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Text File | 1992-03-11 | 89.6 KB | 2,112 lines

___ _____ /| | \ |\ | / | | | | \ | / | | | | \ | /___| |_____/ | \ | / | | \ | \ | / | | \ | \ | / | | \ | \ | / | | \___| \| _________________________________ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Amiga-USENET Newsreader (C)opyright by Roland Bless ⌐/Written 1990-92 Version ## # # # # # # # # # # # # ### # # # The Manual _______________________________________________________ Arn.doc for VERSION 1.00 ------------ Hint: Find out your current-version-number by typing "Arn -i" to a CLI. CHANGES according to earlier versions can be found in the separate file 'changes'. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + NOTE: Arn has been COMPLETELY redesigned since version 1.00, so read + + this file completely!! Many answers to questions are given here!+ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ I N D E X --------- ID: Section: Description: -------------------------------------------------------------------------- #1 (C)opyright and Distribution #2 Files Overview of files that should be enclosed in this distribution. #3 Intro What is it? General information about Arn. #4 Short info about USENET Some infos for unexperienced net-users #5 Installing Arn 1. System requirements #5.1 2. .arnrc #5.2 The important Arn configuration-file. 3. Invoking Arn #5.3 How to start the program, commandline-options. #6 Running Arn What Arn normally does after startup. #7 Command-Lines Description of editing command-lines. #8 Newsgroup-Selection #9 Article-Selection #10 The pager Arn's internal pager. * Display features #10.1 * Basic pager commands #10.2 * Moving to articles in pager #10.3 * Posting, replying, forwarding, cancel #10.4 * Other commands #10.5 * Range commands #10.6 #11 X-Files Arn's "kill-files", Autoselection #12 REGEXP Syntax of regular expressions used by Arn. #13 Error-Messages #14 Changes according to last version, known bugs You can jump to these sections by searching for the ID. o (C)opyright and Distribution (#1) ---------------------------- This program and its documentation can be freely distributed, but ONLY if these rules are followed: - Commercial usage and making profit with it in any form is strictly prohibited, but the program and its documentation may be placed on electronic dial-up services for downloading by customers/users of such services (like BIX, Compuserve)! DISTRIBUTION, except as noted above, IS ONLY ALLOWED AT COST-PRICE/FOR NON-PROFIT! Fred Fish naturally has the permission to include it in his great pool of Amiga Lib(rary) Disks. - All (C)opyright-notes must be maintained! All rights reserved! (C)opyright remains by Roland Bless. - Redistribution of a changed program and/or documentation is not allowed! - Distribution of this packet/program together with another documentation (e.g. translated) is not allowed! This applies esp. to German PD-Dealers. - The redistribution of a changed source without permission of the author is strictly prohibited! - The redistribution in a commercial or PD-mailbox program is not allowed without my permission (contact rob@spirits.ka.sub.org). - I do not take the responsibility for any loss of data or any kind of trouble caused by "Arn"! - This program uses _modified_ V8-regexp (egrep-style) functions originally from Henry Spencer, (c) 1986 by University of Toronto. The regular expressions are referenced here by REGEXP. - I do not guarantee that all functions work as described/expected! If you enjoy the program: ------------------------ Please keep always in mind that I spent much (spare-)time in writing this software and YOU SHOULD support me with some money of any amount (suggested of 20 DM or US $20). My address is: Roland Bless Kriegsstrasse 129 FRG - 7500 Karlsruhe 1 (Federal Republic of Germany) You also can remit it to my bank (for bank account information: e-mail, please). Please redistribute always the files together which come with this release. Thanks! Send any detailed(!) Bug-Reports to (UUCP): bugs@spirits.ka.sub.org o Files (#2) ----- (Alpha releases) Arn - the executable/binary Arnmaster - the program to create and update Arn's databases Arnhelp.txt - the help-text for arn. Arn.doc - this documentation ArnMaster.doc- additional documentation for arnmaster program. changes - overview of Arn-Versions (release history). README.alpha - important announces. .arnrc - an example of "Arn"'s configuration file. .arnmasterrc - Config-file for the ArnMaster program. o Intro (#3) ----- What is it? "Arn" (AMIGA Reads News) is a program that allows you to read and write a lot of news-articles and keeps track of what you already have read or not. It is designed for the USENET and follows the rules given by RFC 1036 (Standard for Interchange of USENET Messages). Since V1.00 reading news is much more comfortable, because you now can individually select articles you want to read by subject and author. "Arn" gives you a quick overview where to find 'new' articles and even lets you auto-select articles! It is now much more like 'nn' and uses databases also. Therefore "Arn" and "arnmaster" are now the TWO important programs. Arn will definitely not work if you don't use ArnMaster! It currently doesn't use the mouse, because I think it is better to use the keyboard all the time when the task is to read and write many words. To switch always from keyboard to mouse (e.g. paging via mouse, writing a follow-up with the keyboard) is not rational (IMHO). BUT: It is on my "TODO-list" to implement mouse-support. This newsreader was written from scratch without looking into the real "rn" or "nn"-source. Please understand that this version is not yet as powerful as its models. It was written in C and I tried my best to program it close to the "programming-rules" from Commodore-Amiga. It runs under AmigaOS 2.04 and under Kickstart 1.3/1.2 (although you should upgrade to 2.0!). If you nevertheless have problems under earlier Kickstarts, please report them. If you don't know what a "newsreader" is, this is maybe the wrong program for you! But if you want to use or learn "UUCP", you should read this manual. "Arn" was originally written for Amiga-UUCP, so it will be easy to install it for this UUCP-Version. ** NOTE: YOU SHOULD UPGRADE YOUR SYSTEM TO AmigaOS 2.04. ** The time will come where "Arn" uses 2.04 functions! However, "Arn" was designed to work together with other programs. "Arn"'s Configuration-file will allow you to cope with all other UUCP-Versions in an easy way. It is recommended to use //\\migaUUCP Plus (written by Ingo Feulner) an enhancement of the AmigaUUCP V1.06D with CNews. With this package it is possible to spool and expire news (real history...). "Arn" uses the "active"-file which is supported by AmigaUUCP Plus and created/ updated by Arnmaster if you specify the -A option. Please excuse my horrible English, it isn't my native language. o Short information about USENET-Messages (#4) --------------------------------------- If you want to use this NewsReader, you should be familiar with USENET and have some experience. To give a full introduction into USENET is not my task...but I'll give some hints for newusers. I highly recommend to read the newsgroups: news.announce.newusers (moderated!) and news.newusers.questions as well as "How to use USENET effectively" by Matt Bishop. It should be available nearly at every site/newsfeed and comes with the AmigaUUCP-package. Some general information about news-articles: USENET-Messages consist always of a message-header and a message-body. The header contains some useful informations for news-transmission as well as for the reader (YOU!). To continue (long) header-lines, just begin the next line with at least one SPACE or TAB (important for long lines your editor wraps around!). IMPORTANT: THE HEADER IS ALWAYS SEPARATED FROM THE MESSAGE-BODY/TEXT BY AT LEAST ONE BLANK LINE! If you're posting articles to the net, please keep always in mind that you leave at least one blank line after the header. Your realname should be visible in the article. If not in the header then in your signature. The "signature" normally consists of one or two lines containing your realname and E-mail-address and is placed at the end of your article ("Arn" will append it for you...). Some newsgroups are moderated! It is not allowed to post directly to these groups (see ACTIVEFILE). Get a list of moderated newsgroups and mail to the responsible moderator. Summary of "How to use USENET effectively" by Matt Bishop: => Deciding to post + Do not repeat postings + Do not post anything when upset, angry, or intoxicated + Be sure your posting is appropriate to USENET + Do not post other people's work without permission + Don't forget that opinions are those of the poster and not his company => Where to Post + Keep the distribution as limited as possible + Do not post the same article twice to different groups + Do not post to news.announce newsgroups + Ask someone if you can't figure out where to post your article + Be sure there is a consensus before creating a new newsgroup + Watch out for newsgroups which have special rules about posting => Writing the Article + Write for your audience + Be clear and concise + Proofread your article + Be extra careful with announcements of products or services + Indicate sarcasm and humor + Mark postings which spoil surprises + Rotate offensive postings + The shorter your signature, the better Please follow these rules! o Installing Arn (#5) -------------- 1. System requirements (#5.1) "Arn" should run on all Amiga-Models and requires Kickstart 1.2 or higher. Since I upgraded to AmigaOS 2.04 and now own a 68030-Card you should report problems with compatability and speed (although I'll test Arn in 68000-Mode). "Arn" normally allocates storage dynamically, so that constant values of memory-usage cannot be given. It is quite possible that "Arn" requires 100kBytes or more if you're reading newsgroups with lots of articles. I DID NOT TEST IT EXPLICITLY ON OTHER AMIGAS! A stack-size of 4000 bytes should be sufficient. All memory-allocations are checked, so that no crash is caused by insufficient free memory (esp. at the "initialization- phase", please let me know any bugs!). If it works not well with your configuration (not enough mem, etc.), please e-mail. The NULL:-Device must be installed, if you don't have AmigaOS 2.04. Just copy the null-handler to your L: directory and insert the mountlist-entry for the null-handler into your Mountlist and "mount NULL:". An Assign for T: and UULIB: should exist. T: is the directory for temporary files and UULIB: is required for some "Arn"-Configuration- Files. This is typically the UUCP-directory .../usr/lib/uucp (if you have AmigaUUCP this assign often already exists...if you followed the docs). The file ARNHELP.TXT SHOULD BE MOVED INTO UULIB:! Examples: Assign T: RAM: Assign UULIB: UUCP:usr/lib/uucp Last but not least, you must have installed a UUCP-Package such as Amiga-UUCP, //\\migaUUCP Plus, Brnews, CNews or JDCP and so on... The "rot" program is not required by "Arn" (because "Arn" has a built-in rot), but I thought that you can maybe use it to encrypt text for writing messages. 