Variable: gnus-read-active-file

gnus-read-active-file is a customizable variable defined in gnus-start.el.gz.

Value

some

Documentation

Non-nil means that Gnus will read the entire active file at startup.

If this variable is nil, Gnus will only know about the groups in your
.newsrc file.

If this variable is some, Gnus will try to only read the relevant parts of the active file from the server. Not all servers support this, and it might be quite slow with other servers, but this should generally be faster than both the t and nil value.

If you set this variable to nil or some, you probably still want to be told about new newsgroups that arrive. To do that, set gnus-check-new-newsgroups to ask-server. This may not work properly with all servers.

Source Code

;; Defined in /usr/src/emacs/lisp/gnus/gnus-start.el.gz
(defcustom gnus-read-active-file 'some
  "Non-nil means that Gnus will read the entire active file at startup.
If this variable is nil, Gnus will only know about the groups in your
`.newsrc' file.

If this variable is `some', Gnus will try to only read the relevant
parts of the active file from the server.  Not all servers support
this, and it might be quite slow with other servers, but this should
generally be faster than both the t and nil value.

If you set this variable to nil or `some', you probably still want to
be told about new newsgroups that arrive.  To do that, set
`gnus-check-new-newsgroups' to `ask-server'.  This may not work
properly with all servers."
  :group 'gnus-start-server
  :type '(choice (const nil)
		 (const some)
		 (const t)))