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1996-06-16
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PC Yarn User Manual - version 0.91
PC Yarn - offline news storage and reading system
Copyright 1995 by Chin Huang
Permission to copy and distribute this material for any purpose and
without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above copyright notice
and this permission notice appear in all copies. The author makes no
representations about the accuracy or suitability of this material for
any purpose. It is provided "as is", without any express or implied
warranties. The author will assume no liability for damages either from
the direct use of this product or as a consequence of the use of this
product.
INTRODUCTION
PC Yarn is a suite of programs for your personal computer, used to store
and read USENET news and mail downloaded from a USENET host.
FEATURES
- An import program inserts USENET articles into a "news base" from
Simple Offline USENET Packet (SOUP) format. For each newsgroup, you
specify the number of days to keep articles, after which, an expire
program deletes them. However, articles containing an Expires: header
are deleted on the date specified in the header.
- A mail filter moves incoming mail to specific folders or deletes
incoming mail based on user defined rules.
- The Yarn news reader presents articles in threads arranged by
Message-ID and References headers. The reader program generates SOUP
reply packets.
- Score files contain rules to score articles based on matching text
found in the article. The reader can be set up to not show articles
having scores below a certain threshold.
- Multiple users are supported by storing separate configuration files
for each user.
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
- MS-DOS 3.0 or higher
- compression software such as PKZIP and PKUNZIP
- 80186 compatible CPU or better. An 80386 compatible CPU or better is
required to run the 32-bit DOS extender programs.
- a lot of hard disk storage, depending on how much news you want to
keep. For example, the author subscribes to 180 newsgroups and keeps
most articles for 7 days. The amount of disk space used is 40
megabytes.
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PC Yarn User Manual - version 0.91
INSTALLATION
INSTALL YARN DIRECTORY
Unpack the files from the Yarn distribution into a directory. Run the
command
english [drive:]directory
where [drive:]directory specifies where to install the Yarn data
directory. This directory is created if it doesn't already exist.
Choose a disk drive with a lot of free space because the news base will
be stored here. In this document, this directory will be called the
%YARN% directory.
SET UP USER DIRECTORY
To set up a user directory where Yarn will store your user information,
run the command
adduser
A form appears in which you fill in the required user information.
+ Add User ------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| Home directory: C:\JIM |
| |
| User ID: jsmith |
| |
| Host system: netcom.com |
| |
| User's full name: Jim Smith |
| |
| Editor program: edit |
| |
| Reply packet file: C:\UPLOAD\IOXR.ZIP |
| |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
Home directory
Specify the directory where Yarn will store your user information.
This directory is created if it doesn't already exist. In this
document, this directory will be called the %HOME% directory.
User ID
Set this to your login name on the host from which you download and
upload USENET news.
Host system
Set this to the full domain name of your host.
User's full name
Set this to your full name. This is the name that appears in
parentheses on the From: header in messages you send.
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PC Yarn User Manual - version 0.91
Editor program
Set the name of the editor program to run when you send messages.
Reply packet file
Specify the full path of the SOUP reply packet file where your
outgoing messages are stored. If the reply packet file does not
exist, it is created when you post an article or send a mail message
from the reader program. When you exit the reader program, the
reply packet is ready to upload to your host.
The program writes the user information to a configuration file named
%HOME%\yarn\config. This document refers to other configuration settings
also stored in this file. If you want to change those settings, you have
to edit the configuration file with a text editor.
SET TIME ZONE
Set the environment variable TZ to your time zone. The format of the TZ
string is
zzz[+/-]h[h][ddd]
zzz is a three character field representing the name of the time zone.
[+/-]h[h] is an optionally signed number representing the local time
zone's difference from Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) in hours. Positive
numbers adjust westward from GMT. Negative numbers adjust eastward from
GMT.
ddd is an optional three character field that represents the name of the
local time zone's daylight saving time.
If no TZ environment variable is set, a default TZ=EST5EDT is assumed.
UPDATE SYSTEM FILES
Ensure the FILES setting in the CONFIG.SYS file is set to
FILES=20
or higher. If there is no FILES setting, then add it.
Put these SET commands in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file to ensure the environment
settings persist after the next time you reboot your system. (If you are
installing Yarn for OS/2, put the SET commands in the CONFIG.SYS file
instead.) Use the settings determined above for the values appearing to
the right of the equal signs.
SET YARN=C:\YARN
SET HOME=C:\JIM
SET TZ=EST5EDT
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PC Yarn User Manual - version 0.91
SET UP OTHER USERS
To set up another user, run the adduser command, and specify a different
home directory. To run Yarn as that user, set the HOME environment
variable to the user's home directory.
ENVIRONMENT
These enviroment variables modify the behaviour of Yarn if they are set.
EDITOR Specifies the external editor program, overriding the editor
specified in the configuration file.
LOGDIR Sets the user's home directory. If LOGDIR is not set, the home
directory is set from the HOME environment variabl