2. ".arnrc" - "Arn" requires a configuration file! (#5.2) Don't be worried by the lot of entries here. You won't need them all. A file called ".arnrc" must exist in your CURRENT directory or in the directory "UULIB:". This file is REQUIRED to configure "Arn". If you want to have more than one user using "Arn" just create for each user in its home-directory its individual ".arnrc" respectively "UUCONFIG". Before entering "Arn" just "cd" into the right home-directory. An example of ".arnrc": # Arn Config-File # these lines are comments and ignored by Arn NEWSDIR UUNEWS: SAVENEWS UUCP:usr/rob/News #ACTIVEFILE UULIB:active GROUPLIST UULIB:.newslib UUCONFIG UULIB:Config SEQFILE UULIB:seq SCREENSW YES QUOTECHAR "> " TIMEOFFSET +0100 GMT SIGNATURE UULIB:.signature RELAYVER version 1.15D (AmigaUUCP) POSTINGVER version 1.15D (AmigaUUCP) SENDNEWS uux %s "%s!rnews" SENDMAIL sendmail <%s -f rob #SELFSEND preprnews %s "rnews " SHELLWINDOW Y NEWCON:0/0/640/200/Arn's CLI #EXTERNALPRG Y rx postit %s #Set DOTDIRS to Y or YES for Dillon's AmigaUUCP #DOTDIRS Y #Alternative reply-address #REPLY-TO fred%nonsens@foovax.bar.com #send mail by using a script (archives sent mails) #SENDMAIL sendm %s rob #MAILOPTS From #SCREENDATA 640 512 1 Hires-Interlaced #PATHTYPE User #FILTER spellcheck %s #XLIFETIME 90 #CATCHUPXREFS The format is: KEYWORD VALUE(S) If "Arn" finds a valid keyword, it will look for the next characters on the same line which follow after one or more SPACEs or TABs! The keyword is NOT case-dependent but must start in column 0! To set up your own configuration-file, make a copy of the example that comes with "Arn" and edit it with your favorite ASCII-Editor. The example ".arnrc" should show you a typical setup for the Amiga-UUCP-Package. Each keyword and its function will now be described here: NEWSDIR ~~~~~~~ After this keyword the PATH to your "News-directory" should follow. The "News-Directory" is that one from where all the "newsgroup"- directories are branching. For Amiga-UUCP its typically the assign "UUNEWS:". The last character should not be a "/" (slash), because "Arn" will append one for you! examples: NEWSDIR UUNEWS: NEWSdir UUCP:usr/spool/news DOTDIRS ~~~~~~~ If your newsgroups-hierarchy is of the following form: The group comp.sys.amiga.programmers is stored in UUNEWS:comp.sys.amiga.programmers THEN this KEYWORD should exist and a 'Y' or 'Yes' should be the VALUE! The other supported form of directories is UUNEWS:comp/sys/amiga/programmers which is the default and the DOTDIRS keyword should be deleted from your config-file in this case. SAVENEWS ~~~~~~~~ This is the directory/PATH where your "saved" articles should go. "Arn" will use this directory when saving an article with "s" or "w" if no other directory is specified (which then must contain a device or a colon). GROUPLIST ~~~~~~~~~ This is the FILENAME which saves informations about read an unread articles and newsgroups. Its format is described later in detail. It's similar to the ".newsrc" created by "rn". This file will be created for you, if it doesn't exist. The old GROUPLIST-file is always renamed to GROUPLIST.bak the new one is always named GROUPLIST. For those who are manipulating their GROUPLIST with an editor: Since V0.68, the entries in GROUPLIST for one newsgroup is unlimited. Each list for a newsgroup can be continued by starting the next line with one or more white-spaces (spaces/tabs). The length of one line will be truncated after 256 characters. Because "Arn" normally creates and modifies this list automatically, there is no need for you to notice this limit. ACTIVEFILE ~~~~~~~~~~ This is the FILENAME (with specified path) of your active-file IF YOUR UUCP-Version supports it (AmigaUUCP V1.15D currently does not!)!! //\\migaUUCP Plus supports this and it's MUCH more comfortable to read news with an "active"-file. ArnMaster is able to create and update an active-file for you, but you have to add new groups manually to your active file yet (see Arnmaster.doc for more details). "Arn" will read all entries after reading the grouplist. If the group- list isn't existent, "Arn" will read your active-file and search for new groups to add to the grouplist. This entry activates automatically the check for moderated groups. The format of the active-file should be: groupname xxxxx yyyyy s groupname is for example comp.sys.amiga, xxxxx is the last article number (decimal), yyyyy the number of the first article in this group, s can be the single letter "y" or "m" ("Y" or "M", too), where "m" means that this group is moderated. Example entries: comp.sys.amiga 00345 00101 y comp.binaries.amiga 00100 00001 m The numbers are considered to fit in the "long"-range. Entries in wrong format can cause strange errors and crashes..., but normally this file can only be changed by your uucp-software (rnews,expire). UUCONFIG ~~~~~~~~ This is a very important FILENAME for information about the UUCP environment. It looks like this (example): NodeName spirits UserName rob RealName Roland Bless NewsFeed flatlin * Organization Byteable Software Products, private, Karlsruhe (FRG) MailEditor Dme NewsEditor Dme DomainName .ka.sub.org DefaultNode flatlin Entries WITHOUT an asterisk (that is *) are REQUIRED! I think these entries are self-explanatory. If you're running Amiga-UUCP it is normally called "UULIB:Config". Then you do not have to create it. SEQFILE ~~~~~~~ This is a FILENAME for a file which should contain a single number in ASCII-Format. It will be used for the Message-ID of postings or follow-ups and is increased by "Arn". This file exists also under Amiga-UUCP as UULIB:seq. The number is set to 0 if it was negative or 32767. SCREENSW ~~~~~~~~ Screenswitch. Favourite editors (named in UUCONFIG) can have their own screens and therefore you can force "Arn" to switch or not to switch to the WorkBench-Screen (bring it to front). If something like "NO" follows (only the first letter is important), then "Arn" will not bring the WorkBench-Screen to front. If there is a "Yes" or anything other than "N", "Arn" will bring the WB-Screen to front. After invoking the editor, and after the editor has quit, "Arn" will bring always(!) the "ArnScreen" to front. If you still don't know what I mean, just let it on "YES". QUOTECHAR ~~~~~~~~~ This entry contains your favourite character(s) that will be used for quoting, that means is inserted in the leftmost column in each line of the included text at replies or follow-ups. This entry is LIMITED in length! The whole entry should not contain more than 6 characters that means 4 characters maximum of QUOTECHAR, because: The first char and the last char are stripped off this string just to make it possible for including spaces. examples: QUOTECHAR "> " Quoted text looks like this: > this is a test for quotechar. this is a quoted line of text. > this is a test for quotechar. this is a quoted line of text. quotechar (## |) Quoted text then looks like this: ## |this is a test for quotechar. this is a quoted line of text. ## |this is a test for quotechar. this is a quoted line of text. TIMEOFFSET ~~~~~~~~~~ This entry contains two values: A timezone-name and the offset to your time concerning this timezone. Example: TIMEOFFSET +0100 GMT means that "Arn" will SUBTRACT ONE HOUR from your local time and will use/append timezone GMT in Date:-lines. Important (since V0.66): The format of the time offset is [+|-]hhmm, where hh is the number of hours and mm ist the number of minutes (0-60). Example: You're 9.5 (nine a half) hours before GMT so your factor will be 930 (nine hours and thirty minutes): TIMEOFFSET +0930 GMT To get your local timezone, just write an offset of 0 to the TIMEOFFSET then your local-timezone-name after it. TIMEoffset 0 MET (MET means Middle-European-Time) The value can be preceeded by a minus or a plus sign. If no sign is given a plus is assumed (which means to SUBTRACT that value from your local time!). Spaces between the signs and the numbers are not allowed! Leading zeros are NOT required and can be omitted. It is recommended to use your offset to GMT (Greenwich-Mean-Time) and timeoffset -0100 GMT means that your time is 1 hour BEHIND GMT. The length of the TIMEZONE-name is limited to 5 characters! If it is missing too long, "Arn" will display a WARNING and say that it took GMT instead! SIGNATURE ~~~~~~~~~ The FILENAME of your signature file to append to your articles/mails written with "Arn". "Arn" will NOT put any characters (e.g. the "--") before your signature-text. But if you want this, just insert it in your