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(gnus)Advanced Formatting

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Advanced Formatting
-------------------

   It is frequently useful to post-process the fields in some way.
Padding, limiting, cutting off parts and suppressing certain values can
be achieved by using "tilde modifiers".  A typical tilde spec might
look like `%~(cut 3)~(ignore "0")y'.

   These are the valid modifiers:

`pad'
`pad-left'
     Pad the field to the left with spaces until it reaches the required
     length.

`pad-right'
     Pad the field to the right with spaces until it reaches the
     required length.

`max'
`max-left'
     Cut off characters from the left until it reaches the specified
     length.

`max-right'
     Cut off characters from the right until it reaches the specified
     length.

`cut'
`cut-left'
     Cut off the specified number of characters from the left.

`cut-right'
     Cut off the specified number of characters from the right.

`ignore'
     Return an empty string if the field is equal to the specified
     value.

`form'
     Use the specified form as the field value when the `@' spec is
     used.

   Let's take an example.  The `%o' spec in the summary mode lines will
return a date in compact ISO8601 format--`19960809T230410'.  This is
quite a mouthful, so we want to shave off the century number and the
time, leaving us with a six-character date.  That would be `%~(cut-left
2)~(max-right 6)~(pad 6)o'.  (Cutting is done before maxing, and we
need the padding to ensure that the date is never less than 6
characters to make it look nice in columns.)

   Ignoring is done first; then cutting; then maxing; and then as the
very last operation, padding.

   If you use lots of these advanced thingies, you'll find that Gnus
gets quite slow.  This can be helped enormously by running `M-x
gnus-compile' when you are satisfied with the look of your lines.
Note: Compilation.