Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcvax!kth!sunic!dkuug!freja!skinfaxe!seindal
From: seindal@skinfaxe.diku.dk (Rene' Seindal)
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: Re: Review of NN, a Usenet news reader
Keywords: rn, .newsrc, b&d
Message-ID: <4830@freja.diku.dk>
Date: 7 Jul 89 04:00:29 GMT
References: <1836@papaya.bbn.com> <1150@sequent.cs.qmc.ac.uk> <4827@freja.diku.dk> <3364@epimass.EPI.COM> <114069@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>
Sender: news@freja.diku.dk
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A possible scheme I have talked with Kim about includes the following:
articles are marked as read whenever you leave a group, but in different ways,
depending on how you leave the group.  A usual, `X' will show you the selected
articles, or, if no articles are selected, move on to the next group.  In this
case all articles appearing in the menu pages for the group are, and will be,
marked as read.  The `N' key is changed slightly.  Now the `N' key will show
you selected articles before moving to the next group.  This is changed, so
you move directly to the next group, but the articles you have selected, and
all articles on menu pages you have not seen yet, will be unread, and will
therefore still around the next time you read news.

Whether we will have to make additional changes is a bit unclear.  I could
imagine a command much like `X', but with the addition of putting you back in
the current group when you have read all the selected articles.  This would
make it easier to delay replies and follow-ups until all the relevant articles
have been read.  I usually do this with the `=' key, but it is a bit annoying
to have to remember it every time.

On the other hand, a command to move to the next group, leaving all articles
in the current group unread, should not be necessary, as it can be done with
`~@N' (cancel all selections, reverse all selections (effectively selecting
everything), and move to the next group, leaving selected articles unread).

These changes will, no matter how they are done, force a change in the rc
format.  I do not know whether Kim has decided which format will be used.
rn's .newsrc format might be usable (I don't know it in sufficient details to
say).

These things are merely Kims and my ideas of how the read/unread problem might
be solved.  This is to say that the final solution might be different from
what I have written here.  If you have ideas or suggestions, send them to
nn-bugs@dkuug.dk, in which case both Kim and I will receive it.

Rene' Seindal (seindal@diku.dk).

BTW, if any of you have tried to get in touch with Kim recently, you have
probably failed, since the Danish EUnet mail backbone is down.  I do not know
how long this will last.