SIGNATURE-file... RELAYVER and POSTINGVER ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~ These two lines are required by RFC 1036 (quoting): RFC1036| be passed through unchanged. The required headers are RFC1036| Relay-Version, Posting-Version, From, Date, Newsgroups, RFC1036| Subject, Message-ID, Path. The optional headers are RFC1036| Followup-To, Date-Received, Expires, Reply-To, Sender, RFC1036| References, Control, Distribution, Organization. RFC1036| RFC1036| 2.1 Required Headers RFC1036| RFC1036| 2.1.1 Relay-Version RFC1036| RFC1036| This header line shows the version RFC1036| of the program responsible for the transmission of this RFC1036| article over the immediate link, that is, the program that RFC1036| is relaying the article from the next site. For example, RFC1036| suppose site A sends an article to site B, and site B RFC1036| forwards the article to site C. The message being RFC1036| transmitted from A to B would have a Relay-Version header RFC1036| identifying the program running on A, and the message RFC1036| transmitted from B to C would identify the program running RFC1036| on B. This header can be used to interpret older headers RFC1036| in an upward compatible way. Relay-Version must always be RFC1036| the first in a message; thus, all articles meeting this RFC1036| standard will begin with an upper case ``R''. No other RFC1036| restrictions are placed on the order of header lines. RFC1036| RFC1036| The line contains two fields, separated by semicolons. RFC1036| The fields are the version and the full domain name of the RFC1036| site. The version should identify the system program used RFC1036| (e.g., ``B'') as well as a version number and version RFC1036| date. For example, the header line might contain RFC1036| RFC1036| Relay-Version: version B 2.10 2/13/83; site cbosgd.UUCP RFC1036| RFC1036| This header should not be passed on to additional sites. RFC1036| A relay program, when passing an article on, should RFC1036| include only its own Relay-Version, not the Relay-Version RFC1036| of some other site. (For upward compatibility with older RFC1036| software, if a Relay-Version is found in a header which is RFC1036| not the first line, it should be assumed to be moved by an RFC1036| older version of news and deleted.) RFC1036| RFC1036| 2.1.2 Posting-Version RFC1036| This header identifies the RFC1036| software responsible for entering this message into the RFC1036| network. It has the same format as Relay-Version. It RFC1036| will normally identify the same site as the Message-ID, RFC1036| unless the posting site is serving as a gateway for a RFC1036| message that already contains a message ID generated by RFC1036| mail. (While it is permissible for a gateway to use an RFC1036| externally generated message ID, the message ID should be RFC1036| checked to ensure it conforms to this standard and to RFC RFC1036| 822.) The "; site sitename.domainname" will be automatically added by "Arn". SENDNEWS ~~~~~~~~ This is the command "Arn" invokes, if you want to post an article to the net, that means to send it to your newsfeed(s)/other sites. In detail, the article should be spooled in your spool-directory (UUSPOOL: with AmigaUUCP) with the necessary control-file(s) for your "uucico". It is IMPORTANT THAT THIS LINE CONTAINS two placeholders %s!!! It MUST BE "%s" (but without the quotation marks)! The first placeholder stands for the internal temporary article-name, the second for the NewsFeed-Name. For older AmigaUUCP versions (<=V1.06D) the line then looks like this: SENDNEWS uux %s "%s!rnews" If you don't need the second placeholder, then can ignore it with a semicolon (entry for //\\migaUUCP Plus): SENDNEWS relaynews <%s -i ; %s (No guarantuee for dropping the second %s...I think it works...) or you should create a shell- script (with the +s flag set) removing the second "%s" by ignoring it: dummy.script: .key artname/a,realname/a .bra { .ket } .dot ~ ; Now invoke the program for spooling-news with {artname} only! postit {artname} Your SENDNEWS is then: SENDNEWS dummy.script %s %s For AmigaUUCP V1.08D (and beyond) the line is: SENDNEWS preprnews %s "rnews " ;%s for discription of "preprnews" look at SELFSEND. SENDMAIL ~~~~~~~~ This is the program which spools the mail for your mailfeed/sites. Normally it would be "mail <%s", with AmigaUUCP it is "sendmail <%s -f user". Only one %s is required for the filename of the article. If your mail doesn't generate the "From:" line, insert the MAILOPTS entry in .arnrc. At normal AmigaUUCP (Dillon-Release) the sendmail always appends a real-name, if already there or not. If your mailer requires other informations, which "Arn" doesn't give, do it with a script-file! (Note: The script bit should/must be set...) Like this to append outgoing mails to a mail.sent-file (dmail gives you the possibility: "set archive uumail:mail.sent") sendm: .key mailfile/a,username/a .bra { .ket } .dot ~ IF exists "{mailfile}" type >>UUMAIL:mail.sent {mailfile} sendmail <{mailfile} -f "{username}" ELSE echo "{mailfile} not found!" ENDIF SENDMAIL sendm %s rob then would be the right entry in ".arnrc". NOTE: If you don't explicitly specify a PATH before the script-name, the script-file must be put in a directory of your "PATH". The best is to put it in the same directory where all your other UUCP-commands are placed (e.g. UUCP:c). Sample script for a missing From:-line: .key mailfile/a .bra { .ket } .dot ~ IF exists "{mailfile}" echo >T:MYTMP "From: fred@foobar.UUCP" type >>T:MYTMP "{mailfile}" sendmail <T:MYTMP ELSE echo "{mailfile} not found!" ENDIF MAILOPTS (formerly FROMLINE) ~~~~~~~~ This entry knows two values. If there is an "F" or "From" in this line, "Arn" automatically generates a "From:"-line at replies. If there is a "D" or "Date", the same happens with Date: Examples: MAILOPTS F D MAILOPTS From MAILOPTS Date From SELFSEND (formerly RNEWS) ~~~~~~~~ This is the program that sorts in the article(s) for YOUR system. This entry is NOT required if your SENDNEWS-program "rnews" already sorts posted articles into your newsgroups in UUNEWS:. (e.g. //\\migaUUCP Plus and AmigaUUCP V1.08D (and beyond), CNews). If you write an article, older versions of AmigaUUCP (<=V1.06D) e.g. send it off, but this article is not sent into YOUR newsgroups. Normally the SENDNEWS-program (rnews) should do this for you, but if it doesn't, take "preprnews" and "rnews". preprnews is a little program from me (not in the V1.00 alpha distributions included since V1.15 of AmigaUUCP doesn't require it any longer). usage: preprnews articlename progname example: preprnews T:tmpfoobar "rnews <" description: preprnews reads the article named "articlename" and cuts off the "Relay-Version:"/"Posting-Version:" lines, adds the "#! rnews XXXX" line and passes this new file (T:TMPXXXXXX) to the program "progname". Then the new (tmp)file is deleted. Your entry for AmigaUUCP Versions older than V1.08D should look like this SELFSEND preprnews %s "rnews " The SELFSEND-program is invoked after SENDNEWS was executed. However: this entry is not required and if your SENDNEWS sorts/sends articles at your system in your newsgroups, just forget this entry. SHELLWINDOW ~~~~~~~~~~~ This entry is for the piping commands "S","W" and "|". The format is: WBenchToFront WindowSpecifications WBenchToFront is either "Y" or "N": N means to bring the WorkBench-Screen NOT into front, all other values do. This entry is optional, because "Arn" has a default entry for it: Y CON:0/0/640/200/Arn-CLI But you can take advantage of your favourite console-handler: Y MYCON:0/0/640/200/This is a console window raised by Arn MYCON: is an example for a custom CON: device. As you will see, spaces are preserved, the whole string is copied until end of line. Normally, the CON:-Window will appear on the Workbench-Screen! To get rid of this CON:-Window, enter "endcli" at the CLI-prompt. You can naturally describe here a normal file-name, because "Arn" just makes an filehandle= Open(SHELLWINDOW,MODE_NEWFILE) and then an Execute(cmd,filehandle,filehandle). EXTERNALPRG ~~~~~~~~~~~ This optional(!) entry specifies an external program to be invoked if you type "o" (other) at the pager/article selector. The FIRST value must be a character "Y" or "N" to enable/disable the SHELLWINDOW during execution of the external program. A "N" or "n" will NOT open the SHELLWINDOW, all other values will. There is a difference between "n" and "N": "N" will switch WorkBenchScreen to front, "n" won't! For the specification of SHELLWINDOWs see above. If you enable the SHELLWINDOW, but the SHELLWINDOW entry is missing, "Arn" takes its internal default. After one or more (white) spaces follows the next value: A command containing a %s as placeholder for the full-pathname to the article. The %s MUST BE PRESENT! Spaces are preserved, the whole command-string is copied until end of line. sample-entry: EXTERNALPRG Y rx postit %s This function was implemented on request of the "Software Brewery". They released a package - written in ARexx - to post and spool news (postit and brnews). FILTER ~~~~~~ Program or script to run over your article you wrote, before posting it. This enables you for example to use a spell checker etc.. The only parameter %s required is the current temporary articlename. Example: FILTER checkarticle %s SCREENDATA ~~~~~~~~~~ This entry supports user defined screens (not for inexperienced users!) and is NOT REQUIRED, but optional. It is provided to let flicker-fixer or A-3000 users read their news with more lines than normally, because the pager uses the full width and height of your screen. "Arn" normally opens a "custom-screen" with your default WorkBench- resolution and settings, except a two coloured (B/W-1 Bitplane) Screen for faster scrolling. (This feature was suggested by Henrik Clausen, thanks!). If this keyword exists, you must specify at least three keywords: SCREENDATA width height