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  • trn4 question: What does Ctrl/N do (at the "xxx new articles...read now

    From Kenny McCormack@21:1/5 to All on Wed Nov 24 23:04:39 2021
    I accidentally hit Ctrl/N at this prompt, and it responded with:

    Using newsrc group #1: default.

    And it reset me to the top of my newsgroups list. Other than that,
    everything seems to be fine;/normal. What does this mean?

    Note that "man trn" and then searching for ^N tells me stuff about what
    Ctrl/N would do at the "End of article..." prompt, but there is nothing in there about at the other prompt.

    --
    In the corner of the room on the ceiling is a large vampire bat who
    is obviously deranged and holding his nose.

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  • From Adam H. Kerman@21:1/5 to Kenny McCormack on Wed Nov 24 23:56:29 2021
    Kenny McCormack <[email protected]> wrote:

    I accidentally hit Ctrl/N at this prompt, and it responded with:

    Using newsrc group #1: default.

    You have using a default .newsrc. If you subscribe to multiple News servers, you need a separate .newsrc for each. I distinguish among them following
    the pine naming convention, which merely gives me the option of using
    alpine as a newsreader.

    In ~/.trn/access, you put them in order. The file is self documenting.
    Just edit it.

    And it reset me to the top of my newsgroups list. Other than that, >everything seems to be fine;/normal. What does this mean?

    Note that "man trn" and then searching for ^N tells me stuff about what >Ctrl/N would do at the "End of article..." prompt, but there is nothing in >there about at the other prompt.

    trn 4 doesn't have a man page with full documentation. This is why it's
    forever going to remain in test mode.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Kenny McCormack@21:1/5 to Adam H. Kerman on Thu Nov 25 11:31:06 2021
    In article <snmjfd$95s$[email protected]>, Adam H. Kerman <[email protected]> wrote: >Kenny McCormack <[email protected]> wrote:

    I accidentally hit Ctrl/N at this prompt, and it responded with:

    Using newsrc group #1: default.

    You have using a default .newsrc. If you subscribe to multiple News servers, >you need a separate .newsrc for each. I distinguish among them following
    the pine naming convention, which merely gives me the option of using
    alpine as a newsreader.

    OK, thanks. What I'm most concerned with is: Did hitting ^N do anything
    bad? One of the things I've gotten used to with trn over the years is that almost all keys do something, and often that something isn't good.

    So, you have to be careful not to hit random keys...

    Anyway, I only have one newsserver, so I guess none of this applies to me.

    In ~/.trn/access, you put them in order. The file is self documenting.
    Just edit it.

    I have a ~/.trn directory, but it is empty. So, I would have to create
    that file from scratch (if I needed it, which, apparently, I don't).

    And it reset me to the top of my newsgroups list. Other than that, >>everything seems to be fine;/normal. What does this mean?

    Note that "man trn" and then searching for ^N tells me stuff about what >>Ctrl/N would do at the "End of article..." prompt, but there is nothing in >>there about at the other prompt.

    trn 4 doesn't have a man page with full documentation. This is why it's >forever going to remain in test mode.

    Interesting.

    --
    Reading any post by Fred Hodgin, you're always faced with the choice of:
    lunatic, moron, or troll.

    I always try to be generous and give benefit of the doubt, by assuming troll.

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  • From Adam H. Kerman@21:1/5 to Kenny McCormack on Thu Nov 25 17:14:21 2021
    Kenny McCormack <[email protected]> wrote:
    Adam H. Kerman <[email protected]> wrote:
    Kenny McCormack <[email protected]> wrote:

    I accidentally hit Ctrl/N at this prompt, and it responded with:

    Using newsrc group #1: default.

    You have using a default .newsrc. If you subscribe to multiple News servers, >>you need a separate .newsrc for each. I distinguish among them following >>the pine naming convention, which merely gives me the option of using >>alpine as a newsreader.

    OK, thanks. What I'm most concerned with is: Did hitting ^N do anything
    bad?

    Sorry. I left something out. If you defined multiple News servers in your access file each with its own .newsrc, ^N and ^P switches among them.
    As you are using a default .newsrc and no other, there's nothing to
    switch to.

    . . .

    In ~/.trn/access, you put them in order. The file is self documenting.
    Just edit it.

    I have a ~/.trn directory, but it is empty. So, I would have to create
    that file from scratch (if I needed it, which, apparently, I don't).

    A new installation of .trn creates those files.

    You'd need an access file to more easily switch among News servers. If
    you use exactly one server at a time without an access file, then rename
    the .newsrc of the server you aren't presently using so the other becomes
    the default.

    . . .

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  • From Eli the Bearded@21:1/5 to Kenny McCormack on Sun Dec 5 05:23:38 2021
    In news.software.readers, Kenny McCormack <[email protected]> wrote:
    OK, thanks. What I'm most concerned with is: Did hitting ^N do anything
    bad? One of the things I've gotten used to with trn over the years is that almost all keys do something, and often that something isn't good.

    Nothing really bad, it just restarts at the top of the newsrc. If you
    wanted to read all your groups in order, that can be annoying, but
    that's about it.

    So, you have to be careful not to hit random keys...

    Anyway, I only have one newsserver, so I guess none of this applies to me.

    You can have one news server and use multiple newsrc files for it, if
    say you want to group your groups. I find using a different DOTDIR for
    storing all of the state is more useful, sometimes I want to read the
    same article in two instances of trn (maybe not the same binary, or
    maybe with different options), and just using a different entry in ~/.trn/access doesn't cut it.

    I'm a bit of an outlier in using a trn4 with patches outside the
    standard distribution however.

    If you do want to go with the access method, this is the contents of
    my .trn/access, last edited in 2014. For the last five years at least
    I've only used the default panix server. Instead, I've used DOTDIR
    method for non-default servers since then. Eg, for the Mozilla groups

    alias moztrn="NNTPSERVER=news.mozilla.org DOTDIR=$HOME/archive/mozilla trn4.new"

    :r! cat ~/.trn/access
    [default]
    #NNTP Server = news1.nfs100.access.net
    #NNTP Server = news.panix.com
    #NNTP Server = news-test.panix.com
    NNTP Server = reader2.panix.com

    [eternalseptember]
    NNTP Server = news.eternal-september.org
    Auth User = pogonatus
    Auth Password = [redacted]

    [lugnet]
    NNTP Server = lugnet.com
    NNTP Port = 1119

    [vmware]
    NNTP Server = news.vmware.com

    [alt]
    NNTP Server = news.alt.net

    [Group 1]
    ID = default
    Newsrc = ~/.newsrc

    [Group 2]
    ID = eternalseptember
    Newsrc = ~/.trn/eternalseptemberrc

    [Group 3]
    ID = lugnet
    Newsrc = ~/.trn/lugnetrc
    Add Groups = no

    [Group 4]
    ID = vmware
    Newsrc = ~/.trn/vmwarerc
    Add Groups = no

    [Group 5]
    ID = alt
    Newsrc = ~/.trn/altrc
    Add Groups = no

    The NNTP Port option doesn't work and emits a warning every time I start
    trn, but I don't care enough to fix it.

    These days I'm using this trn:

    https://github.com/acli/trn

    1000% better "Content-Type: ...; charset=" handling. Still has bugs,
    notably UTF-7 doesn't work, but so much better than "dump it to the
    terminal and pray".

    Elijah
    ------
    is using a different Pnews from the acli version, however

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