slow sorting news group by threads

Post by klu
I noticed that ($h) is quite slow on news groups. E.g., in comp.mail.pine,
I set nntp-range to 999. It took like 5 minutes. Same behavior on PC and
Linux. Alpine 2.26.
I really want to sort by threads. Wondering if there's any settings that
help improve that. Thanks!

Upgrade to SLRN or RN in Linux. Pine sux when using a large number of
Usenet newsgroups. With SLRN you can use SLRNPULL to download
newsgroup headers or articles every hour using a cronjob.

IMHO. YMMV.
--
Democracy: Three wolves and a lamb vote for dinner.
Republic: Three wolves and a lamb vote for dinner,
but the lamb is armed & has the right
to an appeal in a court of law.
Communism: Three Wolves have eaten the lamb
and are fighting amongst themselves
for the scraps.
Islamism: A man in a cave writing gibberish rules
over the people of a territory!

Kalevi Kolttonen

2023-03-09 13:28:27 UTC

Post by Sam
Upgrade to SLRN or RN in Linux. Pine sux when using a large number of
Usenet newsgroups. With SLRN you can use SLRNPULL to download
newsgroup headers or articles every hour using a cronjob.

I have used pine/alpine for email for nearly 29 years, but never really
as a news client. I have heard that slrn is good, but I have always
used tin. It is very easy to use and has enough features for my needs.

br,
KK

Carlos E.R.

2023-03-09 19:28:03 UTC

I need a news reader that remembers what posts I have read, from session
to session, without "deleting" them. And that makes reasonably easy to
filter spam or jerks.

So I use Thunderbird.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

Adam H. Kerman

2023-03-10 17:38:09 UTC

. . .

I need a news reader that remembers what posts I have read, from session
to session, without "deleting" them.

bonk

Any number of newsreaders use a newsrc file. Those that don't use a
newsrc have an equivaelent proprietary file. The file is updated with
article numbers as the user reads articles. This is a basic feature of
every single newsreader.

alpine "delete" merely marks the article number as read in the newsrc.
If using the maildrop feature to download articles to be read locally,
then "delete" literally deletes articles AND updates the newsrc.

Post by Carlos E.R.
And that makes reasonably easy to filter spam or jerks.

We don't rely upon our newsreaders to implement spam countermeasures.
That has to be done at the server level in all newsgroups.

alpine does have filtering but I've never set it up for newsreading.

Post by Carlos E.R.
So I use Thunderbird.

Ok. It's the bane of Ray's existence because Thunderbird fails to
maintain adequate information about the state of the open sessions,
but you're not an e-s subscriber and haven't heard the lectures.

Carlos E.R.

2023-03-10 20:46:06 UTC

. . .

I need a news reader that remembers what posts I have read, from session
to session, without "deleting" them.

bonk
Any number of newsreaders use a newsrc file. Those that don't use a
newsrc have an equivaelent proprietary file. The file is updated with
article numbers as the user reads articles. This is a basic feature of
every single newsreader.
alpine "delete" merely marks the article number as read in the newsrc.
If using the maildrop feature to download articles to be read locally,
then "delete" literally deletes articles AND updates the newsrc.

Post by Carlos E.R.
And that makes reasonably easy to filter spam or jerks.

We don't rely upon our newsreaders to implement spam countermeasures.
That has to be done at the server level in all newsgroups.

None I know does.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

Adam H. Kerman

2023-03-10 21:46:06 UTC

. . .

I need a news reader that remembers what posts I have read, from session
to session, without "deleting" them.

bonk
Any number of newsreaders use a newsrc file. Those that don't use a
newsrc have an equivaelent proprietary file. The file is updated with
article numbers as the user reads articles. This is a basic feature of
every single newsreader.
alpine "delete" merely marks the article number as read in the newsrc.
If using the maildrop feature to download articles to be read locally,
then "delete" literally deletes articles AND updates the newsrc.

Post by Carlos E.R.
And that makes reasonably easy to filter spam or jerks.

We don't rely upon our newsreaders to implement spam countermeasures.
That has to be done at the server level in all newsgroups.

None I know does.

You use individual.net, which has an excellent reputation for
implementing spam countermeasures.

Fine. I'm on e-s. I'm seeing drug spam through Google Groups. That's
spam not being caught be spam countermeasures. That would require me to
deal with this spam with my own kill file in the newsreader, possible to
do as there are three users on From in the spam.

Carlos E.R.

2023-03-10 22:19:29 UTC

. . .

I need a news reader that remembers what posts I have read, from session
to session, without "deleting" them.

bonk
Any number of newsreaders use a newsrc file. Those that don't use a
newsrc have an equivaelent proprietary file. The file is updated with
article numbers as the user reads articles. This is a basic feature of
every single newsreader.
alpine "delete" merely marks the article number as read in the newsrc.
If using the maildrop feature to download articles to be read locally,
then "delete" literally deletes articles AND updates the newsrc.

Post by Carlos E.R.
And that makes reasonably easy to filter spam or jerks.