depth ViewModes "width" and "height" are the ArnScreen dimensions, "depth" is the number of desired Bitplanes, all in DECIMAL format (short integer, i.e. 16-bit). ViewModes are the following supported modes: [NTSC:PAL][Lores|Hires|SuperHires|Productivity]|[-]Interlaced | [A2024_10Hz|A2024_15Hz] That are: Lores, Hires, SuperHires, Interlaced, Lores-Interlaced, Hires-Interlaced, NTSC:Lores, NTSC:Hires, NTSC:SuperHires, NTSC:Lores-Interlaced, NTSC:Hires-Interlaced, NTSC:SuperHires-Interlaced, PAL:Lores, PAL:Hires PAL:SuperHires, PAL:Lores-Interlaced, PAL:Hires-Interlaced, PAL:SuperHires-Interlaced, Productivity, Productivity-Interlaced, A2024_10Hz, A2024_15Hz. Monitor modes: only available under OS2.0. If no monitor mode is specified you'll get the system default monitor mode (PAL or NTSC). Note that you cannot abbreviate these keywords (not laced for Interlaced), but they are not case sensitive. To get the Modes that are not listed here you can specify the mode with the IDNUM: keyword: IDNUM:0x8004 is equivalent to Hires-Interlaced for example. Under OS2.04 all modes are checked whether they are valid or not, but you should be careful under Kickstart 1.3 or earlier. However, this option should be used with care. COLORS ~~~~~~ You can specify your own colors for Arn's screen. The number of values should match with the 2^(number of bitplanes). The existence of this keyword is independent of SCREENDATA. (This was contributed by H. Schmiedehausen, thanks.) Example: COLORS 0x777 0x000 0xFFF 0xDD0 for 2 Bitplanes = 2^2=4 Colors PATHTYPE ~~~~~~~~ This optional entry determines how "Arn" generates a Path:-line for new-articles: PATHTYPE User means that "Arn" generates the line "Path: user". PATHTYPE No means that "Arn" generates no Path:-line at all. PATHTYPE Domain means that "Arn" generates a Path:-line with the full-domain systemname (Path: system.domain.topdom!user) all other keywords specify a full Path:-line: "Path: system!user". This entry was necessary, because AmigaUUCP V1.08D doesn't check anymore (for some odd reason), whether the system is already in path:-line or not (not good!), so it doubles the system entry. However, for AmigaUUCP Versions >=1.08D this entry should be: PATHTYPE User XLIFETIME ~~~~~~~~~ This optional entry specifies the default lifetime in days of your X-file (see 'X-files') entries, if you add automatically entries to X-files (not with your editor). If this entry is missing the XLIFETIME is set to 30 days. CATCHUPXREFS ~~~~~~~~~~~~ If this keyword exists (no value required) "Arn" marks cross-postings if you catchup a group. Because checking for cross-postings will cause a high disk-activity, this will take some time. Another reason for NOT marking cross-postings is that if you 'catchup' a group you normally only mean articles in this group. So it depends on you whether you want to mark all cross-postings or not. If this keyword is missing 'Arn' doesn't care about cross-postings if you make a catchup. 3. Invoking "Arn!" (#5.3) "Arn" should be invoked from the CLI. It has a few commandline-switches yet: Arn [-inpgXRP(n)] [-D directory] Switches can be set together after one '-' sign or each single: "Arn -n -g" is the same as "Arn -ng". A wrong option lets Arn ignore any further options. switches: -i print the version number and usage info. -n look for new-newsgroups -p starts "Arn" directly into "post article"-mode. After the article is posted (or not), "Arn" will quit. -X start "Arn" in X-FILE-EXPIRE-mode. "Arn" will not open it's screen, but look for all X-files and delete old entries (that are those whose expirationdate is reached) in them. You should let run Arn regularly with this option by 'dcron'. -R Reset all entries in your GROUPLIST (all groups unmarked). -D directory Arn uses this directory as newsgroup. All articles must be single numbers as in normal UUNEWS: newsgroup. No information about read/unread articles or this directory is saved after exiting. <directory> should specify a complete path and should have NO trailing "/". -g Arn will prompt for a newsgroup-name after startup and goto to this group if it exists. -P(n) The (n) is a placeholder for an integer between -127 and 128. Example: arn -P-2X will start Arn with priority -2 in X-FILE-EXPIRE-mode Nevertheless, you can start Arn from Workbench, too. In this case, make sure that you specified the full paths in .arnrc! You can close the CLI-Window from where you invoked "Arn", because the Standard-Error is no longer used (all Errors will now appear on Standard-Output -stdout). To do this you must use the "run" from WB1.3, the NULL:-device must be mounted and available and type the following: "run <nil: >nil: Arn <nil: >nil:" After "Arn" has launched you can close the CLI. For users which do not use AmigaOS 2.0: Why is the Null:-Device needed? Because "Arn" executes other programs and they need a valid pr_ConsoleTask, which is missing if you close the CLI. Result: without NULL: the machine would crash! o Running Arn (#6) ----------- "Arn" will open its own One-Bitplane-Screen (that is MONOCHROME or black/white). The cursor is now the block in the same colour as your text. Under AmigaOS 2.0 Arn will use your default screen-setup from your preferences/workbench, but only monochrome. With OS-versions below 2.0 it will automatically get the correct Screen/Window-Size, whether you have PAL or NTSC ("Arn" looks for the gfxbase->NormalDisplayRows). At the moment the vertical-size is 80 Chars or 640 Pixels (HIRES-Mode). But you can specify your own Screen- Dimensions with SCREENDATA in .arnrc, see below. "Arn" takes the default ROM-font (which is normally topaz.8). Maybe there are custom-fonts possible in later versions of "Arn". If all system resources could be opened and both Config-files (.arnrc and UUCONFIG) are correct, "Arn" will report "Initialization phase...ok!". Otherwise "Arn" prints an error-message to Standard-Error or its own screen (if opened). Possible error-messages are explained in the section "Error-Messages". - Checking for new-newsgroups If your GROUPLIST-File doesn't exist, "Arn" automatically will ask you for the newsgroups, you want to read. It will get all available newsgroups from a file called "newsgroups" in your current OR the "UULIB:" directory. At Amiga-UUCP the file already exists as UULIB:newsgroups. If you have an ACTIVEFILE then this activefile is taken instead of "newsgroups", there's no need to create "newsgroups"! The newsgroups-file has the format: news.group foo.bar fred.test So just for each newsgroup-name one line. All entries following the newsgroups-names are ignored (if separated by TAB or SPACE). Then "Arn" will read this "newsgroups"-file an check for missing groups in GROUPLIST (you can force "Arn" to do this when starting it with "Arn -n" or by pressing "^N" which means CTRL-N at the newsgroup-selector). The sequence of presenting/scanning/reading newsgroups is determined by the sequence of the GROUPLIST entries!!! This procedure looks like this: foo.bar not in .newsrc! Put foo.bar where? (t,B,l,n,q,?=help): Inputs are NOT case-sensitive! Type '?' (help) to get information what these characters mean: t=Top,B=Bottom (default),l=List,n=Nil,q=QUIT You can type 'T' or 't' to insert it at the Top of all existing newsgroups in your GROUPLIST. If you type 'B' or ANY other KEY than T,L,N or Q, the group is appended to your list in GROUPLIST. Type 'L' to list all newsgroups that are already in GROUPLIST. "Arn" will prompt now: Input NUMBER, Q or RETURN: You can now enter a number which specifies the exact position of the newsgroup in GROUPLIST. The new newsgroup will be inserted AT this number. If you type 'Q', you'll stop the list-function and return to the "Put it where" prompt. Type 'N' to skip this newsgroup, that means it will not be put in the GROUPLIST. The scanning for further new groups is continued. Type 'Q' to quit asking for new groups which are not found in the GROUPLIST. o Command-Lines (#7) ------------- "Arn" sometimes requests a more complex input than only one keystroke. At this time you will be put to the command-line where you can now type in upto 256 characters. Some examples of command-line invokations are the "g" or "s,w" commands at the article-selector (see below). Editing: You can move the cursor to the left with the [<-] (left-arrow) key, to the right with [->] respectively. If moving to the right the cursor will stop after reaching the last character. If you now type in normal letters they will be appended. Characters are INSERTED at the cursor position and the characters to the right are shifted. If the maximum input-length is reached, no further input will be accepted! You have to delete some other text first! To overwrite characters you have to delete them first and then to insert new ones. To delete characters just use the BACKSPACE-key as usual (the cursor deletes the next left character and moves to this position, all text from the right will move also one position to the left). The [Del]-key deletes the character under the cursor and moves all text from the right one position to left. The character-range for input is from SPACE to Tilde (ACSII (hex):0x20- 0x7E). o Newsgroup-Selection (#8) ------------------- If "Arn" has started properly (no problems during startup-phase) it will show all groups with unread or 'new' articles. This looks like: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Arn by R.Bless - 55/75 Newsgroups - page 1 of 3 New/Unread/Total a N ka.general 2/ 2( 5) b N control 1/ 1( 28) c N junk 3/ 3( 40) d N alt.sys.amiga.uucp 11/ 11( 142) e alt.sys.amiga.uucp.patches 0/ 1( 8) f N sub.sys.amiga 7/ 5( 284) g N comp.sys.amiga.programmer 49/ 49( 491) h N comp.sys.amiga.datacomm 6/ 6( 184) i N comp.sys.amiga.hardware 22/ 22( 341) j N comp.sys.amiga.misc 2/ 2( 59) k comp.sys.amiga.reviews 0/ 1( 1) l N comp.sys.amiga.emulations 11/ 77( 84) m N comp.sys.amiga.graphics 