From: NN
Subject: - efficient net news interface (No News is good news)
nn - efficient net news interface (No News is good news)
From: NN
Subject: SYNOPSIS
nn [ options ] [ newsgroup | +folder | file ]...
nn -g [ -r ]
nn -a0 [ newsgroup ]...
From: NN
Subject: DESCRIPTION
Net news is a world-wide information exchange service covering numerous topics
in science and every day life. Topics are organized in news\ groups, and these
groups are open for everybody to post articles on a subject related to the
topic of the group.
Nn is a `point-and-shoot' net news interface program, or a news reader for
short (not to be confused with the human news reader). When you use nn, you
can decide which of the many news groups you are interested in, and you can
unsubscribe to those which don't interest you. nn will let you read the new
(and old) articles in each of the groups you subscribe to using a menu based
article selection prior to reading the articles in the news group.
When a news group is entered, nn will locate all the presently unread
articles in the group, and extract their sender, subject, and other relevant
information. This information is then rearranged, sorted, and marked in
various ways to give it a pleasant format when it is presented on the screen.
This will be done very quickly, because nn uses its own database to
maintain all the necessary information on a directly accessible form (this
database is built and maintained by the nnmaster(8) program).
When the article menu appears on the screen, nn will be in a mode called
selection mode. In this mode, the articles which seems to be interesting can
be selected by single keystrokes (using the keys a-z and 0-9). When all the
interesting articles among the ones presently displayed have been selected,
the space bar is hit, which causes nn to enter reading mode.
In reading mode, each of the selected articles will be presented. You use
the space bar to go on to the next page of the current article, or to the next
article. Of course, there are all sorts of commands to scroll text up and
down, skip to the next article, responding to an article, decrypt an article,
and so on.
When all the selected articles in the current group have been read, the
last hit on the space bar will cause nn will continue to the next group with
unread articles, and enter selection mode on that group.
From: NN
Subject: FREQUENTLY USED OPTIONS
nn accepts a lot of command line options, but here only the frequently used
options are described. Options can also be set permanently by including
appropriate variable settings in the init file described later. All options
are described in the section on Command Line Options towards the end of this
manual.
The frequently used command line options are:
-a0 Catch up on unread articles and groups. See the section "Catch up" below.
-g Prompt for the name of a news group or folder to be entered (with
completion).
-r Used with -g to repeatedly prompt for groups to enter.
-lN Print only the first N lines of the first page of each article before
prompting to continue. This is useful on slow terminals and modem lines
to be able to see the first few lines of longer articles.
-sWORD
Collect only articles which contain the string WORD in their subject
(case is ignored). This is normally combined with the -x and -m options
to find all articles on a specific subject.
-s/regexp
Collect only articles whose subject matches the regular expression regexp
. This is normally combined with the -x and -m options to find all
articles on a specific subject.
-nWORD or -n/regexp
Same as -s except that it matches on the sender's name instead of the
article's subject. This is normally combined with the -x and -m options
to find all articles from a specific author. It cannot be mixed with the
-s option!
-i Normally searches with -n and -s are case independent. Using this option,
the case becomes significant.
-m Merge all articles into one `meta group' instead of showing them one
group at a time. This is normally used together with the -x and -s
options to get all the articles on a specific subject presented on a
single menu (when you don't care about which group they belong to). When
-m is used, no articles will be marked as read.
-x[N]
Present (or scan) all (or the last N) unread as well as read articles.
When this option is used, nn will never mark unread articles as read
(i.e. .newsrc is not updated).
-X Read/scan unsubscribed groups also. Most useful when looking for a
specific subject in all groups, e.g.
nn -mxX -sSubject all
news.group or file or +folder
If none of these arguments are given, all subscribed news groups will be
used. Otherwise, only the specified news groups and/or files will be
collected and presented. In specifying a news groups, the following `meta
notation' can be used:
If the news group ends with a `.' (or `.all'), all subgroups of the news
group will be collected, e.g.
comp.sources.
If a news group starts with a `.' (or `all.'), all the matching subgroups
will be collected, e.g.
.sources.unix
The argument `all' identifies all (subscribed) news groups.
From: NN
Subject: COMMAND INPUT
In general, nn commands consist of one or two key-strokes, and nn reacts
instantly to the commands you give it; you don't have to enter return after
each command (except where explicitly stated).
Some commands have more serious effects than others, and therefore nn requests
you to confirm the command. You confirm by hitting the the y key, and reject
by hitting the n key. Some `trivial' requests may also be confirmed simply by
hitting space. For example, to confirm the creation of a save file, just hit
space, but if one or more directories also have to be created, you must enter
y.
Many commands will require that you enter a line of text, e.g. a file name or
a shell command. If you enter space as the first character on a line, the line
will be filled with a default value (if one is defined). For example, the
default value for a file name is the last file name you have entered, and the
default shell command is your previous shell command. You can edit this
default value as well as a directly typed text, using the following editing
commands. The erase, kill, and interrupt keys are the keys defined by the
current tty settings. On systems without job control, the suspend key will be
control-Z while it is the current suspend character on system with job
control.
erase
Delete the last character on the line.
delete-word (normally ^W)
Delete the last word or component of the input.
kill
Delete all characters on the line.
interrupt and control-G
Cancel the command which needs the input.
suspend
Suspend nn if supported by the system. Otherwise, spawn an interactive
shell.
return
Terminate the line, and continue with the command.
Related variables: erase-key, flow-control, flush-typeahead, help-key,
kill-key, word-key.
From: NN
Subject: BASIC COMMANDS
There are numerous commands in nn, and most of them can be invoked by a single
keystroke. The descriptions in this manual are based on the standard bindings
of the commands to the keys, but it is possible to customize these using the
map command described later. For each of the keystroke commands described in
this manual, the corresponding command name will also be shown in curly
braces, e.g. {command}.
The following commands work in both selection mode and in reading mode. The
notation ^X means `control X':
? {help}
Help. Gives a one page overview of the commands available in the current
mode.
^L {redraw}
Redraw screen.
^R {redraw}
Redraw screen (Same as ^L).
^P {message}
Repeat the last message shown on the message line. The command can be
repeated to successively show previous messages (the maximum number of
saved messages is controlled via the message-history variable.)
! {shell}
Shell escape. The user is prompted for a command which is executed by
your favorite shell (see the shell variable). Shell escapes are described
in detail later on.
Q {quit}
Quit nn. When you use this command, you neither lose unread articles in
the current group nor the selections you might have made (unless the
articles are expired in the meantime of course).
V {version}
Print release and version information.
:command {command}
Execute the command by name. This form can be used to invoke any of nn's
commands, also those which cannot be bound to a key (such as :coredump),
or those which are not bound to a key by default (such as post and
unshar).
Related and basic variables: backup, backup-suffix, confirm-auto-quit, expert,
mail, message-history, new-group-action, newsrc, quick-count.
From: NN
Subject: SELECTION MODE
In selection mode, the screen is divided into four parts: the header line
showing the name of the news group and the number of articles, the menu lines
which show the collected articles - one article per line, the prompt line
where you enter commands, and the message line where nn prints various
messages to you.
Each menu line begins with an article id which is a unique letter (or digit if
your screen can show more than 26 menu lines). To select an articles for
reading, you simply enter the corresponding id, and the menu line will be
high-lighted to indicate that the article is selected. When you have selected
all the interesting articles on the present menu, you simply hit space.
If there are more articles collected for the current group than could be
presented on one screenful of text, you will be presented with the next
portion of articles to select from. When you have had the opportunity to
select among all the articles in the group, hitting space will enter reading
mode.
If no articles have been selected in the current group, hitting space will
enter selection mode on the next news group, or exit nn if the current group
was the last news group with unread articles. It is thus possible to go
through ALL unread articles (without reading any of them) just by hitting
space a few times.
The articles will be presented on the menu using one of the following layouts:
0: x Name......... Subject.............. +123
1: x Name......... 123 Subject..............
2: x 123 Subject...................................
3: x Subject...........................................
4: x Subject........................................
Here x is the letter or digit that must be entered to select the article, Name
is the real name of the sender (or the mail address if the real name cannot be
found), Subject is the contents of the "Subject:" line in the article, and 123
is the number of lines in the article.
Layout 0 and 1 are just two ways to present the same information, while layout
2 and 3 are intended for groups whose articles have very long subject lines,
e.g. comp.sources.
Layout 4 is a hybrid between layout 1 and 3. It will normally use layout 1,
but it will use layout 3 (with a little indentation) for menu lines where the
subject is longer than the space available with layout 1.
Layout 1 is the default layout, and an alternative menu line layout is
selected using the -L option or by setting the layout variable. Once nn is
started the layout can be changed at any time using the " key {layout}.
The Name is limited to 16 characters, and to make maximum use of this space,
nn will perform a series of simplifications on the name, e.g. changing first
names into initials, removing domain names from mail addresses (if the real
name is not found) etc. It does a good job, but some people on the net put
weird things into the From: field (or actually into their password file) which
result in nn producing quite cryptic, and sometimes funny "names".
One a usual 80 column terminal, the Subject is limited to about 60 characters
(75 in layout 3) and is thus only an approximation to the actual subject line
which may be much longer. To get as much out of this space, Re: prefixes (in
various forms) are recognized and replaced by a single `>' character (see the
re-layout variable).
Since articles are sorted according to the subject, two or more adjacent
articles may share the same subject (ignoring any `>'s). In this case, only
the first article will show the subject of the article; the rest will only
show the `>' character in the subject field (or a `-' if there is no `>' at
the beginning of the line). A typical menu will thus only show each subject
once, saving a lot of time in scanning the news articles.
If consolidated menus (see section below) are enabled, adjacent articles
sharing the same subject will be shown with a single line on the menu
corresponding to the first of the articles. The number of articles with the
same subject will be shown as a braketed number in front of the subject, e.g.
with layout 1:
x Name......... 123 [4] Subject..............
For further information see the section on consolidated menus below.
Related variables: collapse-subject, columns, confirm-entry,
confirm-entry-limit, entry-report-limit, fsort, kill, layout, limit, lines,
long-menu, re-layout, repeat, slow-mode, sort, sort-mode, split,
subject-match-limit, subject-match-offset, subject-match-parts.
From: NN
Subject: ARTICLE ATTRIBUTES
While nn is running and between invocations, nn associates an attribute with
each article on your system. These attributes are used to differentiate
between read and unread articles, selected articles, articles marked for later
treatment, etc. Depending on how nn is configured, these attributes can be
saved between invocations of nn, or some of them may only be used while nn is
running.
The attribute is shown on the menu using either a single character following
the article id or by high-lighting the menu line, depending on the attribute
and the capabilities of the terminal. You can also change the attributes to
your own taste (see the attributes variable).
The attribute of an article can be changed explicitly using the selection mode
commands described below, or it will change automatically for example when you
have read or saved a selected article. If a command may change any article
attributes, it will be noted in the description of the command. The following
descriptions of the attributes will only mention the most important commands
that may set (or preserve) the attribute.
The following attributes may be associated with an article:
read Menu attribute "." - indicates that the article has been read or saved.
When you leave the group, these articles will be marked permanently read,
and are not presented the next time you enter the group.
seen Menu attribute "," - indicates that the article is unread, but that it
has been presented on a menu. Depending on how nn is configured, these
articles will automatically be marked read when you leave the group, they
may remain seen, or they may just be unread the next time you enter the
group (see the auto-junk-seen, confirm-junk-seen, and retain-seen-status
variables).
Only the commands continue (space) and read-skip (X) will mark unread
articles on the current (or all) menu pages as seen when they are used.
Other commands that scroll through the menu pages or enter reading mode
will let unread articles remain unread.
unread
Menu attribute " " - indicates an unread article. These articles were
unread when you entered the group, and they may remain unread when you
leave the group, unless they have been marked seen by the command that
you used to leave the group or enter reading mode.
selected
Menu line high-lighted (or menu attribute "*") - indicates that you have
selected the article. If you leave the group, the selected articles will
remain selected the next time you enter the group. When you have read a
selected article, the attribute will automatically change to read.
auto-selected
These articles have the same appearance as selected articles on the menu,
and the only difference is that these articles have been selected
automatically via the auto-selection facility rather than manually by
you. Very few commands differentiate between these attributes and if they
do, it is explicitly stated in this manual. The main difference is that
these articles are only marked as unread when you leave the group
(supposing they will also be auto-selected the next the group is
entered). This simplifies the house-keeping between invocations of nn.
leave
Menu attribute "+" - indicates that the article is marked for later
treatment by the leave-article (l) command. These articles may be
selected (on demand) when you have read all selected articles in a group.
However, if you do not select them then immediately, they are stored as
the leave-next attribute described below.
leave-next
Menu attribute "=" - indicates that the article is marked for later
treatment by the leave-next (L) command. This is a permanent attribute,
which will remain on the article until you either read the article,
change the attribute, or it is expired. So assinging this attribute to an
article will effectively keep it unread until you do something. If the
variable select-leave-next is set, nn will ask whether these articles
should be selected on entry to a group (but naturally, doing so will
change the leave-next attribute to select).
cancelled
Menu attribute "#" - indicates that the article has been cancelled. This
is mainly useful when tidying a folder; it is set by the cancel (C)
command, and can be cleared by any command that change attributes, e.g.
you can select and deselect the article.
killed
Menu attribute "!" - indicates that the article has been killed (e.g. by
the K {kill-select} command). Killed articles are immediately removed
from the menu, so you should not normally see articles with this
attribute. If you do, report it as a bug!
The attributes are saved in two files: .newsrc (read articles) and .nn/select
(other attributes). Plain unread articles are saved by not occurring in either
of these files. Both files are described in more detail later on.
Related variables: attributes, auto-junk-seen, confirm-junk-seen,
retain-seen-status, select-leave-next.
From: NN
Subject: SELECTION MODE COMMANDS
The primary purpose of the selection mode is of course to select the articles
to be read, but numerous other commands may also be performed in this mode:
saving of articles in files, replying and following up on articles,
mailing/forwarding articles, shell escapes etc.
As described above, the selected articles are marked either by showing the
corresponding menu line in standout mode (reverse video), or if the terminal
does not have this capability by placing an asterisk (*) after the selection
letter or digit.
Most commands which are used to select articles will work as toggle commands.
If the article is not already selected, the selectedattribute on the
article(s), independent on the previous attribute. Otherwise, the article(s)
will be deselected and marked unread. Consequently, any article can be marked
unread simply be selecting and deselecting it.
During selection, the cursor will normally be placed on the article following
the last article whose attribute was changed (initially the first article).
The article pointed out by the cursor is called the current article, and the
following commands work relative to the current article and cursor position.
abc...z 01..9 {article N}
The article with the given identification letter or digit is selected or
deselected. The following article becomes the current article. If the
variable auto-select-subject is set, all articles with the same subject
as the given article are selected.
. {select}
Select or deselect the current article and move the cursor to the next
article.
, {line+1}
Move the cursor to the next article. You can use the down arrow as well.
/ {line-1}
Move cursor to previous article. You can use the up arrow as well.
* {select-subject}
Select or deselect all articles with same subject as current article.
This will work across several menu pages if necessary.
-x {select-range}
Select or deselect the range of articles between the current article and
the article specified by x. For example you can select all articles from
e to k by simply typing e-k.
The following commands may change the attributes on all articles on the
current menu page, or on all articles on all menu pages.
@ {select-invert}
Reverse selections. All selected articles on the current page are
deselected, and vice-versa. (Use the find command to select all
articles.)
~ {unselect-all}
Deselect all auto-selected articles in the group (this works across all
menu pages). If the command is executed twice, the selected articles will
also be deselected.
+ {select-auto}
Perform auto-selections in the group (see the section on "auto
kill/select" below).
= {find}
Prompts for a regular expression, and selects all articles on the menu
(all pages) which matches the regular expression. Depending on the
variable select-on-sender matching is performed against the subject
(default) or the sender of the articles. An empty answer (= return) will
reuse the previous expression. Example: The command = . return will
select all articles in the group.
J {junk-articles}
This is a very versatile command which can be used to perform all sorts
of attribute changes, either on individual articles, all articles on the
current menu page, all articles with a specific attribute, or all
available articles. To access all the functions of this command, the J
key may have to be hit up to four times, to loop through different
one-line menus. The full functionality of the junk-articles command is
described in a separate section below.
L {leave-next}
This is a specialized version of the generic J {junk-articles} command to
set the leave-next attribute on a subset of the articles on the menu. It
is also described further below.
The following commands move between the pages belonging to the same news group
when there are more articles than will fit on a single page. These commands
will not change any article attributes.
> {page+1}
Goto next menu page.
< {page-1}
Goto previous menu page, or to last menu page if on first menu page.
$ {page=$}
Goto last menu page.
^ {page=1}
Goto first menu page.
The following commands are used to enter reading mode for the selected
articles, and to move between news groups (in selection mode). They may change
article attributes if noted below.
space {continue}
Continue to next menu page, or if on last menu page, read the selected
articles. If no articles have been selected, continue to the next news
group. The unread articles on the current menu page will automatically be
marked seen.
return {continue-no-mark}
Identical to the continue command, except that the unread articles on the
current menu page will remain unread. (The newline key has the same
effect).
Z {read-return}
Enter reading mode immediately with the currently selected articles. When
all articles have been read, return to selection mode in the current
group. It will mark selected articles read as they are read, but unread
articles are not normally changed (can be controlled with the variable
marked-by-read-return.)
X {read-skip}
Mark all unmarked articles seen on all menu pages (or the pages defined
by the marked-by-read-skip variable), and enter reading mode immediately
with the currently selected articles. As the selected articles are read,
they are marked read. When all selected articles have been read, nn will
enter selection mode in the next news group. When no articles are
selected, it goes directly to the next group. This can be used to skip
all the articles in a large news group without having to go through all
the menu pages.
If you don't want to read the current group now, but want to keep it for
later, you can use the following commands which will only mark seen and read
articles as read. Currently selected articles will still be selected the next
time you enter the group. None of these commands will change any attributes
themselves (by default).
N {next-group}
Go forward to the next group in the presentation sequence. If the
variable marked-by-next-group is set articles on the menu can optionally
be marked seen
P {previous}
Go back to the previous group. This command will enter selection mode on
the last active group (two P commands in sequence will bring you to the
current group). If there are still some unread articles in the group,
only those articles will be shown. Otherwise, all the articles which were
unread when nn was invoked will be shown marked with the read attribute
(which can be changed as usual).
As described in the "Article Attributes" section, the read and seen articles
will normally be marked read when you leave the group, and these articles are
not shown the next time you enter the group.
In all releases prior to release 6.4, it was impossible to have individual
articles in a group marked unread when you left a group, and the default
behaviour of release 6.4 will closely match the traditional behaviour. This
means that the seen and read articles are treated alike for most practical
purposes with the default variable settings.
If you don't like nn to silently mark the seen articles read, you can set the
variable confirm-junk-seen to get nn to prompt you for confirmation before
doing this, or you can unset the variable auto-junk-seen to simply keep the
seen articles for the next time you enter the group. You then have to use the
J {junk-articles} to mark articles read.
Using return {continue-no-mark} will also allow you to keep articles unread
rather than marking them seen when scrolling through the menu pages and
entering reading mode. If this is your preferred reading style, you can remap
space to this command.
Related variables: auto-junk-seen, auto-preview-mode, auto-select-subject,
case-fold-search, confirm-auto-quit, confirm-entry, confirm-junk-seen,
marked-by-next-group, marked-by-read-return, marked-by-read-skip,
retain-seen-status, select-on-sender.
From: NN
Subject: CONSOLIDATED MENUS
Normally, nn will use one menu line for each article, so if there are many
articles with identical subjects, each menu page will only contain a few
different subjects. To have each subject occur only once on the menu, nn can
operate with consolidated menus by setting the variable consolidated-menu.
When consolidated menus are used, nn operates with two kinds of subjects: open
and closed.
An open subject is a subject which is shown in the traditional way with one
menu line for each article with the given subject. In other words, when
consolidated menus are not used, all subjects are open (by default).
A closed subject is a multi-article subject which is presented by a single
menu line. This line will be the normal menu line for the first (oldest)
article with the subject, but with the subject field annotated with a
bracketed number showing the number of articles with that subject, e.g.
a Kim F. Storm 12 [4] Future plans for nn
b.Kim F. Storm 43 [3] More plans for nn
In this example, there are four unread articles with subject `a' of which the
first is posted by me and has 12 lines. The rest of the articles are hidden,
and will only be shown on request. The `.' marker on subject `b' shows that
all three articles within that subject have been read (or seen).
To select (or deselect) ALL the articles within a closed subject, simply
select the article shown on the menu; this will automatically select (or
deselect) the rest (see auto-select-closed). When all the unread articles
within a closed subject are selected, the menu line will be high-lighted.
If you want to view the individual articles in a subject (maybe to select
individual articles), you can open the subject with the commands:
(x Open subject x on menu.
(( Open current subject.
When you have completed viewing the opened subject, you can close it again
using the commands:
)x Close subject x on menu (x is any article with the subject).
)) Close current subject.
In the basic layout of the menu line for a closed subject as shown above, ALL
articles in the closed subject are supposed to be either:
unread
The menu line is not high-lighted.
selected
Menu line is fully high-lighted (if all UNREAD are selected).
read/seen
There is a `.' (read attribute) following the article id.
If neither of these cases apply, i.e. there is a mixture of unread, selected,
and seen/read articles, the bracketed number will have one of the following
formats:
[U:T]
There are U unread articles of T total (U<T).
[S/T]
There are S selected articles of T total (S<U=T).
[S/U:T]
There are S selected of U unread of T total (S<U<T).
If there are any selected articles (S>0), the information between the brackets
will be high-lighted (to show that something is selected, but not all the
unread articles).
Notice: Consolidated menus only work with the `subject' and `lexical' sorting
methods.
Variables related to consolidated menus are: auto-select-closed,
consolidated-menu, counter-delim-left, counter-delim-right, counter-padding,
save-closed-mode.
From: NN
Subject: THE JUNK-ARTICLES AND LEAVE-NEXT COMMANDS
The J {junk-articles} command is a very flexible command which can perform all
sorts of attribute changes, either on individual articles, all articles on the
current menu page, all articles with a specific attribute, or all available
articles.
To access all the functions of this command, the J key may have to be hit up
to four times, to loop through different one-line menus:
Mark Read
This submenu allows you to mark articles read.
Unmark
This submenu allows you to mark articles unread.
Select
This submenu allows you to select articles based on their attribute.
Kill This submenu allows you to mark articles read and remove them from the
menu based on their attribute.
The L {leave-next} command is an extension of the J command with a fifth menu:
Leave
This menu allows you to mark articles for later handling with the
leave-next attribute which will keep the article unread until you
explicitly change the attribute (e.g. by reading it) or it is expired.
For each of these submenus, nn will list the most plausible choices you may
use, but all of the following answers can be used at all submenus. When you
have entered a choice, nn will afterward ask whether the change should be made
to all menu pages or only the current page.
J Show next submenu.
L Change attribute on all leave articles.
N Change attribute on all leave-next articles.
R Change attribute on all read articles.
S Change attribute on all seen articles.
U Change attribute on all unmarked (i.e. unread) articles.
A Change attribute on all articles no matter their current attribute.
* Change attribute on all selected articles on the current page.
+ Change attribute on all selected articles on all pages.
a-z0-9
Change attribute on one or more specific articles on the current page.
You end the list of articles by a space or by using one of the other
choices described above.
. Change attribute on current article.
, / Move the current article down or up the menu without changing any
attributes.
From: NN
Subject: READING MODE COMMANDS
In reading mode, the selected articles are presented one page at a time. To
get the next page of an article, simply hit space, and when you are on the
last page of an article, hit space to get to the next selected article.
Articles are normally marked read when you go to the next article, while going
back to the menu, quitting nn, etc. will retain the attribute on the current
article.
When you are on the last page of the last article, hit space to enter
selection mode on the next group (or the current group if reading mode was
entered using the Z command).
