Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!iuvax!bsu-cs!neubauer From: neubauer@bsu-cs.UUCP (Paul Neubauer) Newsgroups: comp.sources.d Subject: Re: vn verses vnews Summary: The REAL story (sorry long) Message-ID: <4398@bsu-cs.UUCP> Date: 19 Oct 88 01:26:27 GMT References: <632@convex.UUCP> <2743@uvacs.cs.Virginia.EDU> <2486@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu> <4866@b-tech.ann-arbor.mi.us> <4369@bsu-cs.UUCP> <654@convex.UUCP> Reply-To: neubauer@bsu-cs.UUCP (Paul Neubauer) Organization: CS Dept, Ball St U, Muncie, Indiana Lines: 188 In article <654@convex.UUCP> tchrist@convex.UUCP (Tom Christiansen) writes: >In article <4369@bsu-cs.UUCP> neubauer@bsu-cs.UUCP (Paul Neubauer) writes: >>While we're on the subject of features or misfeatures of rn, the one that >>has always bugged me is the difficulty involved in seeing articles that you >>have ALREADY read. I have used the 'h' and have RTFM, but I always seem to >>find myself editing the .newsrc file. If there are UNread articles >>remaining in the newsgroup, I can simply type in numbers to get previously >>read articles (though I often have to do some guessing because I cannot >>always remember the number of the article that I so rashly allowed to be >>marked as read). However, if I happened to hit 'j' on the LAST article of a >>newsgroup that I had been flipping through, I am left at the 'End of >>newsgroup foo, what now?' prompt and seem to have no access to any of the >>preceding articles unless I quit and edit the .newsrc. > >This is really RTFM, but it's one of the most common compaints I get. I >point to the manual, show them how they should have figured it out, and >they give me an incredulous, "You honestly expect me to have understood >that garbledy-gook?" to which I reply, "Sure, why not?" and off they >storm, growling under their breath about illegible documenation. As I mentioned, I *have* RTFM, and if you have a nice handy spot in the FM to point to, please do so. You may expect everyone to have understood everything in the FM, but I (who am normally comparatively adept at figuring out such things) am not at all surprised that this particular complaint is one of the most common. See below. >Anyway, try this... > >If you have just typed 'j' on the last article, say 880, you can see >previous ones with something like "845-$=". You can mark everything >in a given subject unread with "?subject?rm". Remember you can >get out the current subject with s or %s. There are lots of >other clever things to do, like ... [clever things deleted--not relevant] I would like to thank several people who have sent replies to my complaint/query. Most of the replies left out the same critical step that Tom did. (They probably assumed I knew what I was doing :-) To illustrate the problem I was referring to, I have prepared the following edited script from an actual rn session. I have deleted some unnecessary material and indicated the deletions with '...' I have indicated my responses to rn's prompts by underscoring them. For example, _S_P_C means that I pressed the spacebar. Other comments are included in c-style comments. I have also included some of the replies preceded by '>' or '+'. (I hope that the kind people that sent me these hints do not mind my posting fragments of their replies.) Script started on Mon Oct 17 11:04:46 1988 % rn Unread news in rec.humor.funny 1 article Unread news in comp.os.cpm 1 article ... etc. ******** 1 unread article in rec.humor.funny--read now? [ynq] _S_P_C Article 652 in rec.humor.funny (moderated): Subject: Amusing ? item for sale ... /*body of article deleted*/ End of article 652 (of 652)--what next? [npq] _S_P_C End of newsgroup rec.humor.funny. /*rn does not pause here*/ ******** 1 unread article in comp.os.cpm--read now? [ynq] _- /* This brings us to the point where I was having the trouble. */ +From: chemabs!chemabs!lwv27@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Larry W. Virden) +Here are a number of ways to do it: +a) type the message numbers you want to reread. +b) type a range of numbers and an = (to