NEWSRDR: An NNTP News Reader for VMS February, 1990 This manual describes NEWSRDR, an NNTP-based news reader for VMS systems. Revision/Update Information: This manual supersedes V2.0 of this document. Operating System and Version: VMS V5.0 or later Software Version: NEWSRDR V2.0 Engineering Computing Services Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Troy, New York ________________________ 23 February 1990 Permission is granted to copy and redistribute this document for no commercial gain. The information in this document is subject to change without notice and should not be construed as a commitment by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Rensselaer assumes no responsibility for any errors that may appear in this document. DISCLAIMER: The software described in this document is provided "as is". No guarantee is made by the author or the author's employer as to the suitability, reliability, security, usefulness, or performance of this software. __________ Copyright ©1989, 1990 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute All Rights Reserved. Printed in U.S.A. This document was prepared using VAX DOCUMENT, Version 1.2 _______________________________________________________ Contents _________________________________________________ PREFACE vii _________________________________________________ NEW FEATURES AND CHANGES ix _______________________________________________________ PART I INTRODUCTION _______________________________________________________ CHAPTER 1 INSTALLING NEWSRDR 1-1 _________________________________________________ 1.1 HELP LIBRARY 1-2 _________________________________________________ 1.2 PRIVILEGES REQUIRED 1-2 _________________________________________________ 1.3 OTHER USER REQUIREMENTS 1-3 _________________________________________________ 1.4 FULL-SCREEN OUTPUT 1-3 _________________________________________________ 1.5 CALLABLE EDITORS 1-3 _________________________________________________ 1.6 VMS MAIL INTERFACE 1-4 iii Contents _______________________________________________________ CHAPTER 2 USING NEWSRDR 2-1 _________________________________________________ 2.1 USING NEWSRDR FOR THE FIRST TIME 2-1 2.1.1 Cancelling a Subscription _____ 2-2 _________________________________________________ 2.2 READING NEW NEWS 2-2 2.2.1 Redisplaying an Article _______ 2-3 2.2.2 Following a Thread ____________ 2-3 _________________________________________________ 2.3 SKIPPING ARTICLES 2-4 _________________________________________________ 2.4 PERMANENTLY IGNORING TOPICS OR AUTHORS 2-4 2.4.1 Removing Ignore Settings ______ 2-5 _________________________________________________ 2.5 READING SPECIFIC ARTICLES 2-5 _________________________________________________ 2.6 SAVING ARTICLES 2-6 _________________________________________________ 2.7 POSTING ARTICLES 2-7 2.7.1 Followup Articles _____________ 2-7 2.7.2 Sending Mail Messages _________ 2-8 _________________________________________________ 2.8 PROFILE SETTINGS 2-8 2.8.1 Personal Name _________________ 2-9 2.8.2 Article Headers _______________ 2-9 2.8.3 Automatic Editing, Editor Name __________________________ 2-9 iv Contents 2.8.4 Signature _____________________ 2-10 _________________________________________________ 2.9 SUBPROCESSES 2-10 _________________________________________________ 2.10 KEYPAD KEYS 2-11 _________________________________________________ 2.11 HEADER CACHING 2-11 _______________________________________________________ PART II COMMAND DESCRIPTIONS ATTACH CMD-3 CURRENT CMD-4 DEFINE/KEY CMD-5 DIRECTORY CMD-9 DIRECTORY/GROUP CMD-11 EXIT CMD-13 EXTRACT CMD-14 FOLLOWUP CMD-16 GROUP CMD-17 HELP CMD-18 MAIL CMD-19 NEXT CMD-21 POST CMD-22 READ CMD-24 REPLY CMD-26 SET ARCHIVE_DIRECTORY CMD-30 SET EDIT CMD-31 SET HEADERS CMD-33 SET IGNORE CMD-36 SET PERSONAL_NAME CMD-38 SET SEEN CMD-39 SET SIGNATURE CMD-41 SHOW CMD-43 SPAWN CMD-45 v Contents SUBSCRIBE CMD-48 UNSUBSCRIBE CMD-49 UPDATE CMD-50 _______________________________________________________ TABLES 1-1 NEWSRDR system logical names __ 1-1 CMD-1 Header names __________________ CMD-33 vi _______________________________________________________ Preface USENET news has become more and more pervasive even among VMS users. There are several news-related utilities available for VMS, some of which provide full local storage of news and UUCP protocol support, and some of which provide emulation of various network news readers available for UNIX systems. With the advent of NNTP, it becomes easier to gain access to USENET news by using one local system to store news and using "remote" news readers on other systems. The NEWSRDR utility provides an interface to USENET news that may be more familiar to VMS users. NEWSRDR attempts to follow the conventions of the VMS MAIL utility in its presentation and command structure whenever possible. __________________________________________________________________ Intended Audience This manual is intended for all users of the NEWSRDR utility and system managers responsible for installing and setting up NEWSRDR. __________________________________________________________________ Document Structure This document consists of two parts. The first describes the installation and use of NEWSRDR. The second describes all of the NEWSRDR commands in detail. vii Preface __________________________________________________________________ Related Documents The reader is assumed to know something about USENET news, and should probably have as a reference Internet RFC 1036, Standard for Interchange of USENET Messages, which explains the structure of USENET news articles. The system manager should also have RFC 977, Network News Transfer Protocol, which describes NNTP news service. viii _______________________________________________________ New Features and Changes NEWSRDR V2.1 includes the following new features and changes. 1 The /SEEN and /UNSEEN qualifiers were added to the DIRECTORY command. DIRECTORY/GROUP no longer displays the moderated/unmoderated status of a group; the number of unseen messages in the group is displayed instead. 2 SHOW CURRENT_GROUP now has a synonym, SHOW GROUP. Both now display the number of unseen messages in the group. 3 The number of unseen messages is now displayed during updates for subscribed newsgroups. 4 The number of remaining unseen messages in the group is now displayed at the top of the screen while reading articles. NEWSRDR V2.0 included the following new features and changes. 1 The SET IGNORE commands was added to allow articles to be ignored based on the author or subject of the message, globally or on a per-group basis. 2 Rudimentary support for keypad definitions added, similar to the support provided in VMS MAIL. 3 POST and REPLY now take a /FOLLOWUP_TO qualifier to redirect followups. 4 A READ/THREAD command was added to allow reading of all articles with matching subjects within a newsgroup. 5 A SET SEEN/THREAD command was added to allow skipping of a conversation thread. ix New Features and Changes 6 The /ROTATE qualifier was added to the CURRENT and EXTRACT commands to allow display and extraction of articles posted in ROT13 cipher. 7 The EXTRACT command was changed to allow the omission of the file specification. If omitted, the file name defaults to the name of the current newsgroup (with special characters translated to underscores). 8 The SET ARCHIVE_DIRECTORY command was added to specify where extracted articles should be placed by default if no device/directory is provided on the EXTRACT command. 9 The /SUBJECT, /KEYWORD, and /FROM qualifiers were added to the DIRECTORY command, for narrowing down directory displays. 10 Cross-posted articles including cross-reference (Xref) headers are now displayed only once; all cross-references are automatically marked "seen". 11 Article headers are now cached locally the first time they are retrieved from the news server, on a per-group basis. This was done to improve the performance of the commands that require header searching (READ/THREAD, SET SEEN/THREAD, and the /SUBJECT, /KEYWORD, and /FROM qualifiers for DIRECTORY). The size of the header cache can be controlled with a logical name. 12 The command REPLY can now be abbreviated R or RE, as in VMS MAIL. Previously, R was used as an abbreviation for READ. 13 Just typing an article number is now equivalent to the READ command, similar to VMS MAIL. 14 The command EXIT can now be abbreviated EXIT, as in VMS MAIL. x New Features and Changes NEWSRDR V1.2 included the following new features and changes over V1.0. 1 NEWGROUPS checking, present but broken since V1.0, has been fixed. In addition, it has been enhanced to add the new groups to the in-memory database for access with DIRECTORY/GROUP/ALL. 2 SUBSCRIBE no longer requires a full update to operate. If the requested group is not in the in-memory database, NEWSRDR queries the server about the group. If the server confirms the group's existence, the subscription succeeds. 