Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!ukma!kherron From: kherron@ms.uky.edu (Kenneth Herron) Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp Subject: Re: continuous reading Message-ID: Date: 6 Dec 90 12:47:23 GMT References: <1990Dec04.192928.5564@chinet.chi.il.us> Distribution: na Organization: U of Ky, Math. Sciences, Lexington KY Lines: 43 stanley@phoenix.com (John Stanley) writes: >les@chinet.chi.il.us (Leslie Mikesell) writes: >> ...what is needed is something that would gather up your unread news >> into batches of a reasonable size for transmission and maintain your >> .newsrc on the fly the same as an interactive session. A corresponding >> program would accept your batched replies, sort out mail and followups and >> submit them to the appropriate programs. > Sounds like a lot of work to create something that looks like a >regular news feed, works like a news feed, and talks like a news feed. [My original reply to this never showed up; maybe I hit R instead of F...] Brad Templeton's Dynafeed package is perfect for this situation. It maintains a newsrc file for each site it feeds and periodically batches up new articles in groups mentioned in the newsrc. Depending on the setup, the receiving end can directly edit the newsrc file to add or remove groups, or can submit subscription lists. These subscription lists may be hand generated or the package includes a daemon that reads each user's .newsrc file (plus the newsrc files of other sites) and generates a subsription list automatically. The feeding end requires no special permissions to set up, beyond the use of at or cron to run the batcher regularly. Batches are normally created in cunbatch form and uux'ed to the other end to be fed into rnews (which works fine) but it's all done by shell scripts; you could arrange to zoo up all the articles and place them in a directory for manual downloading if you're using a PC and something like procomm. The package is in beta-test, but it's well thought-out and seems bug- and maintenance-free. I've been running a dynafeed link between two sites here for some time now with literally no problems after the first week. The package is available for anonymous ftp from uunet.uu.net in the ClariNet directory. Disclaimer: I'm just a satisfied user of Dynafeed -- Kenneth Herron kherron@ms.uky.edu University of Kentucky (606) 257-2975 Department of Mathematics "Never trust gimmicky gadgets" -- The Doctor Brought to you by Super Global Mega Corp .com