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(gnus)Selecting a Group

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Selecting a Group
=================

`<SPC>'
     Select the current group, switch to the summary buffer and display
     the first unread article (`gnus-group-read-group').  If there are
     no unread articles in the group, or if you give a non-numerical
     prefix to this command, Gnus will offer to fetch all the old
     articles in this group from the server.  If you give a numerical
     prefix N, N determines the number of articles Gnus will fetch.  If
     N is positive, Gnus fetches the N newest articles, if N is
     negative, Gnus fetches the `abs(N)' oldest articles.

     Thus, `SPC' enters the group normally, `C-u SPC' offers old
     articles, `C-u 4 2 SPC' fetches the 42 newest articles, and `C-u -
     4 2 SPC' fetches the 42 oldest ones.

     When you are in the group (in the Summary buffer), you can type
     `M-g' to fetch new articles, or `C-u M-g' to also show the old
     ones.

`<RET>'
     Select the current group and switch to the summary buffer
     (`gnus-group-select-group').  Takes the same arguments as
     `gnus-group-read-group'--the only difference is that this command
     does not display the first unread article automatically upon group
     entry.

`M-<RET>'
     This does the same as the command above, but tries to do it with
     the minimum amount of fuzz (`gnus-group-quick-select-group').  No
     scoring/killing will be performed, there will be no highlights and
     no expunging.  This might be useful if you're in a real hurry and
     have to enter some humongous group.  If you give a 0 prefix to
     this command (i.e., `0 M-<RET>'), Gnus won't even generate the
     summary buffer, which is useful if you want to toggle threading
     before generating the summary buffer (Note: Summary Generation
     Commands).

`M-<SPC>'
     This is yet one more command that does the same as the <RET>
     command, but this one does it without expunging and hiding dormants
     (`gnus-group-visible-select-group').

`M-C-<RET>'
     Finally, this command selects the current group ephemerally without
     doing any processing of its contents
     (`gnus-group-select-group-ephemerally').  Even threading has been
     turned off.  Everything you do in the group after selecting it in
     this manner will have no permanent effects.

   The `gnus-large-newsgroup' variable says what Gnus should consider
to be a big group.  This is 200 by default.  If the group has more
(unread and/or ticked) articles than this, Gnus will query the user
before entering the group.  The user can then specify how many articles
should be fetched from the server.  If the user specifies a negative
number (`-n'), the `n' oldest articles will be fetched.  If it is
positive, the `n' articles that have arrived most recently will be
fetched.

   `gnus-auto-select-first' control whether any articles are selected
automatically when entering a group with the <SPC> command.

`nil'
     Don't select any articles when entering the group.  Just display
     the full summary buffer.

`t'
     Select the first unread article when entering the group.

`best'
     Select the highest scored article in the group when entering the
     group.

   This variable can also be a function.  In that case, that function
will be called to place point on a subject line, and/or select some
article.  Useful functions include:

`gnus-summary-first-unread-subject'
     Place point on the subject line of the first unread article, but
     don't select the article.

`gnus-summary-first-unread-article'
     Select the first unread article.

`gnus-summary-best-unread-article'
     Select the highest-scored unread article.

   If you want to prevent automatic selection in some group (say, in a
binary group with Huge articles) you can set this variable to `nil' in
`gnus-select-group-hook', which is called when a group is selected.