Archive-name: off-line-readers/usenet/intro Alt-usenet-offline-reader-archive-name: intro Posting-Frequency: weekly Original-Author: Rhys Weatherly Last-modified: 1995-04-05 ============================================================================ part 01/02 intro 1 Credits and Disclaimer 2 Overview 3 Newsgroups of interest to offline readers 4 What is an offline reader? 5 What is the difference from getting a news feed? 6 What are QWK and BlueWave? 7 What is SOUP? 8 What is ZipNews? part 02/02 software 100 Where can I get the software? 200 Where are the QWK readers? 300 common sites, template 400 author contacts 500 ftp sites 600 miscellaneous 700 packers 800 readers ============================================================================ ------------------------------ Subject: a.u.o intro: QWK and crayons From: auofaq@alpha3.ersys.edmonton.ab.ca (Alt.Usenet.Offline-reader FAQ) using QWK for Internet mail or Usenet is like using wax crayons for all your business correspondence. it'll get your message across, but only to those people who don't throw it away without opening it. ------------------------------ Subject: a.u.o intro: Credits and Disclaimer From: auofaq@alpha3.ersys.edmonton.ab.ca (Alt.Usenet.Offline-reader FAQ) This FAQ is based in part on one by Dave Cheung , last posted to alt.usenet.offline-reader in April 1993. It was updated and posted by Rhys Weatherly for a while. It was then digestified and hardly (if at all) modified by Russell Schulz Whilst every effort has been taken to ensure the information contained herein is correct, neither the current author, the current poster, nor any previous author or previous poster can accept ANY LIABILITY WHATSOEVER for errors, ommissions or damage howsoever caused. ------------------------------ Subject: a.u.o intro: Overview From: auofaq@alpha3.ersys.edmonton.ab.ca (Alt.Usenet.Offline-reader FAQ) A common question on netnews these days is "how do I package up my mail and news to be read offline?". This FAQ attempts to answer this question for e-mail and netnews, to point the reader at relevant software, and to describe some of the ongoing efforts in this area. Other networks such as FidoNet, CompuServe, etc. are not covered. ------------------------------ Subject: a.u.o intro: Newsgroups of interest to offline readers From: auofaq@alpha3.ersys.edmonton.ab.ca (Alt.Usenet.Offline-reader FAQ) alt.usenet.offline-reader is for the discussion of offline systems for netnews in general. This includes the installation and use of offline systems, and the discussion of "packet formats" to facilitate offline activities. comp.os.msdos.mail-news is for the discussion of any aspect of managing RFC-compliant mail and news on MS-DOS machines, and is not limited to the discussion of offline activities. ------------------------------ Subject: a.u.o intro: where does `offline' begin? From: auofaq@alpha3.ersys.edmonton.ab.ca (Alt.Usenet.Offline-reader FAQ) ==begin FAQ caption== From: Rahul Dhesi Newsgroups: comp.mail.pine,news.software.readers,comp.mail.misc Message-ID: <3k6bv8$t4d@hustle.rahul.net> Date: 15 Mar 1995 09:28:08 GMT Suppose I have a high-powered Sun machine that gets, oh, 6 incoming newsfeeds totalling a couple of hundred megs a day. If I read or post news on it, am I reading or posting offline? (Probably not, you might say.) What if I cut it down to, say 2 incoming news feeds and 50 megs a day? One incoming newsfeed and 3 megs a day? A sporadic incoming newsfeed that's rather selective based on my tastes, a couple of hundred kbytes a day? Just what is meant by offline news reading? ==end FAQ caption== ------------------------------ Subject: a.u.o intro: What is an offline reader From: auofaq@alpha3.ersys.edmonton.ab.ca (Alt.Usenet.Offline-reader FAQ) The concept of offline reading comes from BBS world where a user connects via a modem to the bbs, and downloads a file (usually called a packet) containing all unread messages since the last connection. Then a program is used, to extract the messages from the packet, read them and reply to them, creating a reply packet to be uploaded at the next connection. This saves time (the bbs lines are less engaged) and money (on phone bills). It also means that the user can make use of much friendlier reading tools than can be made available in an interactive login environment. For the purposes of this FAQ, "offline" is defined to mean the following: "transferring mail and news in some form from an existing interactive account to a user's machine, usually via a modem, so that the messages may be read while the user is not connected to the account, and so that replies may be composed to be uploaded to the account at some later time to be injected into the network". ------------------------------ Subject: a.u.o intro: What is the difference from getting a news feed? From: auofaq@alpha3.ersys.edmonton.ab.ca (Alt.Usenet.Offline-reader FAQ) Another definition of "offline" pertains to the system administrator of a mail and news site (usually a UUCP site) who reads mail and news while the machine is not physically connected to the network, usually with some friendly third-party utility. This usage is common in the Waffle community. It is often the case that your server can provide you with an automatic transfer method to send you mail and news. This is called a "feed" and can be received by modem using the UUCP protocol (among other methods). There is no big difference with the "offline reading" concept except that it is a little more automated. If your home machine runs on a multi-tasking system, or you can dedicate it to mail and