Hi Folks! It's been nearly two and a half years in the making... Thousands of hours of work/family/personal life have been lost forever in a frenzied cloud of hacking... It slices, it dices, has over 112,000 lines of pure, unadulterated elisp and almost 30,000 lines of documentation. It'll take you through the whole spectrum of emotions, it'll be the answer to all your problems, it'll frustrate and annoy you, but you'll love it. Yes! The day is finally here, the day you've been waiting all this time for. Today, you can step up to the phenomenon that is Gnus Version 5.10. Go on, you know you want it. I'll even throw in a *FREE* URL where you can buy the tee-shirt! [1] (sorry, no steak knives) This is a *MAJOR* upgrade, a lot has changed and there is an awful lot of really cool new features. If you haven't been running the last development branch of Gnus (Oort) please, at least read 'GNUS-NEWS'. Getting it: The same as any other XEmacs package. The impatient and insatiably curious drag it out of CVS and build it themselves, mere mortals (us sensible folk) wait for Norbert to release the package and let XEmacs download and install it for them. This is by far the best mail/news user agent on the planet. Get it. Never regret it. Use it. Savour it. Now, who better to give the final word than Mr Gnus himself, Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen. Here, copied verbatim is Lars' 5.10 announcement: <quote author="LMI"> After two and a half years of Oort Gnus, we're now out of the interstellar fog and into a proper Gnus release. Get it from <URL:http://quimby.gnus.org/gnus/dist/gnus-5.10.1.tar.gz> or "/ftp＠quimby.gnus.org:/pub/gnus/". To further celebrate the day, I'm making Oort Gnus t-shirts. If you want one, go to <URL: http://ingebrigtsen.no/oort.php> and buy one. Or several. Or not! * Changes in Oort Gnus ** The revised Gnus FAQ is included in the manual. See the info node "Frequently Asked Questions". ** Upgrading from previous (stable) version if you have used Oort. If you have tried Oort (the unstable Gnus branch leading to this release) but went back to a stable version, be careful when upgrading to this version. In particular, you will probably want to remove all .marks (nnml) and .mrk (nnfolder) files, so that flags are read from your ~/.newsrc.eld instead of from the .marks/.mrk file where this release store flags. See a later entry for more information about marks. Note that downgrading isn't save in general. ** Article Buttons More buttons for URLs, mail addresses, Message-IDs, Info links, man pages and Emacs or Gnus related references, see the info node "Article Buttons". The variables `gnus-button-*-level' can be used to control the appearance of all article buttons, see the info node "Article Button Levels". ** Dired integration `gnus-dired-minor-mode' installs key bindings in dired buffers to send a file as an attachment (`C-c C-a'), open a file using the approriate mailcap entry (`C-c C-l'), and print a file using the mailcap entry (`C-c P'). It is enabled with (add-hook 'dired-mode-hook 'turn-on-gnus-dired-mode) ** Gnus can display RSS newsfeeds as a newsgroup. To get started do `B nnrss RET RET' in the Group buffer. ** Single-part yenc encoded attachments can be decoded. ** Picons The picons code has been reimplemented to work in GNU Emacs -- some of the previous options have been removed or renamed. Picons are small "personal icons" representing users, domain and newsgroups, which can be displayed in the Article buffer. To enable picons, install the picons database from http://www.cs.indiana.edu/picons/ftp/index.html and point `gnus-picon-databases' to that location. ** If the new option `gnus-treat-body-boundary' is `head', a boundary line is drawn at the end of the headers. ** Retrieval of charters and control messages There are new commands for fetching newsgroup charters (`H c') and control messages (`H C'). ** Delayed articles You can delay the sending of a message with `C-c C-j' in the Message buffer. The messages are delivered at specified time. This is useful for sending yourself reminders. Setup with (gnus-delay-initialize). ** If `auto-compression-mode' is enabled, attachments are automatically decompressed when activated. ** If the new option `nnml-use-compressed-files' is non-nil, the