Gnus

Infobox_Software
name = Gnus


caption = Gnus 5.11 under GNU Emacs and Fedora Linux
developer = Gnus team
operating_system = Cross-platform
genre = E-mail client and news client
license = GPL
website = [http://www.gnus.org]

Gnus (pronEng|ɡ^əˈnuːz) is a message reader running under GNU Emacs and XEmacs. It supports reading and composing both news and e-mail.

Gnus blurs the distinction between news and e-mail, treating them both as "articles" that come from different sources. News articles are kept separate by group, and e-mail can be split into arbitrary groups, similar to folders in other mail readers. In addition, Gnus is able to use a number of web-based sources as inputs for its groups.

Note that, as with "GNU", the "g" in "Gnus" is always pronounced.

Features

Some Gnus features:
*simple or advanced mail splitting (automatic sorting of incoming mail to user-defined groups)
*incoming mail can be set to expire instead of just plain deletion
*custom posting styles (eg. From address, .signature etc) for each group
*virtual groups (e.g., directory on the computer can be read as a group)
*an advanced message scoring system
*user-defined hooks for almost any method (in emacs lisp)
*many of the parameters (e.g., expiration, posting style) can be specified individually for all of the groups

Gnus can also be integrated into the Big Brother Database to handle contacts in a highly automated fashion.

Some people say there is no feature (or something similar) in any MUA Gnus doesn't have - or if there isn't one ready, it can be done "easily" with few lines of emacs lisp.

To quote the Gnus Manual:

:"You know that Gnus gives you all the opportunity you'd ever want for shooting yourself in the foot. Some people call it flexibility. Gnus is also customizable to a great extent, which means that the user has a say on how Gnus behaves. Other newsreaders might unconditionally shoot you in your foot, but with Gnus, you have a choice!" [http://www.gnus.org/manual/gnus_215.html#SEC215]

History

Gnus is a rewrite of GNUS written by Masanobu Umeda, which ceased to be developed in 1992. In autumn 1994 Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen started the rewrite under the name "(ding)" which is a recursive acronym for "ding is not Gnus", intending to produce a version for which the interface and configuration would work almost exactly the same, but the internals would be completely revamped and improved.

Versions

The following versions have been released since then:

*Gnus 5 ((ding) Gnus) - November 1995
*Gnus 5.2 (September Gnus) - May 1996
*Gnus 5.4 (Red Gnus) - January 25 1997
*Gnus 5.6 (Quassia Gnus) - March 8 1998
*Gnus 5.8 (Pterodactyl Gnus) - December 3 1999
*Gnus 5.10 (Oort Gnus) - May 1 2003

The named versions (whose first letters run backwards in the alphabet) are development versions, of "alpha" quality.

The current development version which will be released as Gnus 5.12 was begun on Jan 4 2004 and is called "No Gnus".

The odd version numbers, like 5.3 and 5.5 are for the Gnus versions bundled with GNU Emacs. The even version numbers are the unbundled releases. So for example, Gnus 5.5 is similar to Gnus 5.4, but bundled with Emacs 20.1.

See also

*List of news clients
*Comparison of e-mail clients

External links

* [http://www.gnus.org Gnus Newsreader Homepage]
** [http://www.gnus.org/history.html The History of Gnus] . As of 6 December 2005, this page has not been updated to include No Gnus.
* [http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/CategoryGnus EmacsWiki: CategoryGnus]