To read an article, the following text scrolling commands are available:
space {continue}
Scroll one page forward or continue with the next article or group as
described above.
backspace / delete {page-1}
Go one page backwards in article.
d {page+1/2}
Scroll one half page forward.
u {page-1/2}
Go one half page backwards.
return {line+1}
Scroll one line forward in the article.
tab {skip-lines}
Skip over lines starting with the same character as the last line on the
current page. This is useful to skip over included text or to the next
file in a shell archive.
^ {page=1}
Move to the first page (excluding the header) of the article.
$ {page=$}
Move to the last page of the article.
gN {line=@}
Move to line N in the article.
/regexp {find}
Search forward for text matching the regular expression regexp in the
article. If a matching text is found, it will be high-lighted.
. {find-next}
Repeat search for last regular expression.
h {page=0}
Show the header of the article, and continue from the top of the article.
H {full-digest}
If the current article is extracted from a digest, show the entire digest
article including its header. Another H command will return to the
current subarticle.
D {rot13}
Turn rot13 (caesar) decryption on and off for the current article, and
redraw current page. If the article is saved while it is decrypted on the
screen, it will be saved in decrypted form as well!
c {compress}
Turn compression on and off for the current article and redraw current
page. With compression turned on, multiple spaces and tabs are shown as a
single space. This makes it much easier to read right justified text
which separate words with several spaces. (See also the compress
variable)
The following commands are used to move among the selected articles.
n {next-article}
Move to next selected article. This command skips the rest of the current
article, marks it read, and jumps directly to the first page of the next
selected article (or to the next group if it was the last selected
article).
l {leave-article}
Mark the current article with the leave attribute and continue with the
next selected article. When all the selected articles in the current
group have been read, these left over articles can be automatically
selected and shown once more, or the treatment can be postponed to the
next time you enter the group.
This is particularly useful if you see an article which you may want
to respond to unless one the following articles is already saying what
you intended to say.
L {leave-next}
Mark the current article with the leave-next attribute and continue with
the next selected article.
p {previous}
Goto previous article.
k {next-subject}
Kill subject. Skips rest of current article, and all following articles
with the same subject. The skipped articles are marked read. To kill a
subject permanently use the K command.
* {select-subject}
Show next article with same subject (even if it is not selected). This
command will select all following articles with the same subject as the
current article (similar to the `*' command in selection mode). This can
be used to select only the first article on a subject in selection mode,
and then select all follow-ups in reading mode if you find the article
interesting.
a {advance-article}
Goto the following article on the menu even if it is not selected. This
command skips the rest of the current article and jumps directly to the
first page of the next article (it will not skip to the next group if it
is the last article). The attribute on the current article will be
restored, except for the unread attribute which will be changed to seen.
b {back-article}
Goto the article before current article on the menu even if it is not
selected. This is similar to the a command, except for the direction.
The following commands perform an immediate return from reading mode to
selection mode in the current group or skip to the next group.
= {goto-menu}
Return to selection mode in the current group (think of = as the "icon"
of the selection menu). The articles read so far will be marked read.
N {next-group}
Skip the rest of the selected and unread articles in the current group
and go directly to the next group. Only the read (and seen) articles in
the current group are marked as read.
X {read-skip}
Mark all articles in the current group as read and go directly to the
next group. (You will be asked to confirm this command.)
Related variables: case-fold-search, compress, data-bits, date, header-lines,
mark-overlap, monitor, overlap, scroll-clear-page, stop, trusted-escape-codes,
wrap-header-margin.
From: NN
Subject: PREVIEWING ARTICLES IN SELECTION MODE
In selection mode, it is possible to read a specific article on the menu
without entering reading mode for all the selected articles on the menu. Using
the commands described below will enter reading mode for one article only, and
then return to the menu mode immediately after (depending on the setting of
the preview-continuation variable).
If there are more than 5 free lines at the bottom of the menu screen, nn
will use that space to show the article (a minimal preview window can be
permanently allocated with the window variable). Otherwise, the screen will be
cleared to show the article.
After previewing an article, it will be marked read (if the
preview-mark-read variable is set), and the following article will become the
current article.
%x {preview}
Preview article x.
%% {preview}
Preview the current article.
When the article is being shown, the following reading mode commands are very
useful:
= {goto-menu}
Skip the rest of the current article, and return to menu mode.
n {next-article}
Skip the rest of the current article, and preview the next article.
l {leave-article}
Mark the article as selected (!) on the menu for handling later on. Then
skip the rest of the current article, and preview the next article.
%y {preview}
Preview article y .
If the variable auto-preview-mode is set, just hitting the article id in menu
mode will enter preview mode on the specified article.
Related variables: auto-preview-mode, min-window, preview-continuation,
preview-mark-read, window.
From: NN
Subject: SAVING ARTICLES
The following commands are used to save articles in files, unpack archives,
decode binaries, etc. It is possible to use the commands in both reading mode
to save the current article and in selection mode to save one or more articles
on the menu.
The saved articles will be appended to the specified file(s) followed by an
empty line each. Both files and directories will be created as needed. When an
article has been saved in a file, a message reporting the number of lines
saved will be shown if the save-report variable is set (default on).
S {save-full}
Save articles including the full article header.
O {save-short}
Save articles with a short header containing only the name of the sender,
the subject, and the posting date of the article.
W {save-body}
Write article without a header.
:print {print}
Print article. Instead of a file name, this command will prompt for the
print command to which the current article will be piped. The default
print command is specified at compile time, but it can be changed by
setting the printer variable. The output will be identical to that of the
O command.
:patch {patch}
Send articles through patch(1) (or the program defined in the
patch-command variable). Instead of a file name, you will be prompted for
the name of a directory in which you want the patch command to be
executed. nn will then pipe the body of the article through the patch
command.
The output from the patch process will be shown on the screen and
also appended to a file named Patch.Result in the patch directory.
:unshar {unshar}
Unshar articles. You will be prompted for the name of a directory in
which you want nn to unshar the articles. nn will then pipe the proper
parts of the article body into a Bourne Shell whose working directory
will be set to the specified directory.
During the unpacking, the normal output from the unshar process will
appear on the screen, and the menu or article text will be redrawn when
the process is finished.
The output is also appended to a file named Unshar.Result in the
unshar directory.
The file specified in unshar-header-file (default "Unshar.Headers")
in the unshar directory will contain the header and initial text (before
the shar data) from the article. You can use the `G' {goto-group} command
to look at the Unshar.Headers file.
:decode {decode}
Decode uuencoded articles into binary files. You will be prompted for the
name of a directory in which you want nn to place the decoded binary
files (the file names are taken from the uuencoded data).
nn will combine several articles into single files as needed, and
you can even decode unrelated packages (into the same directory) with one
decode command.
To be able to decode a binary file which spans several articles, nn
may have to ignore lines which fail the normal sanity checks on uuencoded
data instead of treating them as transmission errors. Consequently, it is
strongly recommended to check the resulting decoded file using the
checksum which is normally contained in the original article. (Actually,
you are also supposed to do this after decoding with a stand-alone
uudecode program).
The header and initial information in the decoded articles are saved
in the file specified in decode-header-file (default "Decode.Headers") in
the same directory as the decoded files.
If decode-skip-prefix is non-null, :decode will attempt to ignore up
to that many characters on each line to find the encoded data. This is
particularly useful in some binaries groups where files are both
uuencoded and packed with shar; nn will ignore the prefix added to each
line by shar, and thus be able to unshar, concatenate, and decode
multi-part postings automatically.
In reading mode, the following keys can also be used to invoke the save
commands:
s Same as S.
o Same as O.
w Same as W.
P Same as :print.
The save commands will prompt for a file name which is expanded according to
the rules described in the section on file name expansion below. For each
group, it is possible to specify a default save file in the init file, either
in connection with the group presentation sequence or in a separate save-files
section (see below). If a default save file is specified for the group, nn
will show this on the prompt line when it prompts for the file name. You can
edit this name as usual, but if you kill the entire name immediately, nn will
replace the default name with the last file name you entered. If you kill this
as well, nn will leave you with a blank line.
If the quick-save variable is set, nn will only prompt for a save file name
when the current article is inside a folder; otherwise, the default save file
defined in the init file will be used unconditionally.
If the file (and directories in the path) does not exist, nn will ask whether
the file (and the directories) should be created.
If the file name contains an asterisk, e.g.
part*.shar
nn will save each of the articles in uniquely named files constructed by
replacing the asterisk by numbers from the sequence 1, 2, 3, etc. The format
of the string that replaces the * can be changed with the save-counter
variable, and the first number to use can be changed via save-counter-offset.
In selection mode, nn will prompt you for the identifier of one or more
articles you want to save. When you don't want to save more articles, just hit
space. The saved articles will be marked read.
If you enter an asterisk `*' when you are prompted for an article to save, nn
will automatically save all the selected articles on the current menu page and
mark them read.
Likewise, if you enter a plus `+', nn will save all the selected articles on
all menu pages and mark them read.
This is very useful to unpack an entire package using the :unshar and :decode
commands. It can also be used in combination with the save selected articles
feature to save a selection of articles in separate, successively numbered
files. But do not confuse these two concepts! The S* and S+ commands can be
used to save the selected articles in a single file as well as in separate
files, and the save in separate files feature can be used also when saving
individual articles, either in the selection mode, or in the article reading
mode.
When articles are saved in a file with a full or partial header, any header
lines in the body of the article will be escaped by a tilde (e.g. ~From: ...)
to enable nn to split the folder into separate articles. The escape string can
be redefined via the embedded-header-escape variable.
Articles can optionally be saved in MAIL or MMDF compatible format by setting
the mail-format and mmdf-format variables. These variables only specify the
format used when creating a new folder, while appending to an existing folder
will be done in the format of the folder (unless folder-format-check is
false).
Related variables: confirm-append, confirm-create, decode-header-file,
decode-skip-prefix, default-save-file, folder-save-file, edit-patch-command,
edit-print-command, edit-unshar-command, folder, folder-format-check,
mail-format, mmdf-format, patch-command, printer, quick-save, save-counter,
save-counter-offset, save-report, suggest-default-save, unshar-command,
unshar-header-file.
From: NN
Subject: FOLDER MAINTENANCE
When more than one article is saved in a folder, nn is able to split the
folder, and each article in the folder can be treated like a separate article.
This means that you can save, decode, reply, follow-up, etc. just as with the
original article.
You can also cancel (delete) individual articles in a folder using the normal
C {cancel} command described later. When you quit from the folder, you will
then be given the option to remove the cancelled articles from the folder.
The original folder is saved in a file named `BackupFolder~' in the .nn
directory (see the backup-folder-path variable) by renaming or copying the old
folder as appropriate. When the folder has been compressed, the backup folder
will be removed unless the variable keep-backup-folder is set.
If all articles in a folder are cancelled, the folder will be removed or
truncated to zero length (whatever is allowed by directory and file
permissions). In this case no backup folder is retained even when
keep-backup-folder is set!
If the variable trace-folder-packing is set, nn will show which articles are
kept and which are removed as the folder is rewritten.
Folders are rewritten in the format of the original folder, i.e. the
mail-format and mmdf-format variables are ignored.
Related variables: backup-folder-path, keep-backup-folder,
trace-folder-packing.
From: NN
Subject: FILE NAME EXPANSION
When the save commands prompts for a file name, the following file name
expansions are performed on the file name you enter:
+folder
The + is replaced by the contents of the folder variable (default value
"~/News/") resulting in the name of a file in the folder directory.
Examples:
+emacs, +nn, +sources/shar/nn
+ A single plus is replaced by the expansion of the file name contained in
the default-save-file variable (or by folder-save-file when saving from a
folder).
~/file
The ~ is replaced by the contents of the environment variable HOME, i.e.
the path name of your home directory. Examples:
~/News/emacs, ~/News/nn, ~/src/shar/nn
~user/file
The ~user part is replaced by the user's home directory as defined in the
/etc/passwd file.
|command-line
Instead of writing to a file, the articles are piped to the given shell
(/bin/sh) command-line. Each save or write command will create a separate
pipe, but all articles saved or written in one command (in selection
mode) are given as input to the same shell command. Example:
| pr | lp
This will print the articles on the printer after they have been piped
through pr.
It is possible to create separate pipes for each saved article by
using a double pipe symbol in the beginning of the command, e.g.
|| cd ~/src/nn ; patch
The following symbols are expanded in a file name or command:
$F will be expanded to the name of the current group with the periods
replaced by slashes, e.g. rec/music/synth.
$G will be expanded to the name of the current group.
$L will be expanded to the last component of the name of the current group.
You may use this to create default save file names like +src/$L in the
comp.sources groups.
$N will be expanded to the (local) article number, e.g. 1099. In selection
mode it is only allowed at the end of the file name!
$(VAR)
is replaced by the string value of the environment variable VAR.
Using these symbols, a simple naming scheme for `default folder name' is +$G
which will use the group name as folder name. Another possibility is +$F/$N.
As mentioned above, you can also instruct nn to save a series of files in
separate, unique files. All that is required is that the file name contains an
asterisk, e.g.
+src/hype/part*.shar
This will cause each of the articles to be saved in separate, unique files
named part1.shar, part2.shar, and so on, always choosing a part number that
results in a unique file name (i.e. if part1.shar did already exist, the first
article would be saved in part2.shar, the next in part3.shar, and so on).
Related variables: default-save-file, folder, folder-save-file, save-counter,
save-counter-offset.
From: NN
Subject: FILE AND GROUP NAME COMPLETION
When entering a file name or a news group name, a simple completion feature is
available using the space, tab, and ? keys.
Hitting space anywhere during input will complete the current component of the
file name or group name with the first available possibility.
If this possibility is not the one you want, keep on hitting space until it
appears.
When the right completion has appeared, you can just continue typing the file
or group name, or you can hit tab to fix the current component, and get the
first possibility for the next component, and then use space to go through the
other possible completions.
The ? key will produce a list of the possible completions of the current
component. If the list is too long for the available space on screen, the key
can be repeated to get the next part of the list.
The current completion can be deleted with the erase key.
The default value for a file name is the last file name you have entered, so
if you enter a space as the first character after the prompt, the last file
name will be repeated (and you can edit it if you like). In some cases, a
string will already be written for you in the prompt line, and to get the
default value in these cases, use the kill key. This also means that if you
neither want the initial value, nor the default value, you will have to hit
the kill twice to get a clean prompt line.
Related variables: comp1-key, comp2-key, help-key, suggest-default-save.
From: NN
Subject: POSTING AND RESPONDING TO ARTICLES
In both selection mode and reading mode you can post new articles, post
follow-ups to articles, send replies to the author of an article, and you can
send mail to another user with the option of including an article in the
letter. In reading mode, a response is made to the current article, while in
selection mode you will be prompted for an article to respond to.
The following commands are available (the lower-case equivalents are also
available in reading mode):
R {reply}
Reply through mail to the author of the article. This is the preferred
way to respond to an article unless you think your reply is of general
interest.
F {follow}
Follow-up with an article in the same newsgroup (unless an alternative
group is specified in the article header). The distribution of the
follow-up is normally the same as the original article, but this can be
modified via the follow-distribution variable.
M {mail}
Mail a letter or forward an article to a single recipient. In selection
mode, you will be prompted for an article to include in your letter, and
in reading mode you will be asked if the current article should be
included in the letter. You will then be prompted for the recipient of
the letter (default recipient is yourself) and the subject of the letter
(if an article is included, you may hit space to get the default subject
which is the subject of the included article).
The header of the article is only included in the posted letter if
it is forwarded (i.e. not edited), or if the variable include-full-header
is set.
:post {post}
Post a new article to any newsgroup. This command will prompt you for a
comma-separated list of newsgroups to post to (you cannot enter a space
because space is used for group name completion as described below).
If you enter ? {help-key} as the first key, nn will show you a list
of all available news groups and their purpose. While paging through this
list, you can enter q to quit looking at the list. You can also enter /
followed by a regular expression (typically a single word) which will
cause nn to show a (much shorter) list containing only the lines matching
the regular expression.
Normally, you will be prompted for the distribution of the article
with the default take from default-distribution, but this can be changed
via the post-distribution variable.
Generally, nn will construct a file with a suitable header, optionally include
a copy of the article in the file with each non-empty line prefixed by a `>'
character (except in mail mode), and invoke an editor of your choice (using
the EDITOR environment variable) on this file, positioning you on the first
line of the body of the article (if it knows the editor).
When you have completed editing the message, it will compare it to the
unedited file, and if they are identical (i.e. you did not make any changes to
the file), or it is empty, the operation is cancelled. Otherwise you will be
prompted for an action to take on the constructed article (enter first letter
followed by return, or just return to take the default action):
a)bort c)c e)dit h)old i)spell m)ail r)eedit s)end v)iew w)rite
Action: (post article)
You now have the opportunity to perform one of the following actions:
a throw the response away (will ask for confirmation),
c mail a copy of a follow-up to the poster of the article,
e edit the file again,
h hold response for later completion,
i run an (interactive) spell-checker on the text,
m mail a (blind) copy to a specified recipient,
n same as abort (no don't post)
p post article (same as send)
r throw away the edited text and edit the original text,
s send the article or letter,
v view the article (through the pager), or
w append it to a file (before you send it).
y confirm default answer (e.g. yes post it)
To complete an unfinished response saved by the h)old command, simply enter
any response action, e.g. R {reply}. This will notice the unfinished response
and ask you whether you want to complete it now. Only one unfinished response
can exist at a time. Notice that the $A environment variable may no longer be
valid as a path to the original article when the response is completed.
Related variables: append-signature-mail, append-signature-post,
default-distribution, follow-distribution, post-distribution,
edit-response-check, editor, include-art-id, include-full-header,
included-mark, mail-header, mail-record, mail-script, mailer,
mailer-pipe-input, news-header, news-record, news-script,
orig-to-include-mask, pager, query-signature, record, response-check-pause,
response-default-answer, save-counter, save-counter-offset, save-report,
spell-checker.
From: NN
Subject: JUMPING TO OTHER GROUPS
By default nn will present the news groups in a predefined sequence (see the
section on Presentation Sequence later on). To override this sequence and have
a look at any other group the G {goto-group} command available in both
selection and reading mode enables you to move freely between all the
newsgroups.
Furthermore, the G command enables you to open folders and other files, to
read old articles you have read before, and to grep for a specific subject in
a group.
It is important to notice that normally the goto command is recursive, i.e.
a new menu level is created when the specified group or folder is presented,
and when it has been read, nn will continue the activity in the group that was
presented before the goto command was executed. However, if there are unread
articles in the target group you can avoid entering a new menu level by using
the j reply described below. The current menu level (i.e. number of nested
goto commands) will be shown in the prompt line as "<N>" (in reverse video).
The goto command is very powerful, but unfortunately also a little bit
tricky at first sight, because the facilities it provides depend on the
context in which the command is used.
When executed, the goto command will prompt you for the name of the
newsgroup, folder, or file to open. It will use the first letter you enter to
distinguish these three possibilities:
return
An empty answer is equivalent to the current newsgroup.
letter
The answer is taken to be the name of a newsgroup. If a news group with
the given name does not exist, nn will treat the answer as a regular
expression and locate the first group in the presentation sequence (or
among all groups) whose name matches the expression.
+
The answer is taken to be the name of a folder. If only `+' is entered,
it is equivalent to the default save file for the current group.
/ or ./ or ~/
The answer is taken to be the name of a file, either relative to the
current directory, relative to your home directory, or an absolute path
name for the file.
% In reading mode, this reply corresponds to reading the current article
(and splitting it as a digest). In selection mode, it will prompt for an
article on the menu to read.
@ This choice is equivalent to the archive file for the current group.
nnmaster maintains archive files with all old and current articles for
the groups which have the auto-archive option set in the GROUPS file (see
nnmaster(8)).
= and number
These answers are equivalent to the same answers described below applied
to the current group (e.g. G return = and G = are equivalent).
Specifying a folder, a file, or an article (with %) will cause nn to treat the
file like a digest and split it into separate articles (not physically!) which
are then presented on a menu in the usual way, allowing you to read or save
individual subarticles from the folder.
When you enter a group name, nn will ask you how many articles in the group
you want to see on the menu. You can give the following answers:
a number N
In this case you will get the newest N articles in the group, or if you
specified the current group (by hitting return to the group name prompt
or entering the number directly), you will get that many extra articles
included on the same menu (without creating a new menu level).
j This answer can only be given if there are unread articles in the group.
It will instruct nn to jump directly to the specified group in the
presentation sequence without creating a new menu level.
u This instructs nn to present the unread articles in the group (if there
are any). If you have already read the group (in the current invocation
of nn), the u answer will instruct nn to present the articles that were
unread when you entered nn.
a This instruct nn to present all articles in the group.
sword or =word
This instructs nn to search all articles in the groups, but only present
the articles containing the word word in the subject. Notice that case is
ignored when searching for the word in the subject lines.
nword
Same as the s form except that it searched for articles where the sender
name matches word.
eword
Same as the s form except that it Psearched for articles where either the
subject or the sender name matches word.
word = /regexp
When the first character of the word specified with the s, n, and e forms
is a slash `/', the rest of the input is interpreted as a regular
expression to search for. Notice that regular expression matching is case
insensitive when case-fold-search is set (default).
return
The meaning of an empty answer depends on the context: if there are
unread articles in the specified group the unread articles will be
presented, otherwise all articles in the group will be included in the
menu.
If you specified the current group, and the menu already contains all the
available articles, nn will directly prompt for a word to search for in the
subject of all articles (the prompt will be an equal sign.)
When the goto command creates a new menu level, nn will not perform auto kill
or selection in the group. You can use the + command in menu mode to perform
the auto-selections.
There are three commands in the goto family:
G {goto-group}
This is the general goto command described above.
B {back-group}
Backup one or more groups. You can hit this key one or more times to go
back in the groups already presented (including those without new
articles); when you have found the group you are looking for, hit space
to enter it.
A {advance-group}
Advance one or more groups. This command is similar to the B command, but
operates in the opposite direction.
N {next-group}
When used within an A or B command, it skips forward to the next group in
the sequence with unread articles or which has previously been visited.
P {previous}
When used within an A or B command, it skips backwards to the preceding
group in the sequence with unread articles or which has previously been
visited.
Once you have entered an A or Bcommand, you can freely mix the A, B, P, and N
commands to find the group you want, and you can also use the G command to be
prompted for a group name.
To show the use of the goto command some typical examples on its use are given
below:
"Present the unread articles in the dk.general group"
G dk.general return u
"Jump directly to the gnu.emacs group and continue from there"
G gnu.emacs return j
"Include the last 10 READ articles in the current group menu"
G 10 return
"Find all articles in rec.music.misc on the subject Floyd"
G rec.music.misc return
= floyd return
"Open the folder +nn"
G +nn return
"Split current article as a digest (in reading mode)"
G %
Related variables: case-fold-search, default-save-file, folder-save-file
From: NN
Subject: AUTOMATIC KILL AND SELECTION
When there is a subject or an author which you are either very interested in,
or find completely uninteresting, you can easily instruct nn to auto-select or
auto-kill articles with specific subjects or from specific authors. These
instructions are stored in a kill file, and the most common types of entries
can be created using the following command:
K {kill-select}
Create an entry in your personal kill file. The contents of the entry is
specified during a short dialog that is described in details below. This
command is available in both selection and reading mode.
Entries in the kill file may apply to a single newsgroup or to all newsgroups.
Furthermore, entries may be permanent or they may be expired a given number of
days after their entry.
To increase performance, nn uses a compiled version of the kill file which is
read in when nn is invoked. The compiled kill file will automatically be
updated if the normal kill file has been modified.
The following dialog is used to build the kill file entry:
AUTO (k)ill or (s)elect (CR => Kill subject 30 days)
If you simply want nn to kill all articles with the subject of the
current article (in reading mode) or a specific article (which nn will
prompt for in selection mode), just hit return. This will cause nn to
create an entry in the kill file to kill the current (or specified)
subject in the current group for a period of 30 days (which should be
enough for the discussion to die out).
You can control the default kill period, or change it into a "select"
period via the default-kill-select variable.
If this "default behaviour" is not what you want, just answer either k or
s to kill or select articles, respectively, which will bring you on to
the rest of the questions.
