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trnhelp
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1994-09-11
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Notes on using trn to read news:
To run trn, just type it "trn" at the shell prompt.
You'll then be prompted for your first newsgroup. In general, you can
use almost all of trn with just the space bar, the "n" key and the use of
letters at the menus. Space bar means "do the default thing" which is
usually to read news. "n" means "no" or "next", usually the opposite of
the default.
The other commands to know are "h" which gives you the commands at the
level you are currently at, and "q" which is your general quit command,
to go up a level or eventually leave the program.
There are levels to the program. The first level is newsgroup selection.
Main commands to know here are "space" or "y" to go into a group, "n"
to skip it, or "/" to search for a group containing a pattern, as in:
"/baseball<RETURN>"
While that command needs you to press return, most commands don't.
When you enter a group you go to thread selection level. This is a special
level. You'll want to enter the letters and digits for the stories and
threads you want to read. Then hit space. That does the default thing,
which is either to go to the next page of headlines, or if you're on the
last page, to descend into the article reading level.
(If you hit space without selecting articles, you get them all. You can
also go through the threads hitting "y" or "n" to select or not-select
the one under the cursor.)
At article reading level, there are really two levels. The top one
moves from article to article. The inner one is the "pager" level which
is just a browser for the articles themselves. Hitting space, once
again does the default thing, which is going down a page, until you hit
the end of the article (which puts you in article-to-article mode),
where it takes you to the next article.
Pressing "n" takes you to the next article. There are lots of other commands
here, and "h" tells you what they are.
When you are done, you'll go back up to the "thread menu" (the one with
the headlines) if there are still articles left to read. To get out
of that you can type "X". What "X" actually means is "skip all the articles
I didn't select, and start reading" so in fact, it's a better command to
use when you are finished selecting articles than "space." In fact, that's
they way I use the program, and to make this be the default so that you
can type space to get it, run the program as "trn -XX" on the command line
instead of just "trn."
Summary:
Level 1: Newsgroup selection:
SPACE or "y" -- read this newsgroup
"n" -- skip newsgroup
/string<CR? -- search for newsgroup with this string
g groupname -- go to our subscribe to newsgroup
q -- quit the program
h -- help
Level 2: Thread or Headline selection:
a-z,0-9 -- add (tag) this headline/thread to your reading list
SPACE -- go to next page or go in and read articles
X -- skip untagged articles, go in and read
q -- back to newsgroup selection
h -- help
Level 3: Article level: (Usually you enter the pager level when you start
an article. The two are almost the same. If it says
"MORE" at the bottom of the screen you are in pager level,
if it says "what next" you are at article level
SPACE,"n" -- goes to next unread article
q -- quit newsgroup
c -- mark all articles in newsgroup as read, quit
the newsgroup, back to level 1.
h -- help
Level 4: Pager level -- most of these commands work at article level,
assuming you are on the last page of an article:
SPACE -- down a page
CR -- down a line
b -- back a page
q -- quit pager, go to level 3
h -- help
Aug 13, 1993