Re: [BUG] Issues in ol-gnus when storing links in nnvirtual and nnselect articles [9.7-pre (release_9.6.7-570-gd6f3ae.dirty @ /home/jschmidt/work/org-mode/lisp/)]

[Jens Schmidt]

On 2023-07-23  12:26, Max Nikulin wrote:

> Is nnselect a real NNTP group or is it some instance existing solely
> in user's configuration?

Like nnvirtual and nnir, nnselect exists only in user's configuration,
yes.  All these three backends are "wrapper backends" that keep track of
the original messages which they wrap by pairs

  (ORIGINAL-GROUP, MESSAGE-ID)

> Does gnus have global Message-ID index?

Gnus can have a global Message-ID cache, but it's not on by default (at
least not in Emacs 28, haven't checked others).  And anyway, it's a
potentially incomplete *cache*, and not an *index*.

> (info "(url) news/nntp/snews") or <info:url#news/nntp/snews> or 
> https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/url/news_002fnntp_002fsnews.html

In any case, Gnus is *not only* an NNTP newsreader, since it has a
plethora of other backends (aka. "select methods"), ranging from nnimap
to nneething, which turns a directory into a, well, group?  See
<info:gnus#Select Methods>.  Funnily enough, I personally stopped using
Gnus as NNTP newsreader long ago ...

> I am curious whether namely "gnus" links have to be used or it is 
> possible to rely on more generic "news:"/"nntp:"; links, or even 
> <mid:E18xcfu-0004HT-00@fencepost.gnu.org> (perhaps with some 
> `browse-url' configuration)? It should improve portability.

For nntp groups you already have the option to store links as web links
to groups.google.com, by means of `org-gnus-prefer-web-links'.  Here
again I'm not really an NNTP expert so I cannot tell whether this is
portable/optimal/whatever.

This could be extended to provide more options for backends that support 
more specific link types, but I think the default should stay the gnus:"
links, since only that covers all the available Gnus backends.