2/ 5( 5) >n N comp.sys.amiga.advocacy R 1/ 0( 2) o N comp.sys.amiga.applications 30/ 77( 279) p N comp.sys.amiga.audio 7/ 15( 82) q N comp.sys.amiga.introduction 4/ 9( 40) r N comp.sys.amiga.multimedia 1/ 1( 18) s comp.unix.amiga 0/ 1( 1) t N sub.config 23/ 26( 314) u N sub.general 2/ 5( 87) v N sub.studium 1/ 3( 14) w N sub.misc 22/ 190( 193) x N sub.mail 8/ 11( 62) y N sub.comm 4/ 4( 88) z N sub.umwelt 1/ 35( 35) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The first line is the header-line: Arn by R.Bless - 55/75 Newsgroups - page 1 of 3 New/Unread/Total it shows how many groups are included in the current listing (here 55) and how many newsgroups are subscribed in your GROUPLIST subscribed (here a total of 75). Furthermore the number of the currently displayed page is shown as well as the total number of pages. New/Unread/Total is only the legend for the columns under it. The 'N' in the second column shows that there are 'new' articles since you last exited "Arn" with 'Q' which deletes all 'new' marks. You can also exit with 'X' to leave all marks as they are. If there arrive new articles, so the active file is changed, "Arn" will mark them as new. There are two ways reading news: For speedy news reading you can use the up/down cursor key to move to the desired group and press ENTER to get into the article selector. There you can select articles to read in the same way you did with the groups. See next chapter below for details. For sophisticated news reading you can select all the groups that are of your interest: To select a group just press the letter that stands before the groupname and the line of the selected article is now in inverse text. To select a range of groups press the letter of the first group then '-' and "Arn" prompts in the last line "Select range:" the next letter entered marks the end of your selection. You get to the next page with further newsgroups to select by pressing the SPACE-bar or cursor right. If you're on the last page an press SPACE you'll automatically enter the first selected group. You can press 'Z' to read the selected groups immediately independent on which page you are. If you finished reading one newsgroup you're automatically transferred into the next select group until you read all selected groups or exited with "Q" or "X". Here is an overview of all possible commands. The cursor keys are denoted as C_??, alternative/equivalent keys are separated with a comma Key - Description C_UP C_DOWN - Moves the '>' prompt up and down pointing to the current article. C_RIGHT,> - Displays the next page of newsgroups if there are any more. C_LEFT,< ^ - Go to the first page $ - Go to the last page. A - Show all subscribed newsgroups (toggles). a..z - One letter in lower case selects this article. If you press the '-' next, Arn waits for another lower case letter to specify a range. + - Selects all groups that are marked as NEW. @ - Inverts any existing selection of the current page. You can select a whole page by pressing '@' when no selection exists. # - Selects all groups on all pages (not only the current page). % - Unselects all groups on all pages. ENTER - Enter the group where your prompt points to. If the group doesn't contain unread or new articles, all existing articles are listed. G name - go to the named newsgroup. Resubscribe unsubscribed newsgroups this way, too. (case is not important!) To get to an EMPTY NEWSGROUP (i.e. with no or no unread articles), use the "g" command and "goto" the desired group. "Arn" will not complain if this group is actually empty, but will return to the newsgroup-dir. /pat - search forward (/) or backwards (?) for the groupname containing ?pat "pat". pat is a REGEXP. Not case sensitive! ^P -post a new article to the net. "Arn" will ask you for the desired newsgroup(s), the subject and distribution. Then it will invoke your favourite editor (see UUCONFIG) and display the correct header. Now you can enter your text. If you quit your editor, "Arn" will prompt some choices which are described in detail at the follow-up function (see->pager - how to do a follow-up). ^U - Unsubscribe this group! If your press this combination, "Arn" will not show you the news from this group any longer. This group is excluded from reading articles if you confirm "Arn's" question: "Really UNSUBSCRIBE XXXXXX? [y,N]:" You can resubscribe this group with the "g" (goto newsgroup) command in the newsgroup-selector, because it is NOT REMOVED from your GROUPLIST (to do this, try ^D)! If you go to an unsubscribed newsgroup and you don't want to resubscribe this group, it is nevertheless scanned and if it contains any messages they will be displayed. The status of this group is still "unsubscribed." C - Catchup group that's in the cursor line. Note that crosspostings are not marked as read, unless you specify the CATCHUPXREFS keyword in .arnrc. K - Turns local X-files on or off. ^G - Turns global X-files on or off. ^T - Shows or hides the ScreenTitle. This key-combination toggles. It is very useful if you've more than two screens open, because there's no other possibility to click them in front. ^D - Delete this newsgroup from GroupList. Unlike ^U this command really removes the actual Newsgroup from the GROUPLIST. (after confirming: "Really REMOVE XXX from GroupList? [y,N]:"). ^S - Re-scan current newsgroup, respectively re-read the active-file. Then GOTO this newsgroup again. ^N - Check for new groups. This command will force "Arn" to look in your ACTIVEFILE (if enabled), "newsgroups" or "UULIB:newsgroups" for new groups which still are not in your GROUPLIST. The procedure is described in detail above (see RUNNING ARN - Checking for new-newsgroups). L - List all newsgroups from grouplist and show their status: newsgroupname : U M D xxxxxx-yyyyyy The flags U M D stand for: U- This group is currently unsubscribed. M- This group is moderated. D- This group will be removed from GROUPLIST. Their negations are not shown. xxxxxx-yyyyyy is the first and last article number in this group. c - Catch up. "Arn" will ask you for a confirmation. Mark all articles in this group as read! Goto next group. H - activates a short help-list. The help file must be available. It is VERY IMPORTANT to remember this command... To stop displaying the help-file, just press 'q'. ^H - Turns header-stop-mode on or off. See pager-commands. Q - Quit "Arn". "Arn" will update it's GROUPLIST and wait for you to press any key. All articles that were marked as new are (the next time you use "Arn") considered as old. X - Same as Q, but the new-marks are retained (not updated). ^Q - Quits "Arn" without updating the GROUPLIST (Emergency-exit). o Article Selection Commands (#9) -------------------------- A typical article selection screen will look like this. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- comp.sys.amiga.programmer - page 1 of 7 - 128 of 168 a Dave Plonka 1.3/2.0 difference w/# of IDCMP messages 39 R 131 b Peter Cherna > 20 N 155 c charon@ccwf.cc.u 2.04 ROMS on the 3000 -- Is there any wa 11 R 107 d Joakim Rosqvist 68040 speed 16 N 151 e Lee_Robert_Willi a new 1.3 Intuition interface builder 38 R 56 f C A Wichura Re: Absence of new uucp binaries??? - R 68 g Ralph Babel Re: Allocmem() causes expunge(). When ca 45 43 h Bruno Costa Re: Amiga 2.04 fd files 20 90 i Chris Hanson AmigaDOS StartNotify() and deletion. Bug 44 17 j Peter Cherna > 68 44 k Chris Hanson > - 63 l Ronn F. Black AmigaVision Bug Discovered... 33 22 m Markus Wild Re: Are even HARD links broken under 2.0 45 5 >n Mike Meyer > 22 7 o Michael B. Smith > - 64 p Chris Hooper > - 86 q Mike Meyer > 55 112 r Chris Hooper > 34 N 166 s Jeff Dickson Re: Assembler addressing mode 19 R 95 t Wolf Faust Re: Bug in 2.04 parallel device driver? 31 R 84 u Mike Schwartz C Comment question 13 R 100 v Matija Milostnik > 22 R 104 w Jeff Dickson > 16 R 117 x Jeff Dickson > 17 R 122 y Brett Bourbin > - R 126 z Craig Fisher > 26 R 134 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The first line shows the groupname that is displayed, the number of the page that is actually shown the number of pages available and the number of displayed articles on that pages as well as the number of total articles available in this group. In the example above there are 40 articles not displayed (read earlier) which you can display with 'A' (show all). The name of the author is displayed (Arnmaster tries to find the realname and cuts it to 16 chars maximum, if this fails (nobody) is displayed instead) and after it the subject. FollowUps to an article are marked with > instead with the subject. If there is a parent article, the subject is always printed. If the sequence of articles is not the chronological, you'll see something like this: Re: foobar > > foobar > > where foobar is the parent article. Then the number of lines contained in that article follows. If there is a '-' instead it means that Arnmaster could not find the "Lines:" line in the article. The flag-field is shown next, 'N' means new, 'R' read, 'D' deleted. The last field shows the article number of that article in this group. As in the group-selection-level you can read the article in two ways. Move the cursor to the desired article and press ENTER, the pager now shows the article. Or select individually with 'a'..'z','+','@','#' articles. Interesting is the '*' feature: It selects the whole unread thread of articles that have the same subject as the last one you have selected. SPACE takes you through all pages and starts the pager for reading the whole bunch of selected news when at the last page. Alternately, you can use 'Z' or 'TAB' to immediately read your selected articles. 