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__________________________________ | | | | | ** | | **** | | ** ** ** *** ***** | | ** ** *** ** ** ** | | ****** ** ** ** ** | | ** ** ** ** ** | | ** ** **** ** ** | | | | Amiga-USENET-NewsReader | | (C)opyright by Roland Bless | | ©/Written 1990 | | A Byteable Software Product | |__________________________________| Arn.doc for VERSION 0.67 ------------ Hint: Find out your current-version-number by typing "Arn -i" to a CLI. CHANGES according to earlier versions can be found at the end of this file. o (C)opyright and Distribution ---------------------------- 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! DISTRIBUTION IS ONLY ALLOWED AT COST-PRICE/FOR NON-PROFIT! - 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! It must be separately distributed from this packet. - The redistribution of a changed source without permission of the author is strictly prohibited! - I do not take the responsibility for any loss of data or any kind of trouble caused by "Arn"! - 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 feel free to support me with some money of any amount (suggested 15-20 DM or US $10). My address is: Roland Bless Kriegsstrasse 129 FRG - 7500 Karlsruhe 1 (Federal Republic of Germany) Please redistribute always the files together which come with this release. Thanks! Send any Bug-Reports to (UUCP): bugs@spirits.ka.sub.org o Files ----- Arn - the executable/binary Arnhelp.txt - the help-text for arn. Arn.doc - this documentation preprnews - a little program for rnews to get single articles put into your own newsgroups (esp. for Amiga-UUCP). .arnrc - an example of "Arn"'s configuration file (AmigaUUCP-PLUS). .arnrc.duucp - an example of "Arn"'s configuration file (AmigaUUCP V1.06D-Dillon). UUConfig - an example of the UUCONFIG-file sendm - an example of a possible script-file for SENDMAIL null-handler - the null:-device mountlist - the mountlist entry for the null-handler. rot - a variable "rot" program (rot13). rot.c - source and usage of rot. README - important announces. o Intro ----- "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). It 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). This newsreader was written from scratch without looking into the real "rn"-source. Please understand that this version is not yet as powerful as its model. It was written in C and I tried my best to program it close to the "programming-rules" from Commodore-Amiga. Maybe it will run just as good under Amiga-OS 2.0 as under Kickstart 1.3/1.2. 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. 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" makes use of the "active"-file which is supported by AmigaUUCP Plus, the "scanning" phase is disabled then. Please excuse my horrible English, it isn't my native language. o Short information about USENET-Messages --------------------------------------- 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 -------------- 1. System requirements "Arn" was written under Kickstart 33.180 and Workbench 34.28 on a European PAL-Amiga 2000B Rev 4.3 with 2 MB more Fastram (A-2058). "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!). The NULL:-Device must be installed. 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! 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 for AmigaUUCP-Version 1.06D! # 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 1.06D (AmigaUUCP) POSTINGVER version 1.06D (AmigaUUCP) SENDNEWS uux %s "%s!rnews" SENDMAIL sendmail <%s -f rob RNEWS preprnews %s "rnews " SHELLWINDOW Y NEWCON:0/0/640/200/Arn's CLI #EXTERNALPRG Y rx postit %s #Set NEWSDIRTYPE to Y or YES for CNews and JDCP #NEWSDIRTYPE Y #Alternative reply-address #REPLY-TO fred%nonsens@foovax.bar.com #send mail by using a script (archives sent mails) #SENDMAIL sendm %s rob #FROMLINE Y #SCREENDATA 640 512 1 0x8004 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 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. ACTIVEFILE ~~~~~~~~~~ This is the FILENAME (with specified path) of your active-file IF YOUR UUCP-Version supports it (AmigaUUCP V1.06D currently does not!)!! //\\migaUUCP Plus supports this and it's MUCH more comfortable to read news with an "active"-file. "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 smurf * Organization Byteable Software Products, private, Karlsruhe (FRG) MailEditor Dme NewsEditor Dme DomainName .ka.sub.org DefaultNode smurf 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. 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 two lines of space. 