@database Amiga-NN 6.4.18

@node main "Welcome"


Welcome to the Amiga port of NN 6.4.18 (amigapatchlevel 3)


@{"Credits" LINK credits}

@{"What is in this archive" LINK what}

@{"Installing NN" LINK install}

@{"Using NN" LINK using}

@{"Compiling NN" LINK recompile}

@{"History" LINK history}

@{"Bugs" LINK bugs}

@{"Different UUCP/News installations" LINK uucp}

@endnode

@node credits "Credits"

Welcome to the Amiga port of NN 6.4.18


Original author of NN is Kim F. Storm

Current maintainer of NN stuff is Peter Wemm

NN was compiled for the Amiga by Alexander Rawass


This version you are looking at was comiled on 18. April 1993


Not all features of NN may be working on the Amiga, but the most important
will!


If you find any Amiga-specific bugs, please mail them to:

    a_rawass@informatik.uni-kl.de


Thanks for testing Amiga NN and mailing me bug reports go to
    Klaus Weber
    Torsten Blum
    Martin Brenner
    Kai 'Wusel' Siering
    
@endnode

@node what "What is in this archive"

    amiga-nn.guide          - this AmigaGuide database
    README.SIMPLENEWS       - read this, too
    install.amiga           - install script
    nn-6.4.16.diff          - the context diffs to the original source
    termcap                 - the termcaps needed (if you don't have
                              them yet)
    bin/nn                  - NN binary
    bin/nnmaster            - nnmaster binary
    bin/simplenews          - simple news utility
    bin/amiga-aux           - replacement for the original 'aux' /bin/sh
                              script
    bin/amiga-back-act      - replacement for the original back-act script
    bin/sendm               - will be called by amiga-aux
    bin/makennguide         - makes a AmigaGuide database out of NN's
                              online manual
    bin/makefolderguide     - brings any folder saved with NN into
                              AmigaGuide database form (may be useless :-)
    bin/nn-shell            - script to start external commands
                              thanks to Martin Brenner for this!
    sample/.nnrc            - needed to run Amiga-NN
    sample/init             - a sample init file for NN
    help                    - directory containing the formatted help files
    help/manual             - the (online) manual


I am very sorry for this chaotic readme, but I am even worse in writing
documentations than in programming :-)

I apologize for the inconvenience!

@endnode

@node install "Installing NN"

Installing NN

    This version of NN will work only under AmigaOS2.* but not under 1.3,
    due to a bug in ixemul.library which does not allow fork() under 1.3

    To install NN on your system, do either the following steps and/or
    read the install.amiga script:

    a)  copy bin/* to a directory inside your path, i.e. UUCP:c
    b)  NN uses the following assigns, so you have to make appropriate
        directories first:

            NN:         directory where to find the nnlib and nndbase
                        directories
            NN:nnlib    directory to put the logfiles, the helpfiles, etc.
                        I used UUCP:nnlib for it
            NN:nndbase  directory where the database is stored
                        you have to create a NNDBASE:data directory also
                        I used UUCP:nndbase for it
            NNSAVE:     directory where to put your saved files
            NNHOME:     directory where to expect your 'home directory'
                        and where to store your .newsrc
                        I used UULIB: for it
    c)  now copy the help directory to NN:nnlib
    d)  copy bin/nn to NN:nnlib/nnadmin or use a link for this
    e)  cause NN works by using the ixemul.library, you have either to
        install GCC on your system or to make the following assigns
        (I think they have only to exist)
        ETC:, USR:, DEV:, LIB:
        copy 'termcap' to USR:share/misc/termcap
        run 'setenv AMIGA'
    f)  run 'nnmaster -I'
        this will initialize you database
    g)  run 'nnmaster'
        this will be the first run (may take a long time)
    h)  if you want to have the online manual also readable by
        AmigaGuide, to will have to run
        'makennguide NN:nnlib/help/manual uuman:nn.guide'

    NN will work only under KS2.0, and it uses the ixemul.library and
    Termcaps, so you may have to install ixemul.library, Termcaps and
    maybe GCC on your system first.
    
