Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!apple!bbn!bbn.com!mesard
From: mesard@bbn.com (Wayne Mesard)
Newsgroups: news.newusers.questions
Subject: Re: several questions
Message-ID: <46929@bbn.COM>
Date: 14 Oct 89 03:11:14 GMT
References: <5818@tank.uchicago.edu>
Sender: news@bbn.COM
Reply-To: mesard@BBN.COM (Wayne Mesard)
Organization: Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc., Cambridge MA
Lines: 69

harelb@arthur.UUCP (Harel Barzilai) writes:
>Distribution: na

Mild news flame: Usenet .GT. North America.  Please use a "world"
distribution and let each site decide if they want to receive your
article or not.

>(1)General unix question: when I'm in "mail" and hit return to read an
>article, it doesn't "more" it for me,
>[...]is there a way of making my "mail" smart enough to do this?

General UNIX questions belong in comp.unix.questions.  I've never used
"mail"--I'm a die-hard MH fan, myself--so I'm not going to answer your
question and risk forgetting to dot an I or cross a T.  However, 33
seconds with the mail man page gave me what looks like an answer.  Type
"man mail" for details.  [That's right folks, RTFM.]

>(2)How does one use the "Message-ID" to access old articles (I assume
>that's basically what it's there for) instead of using "article
>number"?

Not really.  The Message-ID field is there to give each article a unique
serial number.  This, amoung other things, allows the construction of
the References field.  Note that the References line of _this_ message
contains your article's ID.  If someone follows-up this article it will
have both this article's ID and your article's ID in the References
line.  Some newsreading software uses this information to follow the
"thread" of a discussion.

But if you really want to go this--and whatever it is you're trying to
do, I assure you there are easier ways--the rn command would be:

  ?^Message-ID:.* id-goes-here?rh

Left as an exercise for the reader to sit down with the rn man page and
decipher this.

>(3)In one of the newsgroups I read, there's often a series of articles
>I don't want to read and I know exactly how many articles I want to
>skip (i.e., and have them be considered as read); how do I do this

To apply a command to a series of articles, specify the article numbers
followed by a colon then the command.  So to junk, say, articles 790
through 797 of the newsgroup you're currently reading you'd type:

  790-797:j

>[the newsgroup is misc.headlines.unitex, and I'll often find something
>like "subject:UN session on...(part 1 of 11)"]

But what you really want is:

  /UN session on/:j

In general, if you're typing numbers to "rn" you're probably doing
things the hard way.

Typing "h" when in rn will give you a list of all the commands available
at the current level (Newsgroup Selection, Article Selection and Pager).
This would have readily provided the above information.

>Right now I'm using "rn", if that's relevant to answering (2) and (3)

Shucks, and I was all set to flame you for not saying. :-)

-- 
unsigned *Wayne_Mesard();    "Are you for UNIX or  are you against UNIX?
Mesard@BBN.COM                People know the answers even if they don't
BBN, Cambridge, MA            understand the question."        -Bill Joy