Gnus has a long-standing bug with `%B'-ish tree views and loose threads:
subsequent article trees are attached to the last article in the
previous tree, rather than to the original root, resulting in the tree
display marching off the right-hand side of the screen.
This doesn't seem to happen with the `dummy' strategy, which introduces
somewhat ugly false root nodes, but is otherwise fine.
;; Display a slrn-like tree view in the summary window.
(setq gnus-use-trees nil)
-(setq gnus-summary-line-format "%U%R%z%4L %(%[%-16,16f%]%): %B %s\n")
+(setq gnus-summary-make-false-root 'dummy)
+(setq gnus-summary-line-format "%U%R%z%4L %(%[%-16,16f%]%): %B %s\n"
+ gnus-summary-dummy-line-format " %(%[----------------%]%): * %S\n")
(setq gnus-sum-thread-tree-root ">"
gnus-sum-thread-tree-false-root ">"
gnus-sum-thread-tree-single-indent "="