'TAB' does automatically a catchup (i.e. mark ALL articles in this group as read) if you've read all the articles and takes you to the next selected group or if there is none to the group-selection-level. ENTER - displays article which is on your cursorline. SPACE - show next page of articles. If on last page, read selected articles. If there are none selected you get to the next select group or back to the group-selection. Selection: 'a'..'z'- selects a single article for later reading. To select a range type <start letter>'-'<end letter> (to select articles c-e type 'c-e'). * - select all unread articles with same subject as the previous selected. + - select all new articles. @ - invert the selection (selects whole page if no article selected). # - select all articles. A - show all articles (not only unread and new). This function toggles. Z - read all selected articles immediately TAB - read all selected articles at once and then catchup that group. Moving: C-UP - cursor up. C-DOWN - cursor down. C-RIGHT - same as space. C-LEFT - one page back. ^ - go to first page. $ - go to last page. Actions: J - junk. Mark the article in the cursor line as read. (Doesn't mark crosspostings, yet) C - catch up. Mark all articles in this group as read! Goto next group. ^U - unsubscribe this group (this group will not be displayed)! ^T - show/hide ScreenTitle. ^P - Post an article to this group. ^K - Add subject or author to your local/global X-file or edit it. K - Turn local X-file on/off. Articles are Xed next time you enter this group again. ^G - Turn global X-file on/off. V - Version info. Exiting the group: N,P - go to next or previous selected newsgroup. Q - Quit reading this group. Go to next selected group. X - Go back to newsgroup-selector. ^Q - Leave Arn immediately (GROUPLIST is not saved!). If you press SPACE on last page or 'Z' or TAB and there are selected articles, you'll enter the pager, the lowest level in "Arn". o The pager (#10) --------- * Display features (#10.1) "Arn" will display an article beginning with the line: Article XXX (of XXX) in XXXXXXX. ^^^ ^^^ ^^^ actual newsgroup ||| Last article-number in this group. Current article-number Then follows the header (that are the first lines until a newline is detected). The following lines are automatically hidden by "Arn" and can be displayed by pressing 'v' (verbose header): - Path: + References: + X + Nf- - Reply-To: All header lines beginning with these characters will not be shown. A prefix - means that line-continuation is not checked, a + means that it is considered. The "Subject:"-line is underlined. The text follows after the header and each line is carefully registered in its length so that "Arn" stops after your Screen is filled up (this is not the whole truth: "Arn" will always display the next n-1 lines, if your screen has a maximum of n lines, to let you always see/remember the last line from the previous page...). Even TABS are counted, so no text will scroll off the screen until you pressed a key! If the next line is very long, "Arn" can stop before the bottom line has been reached. If "Arn" detects a ^L (ASCII-12=FormFeed) it just will behave as it has reached the n-1 lines: it will stop and prompt: --- MORE (XX %) <XXX> (XX) --- ^^ ^^^ ^^ | | number of unread articles in this group | --- Article-number --- percent of displayed text (If "Arn" detects a ^L IN a line then the output of this line is slowed down! If this ^L is not in the first column, any commands are ignored, until to the end of this line.) After the number of unread articles there can be some letters in brackets {}. This shows the article status (R for read,D for marked as deleted). If you read all the text, that means you're at the end of this article or the article contains only one page, "Arn" prompts: "End of article <XXX> in XXXXXX (XXX). What now?[npq]:" ^^^ ^ ^^^number of unread articles in this Article-number | group. Newsgroup-name Yet the number of unread articles INCLUDES the actual displayed article, even you just read it. It will be marked as read (and all crosspostings, too, if your UUCP- software generates an Xref:-line) if you now press the SPACE-BAR. So if the last article in a newsgroup is reached, you will see that there's still one article unread (that's the one you're reading). Now you can enter some pager-commands ('h' or 'H' for help exists here, too!): * Basic pager commands (#10.2) ^R - restarts the current article (disables rot(13) mode). v - restarts the current article with a verbose header (see above). ^B - Display previous page. Displays the previous page(s) scrolled off. (turns rot-mode off) ^L - Redisplay the last page. Helpful after pressing 'h','H' for help. L - Turns clear-screen-mode on or off (default is OFF). If this mode is enabled the screen is cleared before showing the next page. Useful if you use more than one bitplane and you think scrolling is to slow. This key toggles. ^H - Turns header-stop-mode on or off (default is OFF). If this mode is enabled, "Arn" stops after displaying the header and prompts its "--more--". This key toggles. (If you turn this mode off at the header-prompt, you'll be at the end of this article. This is no bug, but it's not so easy to change it) x - display next page in rot(13) mode. X - redisplay this page in rot(13) mode. ^X - restart current article in rot(13) mode. T num - Enter a new rot-number (default is 13). If the text is encrypted with rot 18, you must use rot 8 to decrypt it. SPACE - SPACE BAR displays next page, if at the end of an article ONLY this key and ENTER will mark your article as READ (plus all articles in the appropriate groups if it is a crossposting and your news- system supports the Xref: line) and searches for the next selected article. If there is none you'll get to the next selected group, if any. RETURN/ ENTER - Displays only the next line. If pressed at the end of an article this article will be marked as read. g pat - searches in this article for given pattern (valid REGEXP) starting at the top. This search is NOT CASE DEPENDENT! If the pattern is found, the line containing this pattern is displayed in the first line of the screen, otherwise "Arn" displays "NOT FOUND!". G - continue search for pattern ('see g'). TAB - will also display the next page of text, but does nothing if at the end of the article. "Arn" will continue displaying this article if you type SPACE or TAB. If stopped at an ^L (FF), it will display "^L" instead of the real code. The line limit is 1024 Bytes (then the line is not longer considered as one line!) * Moving to articles in pager (#10.3) n,N - read next selected article (leaves the current article unread!). NOTE: Only 'j' marks this article as read or the SPACE BAR if pressed at the "End of article <XXX> in XXXXXX (XXX). What now?[npq]:"!!! p,P - read previous selected article. number - goto article with this number. A number is the set of '0'..'9'. "Arn" will enter the Command-Mode if you enter a number. Just press RETURN/ENTER after you typed in the desired number. "Arn" now jumps directly to this article (if available, otherwise it does nothing). (NOT IMPLEMENTED YET) /pat~mod - searches for pat in articles (default: only the "Subject:"- line is scanned). pat must be a valid REGEXP. Modifiers: c- case dependent search, a- search for pat in the whole article/text, h- search in header r- search in read articles too If no modifiers are given, the default is: - search in "Subject:"-line only - case independent search - search in unread articles only / only (no pattern or modifiers) means to SEARCH AGAIN with the last pattern and settings. To abort the search, just press ANY key (it's your task to keep your fingers away...). (Note: Yet it is impossible to search for / itself) (NOT IMPLEMENTED YET) ?pat~mod - to search in the other direction (? alone searches for the same pattern "backwards"). See explanations for "/pat~mod" above. * Posting, replying, forwarding, cancel (#10.4) f,F - Invokes your editor and produces a FOLLOW-UP. (see also SCREENSW in .arnrc) This function should only be used if your answer is informative enough for the whole readership, otherwise you should prefer the REPLY-function. You are not able to enter a follow-up if you're reading a moderated group (the ACTIVEFILE must be used, see Installing Arn - 2. ".arnrc" - ACTIVEFILE). If you're the moderator, just change the "m" in the active-file to "y" and you're able to post to this group. 'F' will include the original-article text, but with the QUOTECHAR inserted before each line! Quote only the important passages for easier remembering the subject, not the whole article! Try to summarize if possible. "Arn" generates a temporary file in your T: directory. The header contains all the required lines (RFC 1036) as RELAY and POSTING-VERSION (see "Installing-Arn - 2.Configuration-file"). All entries taken from the original-article get here with respect to the "line-continuation" (a header line can be continued if it The "Newsgroups:" line contains the same newsgroups as the "FollowUp-To:"-line of the original-article (if exists), otherwise the "Newsgroups:"-line from the original article is copied. If the FollowUp-To:-line contains more than one newsgroupname (one comma to separate), the following WARNING is displayed. "WARNING: Ambiguous FollowUp-To:-Line! Please (e)dit!" You should enter your editor once more and redirect the discussion into only one newsgroup, but if you like, you can also suggest two or more newsgroups (it's just a WARNING-message...). The "Subject:"/"Title:"-line is generated by inserting a "Re: " before the original "Subject:"-line, but only if this line didn't begin with "Re:" or "Re^"! The "Reply-To:"-address is either directly taken from your .arnrc (REPLYTO) or UserName@NodeNameDomainName. The "FollowUp-To:"-line is identical with the "Newsgroups:" line. It should only contain one newsgroup-name, to direct the follow-ups into one group. The "References:" is either created or copied from the original article. The "Message-ID:" of the original article is appended ("Arn" does an automatic wrap around of long references lines). ** IMPORTANT: ** If nevertheless your EDITOR wraps lines around, make sure that the new lines BEGIN with SPACE or TAB-characters (LINE-CONTINUATION!)