see the list of subjects) +c) type a /regular expression/ followed by the letter that indicates +that you can search read msgs (i have misplaced my manual). ******** 0 unread articles in rec.humor.funny--read now? [ynq] _6_5_1 Type h for help. /* I tried to type '651', a number for a previous article. */ /* As soon as I typed the '6', rn beeped at me and printed */ /* 'Type h for help', i.e., it refused to acknowledge the number. */ >From: dhesi (Rahul Dhesi) >If you exit with x, rn won't update .newsrc, so this is useful if you >accidentally junked some articles. To see articles already read, I /* This works, but is really useful only if you haven't got */ /* a lot of the .newsrc to reconstruct, e.g. if you haven't got */ /* a lot of articles marked with 'M' or the like. It isn't so */ /* bad if you have only eliminated whole newsgroups. */ >usually either select a word that appears in the subject line and mark >articles unread: > > ?word?rm /* So now I try to search backward for a string in the subject line */ /* and mark the article as unread. */ ******** 0 unread articles in rec.humor.funny--read now? [ynq] _?_s_a_l_e_?_r_m Searching... Not found--use g to add newsgroups /* That didn't work, so now try searching with '/' instead of '?' */ ******** 0 unread articles in rec.humor.funny--read now? [ynq] _/_w_i_t_h_/_r_m Searching... Not found--use g to add newsgroups /* Still no luck. */ +From: Steve Hayman +You want rn's "P" command. P goes to the previous article, even if +you've already read it. You can step through all the previous +articles with PPPPPPP ... ******** 0 unread articles in rec.humor.funny--read now? [ynq] _P /* Oops! That just takes me back to a different newsgroup. */ ******** 0 unread articles in rec.games.go--read now? [ynq] _- >From: Amos Shapir >Looks like you'll have to RTFM more carefully... :-) There was a time >I too thought there were things rn just cannot do, but that was before >I discovered the fact that there is no such thing - the question is always >'how', never 'if'. ;-) Almost always, there is more than one answer. /* How true! */ >Anyway, here's how: >A '-' will bring you to the last article read, or to the last group >if you have already left it. In the latter case, always say 'y' to >the question '0 unread articles - read now?' /* The KEY!!! This is what everyone else, including Tom, omitted */ ******** 0 unread articles in rec.humor.funny--read now? [ynq] _y End of newsgroup rec.humor.funny. What next? [qnp] _P Article 652 in rec.humor.funny (moderated): ... End of article 652 (of 652)--what next? [npq] _S_P_C /* That one worked!! */ /* Answering 'y' not only makes 'P' useable, but the other */ /* commands as well. */ /* This was more or less what I was hoping for, but did not */ /* know how to do. */ ******** 1 unread article in comp.os.cpm--read now? [ynq] _- /* Now for the bonus, something even better: */ +From: Steve Hayman /*more of Steve's reply*/ +while I'm here, here's a macro you might like. Put this in your +.rnmac file, and then you can use the ~ command to show the +subjects of all articles, read or unread. + +# ~ gives a list of subjects of all articles in the current newsgroups +~ %(%m=n?.$ /* trying Steve's tilde macro. */ ******** 0 unread articles in rec.humor.funny--read now? [ynq] _~ End of newsgroup rec.humor.funny. What next? [qnp] /* rn didn't pause for a response here */ Searching... 652 Amusing ? item for sale ... /*subject lines from 651-642 */ 641 A joke my father always liked... What next? [npq] _R_E_T /*RET gives last listed article*/ Article 641 in rec.humor.funny (moderated): Subject: A joke my father always liked... ... End of article 641 (of 652)--what next? [npq] _S_P_C /* Steve's macro works even without answering 'y' to the */ /* 'read now?" prompt. */ End of newsgroup rec.humor.funny. ******** 1 unread article in comp.os.cpm--read now? [ynq] _q % script done on Mon Oct 17 11:07:37 1988 Thanks again to all of you! Paul Neubauer neubauer@bsu-cs.UUCP !{iuvax,pur-ee}!bsu-cs!neubauer -- Paul Neubauer neubauer@bsu-cs.UUCP !{iuvax,pur-ee}!bsu-cs!neubauer