    NN works fine with my UUCP installation (a mix with most parts from
    AmigaUUUCP+), but it will not work with the standard distribution
    of Dillons UUCP, 'cause	nnmaster needs an activefile to read....

    You'll also have to edit UULIB:.nnrc to reflect your needs and your
    configuration.

    After new news have reached your system, you should run 'nnmaster',
    this will collect the new articles for the database.
    Then you can start 'nn'.

    'nnmaster -t -D' will collect new articles and trace the collection
        of it
    'nn -g' will start NN and prompt for a group to go to.

    For other options and other questions, RTFM. You find it in
    help/Manual - you can read it via more or enter nn and then type
    ':man' - then you'll see the online manual. Typing 'a-d' for
    example will select the first four entries in the manual and
    SHIFT-Z will let you read them...have fun!

    'simplenews' is a small utility, which takes a temporary files from
    NN and appends a (hopefully) correct Path:, From:, Distribution:,
    Organitzation:, Date: and Message-ID: field to it.
    You can use this also without NN.

    At the moment, NN is not expected to work with multiple users!
    It takes the information it needs from UULIB:config _and_ from
    UULIB:.nnrc :

    NodeName, UserName, RealName, Organization, DomainName, WhoAmI,
    Editor, MailCommand, NewsCommand, SaveFolder, NewsSignature,
    MailSignature

    If any of these entries are missing, amiga-aux and simplenews will
    not work correctly.
    
    NN ist _not_ a fully working port yet; some things may not work!
    What will definetly work is reading news, posting articles, posting
    followups, replying to an article, forwarding articles, cancelling
    articles, saving articles to disk, goto a folder, reading the online
    manual, using killfile, setting variables,...
    
    What may not work are things like printing directly from inside NN or
    piping output into 'unshar', etc.
    
    I do not use those not-working features at the moment, and I am really
    too lazy to implement them until I need them, so you have to do the
    job yourself...

    For the very first time you are using NN, you should manually look if
    your posting and mails are processed as they should, please read
    README.SIMPLENEWS for more information.
    
    If NN does not work with your installation, you may take a look at
    amiga-aux.c and simplenews.c which are in the diff-archive.
    
    amiga-back-act is a replacement for the back-act script, which
    takes a trace of your activefile, so that you can rewind your
    .newsrc with nngoback.
    amiga-back-act should be invoked every night
    nngoback is just a link (or a copy) of nn

    makennguide is an utility which converts the online manual of NN
    into an AmigaGuide database - this is much easier to read for
    first-time NN users.
    
    makefolderguide is an utility to convert any saved folder into
    an AmigaGuide database - this seems pretty useless to me, but maybe
    someone will like it?
    
    If you have found bugs or improvements concerning the Amiga part of NN,
    you can send mail to a_rawass@informatik.uni-kl.de, but remember,
    I will _not_ improve errors found in the Unix-NN too, nor will I
    implement features I do not need!

    The following environment variables override (maybe not) the default
    settings:
        HOME        home directory  (instead of NNHOME:)
        PAGER       pager           (instead of more)
        TMPDIR      temporary dir   (instead of t:)
        LOGNAME     login name      (instead of uulib:config/UserName)
        USER        login name      (instead of uulib:config/UserName)
        NNMAILER    not used
        NNTPSERVER  not used
        TERM        termcap         should be set to amiga
        SHELL       shell           (instead of /bin/sh at the moment)
        FOLDER      save folder     (instead of NNSAVE:)
        NAME        fullname        (instead of uulib:config/RealName)

@endnode

@node recompile "Compiling NN"
    
(3) Compiling NN on your system

It may be (and will be) that you do not like the pathnames NN uses, or
that you will make corrections or improvements to the source code,
and so you will have to re-compile NN.

