1.4.2 Subscription Methods

What Gnus does when it encounters a new group is determined by the gnus-subscribe-newsgroup-method variable.

This variable should contain a function. This function will be called with the name of the new group as the only parameter.

Some handy pre-fab functions are:

gnus-subscribe-zombies

Make all new groups zombies (see Group Levels). This is the default. You can browse the zombies later (with A z) and either kill them all off properly (with S z), or subscribe to them (with u).

gnus-subscribe-randomly

Subscribe all new groups in arbitrary order. This really means that all new groups will be added at “the top” of the group buffer.

gnus-subscribe-alphabetically

Subscribe all new groups in alphabetical order.

gnus-subscribe-hierarchically

Subscribe all new groups hierarchically. The difference between this function and gnus-subscribe-alphabetically is slight. gnus-subscribe-alphabetically will subscribe new groups in a strictly alphabetical fashion, while this function will enter groups into its hierarchy. So if you want to have the ‘rec’ hierarchy before the ‘comp’ hierarchy, this function will not mess that configuration up. Or something like that.

gnus-subscribe-interactively

Subscribe new groups interactively. This means that Gnus will ask you about all new groups. The groups you choose to subscribe to will be subscribed hierarchically.

gnus-subscribe-killed

Kill all new groups.

gnus-subscribe-topics

Put the groups into the topic that has a matching subscribe topic parameter (see Topic Parameters). For instance, a subscribe topic parameter that looks like

"nnml"

will mean that all groups that match that regex will be subscribed under that topic.

If no topics match the groups, the groups will be subscribed in the top-level topic.

A closely related variable is gnus-subscribe-hierarchical-interactive. (That’s quite a mouthful.) If this variable is non-nil, Gnus will ask you in a hierarchical fashion whether to subscribe to new groups or not. Gnus will ask you for each sub-hierarchy whether you want to descend the hierarchy or not.

One common mistake is to set the variable a few paragraphs above (gnus-subscribe-newsgroup-method) to gnus-subscribe-hierarchical-interactive. This is an error. This will not work. This is ga-ga. So don’t do it.