RELEASE NOTES FOR AMIGA VN (res1.1 8/88) 14/Nov/1990
====================================================



Introduction
============

vn is a newsreader, similar to rn, vnews or nn. It requires less memory
than Arn 0.67 (Arn failed to run on my 1 meg amiga due to lack of
memory) and comes with full source (executable was created with DICE
V2.02). All that is required to run it is access to usenet messages (on
a floppy from a friend is how I get usenet!).

Setting Up vn on the amiga
==========================

1. assign NEWS: <base directory of newsgrups>
2. create a file called "active" in the directory NEWS: which contains 
   the name of each news group you are interested in followed by the 
   last message in the group
   e.g.
	comp.sys.amiga 30221
	comp.sys.amiga.games 2011
3. do the following SETENVs and copy
	SETENV term amiga-p   (or amiga-n if using an NTSC machine)
	SETENV PALAMIGA Y     (or N if using an NTSC machine)
	copy termcap s: 

4. (optional) create a file called s:.newsrc containing information
   about the news groups you wish to read. If you don't create this file 
   then vn will create it for you. (be prepared for a long wait while vn 
   tries each file from 1 to the last message (as specified in the 
   news:active file) for each newsgroup you specified in the news:active 
   file).
   FILE FORMAT:
	groupname: <first message> <last message read>
   e.g.
	comp.sys.amiga: 1-30119
	comp.sys.amiga.games: 1-1998
5. set the stack (I know 20000 works) if it is not already set to some 
   large value on your system. If the stack is not set large enough then
   vn will crash probably resulting in a !GURU!
   e.q. stack 20000
6. type "vn" at the prompt.

Notes on the directory structure required.
==========================================

If the group name is comp.sys.amiga then the news files will reside in a 
directory called "NEWS:comp/sys/amiga". All the news files will have numeric
names such as "30221" which correspond to the entries in the .newsrc and
active files.

Additional Notes:
=================

Some of the internal commands require that the following programs or devices
are available, either mounted or in your command path:

print		(a print spooler command)
null:		(a device handler)

Additionally all the commands for replying to news etc still are the MINIX
or SYSV equivalents as I do not have access to a UUCP node (I don't even
own a modem).

BUGS.
=====

There are none in the parts I have tested. I have not tried the 
reply/sendmail parts and have not changed the source code for the
amiga. It should be a simple matter to adapt the source for these 
functions. 


ADVANTAGES OF vn OVER rn.
=========================

vn presents you with a list of articles and allows you to select which ones 
to read based on the subject and from lines. This allows you to quickly
pass over news threads that are not of interest to you. Of course nn does 
this and also organised the news in threads whereas vn presents the news
in chronological order (this means that sometimes the original message
appears after a reply - due to the order/direction the news filters through
to your site). This is a vast improvement over the way rn and vnews allow you
to read news. (NOTE: I do not know how Arn works as I could not run it on my
1meg A500).


Additional utilities
====================

updact : reads the NEWS:active file and updates it with the latest news
	article number. (attempts to find the last article by continuing
	from the number in the active file and scanning ahead a file at a
	time for a 1000 files, if none are found then it leaves the number
	alone).

gettoc: prints the subject lines to stdout. takes as input the file
	names of news articles.

umbox and rnumbox: the rn and nn newsreaders will package news articles
	into a mailbox format. these can then be archived. these programs
	extract the articles into the correct directories.

getren: renames the article to the Vnn??? form as with comp.sources etc

Michael Taylor 
Canberra

19th February 1990