3 A bug in the interface between NEWSRDR and callable VMS MAIL was causing NEWSRDR to abort at random times. This was fixed in V1.1. 4 A bug in the SET SEEN command was preventing that command from working properly under certain circumstances. This was fixed in V1.1. xi _______________________________________________________ Part I Introduction This part describes the installation and use of NEWSRDR. _______________________________________________________ 1 Installing NEWSRDR NEWSRDR is mostly self-contained, consisting of a single executable image. The only system setup required is to define a few logical names in the system logical name table, as described in Table 1-1. Table_1-1__NEWSRDR_system_logical_names________________ Logical_Name_______________Meaning_____________________ NEWSRDR_MAIL_NODE the node name of the system for mail purposes. This is used in constructing return addresses in mail messages and news articles. NEWSRDR_MAIL_PROTOCOL the VMS MAIL foreign protocol prefix to be attached to outgoing mail addresses. The prefix should include the trailing percent-sign (e.g., "SMTP%", "INET%") . NEWSRDR_NODE_NAME the node name of the system for news purposes. This could be the same as the Internet node name or the mail node name. Currently this is used only in constructing message ID's for news articles. 1-1 Installing NEWSRDR Table_1-1_(Cont.)__NEWSRDR_system_logical_names________ Logical_Name_______________Meaning_____________________ NEWSRDR_ORGANIZATION The name of the organization to be used in the "Organization:" header in news articles. Optional. NEWSRDR_SERVER The Internet node name of the NNTP news server to be ___________________________used_for_NEWS_sessions._____ __________________________________________________________________ 1.1 Help Library The help library for NEWSRDR may be placed in SYS$HELP, or, if you define the logical name NEWSRDR_ HELP to point to the location, anywhere else on the system. __________________________________________________________________ 1.2 Privileges Required NEWSRDR requires TCP/IP network access to the news server to operate. On systems which use the access controls available with the CMU TCP/IP package, this may require the granting of a rights identifier to the accounts that will be using NEWSRDR. NEWSRDR uses callable MAIL and the MAIL foreign protocol interface to send mail messages. Therefore, NEWSRDR will need to be INSTALLed with the same privileges as VMS MAIL's executable image, MAIL.EXE. NEWSRDR never uses these privileges itself, and turns off all image privileges at the start of execution. 1-2 Installing NEWSRDR __________________________________________________________________ 1.3 Other User Requirements NEWSRDR is a fairly small program and has no extensive disk quota or memory requirements for most operations. The NEWSRDR_PROFILE.NRPF file created for each user contains information about only those groups to which users subscribe, and should not require more than a few disk blocks for each user. When NEWSRDR retrieves news articles from a news server, it copies them into temporary files created in the user's SYS$SCRATCH directory. Extracts for reply postings and mailings are also created in SYS$SCRATCH. Since news articles generally do not exceed a few hundred lines, this should not be a problem for most users. __________________________________________________________________ 1.4 Full-Screen Output NEWSRDR uses the VMS Screen Management (SMG$) routines for all of its terminal I/O. The main use is for paged output á la VMS MAIL. No special renditions are used, so just about any terminal can be used if it is listed in the system-wide terminal table. To keep SMG from slowing things down too much, page-by-page output is batched. For some commands, this may mean the screen is blanked with the cursor just blinking while a page is composed, but this is usually not for more than a few seconds at a time. __________________________________________________________________ 1.5 Callable Editors NEWSRDR can use any callable editor for message composition that meets the following calling standard: o The callable editor's shareable library name must be xxxSHR.EXE, where "xxx" is the name by which the editor will be called. The library must reside in SYS$SHARE or must have an exec-mode logical pointing to the library elsewhere. 1-3 Installing NEWSRDR o The shareable library must contain an entry point which called xxx$EDIT, which must take the input file-spec and output file-spec, both character strings passed by descriptor, as the first two arguments. If there are optional arguments, the xxx$EDIT routine must not rely on having more than two arguments present. The Digital-supplied editors TPU, EDT, and TECO, and the (layered product) VAX Language-Sensitive Editor (LSE) all follow this calling standard. NEWSRDR uses LIB$FIND_IMAGE_SYMBOL to map the editor into the process's virtual address space at runtime. __________________________________________________________________ 1.6 VMS MAIL Interface NEWSRDR uses the (undocumented) callable MAIL interface available in VMS V5 to send mail messages. NEWSRDR also assumes that since there is TCP/IP available on the system, there is some form of Internet mailer also available that will handle Internet-format (user@domain) addresses. A further assumption is that the Internet mailer package used at your site includes a VMS MAIL "foreign mail protocol" interface library. The logical name NEWSRDR_MAIL_PROTOCOL should specify the protocol prefix used on your system, including the terminating percent-sign. This prefix is automatically prepended to any address specified when a user mails a message using NEWSRDR. 1-4 _______________________________________________________ 2 Using NEWSRDR NEWSRDR is designed to be executed as a VMS "foreign" command. To set up the command symbol, you need to know where the NEWSRDR executable image is located for the command: $ NEWSRDR :== $disk:[dir]NEWSRDR Once the symbol is set up, you can invoke NEWSRDR with the command: $ NEWSRDR The NEWSRDR command can take one qualifier: /[NO]UPDATE. The default is /UPDATE=PARTIAL, which causes NEWSRDR to obtain information from the NNTP server about the newsgroups to which you subscribe automatically. You can specify /UPDATE=FULL, which has the same effect as the UPDATE/FULL command, or /NOUPDATE, to have no updates occur at all. __________________________________________________________________ 2.1 Using NEWSRDR for the First Time If you have never used NEWSRDR before, NEWSRDR will inform you that it cannot find a NEWSRDR profile and that it will create one for you. Your NEWSRDR profile contains information about which editor you use for composing messages, which article headers you wish to see when reading articles, and which newsgroups you are subscribed to. It is by default placed in your login directory and is called NEWSRDR_PROFILE.NRPF. 2-1 Using NEWSRDR To start reading news, the first thing you will need to do is to subscribe to one or more newsgroups. If you already know what newsgroups are available and which ones you want to subscribe to, you can use the SUBSCRIBE command right away to subcribe to those groups: News> SUBSCRIBE newgroup [,newgroup...] If you want to look at the list of available newsgroups, you need to use the following two commands: News> UPDATE/FULL News> DIRECTORY/GROUP/ALL The first command retrieves the entire list of active newsgroups from the news server, and the second lists them on your terminal. Once you have subscribed to the newsgroups you are interested in, you should next use the EXIT command to leave NEWSRDR and save your subscription information in your profile. When you next start NEWSRDR, you'll be ready to begin reading news. ___________________________ 2.1.1 Cancelling a Subscription The UNSUBSCRIBE command (format the same as for SUBSCRIBE, above) is used to cancel a subscription to a newsgroup. __________________________________________________________________ 2.2 Reading New News Once you have subscribed to some newsgroups, information about which articles you have seen in those newsgroups is stored in your NEWSRDR profile. The command 2-2 Using NEWSRDR News> READ/NEW is used to start reading news articles you have not yet seen. This command is executed by default if you simply press RETURN at the first NEWSRDR command prompt, much like VMS MAIL. News articles are presented in a page-by-page format, also like VMS MAIL. At the bottom of each page, the message "Press RETURN for more..." will appear. Simply pressing the RETURN key will cause the next page of the article to be displayed. If you wish to skip to the next unseen article, you can use the READ/NEXT/NEW (or just NEXT) command. At the end of each article, just pressing RETURN will have the same effect as entering READ/NEXT/NEW. ___________________________ 2.2.1 Redisplaying an Article The CURRENT command is used to redisplay the article you are currently viewing from the beginning. If the article is encoded with the ROT13 cipher (sometimes done for articles