! The "Distribution:" is copied unchanged. The "Organization:" is appended if available from UUCONFIG. The "Lines:"-line is inserted, if you really send the article. AFTER AT LEAST ONE BLANK LINE you can write your text or the included/quoted text follows after a line like this: "In article <1234@foosite.foo.bar> Freddy Foobar writes:" (If the realname is missing, the address is taken). "Arn" doesn't support multiple parentheses like: "(Freddy Foobar (the world's best))" The RFC 1036 says that this should be avoided!! REMEMBER TO LEAVE AT LEAST ONE BLANK LINE BETWEEN THE HEADER AND THE MESSAGE-BODY/TEXT! Your SIGNATURE (from .arnrc) will be added behind the header. After you've finished your editor, "Arn" will prompt: "p)ost, e)dit, f)ilter, a)bort:" If you type "p", "Arn" will check the header for redundant lines and removes them, the FollowUpTo-line is removed if it's identical with the Newsgroups-line. Then the article is sent to your SENDNEWS-program that is typically to your spool-directory respectively newsfeed. After that, "Arn" executes the SELFSEND-program if the entry in the .arnrc exists/is valid. NOTE: ********************* The contents of your posting are not checked/changed after editing, so YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY NONSENSE IN THE MESSAGE-HEADER! (and the trouble you'll get) ********************* With "e" you'll enter your editor once more. With "f" you can invoke a filter program that changes your article. See FILTER in .arnrc With "a" you don't send this article to the net! The article remains still in your T: directory as T:CancelledArt.<UserName>! If you didn't change the article at all, "Arn" will a)bort automatically. How to post an article: E - enter a new message (post new article to the net). "Arn" will render you to post a new article to this newsgroup. (if not moderated! For details see Follow-up). How to cancel a posting: C - Cancel this article, if it is yours. A control-posting is created if the From:-line contains "UserName@NodeNameDomainName"! The editor is invoked, same procedure as with follow-up. The cancel function will send a control-article which is distributed just as normal news-articles, but because it is a control-article, it will cause the news-sites to cancel (delete) the article where you pressed this key. This function is always useful, if you posted an article to the net and it already leaved your system, but you nevertheless want to withdraw it (maybe you posted nonsense, flames...). How to response by mail: r,R - Reply. Invokes editor and produces a reply ('R' for quoting text), that is E-mail (private-Mail). Attention: No "From:"-line is generated. This is normally the job of your sendmail-program (AmigaUUCP: sendmail -f user)...if this is nevertheless not possible, use the MAILOPTS in .arnrc or try it with a script file (see above SENDMAIL) and write me which program has this problems. The principle is the same as with FollowUps, but this article then is sent as E-MAIL through SENDMAIL. The "To:"-address is created from the following lines: "Reply-To:" if available, otherwise "Return-Path:" if available, otherwise "From:" Two empty "Cc:" and "Bcc:" lines are created. The "Subject:"-line follows the same rules as in followup- articles. A line "In-Reply-To:" is generated containing the articles Message-ID and the newsgroup it is from. If quoting ('R'), "Arn" creates a first line of text like this: "In sub.culture.foobars, article <1234@foosite.UUCP>, you wrote:" If not quoting this line looks like this: "This is a reply to your article <1234@foosite.UUCP>, in sub.culture.foobars" Your signature is included after the header. If you don't want a signature, delete it within your editor. After finished writing the article, "Arn" will prompt: "s)end, e)dit, a)bort:" The message "Sending mail..." is NO PROOF that your mail really will be spooled/sent off! You must be sure that your entry in .arnrc is correct and that this mail is really sent (try it once!). If you didn't change the article at all, "Arn" will a)bort automatically. If you aborted or an error occured the mail remains still in your T: directory as T:CancelledArt.<UserName>! ^W - Forward this article to other persons by E-Mail. This command is similiar to 'R', but you can specify the mail-addresses. * Other commands (#10.5) Archiving articles: s,w name - appends article(s) to a file. "Arn" appends it to the file "name" in the directory SAVENEWS: (see .arnrc), if given, else to SAVENEWS:groupname if no name is specified! You can save it/them to other directories/devices by specifying the FULL-PATH NAME containing a colon ":". This even works for prt:, so you can easily print articles with "s prt:"! These commands can be preceeded by a range! Examples: (assuming SAVENEWS is UUCP:usr/rob/News and the current newsgroup is comp.sys.amiga) "s" - appends article with header to UUCP:usr/rob/News/comp.sys.amiga "w help" - appends article without header to UUCP:usr/rob/News/help "1000,1010-1040 s" - appends full articles 1000,1010-1040 to UUCP:usr/rob/News/comp.sys.amiga "s UUCP:tmp/help" - appends full article to UUCP:tmp/help If the "name" begins with a '|', the rest of "name" and all following text will be considered as shell-commands. Save the article to Standard-Input of the following command (PIPING): "s |sort to RAM:test" will pass the article to standard-input of "sort", which then will put the result into RAM:test. "s | sort to RAM:test" is allowed also. NOTE: "s |" and "w |" commands will sent all further output to NULL:! So redirect your output if necessary or use the S/W/|! But "S" and "W" will open a SHELLWINDOW (see .arnrc) and this will act as input/output stream. To get rid of this window and to reenter "Arn", just type "endcli" to the CLI-command prompt. "S" is equivalent with "S |" and "|", "W" with "W |". This is NOT a REAL PIPING mechanism, because I didn't use the PIPE: device and I had to "run" the commands following "s |". This function creates a temporary-file in T: and then redirects the input-stream of the following program to this temp-file. The temp-file is then deleted. "s |command options further_commands" is executed as command <PIPE_tmpfile options further_commands. With ARP and the PIP-device, you're able to do multiple pipes: "S search STDIN fred | sort | type to RAM:test NUMBER" "|" - is shorthand for "S |". Marking articles (read or deleted): d,^D - mark article as deleted ('d' skips to next unread, '^D' stays at the current article). Don't use this function if you have an "expire" and an active-file!!!! WARNING: ** Your databases are maybe not updated correctly if you delete articles manually! This causes to mix up old subjects with new articles. You should delete all databases and then rescan all groups (see arnmaster.doc). Nevertheless, this function IS USEFUL: For AMIGA-Owners which don't have enough free space on their (hard-)disks to use an expire. They can read the articles and have directly free storage again. Or if there are large articles or binaries which you want to delete earlier, you can do it directly in your newsreader. Since the AMIGA is no Multiuser-System there is no need to protect this function against abuse. Most of the time the "system-operator" is the only one who reads news and has anyway the full control over the system...if you unintentionally marked an article as deleted, you can direct "Arn" not really to delete the article(s). Aborting the deletion (Answer 'N' at the "Really delete...") removes all "deletion marks" from the articles, but leaves them marked as read. 'r', reenter, leaves all articles marked as they were (deleted and read). You now can reenter the group once again and do something... You can remove all the del-marks by typing "1-$:d D". However, if you prefer an expire and an active-file just don't use this funtion! D - remove the delete mark from article. u - don't mark this article as read. Note: this will not unmark all crosspostings, too. j - junk this article (mark it as read) and do 'n'. (If your UUCP-software supports Xref-Lines (CNews and //\\migaUUCP Plus do), all crosspostings are marked as read, too). J - mark this article as read, but stay at this article. c - Catch up. "Arn" will ask you for a confirmation. Mark all articles as read! Goto next group. Miscellaneous: o - other program. This key invokes the external program EXTERNALPRG if specified in .arnrc ^T - Show ScreenTitle. This key toggles (show/hide). The window is resized and the ^L command is issued. ^G - Show current newsgroup status. ^S - Quit reading this newsgroup and rescan articles, respectively re-read the active-file. Then GOTO this newsgroup again. h,H - HELP. Display the help-text. * Range commands (#10.6) Range commands are executed only for some listed articles. You can additionally specify filter flags to restrict the field of activity. You first specify the range and then the command that is applied to it. Note that you can select articles and then use range command to save them for example ("1-$:s s T:test") range cmd- A range consists of one or more subranges: range:== subrange{","subrange} subrange:== number{":"flags} | number"-"number{":"flags} flags:== [minflag] minflag:== "u" | "U" | "r" | "R" | "d" | "D" number:== [digit] | "^" | "." | "$" digit:== "0" | "1" | "2" | "3" | "4" | "5" | "6" | "7" | "8" | "9" [x] denotes one or more occurrences of x. {x} denotes zero or more occurrences of x. | means "or" special numbers: ^ first article, $ last article, . current article. valid flags: U,u,R - unread; r - read; D - not deleted; d - deleted; s - selected; S - not selected cmd is one of =,r/j,u/U,x/d,D,w,W,s,S,| / means alternatively and | is here the "Pipe" sign (not longer "or") and part of the commmand. j,r - mark it read; u,U - mark it unread; x,d - mark it deleted; D - mark it undeleted; w,s - w,W,s,S,| -> see above (save,write) Leave the pager: q - Quit reading this article (let it marked read or unread). Go to next selected article if any. Q - Quit reading this article and goto the article selection or next selected group. o X-files (#11) ------- To automagically suppress messages you're not interested in, you now can use the X-file (aka "kill-file", but that's to aggressive IMHO). Unread messages that are matched by the entries in your X-file are simply skipped and marked as read ("junked") if you're reading articles. You normally have two levels of X-files: global X-files and local ones. Global X-files are examined in EACH newsgroup, unless you turn this feature off with the 'k'-command in the newsgroup-selection-level. Local X-files are only active in your current newsgroup you're reading (you can also turn them off in newsgroup-sel.