   (setq gnus-agent-enable-expiration 'DISABLE)

And this.

>   ;; how long to let articles live in the local agent cache
>   (setq gnus-agent-expire-days 125)  ; 4 months

You'd want this, I'd guess.

>   ;; only download articles from groups with this level
>   (setq gnus-agent-handle-level 2)

Not sure.

> I run gnus-unpluggeed, then type J j in the *Group* buffer to connect;
> I type J s to synchronize with the server, and then g to get new
> mail.  At this point, I would like it if all the new mail were on my
> local machine, and to be able to disconnect and the read mail.

You need to press J s again to synchronize the newly fetched mail with
the local cache.  Syncing doesn't happen automatically.

> However, when I visit buffers, the download mark is '-', showing that
> I don't have the article.  If I attempt to read the article while
> plugged, the mark changes to '+' and everything is fine.  If I'm
> unplugged when I try to read the article, Gnus shows the message as
> being [undownloaded].
>
> What's extremely annoying is that if I later plug in the server, there
> doesn't appear to be any way to convince Gnus to download that article
> short of blowing away the .overview and .agentview files.

When you select an undownloaded articles, it should be queued for
fetching the next time around.