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 AmigaUUCP 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: 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 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 FROMLINE 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 FROMLINE ~~~~~~~~ This entry doesn't require a value. If the keyword FROMLINE exists in .arnrc, "Arn" automatically generates a "From:"-line at replies. Examples: FROMLINE or FROMLINE yes, man do it... RNEWS ~~~~~ This is the program that sorts in the article(s) for YOUR system. If you write an article, AmigaUUCP e.g. sends it off, but this article is not sent into your newsgroups. Normally the SENDNEWS- program (inews?) should do this for you, but if it doesn't, take "preprnews" and "rnews". preprnews is a little program from me: 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 should look like this RNEWS preprnews %s "rnews " if you have the buggy AmigaUUCP V1.03D-rnews take the patched rnews2. RNEWS preprnews %s "rnews2 <" (Sorry: I didn't include it, because it would be too much waste... Patch it yourself, it's easy!: copy rnews to rnews2 Patch in rnews2 byte $4344 from $0A to $00, e.g. with newzap) 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 NEWCON:0/0/640/200/This is a newcon window raised by Arn NEWCON: is the better WB1.3 CON: device. As you will see, spaces are preserved, the whole string is copied until end of line. ConMan[1] users have a great advantage, because they are able to open the CON:-Window on "Arn's"-Custom-Screen! A possible entry: N CON:S*/0/0/640/200/ConManWindow on Arn Screen If you're not using ConMan, 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). [1]: ConMan is a replacement console handler from William S. Hawes (Shareware!). Get it from the fish disks...latest(?) Version: V1.3 Rev 2. 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). 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. "Arn" normally opens a 640xNormalDisplayRows (256 PAL/200 NTSC), two coloured (B/W-1 Bitplane) Screen. (Suggested by Henrik Clausen, thanks!). If this keyword exists, you MUST(!!) specify FOUR keywords: SCREENDATA width height depth Modes "width" and "height" are the ArnScreen dimensions, "depth" is the number of desired Bitplanes, all in DECIMAL format (short integer, i.e. 16-bit). Modes are the ViewModes in HEXADECIMAL format (short integer)! Sorry for this inconvenience, but it's for future compatibility... Here are the important 1.3 possible ViewModes: Name: | Hex-Value: | Comment: ----------------+------------+--------------------------------- HIRES | 0x8000 | Doubles Width Res. (640 Pixel) LACE | 0x0004 | Doubles Height Res. (Interlace) | | (512 or 400 Pixel etc...) PFBA | 0x0040 | Not useful for "Arn" DUALPF | 0x0400 | Not useful for "Arn" HAM | 0x0800 | Not useful for "Arn" SPRITES | 0x4000 | Not useful for "Arn" VP_HIDE | 0x2000 | Hides screen GENLOCK_AUDIO | 0x0100 | n.c. GENLOCK_VIDEO | 0x0002 | n.c. EXTRA_HALFBRITE | 0x0080 | n.c. To set "Arn"'s Screen to 640x512 Pixels (512 is PAL), 1 Bitplane enter this: SCREENDATA 640 512 1 0x8004 WARNING: If you enter any wrong values, "Arn" can crash! "Arn" ======= doesn't check your specifications. Be careful! 3. Invoking "Arn!" "Arn" should be invoked from the CLI. It has a few commandline-switches yet: Arn [-inp] Switches can be set together after one '-' sign or each single: "Arn -n -i" is the same as "Arn -ni". This example doesn't make sense: 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. This has changed since version V0.62: Now 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. 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 ----------- "Arn" will open its own one Bitplane-Screen (that is MONOCHROM or black/white). The cursor is now the block in the same colour as your text. 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 it where? (Top,(B)ottom,List,Nil,Quit): Inputs are NOT case-sensitive! You can type now '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. -Scanning articles After this "Arn" will scan for articles in the Newsgroup-directories and prompt if there are unread/new news. Remember: The sequence of presenting/scanning/reading newsgroups is determined by the sequence of the GROUPLIST entries!!! If a directory of a newsgroup in GROUPLIST doesn't exist, "Arn" will display "No spooldir...". At this time you're at the "newsgroup-selector", which means that you can choose which newsgroup you want to read. If a group is empty or all articles read in it, "Arn" will display "no unread news in newsgroup." If you have no ACTIVEFILE the scanning process is indicated by the message "scanning articles...be patient...". "Arn" will only scan filenames which are (the article-) numbers (filenames consist only of '1'-'9')! o Command-Lines ------------- "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 ------------------- This is the prompt: "XXX unread article(s) in XXXXX.XXXX.XXXX. Read now? [Ynq]:" or "What now? [pnq]:" The most common choices are in brackets, where the default action is in upper case, i.e. if you press the space-bar "Arn" will react as you just have pressed the "y". Type the key you want (no return/enter needed!). A ^ directly followed by a letter means to press simultanously the [CTRL]-Key and the letter. For example: ^X means [CTRL]-X, but a single ^ means only the character itself. Key - Description y - enter this group and read next unread article. This will put you in the PAGER. see section -> THE PAGER n - don't read this newsgroup, continues the search for next group with unread news. p - search for previous newsgroup with unread articles. N - go to the next newgroup (no matter if all articles are already read). P - go to previous newsgroup (same as N, but in the other direction). 