[notmuch] Snippet to jump to message in Gnus from notmuch-show buffer

[Tassilo Horn]

Carl Worth <cworth at cworth.org> writes:

Hi Carl,

> On Tue, 24 Nov 2009 09:02:46 +0100, Tassilo Horn <tassilo at member.fsf.org> wrote:
>> I'm a Gnus user and use notmuch mostly for searching.  When I want to
>> reply to a message, I need to get back to Gnus, so that my Gnus
>> posting styles (gcc into that group, right email address, correct
>> signature,...)  are applied.
>
> Oh, good. I've been hoping to be able to get some advice from gnus
> users. I want to figure out how to get gnus support for viewing
> encrypted messages, etc.

Oh, I don't have any clue about encryption.  EasyPG is a keyword, that I
can provide, though.

> Do you happen to know some good documentation for how to get started
> with gnus for reading mail? I'd be happy even with the bare minimum to
> just get gnus to view one single message from out of my mail
> store. (Which is something I tried to figure out from the gnus manual,
> but I never succeeded at.)

Well, if you only want to have a look at a maildir or mbox, and don't
want to make the group permanent and let gnus fetch mail, then this
should do the trick.

  M-x gnus RET ;; brings you into the *Group* buffer, and then

,----[ (info "(gnus)Foreign Groups") ]
| `G m'
|      Make a new group (`gnus-group-make-group').  Gnus will prompt you
|      for a name, a method and possibly an "address".  For an easier way
|      to subscribe to NNTP groups (*note Browse Foreign Server::).
`----

>> Therefore, I created this small snippet.  Now C-c C-c inside some
>> message in the *notmuch-show* buffer opens this article in a Gnus
>> *Summary* buffer, where I can reply to it, forward it, ...
>
> And this would be exactly the thing I would want for exploring gnus,
> if only I could get it working.

This does only work if the group already exists inside Gnus.  So you
might consider setting it up properly, although it's a bit first-time
effort.

> If I just try to run it, I get:
>
> 	Symbol's function definition is void: org-gnus-follow-link

Do you use Emacs 23?  If yes, put a (require 'org-gnus) before the
call.  If not, you have to install org-mode manually.

> And I suppose that's expected since I don't have gnus "running". If I
> try to start gnus with "M-x gnus", I get:
>
> 	Unable to open server nntp+news, go offline? (y or n) 

Hm, I can reproduce that with "emacs -Q".  Looks wrong to me, probably a
bug...  Normally, an unconfigured Gnus should start having one nndoc
server providing some groups with static Gnus infos (FAQ and stuff).

> What's the simplest way for me to tell gnus that I won't be using it
> in any other way than with the "nnimap+" folder I can tell you're
> using in your snippet?

Here's a quick walkthrough my .gnus.el with only the basics (getting
mail/news).

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
;; Gnus has the concept of one select method, and a list of so-called
;; secondary select methods.  I set the former to a do-nothing backend
;; and only use the secondary ones, so that it's a bit more uniformly.

(setq gnus-select-method '(nnnil))

;; Fetch news from my university's nntp server
(add-to-list 'gnus-secondary-select-methods
             '(nntp "Uni"
                    (nntp-address "news.uni-koblenz.de")
                    (nntp-open-connection-function nntp-open-tls-stream)
                    (nntp-port-number 563)))

;; Fetch mail from some POP3 accounts and split them according to
;; address

;; The mails are stored in an nnml group at the given directory
(add-to-list 'gnus-secondary-select-methods
             '(nnml "Popmail"
                    (nnml-directory   "~/Mail/Popmail")
                    (nnml-active-file "~/Mail/Popmail/active")))

;; Here the mails are fetched
(setq mail-sources `((pop :server "pop.gmx.de"
                          :user "xxxxx at gmx.de"
                          :password ,th-gnus-gmx-password)
                     (pop :server "pop3.freenet.de"
                          :user "xxxxx at freenet.de"
                          :password ,th-gnus-freenet-password)))

;; Split them into the groups nnml+Popmail:gmx, freenet, and misc
(setq nnmail-split-methods 'nnmail-split-fancy
      nnmail-split-fancy
      '(| (any "xxxxx at gmx.de"     "gmx")
          (any "xxxxx at freenet.de" "freenet")
          "misc"))

;; Get mail from my local Dovecot IMAP server which I sync with my
;; different accounts using OfflineIMAP
(add-to-list 'gnus-secondary-select-methods
             '(nnimap "Fastmail"
                      (nnimap-address "localhost")
                      (nnimap-stream network)
                      (nnimap-authenticator login)))

(add-to-list 'gnus-secondary-select-methods
             '(nnimap "Uni"
                      (nnimap-address "localhost")
                      (nnimap-stream network)
                      (nnimap-authenticator login)))
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

HTH,
Tassilo