AUTO SELECT on (s)ubject or (n)ame (s)
(The SELECT will be substituted with KILL depending on the previous
answer). Here you specify whether you want the kill or select to depend
on the subject of the article (s or space), or on the name of the author
(n).
SELECT NAME:
(Again SELECT may be substituted with KILL and SUBJECT may replace NAME).
You must now enter a name (or subject) to select (or kill). In reading
mode, you may just hit return (or %) to use the name (or subject) of the
current article. In selection mode, you can use the name (or subject)
from an article on the menu by answering with % followed by the
corresponding article identifier.
When the name or subject is taken from an article (the current or one
from the menu), nn will only select or kill articles where the name or
subject matches the original name or subject exactly including case.
If the first character typed at the prompt is a slash `/', the rest of
the line is used as a regular expression which is used to match the name
or subject (case insensitive).
Otherwise, nn will select or kill articles which contain the specified
string anywhere in the name or subject (ignoring case).
SELECT in (g)roup `dk.general' or in (a)ll groups (g)
You must now specify whether the selection or kill should apply to the
current group only (g or space) or to all groups (a).
Lifetime of entry in days (p)ermanent (30)
You can now specify the lifetime of the entry, either by entering a
number specifying the number of days the entry should be active, or p to
specify the entry as a permanent entry. An empty reply is equivalent to
30 days.
CONFIRM SELECT ....
Finally, you will be asked to confirm the entry, and you should
especially note the presence or absence of the word exact which specify
whether an exact match applies for the entry.
Related variables: default-kill-select, kill.
From: NN
Subject: THE FORMAT OF THE KILL FILE
The kill file consists of one line for each entry. Empty lines and lines
starting with a # character are ignored. nn automatically places a # character
in the first position of expired entries when it compiles the kill file. You
can then edit the kill file manually from time to time to clean out these
entries.
Each line has the following format
[expire time :] [group name] : flags : string [: string]...
Permanent entries have no expire time (in which case the colon is omitted as
well!). Otherwise, the expire time defines the time (as a time_t value) when
the entry should be expired.
The group name field can have three forms:
news.group.name
If it is the name of a single news group (e.g. comp.unix), the entry
applies to that group only.
/regular expression
If it starts with a slash `/' followed by a regular expression (e.g.
/^news\..*), the entry applies to all groups whose name are matched by
the regular expression.
empty
An empty group field will apply the entry to all groups.
The flags field consists of a list of characters which identifies the type of
entry, and the interpretation of each string field. When used, the flag
characters must be used in the order in which they are described below:
~ (optional)
When this flag is present on any of the entries for a specific group, it
causes all entires which are not auto-selected to be killed. This is a
simple way to say: I'm interested in this and that, but nothing else.
+ or ! (optional)
Specify an auto-select + or an auto-kill ! entry, respectively. If
neither are used, the article is neither selected nor killed which is
useful in combination with the `~' flag.
> (optional)
When used with a subject (flag s), the kill entry only matches follow-ups
to that subject (i.e. where the Subject: line starts with Re:). For
example, to kill all "Re:"'s in rec.humor use the following kill entry:
rec.humor:!>s/:.
< (optional)
When used with a subject (flag s), the kill entry only matches base
articles with that subject (i.e. where the Subject: line does not start
with Re:). For example, to kill all articles asking for help (but not
follow-ups) in the tex group, add this to your kill file:
comp.text.tex:!s</:^HELP
n or s or a (mandatory)
Specify whether the corresponding string applies to the name n or to the
subject s of an article. If flag a is used, the corresponding string is
ignored (but must be present), and the entry applies to articles with a
non-empty References: line.
/ (optional)
Specifies that the corresponding string is a regular expression which the
sender or subject is matched against. If not specified, a simple string
match is performed using the given string.
= (optional)
Specifies that the match against the name or subject is case sensitive.
Furthermore, when regular expression matching is not used, the name or
subject must be of the same length of the string to match. Otherwise, the
match will be case insensitive, and a string may occur anywhere in the
name or subject to match.
| or & (mandatory if multiple strings)
If more than one string is specified, the set of flags corresponding to
each string must be separated by either an or operator `|' or an and
operator `&'. The and operator has a higher precedence than the or
operator, e.g. a complex match expression a|b&c|d will succeed if either
of a, b&c, or d matches.
The string field in the entry is the name, subject or regular expression that
will be matched against the name or subject of each article in the group (or
all groups). Colons and backslashes must be escaped with a backslash in the
string.
Example 1: Auto-select articles from `Tom Collins' (exact) on subject `News'
in all groups:
:+n=&s:Tom Collins:News
Example 2: Kill all articles which are neither from `Tom' or `Eve' in
some.group. Select only articles from Eve:
some.group:~n:Tom
some.group:+n:Eve
The second example can also be written as a single entry with an or operator
(in this case, the select/kill attribute only applies to the succeeding
strings):
some.group:~n|+n:Tom:Eve
To remove expired entries, to "undo" a K command, and to make the more
advanced entries with more than one string, you will have to edit the kill
file manually. To recompile the file, you can use the :compile command. When
you invoke nn, it will also recompile the kill file if the compiled version is
out of dat.
From: NN
Subject: SHELL ESCAPES
The ! commands available in selection and reading mode are identical in
operation (with one exception). When you enter the shell escape command, you
will be prompted for a shell command. This command will be fed to the shell
specified in the shell variable (default loaded from the SHELL environment
variable or /bin/sh) after the following substitutions have been performed on
the command:
File name expansion
The earlier described file name expansions will be performed on all
arguments.
$G will be substituted with the name of the current news group.
$L will be substituted with the last component of the name of the current
news group.
$F will be substituted with the name of the current news group with the
periods replaced by slashes.
$N will be substituted with the (local) article number (only defined in
reading mode).
$A is replaced by the full path name of the file containing the current
article (only defined in reading mode).
% Same as $A.
$(VAR)
is replaced by the string value of the environment variable VAR.
When the shell command is completed, you will be asked to hit any key to
continue. If you hit the ! key again, you will be prompted for a new shell
command. Any other key will redraw the screen and return you to the mode you
came from.
Related variables: shell, shell-restrictions.
From: NN
Subject: MISCELLANEOUS COMMANDS
Below are more useful commands which are available in both selection and
reading modes.
U {unsub}
Unsubscribe to the current group. You will not see this group any more
unless you explicitly request it. If the variable unsubscribe-mark-read
is set, all articles in the group will be marked read when you
unsubscribe.
If the variable keep-unsubscribed is not set, the group will be
removed from .newsrc. If you are not subscribing to the group, you will
be given the possibility to resubscribe to the group! This may be used in
connection with the G command to resubscribe a group.
C {cancel}
Cancel (delete) an article in the current group or folder. Cancelling
articles in a folder will cause the folder to be rewritten when it is
closed. In selection mode, you will be prompted for the identifier of the
article to cancel. Normal users can only cancel their own articles. See
also the section on folder maintenance.
Y {overview}
Provide an overview of the groups with unread articles.
" {layout}
Change menu layout in selection mode. The menu will be redrawn using the
next layout (cycling through ..., 2, 3, 4, 0, 1, ...)
Most of the commands in nn are bound to a key and can be activated by a single
keystroke. However, there are a few commands that cannot be bound to a key
directly.
As shown in the keystroke command descriptions, all commands have a name, and
it is possible to activate a command by name with the extended command key
(:). Hitting this key will prompt you for the name of a command (and
parameters). For example, an alternative to hitting the R key to reply to an
article is to enter the extended command :reply followed by return. The :post
and :unshar commands described earlier can also be bound to a key. The
complete list of commands which can be bound to keys is provided in the
section on Key Mappings below.
The following extended commands cannot be bound to a key, mainly because they
require additional parameters on the prompt line, or because it should not be
possible to activate them too easily.
:admin
Enter administrative mode. This is identical in operation to the nnadmin
(1M) program.
:bug Prepare and send a bug report to the nn-bugs mailing address.
:cd [ directory ]
Change current working directory. If the directory argument is not
provided, nn will prompt for it.
:clear
Clear the screen (without redraw). This may be useful at the beginning of
the init file (possibly guarded by "on program nn"), or in some macros.
:compile
Recompile the kill file. This is not necessary under normal operation
since nn automatically compiles the file on start-up if it has changed,
but it can be used if you modify the kill file while nn is suspended.
:coredump
Abort with a core dump. For debugging purposes only.
:define macro
Define macro number macro as described in the Macro Definition section
below. If macro is omitted, the next free macro number will be chosen.
:dump table
Same as the :show command described below.
:help [ subject ]
Provide online help on the specified subject. If you omit the subject, a
list of the available topics will be given.
:load [ file ]
Load the specified file. If the file argument is omitted, the init file
is reloaded. The sequence part (if present) is ignored.
:local variable [ value ]
Make the variable local to the current group. Subsequent changes to the
variable will only be effective until the current group is left. If a
value is specified, it will be assigned to the local variable. To assign
a new value to a boolean variable, the values on and off must be used.
:lock variable
Lock the specified variable so it cannot be modified.
:man Call up the online manual. The manual is presented as a normal folder
with the program name in the `From' field and the section title in the
`subject' field. All the normal commands related to a folder works for
the online manual as well, e.g. you can save and print sections of the
manual.
:map arguments
This is the command used for binding commands to the keys. It is fully
described in the Key Mapping section below.
:mkdir [ directory ]
Create the directory (and the directories in its path). It will prompt
for at directory name if the argument is omitted.
:motd
Show the message of the day (maintained by the news administrator in the
file "motd" in the lib directory. This file is automatically displayed on
start-up whenever it changes if the motd variable is set.
:pwd Print path name of current working directory on message line.
:q Has no effect besides redrawing the screen if necessary. If an extended
command (one which is prefixed by a :) produces any output requirering
the screen to be redrawn, the screen will not be redrawn immediately if
the variable delay-redraw is set (useful on slow terminals). Instead
another : prompt is shown to allow you to enter a new extended command
immediately. It is sufficient to hit return to redraw the screen, but it
has been my experience that entering q return in this situation happens
quite often, so it was made a no-op.
:q! Quit nn without updating the .newsrc file.
:Q Quit nn. This is equivalent to the normal Q command.
:rmail
Open your mailbox (see the mail variable) as a folder to read the
incoming messages. This is not a full mail interface (depending on the nn
configuration, you may not be able to delete messages, add cc: on
replies, etc), but it can give you a quick glance at new mail without
leaving nn.
:set variable [ value ]
Set a boolean variable to true or assign the value to a string or integer
variable. The :set command is described in details in the section on
VARIABLES.
:sh Suspend nn, or if that is not possible, spawn an interactive shell.
:show groups mode
Show the total number or the number of unread articles in the current
group, depending on mode: all (list the number of unread articles in all
groups including groups which you have unsubscribed to), total (list the
total number of articles in all existing groups), sequence (list unread
groups in presentation sequence order), subscr (list all subscribed
groups), unsub (list unsubscribed groups only). Any other mode results in
a listing of the number of unread articles in all subscribed groups
including those you have suppressed with the `!' symbol in the group
presentation sequence. To get just the currently unread groups in the
presentation sequence, use the `Y' {overview} command.
:show kill
Show the kill entries that applies to the current group and to all
groups.
:show rc [ group ]
Show the .newsrc and select file entries for the current or the specified
group.
:show map [ mode ]
Show the key bindings in the current or specified mode.
:sort [ mode ]
Reorder the articles on the menu according to mode or if omitted to the
default sort-mode. The following sorting modes are available:
arrival: list articles by local article number which will be the same as
the order in which they arrived on the system (unless groups are merged),
subject: articles with identical subjects are grouped and ordered after
age of the oldest article in the group,
lexical: subjects in lexicographical order,
age: articles ordered after posting date only,
sender: articles ordered after sender's name.
:toggle variable
Toggle a boolean variable.
:unread [ group ] [ articles ]
Mark the current (or specified) group as unread. If the articles argument
is omitted, the number of unread articles in the group will be set to the
number of unread articles when nn was invoked. Otherwise, the argument
specifies the number of unread articles.
:unset variable
Set a boolean variable to false or clear an integer variable.
:x Quit nn and mark all articles in the current group as read!
Related variables: backup, bug-report-address, delay-redraw,
keep-unsubscribed, unsubscribe-mark-read, mail, pager, sort-mode.
From: NN
Subject: CATCH UP
If you have not read news for some time, there are probably more news than you
can cope with. Using the option -a0 nn will put you into catch-up mode.
The first question you will get is whether to catch up interactively or
automatically. If you instruct nn to catch up automatically, it will simply
mark all articles in all groups as read, thus bringing you completely
up-to-date.
If you choose the interactive mode, nn will locate all groups with unread
articles, and for each group it will prompt you for an action to take on the
group. An action is selected using a single letter followed by return. The
following actions are available:
y Mark all articles as read in current group.
n Do not update group (this is the default action if you just hit return).
r Enter reading mode to read the group.
U Unsubscribe to the group.
? Give a list of actions.
q Quit. When you quit, nn will ask whether the rest of the groups should be
updated unconditionally or whether they should remain unread.
From: NN
Subject: VARIABLES AND OPTIONS
It is possible to control the behaviour of nn through the setting (and
unsetting) of the variables described below. There are several ways of setting
variables:
- Through command line options when nn is invoked.
- Through assignments on the command line when nn is invoked.
- Through global set commands in the init file.
- Through set or local commands executed from entry macros.
- Through the :set extended command when you run nn.
There are four types of variables:
- Boolean variables
- Integer variables
- String variables
- Key variables
Boolean variables control a specific function in nn, e.g. whether the current
time is shown in the prompt line. A boolean variable is set to true with the
command
set variable
and it is set to false with either of the following (equivalent) commands:
unset variable
set novariable
You can also toggle the value of a boolean variable using the command:
toggle variable
For example:
set time
unset time
set notime
toggle time
Integer variables control an amount e.g. the size of the preview window, or
the maximum number of articles to read in each group. They are set with the
following command:
set variable value
In some cases, not setting an integer value has a special meaning, for
example, not having a minimal preview window or reading all articles in the
groups no matter how many there are. The special meaning can be re-established
by the following command:
unset variable
For example:
set window 7
unset limit
String variables may specify directory names, default values for prompts, etc.
They are set using the command
set variable string
Normally, the string value assigned to the variable value starts at the first
non-blank character after the variable name and ends with the last non-blank
character (excluding comments) on the line. To include leading or trailing
blanks, or the comment start symbol, #, in the string they must be escaped
using a backslash `\', e.g. to set included-mark to the string " # ", the
following assignment can be used:
set included-mark \\ \#\\ \ \ # blank-#-blank
To include a backslash in the string, it must be duplicated `\\'. A backslash
may also be used to include the following special characters in the string:
\a=alarm, \b=backspace, \e=escape, \f=form-feed, \n=new-line, \r=return,
\t=tab.
Key variables control the keys used to control special functions during user
input such as line editing and completion. They are set using the command
set variable key-name
A variable can be locked which makes further modification of the variable
impossible:
lock variable
This can be used in the setup init file which is loaded unconditionally to
enforce local conventions or restrictions. For example, to fix the
included-mark variable to the string ">", the following commands can be placed
in the setup file:
set included-mark >
lock included-mark
The current variable settings can be shown with the :set command:
:set (without arguments)
This will give a listing of the variables which have been set in either
the init file or interactively.
:set all
This will give a listing of all variables. Modified variables will be
marked with a `*' and local variables will be marked with a `>'. A locked
variable is marked with a `!'.
:set /regexp
This will give a listing of all variables whose name matches the given
regular expression.
:set partial-name space
The space (comp1-key) key will complete the variable name as usual, but
as a side effect it will display the variable's current value in the
message line.
Variables are global by default, but a local instantiation of the variable can
be created using the :local command. The local variable will overlay the
global variable as long as the current group is active, i.e. the global
variable will be used again when you exit the current group. The initial value
of the local variable will be the same as the global variable, unless a new
value is specified in the :local command:
:local variable [ value ]
The following variables are available:
also-full-digest (boolean, default false)
When a digest is split, the digest itself is not normally included on the
menu, and as such the initial adminstrative information is not available.
Setting also-full-digest will cause the (unsplit) digest to be included
on the menu. These articles are marked with a @ at the beginning of the
subject.
also-subgroups (boolean, default true)
When set, a group name in the presentation sequence will also cause all
the subgroups of the group to be included, for example, comp.unix will
also include comp.unix.questions, etc. When also-subgroups is not set,
subgroups are only included if the group name is followed by a `.' in
which case the main group is not included, i.e. `comp.unix' is not
included when `comp.unix.' is specified in the presentation sequence, and
vice-versa. Following a group name by an asterisk `*', e.g. comp.unix*,
will include the group as well as all subgroups independently of the
setting of also-subgroups.
append-signature-mail (boolean, default false)
When false, it is assumed that the .signature file is automatically
appended to responses sent via E-mail. If true, .signature will be
appended to the letter (see query-signature).
append-signature-post (boolean, default false)
When false, it is assumed that the .signature file is automatically
appended to posted articles. If true, .signature will explicitly be
appended to posted articles (see query-signature).
attributes symbols (string, default ....)
Each element in this string represents a symbol used to represent an
article attribute when displayed on the screen. See the section on
Marking Articles and Attributes.
auto-junk-seen (boolean, default true)
When set, articles which have the seen attribute (,) will be marked read
when the current group is left. If not set, these articles will still be
either unread or marked seen the next time the group is entered (see also
confirm-junk-seen and retain-seen-status).
auto-preview-mode (boolean, default false)
Enables Auto Preview Mode. In this mode, selecting an article on the menu
using its article id (letter a-z) will enter preview mode on that article
immediately. Furthermore, the `n' {next-article} command will preview the
next article on the menu only if it has the same subject as the current
article; otherwise, it will return to the menu with the cursor placed on
the next article. The continue command at the end of the article and the
`=' {goto-menu} returns to the menu immediately as usual.
auto-read-mode-limit N (integer, default 0)
When operating in auto reading mode, nn will auto-select all unread
articles in the group, skip the article selection phase, and enter
reading mode directly after entry to the group.
Auto reading mode is disabled when auto-read-mode-limit is zero; it
is activated unconditionally if the value is negative, and conditionally
if the value is greater than zero and the number of unread articles in
the current group does not exceed the given value.
auto-select-closed mode (integer, default 1)
Normally, selecting a closed subject (usually in consolidated menu mode)
will select (or deselect) all unread articles with the given subject (or
all articles if they are all read). This behaviour can be changed via the
value of this variable as follows: 0: select only the first article with
the subject (shown on menu). 1: select only the unread articles with the
subject. 2: select all available articles with the subject.
auto-select-subject (boolean, default false)
When set, selecting an article from the menu using the article id (a-z),
all articles on the menu with the same subject will automatically be
selected as well.
backup (boolean, default true)
When set, a copy of the initial .newsrc and select files will save be the
first time they are changed. nn remembers the initial contents of these
files internally, so the backup variable can be set any time if not set
on start-up.
backup-folder-path file (string, default "BackupFolder~")
When removing deleted articles from a folder, this variable defines the
name of the file where a (temporary) copy of the original folder is
saved. If the file name doesn't contain a `/', the file will be located
in the .nn directory. Otherwise the file name is used directly as the
relative or full path name of the backup file. If possible, the old
folder will be renamed to the backup folder name; otherwise the old
folder is copied to the backup folder.
backup-suffix suffix (string, default ".bak")
The suffix appended to file names to make the corresponding backup file
name (see backup).
bug-report-address address (string, default nn-bugs@dkuug.dk)
The mail address to which bug reports created with the :bug command are
sent.
case-fold-search (boolean, default true)
When set, string and regular expression matching will be case
independent. This is related to all commands matching on names or
subjects, except in connection with auto-kill and auto-select where the
individual kill file entries specifies this property.
check-db-update-time H (integer, default 12)
When non-zero, nn will issue a warning if the database has not been
updated in the last H hours. The warning will tell you whether no news
has arrived (feed broken?), or whether it is just nnmaster which has not
updated the database (dead?).
check-group-access (boolean, default false)
When set, nn will perform a check on the readability of a group's
readability before showing the menu for that group. Normally, this is not
necessary since all users traditionally have access to all news groups.
Setting (and locking) this variable may be used to limit access to a news
group via the permissions and ownership of the group's spool directory
(this will only work for non-NNTP sites).
collapse-subject offset (integer, default 25)
When set (non-negative), subject lines which are too long to be presented
in full on the menus will be "collapsed" by removing a sufficient number
of characters from the subject starting at the given offset in the
subject. This is useful in source groups where the "Part (01/10)" string
sometimes disappears from the menu. When not set (or negative), the
subjects are truncated.
columns col (integer, default screen width)
This variable contains the screen width i.e. character positions per
line.
comp1-key key (key, default space)
The key which gives the first/next completion, and the default value when
nn is prompting for a string, e.g. a file name.
comp2-key key (key, default tab)
The key which ends the current completion and gives the first completion
for the next component when nn is prompting for a string, e.g. a file
name.
compress (boolean, default false)
This variable controls whether text compression (see the compress
command) is turned on or off when an article is shown. The compression is
still toggled for the current article with the compress command key.
confirm-append (boolean, default false)
When set, nn will ask for confirmation before appending an article to an
existing file (see also confirm-create).
confirm-auto-quit (boolean, default false)
When set, nn will ask for confirmation before quitting after having read
the last group. If not confirmed, nn will recycle the presentation
sequence looking for groups that were skipped with the `N' {next-group}
command. But it will not look for new articles arrived since the
invocation of nn.
confirm-create (boolean, default true)
When set, nn will ask for confirmation before creating a new file or
directory when saving or unpacking an article (see also confirm-append).
confirm-entry (boolean, default false)
When set, nn will ask for confirmation before entering a group with more
than confirm-entry-limit unread articles (on the first menu level). It is
useful on slow terminals if you don't want to wait until nn has drawn the
first menu to be able to skip the group.
Answering no to the "Enter?" prompt will cause nn to skip to the
next group without marking the current group as read. If you answer by
hitting interrupt, nn will ask the question "Mark as read?" which allows
you to mark the current group as read before going to the next group. If
this second question is also answered by hitting interrupt, nn will quit
immediately.
confirm-entry-limit articles (integer, default 0)
Specifies the minimum number of unread articles in a group for which the
confirm-entry functionality is activated.
confirm-junk-seen (boolean, default false)
When set, nn will require confirmation before marking seen articles as
read when auto-junk-seen is set.
confirm-messages (boolean, default false)
In some cases, nn will sleep one second (or more) when it has shown a
message to the user, e.g. in connection with macro debugging. Setting
confirm-messages will cause nn to wait for you to confirm all messages by
hitting any key. (It will show the symbol <> to indicate that it is
awaiting confirmation.)
consolidated-manual (boolean, default false)
When set, the online manual will be presented with one menu line for each
program in the nn package.
consolidated-menu (boolean, default false)
When set, nn will automatically close all multi-article subjects on entry
to a group, so that each subject only occur once on the menu page.
counter-delim-left (string, default "[")
The delimiter string output to the left of the article counter in a
closed subject's menu line.
counter-delim-right (string, default "] ")
The delimiter string output to the right of the article counter in a
closed subject's menu line.
counter-padding pad (integer, default 5)
On a consolidated menu, the subjects may not be very well aligned because
the added [...] counters have varying length. To (partially) remedy this,
all counters (and subjects without counters) are prefixed by up to pad
spaces to get better alignment. Increasing it further may yield
practially perfect alignment at the cost of less space for the subject
itself.
cross-filter-seq (boolean, default true)
When set, cross posted articles will be presented in the first possible
group, i.e. according to the current presentation sequence (cross-post
filtering on sequence). The article is automatically marked read in the
other cross posted groups unless you unsubscribe to the first group in
which it was shown before reading the other groups. Likewise, it is
sufficient to leave the article unread in the first group to keep it for
later handling.