containing potentially sensitive or offensive material), you can read the encoded text with the command CURRENT/ROTATE. ___________________________ 2.2.2 Following a Thread You can use the READ command to follow a discussion thread within a newsgroup. While reading an article, enter News> READ/THREAD to cause NEWSRDR to scan forward through the newsgroup, displaying those articles that contain the same subject as the article you are currently reading. Once started, just press RETURN to continue reading the thread. When there are no more articles with matching subject lines, the current article is 2-3 Using NEWSRDR set back to the first article in the thread, so you can continue reading where you left off. __________________________________________________________________ 2.3 Skipping Articles If you have just subscribed to a particularly busy newsgroup, you may wish to skip over all the articles already posted to the newsgroup and read only those that are posted from now on. The command News> SET SEEN [/ALL] article-range[,...] can be used to mark articles in a newsgroup as "seen", so they will not show up when you use READ/NEW. You can specify /ALL to mark all available articles as seen, or you can specify the articles to be marked by number. A range of articles can be specified by giving the number of the first and last article in the range separated by a hyphen (such as "23-45". Multiple numbers or ranges can be given by separating them with commas. You can also use SET SEEN to skip over a collection of articles related to one topic. When reading an article, the command News> SET SEEN/THREAD can be used to skip all further articles in the newsgroup with subject text that contains the subject of the article you're currently reading. __________________________________________________________________ 2.4 Permanently Ignoring Topics or Authors If you wish to follow a newsgroup but are not interested in a particular topic being discussed in the newsgroup, you can use the SET IGNORE command to permanently ignore articles with subject lines containing particular text: News> SET IGNORE [/GLOBAL] /SUBJECT="pattern" 2-4 Using NEWSRDR The pattern you specify can contain VMS wildcards. Any articles in the newsgroup with subjects matching the pattern will automatically be skipped and marked "seen". If you wish to ignore matching articles in any newsgroup, use the /GLOBAL qualifier. If you wish to ignore articles posted by a particular person, rather than about a particular subject, use the /FROM qualifier on SET IGNORE: News> SET IGNORE [/GLOBAL] /FROM="pattern" Any article with a From line matching the specified pattern will be ignored. ___________________________ 2.4.1 Removing Ignore Settings Ignore settings are kept in your NEWSRDR profile. After a particular thread or author has died down, you may wish to remove the ignore settings for a newsgroup with the SET NOIGNORE command: News> SET NOIGNORE [/GLOBAL] [/FROM="pat"] [/SUBJECT="pat"] You can find out what the ignore settings are for the current newsgroup with the SHOW IGNORE command. __________________________________________________________________ 2.5 Reading Specific Articles To read a particular article in a particular newsgroup, you first have to select the newsgroup with the GROUP command: News> GROUP groupname You can then use the READ command, specifying the number of the article you wish to read: News> [READ] articlenumber Note that the word READ is optional. 2-5 Using NEWSRDR If you are not sure of the article number, you can use the DIRECTORY command to obtain a listing of articles, including the article number, address of the article poster, and subject of the article: News> DIRECTORY [/SEEN] [/UNSEEN] [article-number] If you specify an article number on the DIRECTORY command, the directory listing begins with the specified article. Otherwise, the directory listing begins with the article you are currently reading, or, if you haven't read any articles, the first article in the newsgroup. Directory listings are presented in a paged format just like news articles. __________________________________________________________________ 2.6 Saving Articles You can save the text of any article or range of articles into a VMS file with the EXTRACT command: News> EXTRACT [/[NO]APPEND] [file-spec] [article-range[,...]] If you omit the file-spec, the file name defaults to the current newsgroup name (with special characters translated to underscores), and /APPEND is turned on by default. You can specify a single article by number or an entire range or articles (see the description of SET SEEN, above, for a description of article ranges). Multiple numbers or ranges can be specified, separated by commas. If you do not specify any article number at all, the current article is copied to the file. You must specify a file-spec if you want to specify an article range. 2-6 Using NEWSRDR __________________________________________________________________ 2.7 Posting Articles The POST command is used to post an article to one or more newsgroups: News> POST [/EDIT] [/[NO]SUBJECT="subject"] [groupname[,...]] If you omit the "groupname", the article is posted to the current newsgroup. The /EDIT qualifier is used to invoke a text editor to compose the article (see the description of the SET command, below). The /SUBJECT qualifier can be used to specify or omit a subject line for the article. If you do not use the /SUBJECT qualifier, you will be prompted for a subject line. Once you have been prompted for the text of your news article, or if editing, you have saved the article text with the text editor, you will be asked if you really want to post the article. If you answer "yes", or just press the RETURN key, the article will be posted. If you answer "no", the article will not be posted. ___________________________ 2.7.1 Followup Articles A followup article is a reply to a specific article which can either be posted or mailed to the author of the original article. You must be reading an article to send a reply. REPLY (or FOLLOWUP) command is used to compose and send replies: News>REPLY [/MAIL] [/POST] [/EDIT] [/NOEXTRACT] [/[NO]SUBJECT="text"] By using the /POST and /MAIL qualifiers, you can post your reply to the newsgroup, send it by mail, or both. If you do not specify /MAIL or /POST, the reply is posted. The /EDIT and /SUBJECT qualifiers mean the same as for the POST command. If you use an editor to compose the reply, the text of the original article is automatically placed in the reply (prefixed with greater-than signs) before the editor is invoked. The 2-7 Using NEWSRDR /NOEXTRACT qualifier can be used to prevent this from occurring. ___________________________ 2.7.2 Sending Mail Messages You can also use the MAIL (or SEND) command to send messages to other users, which has much the same format as the SEND command in VMS MAIL: News> MAIL [/EDIT] [/TO=(address[,...])] [/SUBJECT="subj"] [fspec] The only difference between this command and the VMS MAIL SEND command is the use of the /TO qualifier to specify the destination(s) of the mail message. If you omit the /TO qualifier, you will be prompted for the address(es) of the recipient(s). Note that mail addresses within NEWSRDR are NOT the same as for VMS MAIL, but are addresses used by your Internet mailer. For example, if you use PMDF's "IN%" prefix to direct mail to Internet addresses from VMS MAIL, you would not use that prefix in NEWSRDR; NEWSRDR will tack the prefix onto the address for you automatically when sending your message through VMS MAIL. You also need to use quotation marks around addresses only if you specify them with the /TO qualifier on the MAIL command. __________________________________________________________________ 2.8 Profile Settings NEWSRDR has several settings which you can change with the SET command. These settings are saved in your NEWSRDR profile, preserved between NEWSRDR sessions. You can display the current settings with the SHOW ALL command, which will also display the node name of the news server and the name of the current newsgroup. 2-8 Using NEWSRDR ___________________________ 2.8.1 Personal Name Just as VMS MAIL allows you to set up a "personal name" which is included with your address on your outgoing mail, NEWSRDR allows you to do on news articles you post: News> SET PERSONAL_NAME "your name" You may use any name you like as your personal name. ___________________________ 2.8.2 Article Headers News articles are generally accompanied by large numbers of header lines which identify various aspects of the articles, some of which you may not be interested in. The command News> SET HEADERS [NO]headername[,...] is used to turn on or off the display of particular header lines when you read subsequent articles. The header names you can specify are: FROM, DATE, NEWSGROUPS, SUBJECT, MESSAGE_ID, PATH, REPLY_TO, SENDER, FOLLOWUP_TO, EXPIRES, REFERENCES, DISTRIBUTION, ORGANIZATION, KEYWORDS, APPROVED, LINES, and XREF. Specifying NO in front of a header name turns off its display in subsequent messages. ___________________________ 2.8.3 Automatic Editing, Editor Name If you would like to use a text editor every time you compose an article or mail message, you can use the SET EDIT command to enable automatic editing: News> SET [NO]EDIT [/EDITOR=editorname] If you use SET EDIT, the text editor will automatically be invoked for every POST, REPLY, and MAIL command, unless you use the /NOEDIT qualifier. 