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The Summary buffer shows you a summary of the contents of a single newsgroup, with one line for each article. You can move around in the Summary buffer, giving commands to view articles, save them, reply to them, and so on. When you view an article, its text appears in a separate buffer, but the Summary buffer remains current. In fact, there is hardly ever a reason to select the Article buffer; you can do almost all news reading tasks while staying in the Summary buffer.
The most basic command for reading articles is SPC
(gnus-summary-next-page). When you are viewing the middle of a
article, SPC scrolls the article forward. When you get to the end
of an article, SPC advances to the next article. You can read all
the unread articles straight through using just SPC.
Naturally, though, there are plenty of more advanced features available.
For moving around in the Summary buffer, you can use these special commands as well as the usual cursor motion commands.
gnus-summary-next-subject).
gnus-summary-prev-subject).
gnus-summary-next-unread-subject).
gnus-summary-prev-unread-subject).
gnus-summary-goto-subject).
gnus-summary-next-page)
gnus-summary-show-article). This command always rereads the
article text from the server even if the same article is already
selected.
gnus-summary-expand-window).
gnus-summary-toggle-truncation).
gnus-summary-stop-page-breaking).
gnus-summary-toggle-header).
gnus-summary-toggle-mime).
gnus-summary-caesar-message).
The command = (gnus-summary-expand-window) expands the
Summary window by deleting the Article window. Use it when you want to
concentrate on the Summary buffer. This command is different from
C-x 1 when more than two windows exist.
The command C-c C-r (gnus-summary-caesar-message) rotates
all letters in the body of the current article by 13/47 places. (This
encoding is often called "rot 13".) To undo this operation, run it a
second time.
If an article contains multiple pages, GNUS normally displays just one page at a time. To advance to the next page of an article, simply type SPC. It advances to the next page whenever the end of a page is on the screen.
The command w (gnus-summary-stop-page-breaking)
temporarily suspends page breaking; it makes the entire current article
visible. You can turn off page breaking all the time by setting the
variable gnus-break-pages to nil.
Page boundaries are defined by the variable
gnus-page-delimiter, whose value is a regular expression. The
default is to match a formfeed character at the beginning of a line.
GNUS normally hides many uninteresting header fields when it displays
an article. (The variable gnus-ignored-headers controls which
fields are ignored.) If you want to see the whole header, type t
(gnus-summary-toggle-header). Use t a second time to hide
the uninteresting header fields again.
This section describes the commands you can type in the Summary buffer to scroll the Article buffer. (If you want to scroll the Summary buffer, you can use the usual Emacs scrolling commands.)
gnus-summary-next-page). Select it first if no article is
selected yet. Select the next unread article automatically at the end of
the message.
gnus-summary-prev-page).
gnus-summary-scroll-up). A negative argument scrolls backward.
gnus-summary-beginning-of-article).
gnus-summary-end-of-article).
These commands move point in the Summary buffer to a different line and display that line's article.
gnus-summary-next-unread-article).
gnus-summary-prev-unread-article).
gnus-summary-next-article).
gnus-summary-prev-article).
gnus-summary-next-same-subject).
gnus-summary-prev-same-subject).
gnus-summary-first-unread-article).
gnus-summary-goto-last-article).
If the variable gnus-auto-select-same is non-nil, the
commands n and p (gnus-summary-next-unread-article
and gnus-summary-prev-unread-article) skip articles until they
come to another article with the same subject. If you are used to
reading news with `rn -S', set the variable to non-nil to
get familiar behavior.
If the variable gnus-auto-extend-newsgroup is non-nil,
the commands N and P (gnus-summary-next-article and
gnus-summary-prev-article) extend visible articles to forward and
backward if possible. The Summary buffer normally displays just a
subset of the extant articles; extending the buffer means that if you
try to move forward from the last article shown, it looks for later
articles that are not shown, and puts them into the buffer so you can
move to them.
The variable gnus-auto-select-next defines the behavior of GNUS
when there is no unread article in the current newsgroup and a command
selecting the next unread article is executed. If the variable is
non-nil, the next newsgroup containing unread articles is
selected automatically.
GNUS uses single-character marks to indicate the status of an article.
Both newly arrived articles and saved articles are considered unread.
