RN USER COMMANDS 12-Jul-1991 NAME rn - new read news program SYNOPSIS rn DESCRIPTION All the newsgroups which have unread news are displayed, and then the user is asked for each one whether he wants to read it, in the order in which the newsgroups occur in the .newsrc file. Rn operates on three levels: the newsgroup selection level, the article selection level, and the paging level. Each level has its own set of commands, and its own help menu. At the paging level (the bottom level), rn behaves much like the more program. At the article selection level, you may specify which article you want next, or read them in the default order, which is either in order of arrival on your system, or by subject threads. At the newsgroup selection level (the top level), you may specify which newsgroup you want next, or read them in the default order, which is the order that the newsgroups occur in your .newsrc file. You can also change setting with the e-command and sort the groups alphabetically. On any level, at ANY prompt, an 'h' may be typed for a list of available commands. This is probably the most important command to remember, so don't you forget it. Typing space to any question means to do the normal thing. Carriage returns should not be typed to terminate anything except certain commands. Those commands will be obvious in the discussion below because they ask for an argument.) Upon startup, rn will do several things: 1. It will look for your .newsrc file, which is your list of newsgroups. If rn doesn't find a newsrc, it will create one. 2. Rn will see if you have a .rnprefs file. If there isn't one, it will be created with default settings according to the term-variable. 3. Rn will next check to see if any new newsgroups have been created, and add them to your .newsrc. 4. Rn will check to see if any of the newsgroups in your newsrc are removed from the system and will remove them. 5. It will check the groups for unread articles, listing out the first several newsgroups with unread news. 6. Rn goes into the top prompt level--the newsgroup selection level. Newsgroup Selection Level In this section the words "next" and "previous" refer to the ordering of the newsgroups in your .newsrc file. On the newsgroup selection level, the prompt looks like this: ******** 17 unread articles in talk.blurfl--read now? [ynq] and the following commands may be given at this level: q Quit Readnews. n Go to the next newsgroup with unread news. N Go to the next newsgroup. p Go to the previous newsgroup with unread news. P Go to the previous newsgroup. g Go to newsgroup. If the entered group isn't currently subscribed to, it will be resubscribed. y,SP Do this newsgroup now. l Lists the current state of the .newsrc, along with status information. Status Meaning Count of unread articles READ No unread articles s Sort the groups alphabetically. G Grab - collect messages to a file e Edit settings, colors etc. a Add new newsgroup. This command is allowed only to privileged and superuser level users. r Remove newsgroups. Allowed only to superuser level. These commands may also be given from the group selection level, but are actually executed in article selection level. c Catch up - mark all unread articles in this newsgroup as read. o Mark articles read, except newest ones (user is asked) u Unsubscribe from current newsgroup. = List subjects before displaying articles. Editing settings You need at least 22 rows on your terminal to enter the prefs editor. The editor will display all available ansi color combinations and VT100 graphic modes. You can move the asterix up and down using the cursor keys. To change an entry, press return or "e". You will be prompted with a "Select a definition". Now press the appropriate symbol that is displayed appropriately. For example, if you want italics, push "+", or if you want colors, pick an alphabet .. There is also on/off selections, you can select full headers, or just add Date: and Organization: lines. Quoted text can also be hidden, but I admit that it is not really a very useful option. Press q to return to the main level. Article Selection Level On the article selection level, rn selects (by default) unread articles in numerical order (the order in which articles have arrived at your site). On the article selection level you are not asked whether you want to read an article before the article is displayed; rather, rn simply displays the first page (or portion of a page, at low baud rates) of the article and asks if you want to continue. The normal article selection prompt comes at the END of the article (though article selection commands can be given from within the middle of the article (the pager level) also). The prompt at the end of an article looks like this: End of article 248 (of 257)--what next? [npq] The following are the options at this point: n,SP Scan forward for next unread article. n Go to the next unread article. p Go to the previous unread article. N Go to the next article. P Go to the previous article. ^n Go to the next unread article with the same subject. ^p Go to the previous unread article w/ the same subject. ^r Restart the current article. ^x Restart in rot-13 mode q Quit this newsgroup and go back to the newsgroup selection level. num Go to the numbered article. k Mark as read all articles with the same subject as the current article. r Reply through netmail. R Reply through netmail and include the original article. ^f Submit a new article. f Submit a followup article. F Submit a followup article , and include the old article, with lines prefixed by ">". Rn will attempt to provide an attribution line in front of the quoted article, generated from the From: line of the article. Unfortunately, the From: line doesn't always contain the right name; you should double check it against the signature and change it if necessary, or you may have to apologize for quoting the wrong person. c Catch up in this newsgroup; i.e.,mark all articles as read. o Only: mark all articles as read and then the specified number of newest articles as unread. u Unsubscribe to this newsgroup. s destination Save to a filename. After generating the full pathname of the file to save to, rn determines if the file exists already, and if so, appends to it. Files are saved to a News-subdirectory. = List subjects of unread articles. Pager Level At the pager level (within an article), the prompt looks like this: --MORE--(17%) and a number of commands may be given: SP Display next page. d Display half a page more. CR Display one more line. q Go to the end of the current article. Leaves you at the "What next?" prompt. . Display the rest of the article without pausing. Miscellaneous facts about commands An 'n' typed at either the "Last newsgroup" prompt or a "Last article" prompt will cycle back to the top of the newsgroup or article list, whereas a 'q' will quit the level. (Note that 'n' does not mean "no", but rather "next".) A space will of course do whatever is shown as the default, which will vary depending on whether rn thinks you have more articles or newsgroups to read. UUCP & CNEWS Rn can also be used with UUCP and CNews news systems, when configured correctly. See the AXshAdmManual for details. AUTHOR Pasi 'Albert' Ojala, E-mail: po87553@cs.tut.fi FILES $home/.rnnewsrc News group and read article info $home/.rnprefs Settings for rn. $home/News Directory for saved articles /bin/rn Readnews program /spool/news Directory for news system /etc/rc Global setup defines the location of the news system /etc/rc.news Special news configuration file SEE ALSO mail , editor, AXshAdmManual BUGS If you edit your .rnnewsrc while rn is running, rn will happily wipe out your changes when it decides to write out the file.