nnml back end allows compressed message files. ** Signed article headers (X-PGP-Sig) can be verified with `W p'. ** The Summary Buffer uses an arrow in the fringe to indicate the current article. Use (setq gnus-summary-display-arrow nil) to disable it. ** Warn about email replies to news Do you often find yourself replying to news by email by mistake? Then the new option `gnus-confirm-mail-reply-to-news' is just the thing for you. ** If the new option `gnus-summary-display-while-building' is non-nil, the summary buffer is shown and updated as it's being built. ** The new `recent' mark "." indicates newly arrived messages (as opposed to old but unread messages). ** The new option `gnus-gcc-mark-as-read' automatically marks Gcc articles as read. ** The nndoc back end now supports mailman digests and exim bounces. ** Gnus supports RFC 2369 mailing list headers, and adds a number of related commands in mailing list groups. ** The Date header can be displayed in a format that can be read aloud in English, see `gnus-treat-date-english'. ** The envelope sender address can be customized when using Sendmail, see `message-sendmail-envelope-from'. ** diffs are automatically highlighted in groups matching `mm-uu-diff-groups-regexp' ** TLS wrapper shipped with Gnus TLS/SSL is now supported in IMAP and NNTP via tls.el and GNUTLS. The old TLS/SSL support via (external third party) ssl.el and OpenSSL still works. ** New make.bat for compiling and installing Gnus under MS Windows Use make.bat if you want to install Gnus under MS Windows, the first argument to the batch-program should be the directory where xemacs.exe respectively emacs.exe is located, iff you want to install Gnus after compiling it, give make.bat /copy as the second parameter. Make.bat has been rewritten from scratch, it now features automatic recognition of XEmacs and GNU Emacs, generates gnus-load.el, checks if errors occur while compilation and generation of info files and reports them at the end of the build process. It now uses makeinfo if it is available and falls back to infohack.el otherwise. Make.bat should now install all files which are necessary to run Gnus and be generally a complete replacement for the "configure; make; make install" cycle used under Unix systems. The new make.bat makes make-x.bat superfluous, so it has been removed. ** Support for non-ASCII domain names Message supports non-ASCII domain names in From:, To: and Cc: and will query you whether to perform encoding when you try to send a message. The variable `message-use-idna' controls this. Gnus will also decode non-ASCII domain names in From:, To: and Cc: when you view a message. The variable `gnus-use-idna' controls this. ** Better handling of Microsoft citation styles Gnus now tries to recognize the mangled header block that some Microsoft mailers use to indicate that the rest of the message is a citation, even though it is not quoted in any way. The variable `gnus-cite-unsightly-citation-regexp' matches the start of these citations. ** gnus-article-skip-boring If you set `gnus-article-skip-boring' to t, then Gnus will not scroll down to show you a page that contains only boring text, which by default means cited text and signature. You can customize what is skippable using `gnus-article-boring-faces'. This feature is especially useful if you read many articles that consist of a little new content at the top with a long, untrimmed message cited below. ** The format spec %C for positioning point has changed to %*. ** The new variable `gnus-parameters' can be used to set group parameters. Earlier this was done only via `G p' (or `G c'), which stored the parameters in ~/.newsrc.eld, but via this variable you can enjoy the powers of customize, and simplified backups since you set the variable in ~/.emacs instead of ~/.newsrc.eld. The variable maps regular expressions matching group names to group parameters, a'la: (setq gnus-parameters '(("mail\\..