The status is displayed at the beginning of each line of the Summary buffer. Here are some commands for changing these marks:
gnus-summary-mark-as-read-forward). This and the following similar
commands do not select an article; they only move point in the Summary
buffer.
gnus-summary-mark-as-unread-forward).
gnus-summary-clear-mark-forward). This sets the status to
"newly arrived".
gnus-summary-kill-same-subject-and-select). Use this when you
decide a certain discussion is not interesting.
gnus-summary-kill-same-subject).
gnus-summary-catchup-and-exit). This does not change the
status of articles that are saved.
gnus-summary-delete-marked-as-read).
gnus-summary-delete-marked-with).
You can make it easier to see the remaining unread articles in the
Summary buffer by deleting the lines describing the already read
articles. To do this, use the command x
(gnus-summary-delete-marked-as-read). The command X
(gnus-summary-delete-marked-with) deletes headers which have
certain specified marks. Thus, X D - RET deletes all
articles marked with `D' or `-'---which is to say, all read
and saved articles. (There are no spaces in that command; we inserted
spaces for clarity when showing it here.)
A thread is defined as a set of articles related by cross-reference. These references make use of header fields `References:' and `In-Reply-To:', which cite the message ID of another article.
Conversations in a newsgroup usually contain several threads under a single subject. This makes it difficult to know which article follows which without reading references directly. You can use the thread-based commands to do this automatically. You can follow threads of conversation, mark entire threads as read, and go up and down thread trees.
The command M-C-t (gnus-summary-toggle-threads) toggles
showing conversation threads in Summary mode. If it is turned on,
Summary buffer is displayed in a tree structured form which shows the
thread structure.
gnus-summary-toggle-threads).
gnus-summary-show-thread).
gnus-summary-hide-thread).
gnus-summary-next-thread).
gnus-summary-prev-thread).
gnus-summary-down-thread).
gnus-summary-up-thread).
gnus-summary-kill-thread).
Thread subtrees can be hidden by using the command C-M-h
(gnus-summary-hide-thread), and the hidden subtrees can be shown
by using the command C-M-s
(gnus-summary-show-thread).
If the variable gnus-thread-hide-killed is non-nil,
thread subtrees killed by the command C-M-k
(gnus-summary-kill-thread) are hidden automatically.
If you want to hide thread subtrees initially, set the variable
gnus-thread-hide-subtree to non-nil.
If you want to enable thread-based reading automatically, set the
variable gnus-show-threads to non-nil.
Digest article is a message containing many messages in digest format. Since a digest article contains many messages in one article, it is a little bit difficult to read it on a per message basis. The following commands make it easier to read each message in a digest.
gnus-summary-next-digest).
gnus-summary-prev-digest).
gnus-summary-rmail-digest).
The commands C-c C-n and C-c C-p
(gnus-summary-next-digest and gnus-summary-prev-digest)
scroll a digest article to the next and previous digested message,
respectively. The variable gnus-digest-separator specifies a
regexp which separates digested messages.
The command C-d (gnus-summary-rmail-digest) runs Rmail on
a digest article and makes it possible to read messages not in digest
form using Rmail Mode. See section 'Rmail' in The GNU Emacs Manual, for
more information on Rmail Mode. Use the hook
gnus-select-article-hook to run Rmail on digest articles
automatically.
Some newsgroups use a digest format that cannot be read using Rmail.
In this case, C-d displays `Article is not a digest' in the
echo area. It is, however, possible to read these incomplete digest
articles by modifying the message headers or bodies appropriately using
the hook gnus-select-digest-hook. See section Function Hooks, to modify
incomplete digest articles.
If the variable gnus-digest-show-summary is non-nil, a
summary of the digest article is also displayed automatically when Rmail
is invoked.
gnus-summary-isearch-article).
gnus-summary-search-article-forward). If regexp is empty,
the last regexp used is used again.
gnus-summary-search-article-backward). If regexp is empty,
the last regexp used is used again.
gnus-summary-execute-command). If
field is empty, the entire article is searched for.
The command s (gnus-summary-isearch-article) does an
incremental search on the current article. This is like switching to
the Article buffer and typing C-s except that the Summary buffer
remains selected. The command M-s
(gnus-summary-search-article-forward) searches for articles
containing a match for regexp. The search starts from the current point
of the current article. To search backwards, use the command M-r
(gnus-summary-search-article-backward).
The command & (gnus-summary-execute-command)
interactively reads a header field name, a regular expression, and a
valid key sequence. It then searches for all articles in which that
regular expression matches the contents of the specified header field.