We don't rely upon our newsreaders to implement spam countermeasures.
That has to be done at the server level in all newsgroups.

None I know does.

You use individual.net, which has an excellent reputation for
implementing spam countermeasures.
Fine. I'm on e-s. I'm seeing drug spam through Google Groups. That's
spam not being caught be spam countermeasures. That would require me to
deal with this spam with my own kill file in the newsreader, possible to
do as there are three users on From in the spam.

Some groups, on which there are so many people constantly emitting
hundreds of political posts that the thematic of the group is unusable.

There are some posters that have a grunch on some people, and
automatically when they post anything they answer with an insult filled
post, every time. Probably using a bot.

There are some that change name often, so I need a filter to identify
them as one.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

klu

2023-03-09 19:41:46 UTC

I try to minimize learning new tools for every single job. Sad to see
alpine isn't up to that ambition.

Adam H. Kerman

2023-03-09 23:56:17 UTC

Post by klu

I try to minimize learning new tools for every single job. Sad to see
alpine isn't up to that ambition.

Why don't you use the right tool for the right job and not complain that
an email client isn't capable of washing your windows?

klu

2023-03-10 05:22:12 UTC

Post by klu

I try to minimize learning new tools for every single job. Sad to see
alpine isn't up to that ambition.

Why don't you use the right tool for the right job and not complain that
an email client isn't capable of washing your windows?

Well, that sound like a blame? Guess we have different philosophy then
:) We don't need to waste time on each other.

Kalevi Kolttonen

2023-03-10 09:53:10 UTC

Post by Adam H. Kerman
Why don't you use the right tool for the right job and not complain that
an email client isn't capable of washing your windows?

In case you did not know:

PINE = Program for Internet News and Email

br,
KK

Adam H. Kerman

2023-03-10 15:55:31 UTC

Post by Adam H. Kerman
Why don't you use the right tool for the right job and not complain that
an email client isn't capable of washing your windows?

PINE = Program for Internet News and Email

University of Washington, in a state well known for its pine trees,
wanted to call the client "pine" and came up with that later. The
original pine wasn't a newsreader; that came later.

Development switched to alpine because UWash clawed back the
software patent, alpine was released under a less restrictive software
patent. UWash isn't in the Alps and they came up with a phrase that
alpine might stand for, but these names truly are not abbreviations.

I don't care for alpine as a newsreader. I use it in a pinch. I have my
newsrcs named in the pine-compatible format so the client can find them,
but typically I use other newsreaders.

I am quite pleased with alpine as a mail client and I am quite grateful
to Eduardo for continuing to develop it and I think it takes quite a lot
of nerve to complain about it with respect to newsreading, given that
the client is simply a gift to the Internet community.

Use the right client for the right job. It's not a drawback but a
feature of having choices.

Kalevi Kolttonen

2023-03-10 16:13:41 UTC

Post by Adam H. Kerman
I don't care for alpine as a newsreader.

Me neither. I tried it as a newsreader for a very short time back in
the autumn of 1994, but quickly gave up. Somebody recommended tin and
I started using it. I know some people dislike tin, but for me, it has
worked well enough all this time. It is also friendly for beginners,
since the basic keyboard shortcuts are visible at the bottom of the
screen, much like in alpine.

Post by Adam H. Kerman
I am quite pleased with alpine as a mail client and I am quite grateful
to Eduardo for continuing to develop it and I think it takes quite a lot
of nerve to complain about it with respect to newsreading, given that
the client is simply a gift to the Internet community.

Agreed. Alpine is very good for email.

br,
KK

Barry Landy

2023-03-15 20:51:21 UTC

Not originally it wasnt. I was involved with Pine from very early days
and the **original** acronytm for PINE is

Pine Is Not Elm

(Elm being an earlier email MUA (Mail client)).

On Fri, 10 Mar 2023, Kalevi Kolttonen wrote:

:>Adam H. Kerman <***@chinet.com> wrote:
:>> Why don't you use the right tool for the right job and not complain that
:>> an email client isn't capable of washing your windows?
:>
:>In case you did not know:
:>
:>PINE = Program for Internet News and Email
:>
:>br,
:>KK
:>

--
Barry Landy Email: Remove nospam in from address
192, Gilbert Road, Cambridge CB4 3PB

Eduardo Chappa

2023-03-10 03:37:45 UTC

The problem is that Alpine does not cache any information between sessions
and it always has to get that information from the server, so this means
that Alpine will have to request such information from the server every
time you open the newsgroup after you have closed it.

The only thing you can do is to save that information and access a
newsgroup as if it were a local folder. This means to make Alpine save
the messages to a local folder and access them locally. This is called a
maildrop in Alpine. That is what I use and it is very fast, because it is
the same as local email access.

--
Eduardo
https://alpineapp.email (web)
http://repo.or.cz/alpine.git (Git)

klu

2023-03-10 05:17:43 UTC

Cool thanks! Will try this!

Carlos E.R.

2023-03-10 11:52:10 UTC