*" (gnus-show-threads nil) (gnus-use-scoring nil)) ("^nnimap:\\(foo.bar\\)$" (to-group . "\\1")))) ** Smileys (":-)", ";-)" etc) are now iconized for Emacs too. Put (setq gnus-treat-display-smileys nil) in ~/.emacs to disable it. ** Gnus no longer generate the Sender: header automatically. Earlier it was generated iff the user configurable email address was different from the Gnus guessed default user address. As the guessing algorithm is rarely correct these days, and (more controversally) the only use of the Sender: header was to check if you are entitled to cancel/supersede news (which is now solved by Cancel Locks instead, see another entry), generation of the header has been disabled by default. See the variables `message-required-headers', `message-required-news-headers', and `message-required-mail-headers'. ** Features from third party message-utils.el added to message.el. Message now asks if you wish to remove "(was: <old subject>)" from subject lines (see `message-subject-trailing-was-query'). C-c M-m and C-c M-f inserts markers indicating included text. C-c C-f a adds a X-No-Archive: header. C-c C-f x inserts appropriate headers and a note in the body for cross-postings and followups (see the variables `message-cross-post-*'). ** References and X-Draft-Headers are no longer generated when you start composing messages and `message-generate-headers-first' is nil. ** Improved anti-spam features. Gnus is now able to take out spam from your mail and news streams using a wide variety of programs and filter rules. Among the supported methods are RBL blocklists, bogofilter and white/blacklists. Hooks for easy use of external packages such as SpamAssassin and Hashcash are also new. ** Easy inclusion of X-Faces headers. ** In the summary buffer, the new command / N inserts new messages and / o inserts old messages. ** Gnus decodes morse encoded messages if you press W m. ** Unread count correct in nnimap groups. The estimated number of unread articles in the group buffer should now be correct for nnimap groups. This is achieved by calling `nnimap-fixup-unread-after-getting-new-news' from the `gnus-setup-news-hook' (called on startup) and gnus-after-getting-new-news-hook. (called after getting new mail). If you have modified those variables from the default, you may want to add n-f-u-a-g-n-n again. If you were happy with the estimate and want to save some (minimal) time when getting new mail, remove the function. ** Group Carbon Copy (GCC) quoting To support groups that contains SPC and other weird characters, groups are quoted before they are placed in the Gcc: header. This means variables such as `gnus-message-archive-group' should no longer contain quote characters to make groups containing SPC work. Also, if you are using the string "nnml:foo, nnml:bar" (indicating Gcc into two groups) you must change it to return the list ("nnml:foo" "nnml:bar"), otherwise the Gcc: line will be quoted incorrectly. Note that returning the string "nnml:foo, nnml:bar" was incorrect earlier, it just didn't generate any problems since it was inserted directly. ** ~/News/overview/ not used. As a result of the following change, the ~/News/overview/ directory is not used any more. You can safely delete the entire hierarchy. ** gnus-agent The Gnus Agent has seen a major updated and is now enabled by default, and all nntp and nnimap servers from gnus-select-method and gnus-secondary-select-method are agentized by default. Earlier only the server in gnus-select-method was agentized by the default, and the agent was disabled by default. When the agent is enabled, headers are now also retrieved from the Agent cache instead of the backends when possible. Earlier this only happened in the unplugged state. You can enroll or remove servers with `J a' and `J r' in the server buffer. Gnus will not download articles into the Agent cache, unless you instruct it to do so, though, by using `J u' or `J s' from the Group buffer. You revert to the old behaviour of having the Agent disabled with `(setq gnus-agent nil)'. Note that putting (gnus-agentize) in ~/.gnus is not needed any more. ** gnus-summary-line-format The default value changed to "%U%R%z%I%(%[%4L: %-23,23f%]%) %s\n". Moreover gnus-extra-headers, nnmail-extra-headers and gnus-ignored-from-addresses changed their default so that the users name will be replaced by the recipient's name or the group name posting to for NNTP groups. ** deuglify.el (gnus-article-outlook-deuglify-article) A new file from Raymond Scholz <rscholz(a)zonix.de&gt; for deuglifying broken Outlook (Express) articles. ** (require 'gnus-load) If you use a stand-alone Gnus distribution, you'd