[Pan-users] Re: More on rules/filters

[Duncan]

JC posted <address@hidden>, excerpted
below,  on Wed, 09 Jun 2004 11:28:01 -0700:

>    I made an inquiry yesterday about filters and rules
> under pan. Someone replied (thanks, Jeff) but things
> remain unchanged. So let me reformulate my question:
> 
>    How can one configure pan 0.14.2 so that all
> messages posted by author bozo1 or by author bozo2 are
> automatically deleted every time new headers are
> downloaded for any subscribed group? Is this at all
> possible with pan? If so, how?

Yes.  It is possible.  I do it all the time.

There are actually two ways to do it.  I'll describe the new one, using
scoring, here.  If that collides with something else you use scoring for,
say so, and I'll explain the older method (tho it's sort of depreciated,
and could conceivably be removed at some point).

So, using scoring..

I. Setting up the score.

   1. Bring up the "Add to Scorefile" dialog.

      A. Use the "Create Score" function.

         a. Right-click "context" menu.

         b. "Article" main-menu.

         c. Hotkey. "s", I believe, by default.

      B. Use the "Plonk Author" function.

         a. Article main-menu.

         b. Possible hotkey, but there's one by default, I deleted it.

   2. In the "Add to Scorefile" dialog:

      A. Under Newsgroups:

         a. By default, it will b it will be /just/ the newsgroup
            you were in when you set it.

         b. There are a bunch of ways to set it to a larger superset of
            groups.

         c. One way to match /all/ groups: Set it to "is not", dev.null.
            (/dev/null is *ix-speak for "nothing", tho of course if that
            ever matches a group..)

         d. Another: Set it to matching regex (regular expression), then
            put ".*" in the box ("." in regex is any character. "*" means
            "zero or more occurrences of the previous match")

      B. Under Criteria:

         a. Check the "Author" box.  (This will be already checked if you
            used I.1.B, "Plonk".)

         b. The match will be already filled in to match that post, but
            you can adjust it if necessary.

         c. Uncheck any /other/ criteria (or the score will only happen
            if it meets /all/ checked criteria).

      C. Under (the first) Score, set to "Ignore".

         a. This will already be set if you used I.1.B,"Plonk".

         b. Otherwise, it defaults to Change Score, Add 100.

      D. Under (the second) Score, set the expiration time, or none.

      E. Select "Add" to simply add the score to your scorefile, or
         "Add and Rescore", if you want the score applied now.

II. Results of just the "ignore" scoring.

   1. PAN's default "ignore" action is to not display ignored posts.

   2. Pan does NOT, however, take additional action on ignored posts,
      unless you tell it to do so.  Thus, posts remain tracked and are
      still unread, so even if you've marked everything displayed as read,
      PAN may still say some posts remain unread.  This can be corrected
      in a number of different ways:
    
      A. Simply mark the entire group as read.

         a. Use the setting in prefs to do so as you exit the group.

         b. Manually invoke the "Mark Group Read" function from the
            "Groups" main-menu, using the context menu in the groups pane,
            or invoking a hotkey as you may have set up for the function.

      B. Checkmark the "Match .. Ignored" item on the Filter main-menu
         (which of course can be setup with a hotkey if desired)
         and manually mark them as read or delete them.

      C. Continue with III, "Setting up an Ignored Posts Rule", below.

III. Setting up an Ignored Posts Rule.
   
   1. You may wish to set up a rule so PAN does additional handling of
      ignored posts automatically, marking them read or deleting them as
      desired, due to the issue explained in II.2, above.

   2. Bring up the "Rules" dialog.

      A. "Tools" main-menu item.

      B. There's a hotkey by default, but IDR what it is as I've changed
         mine (to Ctrl-Alt-R).

   3. In the "Rules" dialog, click the "Add" button to add a new rule,
      using the "Edit Rule" dialog box.

   4. In the "Edit Rule" dialog box:

      A. Select a name for the rule. I simply used "Ignored" for mine.

      B. Check "Apply to Incoming", so it's automatically applied to new
         posts.  Keep in mind that you'll have to apply it manually (from
         the "Rules" dialog) to get it to apply to existing posts, if you
         add a new target to be ignored to your scorefile.

      C. On the "Newsgroups" tab, ensure that "Rule applies to all
         newsgroups" is selected.  This is the default, so it should be.

      D. Skipping to the "Actions" tab, checkmark the desired actions.

         a. If I dislike it enough to "ignore" it, I don't want to see it
            at all, so I checkmark "Delete Article".

         b. Some folks may prefer "Mark as ..  Read", instead. This would
            probably apply to those who wish to ignore the article
            normally, but sometimes might like to refer back to it, if
            someone that isn't ignored replies, so it's possible to see
            what they replied to in context, without having to jump thru a
            bunch of hoops to get the article that was deleted locally,
            off the server again.

      E. Back to the "Filters" tab.

         a. We are going to have to create an appropriate filter. Thus,
            click "Edit Filters" to open the "Filters" dialog.

         b. In the "Filters" dialog box, click "Add", to open up the
            "Edit Filter" dialog.

         c. In the "Edit Filter" dialog box:
 
            aa: Set the filter name.  Again, I used simply "Ignored".

            bb: Under "New Filter Line" set "Article score is at least"

            cc: Click on the listbox beside it, and set "Low".  (Yes,
                I KNOW this isn't quite what we want, but do it anyway).

            dd: Click "Add New Line to the Filter".  *DO NOT FORGET THIS!*

            ee: In the list of filter lines, select the new entry.

            ff: Click the "Invert" button.

            gg: If all has been done correctly, the line should now read
                "Article score one of: ignored".  That's what we want.  If
                that's not what you have, delete the entry and try again,
                from bb.

            hh: Click "OK".

         d. Back in the "Filters" dialog, your new filter should be
            listed.  Click close, since we now have our filter.

      F. Back on the "Filters" tab of the "Edit Rule" dialog:

         a. Click on the "Select Filter" listbox. and select your new
            ignored filter (if necessary).

         b. The filter display should now show the filter you created,
            with the appropriate conditions, in this case, "Article score
            one of: Ignored".  Assuming it does..

      G. Your rule is now complete. Click OK to add it to the rules list.

   5. Your new rule should now be listed in the "Rules" dialog.  Don't
      forget, to cover any posts already downloaded, when you add a new
      "ignore" target to your scorefile, come back to this dialog, select
      the appropriate rule, and click on the button to apply it to all the
      groups it matches, or just to the group-pane selected groups
      (normally just the one you are in).  If you've been following the
      guide from I, "Setting up the score", above, you have such a new
      ignore addition to your scorefile right now, so you might as well
      apply your new rule and see how it works.

The above is a bit more "AOL handholding" style than I normally do, but it
seemed what you were doing wasn't working, so I decided to try this, to
see if it did.

Keep in mind that someone may post with different From/Author settings. 
This could be someone posting from both home and work, for instance,
using the same handle, but different e-mail addresses, or the same address
but different handles.  If they are cooperative and observant of normal
netiquette, portions of it in all cases will likely be similar, so you
can plonk them based on the common portion.  Unfortunately, PAN remains
very limited in the headers it can base scoring on, a subset of what's
normally available in an overview.  Thus, there's no way, yet, to filter
on NNTP-Posting-Host, Organization, or some of the other often telltale
headers likely remaining in the post when someone attempts to deliberately
avoid kill files and the like.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little
temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." --
Benjamin Franklin