1 - go to the first newsgroup (in grouplist). ^ - go to the first newsgroup with unread news. $ - go to the last newsgroup (in grouplist). - - go to recently/previous newsgroup where you read an article (toggles). = - List subjects of articles in this newsgroup. To stop the listing of articles, press 'q' at the "[Type any key to continue]". g name - go to the named newsgroup. Resubscribe unsubscribed newsgroups this way, too. The name must match exactly (case is important)! Wildcards *? allowed! 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 skip to the next group with unread articles if you try to enter this group (press 'y')! This way makes it possible to unsubscribe etc. "empty" newsgroups. If the directory for this newsgroup doesn't exist, "Arn" will display an error message an skip to the next newsgroup with unread articles. /pat - search forward (/) or backwards (?) for the groupname containing ?pat "pat". Wildcards ? and * allowed. Not case sensitive! E - enter 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->ARTICLE SELECTION - 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." ^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). c - Catch up. "Arn" will ask you for a confirmation. Mark all articles in this group as read! Goto next group. h,H - activates a short help-list (stop with "q"). The help file must be available. It is VERY IMPORTANT to remember this command... To stop displaying the help-file, just press 'q'. q - Quit "Arn". "Arn" will update it's GROUPLIST and wait for you to press any key. Q - Quits "Arn" without updating the GROUPLIST (Emergency-exit). o The pager --------- "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 the next display 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> --- ^^ ^^^ Article-number percent of displayed text Please note that quoted ^Ls are not checked!!!! The ^L (FF) must be in the first column. After the article-number 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 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!): ^R - restarts the current article (disables rot(13) mode). v - restarts the current article with a verbose header (see above). ^B - Back up one page. Displays the previous page scrolled off. Currently, this function supports only ONE page to back up! (turns rot-mode off) ^L - Redisplay the last page. Helpful after pressing 'h','H' for help. 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 will mark your article as READ and searches for the next unread article ('n'). g pat - searches in this article for given pattern (*? wildcards) 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!) o Article Selection Commands -------------------------- n - read next unread article (leave the current article unread). If no further unread article is left, "Arn" will prompt: "Reached last article! Reenter this group? (y/N):" This gives you the possibility to take once more a closer look to the articles in this group or whatever. If you want to read the next group just type 'N' or SPACE. (You see that the SPACE BAR will take you through the groups...) REMEMBER: Only the SPACE BAR marks this article as read if pressed at the "End of article <XXX> in XXXXXX (XXX). What now?[npq]:"!!! N - read next article if article is read or unread. p - read previous unread article (if none do 'n'). P - read previous article (read or unread, if none do 'n'). ^ - goto first unread article. $ - goto last artice. 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 or does nothing. ^F - search for next article with reference to displayed article. "Arn" will scan all articles with increasing numbers for containing the Message-ID of the displayed article in the References: line of the scanned article. If "Arn" is at the last article, it will continue the search at the first article and stop if the displayed article is reached once again. This is true for all search functions below (except / and ? functions): All articles, read or unread, are scanned! To abort the search, just press ANY key (it's your task to keep your fingers away...). ^E - like ^F but in the other direction (scans previous articles, decreasing numbers and starts over at the last article). ^P - search for the parent article (first Message-ID in References:). Direction is the same as with ^E. If the displayed article is no Follow-up or does not contain a References:-line, "Arn" will do nothing. > - search for the next article (increasing numbers) refering to the same parent article. If no References:-line exists this function is disabled. < - same like >, but searching for the previous article (decreasing order). Currently only the "Message-ID:"-line is scanned, so that articles with "Article-I.D.:" are not noticed. /pat\mod - searches for pat in articles (default: only the "Subject:"- line is scanned). 