better add (require 'gnus-load) into your ~/.emacs after adding the Gnus lisp directory into load-path. File gnus-load.el contains autoload commands, functions and variables, some of which may not be included in distributions of Emacsen. ** gnus-slave-unplugged A new command which starts gnus offline in slave mode. ** message-insinuate-rmail Adding (message-insinuate-rmail) and (setq mail-user-agent 'gnus-user-agent) in .emacs convinces Rmail to compose, reply and forward messages in message-mode, where you can enjoy the power of MML. ** message-minibuffer-local-map The line below enables BBDB in resending a message: (define-key message-minibuffer-local-map [(tab)] 'bbdb-complete-name) ** Externalizing and deleting of attachments. If gnus-gcc-externalize-attachments (or message-fcc-externalize-attachments) is non-nil, attach local files as external parts. The command gnus-mime-save-part-and-strip (bound to `C-o' on MIME buttons) saves a part and replaces the part with an external one. gnus-mime-delete-part (bound to `d' on MIME buttons) removes a part. It works only on back ends that support editing. ** gnus-default-charset The default value is determined from the current-language-environment variable, instead of 'iso-8859-1. Also the ".*" item in gnus-group-charset-alist is removed. ** gnus-posting-styles Add a new format of match like ((header "to" "larsi.*org") (Organization "Somewhere, Inc.")) The old format like the lines below is obsolete, but still accepted. (header "to" "larsi.*org" (Organization "Somewhere, Inc.")) ** message-ignored-news-headers and message-ignored-mail-headers X-Draft-From and X-Gnus-Agent-Meta-Information have been added into these two variables. If you customized those, perhaps you need add those two headers too. ** Gnus reads the NOV and articles in the Agent if plugged. If one reads an article while plugged, and the article already exists in the Agent, it won't get downloaded once more. (setq gnus-agent-cache nil) reverts to the old behavior. ** Gnus supports the "format=flowed" (RFC 2646) parameter. On composing messages, it is enabled by `use-hard-newlines'. Decoding format=flowed was present but not documented in earlier versions. ** Gnus supports the generation of RFC 2298 Disposition Notification requests. This is invoked with the C-c M-n key binding from message mode. ** Gnus supports Maildir groups. Gnus includes a new backend nnmaildir.el. ** Printing capabilities are enhanced. Gnus supports Muttprint natively with O P from the Summary and Article buffers. Also, each individual MIME part can be printed using p on the MIME button. ** Message supports the Importance: (RFC 2156) header. In the message buffer, `C-c C-f C-i' or `C-c C-u' cycles through the valid values. ** Gnus supports Cancel Locks in News. This means a header "Cancel-Lock" is inserted in news posting. It is used to determine if you wrote a article or not (for cancelling and superseding). Gnus generates a random password string the first time you post a message, and saves it in your ~/.emacs using the Custom system. While the variable is called `canlock-password', it is not security sensitive data. Publishing your canlock string on the web will not allow anyone to be able to anything she could not already do. The behaviour can be changed by customizing `message-insert-canlock'. ** Gnus supports server-side mail filtering using Sieve. Sieve rules can be added as Group Parameters for groups, and the complete Sieve script is generated using `D g' from the Group buffer, and then uploaded to the server using `C-c C-l' in the generated Sieve buffer. Search the online Gnus manual for "sieve", and see the new Sieve manual, for more information. ** Extended format specs. Format spec "%&user-date;" is added into gnus-summary-line-format-alist. Also, user defined extended format specs are supported. The extended format specs look like "%u&foo;", which invokes function gnus-user-format-function-foo. Because "&" is used as the escape character, old user defined format "%u&" is no longer supported. ** `/ *' (gnus-summary-limit-include-cached) is rewritten. It was aliased to `Y c' (gnus-summary-insert-cached-articles). The new function filters out other articles. ** Some limiting commands accept a C-u prefix to negate the match. If