home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
Collection of Tools & Utilities
/
Collection of Tools and Utilities.iso
/
olrdrs
/
yarn_068.zip
/
YARN.DOC
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1994-06-22
|
31KB
|
911 lines
Yarn User Manual - version 0.68
Yarn - offline news storage and reading system
Copyright (c) 1994 Chin Huang
Permission to copy and distribute this material for any purpose and
without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above copyright notice
and this permission notice appear in all copies. THE AUTHOR MAKES NO
REPRESENTATIONS ABOUT THE ACCURACY OR SUITABILITY OF THIS MATERIAL FOR ANY
PURPOSE. IT IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED
WARRANTIES. THE AUTHOR WILL ASSUME NO LIABILITY FOR DAMAGES EITHER FROM
THE DIRECT USE OF THIS PRODUCT OR AS A CONSEQUENCE OF THE USE OF THIS
PRODUCT.
INTRODUCTION
Yarn is a suite of programs for your personal computer, used to store and
read USENET news downloaded from a USENET host.
FEATURES
- An import program inserts USENET articles into a "news base" from
Simple Offline USENET Packet (SOUP) format. A mail filter moves
incoming mail to specific folders or deletes incoming mail based on a
set of user defined rules.
- For each newsgroup, you specify the number of days to keep articles,
after which, an expire program deletes them. However, articles
containing an Expires: header are deleted on the date specified in the
header.
- The news base stores only one copy of a cross-posted article. The news
base implementation stores multiple articles per file.
- The Yarn news reader presents articles in threads arranged by Message-
ID and References. The reader program generates SOUP reply packets.
- Multiple users are supported by storing separate configuration files
for each user.
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
- MS-DOS 3.0 or higher
- 80386 compatible CPU or better to run the 32-bit DOS extender version
of the reader program. A real mode version of the reader is also
included for non-386 systems.
- a lot of hard disk storage, depending on how much news you want to
keep. For example, the author subscribes to 120 newsgroups including
some binaries and sources groups, keeping most articles for 7 days.
The amount of disk space used is 40 megabytes.
1
Yarn User Manual - version 0.68
INSTALLATION
INSTALL YARN DIRECTORY
Unpack the files from the Yarn package into a directory. Run the command
install [drive:]directory
where [drive:]directory specifies where to install the Yarn data
directory. This directory is created if it doesn't already exist. Choose
a disk drive with a lot of free space because the news base will be stored
here. In this document, this directory will be called the $YARN
directory.
SET UP USER DIRECTORY
To set up a user directory where Yarn will store your user information,
run the command
adduser
A form appears in which you fill in the required user information.
+ Add User ------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| Home directory: C:\JIM |
| |
| User ID: jsmith |
| |
| Host system: netcom.com |
| |
| User's full name: Jim Smith |
| |
| Editor program: edit |
| |
| Reply packet file: C:\UPLOAD\IOXR.ZIP |
| |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
Home directory
Specify the directory where Yarn will store your user information.
This directory is created if it doesn't already exist. In this
document, this directory will be called the $HOME directory.
User ID
Set this to your login name on the host from which you download and
upload USENET news.
Host system
Set this to the full domain name of your host.
User's full name
Set this to your full name. This is the name that appears in
parentheses on the From: header in messages you send.
2
Yarn User Manual - version 0.68
Editor program
Set the name of the editor program to run when you send messages.
The program must be in your PATH.
Reply packet file
Specify the full path of the SOUP reply packet file where your
outgoing messages are stored. If the reply packet file does not
exist, it is created when you post an article or send a mail message
from the reader program. When you exit the reader program, the reply
packet is ready to upload to your host.
The program writes the user information to a configuration file named
$HOME\yarn\config. This document refers to other configuration settings
also stored in this file. If you want to change those settings, you have
to edit the configuration file with a text editor.
SET TIME ZONE
Set the environment variable TZ to your time zone. The format of the TZ
string is
zzz[+/-]h[h][ddd]
zzz is a three character field representing the name of the time zone.
[+/-]h[h] is an optionally signed number representing the local time
zone's difference from Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) in hours. Positive
numbers adjust westward from GMT. Negative numbers adjust eastward from
GMT.
ddd is an optional three character field that represents the name of the
local time zone's daylight saving time.
If no TZ environment variable is set, a default TZ=EST5EDT is assumed.
UPDATE SYSTEM FILES
Put these SET commands in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file to ensure the environment
settings persist after the next time you reboot your system. (If you are
installing Yarn for OS/2, put the SET commands in your CONFIG.SYS file
instead.) Use the settings determined above for the values appearing to
the right of the equal signs.
SET YARN=$YARN
SET HOME=$HOME
SET TZ=EST5EDT
USING THE MAIL FILTER
The mail filter looks at incoming mail messages and process the messages
based on a set of rules you define. You can set up a rule that
automatically moves messages you receive from a mailing list to a specific
folder. Or, you can automatically delete messages from a specific user so
that you don't even see messages from that user.
3
Yarn User Manual - version 0.68
Run the filter program to set up the filter rules. A list of filter rules
appears. To add a filter rule, press the [Ins] key. The mail rule form
appears.
+ Mail Rule ----------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| Rule name: Yarn M