Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!lll-winken!uunet!microsoft!stevesc From: stevesc@microsoft.UUCP (Steve Schonberger) Newsgroups: news.newusers.questions Subject: Re: basic questions Keywords: articles, newsgroups, foolish questions Message-ID: <7194@microsoft.UUCP> Date: 1 Aug 89 03:11:20 GMT References: <758@soleil.UUCP> <3025@blake.acs.washington.edu> Reply-To: stevesc@microsoft.UUCP (Steve Schonberger) Organization: Microsoft Corp., Redmond WA Lines: 135 In article <758@soleil.UUCP> eam@soleil.UUCP (Ed A. Mills) writes: Newsgroups: news.newusers.questions eam>My usual method of learning new software is to fool aruond with it until eam>I figure it out. Well, this isn't working with "vnews", so maybe some of I see you are using ``vnews''. The advice wiml gave you applies to ``rn'', and not all of it is correct for ``vnews''. I used to use ``vnews'', and use ``rn'' now that I'm on a machine that has it. They don't have quite the same commands. I'll try to correct the advice given. eam>you experts could give me a few pointers. Please respond to each question eam>briefly and seperately. eam> eam>2. Exactly what is the function of "K"? Does it have the same effect eam> if I am reading an article at the end of a group as it would at eam> the beginning? What happens if new articles are added to a group eam> after I "K" the group? Do I still get to see them? In article <3025@blake.acs.washington.edu> wiml@blake.acs.washington.edu (William Lewis) writes: wiml> Do you mean 'k' or 'K'? They're different of course. 'k' simply scans wiml>every article that's currently been recieved, and if it has the same wiml>subject as the current subject, it 'j'unks it. (i.e., marks it as read). ``k'' doesn't do anything in ``vnews''. In ``vnews'', ``K'' marks all articles in the newsgroup as read and skips to the next newsgroup. This is the same as the ``c'' (catch-up) function in ``rn''. wiml>'K', however, places a command in the KILL file for that newsgroup, to wiml>do the same thing for EVERY article ever recieved, [...] ``vnews'' has no KILL files. ``rn'' has kill files. We should try not to confuse new users with conflicting advice. I know, I'm posting a conflicting answer, but I'm trying to be more careful to be sure I'm correct. eam>5. How do I unsubscribe to a group? Can I later resubscribe? How can I eam> see what groups I am unsubscribed to? For that matter, how can I see eam> what groups I'm subscribed to without paging through all of them? wiml> To unsubscribe, type 'u'. If you resubscribe (by typing "g ") wiml>it will still remember which articles you have read. This is more ``rn'' advice. The way to unsubscribe in ``vnews'' is by typing ``ug''. The authors of ``vnews'' chose to make unsubscribing from a newsgroup more difficult than one character, so that people don't accidentally drop one they want. To resubscribe in ``vnews'', you need to edit your .newsrc file (see my reply to the next question). ``g'' is the ``rn'' command again. To list your subscribed and unsubscribed newsgroups on a machine that has ``grep'' (any Unix machine and some others), use these commands: grep ':' .newsrc ## finds subscribed groups ## grep '!' .newsrc ## finds unsubscribed groups ## If you use the c-shell, you need to use \! instead of ! or you will get a very cryptic error message. You can do those commands from within ``vnews'' with the ``vnews'' command ``!''. eam>6. What does the .newsrc file in my directory do? What do the numbers eam> mean after the newsgroups? What do the !'s mean? If I edit this eam> file, does it change how vnews starts up? wiml> .newsrc contains information about the newsgroups you are subscribed to. wiml>It is rn's (and presumably vnews's) configuration file. The format of every wiml>line is: wiml> wiml>: wiml> wiml> where is the name of a newsgroup, and is a list wiml>of all the articles you have read in that newsgroup. Articles in wiml>can be either single numbers, delimited with commas, or ranges of numbers wiml>separated by a hyphen (i.e., 1-760 means 1 through 760.) If the colon wiml>is replaced by a '!', that means you are currently unsubscribed to wiml>that newsgroup. rn (or vnews) keeps the numbers of the articles you wiml>have read around, in case you resubscribe later. wiml is correct in this case, since ``vnews'' and ``rn'' use the same format of .newsrc (with trivial differences). If you edit this file, you can mark things that were read as being unread, and you can resubscribed to groups that you've unsubscribed. To resubscribed to an unsubscribed newsgroup, you should change the ``!'' in the line with the newsgroup's name to ``:''. eam>7. When new newsgroups are added to the network, are they automatically eam> included in my groups, or do I have to add them somehow? wiml> With rn, I am prompted for every new newsgroup. I don't know about vnews wiml>but I would assume it works the same way. ``vnews'' gives an informational message telling you about the new newsgroup (it looks kind of like an error message), and adds the newsgroup to the end of the .newsrc file. eam>8. Is there a way to order the groups as I please? Maybe by rearranging eam> the .newsrc file mentioned above? wiml> I seem to remember that rn's documentation implies that vnews forces wiml>the newsgroups into a certain order. With rn, rearranging .newsrc will wiml>have that effect, but apparently vnews will re-sort .newsrc if you do wiml>that. This isn't correct, at least not in any version of ``vnews'' I have seen. The way to order the newsgroups to your preference is by rearranging their .newsrc lines with an editor. ``rn'' has commands to allow you to rearrange them with ``rn'' itself, but that's a lot more trouble than using an editor I think. Besides it's ``vnews'' that eam is concerned with. eam>12. How can I extract an article to a file? I seem to have done this eam> accidently a few times, but it would be useful to know how to do eam> it on purpose. wiml> wiml> Two ways. 's' saves the current article to a file named after the wiml>current newsgroup. 'w' does the same thing, but strips off the headers wiml>first. Appending a file-name to either command will make it save to that wiml>particular file. In ``vnews'', those commands without a file name save a file called ``Articles'' in your home directory. The behavior is otherwise like that of ``rn'', which is what wiml described. eam>16. Can I 'unpost' an article that I posted? I tried this once, but it eam> said I didn't own it, even though I had just posted it. wiml> Hmmm, 'C'ancel should unpost a message. Maybe the current article wiml>wasn't the one you thought it was. Or maybe vnews and rn are just wiml>different... In ``vnews'', the cancel command is ``c''. Some systems don't have the cancel command properly installed, and you will get the error message, ``Can't cancel what you don't own.'' I know because I just tried it and our site has that problem. There is a very esoteric way to cancel an article with ``inews'', but _trust_me_ you don't want to know how to do it. It's very complicated, and may only work for the system administrator of a site. You may ask your system administrator to cancel the note for you, by the way, if you really want to get rid of it. Steve Schonberger microsoft!stevesc@uunet.uu.net