gnus: link annoyance

["François Pinard" <pinard@iro.umontreal.ca>]

Hi, Org people.

Still playing with one of my little tools (called org-grep), I added the
capability of searching Unix mailbox (producing "rmail:" links) and Gnus
mailgroups (producing "gnus:" links).  This resurrected an old "gnus:"
annoyance I once reported on this mailing list, yet without being able
to convince anybody there was a problem.  I dare trying again! :-)

Whenever I visit a "gnus:" type link from Org, it has the side effect of
"reading" the article in Gnus parlance, forcing me to "unread" it each
time afterwards.  If I forget to unread it, which is a likely error, the
article will not be shown if I later visit its mailgroup using Gnus in a
regular way.  So in practice, it is kind of forever lost.

This is a sad side-effect of "gnus:" links.  In this area, Org should
immediately unread any "gnus:" link it follows, or else and maybe even
better, leave the reached article with the flags it already has.  If the
user explicitly saved the article in an Org file using "org-store-link",
(s)he surely though of it as kind of permanent, and Org should then not
"read" it, even the user did not "bang" it.  If the link is dynamically
created like with org-grep, and the user happens to follow one of these
links among many others, the user should not be "punished" by loosing
the article because (s)he forgot to explicitly unread it :-).

François

P.S. Who also has a question about "rmail:" and "gnus:" links.  Is there
a way in the link syntax allowing a precise line positioning within the
article?  It would be wonderful for org-grep, that would then make great
use of such a possibility.