2-9 Using NEWSRDR You can turn off automatic editing with the SET NOEDIT command. In either case, you can specify which text editor you would like to use with the /EDITOR qualifier. Any callable editor may used; TPU (a.k.a. EVE) is the default. VMS comes with one other callable editor: EDT. The VAX Language-Sensitive Editor (LSE), if installed on your system, can also be used. There may also be other callable editors available at your site. ___________________________ 2.8.4 Signature Some people like to have a standard "signature" be included at the end of each article they post. This signature usually contains the person's name, E-mail address, company name, and a disclaimer of some kind. The SET SIGNATURE command allows you to specify the name of a file to be used as a signature for articles you post and mail messages you send: News> SET [NO]SIGNATURE file-spec The specified file should contain no more than eight lines of text, each line containing no more than 80 characters. The contents of the file will automatically be appended to every article you post and every mail message you send through NEWSRDR. Use the SET NOSIGNATURE command to disable the inclusion of a signature file. __________________________________________________________________ 2.9 Subprocesses NEWSRDR provides SPAWN and ATTACH commands for creating and moving among subprocesses. These commands are patterned after their counterparts in VMS MAIL. 2-10 Using NEWSRDR __________________________________________________________________ 2.10 Keypad Keys NEWSRDR provides a DEFINE/KEY command for defining keys to perform NEWSRDR commands. This command is also patterned after its counterpart in VMS MAIL. In addition, you can create a file containing a collection of DEFINE/KEY commands to be loaded each time NEWSRDR is executed. The file should be placed in your SYS$LOGIN directory and should be called NEWSRDR_KEYDEFS.NRKEY. Alternatively, you can place the key definitions in another file and assign the name of that file to the logical name NEWSRDR_KEYDEFS. __________________________________________________________________ 2.11 Header Caching Some NEWSRDR commands, such as READ/THREAD, require access to article headers for their operation. To cut down on network and news server load, and generally improve performance over multiple uses of these header-intensive commands, article headers are cached in memory by NEWSRDR when they are retrieved from the server. By default, up to 128 sets of headers may be cached at once. However, you can control the header cache size by defining the logical name NEWSRDR_HEADER_CACHE_SIZE as the maximum number of sets of headers you wish to have cached. Please note that the header cache works on a per-group basis only. This means that it works best when you do all your work in one group at a time, rather than jumping around to different newsgroups, reading a few articles at a time. 2-11 _______________________________________________________ Part II Command Descriptions Command Descriptions ATTACH _______________________________________________________ ATTACH Switches control of your terminal from your current process to another process in the same job. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT ATTACH process-name _______________________________________________________ Command Qualifiers Defaults /PARENT _______________________________________________________ PARAMETERS process-name Name of the process to which the connection is to be made. The process must be in the same job as your current process. _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION This command is a parallel to the DCL ATTACH command. It allows you to transfer your terminal to another subprocess in your job by name, or directly to the process which created your current subprocess. _______________________________________________________ QUALIFIERS /PARENT Specifies that your terminal should be attached to the process that created the subprocess to which your terminal is currently attached. CMD-3 Command Descriptions CURRENT _______________________________________________________ CURRENT Redisplays the current article from the beginning. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT CURRENT _______________________________________________________ Command Qualifiers Defaults /ROTATE _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION While reading an article, if you are paged part or all the way through the article, the CURRENT command will rewind the article to the beginning and redisplay the first page. _______________________________________________________ QUALIFIERS /ROTATE Applies the ROT13 cipher to the article text before display. Some articles are enciphered with ROT13 because they may contain sensitive or offensive material, leaving it up to the reader to determine whether the article warrants deciphering and reading. CMD-4 Command Descriptions DEFINE/KEY _______________________________________________________ DEFINE/KEY Defines a key to execute a NEWSRDR command. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT DEFINE/KEY key-name string _______________________________________________________ Command Qualifiers Defaults /[NO]ECHO /ECHO /IF_STATE=state-list /[NO]LOCK_STATE /NOLOCK_STATE /[NO]SET_STATE=state /NOSET_STATE /[NO]TERMINATE /NOTERMINATE _______________________________________________________ PARAMETERS key-name Specifies the name of the key you are defining. Use the following key names when defining keys: _______________________________________________________ Key_name______________VT100_key________LK201_key_______ PF1 PF1 PF1 PF2 PF2 PF2 PF3 PF3 PF3 PF4 PF4 PF4 KP0, KP1-KP9 keypad 0-9 keypad 0-9 CMD-5 Command Descriptions DEFINE/KEY _______________________________________________________ Key_name______________VT100_key________LK201_key_______ PERIOD keypad period keypad period COMMA keypad comma keypad comma MINUS keypad minus keypad minus ENTER ENTER key Enter key E1, FIND n/a Find E2, INSERT_HERE n/a Insert Here E3, REMOVE n/a Remove E4, SELECT n/a Select E5, PREV_SCREEN n/a Prev Screen E6, NEXT_SCREEN n/a Next Screen HELP n/a Help DO n/a Do F17-F20_______________n/a______________F17-F20_________ string Specifies the string you want entered when you press the defined key. _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION This command is implemented by passing the entire command to the VMS Screen Management (SMG) routines for processing by SMG$DEFINE_KEY. NEWSRDR does no processing on the command. CMD-6 Command Descriptions DEFINE/KEY Key definitions are not remembered between NEWSRDR sessions. To have keys defined automatically each time you run NEWSRDR, create a file containing DEFINE/KEY commands called NEWSRDR_KEYDEFS.NRKEY, located in SYS$LOGIN. Alternatively, you can call the file something else and define the logical name NEWSRDR_KEYDEFS to point to that file. _______________________________________________________ QUALIFIERS /[NO]ECHO Specifies whether the command line is echoed when you press the defined key. You cannot specify both /NOECHO and /NOTERMINATE. The default is /ECHO. /IF_STATE=state-list Specifies one or more states, any one of which must be set in order to enable the specified key definition. If you omit this qualifier, the current state is used. To specify more than one state, separate the state names with commas and surround the list with parentheses. /[NO]LOCK_STATE Causes the state specified by the /SET_STATE qualifier to be permanently retained when the defined key is pressed. The state is retained until changed by using another key that sets a state. If omitted or negated, the specified state is retained only until you press another key. /[NO]SET_STATE=state Establishes a state that is set when the defined key is pressed. A state name can be any alphanumeric string. The state lasts for one further keypress only, unless /LOCK_STATE is specified. If you omit or negate this qualifier, the state remains unchanged when the defined key is pressed. You cannot specify both /SET_STATE and /TERMINATE. CMD-7 Command Descriptions DEFINE/KEY /[NO]TERMINATE Determines whether the specified command string is executed when the defined key is pressed. If not terminated, you must press RETURN for the command to be executed. The default is /NOTERMINATE. CMD-8 Command Descriptions DIRECTORY _______________________________________________________ DIRECTORY Lists information about articles in the current newsgroup. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT DIRECTORY [article-number] _______________________________________________________ Command Qualifiers Defaults /GROUP /FROM=(pattern[,...]) /KEYWORD=(keyword[,...]) /SUBJECT=(pattern[,...]) /SEEN /UNSEEN _______________________________________________________ PARAMETERS article-number Number of the article which should be first in the directory listing. If omitted, the directory listing begins with the current article, or, if there is no current article, the first article in the newsgroup. _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION The DIRECTORY command lists the article number, originator, and subject of articles in the current newsgroup, one article per line. Articles you have seen are marked with an "x" in the listing. CMD-9 Command Descriptions DIRECTORY Specifying one of /FROM, /KEYWORD, or /SUBJECT can narrow down the directory listing to include only articles matching the specified criteria. When specified in combination, only those articles matching all of the specified criteria are listed. _______________________________________________________ QUALIFIERS /GROUP See the description for the DIRECTORY/GROUP command. /FROM=(pattern[,...]) Specifies one or more patterns to be matched against each article's From header. Only those articles matching one of the specified patterns are listed. /KEYWORD=(keyword[,...]) Specifies one or more keywords. Only those articles with Keywords headers containing the specified keyword(s) are listed. /SUBJECT=(pattern[,...]) Specifies one or more patterns to be matched against each article's Subject header. Only those articles matching one of the specified patterns are listed. /SEEN Specifies that seen articles should be included in the listing. If neither /SEEN nor /UNSEEN is specified, all articles are listed. /UNSEEN Specifies that unseen articles should be included in the listing. If neither /SEEN nor /UNSEEN is specified, all articles are listed. CMD-10 Command Descriptions DIRECTORY/GROUP _______________________________________________________ DIRECTORY/GROUP Lists information about newsgroups available from the server. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT DIRECTORY/GROUP [group-pat] _______________________________________________________ Command Qualifiers Defaults /ALL _______________________________________________________ PARAMETERS group-pat A group name or a pattern containing wildcards. All groups matching the specified pattern are included in the directory listing. If omitted, all groups are listed. _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION DIRECTORY/GROUP lists the names of the newsgroups to which are subscribed along with the number of the first and last article available from the server in each newsgroup. Also indicated is whether or not you subscribe to the group (more useful with DIR/GROUP/ALL) and the number of articles in the group that you have not yet read. DIR/GROUP/ALL lists information about all groups available from the server. CMD-11 Command Descriptions DIRECTORY/GROUP Note: DIR/GROUP/ALL will not display any useful information unless you have done an full information update with the UPDATE/FULL command first. DIR/GROUP will not flag unmoderated groups unless you have done an UPDATE/FULL first. _______________________________________________________ QUALIFIERS /ALL Lists information about all available newsgroups that match, rather than just the groups to which you subscribe. CMD-12 Command Descriptions EXIT _______________________________________________________ EXIT Ends an NEWSRDR session. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT EXIT _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION Ends the current NEWSRDR session, updates your NEWSRDR profile, and returns control to DCL. CMD-13 Command Descriptions EXTRACT _______________________________________________________ EXTRACT Copies news articles into a file. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT EXTRACT [file-spec] [article-range [,...]] _______________________________________________________ Command Qualifiers Defaults /[NO]APPEND See text. /[NO]HEADERS /HEADERS /ROTATE _______________________________________________________ PARAMETERS file-spec Name of the file into which the selected article(s) will be copied. If omitted, the name of the file is taken from the current newsgroup name. For example, an article extracted from newsgroup "comp.sys.belch-fire" would be placed in the file COMP_SYS_BELCH-FIRE.TXT. article-range A single article number or a starting and ending article number separated by a hyphen. All articles in the specified range are copied into the file. If omitted, only the current article is copied. The SET ARCHIVE_DIRECTORY command can be used to specify a default device and directory for extracted articles. If no archive directory is specified, and no device/directory is specified in file-spec the file is placed in the current directory by default. CMD-14 Command Descriptions EXTRACT _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION This command can be used to save articles into a file for future reference. One or more articles can be extracted into a file, but all articles must be in the current newsgroup. Using /APPEND causes the articles to appended to the specified file (which must already exist). Otherwise, a new file is created for the extracted articles. _______________________________________________________ QUALIFIERS /[NO]APPEND Causes the articles to appended to the file. The default when file-spec is present on the command is /NOAPPEND; when file-spec is omitted, the default is /APPEND. /[NO]HEADERS Causes the article header lines to be included in the extraction (the default). Use /NOHEADERS to cause the header lines to be omitted. /ROTATE Causes the article body to be deciphered, using the ROT13 cipher, when written to the file. CMD-15 Command Descriptions FOLLOWUP _______________________________________________________ FOLLOWUP This is a synonym for REPLY. See the description of the REPLY command for further information. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT FOLLOWUP _______________________________________________________ Command Qualifiers Defaults /DISTRIBUTION=(dist [,...]) /[NO]EDIT /[NO]EXTRACT /FOLLOWUP_TO=(group [,...]) /MAIL /POST /[NO]SIGNATURE /[NO]SUBJECT="subject-text" CMD-16 Command Descriptions GROUP _______________________________________________________ GROUP Selects a newsgroup to be your "current" newsgroup. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT GROUP groupname _______________________________________________________ PARAMETERS groupname Name of the group to be made current. _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION You can use this command to explicitly select the current newsgroup, to be able to extract articles from the newsgroup, etc. Note that some NEWSRDR commands (DIRECTORY, READ) implicitly set the current newsgroup for you. CMD-17 Command Descriptions HELP _______________________________________________________ HELP Displays help information. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT HELP [topic...] _______________________________________________________ PARAMETERS topic The name of a topic in the help library. If omitted, a list of topics is displayed. _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION This command is pretty straightforward. CMD-18 Command Descriptions MAIL _______________________________________________________ MAIL Sends an electronic mail message. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT MAIL [file-spec] _______________________________________________________ Command Qualifiers Defaults /[NO]EDIT /[NO]SUBJECT[="subject-text"] /[NO]SIGNATURE /TO=(user-spec[,...]) _______________________________________________________ PARAMETERS file-spec Name of the file to be sent by E-mail. If omitted, you are prompted for the text of the message. _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION This command is similar to the SEND command in the VMS MAIL utility, with three small differences: 1 You can specify the destination users on the command line with the /TO qualifier. 2 The destination usernames are assumed to be Internet-style names and are automatically sent through the system's Internet mail system. CMD-19 Command Descriptions MAIL 3 After composing or editing the text of your message, you are asked for confirmation before the message is sent. _______________________________________________________ QUALIFIERS /[NO]EDIT Specifying /EDIT causes a text editor to be invoked so the message text can be edited before being sent. The default action for this qualifier is determined by the current SET EDIT setting (see the SET command description for more information). /[NO]SUBJECT[="subject-text"] The /SUBJECT qualifier can be used to specify the subject for the message on the command line. Use /NOSUBJECT to omit a subject from the message altogether. If not specified, you are prompted for a subject line. /[NO]SIGNATURE The /SIGNATURE qualifier can be used to indicate that your "signature" file should or should not be included automatically at the end of the message when it is sent. The default action for this qualifier is determined by the current SET SIGNATURE setting. /TO=("user-spec"[,...]) The /TO qualifier can be used to specify the destination users for the message. If the user-spec includes an at-sign ("@"), as do most Internet addresses, you must surround the address with quotation marks. Specify multiple addresses by separating them with commas and enclosing the list in parentheses. If omitted, you are prompted for the destination address list. CMD-20 Command Descriptions NEXT _______________________________________________________ NEXT A synonym for READ/NEXT/NEW. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT NEXT _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION This command, a synonym for READ/NEXT/NEW, causes the next unseen article to be displayed. CMD-21 Command Descriptions POST _______________________________________________________ POST Posts a news article. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT POST [group-name,...] _______________________________________________________ Command Qualifiers Defaults /[NO]EDIT /[NO]SUBJECT[="subject"] /[NO]SIGNATURE /DISTRIBUTION=(dist-name [,...]) /FOLLOWUP_TO=(group [,...]) _______________________________________________________ PARAMETERS group-name Name of the newsgroup to which the article is to be posted. If omitted, the article is posted to the current newsgroup. _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION This command is used to compose and post news articles. If not using a text editor to compose the article, you are prompted for the article text one line at a time. Once you have entered the text of the article, you are asked to confirm the posting. If you do so, the article is transmitted to the NNTP server to be entered into the news system. CMD-22 Command Descriptions POST _______________________________________________________ QUALIFIERS /[NO]EDIT Specifying /EDIT causes a text editor to be invoked so the article text can be edited before being sent. The default action for this qualifier is determined by the current SET EDIT setting (see the SET command description for more information). /[NO]SUBJECT[="subject-text"] The /SUBJECT qualifier can be used to specify the subject for the article on the command line. Use /NOSUBJECT to omit a subject from the article altogether. If not specified, you are prompted for a subject line. /[NO]SIGNATURE The /SIGNATURE qualifier can be used to indicate that your "signature" file should or should not be included automatically at the end of the article when it is posted. The default action for this qualifier is determined by the current SET SIGNATURE setting. /DISTRIBUTION=(dist-name [,...]) This qualifier can be used to restrict the distribution of the article to a particular area. If not specified, no restrictions are placed on the article's distribution. Typical distribution names are "usa", "na", "ny", etc. /FOLLOWUP_TO=(group [,...]) This qualifier can be used to redirect any followups to this article to be posted to the specified newsgroup(s). By default, followups are posted to the same newsgroup(s) as the posted article. CMD-23 Command Descriptions READ _______________________________________________________ READ Displays a news article. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT [READ] [article-number] _______________________________________________________ Command Qualifiers Defaults /NEXT /NEW /FIRST /LAST /GROUP=group-name /THREAD _______________________________________________________ PARAMETERS article-number The number of the article to be read. Should be omitted when using any of the qualifiers except /GROUP. _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION This command displays a news article. You can select the article to be read by number, or by using one of the selection qualifiers. The READ command name may be omitted only if reading a specific article that you specify by number. CMD-24 Command Descriptions READ _______________________________________________________ QUALIFIERS /NEXT When used without /NEW, causes the next available article in the newsgroup to be displayed, even if you have seen it. When used with /NEW, causes the next article you have not yet seen to be displayed. /NEW When used without /NEXT, causes the first article in the newsgroup you have not yet seen to be displayed. When used with /NEXT, causes the next unseen article after the article you are currently reading (if any) to be displayed. /FIRST Causes the first available article in the newsgroup to be displayed. /LAST Causes the last available article in the newsgroup to be displayed. /GROUP=group-name Makes the specified group the current group and selects articles from that group. If omitted, articles are selected from the current group. /THREAD Causes NEWSRDR to scan forward through the newsgroup until it finds another article with the same subject. Continued use of READ/THREAD can be used to view all articles on one subject, following the thread of conversation. If there are no more articles in the thread, NEWSRDR displays a message and the current article is reset back to the first article you read in the thread. CMD-25 Command Descriptions REPLY _______________________________________________________ REPLY Posts a follow-up article and/or sends a reply message to the author of the current article. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT REPLY _______________________________________________________ Command Qualifiers Defaults /DISTRIBUTION=(dist [,...]) /[NO]EDIT /[NO]EXTRACT /FOLLOWUP_TO=(group [,...]) /MAIL /POST /[NO]SIGNATURE /[NO]SUBJECT="subject-text" _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION This command is used to compose and post and/or mail a follow-up article to the article currently being read. Just as for the MAIL and POST commands, you can use a text editor to compose the message, or be prompted for the message text. Once you have finished entering the message, you are asked to confirm the sending of the reply. Once confirmed, the follow-up message is sent to the NNTP server to be entered into the newsgroup and/or sent through the Internet mailer to the author. CMD-26 Command Descriptions REPLY For posted replies, the "Followup-to:" header in the original article determines the newsgroups to which the follow-up is posted. If there is no "Followup-to:" header, the follow-up article is automatically entered into the same newsgroup(s) as the original article. For mailed replies, the "Reply-to:" header in the original aritcle determines the destination of the reply message. If there is no "Reply-to:" header, the address in the "From:" header is used instead. _______________________________________________________ QUALIFIERS /[NO]EDIT Specifying /EDIT causes a text editor to be invoked so the article text can be edited before being sent. The default action for this qualifier is determined by the current SET EDIT setting (see the SET command description for more information). /[NO]EXTRACT If a text editor is used to compose the follow-up message, the current article text is automatically extracted with greater-than signs placed in front of each line of text, to be used as part of the reply. You can use the /NOEXTRACT qualifier to prevent this extraction from occurring. Note that /EXTRACT has no effect if you do not use a text editor for composing the follow-up. /FOLLOWUP_TO=(group [,...]) This qualifier can be used to redirect any followups to this article to be posted to the specified newsgroup(s). By default, followups are posted to the same newsgroup(s) as the posted article. /MAIL Specifies that the reply is to be mailed to the author of the original message. If neither /MAIL nor /POST CMD-27 Command Descriptions REPLY is specified, /POST is assumed. A reply may be both mailed and posted. /POST Specifies that the reply is to be posted as a follow-up article. If neither /MAIL nor /POST is specified, /POST is assumed. A reply may be both mailed and posted. /[NO]SUBJECT[="subject-text"] The /SUBJECT qualifier can be used to specify the subject for the article on the command line. Use /NOSUBJECT to omit a subject from the article altogether. If not specified, you are prompted for a subject line. /[NO]SIGNATURE The /SIGNATURE qualifier can be used to indicate that your "signature" file should or should not be included automatically at the end of the article when it is sent. The default action for this qualifier is determined by the current SET SIGNATURE setting. /[NO]SUBJECT[="subject-text"] The /SUBJECT qualifier can be used to specify the subject for the message on the command line. Use /NOSUBJECT to omit a subject from the message altogether. If not specified, the subject of the message is determined as follows: o If there is no subject line in the original message, or the subject line is the text "(none)", no subject is added to the message. o If the subject line in the original message begins with "Re:" (upper or lower case), it is copied verbatim to the new message's subject line. o Otherwise, the new subject line is the original subject line with "Re:" added at the beginning. CMD-28 Command Descriptions REPLY /DISTRIBUTION=(dist-name [,...]) This qualifier can be used to restrict the distribution of the article to a particular area. If not specified, no restrictions are placed on the article's distribution. Typical distribution names are "usa", "na", "ny", etc. CMD-29 Command Descriptions SET ARCHIVE_DIRECTORY _______________________________________________________ SET ARCHIVE_DIRECTORY Establishes a place where extracted articles should be stored. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT SET [NO]ARCHIVE_DIRECTORY [devdir] _______________________________________________________ PARAMETERS devdir A device and/or directory specification. This value will be used as the default device/directory for subsequent EXTRACT commands. _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION This command is used to specify where extracted articles should be stored if no device/directory is specified on EXTRACT commands. If no archive directory is set, or you remove the archive directory setting with SET NOARCHIVE_DIRECTORY, EXTRACT defaults to placing files in the current directory. CMD-30 Command Descriptions SET EDIT _______________________________________________________ SET EDIT Changes the auto-edit setting and text editor. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT SET [NO]EDIT _______________________________________________________ Command Qualifiers Defaults /EDITOR=editor-name _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION This command is used to turn on or off the automatic use of a text editor for message composition. The setting can be overridden on the POST, MAIL, and REPLY commands with the /[NO]EDIT qualifier. _______________________________________________________ QUALIFIERS /EDITOR=editor-name This qualifier can be used to select one of the callable text editors on the system. NEWSRDR can use any callable editor for message composition that meets the following calling standard: o The callable editor's shareable library name must be xxxSHR.EXE, where "xxx" is the name by which the editor will be called. The library must reside in SYS$SHARE or must have an exec-mode logical pointing to the library elsewhere. CMD-31 Command Descriptions SET EDIT o The shareable library must contain an entry point which called xxx$EDIT, which must take the input file-spec and output file-spec, both character strings passed by descriptor, as the first two arguments. If there are optional arguments, the xxx$EDIT routine must not rely on having more than two arguments present. The Digital-supplied editors TPU, EDT, and TECO, and the (layered product) VAX Language-Sensitive Editor (LSE) all follow this calling standard. NEWSRDR uses LIB$FIND_IMAGE_SYMBOL to map the editor into the process's virtual address space at runtime. CMD-32 Command Descriptions SET HEADERS _______________________________________________________ SET HEADERS Selects the header lines to appear in article displays. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT SET HEADERS [NO]header-name[,...] _______________________________________________________ PARAMETERS header-name The name of a header line to be included or, if preceded by "NO", excluded from subsequent article displays. You may specify more than one header name by separating them with commas. Table CMD-1 lists the valid header names and their meanings. Table_CMD-1__Header_names______________________________ Header name________Meaning____________________________________ FROM the "From:" line, which indicates who sent the message DATE the "Date:" line, which indicates when the message was originally posted to the network NEWSGROUPS the "Newsgroups:" line, which identifies the newsgroups to which the message belongs CMD-33 Command Descriptions SET HEADERS Table_CMD-1_(Cont.)__Header_names______________________ Header name________Meaning____________________________________ SUBJECT the "Subject:" line, usually a brief description of what the message is about MESSAGE_ID the "Message-ID:" line, a unique identifier for the message PATH the "Path:" line, which shows the path the message took to reach the current system REPLY_TO the "Reply-to:" line, which indicates where mailed replies should be sent SENDER the "Sender:" line, which identifies the entity responsible for submitting the message to the network FOLLOWUP_TO the "Followup-to:" line, which indicates the newsgroup(s) where follow-up articles should be posted EXPIRES the "Expires:" line, which indicates a suggested expiration date and time for the article REFERENCES the "References:" line, which identifies the message(s) that prompted the submission of the messages DISTRIBUTIONthe "Distribution:" line, which indicates the distribution scope of the message CMD-34 Command Descriptions SET HEADERS Table_CMD-1_(Cont.)__Header_names______________________ Header name________Meaning____________________________________ ORGANIZATIONthe "Organization:" line, which identifies the organization to which the sender belongs KEYWORDS the "Keywords:" line, which may include some keywords related to the content of the message SUMMARY the "Summary:" line, a brief summary of the message APPROVED the "Approved:" line, indicating the moderator that approved the message LINES the "Lines:" line, which indicates the size of the message XREF the "Xref:" line, which identifies ____________cross-postings_____________________________ _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION This command can be used to omit uninteresting header lines from article displays, to provide more room for article text. The setting has no effect on articles saved into files with the EXTRACT command. Note that not all articles have all the header lines you can specify on this command; the header line types are provided for completeness. CMD-35 Command Descriptions SET IGNORE _______________________________________________________ SET IGNORE Establishes or removes a criterion for permanently ignoring articles. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT SET [NO]IGNORE group-name _______________________________________________________ Command Qualifiers Defaults /GLOBAL /FROM=pattern /SUBJECT=pattern _______________________________________________________ PARAMETERS group-name The name of the newsgroup to which the ignore criterion should be added. Not specified when /GLOBAL is used. If omitted, the current group is used. _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION This command is used to add or remove an ignore criterion (sometimes called a "kill file") for a single newsgroup or for all newsgroups. The criterion can be based either on the author of the article (/FROM) or the subject of the article (/SUBJECT), but not both. Any articles matching the criterion will automatically be marked as seen and will not be displayed when READ/NEW is used. CMD-36 Command Descriptions SET IGNORE Use SET NOIGNORE to remove an erroneous ignore criterion or when the subject or author you wish to ignore is at a more reasonable activity level. Ignore criteria are stored in your NEWSRDR profile and are retained between NEWSRDR sessions. This command should be used sparingly and with caution. _______________________________________________________ QUALIFIERS /GLOBAL Makes the ignore criterion effective for all newsgroups. /FROM=pattern Bases the criterion on the author (From line) of an article. The pattern may contain VMS wildcards. Any From line matching the pattern will be ignored. You may not specify both /FROM and /SUBJECT for a single criterion. /SUBJECT=pattern Bases the criterion on the subject of an article. The pattern may contain VMS wildcards. Any subject line matching the pattern will be ignored. You may not specify both /FROM and /SUBJECT for a single criterion. CMD-37 Command Descriptions SET PERSONAL_NAME _______________________________________________________ SET PERSONAL_NAME Establishes a "personal name" to accompany your return address. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT SET [NO]PERSONAL_NAME ["name"] _______________________________________________________ Command Qualifiers Defaults /EDITOR=editor-name _______________________________________________________ PARAMETERS name Any readable text string, not including quotation marks or backslashes, to be used as your personal name. _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION This command is used to set up or remove your personal name. The name is added to your return address for articles you post and mail messages you send. CMD-38 Command Descriptions SET SEEN _______________________________________________________ SET SEEN Marks an article or group of articles as "seen". _______________________________________________________ FORMAT SET SEEN [article-range[,...]] _______________________________________________________ Command Qualifiers Defaults /ALL /THREAD _______________________________________________________ PARAMETERS article-range A single article number or a starting and ending article number separated by a hyphen. All articles in the specified range are marked "seen". _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION This command is used to mark articles as having been seen, even if you haven't read them. This prevents them from being displayed with the READ/NEW command. _______________________________________________________ QUALIFIERS /ALL Causes all articles in the current newsgroup to marked. CMD-39 Command Descriptions SET SEEN /THREAD Causes each article in the current newsgroup, from the current article onward, to be marked as seen if the subject of the article matches the subject of the current article. CMD-40 Command Descriptions SET SIGNATURE _______________________________________________________ SET SIGNATURE Establishes a "signature" file. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT SET [NO]SIGNATURE [file-spec] _______________________________________________________ Command Qualifiers Defaults /[NO]AUTOMATIC /AUTOMATIC _______________________________________________________ PARAMETERS file-spec Name of the file in which you have stored your signature. _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION This command can be used to establish a "signature" file. The contents of the signature file (up to 8 lines of text) is appended to messages you send and articles you post, and can contain information such as your name, company, E-mail address, etc. Use SET NOSIGNATURE to clear the signature setting. _______________________________________________________ QUALIFIERS /[NO]AUTOMATIC Causes the signature to be appended automatically to subsequent mail messages and postings (the default). The automatic setting can be overridden with the CMD-41 Command Descriptions SET SIGNATURE /[NO]SIGNATURE qualifier on the POST, MAIL, and REPLY commands. CMD-42 Command Descriptions SHOW _______________________________________________________ SHOW Displays profile settings and other information about the NEWSRDR environment. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT { ARCHIVE_DIRECTORY } { CURRENT_GROUP } { EDIT } { } { GROUP } { HEADERS } SHOW { IGNORE [/GLOBAL] [/LOCAL] } { } { PERSONAL_NAME } { SERVER } { SIGNATURE_FILE } { } { ALL } _______________________________________________________ PARAMETERS ARCHIVE_DIRECTORY Displays the current archive directory setting. CURRENT_GROUP Displays the name of the current newsgroup, along with the number of the first and last available article in the group. EDIT Displays the current SET EDIT setting and the name of your selected text editor. CMD-43 Command Descriptions SHOW GROUP Displays the name of the current newsgroup, along with the number of the first and last available article in the group. (Same as SHOW CURRENT_GROUP.) HEADERS Displays the current SET HEADERS setting. IGNORE Displays the ignore criteria for the current group (/LOCAL) and/or the global ignore criteria (/GLOBAL). The default is /LOCAL. PERSONAL_NAME Displays the current SET PERSONAL_NAME setting. SERVER Displays the Internet host name of the NNTP news server machine. SIGNATURE_FILE Displays the current SET SIGNATURE setting. ALL Displays all of the above information. _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION This command can be used to look at any of your profile settings as well as some information about your NEWSRDR environment. See the description of the SET command for more information about profile settings. CMD-44 Command Descriptions SPAWN _______________________________________________________ SPAWN Creates a subprocess of the current process. The context of the subprocess is copied from the current process. You can use the SPAWN command to leave NEWSRDR temporarily, perform other functions, and then return to NEWSRDR. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT SPAWN [command] _______________________________________________________ Command Qualifiers Defaults /INPUT=filespec /INPUT=SYS$INPUT /[NO]LOGICAL_NAMES /LOGICAL_NAMES /OUTPUT=filespec /OUTPUT=SYS$OUTPUT /PROCESS=subprocess-name /[NO]SYMBOLS /SYMBOLS /[NO]WAIT /WAIT _______________________________________________________ PARAMETERS command Specifies the DCL command string that executes in the context of the created subprocess. When the command completes, the subprocess terminates and control is returned to the parent process. If this parameter is not specified, a subprocess is created that transfers control to DCL command level. CMD-45 Command Descriptions SPAWN _______________________________________________________ QUALIFIERS /INPUT=filespec Specifies an input file containing one or more DCL command strings to be executed by the spawned subprocess. If you specify a command string along with an input file, the command string is processed before the commands in the input file. Once processing is complete, the subprocess is terminated. /[NO]LOGICAL_NAMES Specifies that the logical names of the parent process are to be copied to the subprocess. When you do not want the subprocess to use the logical names of the parent process, enter the qualifier /NOLOGICAL_NAMES. The default is /LOGICAL_NAMES. /OUTPUT=filespec Identifies the output file to which the results of the SPAWN operation are written. Whenever you use the /NOWAIT qualifier, you should also use the /OUTPUT qualifier to specify a new output destination. Doing so prevents output from being displayed while you are specifying new commands. If you omit the /OUTPUT qualifier, output is written by default to the current SYS$OUTPUT device. /PROCESS=subprocess-name Specifies the name of the subprocess to be created. The default name of the subprocess is "USERNAME_n". /[NO]SYMBOLS Determines whether the system passes DCL global and local symbols to the subprocess. The default is /SYMBOLS. /[NO]WAIT Controls whether the system waits until the subprocess is completed before allowing more commands to be specified. The /NOWAIT qualifier allows you to specify new commands while the specified subprocess CMD-46 Command Descriptions SPAWN is running. If you specify /NOWAIT, you should also use the /OUTPUT qualifier to direct the output stream to a file, rather than displaying it on your terminal. Doing so prevents your terminal from being used by more than one process simultaneously. CMD-47 Command Descriptions SUBSCRIBE _______________________________________________________ SUBSCRIBE Adds one or more newsgroups to your subscription list. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT SUBSCRIBE newsgroup[,...] _______________________________________________________ PARAMETERS newsgroup Name of a newsgroup you wish to subscribe to. _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION This command is used to begin following one or more newsgroups. The newsgroup name and information about articles you have seen in the group are stored in your NEWSRDR profile. CMD-48 Command Descriptions UNSUBSCRIBE _______________________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE Removes one or more newsgroups from your subscription list. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT UNSUBSCRIBE newsgroup[,...] _______________________________________________________ PARAMETERS newsgroup Name of a newsgroup you no longer wish to subscribe to. _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION This command is used to end your participation in a newsgroup. The group is removed from your NEWSRDR profile, and you will no longer see any articles in that newsgroup. CMD-49 Command Descriptions UPDATE _______________________________________________________ UPDATE Updates NEWSRDR's newsgroup information from the NNTP server. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT UPDATE _______________________________________________________ Command Qualifiers Defaults /FULL _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION This command can be used to discover further available unread articles since the last update. This is done automatically for you at the start of a NEWSRDR session, but if you have spent a long time in NEWSRDR, this command can be useful. A message is displayed for each newsgroup in which unseen articles are found. Only information about the groups to which you subscribe is obtained, unless you specify the /FULL qualifier. If you are not subscribed to any newsgroups, you should use UPDATE/FULL to obtain the entire list of newsgroups available from the NNTP server. CMD-50 Command Descriptions UPDATE _______________________________________________________ QUALIFIERS /FULL Causes information about all available newsgroups on the NNTP server to be obtained. If omitted, only information about newsgroups to which you are subscribed is obtained. CMD-51