If not set, cross-postings are shown in the first group occurring on
the Newsgroups: line which the user subscribes to (i.e. you let the
poster decide which group is most appropriate to read his posting).
cross-post (boolean, default false)
Normally, nn will only show cross-posted articles in the first subscribed
group on the Newsgroups: line. When cross-post is set, nn will show
cross-posted articles in all subscribed groups to which they are posted.
data-bits bits (integer, default 7)
When set to 7, nn will display characters with the 8th bit set using a
meta-notation M-7bit-char. If set to 8, these characters are sent
directly to the screen (unless monitor is set).
It also controls whether keyboard input is 7 or 8 bits, and thus whether
key maps contain 127 or 255 entries. See the key mapping section for more
details.
date (boolean, default true)
If set nn will show the article posting date when articles are read.
debug mask (integer, default 0)
Look in the source if you are going to use this.
decode-header-file file (string, default "Decode.Headers")
The name of the file in which the header and initial text of articles
decoded with the :decode command is saved. Unless the file name starts
with a `/', the file will be created in the same directory as the decoded
files. The information is not saved if this variable is not set.
decode-skip-prefix N (integer, default 2)
When non-null, the :decode command will automatically skip upto N
characters at the beginning of each line to find valid uuencoded data.
This allows nn to automatically decode (multi-part) postings which are
both uuencoded and packed with shar.
default-distribution distr (string, default "world")
The distribution to use as the default suggestion when posting articles
using the follow and post commands if the corresponding
follow-distribution or post-distribution variable contains the default
option.
default-kill-select [1]days (number, default 30)
Specifies the default action for the K {kill-select} command if the first
prompt is answered by return. It contains the number of days to keep the
kill or select entry in the kill file (1-99 days). If it has the value
days+100 (e.g. 130), it denotes that the default action is to select
rather than kill on the subject for the specified period.
default-save-file file (string, default +$F)
The default save file used when saving articles in news groups where no
save file has been specified in the init file (either in a save-files
section or in the presentation sequence). It can also be specified using
the abbreviation "+" as the file name when prompted for a file name even
in groups with their own save file.
delay-redraw (boolean, default false)
Normally, nn will redraw the screen after extended commands (:cmd) that
clear the screen. When delay-redraw is set nn will prompt for another
extended command instead of redrawing the screen (hit return to redraw).
echo-prefix-key (boolean, default true)
When true, hitting a prefix key (see the section on key mapping below)
will cause the prefix key to be echoed in the message line to indicate
that another key is expected.
edit-patch-command (boolean, default true)
When true, the :patch command will show the current patch-command and
give you a chance to edit it before applying it to the articles.
edit-print-command (boolean, default true)
When true, the print command will show the current printer command and
give you a chance to edit it before printing the articles. Otherwise the
articles are just printed using the current printer command.
edit-response-check (boolean, default true)
When editing a response to an article, it normally does not have any
meaning to send the initial file prepared by nn unaltered, since it is
either empty or only contains included material. When this variable is
set, exiting the editor without having changed the file will
automatically abort the response action without confirmation.
edit-unshar-command (boolean, default false)
When true, the :unshar command will show the current unshar-command and
give you a chance to edit it before applying it to the articles.
editor command (string, default not set)
When set, it will override the current EDITOR environment variable when
editing responses and new articles.
embedded-header-escape string (string, default '~')
When saving an article to a file, header lines embedded in the body of
the article are escaped using this string to make it possible for nn to
split the folder correctly afterwards. Header lines are not escaped if
this variable is not set.
enter-last-read-mode mode (integer, default 1)
Normally, nn will remember which group is active when you quit, and offer
to jump directly to this group when you start nn the next time. This
variable is used to control this behaviour. The following mode values are
recognized: 0: Ignore the remembered group (r.g.). 1: Enter r.g. if the
group is unread (with user confirmation) 2: Enter r.g. or first unread
group after it in the sequence (w/conf). 3: Enter r.g. if the group is
unread (no confirmation) 4: Enter r.g. or first unread group after it in
the sequence (no conf).
entry-report-limit articles (integer, default 300)
Normally, nn will just move the cursor to the upper left corner of the
screen while it is reading articles from the database on entry to a
group. For large groups this may take more than a fraction of a second,
and nn can then report what it is doing. If it must read more articles
than the number specified by this variable, nn will report which group
and how many articles it is reading.
erase-key key (key, default tty erase key)
The key which erases the last input character when nn is prompting for a
string, e.g. a file name.
expert (boolean, default false)
If set nn will use slightly shorter prompts (e.g. not tell you that ?
will give you help), and be a bit less verbose in a few other cases (e.g.
not remind you that posted articles are not available instantly).
expired-message-delay pause (integer, default 1)
If a selected article is found to have been expired, nn will normally
give a message about this and sleep for a number of seconds specified by
this variable. Setting this variable to zero will still make nn give the
message without sleeping afterwards. Setting it to -1 will cause the
message not to be shown at all.
flow-control (boolean, default true)
When set, nn will turn on xon/xoff flow-control before writing large
amounts of text to the screen. This should guard against lossage of
output, but in some network configurations it has had the opposite
effect, losing several lines of the output. This variable is always true
on systems with CBREAK capabilities which can do single character reads
without disabling flow control.
flush-typeahead (boolean, default false)
When true, nn will flush typeahead prior to reading commands from the
keyboard. It will not flush typeahead while reading parameters for a
command, e.g. file names etc.
folder directory (string, default ~/News)
The full pathname of the folder directory which will replace the + in
folder names. It will be initialized from the FOLDER environment variable
if it is not set in the init file.
folder-format-check (boolean, default true)
When saving an article with a full or partial header in an existing
folder, nn will check the format of the folder to be able to append the
article in the proper format. If this variable is not set, folders are
assumed to be in the format specified via the mmdf-format and mail-format
variables, and articles are saved in that format without checking.
Otherwise, the *-format variables are only used to determine the format
for new folders.
folder-save-file file (string, default not set)
The default save file used when saving articles from a folder.
follow-distribution words (string, default see below)
This variable controls how the Distribution: header is constructed for a
follow-up to an original article. Its value is a list of words selected
from the following list:
[ [ always ] same ] [ ask ] [ default | distribution ]
This is interpreted in two steps:
- First the default distribution is determined. If same is specified and
the original article has a Distribution: header, that header is used.
Else if default is specified (or distribution is omitted), the value of
default-distribution is used. And finally, if only a distribution (any
word) is specified that is used as the default.
- Then if ask is specified, the user will be asked to confirm the default
distribution or provide another distribution. However, if always (and
same) is specified, and the default was taken from the original article's
distribution, the original distribution is used without confirmation.
The default value of follow-distribution is always same default, i.e. use
either the original distribution or the default-distribution without
confirmation in either case.
from-line-parsing strictness (integer, default 2)
Specifies how strict nn must parse a "From " line in a folder to
recognize it as a mail format message separator line. The following
strictness values determine whether a line starting with "From " will be
recognized as a separator line:
0: Always.
1: Line must have at least 8 fields.
2: Line must contain a valid date and time (ctime style).
fsort (boolean, default true)
When set, folders are sorted alphabetically according to the subject (and
age). Otherwise, the articles in a folder will be presented in the
sequence in which they were saved.
guard-double-slash (boolean, default false)
Normally, when entering a file name, entering two slashes `//' in a row
(or following a slash by a plus `/+') will cause nn to erase the entire
line and replace it with the `/' (or `+'). On some systems, two slashes
are used in network file names, and on those systems guard-double-slash
can be set; that will cause nn to require three slashes in a row to clear
the input.
header-lines list (string, no default)
When set, it determines the list of header fields that are shown when an
article is read instead of the normal one line header showing the author
and subject. See the full description in the section on Customized
Article Headers below.
help-key key (key, default ?)
The key which ends the current completion and gives a list of possible
completions for the next component when nn is prompting for a string,
e.g. a file name.
ignore-xon-xoff (boolean, default false)
Normally, nn will ignore ^S and ^Q in the input from the terminal (if
they are not handled in the tty driver). Setting this variable will treat
these characters as normal input.
include-art-id (boolean, default false)
The first line in a response with included material normally reads
"...somebody... writes:" without a reference to the specific article from
which the quotation was taken (this is found in the References: line).
When this variable is set, the line will also include the article id of
the referenced article: "In ...article... ... writes:".
include-full-header (boolean, default false)
When set, the mail (M) command will always include the full header of the
original article. If it is not set, it only includes the header when the
article is forwarded without being edited.
include-mark-blank-lines (boolean, default false)
When set, the included-mark is placed on blank lines in included
articles. Otherwise, blank lines are left blank (to make it easy to
delete whole paragraphs with `d}' in vi and `C-@ M-] C-W' in emacs).
included-mark string (string, default ">")
This string is prefixed to all lines in the original article that are
included in a reply or a follow-up. (Now you have the possibility to
change it, but please don't. Lines with a mixture of prefixes like
: orig-> <> } ] #- etc.
are very difficult to comprehend. Let's all use the standard folks! (And
hack inews if it is the 50% rule that bothers you.)
inews shell-command (string, default "INEWS_PATH -h")
The program which is invoked by nn to deliver an article to the news
transport. The program will be given a complete article including a
header containing the newsgroups to which the article is to be posted.
See also inews-pipe-input. It is not used when cancelling an article!
inews-pipe-input (boolean, default true)
When set, the article to be posted will be piped into the inews program.
Otherwise, the file containing the article will be given as the first
(and only) argument to the inews command.
initial-newsrc-file file (string, default '.defaultnewsrc')
Defines the name of a file which is used as the initial .newsrc file for
new users. The name may be a full path name, or as the default a file
name which will be looked for in a number of places: in the standard news
lib directory (where it can be shared with other news readers), in nn's
lib directory, and in the database directory. Groups which are not
present in the initial .newsrc file will be automatically unsubscribed
provided new-group-action is set to a value allowing unsubscribed groups
to be omitted from .newsrc.
keep-backup-folder (boolean, default false)
When set, the backup folder (see backup-folder-path) created when
removing deleted articles from a folder is not removed. Notice that a
backup folder is not created if all articles are removed from a folder!
keep-unsubscribed (boolean, default true)
When set, unsubscribed groups are kept in .newsrc. If not set, nn will
automatically remove all unsubscribed from .newsrc if tidy-newsrc is set.
See also unsubscribe-mark-read.
kill (boolean, default true)
If set, nn performs automatic kill and selection based on the kill file.
kill-debug (boolean, default false)
When set, nn will display a trace of the auto-kill/select process on
entry to a group. It is automatically turned off if `q' is entered as the
answer to a "hit any key" prompt during the debug output.
kill-key key (key, default tty kill key)
The key which deletes the current line when nn is prompting for a string,
e.g. a file name.
kill-reference-count N (integer, default 0)
When this variable is non-zero, all articles which have N or more
references on the References: line (corresponding to the number of >>'s
on the menu line) will be auto-killed if they are not auto-selected (or
preserved) via an entry in the kill file. It should probably not be used
globally for all groups, but can be set on a per-group via the entry
macros.
layout number (integer, default 1)
Set the menu layout. The argument must be a number between 0 and 4.
limit max-articles (integer, default infinite)
Limit the maximum number of articles presented in each group to
max-articles. The default is to present all unread articles no matter how
many there are. Setting this variable, only the most recent max-articles
articles will be presented, but all the articles will still be marked as
read. This is useful to get up-to-date quickly if you have not read news
for a longer period.
lines lin (integer, default screen height)
This variable contains the screen height i.e. number of lines.
long-menu (boolean, default false)
If set nn will not put an empty line after the header line and an empty
line before the prompt line; this gives you two extra menu lines.
macro-debug (boolean, default false)
If set nn will trace the execution of all macros. Prior to the execution
of each command or operation in a macro, it will show the name of the
command or the input string or key stroke at the bottom of the screen.
mail file (string, default not set)
file must be a full path name of a file. If defined, nn will check for
arrival of new mail every minute or so by looking at the specified file.
mail-alias-expander program (string, default not set)
When set, aliases used in mail responses may be expanded by the specified
program. The program will be given the completed response in a file as
its only argument, and the aliases should be expanded directly in this
file (of course the program may use temporary files and other means to
expand the aliases as long the the result is stored in the provided
file).
Notice: currently there are no alias expanders delivered with nn.
Warning: Errors in the expansion process may lead to the response not
being sent.
mail-format (boolean, default false)
When set, nn will save articles in a format that is compatible with
normal mail folders. Unless folder-format-check is false, it is only used
to specify the format used when new folders are created. This variable is
ignored if mmdf-format is set.
mail-header headers (string, default not set)
The headers string specifies one or more extra header lines (separated by
semi-colons `;') which are added to the header of mail sent from nn using
the reply and mail commands. For example:
set mail-header Reply-To: storm@texas.dk;Organization: TI - DK
mail-record file (string, default not set)
file must be a full path name of a file. If defined, all replies and mail
will be saved in this file in standard mailbox format, i.e. you can use
you favourite mailer (and nn) to look at the file.
mail-script file (string, default not set)
When set, nn will use the specified file instead of the standard aux
script when executing the reply and mail commands.
mailer shell-command (string, default REC_MAIL)
The program which is invoked by nn to deliver a message to the mail
transport. The program will be given a complete mail message including a
header containing the recipient's address. See also mailer-pipe-input.
mailer-pipe-input (boolean, default true)
When set, the message to be sent will be piped into the mailer program.
Otherwise, the file containing the message will be given as the first
(and only) argument to the mailer command.
marked-by-next-group N (integer, default 0)
Specifies the amount of (unmarked) articles on the menu marked seen by
the N {next-group} command in selection mode. See marked-by-read-skip for
possible values of N.
marked-by-read-return N (integer, default 0)
Specifies the amount of (unmarked) articles on the menu marked seen by
the Z {read-return} command in selection mode. See marked-by-read-skip
for possible values of N.
marked-by-read-skip N (integer, default 4)
Specifies the amount of (unmarked) articles on the menu marked seen by
the X {read-skip} command in selection mode. The following values of N
are recognized:
0: No articles are marked seen
1: Current page is marked seen
2: Previous pages are marked seen
3: Previous and current pages are marked seen
4: All pages are marked seen
mark-overlap (boolean, default false)
When set, nn will draw a line (using the underline capabilities of the
terminal if possible) to indicate the end of the overlap (see the overlap
variable).
mark-overlap-shading (boolean, default false)
When set, nn will shade overlapping lines (see the overlap variable)
using the attributes defined by the shading-on and shading-off variables
(of if not set, with the underline attribute). This is typically used to
give overlapping lines a different colour on terminals which have this
capability.
menu-spacing mode (integer, default 0)
When mode is a non-zero number as described below, nn will add blank
lines between the lines on the menu to increase readability at the cost
of presenting fewer articles on each page. The following values of mode
are recognized: 0: Don't add blank lines between menu lines. 1: Add a
blank line between articles with different subjects. 2: Add a blank line
between all articles.
merge-report-rate rate (integer, default 1)
When nn is invoked with the -m option (directly or via nngrap), a status
report of the merging process is displayed and updated on the screen
every rate seconds. The report contains the time used so far and an
estimate of the time needed to complete the merge.
message-history N (integer, default 15)
Specifies the maximum number, N, of older messages which can be recalled
with the ^P {message} command.
min-window size (integer, default 7)
When the window variable is not set, nn will clear the screen to preview
an article if there are less than size unused lines at the bottom of the
menu screen.
mmdf-format (boolean, default false)
When set, nn will save articles in MMDF format. Unless
folder-format-check is false, it is only used to specify the format used
when new folders are created.
monitor (boolean, default false)
When set, nn will show all characters in the received messages using a
"cat -v" like format. Otherwise, only the printable characters are shown
(default).
motd (boolean, default true)
When set, nn will display the message of the day on start-up if it has
changed since it was last shown. The message is taken from the file
"motd" in the lib directory. It can also be shown (again) using the :motd
command.
multi-key-guard-time timeout (integer, default 2)
When reading a multi-key sequence from the keyboard, nn will expect the
characters constituting the multi-key to arrive "quickly" after each
other. When a partial multi-key sequence is read, nn will wait (at least)
timeout tenths of a second for each of the following characters to arrive
to complete the multi-key sequence. If the multi-key sequence is not
completed within this period, nn will read the partial multi-key sequence
as individual characters instead. This way it is still possible to use
for example the ESC key on a terminal with vt100 like arrow keys. When nn
is used via an rlogin connection, you may have to increase the timeout to
get reliable recognition of multi-keys.
new-group-action action (integer, default 3)
This variable controls how new groups are treated by nn. It is an integer
variable, and the following values can be used. Some of these actions
(marked with an *) will only work when keep-unsubscribed is set, since
the presence of a group in .newsrc is the only way to recognize it as an
old group:
0) Ignore groups which are not in .newsrc. This will obviously include
new groups.
1*) Groups not in .newsrc are considered to be new, and are inserted at
the beginning of the .newsrc file.
2*) Groups not in .newsrc are considered to be new, and are appended to
the end of the .newsrc file.
3) New groups are recognized via a time-stamp saved in the file .nn/LAST
and in the database, i.e. it is not dependent on the groups currently in
.newsrc. The new groups are automatically appended to .newsrc with
subscription. Old groups not present in .newsrc will be considered to be
unsubscribed.
4) As 3, but the user is asked to confirm that the new group should be
appended to .newsrc. If rejected, the group will not be appended to
.newsrc, and thus be regarded as unsubscribed.
5) As 4, except that the information is stored in a format compatible
with the rn news reader (.rnlast). This needs to be tested!
new-style-read-prompt (boolean, default true)
When set, the reading mode prompt line includes the group name and the
number of selected articles in the group.
news-header headers (string, default not set)
The headers string specifies one or more extra header lines (separated by
semi-colons `;') which are added to the header of articles posted from nn
using the follow and post commands. See mail-header for an example.
news-record file (string, default not set)
Save file for follow-ups and postings. Same rules and format as the
mail-record variable.
news-script file (string, default not set)
When set, nn will use the specified file instead of the standard aux
script when executing the follow and post commands.
newsrc file (string, default "~/.newsrc")
Specifies the file used by nn to register which groups and articles have
been read. The default setting corresponds to the .newsrc file used by
other news readers. Notice that nn release 6.4 does allow individual
articles to be marked unread, and some articles marked unread, and thus
no longer messes up .newsrc for other news readers!
nntp-cache-dir directory (string, default "~/.nn")
When NNTP is used, nn needs to store articles temporarily on disk. This
variable specifies which directory nn will use to hold these files. The
default value may be changed during configuration. This variable can only
be set in the init file.
nntp-cache-size size (integer, default 10, maximum 10)
Specifies the number of temporary files in the nntp cache. The default
and maximum values may be changed during configuration.
nntp-debug (boolean, default false)
When set, a trace of the nntp related traffic is displayed in the message
line on the screen.
old [max-articles] (integer, default not set)
When old is set, nn will present (or scan) all (or the last max-articles)
unread as well as read articles. While old is set, nn will never mark any
unread articles as read.
orig-to-include-mask N (integer, default 3)
When replying to an article, nn will include some of the header lines
which may be used to construct a proper mail address for the poster of
the original article. These addresses are placed on Orig-To: lines in the
reply header and will automatically be removed before the letter is sent.
This variable specifies which headers from the article are included; its
value N is the sum of the following values:
1: Reply-To:
2: From:
4: Path:
overlap lines (integer, default 2)
Specifies the number of overlapping lines from one page to the next when
paging through an article in reading mode. The last line from the
previous page will be underlined if the terminal has that capability.
pager shell-command (string, default $PAGER)
This is the pager used by the :admin command (and nnadmin) when it
executes certain commands, e.g. grepping in the Log file.
patch-command shell-command (string, default "patch -p0")
This is the command which is invoked by the :patch command.
post-distribution words (string, default see below)
This variable controls how the Distribution: header is constructed when
posting an original article. Its value is a list of words selected from
the following list:
[ ask ] [ default | distribution ]
This is interpreted in two steps:
- First the default distribution is determined. If default is specified
(or distribution is omitted), the value of default-distribution is used.
Otherwise, the specified distribution (any word) is used as the default.
- Then if ask is specified, the user will be asked to confirm the default
distribution or provide another distribution.
The default value of post-distribution is ask default, i.e. use the
default-distribution with confirmation from the user.
preview-continuation cond (integer, default 12)
This variable determines on what terms the following article should be
automatically shown when previewing an article, and the next-article
command is used, or continue is used at the end of the article. The
following values can be used:
0 - never show the next article (return to the menu).
1 - always show the next article (use 'q' to return to the menu).
2 - show the next article if it has the same subject as the current
article, else return to the menu.
The value should be the sum of two values: one for the action after using
continue on the last page of the article, and one for the action
performed when the next-article command is used multiplied by 10.
preview-mark-read (boolean, default true)
When set, previewing an article will mark the article as read.
previous-also-read (boolean, default true)
When set, going back to the previously read group with P {previous} will
include articles read in the current invocation of nn even if there are
still unread articles in the group.
print-header-lines fields (string, default "FDGS")
Specifies the list of header fields that are output when an article is
printed via the :print command and print-header-type is 1 (short header).
The fields specification is desctribed in the section on Customized
Article Headers below.
print-header-type N (integer, default 1)
Specifies what kind of header is printed by the :print command,
corresponding to the three save-* commands: 0 prints only the article
body (no header), 1 prints a short header, and 2 prints the full article
header.
printer shell-command (string, default is system dep.)
This is the default value for the print command. It should include an
option which prevents the spooler from echoing a job-id or similar to the
terminal to avoid problems with screen handling (e.g. lp -s on System V).
query-signature (boolean, default ...)
Will cause nn to require confirmation before appending the .signature
file to out-going mail or news if the corresponding append-sig-...
variable is set.
quick-count (boolean, default true)
When set, calculating the total number of unread articles at start-up is
done by simple subtracting the first unread article number from the total
number of articles in each group. This is very fast, and fairly accurate
but it may be a bit too large. If not set, each line in .newsrc will be
interpreted to count every unread article, thus giving a very accurate
number. This variable is also used by nncheck.
quick-save (boolean, default false)
When set, nn will not prompt for a file name when an article is saved
(unless it belongs to a folder). Instead it uses the save file specified
for the current group in the init file or the default save file.
re-layout N (integer, default 0)
Normally on the menu, nn will prefix the subject a number of `>'s
corresponding to the number of references on the References: line. The
re-layout variable may be set to use a different prefix on the subjects:
0: One `>' per reference is shown (default).
1: A single `>' is shown if the Subject contains Re:.
2: The number of references is shown as `n>'
3: A single Re: is shown.
4: If any references use layout 0, else layout 1.
re-layout-read N (integer, default -1)
When the header-lines variable is not set, or contains the "*" field
specifier, a line similar to the menu line will be used as the header of
the article in reading mode, including the sender's name and the
article's subject. When this variable is negative, the subject on this
header line will be prefixed according to the re-layout variable.