news all night long (when you're asleep -- probably easy to do) you can even set it to call the server regularly. You can also start feeding other machines if you wish. The disadvantage is that traditionally, getting a feed has been a lot more complicated, needlessly so, than using an offline reader. Another disadvantage is that some providers charge more for a uucp connection on top of a shell connection or slip connection. One advantage of the uucp approach is that uucp is designed to _only_ transfer files. You don't have to worry about your ProComm script accidentally leaving you logged in for nine hours on a long-distance connection until you find it in the morning, waiting for you to press `Enter'. If a uucp connection is idle, the other system will disconnect, since it's not expecting anyone to be there to press `Enter'. You can also more confidently set your machine to dial up at 3:00 am when system response is quickest, the phone lines to your provider are never busy, and any long-distance charges drop as low as they go. Also, it is almost always easier to get a free uucp connection than a free shell account with offline-friendly capabilities (for instance, most FreeNet sites don't). SNUUPM is a package designed to allow simple installation of the full UUPC, SNews, and PMail (Pegasus Mail) packages. uufree is another such installation and configuration suite, but none of the included packages is shareware, and the installation time has been kept to an absolute minimum -- and most of the configuration can easily be done by the site giving you the uucp feed. At the start, especially if you want few newsgroups, you may want to begin with an offline news reader and then maybe move to a feed when you feel more confident. ------------------------------ Subject: a.u.o intro: What are QWK and BlueWave? From: auofaq@alpha3.ersys.edmonton.ab.ca (Alt.Usenet.Offline-reader FAQ) QWK and BlueWave are the names of popular packet formats in the BBS community. QWK was originally created to get messages for PC-Board bulletin boards and FidoNet "mail areas" (the equivalent of netnews newsgroups). It became a de-facto standard since more and more QWK readers are available not only on MS-DOS machines but on all architectures. However, the QWK and BlueWave formats are not capable of carrying RFC-compliant messages such as Internet mail and netnews. Some efforts have been made to adapt QWK to netnews, but at best the extra information present in netnews messages has been ignored by existing readers, and at worst the extra information is truncated or lost. Some of this information, for example the Message-ID: and References: headers, is very important to netnews, and the loss of this information causes problems for other netnews readers. Some packages try to put all the RFC-compliant header information in the _bodies_ of the messages, which creates a lot of ugly messages when these aren't intercepted, but also doesn't solve the problem of creating _correct_ headers, since the QWK programs will just let any old garbage out, and your messages can silently disappear, without you getting any warning until it's too late. As mentioned, there are already a _ton_ of QWK readers. if you're looking for a programming project, see the next section. it'll be about as much work, but a lot more fun because it's a lot less likely to be ignored once you finish. ------------------------------ Subject: a.u.o intro: What is SOUP? From: auofaq@alpha3.ersys.edmonton.ab.ca (Alt.Usenet.Offline-reader FAQ) SOUP == "Simple Offline USENET Packet" format. It is intended as a replacement for QWK in the netnews community. The messages stored in SOUP packets are completely RFC-compliant so that no critical information is lost. Software which supports SOUP on a variety of platforms is available. See "Where can I get the software?" later in this FAQ for more information. SOUP was originally called the "Helldiver Packet Format" or HDPF, and was devised by Rhys Weatherley (rhys@cs.uq.oz.au) near the end of 1992. A variant of HDPF, called the "Simple Local News Packet" format or SLNP, was devised by Philippe Goujard (ppg@oasis.icl.co.uk) soon afterwards. SOUP now combines the features of both HDPF and SLNP. Rhys Weatherley currently maintains the "official copy" of the format document. The SOUP format document may be found on any SimTel FTP mirror as offline/soup12.zip The latest copy may also be obtained by mailing Rhys Weatherley at the above e-mail address. SOUP also has the ability to download "summaries" of message areas. That is, downloading just the header information for the user to peruse and then choose what messages they want to be downloaded later. This can be useful in very large newsgroups where a user typically only reads a few messages and wishes to avoid downloading the rest of the "noise". This feature is not currently widely implemented however. ------------------------------ Subject: a.u.o intro: What is ZipNews? From: auofaq@alpha3.ersys.edmonton.ab.ca (Alt.Usenet.Offline-reader FAQ) ZipNews is an offline reading system that was developed independently by Jack Kilday (jkilday@nlbbs.com). It is primarily intended for Waffle, PC-Board and Wildcat! systems, although the UQWK package can generate ZipNews packets (and process ZipNews reply packets) on Unix systems. Only one ZipNews compliant reader exists. SOUP and ZipNews formats are superficially very similar, and it is not inconceivable that a reader for one format could be adapted to read the other format. The ZipNews reader can also function as a local newsreader for Waffle system adminstrators.