You have to use GCC for this, 'cause NN will need the ixemul.library, which
is (on my opinion) not available for other compilers (at least not the
glue routines!).

In the files 'nn-6.4.16.diff' in this archive are the context-diffs to
the original NN 6.4.16 source - the patches from patchlevel 16 to
patchlevel 18 are already applied in nn-6.4.16.diff

You have to get the original source first, extract it and then CD to
the directory you extracted the source into.
Then you have to run 'patch <nn-6.4.16.diff' and wait until all the
patches are applied.

First you'll have to copy config.h-amiga to config.h, to get a correct
config-file.
Then you have to modify 'Makefile.amiga' to suit your needs, and then
run 'make -f Makefile.amiga all'
NN will be compiled (this may take a while!), and then you have nn,nnmaster,
simplenews and amiga-aux in your source directory.

Warning: if you change 'config.h', NN will have to compile itself from
scratch, which takes about one hour on my system (without any optimization!)

What are the differences to the original source?

I have made changes to config.h, the Makefile and changed various *.c
souce code files.

I have also written a C-replacement for the /bin/sh script 'aux', which
would _not_ work with 'pdksh' or 'sksh' (if you've got a _fully_
kompatible /bin/sh for the Amiga, tell it to me....!

I have also written simplenews, which takes a temporary file as its first
argument, append some headers to it and feeds it into 'relaynews'.
You can use this without NN, too.

If you have questions, you can contact me by mailing to
a_rawass@informatik.uni-kl.de


Disclaimer: it works fine on my system

Alexander Rawass

@endnode


@node using "Using and working with NN"

If you have installed NN on your system, you have first to initialize
the NN database.

Do do that, type:

nnmaster -I

You have to confirm with OK after nnmaster has started.


Then, you have to run nnmaster for the first time to clean and collect
the groups you have in your activefile.

So type:

nnmaster         or           nnmaster -t -D

This may take a _long_ time, so you could use the second call to see
the collection process traced.


If nnmaster has finished, you are ready to start NN itself.

You can do it now - but maybe you should read NN's manual (which can
be formatted into an AmigaGuide database) first!


Just type:

nn

NN will start up and will ask you:

'enter group group.name'

At this point you should type return.

Then you'll be in the article overview of the group you have entered.
Type the following:

:man

This will take you straight away into the online manual.

Then type:

@

And then type

SHIFT-Z

Then you can browse through the online manual, pressing space after
each page.

For further info, RTFM!

@endnode

@node bugs "Bugs"

BUGS

    none - but maybe some undocumented features ;-)

    some reported me this bug (which I was not able to construct on my
    system - sorry) :
    
    if you are reading a group which is new to NN, and if you have read
    the last article in this group and want to skip to the next with
    space, NN will hang in a busy loop - I don't know why,
    but I think that this may be a bug general to NN (not Amiga-
    specific)
@endnode

@node history "History"

  1 Mar 93      6.4.18apl0      first port of NN
                6.4.18apl1      uploaded in a private directory
                                on our ftp-server
                6.4.18apl2      fixed some minor bugs
                                uploaded in public directory
 17 Apr 93      6.4.18apl3      NN frees memory correctly after
                                finishing now
                                wrote utility to convert online manual
                                in AmigaGuide database
                                

@endnode

@node uucp "Different UUCP/News installations"

NN works fine on my system with some sort of mixed AmigaUUCP+ installation

NN will also work with DillonUUCP, but you have to have an activefile
to use NN - so the standard DUUCP will not work, but DUUCP with wCNews
together seems to work.

NN also works with wCNews; here, you can replace simplenews
(but you must not) by the following script:

-----CUT HERE-----
.key article/A
.bra [
.ket ]
.dot ~

echo >>[article] "-- "
type >>[article] UULIB:.signature
inews -W -h -o "`findconfig Organization`" <[article]
------CUT HERE-----

@endnode