Otherwise, it will define the format of the "Re:" prefix to be used
instead of the re-layout used on the menu.
read-return-next-page (boolean, default false)
When set, the Z {read-return} command will return to the next menu page
rather than the current menu page.
record file (string, no default)
Setting this pseudo variable will set both the mail-record and the
news-record variables to the specified pathname.
repeat (boolean, default false)
When set, nn will not eliminate duplicated subject lines on menus (I
cannot imagine why anyone should want that, but....)
repeat-group-query (boolean, default false)
When set, invoking nn with the -g option will always repeat the query for
a group to enter until you quit explicitly. (Same as setting the -r
option permanently).
report-cost (boolean, default true)
This variable is ignored unless nn is running with accounting enabled
(see nnacct). When set, nn will report the cost of the current session
and the total on exit.
response-check-pause pause (integer, default 2)
Specifies the number of seconds to wait after posting an article to see
whether the action *might* have failed. Some commands run in the
background and may thus not have completed during this period, so even
when nn says "Article posted", it may still fail (in which case you are
informed via mail).
response-default-answer action (string, default "send")
The default action to be taken when hitting return to the "response
action" prompt (abort, edit, send, view, write). If it is unset, no
default action is defined.
retain-seen-status (boolean, default false)
Normally, seen articles will just be unread the next time the group is
entered (unless they were marked read by auto-junk-seen). If
retain-seen-status is set, the seen attribute on the articles will
survive to the next time the group is entered. (This is not recommended
because it may result in very large select files).
retry-on-error times (integer, default 0)
When set, nn will try the specified number of times to open an article
before reporting that the article does not exist any more. This may be
necessary in some network environments.
save-closed-mode mode (integer, default 13)
When saving an article in selection mode (i.e. by selecting it from the
menu), nn will simply save the specified article if the article's subject
is open. When the selected menu entry is a closed subject, the
save-closed-mode variable determines how many articles among the closed
articles should be saved: 0: save root article (the one on the menu) only
1: save selected articles within subject 2: save unread (excl selected)
articles within subject 3: save selected+unread articles within subject
4: save all articles within subject If `10' is added to the above values,
nn will not save the selected subject immediately; instead it will ask
which articles to save using the above value as the default answer.
save-counter format (string, default "%d")
This is the printf-format which nn uses to create substitution string for
the trailing * in save file names. You can set this to more complex
formats if you like, but be sure that it will produce different strings
for different numbers. An alternative format which seems to be popular is
".%02d" .
save-counter-offset N (integer, default 0)
Normally, file names created with the part.* form will substitute the *
with successive numbers starting from one. Setting this variable will
cause these numbers to start from N+1.
save-header-lines fields (string, default "FDNS")
Specifies the list of header fields that are saved when an article is
saved via the O {save-short} command. The fields specification is
desctribed in the section on Customized Article Headers below.
save-report (boolean, default true)
When set, a message reporting the number of lines written is shown after
saving an article. Since messages are shown for a few seconds, this may
slow down the saving of many articles (e.g. using the S* command).
scroll-clear-page (boolean, default true)
Determines whether nn clears the screen before showing each new page of
an article.
scroll-last-lines N (integer, default 0)
Normally, nn will show each new page of an article from the top of the
screen (with proper marking of the overlap). When this variable is set to
a negative value, nn will scroll the text of the new pages from the
bottom of the screen instead. If it is set to a positive value, nn will
show pages from the top as usual, but switch to scrolling when there are
less than the specified number of lines left in the article.
select-leave-next (boolean, default false)
When set, you will be asked whether to select articles with the
leave-next attribute on entry to a group with left over articles.
select-on-sender (boolean, default false)
Specifies whether the find (=) command in article selection mode will
match on the subject or the sender.
shading-on code... (control string, default not set)
Specifies the escape code to be sent to the terminal to cause "shading"
of the following output to the screen. This is used if the
mark-overlap-shading is set, and by the `+' attribute in the header-lines
variable.
shading-off code... (control string, default not set)
Specifies the escape code to be sent to the terminal to turn off the
shading defined by shading-on. Shading will typically be done by changing
the foreground colour to change, e.g.
on term ti924-colour
set shading-on ^[ [ 3 2 m
set shading-off ^[ [ 3 7 m
set mark-overlap-shading
unset mark-overlap
end
shell program (string, default $SHELL)
The shell program used to execute shell escapes.
shell-restrictions (boolean, default false)
When set (in the init file), nn will not allow the user to invoke the
shell in any way, including saving on pipes. It also prevents the user
from changing certain variables containing commands.
show-purpose-mode N (integer, default 1)
Normally, nn will show the purpose of a group the first time it is read,
provided a purpose is known. Setting this variable, this behaviour can be
changed as follows:
0: Never show the purpose.
1: Show the purpose for new groups only.
2: Show the purpose for all groups.
silent (boolean, default false)
When set, nn wont print the logo or "No News" if there are no unread
articles. Only useful to set in the init file or with the -Q option.
slow-mode (boolean, default false)
When set, nn will cut down on the screen output to give better response
time at low speed. Normally, nn will use standout mode (if possible) to
mark selected articles on the menu, but when slow-mode is set, nn will
just put an asterisk `*' next to the article identifier on selected
articles. Also when slow-mode is set nn will avoid redrawing the screen
in the following cases: After a goto-group command an empty menu is shown
(hit space to make it appear), and after responding to an article, only
the prompt line is shown (use ^L to redraw the screen). To avoid
redrawing the screen after an extended command, set the delay-redraw
variable as well.
slow-speed speed (integer, default 1200)
If the terminal is running at this baud rate or lower, the on slow (see
the section on init files) condition will be true, and the on fast will
be false (and vice-versa).
sort (boolean, default true)
When set, nn will sort articles according to the current sort-mode on
entry to a group. Otherwise, articles will be presented in order of
arrival. If not set on entry to a menu for merged groups, the articles
from each group will be kept together on the menu. If sort is unset while
merged groups are presented on the menu, the articles will be reordered
by local article number (which may not keep articles from the same group
together).
sort-mode mode (integer, default 1)
The default sort algorithm used to sort the articles on entry to a news
group. It is a numeric value corresponding to one of the sorting methods
described in connection with the :sort command:
0 - arrival (ordered by article number)
1 - subject (subjects ordered after age of first article)
2 - lexical (subjects in lexicographical order)
3 - age (articles ordered after posting date only)
4 - sender (articles ordered after sender's name)
spell-checker shell-command (string, default not set)
When set, responses can be checked for spelling mistakes via the (i)spell
action. The command to perform the spelling is given the file containing
the full article including header as its only argument. If the spell
checker can fix spelling mistakes, it must apply the changes directly to
this file.
split (boolean, default true)
When set, digests will automatically and silently be split into
sub-articles which are then handled transparently as normal articles.
Otherwise, digests are presented as one article (which you can split on
demand with the G command).
stop lines (integer, default not set)
When stop is set, nn will only show the first lines lines of the of each
article before prompting you to continue. This is useful on slow
terminals and modem lines to be able to see the first few lines of longer
articles (and skipping the rest with the n command).
subject-match-limit length (integer, default 256)
Subjects will be considered identical if their first length characters
match. Setting this uncritically to a low value may cause unexpected
results!
subject-match-offset offset (integer, default 0)
When set to a positive number, that many characters at the beginning of
the subject will be ignored when comparing subjects for ordering and
equality purposes.
subject-match-parts (boolean, default false)
When set, two subjects will be considered equal if they are identical up
to the first (differing) digit. Together with the subject-match-offset
variable, this can be used in source groups where the subject often has a
format like:
vXXXXXX: Name of the package (Part 01/04)
Setting subject-match-offset to 8 and subject-match-parts to true will
make nn consider all four parts of the package having the same subject
(and thus be selectable with `*').
Notice that changing the subject-match-... variables manually will not
have an immediate effect. To reorder the menu, an explicit :sort command
must be performed. These variables are mainly intended to be set using
the :local command in on entry macros for source and binary groups (entry
macros are evaluated before the menu is collected and sorted).
suggest-default-save (boolean, default true)
When set, nn will present the default-save-file when prompting for a save
file name in a group without a specific save file, or folder-save-file
when saving from a folder. When not set, no file name is presented, and
to use the default save file, a single + must be specified.
tidy-newsrc (boolean, default false)
When set, nn will automatically remove lines from .newsrc which represent
groups not found in the active file or unsubscribed groups if
keep-unsubscribed is not set.
time (boolean, default true)
When set, nn will show the current time in the prompt line. This is
useful on systems without a sysline (1) utility.
trace-folder-packing (boolean, default true)
When set, a trace of the retained and deleted messages is printed when a
folder is rewritten.
trusted-escape-codes codes (string, default none)
When set to a list of one or more characters, nn will trust and output
escape characters in an article if it is followed by one of the
characters in the list. For example, to switch to or from kanji mode,
control codes like "esc\ $" and "esc\ (\ J" may be present in the text.
To allow these codes, use the following command:
set trusted-escape-codes ($
You can also set it to all to pass all espace codes through to the
screen. Notice that nn thinks all characters (including esc) output to
the screen as occupy one column.
unshar-command shell-command (string, default "/bin/sh")
This is the command which is invoked by the unshar command.
unshar-header-file file (string, default "Unshar.Headers")
The name of the file in which the header and initial text of articles
unpacked with the :unshar command is saved. Unless the file name starts
with a `/', the file will be created in the same directory as the
unpacked files. The information is not saved if this variable is not set.
Setting it to "Unshar.Result" will cause the headers and the results from
the unpacking process to be merged in a meaningful way (unless
mmdf-format is set).
unsubscribe-mark-read (boolean, default true)
When set, unsubscribing to a group will automatically mark all current
articles read; this is recommended to keep the size of .newsrc down.
Otherwise, unread articles in the unsubscribe groups are kept in .newsrc.
If keep-unsubscribed is false, this variable has no effect.
update-frequency (integer, default 1)
Specifies how many changes need to be done to the .newsrc or select files
before they are written back to disk. The default setting causes .newsrc
to be updated every time a group has been read.
use-path-in-from (boolean, default false)
When mail-format is set, saved articles will be preceded by a specially
formatted "From\ " line:
From origin date
Normally, the origin will be the name of the news group where the article
appeared, but if use-path-in-from is set, the contents of the "Path:"
header will be used as the origin.
use-selections (boolean, default true)
When set, nn uses the selections and other article attributes saved last
time nn was used. If not set, nn ignores the select file.
visible-bell (boolean, default true)
When set, nn will flash the screen instead of "ringing the bell" if the
visible bell (flash) capability is defined in the termcap/terminfo
database.
window size (integer, default not set)
When set, nn will reserve the last size lines of the menu screen for a
preview window. If not set, nn will clear the screen to preview an
article if there are less than min-window lines at the bottom of the
screen. As a side effect, it can also be used to reduce the size of the
menus, which may be useful on slow terminals.
word-key key (key, default ^W)
The key which erases the last input component or word when nn is
prompting for a string, e.g. the last name in a path name.
wrap-header-margin size (integer, default 6)
When set (non-negative), the customized header fields specified in
header-lines will be split across several lines if they don't fit on one
line. When size is greater than zero, lines will be split at the first
space occurring in the last size columns of the line. If not set (or
negative), long header lines will be truncated if they don't fit on a
single line.
From: NN
Subject: CUSTOMIZED ARTICLE HEADER PRESENTATION
Normally, nn will just print a (high-lighted) single line header containing
the author, subject, and date (optional) of the article when it is read.
By setting the header-lines variable as described below, it is possible to get
a more informative multi line header with optional high-lighting and
underlining.
The header-lines variable is set to a list of header line identifiers, and the
customized headers will then contain exactly these header lines in the
specified order.
The same specifications are also used by the :print and save-short commands
via the print-header-lines and save-header-lines variables.
The following header line identifiers are recognized in the header-lines,
print-header-lines, and save-header-lines variables:
A Approved:
a Spool-File:(path of spool file containing the article)
B Distribution:
C Control:
D Date:
d Date-Received:
F From:
f Sender:
G Newsgroup:(current group)
g Newsgroup:(current group if cross-posted or merged)
I Message-Id:
K Keywords:
L Lines:
N Newsgroups:
n Newsgroups: (but only if cross posted)
O Organization:
P Path:
R Reply-To:
S Subject:
v Save-File:(the default save file for this article)
W Followup-To:
X References:
x Back-References:
Y Summary:
The 'G' and 'g' fields will include the local article number if it is known,
e.g.
Newsgroup: news.software.nn/754
The following special symbols are recognized in the header-lines variable (and
ignored otherwise):
Preceding the identifier with an equal sign "=" or an underscore "_" will
cause the header field contents to be high-lighted or underlined.
A plus sign "+" will use the shading attribute defined by shading-on and
shading-off to high-light the field contents. If no shading attribute is
defined it will underline the field instead.
Including an asterisk "*" in the list will produce the standard one line
header at that point.
Example: The following setting of the header-lines variable will show the
author (underlined), organization, posting date, and subject (high-lighted)
when articles are read:
set header-lines _FOD=S
From: NN
Subject: COMMAND LINE OPTIONS
Some of the command line options have already been described, but below we
provide a complete list of the effect of each option by showing the equivalent
set, unset, or toggle command.
Besides the options described below, you can set any of nn's variables
directly on the command line via an argument of the following format:
variable=value
To set or unset a boolean variable, the value can be specified as on or off (t
and f will also work).
Notice that the init files are read before the options are parsed (unless you
use the -I option). Therefore, the options which are related to boolean
variables set in the init file will toggle the value set there, rather than
the default value. Consequently, the meaning of the options are also
user-defined.
The explanations below describe the effect related to the default setting of
the variables, with the `reverse' effect in square brackets.
-aN {set limit N}
Limit the maximum number of articles presented in each group to N. This
is useful to get up-to-date quickly if you have not read news for a
longer period.
-a0 Mark all unread articles as read. See the full explanation at the
beginning of this manual.
-B {toggle backup}
Do not [do] backup the rc file.
-d {toggle split}
Do not [do] split digests into separate articles.
-f {toggle fsort}
Do not [do] sort folders according to the subject (present the articles
in a folder in the sequence in which they were saved).
-g Prompt for the name of a news group or folder to be entered
-i {toggle case-fold-search}
Normally searches with -n and -s are case independent. Using this option,
the case becomes significant.
-I Do not read the init file. This must be the first option!! The global
setup file is still read.
-Ifile-list
Specifies an alternate list of init files to be loaded instead of the
standard global and private init files. The list is a comma-separated
list of file names. Names which does not contain a `/' are looked for in
the ~/.nn directory. An empty element in the list is interpreted as the
global init file. The list of init files must not be separated from the
-I option by blanks, and it must be the first option. Example: The
default behaviour corresponds to using -I,init (first the global file,
then the file ~/.nn/init). The global setup file is still read as the
first init file independently of the -I option used.
-k {toggle kill}
Do not [do] perform automatic kill and selection of articles.
-lN {set stop N}
Stop after printing the first N lines of each article. This is useful on
slow terminals.
-L[f] {set layout f}
Select alternative menu layout f (0 to 4). If f is omitted, menu layout 3
is selected.
-m {no corresponding variable}
Merge all articles into one `meta group' instead of showing them one
group at a time. When -m is used, no articles will be marked as read.
-nWORD
Collect only articles which contain the string WORD in the sender's name
(case is ignored). If WORD starts with a slash `/', the rest of the
argument is used as a regular expression instead of a fixed string.
-N {no corresponding variable}
Disable updating of the rc file. This includes not recording that groups
have been read or unsubscribed to (although nn will think so until you
quit).
-q {toggle sort}
Do not [do] sort the articles (q means quick, but it isn't any quicker in
practice!)
-Q {toggle silent}
Quiet mode - don't [do] print the logo or "No News" messages.
-r {toggle repeat-group-query}
Make -g repeat query for a group to enter.
-sWORD
Collect only articles which contain the string WORD in their subject
(case is ignored). If WORD starts with a slash `/', the rest of the
argument is used as a regular expression instead of a fixed string.
-S {toggle repeat}
Do not [do] eliminate duplicated subject lines on menus.
-T {toggle time}
Do not [do] show the current time in the prompt line.
-w[N] {set window N}
Reserve N lines of the menu screen for a preview window. If N is omitted,
the preview window is set to 5 lines.
-W {toggle confirm-messages}
[Don't] Wait for confirmation on all messages.
-x[N] {set old N}
Present (or scan) all (or the last N) unread as well as read articles.
This will never mark unread articles as read.
-X {no corresponding variable}
Read/scan unsubscribed groups also. Most useful when looking for a
specific subject in all groups, e.g.
nn -mxX -sSubject all
From: NN
Subject: MACRO DEFINITIONS
Practically any combination of commands and key strokes can be defined as a
macro which can be bound to a single key in menu and/or reading mode.
The macro definition must specify a sequence of commands and key strokes as if
they were typed directly from the keyboard. For example, a string specifying a
file name must follow a save command. This manual does not give a complete
specification of all the input required by the various commands; it is
recommended to execute the desired command sequence from the keyboard prior to
defining the macro to get the exact requirements of each command.
Although it is possible to define temporary macros interactively using the
:define command, macro definitions are normally placed in the init file.
Macros are numbered from 0 to 100, i.e. it is possible to define a total of
101 different macros (implicit macros defined with the map command uses
internal numbers from 101 to 200).
To define macro number M, the following construction is used (the line breaks
are mandatory):
define M
body
end
The body consists of a sequence of tokens separated by white space (blanks or
newlines). However, certain tokens continue to the end of the current line.
The following tokens may occur in the macro body:
Comments
Empty lines and text following a # character (preceded by white space) is
ignored.
Command Names
Any command name listed in the key mapping section can be included in a
macro causing that command to be invoked when the macro is executed.
Extended Commands
All the extended commands which can be executed through the command
command (normally bound to the : key) can also be executed in a macro. An
extended command starts with a colon (:) and continues to the end of the
current line. Example:
:show groups total
Key Strokes
A key stroke (which is normally mapped into a command depending on the
current mode) is specified as a key name enclosed in single quotes.
Examples (A-key, left arrow key, RETURN key):
'A' 'left' '^M'
Shell Commands
External commands can be invoked as part of a macro execution. There are
two forms of shell command invocations available depending on whether a
command may produce output or require user input, or it is guaranteed to
complete without input or output to the terminal. The difference is that
in the latter case, nn does not prepare the terminal to be used by
another program. When the command completes, the screen is not redrawn
automatically; you should use the redraw command to do that. The tho
forms are:
:!echo this command uses the terminal
:!!echo this command does not > /tmp/file
Strings
Input to commands prompting for a string, e.g. a file name, can be
specified in a macro as a double quoted string. Example (save without
prompting for a file name):
save-short "+$G"
Conditionals
Conditionals may occur anywhere in a macro; a conditional is evaluated
when the macro is executed, and if the condition is false the rest of the
current line is ignored. The following conditionals are available:
?menu True in menu mode
?show True in reading mode
?folder True when looking at a folder
?group True when looking at a news group
?yes Query user, true if answer is yes
?no Query user, true if answer is no Example (stop macro execution
if user rejects to continue):
prompt "continue? " ?no break
In addition to these conditionals, it is possible to test the current
value of boolean and integer variables using the following form:
?variable=value
This conditional will be true (1) if the variable is an integer variable
whose current value is the one specified, or (2) if the variable is a
boolean variable which is either on or off. Examples:
?layout=3 :set layout 1
?monitor=on break
?sort=off :sort age
break
Terminate macro execution completely. This includes nested macros.
Example (stop if looking at a folder):
?folder break
return
Terminate execution of current macro. If the current macro is called from
another macro, execution of that macro continues immediately.
input
Query the user for a key stroke or a string, for example a file name.
Example (prompt the user for a file name in the usual way):
save-short input
yes Confirm unconditionally if a command requires confirmation. It is ignored
if the command does not require confirmation. Example (confirm creation
of new files):
save-short "+$G" yes
no Terminate execution of current macro if a command requires confirmation;
otherwise ignore it. If neither yes nor no is specified when a command
requires confirmation, the user must answer the question as usual - if
the user confirms the action execution continues normally; otherwise the
execution of the current macro is terminated. Example (do not create new
files):
save-short "+$L/misc" no
prompt string
Print the string in the prompt line (highlighted). The string must be
enclosed in double quotes. Example:
prompt "Enter recipient name"
When the macro terminates, the original prompt shown on entry to the
macro will automatically be redrawn. If this is not desirable (e.g. if
the macro goes from selection to reading mode), the redrawing of the
prompt can be disabled by using a prompt command with an empty string
(""). Example:
prompt "Enter reading mode?" # old prompt is saved
?no return # and old prompt is restored
read-skip # changes the prompt
prompt "" # so forget old prompt
echo string
Display the string in the prompt line for a short period. Example:
?show echo "Cannot be used in reading mode" break
puts string-to-end-of-line
The rest of the line is output directly to the terminal without
interpretation.
macro M
Invoke macro number M. The maximum macro nesting level is five (also
catches macro loops).
I use the following macro to quickly save all the selected files in a file
whose name is entered as usual. It also works in reading mode (saving just the
current article).
define 1
:unset save-report
save-short input yes
?menu '+'
:set save-report
end
From: NN
Subject: KEY MAPPINGS
The descriptions of the keys and commands provided in this manual reflects the
default key mappings in nn. However, you can easily change these mappings to
match your personal demands, and it is also possible to remap keys depending
on the terminal in use. Permanent remapping of keys must be done through the
init file, while temporary changes (for the duration of the current invocation
of nn) can be made with the :map command.
The binding and mapping of keys are controlled by four tables:
The multikey definition table
This table is used for mapping multicharacter key sequences into single
characters. By default the table contains the mappings for the four
cursor keys, and there is room for 10 user-defined multikeys. The
fourteen multikeys are named: up, down, right, left (the four arrow keys),
and #0 through #9 for the user-defined keys.
Multikey #i (where i is a digit or an arrow key name) is defined using
the following command:
map #i key-sequence
where the sequence is a list of 7-bit character names (see below)
separated by spaces. For example, if the HOME key sends the sequence ESC
[ H, you can define multikey #0 to be the home key using the command:
map #0 ^[ [ H
The input key mapping table
All characters that are read from the keyboard will be mapped through the
input mapping table. Consequently, you can globally remap one key to
produce any other key value. By default all keys are mapped into
themselves.
An entry in the input key mapping table to map input-key into new-key is
made with the command
map key input-key new-key
For example, to make your ESC key function as interrupt you can use the
command
map key ^[ ^G
The selection mode key binding table
This table defines for each key which command should be invoked when that
key is pressed in selection mode, i.e. when the article menu is shown.
The command to bind a key to a command in selection mode is:
map menu key command
For example, to have the HOME key defined as multikey #0 above bound to
the select command, the following command is used:
map menu #0 select
To remap a key to select a specific article on the menu (which the `a'
through `z' keys do by default), the command must be specified as
`article N' where N is the entry number on the menu counted from zero
(i.e. a=0, b=1, ..., z=25, 0=26, ..., 9=35). For example, to map `J' to
select article `j', the following command is used:
map menu J article 9
The reading mode key binding table
This table defines for each key which command should be invoked when that
key is pressed in reading mode, i.e. when the article text is shown. The
command to bind a key to a command in reading mode is:
map show key command
In addition to the direct mappings described above, the following variations
of the map command are available:
User defined keymaps
Additional keymaps can be defined using the command
make map newmap
This will create a new keymap which can initialized using normal map
commands, e.g.
map newmap key command
To activate a user-defined keymap, it must be bound to a prefix key:
map base-map prefix-key prefix newmap
When used, the prefix key itself does not activate a command, but instead
it require another key to be entered and then execute the command bound
to that key in the keymap which is bound to the prefix key.
For example, to let the key sequence "^X i" execute macro number 10
in both modes, the following commands can be used:
make map ctl-x
map ctl-x i macro 10
map both ^X prefix ctl-x
Mapping keys in both modes
Using the pseudo-keymap `both', it is possible to map a key to a command
in both selection and reading mode at once. For example, to map the home
key to macro number 5 in both modes, the following command can be used:
map both #0 macro 5
Aliasing
A key can also be mapped directly to the command currently bound to
another key. Later remapping of the other key will not change the mapping
of the `aliased' key. This is done using the following command:
map keymap new-key as old-key
Binding macros to keys
A previously defined macro can be bound to a key using the command:
map keymap key macro macro-number
Implicit macro definitions
An implicit macro can also be defined directly in connection with the map
command:
map keymap key (
body...
)
Keys and character names are specified using the following notation:
C A single printable character represents the key or character itself.
^C This notation represents a control key or character. DEL is written as ^?
125, 0175, 0x7D
Characters and keys can be specified by their ordinal value in decimal,
octal, and hexadecimal notation.
up, down, right, left
These names represent the cursor keys.
#0 through #9
These symbols represent the ten user-defined multikeys.
If the variable data-bits is 7, key maps can specify binding of all keys in
the range 0x00 to 0x7F, and the 8th bit will be stripped in all keyboard
input. If the variable data-bits is 8, the 8th bit is not cleared, and key
maps are extended to allow binding of keys in the range 0xA0 to 0xFE
(corresponding to the national characters defined by the ISO 8859 character
sets). Binding commands to these keys can be done either by using their
numeric value, or directly specifying the 8 bit character in the map command,
e.g.
map menu 0xC8 macro 72
map key \o'\(aae' %
To show the current contents of the four tables, the following versions of the
:map command are available:
:map Show the current mode's key bindings.
:map menu
Show the selection mode key bindings.