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) Following wildcards are allowed: * - for any sequence of characters (even no char) ? - for any character, but at least one. To abort the search, just press ANY key. ?pat\mod - to search in the other direction (? alone searches for the same pattern "backwards"). See explanations for "/pat\mod" above. How to do a follow-up: 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 begins with one or more TABS or SPACES). 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: Ambigous 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 since V0.67...). ** 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! After you've finished your editor, "Arn" will prompt: "p)ost, P)ost (no signature), e)dit, n)ewsfeed, a)bort:" If you type "p", your SIGNATURE (from .arnrc) will be added to your follow-up article after TWO BLANK LINES. Then the article is sent to your SENDNEWS-program that is typically to your spool-directory respectively newsfeed. After that, "Arn" executes the RNEWS-program if the entry in the .arnrc exists/is valid. NOTE: ********************* The contents of your posting are not checked/changed after editing (follow-up-line is the only one), 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 "n" you can specify another newsfeed as the one from UUCONFIG. With "a" you will not send this article to the net! The article remains still in your T: directory (T:ARN.XXXXXXXX)! 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 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 keyword FROMLINE 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" After finished writing the article, "Arn" will prompt: "s)end, S)end (no signature), e)dit, a)bort:" The message "Sending mail..." is NO PROOF that your mail really will be spooled/sent off! You must be shure that your entry in .arnrc is correct and that this mail is really sent (try it once!). NOTE: 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 |". 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!!!! 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" (that's how it worked in earlier version's <=0.65). 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. j - junk this article (mark it as read) and do 'n'. = - List subjects of (unread) articles in this newsgroup. To stop the listing of articles, press 'q' at the "[Type any key to continue]". 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...). c - Catch up. "Arn" will ask you for a confirmation. Mark all articles as read! Goto next group. o - other program. This key invokes the external program EXTERNALPRG if specified in .arnrc ^T - Show ScreenTitle. This key toggles (show/hide). ^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. q - Quit reading this article (let it marked read or unread). Stay in this newsgroup if any unread articles left. Q - Exit and don't update the grouplist-file (Emergency break) range cmd: A range consists of one or more subranges: range= subrange{","subrange} with subrange= number[":"flags] | number"-"number[":"flags] [] means not once or once {} means any number off occurences (even none). | means "or" special numbers: ^ first article, $ last article, . current article. valid flags: U,u,R - unread; r - read; D - not deleted; d - deleted / means alternatively and | is here the "Pipe" sign (not longer "or") and part of the commmand. cmd is one of =,r/j,u/U,x/d,D,w,W,s,S,| 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) o Error-Messages -------------- Error-Messages and WARNINGS appear now (since V0.62) 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. 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 happend...! ERROR: Can't get my config-file, please check it! ERROR: Trouble at reading the UUConfig ERROR: During startup! ERROR: No SEQFILE?! FATAL ERROR: Can't get enough memory! ERROR: Can't find the NEWSDIR! No spooldir available... ERROR: GroupList entry too long! ERROR: GroupList cannot be opened! ERROR: Can't open the ACTIVEFILE! 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! Nevertheless enjoy, Roland +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ RELEASE-HISTORY and CHANGES --------------------------- + means new feature, - means changes, bug-fixes. Version: Bugs,Bug-Fixes,Enhancements: 0.61 - Bug corrected: Article-modus now stays if you'll do "P" at one-page articles (in 0.60 it was marked UNREAD). + Wildcards now allowed for /pat\ and ?pat\. - Modified the / and ? functions. - QUIT: The "Arn: quit" will no longer appear in the CLI-Window (stderr). - Bug fixed: "Arn" causes no longer crashes if you do a "cd root" (BOOTDEVICE) before starting "Arn". (Thanks to Gereon Ziegelowski!). 