Re: Managing groups added from within gnus

[Lowell Gilbert]

Philipp Haselwarter <philipp.haselwarter@gmx.de> writes:

> I'm having some trouble with gnus blocking when some servers aren't
> avalable. I just tried to start gnus ("Gnus v5.13") at my uni's library
> where port 119 (nntp) is blocked. gnus just sat there for ages and
> blocked, as it obviously couldn't connect to news.gmane.org.
> I tried `gnus-unplugged' but that wasn't any different.
>
> Eventually I had to C-g out, resulting in gnus not connecting at all
> (imaps connection would have been possible but gnus just aborted all
> together).
>
> So I was wondering, how do I disable servers/groups that I'm subscribed
> to but that I have not configured in my .gnus.el but through the group
> buffer (`gnus-group-browse-foreign-server')?
>
> This kind of group has been buggering me for a while now: Their whole
> configuration and existence seems to come from the (for me) mysterious
> .newsrc.eld.
> When I add a new subscription on one gnus instance I have to manually
> add it on every other instance.
>
> Isn't there a more sane way to manage those groups?
> I somewhat see the interest of keeping lusers from editing the
> .newsrc.eld by hand, but why isn't it possible to separate the whole
> subscription aspect from the groups' state properties (marks, ticks
> etc)?
> The whole handling of those groups is too obscure to me, I don't even
> know what variable I'd have to reset to take them out (when a
> secondary-select-method is making me trouble I can simple get it out of
> the way by removing it from the list).
>
> Suggestions on how to deal with those groups highly appreciated,
> cheers,

I handle such issues with group levels; the newsgroups are lesser
priority than my mail groups, so I can tell Gnus to check the latter
without the former.  This only works if a strict hierarchy of importance
exists for the groups, but in my case (and, I suspect, I'm a common case
in this), it's just fine.

 - Lowell