:map show
Show the reading mode key bindings.
:map #
Show the multikey definition table.
:map key
Show the input key mapping table.
From: NN
Subject: STANDARD KEY BINDINGS
Below is a list of all the commands that can be bound to keys, either in
selection mode, in reading mode, or both. For each command the default command
key bindings in both modes are shown. If the key is not bound in one of the
modes, but it can be bound, the corresponding part will just be empty. If the
command cannot be bound in one of the modes, that mode will contain the word
nix.
Function Selection mode Reading mode
advance-article nix a
advance-group A A
article N a-z0-9 nix
back-article nix b
back-group B B
cancel C C
command : :
compress nix c
continue space space
continue-no-mark return nix
decode
find = /
find-next nix .
follow F fF
full-digest nix H
goto-group G G
goto-menu nix = Z
help ? ?
junk-articles J nix
kill-select K K
layout " nix
leave-article nix l
leave-next L L
line+1 , down return
line-1 / nix
line=@ nix g
macro M
mail M m M
message ^P ^P
next-article nix n
next-group N N
next-subject nix k
nil
overview Y Y
page+1 > nix
page+1/2 nix d
page-1 < delete backspace
page-1/2 nix u
page=0 nix h
page=1 ^ ^
page=$ $ $
patch
post
preview % %
previous P p
print P
quit Q Q
read-return Z nix
read-skip X X
redraw ^L ^R ^L ^R
reply R r R
rot13 nix D
save-body W w W
save-full S s S
save-short O o O
select . nix
select-auto + nix
select-invert @ nix
select-range - nix
select-subject * *
shell ! !
skip-lines nix tab
unselect-all ~ nix
unshar
unsub U U
version V V
See the descriptions of the default bindings for a description of the
commands. The pseudo command nil is used to unbind a key.
From: NN
Subject: THE INIT FILES
The init files are used to customize nn's behaviour to local conventions and
restrictions and to satisfy each user's personal taste.
Normally, nn reads upto three init files on start-up if they exist (all init
files are optional):
$LIB/setup
A system-wide file located in the library directory. This file is always
loaded before any other init file (even when the -I option is specified).
It cannot contain a group presentation sequence.
$LIB/init
Another system-wide (global) init file located in the library directory.
This file may be ignored via the -I option.
~/.nn/init
The private init file located in the user's .nn directory. It is read
after the global init file to allow the user to change the default setup.
The init file is parsed one line at a time. If a line ends with a backslash
`\', the backslash is ignored, and the following line is appended to the
current line.
The init file may contain the following types of commands (and data):
Comments
Empty lines and lines with a # character as the first non-blank character
are ignored. Except where # has another meaning defined by the command
syntax (e.g. multi-keys are named #n), trailing comments on input lines
are ignored.
Variable settings
You can set (or unset) all the variables described earlier to change nn's
behaviour permanently. The set and unset commands you can use in the init
file have exactly the same format as the :set and :unset commands
described earlier (except that the : prefix is omitted.)
Variables can also be locked via the lock command; this is typically done
in the setup file to enforce local policies.
Key mappings
You can use all the versions of the map command in the init file.
Macro Definitions
You can define sequences of commands and key strokes using the
define...end construction, which can then be bound to single keys with
the map command.
Load terminal specific files
You can load a terminal specific file using the
load file
The character @ in the file will be replaced by the terminal type defined
in the TERM environment variable. nn silently ignores the load command if
the file does not exist (so you don't have to have a specific init file
for terminals which does not require remapping). If the file is not
specified by an absolute pathname, it must reside in your ~/.nn
directory. Examples:
# load local customizations
load /usr/lib/nninit
# load personal terminal specific customizations
load init.@
Switch to loading a different init file
You can skip the rest of the current init file and start loading a
different init file with the following command:
chain file
If this occur in the private or global init file, the chained init file
may contain a sequence part which will replace the private or global
presentation sequence respectively.
Stop loading current init file
You can skip the rest of the current init file with the following
command:
stop
Give error messages and/or terminate
If an error is detected in the init file, the following commands can be
used to print an error message and/or terminate execution:
error fatal error message...
Print the message and terminate execution.
echo warning message...
Print the message and continue.
exit [ status ]
Terminate nn with the specified exit status or 0 if omitted.
Change working directory of nn
You can use the cd command to change the working directory whenever you
enter nn. Example:
# Use folder directory as working directory inside nn
cd ~/News
Command groups
The init file can contain groups of commands which are executed under
special conditions. The command groups are described in the section on
command groups below.
One or more save-files sections
A save-files section is used to assign default save files to specific
groups:
save-files
group-name (pattern) file-name
...
end
The group name (patterns) and save file names are specified in the same
way as in the presentation sequence (see below). Example:
save-files
news* +news/$L
comp.sources* /u/src/$L/
end
The news group presentation sequence
The last part of the init file may specify the sequence in which you want
the news groups to be presented. This part starts with the command
sequence and continues to the end of the init file.
Both init files may contain a presentation sequence. In this case, the global
sequence is appended to the private sequence.
From: NN
Subject: COMMAND GROUPS
Command groups may only occur in the init file, and they provide a way to have
series of commands executed at certain points during news reading.
In release 6.4, these possibilities are still rather rudimentary, and a
mixture of normal init file syntax and macro syntax is used depending on
whether the command group is only executed on start-up or several times during
the nn session.
A command group begins with the word on and ends with the word end. The
following command groups are conditionally executed during the parsing of the
init file if the specified condition is true. They may also have an optional
else part which is executed if the condition is false:
on condition
commands
[ else
commands ]
end
The following conditional command groups may be used in the init file to be
executed at start-up:
on [ test ]
The commands (init file syntax) in the group are executed only if the
specified test is true. A shell is spawned to execute the command "[ test
]", so all the options of the test(1) command is available. For example,
to unset the flow-control variable if the tty is a pseudo-tty, the
following conditional can be used:
on [ -n "`tty | grep ttyp`" ]
unset flow-control
end
on !shell command
The command group is executed if the given shell command exits with 0
status (success). Care should be taken that the command does not produce
any output, e.g. by redirecting its output to /dev/null. For example, to
prevent people from reading news if load is above a specific level, the
following conditional might be placed in the global setup file.
on !load-above 5
error load is too high, try again later.
end
on `shell command\|` string...
The command group is executed if the first output line from executing the
specified shell command is listed among the specified string values. The
shell command can be omitted on subsequent occurrences of this
conditional, in which case the output from the last shell command is
used. For example, the following conditional can be used to switch to an
init file which has a limited sequence for news reading during working
hours, evenings, and nights:
on `date +%H` 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
chain init.work
end
on `` 17 18 19 20 21
chain init.evening
else
chain init.night
end
on `` string...
This is equivalent to the previous form except that instead of executing
a shell command, the output from the previous
on $variable [ value ]
If no value strings are specified, the command group is executed if the
given variable is defined in the environment. Otherwise, the command
group is executed only if the value of the variable occur in the value
list. For example, if you want nn to look for mail in whatever $MAIL is
set to - if it is set - you can use the following code:
on $MAIL
set mail $(MAIL)
end
on slow
The commands (init file syntax) in the group are executed only if the
current terminal output speed is less than or equal to the baud rate set
in the slow-speed variable. This can be used to optimize the
user-interface for slow terminals by setting suitable variables:
on slow
set confirm-entry
set slow-mode
set delay-redraw
unset visible-bell
set compress
unset header-lines
set stop 5
set window 10
end
on fast
Same as on slow except that the commands are only executed when the
terminal is running at a speed above the slow-speed value.
on term term-type...
The commands are executed if one of the term-type names is identical to
value of the TERM environment variable.
on host host-name...
The commands are executed if the local host's name occur in the host-name
list.
on program program-name...
The commands are executed if the current program (nn, nncheck, etc) in
the program-name list.
The following on command groups are really macros which may be executed during
nn's normal processing, and as such they cannot have an else part.
on entry [ group list ]
These commands (macro format!) are executed every time nn enters a news
group. If a group list is not specified, the commands are associated with
all groups which don't have its own entry macro specified in the group
sequence. Otherwise, the entry macro will be associated with the groups
in the list. The group list is specified using the meta-notations
described in the presentation sequence section.
All `:' commands at the beginning of the command group are executed
before nn collects the articles in the group, so it is possible to set or
unset variables like cross-post and auto-read-mode before any articles
are collected and the menu is (not) shown.
The non-`:' commands, and `:' commands that follows a command of
another type will be executed immediately after the first menu page is
presented. The execution of a `:' command can be postponed by using a
double `::' as the command prefix.
on entry comp.sources* alt.sources
:set cross-post on # set before collection
:local auto-read-mode on # set before showing menu
::unset cross-post # set after collection
end
on start-up
These `:' commands (macro format!) are executed on start-up just before
nn enters the first news group. However, postponed commands (i.e. non-`:'
commands) will not be executed until the first group is shown (it works
like an entry macro).
From: NN
Subject: GROUP PRESENTATION SEQUENCE
News groups are normally presented in the sequence defined in the system-wide
init file in nn's library directory.
You can personalize the presentation sequence by specifying an alternative
sequence in the private init file. The sequence in the private init file is
used before the global presentation sequence, and need only describe the
deviations from the default presentation sequence.
The presentation sequence must start with the word
sequence
followed by a list of the news group names in the order you want them to be
presented. The group names must be separated by white space. The sequence list
must be the last part of the init file (the parsing of commands from the init
file stops when the word sequence is encountered).
You may use a full group name like "comp.unix.questions", or just the name of
a main group or subgroup, e.g. "comp" or "comp.unix". However, if "comp"
precedes "comp.unix.questions" in the list, this subgroup will be placed in
the normal alphabetic sequence during the collection of all the "comp" groups.
Groups which are not explicitly mentioned in any of the sequence files will be
placed after the mentioned groups, unless `!!' is used and it has not been
disabled (as described below).
Each group name may be followed by a file or folder name (must start with
either of `/' `~' or `+') which will specify the default save file for that
group (and its subgroups). A single `+' following the group name is an
abbreviation for the last save file name used. For example, the following two
sequences are equivalent:
group1 +file group2 +file group3 +file
group1 +file group2 + group3 +
When an article is saved, the default save name will be used as the initial
contents of the file name prompt for further editing. It therefore does not
need to be be a complete file name (unless you use the quick save mode).
Each group name may also be associated with a so-called entry action. This is
basically an (unnamed) macro which is invoked on entry to the group (following
the same rules as the `on entry' command group related to :set and :unset
commands).
The entry action begins with a left parenthesis `(' and ends with a right
parenthesis `)' on an otherwise empty line:
comp.sources. +src/$L/ (
:set cross-post
)
The last entry action can be repeated by specifying an empty set of
parenthesis, e.g.
comp.unix. +unix ()
The entry action of a preceding group in the sequence can be associated with
the current group(s) by specifying the name of the group in the parentheses
instead of the commands, e.g.
comp.unix. +unix (comp.sources.unix)
A macro can also be associated with the entry action by specifying its number
in the same way as the group name above, e.g.
rec.music. +music (30)
Notice that it is the current definition of the macro which is associated with
the group, so if the macro is later redefined with the `:define' command, it
will not have any effect on the entry action.
Group names can be specified using the following notations:
group.name
Append the group (if it exists) to the presentation sequence list. If
also-subgroups is set (default), all subscribed subgroups of the group
will be included as well (if there are any). Examples: "comp",
"comp.unix", "comp.unix.questions". If the group does not exits (e.g.
"comp"), the subgroups will be included even when also-subgroups is not
set, i.e. "comp" is equivalent to "comp.".
group.name.
Append the subgroups of the specified group to the presentation sequence.
The group itself (if it exists) is not included. Examples: "comp.",
"comp.unix.".
.group.name
Append the groups whose name ends with the specified name to the
sequence. Example: ".test".
group.name*
Append the group and its subgroups to the presentation sequence list
(even when also-subgroups is not set). Example: "comp.unix*".
The following meta notation can be used in a sequence file. The group.name can
be specified using any of the forms described above:
! groups
Completely ignore the group or groups specified unless they are already
in the presentation sequence (i.e. has been explicitly mentioned earlier
in the sequence).
!:code groups
Ignore a selection of groups based on the given code letter (see below),
unless they are already included in the sequence. Notice that these forms
only excludes groups from the presentation sequence, i.e. they do not
include the remaining groups at this point; that must be done explicitly
elsewhere.
!:U groups
Ignore unsubscribed groups, i.e. if they are neither new, nor present and
subscribed in .newsrc. This is useful to ignore a whole hierarchy except
for a few groups which are explicitly mentioned in .newsrc and still see
new groups as they are created.
!:X groups
Ignore unsubscribed and new groups, i.e. if they are not currently
present and subscribed in .newsrc. This is useful to ignore a whole
hierarchy except for a few groups which are explicitly mentioned in
.newsrc. New groups in the hierarchy are ignored unless `NEW' occurs
earlier in the sequence.
!:O groups
Ignore old groups, i.e. unless they are new. This is useful to ignore a
whole hierarchy but still see new groups which are created in the
hierarchy (it might become interesting some day). Individual groups can
still be included in the sequence if they are specified before the `!:O'
entry.
!:N groups
Ignore new groups in the hierarchy.
!! Stop building the presentation sequence. This eliminates all groups that
are not already in the presentation sequence.
NEW This is a pseudo group name which matches all new groups; you could place
this symbol early in your presentation sequence to see new groups `out of
sequence' (to attract your attention to them).
RC This is a pseudo group name which matches all groups occurring in the
.newsrc file. It will cause the groups in .newsrc to be appended to the
presentation sequence in the sequence in which they are listed in
.newsrc.
RC:number
Similar to the RC entry, but limited to the first number lines of the
.newsrc file. Example: RC:10 (use 10 lines of .newsrc).
RC:string
Similar to the RC entry, but limited to the lines up to (and including)
the first line (i.e. group) starting with the given string. For example:
RC:alt.sources
< group.name
Place the group (and its subgroups) at the beginning of the presentation
sequence. Notice that each `<' entry will place the group(s) at the
beginning of the current sequence, i.e. < A < B < C will generate the
sequence C B A.
> group.name
Place the group (and its subgroups) after all other groups that are and
will be entered into the presentation sequence.
@ Disable the `!!' command. This can be included in the personal
presentation sequence if the global sequence file contains a !! entry
(see example 1 below).
% .... %
Starts and ends a region of the sequence where it is possible to include
groups which has been eliminated earlier. This may be useful to alter the
sequence of some groups, e.g. to place comp.sources.bugs after all other
source groups, the following sequence can be used:
! comp.sources.bugs comp.sources* % comp.sources.bugs %
Example 1: In a company where ordinary users only should read the local news
groups, and ignore the rest (including new news groups which are otherwise
always subscribed to initially), can use the following global presentation
sequence:
general
follow
! local.test
local
!!
The "expert" users in the company must put the @ command somewhere in their
private sequence to avoid losing news groups which they have not explicitly
mentioned in their init file.
Example 2: This is the global sequence for systems with heavy news addicts who
setup their own sequences anyway.
# all must read the general news first
< general
# test is test, and junk is junk,
# so it is placed at the very end
> test
> .test
> junk
# this is the standard sequence which everybody may
# change to their own liking
local # our local groups
dk # the Danish groups
eunet.general # to present it before eunet.followup
eunet # the other European groups
comp # the serious groups
news # news on news
sci # other serious groups
rec # not really that important (don't quote me)
misc # well, it must be somewhere
# the groups that are not listed above goes here
Notice the use of comments in the sequence where they are allowed at the end
of non-empty lines as well.
Example 3: My own presentation sequence (in the init file) simply lists my
favourite groups and the corresponding default save files:
sequence
!:U alt* # ignore unsubscribed alt groups
news.software.nn +nn
comp.sys.ti* +ti/$L
NEW # show new groups here
news*
rec.music.synth +synth/
comp.emacs*,gnu.emacs +emacs/misc
comp.risks +risks
eunet.sources +src/unix/
comp.sources* +src/$L/
The presentation sequence is not used when nn is called with one or more news
group names on the command line; it is thus possible to read ignored groups
(on explicit request) wihtout changing the init file. (Of course, you can also
use the G command to read ignored groups).
From: NN
Subject: MERGING NEWS GROUPS
The third example above contains the following line:
comp.emacs*,gnu.emacs +emacs/misc
This is the syntax used to merge groups. When two or more groups are merged,
all new articles in these groups are presented together as if they were one
group. To merge groups, their names must be listed together in the sequence,
and only separated by a single comma. To merge the groups resulting from a
single group pattern (e.g. comp.emacs*), the group pattern must be followed by
a comma and a blank (e.g. comp.emacs*, ...).
Merged groups are presented as the first group in the "list", and the word
"MERGED" will be shown after the group name. The Y {overview} command will
still show merged groups as individual groups, but they will be annotated with
the symbol `&' on the first of the groups, and a `+' on the rest of the
groups.
In the current version, the concept of the current group in connection with
merged groups is a bit fuzzy. This should only be noticeable with the G
command, which will take the most recently used group among the merged groups
as the current group. So things like G = ... may not always work as expected.
From: NN
Subject: ENVIRONMENT
The following environment variables are used by nn:
EDITOR. The editor invoked when editing replies, follow-ups, and composing
mail. nn knows about the following editors: vi, ded, GNU emacs, and
micro-emacs, and will try to position the cursor on the first line following
the header, i.e. after the blank line which must not be deleted! If an article
has been included, the cursor is placed on the first line of the included text
(to allow you to delete sections easily).
LOGNAME. This is taken as the login name of the current user. It is used by nn
to return failed mail. If it is not defined, nn will use the value of USER, or
if that is not defined either, nn will use the call `who am i' to get this
information. If all attempts fail, the failed mail is dropped in the bit
bucket.
PAGER. This is used as the initial value of the pager variable.
SHELL. This is the shell which is spawned if the system cannot suspend nn, and
it will be used to execute the shell escapes.
TERM. The terminal type.
From: NN
Subject: FILES
~/.newsrc The record of read articles.
~/.nn/select The record of selected and seen articles.
~/.nn/init Personal configuration and presentation sequence.
~/.nn/kill The automatic kills and selections.
~/.nn/KILL.COMP The compiled kill file.
~/.nn/LAST The time stamp of the last news group we have seen.
~/.nn/NEXTG Active group last time nn was quit.
~/.nn/.param Parameter file for the aux script
$lib/setup System-wide setup - always read first.
$lib/init System-wide setup and presentation sequence.
$lib/aux The response edit and send script.
$lib/routes Mapping rules for mail addresses (on non-domain systems).
$db/* The news data base.
/etc/termcap Terminal data base [BSD].
/usr/lib/terminfo/* Terminal data base [SysV].
/usr/lib/nntp-server Name of remote nntp server.
The name $lib and $db are the directories used for the auxiliary files and the
news data base respectively. Their name and location is defined at compile
time. Common choices are /usr/local/lib/nn or /usr/lib/news/nn for $lib and
/usr/spool/nn or /usr/spool/news/.nn for $db.
From: NN
Subject: SEE ALSO
Other netnews documentation.
nncheck(1), nngoback(1), nngrab(1), nngrep(1), nnpost(1), nntidy(1)
nnadmin(1M), nnusage(1M), nnmaster(8), nnspew(8)
From: NN
Subject: AUTHOR
Kim F. Storm, Texas Instruments A/S, Denmark
E-mail: storm@texas.dk (but see the addresses below)
The NNTP support was designed and implemented by Ren\o'\(aae' Seindal,
Institute of Datalogy, University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
Bugs and fixes, suggestions, ideas, critique, etc. can be sent to the
following address:
nn-bugs@dkuug.dk
The news.software.nn group is used for discussion on all subjects related to
the nn news reader. This includes, but is not limited to, questions, answers,
ideas, hints, information from the development group, patches, etc.
From: NNACCT
Subject: - news accounting and access authorization (nn)
nnacct - news accounting and access authorization (nn)
From: NNACCT
Subject: SYNOPSIS
nnacct -r [ -f file ] [ -a ] [ user ]...
nnacct [ -ppolicy ] [ -qquota ] user...
nnacct -ZERO
From: NNACCT
Subject: DESCRIPTION
The nnacct command provides an optional accounting and access authorization
for news reading via the nn news reader.
The first form (-r) is used to print accounting reports. If a file is
specified data from a saved accounting file; otherwise the data is read from
the current accounting file.
If -a is specified, the report will contain accounting data for all users.
Otherwise, if one or more users are specified, the data for these users will
be printed. If neiter is specified, only the accounting data for the current
user is printed.
Only the super-user can generate reports for other users than the caller.
The second form (-p and/or -q) assigns the specified access policy and/or
quota to the specified users. If a given user is not already known in the
accounting file, a new entry with the specified policy and quota is created
(default values are used if both are not specified).
The third form (-ZERO) will clear the usage counts for all users. Individual
usage counts cannot be cleared. The original accounting file is saved with a
.old suffix.
The following policies are currently implemented:
0 No access. The user is not allowed to read news at all.
1 Privileged user. The user can read news at all times and no accounting
information is saved. This is obviously the policy for system
administrators :-)
2 Full time access. The user can access news at all times.
3 Off-hours access. The user can only access news at off hours, i.e. in the
morning, in the evening, on week-ends, and on holidays (not complete -
check the source :-)
The quota specifies a number of hours which the user is allowed to read news.
When this quota is used up, access will be blocked. A quota of zero gives
unlimited access.
New users will get the default policy and quota defined in account.c. If this
allows new users to read news at only specific times, this form can be used to
permit individual users to read news at all times, or it can be used to
prevent them from reading news at all. If the default policy does not allow
new users to read news, this form must be used to authorize them to read news.
From: NNACCT
Subject: HOW IT WORKS
If authorization is enabled, the nn news reader will call nnacct on start-up
to check whether the policy and quota defined for the current user allows him
to read news at this time (or at all).
If accounting is enabled, the nn news reader will call nnacct on exit to
register the time spent on news reading. If account logging is also defined
(see account.c), an line is also added to the accounting log file.
When accounting is defined, the user can use the :cost command to get the
current accounting data, and if the variable report-cost is set, nn will print
accounting information on exit.
From: NNACCT
Subject: CONTIGURATION AND NEW POLICIES
The use of nnacct is enabled via the ACCOUNTING and AUTHORIZE symbols in nn's
configuration file. Further configuration of cost calculations, logging,
default policy, default quotas, etc. is done directly in the source file
account.c. New access policies can also be defined in this file. This allows
you to change the policies or prices without having to recompile the whole
package since only nnacct is modified.
From: NNACCT
Subject: PRIVILEGED USERS
Normally, only root is allowed to change user policy or quota, list all user's
accounting data etc. This privilege can be shared with other users by listing
their login name in the file $CLIENT/admins. There should be exactly one login
name per line, and no blanks are allowed.
From: NNACCT
Subject: FILES
$db/acct accounting data (accumulated per user)
$db/acctlog accounting log (grows indefinitely)
$lib/admins login names of privileged nnacct users.
From: NNACCT
Subject: SEE ALSO
nn(1), nnusage(1)
From: NNACCT
Subject: BUGS
There should be some tools to mess around with the accounting files, e.g. to
make summaries, clear usage counters, etc.
From: NNACCT
Subject: AUTHOR
Kim F. Storm, Texas Instruments A/S, Denmark
E-mail: storm@texas.dk
From: NNADMIN
Subject: - nn database administration
nnadmin - nn database administration
From: NNADMIN
Subject: SYNOPSIS
nnadmin [ commands ]
From: NNADMIN
Subject: DESCRIPTION
nnadmin is a control program for the nnmaster(1M) daemon which is responsible
for building and maintaining the database used by the nn(1) news reader.
nnadmin allows you to display extracts from the log file, display the "raw"
contents of the database, make consistency checks on the database, instruct
the running nnmaster to expire one or more groups, alter the options of the
running nnmaster, and much more.
nnadmin runs in two modes: interactive and non-interactive.
In interactive mode, simple one line menus are used to show the available
operations which are then selected by typing the letter associated with the
command (normally the first letter in the command name).