0.62 - "Arn" now uses DateStamp() instead of the timer.device. - Errors will be sent to standard-output and no longer to stderr. Now you can close the CLI where you started "Arn" from, so the NULL:-Device is really needed (see section: "Installing Arn - 3. Invoking Arn"). + ALL article search functions now abortable ("g" not)! + FollowUp-To line is now checked for multiple entries! + Saving article(s) via SHELL/PIPE now installed (great!)! + / and ? for newsgroups now installed. - Changed the meaning of the moderated char in active-file: Now "m" means moderated group, "y" means everyone can post. + "Arn" now understands "." for current article! - Changed "C" to "c" for catchup. "C" is now Cancel. + You now can cancel articles. - "Arn" will always switch back to its screen, independently from SCREENSW. - "preprnews" now makes use of the NULL:-Device, too. 0.63 + Command-line input now with insert-mode and [Del]-Key and debugged! + EXTERNALPRG-feature in .arnrc added. - "Arn"'s messages are now in BOLDFACE. - Bug fixed: The "goto group" command has not worked if you deleted some articles! Now everything is sane... + Added ROT13, changed keys: Q is now Emergency exit (was 'X'). ^D deletes now articles (was 'x'). 0.64 - Serious(!) Bug fixed in myfgets()-routine! Would probably have affected only headers over 4kB length, searches and arnhelp.txt! - (No new feature, just for me: GeneralBOOL-Variable) - Another big bug fixed: GOTO Article was out of order during V0.62-0.63?! - Some minor changes in the pager. Rot-Mode now correct! + T- command for variable rot implemented. - Minor Bug fixed: TAB-counting is now correct. - Bug fixed: search abort now works correct (signals are cleared). 0.65 - Serious Bug fixed: active-file support for empty/new-grouplist caused crashes...totalNIs wasn't initalized! - T-command doesn't take you longer to the end of an article. + "Arn" now adds the Lines:-line in message-header! - (Minor internal change:Tmp-filenames changed.) + If keyword FROMLINE exists in .arnrc the From:-line is now generated at replies. 0.65b (not released! Only bug-fixes) Some bugs are fixed: - Adding non existant newsgroups (i.e. no dir for groups) to Grouplist (^N) caused never ending loops (when used other than N,n,P,p) (Thanks to Christian Balzer). - Newsgroups-name wasn't correct after reading the active-file again (^N again). - Deleting articles now will mark articles as read (it's better for active-file usage). - Changed the behaviour at the "Really delete..." (see d,^D). + Enhanced the EXTERNALPRG entry/function (see .arnrc-EXTERNALPRG) 0.66 + SCREENDATA in .arnrc added (suggested by Henrik Clausen). - Serious stupid bug fixed: "Arn" wrote into Zero-Page, if any groups in the active-file were not in grouplist (Thanks to Heiko Rath). - [reorganized source (Maybe some bugs caused by wrong function return values, watch out...!)] + ^S - Rescan newsgroup command added. - IMPORTANT: TimeZoneOffset has changed in .arnrc! [+/-]hhmm is now the offset-value! 0.66a (not released) - Corrected once again newsgroup-adding procedure...puuhh. - Changed message if the directory for a newsgroup doesn't exist: No spooldir... 0.66b ???? 0.66c Bug fixed in cancel-function (thanks to Georg Sassen). 0.67 - Corrected article counting for active-file. 0 is no longer a valid oldest article number (is automatically set to 1 now). + Automatic wrap around of long References:-lines Some editors may have problems with very long references-lines (most editors have problems with more than 256 chars per line). "Arn" now tries to break References:- lines if they are longer than 75 characters. - Fixed bug at "What now..." prompt. Endless loops were caused by "y","=","c" if group was unsubscribed. "Arn" now has a "shutdown count" to find the following (or another) bug: Known Bugs: Some people reported that they hang sometimes if they want to quit "Arn". I thought that this was caused by the CLI-Window, but today (01/10/90) I had this strange behaviour, too. I noticed that DCRON hanged, too! Maybe it's caused by the NULL:-device, don't know...I'm working on it! Please report the shutdown number where "Arn" freezes (even if no number occurs...). Send any (detailed) BUG-REPORTS to bugs@spirits.ka.sub.org, thanks. Study Address: +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |R o l a n d B l e s s |UUCP: rob@spirits.ka.sub.org | |Kriegsstrasse 129 |FAX: +49211623818 BTX:0211623818-0001| |7500 Karlsruhe - FRG |---------spirits--in--the--material--world---------| |voice +49 721 857328 |"They built machines that they can't control" STING| +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Home, sweet home :-): Roland Bless, Moersenbroicher Weg 151, Duesseldorf - FRG, voice +49 211 623817