-level with 'K') and therefore can be different for every newsgroup. The easiest way to create/use X-files is to use the '^K'-command in the pager-/article-selection-level. You'll see this line then: Edit G)lobal, Edit L)ocal, S)ubject, A)uthor, T)hread, Q)uit: To get rid of all articles that have the same subject press 'S', e.g. or 'A' to skip all messages written by this author. 'T' puts the first Message-ID of the References-line into the X-file and therefore skips all articles refering to this Msg-ID (to abort type 'Q'). If you've selected one of the three above, a second prompt asks for the X-file-level, that is global or local. Arn will add/create the entry in the X-file automatically for you. You naturally can add manually entries which is normally easy. An X-file entry looks like this: Header-field:/regular-expression~command expirationdate If the header field is missing "Subject:" is default. The regular expression is an V8-regexp, which is explained in detail in regexp.doc. command is 'j'(junk) or 'd'(mark for deletion) or 's'(autoselect). Again junk is default if this field is omitted. For Autoselection, i.e. articles that match are selected if you enter this group, you must specify the 's' command. The lifetime of each entry can be limited to the expirationdate. This is optional, if there is none expirationdate specified, the lifetime of this entry is unlimited (unless you delete it by hand!). Note that the entry is only IGNORED if the expirationdate is reached. To physically delete the redundant lines, you must start "Arn" with command-line option "-X". This inconvenience is because of better performance during reading articles. I recommend to run regularly "Arn -X" via "dcron". "Arn" sets the lifetime automatically to XLIFETIME days, if you're adding entries with "S","A","T" or "K". The expirationdate has the format: ddmmyyyy dd-day, mm-month, yyyy-year The / and ~ are separators and can be obtained itself by doubling: // is the slash itself or ~~ accordingly tilde. Please note that you have to override special regexp-meta-signs by \ (backslash) (but Arn makes it at S,A,T automatically). BTW: Concerning 'S': Arn limits the subject to 30 characters. X-files consider only HEADERS for matching patterns at the moment. You can specify the header field like From:, Keywords:, Summary:, etc. as mentioned above. Local X-files are named ".X<UserName>" and located in the newsgroup sub-dir. The global-X-file is named ".glX<UserName>" and is located in the same directory as your GROUPLIST-file is. Note: If you're searching for a subject ('/') and this subject is in your X-file, "Arn" will execute the X-command (junk, delete) and skip to the next article not in your X-file. This behaviour may be changed in future. o REGEXP (#12) ------ Regular expressions are somewhat complex and not always easy to understand, but you normally won't need all the features, so don't worry! (Syntax in a BNF-like form) Valid regular expressions: terminal symbols are enclosed in ' ', they mean the textual symbol itself. nonterminal symbols are enclosed in < >. {x} denotes zero or more occurrences of x. [x] denotes one or more occurrences of x. | means "or" <regexp>:== <branch>{'|'<branch>} <branch>:== {<piece>} <piece>:== <atom> <piece>:== <atom>'*' (matches sequence of 0 or more matches of the atom) <piece>:== <atom>'+' (matches sequence of 1 or more matches of the atom) <piece>:== <atom>'?' (matches a match of the atom or the null-string) <atom> :== '('<regexp>')' | <range> | '.' | '^' | '$' | '\'<char> | <char> '.' matches ANY character '^' matches the NULL-string at the beginning '$' matches the NULL-string at the end '\' matches the character that immediately follows. <range>:== '['<sequence>']' matches any single character from the <sequence> <sequence>:== [<char>] | <char>'-'<char> | '^'[char] '-' means the full list of ASCII characters between the two characters. '^' means "not", so it matches all characters not from the rest of the sequence. To include ']' or '-' in the sequence make it the fist character in the sequence. <char> :== any valid character (esp. 'A'-'Z','a'-'z','0'-'9') To override the meta-characters *,-,. etc. use the backslash before (\* means the asterisk itself). Somehow, this seems not always to work as one expects. Didn't have the time to figure it out, yet. Puuhh! Sorry for that. Now some concrete examples: regexp match no match ---------------------------------------------------------------------- abc aabbaaaabc abababacb Multiple words are allowed Multiple words are allowed Multiple abc|abd abababd xyzab ([Aa](miga)?)(-*)500 Amiga-500 500 ([Aa](miga)?)(-*)500 Aa-500 A ([Aa](miga)?)(-*)500 A-500 miga ab*bc abbbbc ac ab*bc abc axbbc ab+bc abbc abc ab+bc abbbbbc abq ab?bc abbc abbbc ab?bc abc ac ^abc$ abc abcc ^abc abcc aabc abc$ aabc abca a.c abc abb a.c axc ac a.*c axyzc axyzd ^a(bc+|b[eh])g|.h$ abh abcf (bc+d$|ef*g.|h?i(j|k)) effgz zzz o Error-Messages (#13) -------------- Error-Messages and WARNINGS appear on Standard-Output (stdout). If "Arn" is installed properly and you have some experience with it (it is running stable), you can redirect stdout to NIL:. If "Arn" cannot write its error-messages to its own screen (esp. during startup), it will send them to stdout. So do not redirect stdout to NIL: until you're sure that everything is ok. If the "Arn"-Window is open, you can read all other messages on this window, too. A "STRANGE ERROR" is an unexpected error that should(!) never occur. I hope that you'll never see any of them, but here they are: FATAL ERROR: Can't find/open intuition.library! FATAL ERROR: Can't open my screen! FATAL ERROR: Can't open my window! FATAL ERROR: Can't open a MsgPort! FATAL ERROR: Can't open the Timer! FATAL ERROR: Cannot continue! STRANGE ERROR: Something strange happened...! ERROR: Can't get my config-file, please check it! ERROR: UUConfig - required entry missing or file not found! ERROR: During startup! ERROR: No SEQFILE?! FATAL ERROR: Can't get enough memory! ERROR: Can't find the NEWSDIR! No spooldir available for <...> ERROR: Cannot open GroupList: <...>! ERROR: regexp: <...> ERROR: Can't find the ACTIVEFILE! ERROR: Invalid entry in GROUPLIST! WARNING: No NULL:-device mounted! Machine can crash if you close the CLI! WARNING: No 'uux' entry found! Took 'uux'. WARNING: No 'sendmail' entry found! Took 'sendmail'. WARNING: QuoteChar entry too long! WARNING: TimeZoneName missing or >5 chars, took GMT instead WARNING: GMT-Offset is in wrong format! ERROR: Wrong DBase-Format - missing From:! <...> ERROR: Wrong DBase-Format - missing Subject:! <...> ERROR: DBase-format corrupt: <...> WARNING: Video-Mode not available! WARNING: Headerbuffer is corrupt! <...> (See below) Nevertheless enjoy, Roland +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ (#14) Changes and new features with this release ------------------------------------------ + means new feature, - means changes, bug-fixes. Version: Bugs,Bug-Fixes,Enhancements: Arn V1.00 alpha rel3 - The signature is now included always before the editor is invoked. - The HEADERBUFFER CORRUPT message will only appear once on stdout. Please send a report if you got this error and READ the KNOWN BUGS section in the Arn.doc before. - If all groups were read, pressing A showed _no_ groups/all groups. This should be fixed now. - Q returned to group-dir if you read an article with ENTER. KNOWN BUGS: If Header-Stop-Mode is turned off when it's on and you're at the header, Arn will prompt 'more' to soon. Sometimes I got corrupted headers. You should see the message WARNING: Headerbuffer is corrupt! <...> on stdout. Please send me a mail if you got this error, describe exactly the additional information <...> (e.g. "More!" or "ConClear") AND write your configuration (esp. whether you're using WShell2.0,ConMan,OS2.0/1.3). This bug is not caused by Arn, but by the CMD_CLEAR console command. -- "Arn" has an "Init and shutdown count", if it crashes during that phase, please report the number. Send any (detailed*) BUG-REPORTS to bugs@spirits.ka.sub.org, thanks. *Detailed: Write which UUCP-Package you are using, whether you are "scanning" your news or using an active-file. Describe at which level and function the bug occured and which Arn version ("Arn -i") you possess. E-Mail Addresses: You can reach me at my site 'spirits' or at various other sites. --------------------------------------------------------------- UUCP/USENET: rob@spirits.ka.sub.org or : S_BLESS@iravcl.ira.uka.de BITNET : UKG5@DKAUNI2.BITNET X-400 : UKG5@ibm3090.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de S=UKG5;OU=ibm3090;OU=rz;P=uni-karlsruhe;A=dbp;C=de --------------------------------------------------------------- Home, sweet home :-): Roland Bless, Moersenbroicher Weg 151, Duesseldorf - FRG, voice +49 211 623817, FAX: +49 211 623818 ------------------------e-n-d--o-f--m-a-n-u-a-l---------------------