In non-interactive mode, the commands argument will be used as a series of
key-strokes which are interpreted exactly as if they were typed in from the
keyboard in interactive mode. For example, to stop the nnmaster, the following
invokation of nnadmin can be used:
nnadmin MK
which will select the (M)aster submenu from the main menu, and then the (K)ill
entry from the submenu.
In non-interactive mode, the menus are not displayed and the commands are not
echoed! nnadmin will exit when there are no more key-strokes to be read from
the commands argument. It is not possible to specify a group name in the
commands argument, so the functionalities of nnadmin that relates to specific
groups are only available in interactive mode.
Some "dangerous" commands will require that you confirm them by following them
by "Y" on the command line. The most noteable are IY (initialize database) and
EY (expire all groups). These commands will be marked with a [Y] following the
command name.
You can also invoke an interactive nnadmin using the :admin command in nn.
From: NNADMIN
Subject: SHELL ESCAPES
At all prompts you can hit `!' to spawn a subshell.
The working directory of the subshell will be changed to the database
directory when invoked from the MASTER or DUMP menus, and it will changed to
the group's spool directory (if it exists) when invoked from the GROUP menu.
From: NNADMIN
Subject: MAIN MENU
From the main menu (identified by the ADMIN prompt) you can select the
following operations:
C)onf
Show current configuration parameters such as directories, files,
programs, network usage, etc.
E)xpire [Y]
Send a request to the nnmaster daemon to schedule (and run) expire for
all groups in the database.
G)roups
Enter the GROUP submenu.
I)nit [Y]
Send a request to the nnmaster daemon to recollect all groups in the
database.
L)og
Enter the LOG submenu.
M)aster
Enter the MASTER submenu.
Q)uit
Quit nnadmin.
S)tat
Print general statistics about the database. See the section on Database
Statistics below.
U)pdate
Update the incore copy of the database master index.
V)alidate
Make a thorough consistency check on the database. If inconsistencies are
found in a group, you will be asked whether a request should be sent to
the nnmaster daemon to recollect the group (in non-interactive mode,
requests will be sent automatically for all corrupted groups).
W)akeup
Send a wakeup signal to the nnmaster daemon to have it receive messages
sent to it, perform the required actions, and then collect articles as
necessary.
Z (silent validation)
This operation is identical to the Validate operation, expect that no
output is produced during the consistency check; this operation is used
by the nnmaster to execute the -C option.
From: NNADMIN
Subject: THE MASTER MENU
The master menu (identified by the MASTER prompt) provides access to overall
database information, and to send control messages to the nnmaster daemon.
C)heck
In interactive mode and in verbose batch mode (nnadmin MC), print a
message telling whether nnmaster is running or not. In silent batch mode
(nnadmin =MC) exit with a status code of 0 if nnmaster is running and 1
otherwise; this may be useful is administrative scripts.
D)ump
Enter the DUMP submenu.
F)iles
Print a listing (using ls(1)) of all the data and index files in the
database.
G)roup
Print the master index entry for a single group identified by its
internal group number.
K)ill
Stop the nnmaster when it has finished its current task.
O)ptions
Change the runtime options of the running nnmaster daemon. Currently,
only the value of the -r and -e options can be modified.
S)tat
Print general statistics about the database. See the section on Database
Statistics below.
T)race
Turn the trace option -t on or off in the running nnmaster.
From: NNADMIN
Subject: THE DUMP MENU
The dump menu (identified by the DUMP prompt) allows you to print the master
index entry for various selections of groups in the database.
A)ll
Print all groups in the database.
E)mpty
Print the empty groups in the database.
H)oles
Print the groups where the `min' field in the active file is not the
first article saved in the database (because it doesn't exist or because
it is ignored for some other reason, e.g. bad or old).
I)gnored
Print groups which are ignored, either in the GROUPS file or because of
some other condition (mainly no spool directory).
N)on-empty
Print the non-empty groups in the database.
V)alid
Print the groups which are present in the active file.
in(W)alid
Print the groups in the database which are not present in the active
file.
From: NNADMIN
Subject: THE LOG MENU
The log menu (identified by the LOG prompt) enables you the extract specific
entries from the log file, and to truncate the log file.
The entries in the log file share the following format:
<class>: <date> <time> (<user>): <message>
where <class> identifies the message class, the <date> and <time> specify when
the entry was made, the <user> specifies who created the entry (the letter "M"
denote the nnmaster), and the <message> is the text of the entry.
To extract the log file entries of a specific class, simply enter the letter
identifying the class:
A - admin to master communication
This class of messages are related to the sending of messages from an
nnadmin program to the nnmaster daemon.
B - bad articles
Reports about bad articles which have been ignored or removed (controlled
by the -b and -B options to nnmaster).
C - collection statistics
Statistics about collection of new articles. The message has the format:
Collect: nnn art, ppp gr, ttt s
meaning that nnn articles in ppp groups were collected in ttt seconds
(real time).
E - fatal errors
Fatal errors encountered during operation. These errors require manual
intervention to be fixed (some of the fatal errors occur if thing that
"cannot happen" happens anyway, and may indicate a bug in the software).
M - nnmaster messages.
Master start/stop messages.
N - NNTP related messages
Various messages related to the NNTP part of the nnmaster, mostly about
lost connections and failed attempts to connect to the NNTP server. These
messages should only appear if you use NNTP, and your NNTP server is down
for some reason.
O - old articles
Reports related to ignoring (and removing) old articles when building the
database (controlled by the -O and -B options to nnmaster).
R - reports
Non-fatal error which enables the nnmaster to continue operation, but may
prevent a user to run nn (file access problems). Reported problems should
be checked. The most common report message will probably be
some.group: no directory
which indicates that the spool directory for that group has disappeared
(most likely because it has been rmgroup'ed).
T - trace output
Messages produced as a result of using the -t option on the nnmaster.
This is primarily for debugging purposes.
U - usage statistics
If nn is compiled with the STATISTICS option enabled, an entry will be
made in the log file every time a user has spent more than five minutes
on news reading. The message will have the following format:
USAGE hours.minutes
Since it is possible to suspend nn, or leave the terminal while nn is
active, nn tries to be intelligent when it calculates the usage time so
it will reflect the actual time spent on news reading. The usage
statistics can be summarized using the nnusage(1M) program.
V - validation errors
When inconsistencies are detected in the database during validation, an
entry for each corrupted group will be entered in the log file.
X - expire statistics
Messages similar to the Collect statistics reporting the result of
running expire on the database. Reports related to ignoring, removing,
renumbering, and reactivation of groups are also given class X.
To extract a specific entry class, grep(1) is used, so it may take a while on a
large log file.
There are also a few special operations on the log file:
G)roup
Extract the entries which refers to a specified group.
(1-9) tail
Invoke tail(1) to extract the last 10-90 entries in the log file.
space
Equivalent to 1 (list last 10 lines of log).
(.) all
Display the complete log file.
(@) clean [Y]
Move the Log file to Log.old, and create a new empty Log file. If you
want to clean out the old log file as well, simply repeat the clean
operation (this will result in an empty Log.old file.)
From: NNADMIN
Subject: THE GROUP MENU
When you enter the group menu (identified by the GROUP prompt), nnadmin will
prompt you for the name of a news group, which you can enter with the usual
completion feature described in the nn(1) manual. You can then perform the
following operations on the specified group:
C)lear_flag
Clear a group specific flag. See the section on group flags below.
D)ata
Dump the contents of the data file containing the extracted article
headers for the group.
E)xpire
Request the nnmaster to run expire on the group.
F)iles
List the files (using ls(1)) containing the index and data for the group.
G)roup
Switch to another group.
H)eader
Dump the master index entry for the group.
R)ecollect
Request the nnmaster to recollect all articles in the group.
S)et_flag
Set a group specific flag. See the section on group flags below.
V)alidate
Perform validation on the group's database information.
Z)ap [Y]
Remove group from news system - this will be done by running the rmgroup
program which must reside in the NEWS_LIB directory. Of course, this
should be done with great caution.
From: NNADMIN
Subject: INDIVIDUAL GROUP FLAGS
You can set and clear the following flags for individual groups to control the
future behaviour of nnmaster on that group.
Notice that these flags will be reset to their default value if you
reinitialize the database using nnmaster -I. To change these flags
permanently, they should be set or cleared in the GROUPS file.
A)lways_digest
Normally, nnmaster will only attempt to split digests into individual
articles if it can easily recognize an article as a digest. This requires
that the word "digest" appears somewhere in the subject line, and that
one of the first few lines in the body of the article loosely matches the
subject. A few news groups frequently receives digests which break one or
both of these requirements. To have nnmaster split these digests into
individual articles anyway, you can turn on the "always digest" flag on
these news groups. This will instruct nnmaster to treat all articles in
the group as digests (naturally, articles which are then found not to
contain other articles are still treated as normal articles.)
C)ontrol
This is a special flag for the control group. It indicates that the
"Newsgroups:" field in the article header cannot be trusted (it does not
specify the groups to which the article has been posted.)
D)irectory missing
This flag indicates that the spool directory for the news group cannot be
found (the group has probably been removed with rmgroup(1M)). It is set
automatically be the nnmaster if it cannot access the directory. When the
flag is set, nnmaster completely ignores the group, so it can be used to
disable news collection in specific groups. If you recreate the group or
the directory manually, you must also clear this flag to have the
nnmaster recognize the group again.
M)oderated
Indicates that the group is moderated. This flag is normally initialized
automatically from the active file, and it should not be changed lightly.
N)ever_digest
This is the opposite of the "always digest" flag; when set, the nnmaster
will never attempt to split any articles in that group into subarticles.
From: NNADMIN
Subject: DATABASE STATISTICS DISPLAY
When you select the (S)tat operation in the main or master menus, you will get
some general statistics about the database:
initialized
The time when the database was last rebuild using nnmaster -I.
last_scan, last_size
The time stamp on the active file and its size the last time the nnmaster
read it.
no of groups
The total number of groups in the database.
Articles
The total number of articles in all groups. This is not an exact number,
because it will count split digests as a single article (making the
number too small), and it may count some articles that have been expired
(making the number too large).
Disk usage
The total number of (1 kbyte) disk blocks occupied by the database.
From: NNADMIN
Subject: MASTER INDEX ENTRIES
The master index entries displayed when you select the (H)eader operation in
the master and group menus contain the following information:
group_name group_number
The first line of the display will show the name of the group and the
internal group number which is used to identify the group in the
database.
first/last art
This is the numbers of the first and last article that are currently
stored in the database.
active info
This is the numbers of the first and last article in the news system as
read from the active file. They will normally match the numbers above,
but they may differ while the nnmaster is working on the group (or it has
not yet collected all the articles in the group).
Offsets: index->..., data->...
These values show the starting position for the next write operation on
the index and data files. They are primarily used for consistency
checking and recovery after a system crash, but after an "expire by
rewrite" operation (expire method 2) which is performed "in-situ", the
data and index files may physically be longer than the actual data stored
in them.
Flags:
This shows the current flags set for this group. If no flags are set, the
field is omitted from the display. One extra flag which was not explained
above is the BLOCKED flag; it is a temporary locking flag set on a group
by the nnmaster while it is updating the database files for that group to
prevent nn clients to access that group.
From: NNADMIN
Subject: RAW DATABASE DISPLAY
When you select the (D)ata operation on the group menu, you will get a
combined display of the raw data and index files for that group. The index
file contains a single 32 bit value for each existing article number. This
value is an offset into the data file pointing to the header for the
corresponding article.
When nn want to access the article from number N to the last article, it looks
up the offset for article number N in the index file, and uses this as the
starting point for reading article header information in the data file. It
then simply reads to the end of the data file in which the article headers for
articles number N+1, N+2, and so on follows immediately after the header for
article number N.
The article header information is presented in a very terse form; each of the
output lines are described below for reference purposes:
offset = xxxx , article # = nnnnn (type)
This shows the offset into the data file and the article number. The
offset is stored in the index file for quick access. If no type is
printed it is a normal article. Other types are: "digest header" and
"digest sub-article".
xpost(count): nnn, nnn, nnn, ...
Cross-postings to other groups are encoded as a list of internal group
numbers.
ts=nn hp=nn fp=nn lp=nn ref=nn[+Re] lines=nn
These values are used by nn to sort, present, and access an article:
ts is the time stamp on the article; it is a simple encoding of the
posting date and time found in the Date: field.
hp, fp, and lp are offsets into the file containing the article text: the
header position, first text position, and last text position. The first
will be zero for normal articles, but not for articles in a split digest.
The last will be equal to the length of the file for normal articles, but
not inside digests.
ref is the number of references on the Reference: line. If "+Re" follows
the number, the subject line contained a "Re:" prefix which has been
removed.
Sender(length): name
The name of the sender in "ready to print" format, i.e. reduced to 16
characters as explained in the nn manual.
Subj(length): subject
This is the full subject line from the article header (except for Re:
prefixes in various formats).
From: NNADMIN
Subject: FILES
The $db, $lib, and $news used below are synonyms for the DB_DIRECTORY,
LIB_DIRECTORY, and the news system's lib directories respectively.
$db/MASTER Database master index
$db/GROUPS News group names in MASTER file order
$db/DATA/nnn.x Index file for group number nnn
$db/DATA/nnn.d Data file for group number nnn
$master/GATE Message channel from nnadmin to nnmaster
$master/MPID The process id of the nnmaster daemon.
$Log The log file (truncate it regularly!)
The MASTER file contains a record for each news group, occurring in the same
sequence as the group names in the GROUPS file. The sequence also defines the
group numbers used to identify the files in the database and in a few other
places.
The GATE file will be created by nnadmin when needed, and removed by nnmaster
when it has read it. Therefore, to send a message to the nnmaster requires
that you are allowed to write in the $master directory.
From: NNADMIN
Subject: SEE ALSO
nn(1), nncheck(1), nngrep(1), nntidy(1)
nnquery(1M), nnusage(1M), nnmaster(8)
From: NNADMIN
Subject: WARNINGS
The GATE file is created with the owner and modes of the user that runs
nnadmin which may cause problems if the owner of the nnmaster process
(normally "news") is not allowed to read the created GATE file (a "umask" of
022 is ok.) Unless you allow ordinary users to create files in the LIB
directory where the GATE file resides, only the owner of the directory
(normally "news") and "root" can use nnadmin to send messages to the nnmaster.
However, to send a wakeup signal to the master, anybody can run
nnmaster -w
From: NNADMIN
Subject: BUGS
The user interface is completely out of line with the rest of the nn family,
and the way to run nnadmin in the non-interactive mode is a bit bizarre. This
is not likely to change, because I believe there are more important things to
do!
From: NNADMIN
Subject: AUTHOR
Kim F. Storm, Texas Instruments A/S, Denmark
E-mail: storm@texas.dk
From: NNCHECK
Subject: - check for unread articles
nncheck - check for unread articles
From: NNCHECK
Subject: SYNOPSIS
nncheck [ -Q -r -t ] [ -f format ]
From: NNCHECK
Subject: DESCRIPTION
nncheck will report if there are some articles on the system which you have
not read.
Without options, nncheck will simply print a message reporting the number of
unread articles with the following format:
There are 327 unread articles in 25 groups
and when there are no unread articles, the following message will be printed:
No News (is good news)
nncheck will exit with a value of 0 if there are unread articles, and 99 if
there is no news (see the exception for the -r option.)
It is important to notice that even though unread articles have been reported
by nncheck, the actual number of unread articles may be much lower (or even
zero) when nn is invoked to read the articles. This is because the calculation
of the number of unread articles is only based on recorded article number
intervals. Invoking nn to read the articles may reveal that the articles have
previously been read in another news group, have been expired, or are killed
using the auto-kill facility.
The following options are used to modify the amount and format of the output
from nncheck:
-Q Quiet operation. No output is produced, only the exit status indicate
whether there is unread news.
-t Print the name of each group with unread articles, and how many unread
articles there are (not counting split digests!).
-r Output a single integer value specifying the number of unread articles,
and exit with a 0 status (somebody told me this would be useful).
-f format
Output the number of unread articles using the specified format. The
format is a text that may contain the following %-escapes:
%-code resulting output
%u "uuu unread articles"
%g "ggg groups"
%i "is" if 1 unread article, else "are"
%U "uuu"
%G "ggg"
where uuu is the number of unread articles, and ggg is the number of
groups with unread articles.
For example, the default output format is
"There %i %u in %g"
which I prefer to the following less perfect format:
"There are %U unread article(s) in %G group(s)"
From: NNCHECK
Subject: FILES
~/.newsrc The record of read articles
$db/MASTER The database master index
From: NNCHECK
Subject: SEE ALSO
nn(1), nngoback(1), nngrab(1), nngrep(1), nnpost(1), nntidy(1)
nnadmin(1M), nnusage(1M), nnmaster(1M)
From: NNCHECK
Subject: AUTHOR
Kim F. Storm, Texas Instruments A/S, Denmark
E-mail: storm@texas.dk
From: NNGOBACK
Subject: - make news articles unread on a day-by-day basis (nn)
nngoback - make news articles unread on a day-by-day basis (nn)
From: NNGOBACK
Subject: SYNOPSIS
nngoback [ -NQvi ] [-d] days [ group ]...
From: NNGOBACK
Subject: DESCRIPTION
nngoback will rewind the .newsrc record file of nn(1) one or more days. It can
be used to rewind all groups, or only a specified set of groups. In other
words, nngoback can mark news articles which have arrived on the system during
the last days days unread.
Only subscribed groups that occur in the current presentation sequence are
rewound. That means that if no group arguments are specified, all groups
occurring in the sequence defined in the init file will be rewound. Otherwise,
only the groups specified on the argument line will be rewound.
When a group is rewound, the information about selections, partially read
digests etc. are discarded. It will print notifications about this unless the
-Q (quiet) option is used.
If the -i (interactive) option is specified, nngoback will report for each how
many articles can be marked unread, and ask for confirmation before going back
in that group.
If the -v (verbose) option is specified, nngoback will report how many
articles are marked unread.
If the -N (no-update) option is specified, nngoback will perform the entire
goback operation, but not update the .newsrc file.
If you are not up-to-date with your news reading, you can also use nngoback to
catch up to only have the last few days of news waiting to be read in the
following way:
nn -a0
nngoback 3
The nn command will mark all articles in all groups as read (answer all to the
catch-up question.) The following nngoback will then make the last three days
of news unread again.
Examples:
nngoback 0
Mark the articles which have arrived today as unread.
nngoback 1
Mark the articles which have arrived yesterday and today as unread.
nngoback 6
Mark the articles which have arrived during the last week as unread.
You cannot go more than 14 days back with nngoback. (You can change this limit
as described below.)
From: NNGOBACK
Subject: THE BACK_ACT DAEMON
It is a prerequisite for the use of nngoback that the script back_act is
executed at an appropriate time once (and only once) every day. Preferably
this is done by cron right before the bacth of news for `today' is received.
back_act will maintain copies of the active file for the last 14 days.
Optionally, the back_act program accepts a single numerical argument
specifying how many copies of the active file it should maintain. This is
useful if news is expired after 7 days, in which case keeping more than 7 days
of active file copies is wasteful.
From: NNGOBACK
Subject: FILES
~/.newsrc The record of read articles.
~/.newsrc.goback The original rc file before goback.
$db/active.N The N days `old' active file.
$master/back_act Script run by cron to maintain old active files.
From: NNGOBACK
Subject: SEE ALSO
nn(1), nncheck(1), nngrab(1), nngrep(1), nnpost(1), nntidy(1)
nnadmin(1M), nnusage(1M), nnmaster(8)
From: NNGOBACK
Subject: NOTES
nngoback does not check the age of the `old' active files; it will blindly
believe that active.0 was created today, and that active.7 is really seven
days old! Therefore, the back_act script should be run once and only once
every day for nngoback to work properly.
The days are counted relative to the time the active files were copied.
From: NNGOBACK
Subject: AUTHOR
Kim F. Storm, Texas Instruments A/S, Denmark
E-mail: storm@texas.dk
From: NNGRAB
Subject: - news retrieval by keyword (nn)
nngrab - news retrieval by keyword (nn)
From: NNGRAB
Subject: SYNOPSIS
nngrab [ -c ] keyword
From: NNGRAB
Subject: DESCRIPTION
nngrab invokes nn on all USENET articles whose subject (or keyword) field(s)
contain an instance of keyword. nngrab is a fast equivalent for:
nn -mxX -s/keyword all
For example,
nngrab tesla
will retrieve items concerning Nikola Tesla.
Keyword case is ignored unless -c is specified, and the keyword can be a
regular expressions (escaped to avoid conflicts with the shell). For example,
nngrab "n.*tesla"
The range of search includes all newsgroups on the system, including ones
which are unsubscribed.
From: NNGRAB
Subject: FILES
$db/subjects subject database
From: NNGRAB
Subject: SEE ALSO
nn(1), nnspew(8), egrep(1)
From: NNGRAB
Subject: NOTES
nngrab can be much faster than the equivalent command shown above, if the
tertiary news subject database generated by the nnspew(8) daemon exists. To
enable the faster operation, nnspew must be executed regularly by cron.
nngrab uses egrep(1) to scan the subject database, so if you are not running
fast egrep (GNU-style) this is all for naught.
nngrab will use a subject database generated by nnspew independent of its age.
Thus, if you stop running nnspew, remember to remove the subjects file as
well.
From: NNGRAB
Subject: BUGS
Under version 6.4, search of the "Keywords:" field is not supported.
Search on name is not possible either.
From: NNGRAB
Subject: AUTHOR
James A. Woods, NASA Ames Research Center
E-mail: jaw@ames.arc.nasa.gov
From: NNGREP
Subject: - grep for news group names (nn)
nngrep - grep for news group names (nn)
From: NNGREP
Subject: SYNOPSIS
nngrep [ -ainprsu ] [ -l ] [ pattern ]
From: NNGREP
Subject: DESCRIPTION
nngrep can print various selections of the available news groups.
Without options, nngrep will list all currently subscribed newsgroups whose
name matches any of the specified patterns. If no pattern is specified, all
subscribed groups will be listed.
The selection of news groups against which the patterns are matches, and
subsequently printed by nngrep can be limited or expanded using the following
command line options and arguments:
-a Use both subscribed and unsubscribed groups. Overrides the -u option.
-i Use only ignored groups, i.e. which are not in the presentation sequence.
-n Use only new groups. Notice that nn considers a group to be new until you
have read at least one article in the group, or you have unsubscribed to
the group. This means that even reasonable active news groups may remain
"new" for quite some time if it only contains articles which are
cross-posted to other groups which occur earlier in your presentation
sequence.
-p Use only groups with unread (pending) articles.
-r Use only read groups, i.e. without unread articles.
-s Use only groups which are in the presentation sequence.
-u Use only unsubscribed groups.
These options can be combined if they don't logically exclude each other.
For example, to get the names of all "source" groups, you can use the command
nngrep source
You can use this to read a specific subset of news groups with nn; for example
nn `nngrep -sp source`
From: NNGREP
Subject: LONG LISTING
A long listing of the matched groups can be requested with the -l option. It
will include the following information:
SUBSCR Specifies whether the group is subscribed or not (yes/no).
NEW Specifies whether the group is new or not (yes/no).
UNREAD Shows the number of unread articles in the group (if any).
SEQUENCE Shows the group's index in the presentation sequence.
GROUP The name of the group.
From: NNGREP
Subject: FILES
~/.newsrc The record of read articles
~/.nn/init The presentation sequence
From: NNGREP
Subject: SEE ALSO
nn(1), nncheck(1), nngoback(1), nngrab(1), nnpost(1), nntidy(1)
nnadmin(1M), nnusage(1M), nnmaster(8)
From: NNGREP
Subject: AUTHOR
Kim F. Storm, Texas Instruments A/S, Denmark
E-mail: storm@texas.dk
From: NNMASTER
Subject: - nn database manager
nnmaster - nn database manager
From: NNMASTER
Subject: SYNOPSIS
nnmaster -I [lmit]
nnmaster -w
nnmaster -v
nnmaster -l [ "lock message" ]
nnmaster [ options ] [ groups ]
nnmaster -F [ options ] [ groups ]
From: NNMASTER
Subject: DESCRIPTION
nnmaster is the daemon which is responsible for building and maintaining the
database used by the nn(1) news reader.