It executes the key sequence in each such message.
gnus-summary-refer-parent-article). With a prefix
argument, go back to the child.
gnus-summary-refer-article).
The command ^ (gnus-summary-refer-parent-article) refers
to parent article of the current article. You can go back to the child
article with C-u ^.
^ and M-^ select a new article without moving point in the Summary buffer. As a consequence, you can use g to go back to the article in which you started the last sequence of ^ and M-^ commands.
You can use the r command in Article mode to follow a reference contained in the text of an article. See section Article Commands.
GNUS supports four different formats for saving articles: Rmail format, Unix mailbox format, MH folder, and article format.
gnus-summary-save-article).
gnus-summary-save-in-mail).
gnus-summary-pipe-output).
The variable gnus-default-article-saver controls the formats
used by the o command. By default, it uses Rmail format. If you
set the variable to gnus-summary-save-in-folder, o uses MH
format. If you set it to gnus-summary-save-in-file, o
saves the article text verbatim. The default value is
gnus-summary-save-in-rmail. (All three of these values are
commands that you can bind to other keys.)
The variable gnus-article-save-directory specifies the default
directory for saving articles. If you don't set this variable
explicitly, it is initialized from the SAVEDIR environment
variable, or, as a last resort, `~/News'.
GNUS can sort the Summary buffer by number, subject, date, or author of articles.
gnus-summary-sort-by-number).
gnus-summary-sort-by-subject).
gnus-summary-sort-by-date).
gnus-summary-sort-by-author).
Sorting is stable, which means that it does not disturb the relative order of articles whose sort keys are equal. So you can sort on multiple keys by using several sort commands in a row; the last sort command specifies the most powerful sort key. Thus, C-c C-s C-a C-c C-s C-d C-c C-s C-n sorts by author, and sorts the messages for each author by date, and any messages with the same author and date are sorted by number.
To sort in reverse order, give a prefix argument to the sort commands.
It is also possible to sort the headers automatically when a newsgroup
is selected using the hook gnus-select-group-hook
(see section Function Hooks).
gnus-summary-post-news).
gnus-summary-followup).
gnus-summary-followup-with-original).
gnus-summary-cancel-article).
Type a (gnus-summary-post-news) to post a new article.
If the variable gnus-interactive-post is non-nil, this
command reads the newsgroup, subject, and distribution interactively.
The command f (gnus-summary-followup) fills these values in
automatically from those of the selected article; thus, the article you
post will be a followup to the selected article.
Type C-c C-y (news-reply-yank-original) to include the
original article in the text of the followup. Unless the original
article is quite short, you should edit it to keep only the particular
sentences you are directly responding to.
The command F (gnus-summary-followup-with-original) yanks
the original article automatically. If you want to followup to several
articles in a single article and want to include them in it, type
F for each of them. You will be asked if a text being edited
should be erased. You should answer `n' to the question.
If the variable gnus-novice-user is non-nil, your
confirmations will be required for composing a new article.
The major mode for composing a new article is News Mode which is
borrowed from `rnewspost.el'. Type C-h m
(describe-mode) to get more help on News Mode.
Suppose you post an article and then later realize that you made a
horrible mistake. You really do not want anyone to see your article.
You want the article to be removed from any machines that it may have
reached. The command C (gnus-summary-cancel-article) is
intended to do this. First select the offending article as current,
then type C.
gnus-summary-reply).
gnus-summary-reply-with-original).
gnus-summary-mail-forward).
gnus-summary-mail-other-window).
Use the command r (gnus-summary-reply) to mail a reply to
the author of the article. Type C-c C-y to yank the text of the
article you are replying to. The command R
(gnus-summary-reply-with-original) yanks the original article
automatically.
See section 'Mail Mode' in The GNU Emacs Manual, for information on how to finish sending the reply.
Exiting a newsgroup means going back to the Newsgroup buffer and (normally) saving the changes you have made in the status of articles.
gnus-summary-exit). This updates the startup file
to indicate the changes in article status in this newsgroup.
gnus-summary-quit). The effect is to cancel all the
status changes that took place while you were reading this newsgroup.
gnus-summary-reselect-current-group).
The command C-x C-s (gnus-summary-reselect-current-group)
selects the current newsgroup again after temporary exiting the
newsgroup. If no articles remain unread, all articles in the newsgroup
will be selected. A prefix argument to the command means to select all
articles in the newsgroup.
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