C-u is used on subject, author or extra headers, i.e., `/ s', `/ a', and `/ x' (gnus-summary-limit-to-{subject,author,extra}) respectively, the result will be to display all articles that do not match the expression. ** Group names are treated as UTF-8 by default. This is supposedly what USEFOR wanted to migrate to. See `gnus-group-name-charset-group-alist' and `gnus-group-name-charset-method-alist' for customization. ** The nnml and nnfolder backends store marks for each groups. This makes it possible to take backup of nnml/nnfolder servers/groups separately of ~/.newsrc.eld, while preserving marks. It also makes it possible to share articles and marks between users (without sharing the ~/.newsrc.eld file) within e.g. a department. It works by storing the marks stored in ~/.newsrc.eld in a per-group file ".marks" (for nnml) and "groupname.mrk" (for nnfolder, named "groupname"). If the nnml/nnfolder is moved to another machine, Gnus will automatically use the .marks or .mrk file instead of the information in ~/.newsrc.eld. The new server variables `nnml-marks-is-evil' and `nnfolder-marks-is-evil' can be used to disable this feature. ** The menu bar item (in Group and Summary buffer) named "Misc" has been renamed to "Gnus". ** The menu bar item (in Message mode) named "MML" has been renamed to "Attachments". Note that this menu also contains security related stuff, like signing and encryption. ** gnus-group-charset-alist and gnus-group-ignored-charsets-alist. The regexps in these variables are compared with full group names instead of real group names in 5.8. Users who customize these variables should change those regexps accordingly. For example: ("^han\\>" euc-kr) -> ("\\(^\\|:\\)han\\>" euc-kr) ** Gnus supports PGP (RFC 1991/2440), PGP/MIME (RFC 2015/3156) and ** S/MIME (RFC 2630-2633). It needs an external S/MIME and OpenPGP implementation, but no additional lisp libraries. This add several menu items to the Attachments menu, and C-c RET key bindings, when composing messages. This also obsoletes `gnus-article-hide-pgp-hook'. ** Gnus inlines external parts (message/external). ** MML (Mime compose) prefix changed from `M-m' to `C-c C-m'. This change was made to avoid conflict with the standard binding of `back-to-indentation', which is also useful in message mode. ** Bug fixes.  * Changes in Pterodactyl Gnus (5.8/5.9) The Gnus NEWS entries are short, but they reflect sweeping changes in four areas: Article display treatment, MIME treatment, internationalization and mail-fetching. ** The mail-fetching functions have changed. See the manual for the many details. In particular, all procmail fetching variables are gone. If you used procmail like in (setq nnmail-use-procmail t) (setq nnmail-spool-file 'procmail) (setq nnmail-procmail-directory "~/mail/incoming/") (setq nnmail-procmail-suffix "\\.in") this now has changed to (setq mail-sources '((directory :path "~/mail/incoming/" :suffix ".in"))) More information is available in the info doc at Select Methods -> Getting Mail -> Mail Sources ** Gnus is now a MIME-capable reader. This affects many parts of Gnus, and adds a slew of new commands. See the manual for details. ** Gnus has also been multilingualized. This also affects too many parts of Gnus to summarize here, and adds many new variables. ** gnus-auto-select-first can now be a function to be called to position point. ** The user can now decide which extra headers should be included in summary buffers and NOV files. ** `gnus-article-display-hook' has been removed. Instead, a number of variables starting with `gnus-treat-' have been added. ** The Gnus posting styles have been redone again and now works in a subtly different manner. ** New web-based backends have been added: nnslashdot, nnwarchive and nnultimate. nnweb has been revamped, again, to keep up with ever-changing layouts. ** Gnus can now read IMAP mail via nnimap. </quote> Footnotes: [1] The design on the back of the shirt is made up of a couple of hundred XFace images, your's could be one of them! Buy it at <http://ingebrigtsen.no/oort.php> -- |---<Steve Youngs>---------------<GnuPG KeyID: 10D5C9C5>---| | XEmacs - The only _______ you'll ever need. | | Fill in the blank, yes, it's THAT good! | |------------------------------------&lt;youngs(a)xemacs.org&gt;---|