Normally, nnmaster is started when the system enters multi-user mode, and runs
until system shutdown. To facilitate this, you should place the following call
in /etc/rc (or similar) to invoke the nnmaster daemon:
$master/nnmaster -l -r -C
where $master is the MASTER_DIRECTORY defined during configuration of nn.
When nnmaster is started as specified above, it will first unlock the database
in case it was locked (-l), perform a thorough consistency check on the
database (-C).
Then, every 10 minutes (-r), it will look at the time-stamp of the news active
file to see whether new articles have arrived on the system (or whether
articles have been expired).
If the active file has been modified, nnmaster will collect the header
information from the new articles and enter them into the database (or remove
the headers of the expired articles from the database).
If it detects that some articles have been expired, it will automatically
remove the header information of the expired articles from the database.
From: NNMASTER
Subject: ARTICLE COLLECTION OPTIONS
Normally, nnmaster will collect all available news groups defined in the news
active file. The set of collected groups can be controlled via the argument
line. Groups can be either included or excluded:
A group name, e.g. comp, will cause the group and all its subgroups to be
collected. Individual groups, e.g. news.software.nn, can also be specified
A group name preceded by an exclamation mark, e.g. !talk.politics, will cause
the group and all its subgroups to be ignored.
An empty argument, i.e. "", will cause all groups that are not ignored to be
collected. For example, to collect everything but rec and misc, use the
following command:
nnmaster -r !rec !misc ""
If the empty argument had been omitted, nothing would be collected, since the
presence of any groups arguments causes nnmaster to ignore all groups which
are not explicitly mentioned.
Example 1: The following commands can be executed by cron to collect different
sets of groups at different intervals or under different conditions:
nnmaster -B -O14 rec misc sci -LBO -u
nnmaster !rec !misc !sci "" -u
Example 2: The group arguments are used in the given sequence, e.g. to leave
out comp.sys, but still collect comp.sys.ibm.pc, use the command:
nnmaster -r comp.sys.ibm.pc !comp.sys ""
The use of the -u option in the first example is essential, since each of the
commands will update the active file time stamp which will prevent the other
command from detecting new articles that have arrived.
Using this method to keep specific groups out of the database must be used
with great caution; just a single invocation of nnmaster without any arguments
will collect all the otherwise ignored groups!
From: NNMASTER
Subject: COLLECTION OF ARTICLES
The following options control how nnmaster performs the collection of new
articles.
-r [ min ]
Daemon mode. The nnmaster will put itself in the background (unless -f is
also specified), and will checks for arrival of new articles and expired
articles every min minutes (and update the database accordingly). If min
is omitted, the default is to check every 10 minutes.
Without the -r option, the nnmaster will just perform a single collection
of new articles (if any) and then exit. This can be used to have the
nnmaster started by cron(8) at regular intervals instead of having it as a
daemon which sleeps between checking for new articles. Since the nnmaster
is a bit expensive to start up (it has to read a few files), it is up to
you to decide which mode is best on your system. (I have also heard that
it works to call nnmaster without -r from inews(1). I cannot recommend
this unless you receive batched news; invoking nnmaster for every
received article sounds too expensive to me.)
-h [ sec ]
Hold collection of new articles until next scan if new articles have
arrived withing the last sec [60] seconds. This is useful to prevent
nnmaster from competing for disk i/o with an rnews process which is
unbatching incoming news, or a running expire process. It will have the
side effect of limiting the number of C: entries in the log, since
collection of incoming batches will typically be done in larger thunks.
-f Run nnmaster in foreground in daemon mode (see -r). Useful if nnmaster is
invoked from inittab. (Notice that if you use a respawn entry in inittab,
you will not be able to stop nnmaster using the -k option, since init
will immediately start another master.)
-C Perform a consistency check on the database on start-up, and rebuild
corrupted database files. This operation can be quite time-consuming
since it reads through all the database files.
-b Normally, articles without a proper news header (no Newsgroups: line) are
ignored. Specifying the -b option causes these `bad' articles to be
included in the database (normally with no sender or subject).
-B Remove `bad' articles. Sometimes, articles without a header ends up in
the news spool directory. These articles have no article id, and
therefore, they will never be expired by expire(8). This option will
allow the nnmaster to silently remove these articles (a `B' entry will
occur in the log file).
-O days
Ignore articles which are older than the given number of days. This may
help keep old 'stray' articles out of the database. If the -B options is
also specified, the old articles will be removed from the news spool
directories. Old ignored or removed articles will be reported with an `O'
entry in the log file. This option can be disable for individual groups
by the O flag in the GROUPS file (see below).
-R N Specifies how the auto-recollect operation is performed on the groups
having this option set in the GROUPS file (see below). Four methods are
available (default is method 1):
1: Run expire on the group when new articles arrive.
2: Run expire on the group on every scan.
3: Recollect all articles when new articles arrive.
4: Recollect all articles on every scan.
-M mode
Normally, nnmaster will send a message via mail to the news administrator
(OWNER) when an error or potential problems (primarily nntp related)
occur. This can be restricted to only fatal errors (nnmaster terminated)
if mode is 1, and disabled completely if mode is 0.
-Q Normally, nnmaster will print a message on the system console or in the
syslog if a fatal error happens. This option will prevent this, so only a
type 'E' entry is written to the Log file.
From: NNMASTER
Subject: DATABASE EXPIRATION
Since articles does not stay forever in the news system, the database must be
cleaned up regularly to remove the information stored for expired articles.
Expiration of the database is normally scheduled using the nnadmin(1M) command
executed by cron at a suitable time when expire on the news articles has
completed. The following command will send a message to the nnmaster and cause
it to initiate expire on all news groups:
nnadmin =EYW
Selective expiration of individual groups can be done from nnadmin
(interactive mode). It can also be done by invoking nnmaster with the -F
option. For example, the following command will run expire on all groups
except the `rec' groups:
nnmaster -F -k !rec ""
The -k option is required to terminate the currently running master since two
daemons cannot be running at the same time. Thus to run expire (on all groups)
in this way from cron, the following commands must be used:
nnmaster -Fk "" ; nnmaster -r ...
It is also possible to have nnmaster detect expiration automatically (see -e).
This requires that the min field in the active file is updated by the news
expire (this is not the default case when Cnews is used). However, this is not
always a safe indication since the first article may not have been expired,
while a lot of other articles have been deleted.
There are several strategies available in the nnmaster to do this clean-up,
each having their strengths and weaknesses.
Method 1 (default): Rebuilds the database from the existing database
information by comparing the current database contents with the contents of
the news group directories, eliminating entries whose file no longer exists.
This method is guaranteed to eliminate all expired articles from the database,
and it is reasonably fast because it only has to read the directories, not
each article file.
If news is accessed remotely via nntp, the list of existing articles
cannot efficiently be fetched by reading a local directory. Instead an XHDR
request is sent to the nntp server to get a list of articles.
Method 2: Eliminates only the expired articles before the first article in the
group. This is very fast since only the active file and the database itself is
accessed, but it will obviously leave some expired articles in the database.
This method requires that the min field in the active file is updated by
expire.
Method 3: Discard the current database information and recollects all
articles. This is obviously very time consuming, and it is therefore not
recommended, especially not with nntp.
The options related to database expiration are:
-E N Select expire method N. (If N is omitted, the default method is used).
-e [N]
Automatically run expire in the database on groups where the min number
in the active file has increased by N (1 if omitted) articles. This is
disabled by default (since the min field is often unreliable).
-F Run expire once and exit. If a list of groups is specified on the command
line, the matched groups (see the rules above) will be marked for
expiration. If no groups are specified, only the groups already scheduled
for expire will be expired. Consequently, to expire all groups, a blank
argument "" (matching all groups) must be specified.
From: NNMASTER
Subject: DATABASE LOCKING
The database can be locked centrally, which will normally disallow all access
to the database, and even block nnmaster from being (accidentally) started.
When a lock is set on the database, all currently running clients will
terminate the next time they try to access the database. Setting a lock on the
database can thus also be used to force running clients to terminate.
The following options set and clear locks on the database:
-l message
Locks the database with the given message. The message will be displayed
every time a program tries to access the database.
-l Unlock the database if it was locked.
-i Ignore a possible lock and continue. This can be used to have nnmaster
operate on a database which is blocked from normal user access.
Since only one nnmaster can operate on the database at any one time, a running
nnmaster daemon must be stopped before a lock can be set on the database. If
neither -f nor -r is specified with the -l option (in both forms), nnmaster
will terminate after setting or clearing the lock.
From: NNMASTER
Subject: DATABASE INITIALIZATION
The following options are used to initialize and update the central database
files:
-I [limit]
Initialize database. This option will erase an existing database, and
create an empty database containing entries for the currently known
groups. nnmaster will offer you to use an existing GROUPS file when
initializing the database.
The optional limit can be used to put a limit on the number of articles
that will be collected in each group during the first collection of
articles following the database initialization. This is useful on systems
where the 'min' field in the active file is unreliable or not maintained
(Cnews doesn't) to limit the work done to do the initial collection of
news after the initialization of the database. If news is accessed
remotely from an NNTP server, this is even more important! If limit is
omitted, or is zero, nnmaster will trust the min field and collect all
articles in the range min..last.
-G Reread the GROUPS file. This option is used to instruct nnmaster to parse
the GROUPS file after it has been edited. See the section on the GROUPS
file below.
From: NNMASTER
Subject: MISCELLANEOUS OPTIONS
The following options controls various details of the nnmaster's behaviour:
-D [ N ]
Run nnmaster in "debug mode". If N is omitted, or equals 1 or 3, this
will produce a compact but still very informative trace of the collection
or expire process directly on the terminal. This is most useful when
doing the first collection of articles after initializing the database
with -I. If N is 2 or 3, a trace of the NNTP traffic is written to a file
nnmaster.log in the TMP directory. This option disables -r.
-H Identifies the host which nnmaster is running on as the nntp-server for
its clients, i.e. that it can access the news spool directory locally
without using NNTP. Normally, nnmaster will detect this by itself by
comparing the host name to the contents of the nntp_server file, so this
option should really be superfluous.
-y retries
In some networked environment, opening an article (shared from another
machine via NFS) may fail for no obvious reason. Using this option, it is
possible to cause nnmaster to perform retries attempts to open an article
before marking the article as non-existing in the database.
-L types
Exclude the specified entry types from the log file. This is normally
used to exclude the 'C'ollecting and e'X'pire entries (-LCXO).
-t Trace the collection process. This will place a lot of information into
the log file (T: entries).
-u Normally, nnmaster will just compare the time-stamp on the active file
with a time-stamp saved in the database to see if new articles have
arrived. The -u option forces the nnmaster to read the active file on
start-up to see if new articles have arrived.
-v Print the release and version identification for nnmaster, and exit.
-w Wakeup the real nnmaster. Send a signal to the nnmaster daemon to have it
check for new articles immediately.
-k Kill the already running nnmaster daemon before proceeding with the
operation specified by the other options (or terminate if no other
operation is requested).
From: NNMASTER
Subject: THE GROUPS FILE
The primary purpose of the GROUPS file is to store the names of the news
groups represented in the database. Each line in the file corresponds to an
entry in the (binary) MASTER file, and the sequence of the lines in the GROUPS
file must never be changed unless the database is reinitialized afterwards.
However, the contents of the lines in the GROUPS file can be edited to control
how the nnmaster should handle each individual group.
The format of each line is:
news.group.name [ timestamp ] [ flags ]
The news group name is the name of the group, and must not be changed in any
way. If the group is no longer in the news active file, and consequently the
group does no longer exist, group name can be replaced by a `@' character
which will instruct nnmaster to ignore this entry without having to rebuild
the entire database.
The optional time stamp indicates when the line was added to the GROUPS file
and is used by nn to detect new groups. When the GROUPS file is built
initially from the active file, the time stamps are omitted which simply means
that they are "old".
One or more of the following flags can be added to the GROUPS line to control
nnmaster's handling of the group:
D Causes nnmaster to treat all articles in the group as digests, even when
they don't initially look like digests. Articles which are found not to
be digests after all, are still not digested.
N Instructs nnmaster to never digest any articles in the group.
O Disables the -O option for this group, i.e. all existing articles will be
included in the database (and they will not be removed if the -B option
is specified). This flag should be set on groups which you never expire,
or have a very long expire time!
R Causes nnmaster to recollect all available articles in the group whenever
a new article is received. This is said to be useful is some high-traffic
clarinet groups with many cancelled articles.
>file
Instructs nnmaster to append all new articles to the specified file. This
makes it possible to keep specific groups out of the way of expire. The
archive file can be access directly from the nn client using the
goto-group command. The file name must be a full path name to a file in
an existing, writeable directory.
@ Instructs nnmaster to completely ignore this group - this is equivalent
to setting the group name to `@' as described above.
! or X
Causes nnmaster to ignore the group and not collect the group's articles
in the database.
Comments (starting with `#' and continuing to the end of line) and empty lines
are allow in the GROUPS file, but it is strongly recommended to keep the
changes to the GROUPS file as small as possible, because of the implicit
correspondence with the binary MASTER file.
It is not recommended to edit the GROUPS file while nnmaster is running
because it may add new groups to the file. After editing the GROUPS file, the
command
nnmaster -G
must be run before restarting the nnmaster to parse and verify the new GROUPS
file.
From: NNMASTER
Subject: NNTP SUPPORT
The nnmaster can access the news articles from a local news spool directory as
well as from an NNTP server. When compiled with NNTP enabled, nnmaster will
compare the name of the NNTP server and the name of the local host; if they
are identical, nnmaster will bypass NNTP and access the articles directly.
When it has to access the news articles via NNTP, it cannot time-stamp the
active file, so instead it transfers the entire active file from the NNTP
server and compares it with a local copy of the last active file fetched from
the NNTP server. This is not very expensive in terms of cpu-cycles, disk-load,
or net-bandwidth, but to stay on friendly terms with the NNTP server
administrator, you should probably not use shorter update intervals than the
standard 10 minutes.
Setting a much higher update interval than the standard 10 minutes is not
really recommended either, since an update normally implies fetching a burst
of news articles from the NNTP server, so setting the interval too long may
imply that the load on the NNTP server will be more un-even.
In expire method 1, the use of XHDR just to get a list of existing articles in
a group is definitely a waste of resources on the nntp server (but still lower
than using method 3). Before using the XHDR request, nnmaster will send a
non-standard "LISTGROUP" request; if the nntp server supports this request, it
should return an OK_HEAD status followed by an (unordered) list of article
numbers (one per line) terminated by a `.' line. The nntp servers supporting
this request will be much less loaded during expire.
The -O option does not work with NNTP. The -B option will only work with NNTP
if the nnmaster is running on the NNTP server.
From: NNMASTER
Subject: FILES
The $db, $master, and $news names used below are synonyms for the
DB_DIRECTORY, MASTER_DIRECTORY, and NEWS_LIB_DIRECTORY defined during
configuration.
$db/MASTER Database master index
$db/GROUPS News group names and flags in MASTER file order
$db/DATA/nnn.[dx] Database files for group number nnn
.../.nn[dx] Database files if located in the group directories
$master/GATE Message channel from nnadmin to nnmaster
$master/MPID The process id of the nnmaster daemon.
$Log The log file (the location is configuration dependent)
$news/active Existing articles and groups
/usr/lib/nntp_serverContains the name of the NNTP server.
The MASTER file contains a record for each news group, occurring in the same
sequence as the group names in the GROUPS file. The sequence also defines the
group numbers used to identify the files in the database's DATA directory.
The GATE file will be created by nnadmin when needed, and removed by nnmaster
when it has read it. Therefore, to send a message to the nnmaster requires
that you are allowed to write in the $master directory.
The contents of the Log file are described in the nnadmin manual.
From: NNMASTER
Subject: SEE ALSO
nn(1), nncheck(1), nngrep(1), nntidy(1)
nnadmin(1M), nnspew(8), nnusage(1M)
From: NNMASTER
Subject: AUTHOR
Kim F. Storm, Texas Instruments A/S, Denmark
E-mail: storm@texas.dk
From: NNPOST
Subject: - post news articles (nn)
nnpost - post news articles (nn)
From: NNPOST
Subject: SYNOPSIS
nnpost [ -dksy string ] [ -f file ] [ -p ] [ group... ]
From: NNPOST
Subject: DESCRIPTION
nnpost is used to post new articles using nn's normal interface, but without
entering nn in reading mode.
When started, it reads the init file and then directly executes nn's :post
command.
It will prompt for a (comma-separated) list of news groups, the article
subject, a list of keywords, a summary, and the distribution of the article.
Each of these prompts can also be supplied via command line options or
arguments as described below.
When prompted for the "Newsgroup:", entering a ? as the first key will cause
nnpost to list all the known news groups and their purpose (if this
information is available). You can also enter / followed by a word or regular
expression which will cause nnpost to produce a (much) shorter listing only
containing the groups whose name and/or purpose description matches the
regular expression. When paging through either list, you can enter q to quit
the listing.
If a source file is specified with -f it will be used as the initial article
body. If the -p option is also specified, the article is posted directly
without editing.
nnpost can be used to do unattended postings if sufficient arguments are
provided on the command line to build the header and the body of the article.
The required arguments are: one or more newsgroups, a subject (-s), a source
file (-f), a distribution (-d), and the -p option. Other fields which are not
specified (e.g. keywords) will not be included in the header. The contents of
the news-header variable in the init file will be included in the header.
From: NNPOST
Subject: OPTIONS
-d distribution
Use the specified distribution for the article.
-k "keywords"
Associate the specified keywords with the article.
-s "subject"
Use the specified subject for the new article.
-y "summary"
Include the given summary in the article header.
-f file
Read the article body from the specified file.
-p Post the article specified with -f without editing.
From: NNPOST
Subject: FILES
~/.nn/init The control variables for nnpost.
From: NNPOST
Subject: SEE ALSO
nn(1)
From: NNPOST
Subject: AUTHOR
Kim F. Storm, Texas Instruments A/S, Denmark
E-mail: storm@texas.dk
From: NNSPEW
Subject: - subject database manager (nn)
nnspew - subject database manager (nn)
From: NNSPEW
Subject: SYNOPSIS
nnspew
From: NNSPEW
Subject: DESCRIPTION
nnspew builds a sorted database of all available subjects in the nn article
database for fast access via the nngrab utility.
nnspew should be activated regularly to rebuild the subject database, e.g. by
cron. For example:
2 6,9,12,15,18,21 * * * root /bin/nice /usr/lib/nn/nnspew
Cross posted articles are only represented in the database once, and identical
subjects in each group are merged into one to use a minimum of disk space.
This saves about 50% of the disk space otherwise required.
From: NNSPEW
Subject: FILES
$db/subjects subject database
From: NNSPEW
Subject: SEE ALSO
nn(1), nngrab(1), egrep(1)
From: NNSPEW
Subject: NOTES
nngrap will use the subject database generated by nnspew independent of its
age. Thus, if you stop running nnspew, remember to remove the subjects file as
well.
From: NNSPEW
Subject: BUGS
nnmaster should automatically append new articles to the subject database to
keep it up-to-date, and thus require less frequent rebuilding using nnspew.
From: NNSPEW
Subject: AUTHOR
James A. Woods, NASA Ames Research Center
E-mail: jaw@ames.arc.nasa.gov
From: NNSTATS
Subject: - display nnmaster collection and expire statistics
nnstats - display nnmaster collection and expire statistics
From: NNSTATS
Subject: SYNOPSIS
nnstats [ -lt ] [ -d month day ] [ -m month ] [ logfile ]...
From: NNSTATS
Subject: DESCRIPTION
nnstats will extract the collection (C) and expiration (X) entries from the
log file and calculate total and average number of articles, groups and
elapsed time per day, per month, or for the duration of the whole log file.
Normally only a summary for the specified period is printed. If -l is
specified, the statistics for each day in the period is also printed, and if
-t is specified the summary is not printed.
Normally the statistics is collected for all days in the log files (or the
current log file if one is not specified).
If "-m month" is specified, the statistics for that month is calculated. The
month is specified in normal date notation, i.e. a capitalized three letter
abbreviation like Jan, Feb, ...
If "-d month day" is specified, the statistics for that date only is
calculated and printed.
From: NNSTATS
Subject: FILES
.../Log The log file
From: NNSTATS
Subject: SEE ALSO
nn(1), nnusage(1M), nnadmin(1M), nnmaster(8)
From: NNSTATS
Subject: NOTES
If nnmaster is run with options -LCX, nnstats will not work, because the
necessary entries are not written to the log file.
From: NNSTATS
Subject: AUTHORS
Mark Moraes <moraes@csri.toronto.edu>
Kim F. Storm <storm@texas.dk>
From: NNTIDY
Subject: - tidy your personal .newsrc file
nntidy - tidy your personal .newsrc file
From: NNTIDY
Subject: SYNOPSIS
nntidy [ -aciNQrsuv ] [ group ]...
From: NNTIDY
Subject: DESCRIPTION
nntidy will clean out non-existing groups, adjust obviously wrong article
numbers, and remove badly formed lines from your .newsrc file.
It may optionally remove ignored groups, unsubscribed groups, and groups which
are not part of your presentation sequence or the groups specified on the
command line.
You should run nntidy if your rc file has been corrupted for some reason.
From: NNTIDY
Subject: OPTIONS
-a Equivalent to -cisu.
-c Remove unrecognized lines. This will also remove the `options' line used
by some older news readers, such as readnews(1)
-i Remove entries for groups which are ignored in the database, e.g. entries
marked with `X' in the GROUPS file.
-r Remove entries for unsubscribed groups.
-s Remove entries which are not included in the group presentation sequence
defined in the init file. If one or more groups are specified on the
command line, entries not matched by these groups (and their subgroups
etc) will be removed.
Notice that depending on how you construct the presentation sequence,
this may cause unsubscribed groups to be removed from .newsrc, but this
will not normally happen.
-u Truncate entries for unsubscribed groups, by removing the article numbers
and leaving only the news group name and the `!' mark.
-v Verbose operation. Reports each change made to the .newsrc file.
-N No update mode. The requested operations are performed, but the result is
not written back to disk. This can be used with the -v option to see
whether tidying is required.
-Q Quiet operation. The version information is not printed.
From: NNTIDY
Subject: FILES
~/.newsrc The record of read articles
~/.newsrc.tidy The original rc file before tidy
From: NNTIDY
Subject: SEE ALSO
nn(1), nncheck(1), nngoback(1), nngrab(1), nngrep(1), nnpost(1)
nnadmin(1M), nnusage(1M), nnmaster(8)
From: NNTIDY
Subject: AUTHOR
Kim F. Storm, Texas Instruments A/S, Denmark
E-mail: storm@texas.dk
From: NNUSAGE
Subject: - display nn usage statistics
nnusage - display nn usage statistics
From: NNUSAGE
Subject: SYNOPSIS
nnusage [ -at ]
From: NNUSAGE
Subject: DESCRIPTION
nnusage will extract the usage entries from the log file and calculate the
total usage time for the current user, or for all nn users if -a is specified.
When -t is used with the -a option, nnusage will list the users ordered after
the total usage time. Otherwise, the output will be sorted according to user
names.
Since it is possible to suspend nn, or leave the terminal while nn is active,
nn tries to be intelligent when it calculates the usage time so it will truly
report the actual time spent on news reading.
From: NNUSAGE
Subject: FILES
.../Log The log file
From: NNUSAGE
Subject: SEE ALSO
nn(1), nncheck(1), nngoback(1), nngrep(1), nntidy(1)
nnacct(1m), nnadmin(1M), nnquery(1M), nnmaster(8)
From: NNUSAGE
Subject: NOTES
If nn is compiled with ACCOUNTING turned on, then calls to nnusage are
converted into equivalent calls to nnacct.
The nn package must have been compiled with the STATISTICS option turned on to
produce the usage entries in the log file.
Only nn sessions longer than 5 minutes are registered in the log file.
From: NNUSAGE
Subject: AUTHOR
Kim F. Storm, Texas Instruments A/S, Denmark
E-mail: storm@texas.dk