                                                                                             &                       FNEWS User GUIDE                               <                                                             <                                                             <                                                                                            <  FNEWS: A fast efficient low management news reader for VMS.                               <                                                             <                                                             <                                                             <                                                             <                                                             <                                                             <                                                             <                                                             <                                                             <                                                             <                                                             <                                                             <                                                             <                                                             <                                                  EGLE Magic,<                                               P.O Box 27574,<                                                  Mt Roskill,<                                                    Auckland,<                                                 New Zealand,<                                          Phone +64-9636-7789<                              Email chrisp@emagic.marc.cri.nz                               &                       FNEWS User Guide                                 < Introduction                                               2  < Displays                                                   2;   The Registered Display                                  2 ;   The Group Display                                       3 ;   The ITEM Display.                                       4 ;   The Tree Display                                        5   < Command-Ref                                                5;   GOLD+L                                                  5 ;   ALL                                                     6 ;   DEREG                                                   6 ;   DOWN                                                    6 ;   EXTRACT                                                 6 ;   EXIT                                                    6 ;   FETCH                                                   6 ;   FOLLOW                                                  6 ;   MAIL                                                    6 ;   GUP                                                     6 ;   GDOWN                                                   6 ;   HEAD                                                    6 ;   NEW                                                     6 ;   NOHEAD                                                  7 ;   POST                                                    7 ;   QUIT                                                    7 ;   REGISTER                                                7 ;   SAVE                                                    7 ;   SEARCH                                                  7 ;   SORT                                                    7 ;   SKIP                                                    7 ;   UP                                                      7 ;   WINDOW                                                  7 ;   FNEWS_EDITOR                                            7    Introduction   What is USENET News?6 USENET News is a world wide bulletin board.  It has no6 management or central system.  It is a large number of* computers and networks connected together.   News groups 5 The news is divided into approximately three thousand < groups.  These groups are chosen by mutual agreement using a complicated voting system.  2 How your article will get to the rest of the world9 When you post an article, it travels from your machine to 8 all the NEWS servers which your machine is connected to,5 (usually just one other machine, but in the case of a 7 university, you may be connected to three or four other 8 news machines).  Each of these servers in turn pass on: your article to all the machines that they are connected< to.  In this way your message eventually gets to every other news machine in the world.   What to read first0 There are a number of postings in the news group< "news.announce.newusers" that should be read and followed by) all  users using news for the first time.    What is an FAQ? 5 FAQ stands for Frequently Asked Questions.  These are 4 questions that every one asks when they first become< interested in a topic,  the old timers in a news group get8 sick of answering them again and again so they create an6 FAQ.  This is a list of all the questions and answers.1 Always look for an FAQ before posting a question.    Be careful posting8 Remember when you ask a stupid question on NEWS you have6 just annoyed approximately ten to one hundred thousand8 people, depending on the news group.  So always consider very carefully before posting.   How big is it?8 An item in a widely distributed news group will reach an4 estimated  24,000 sites world-wide hosting 1,000,000/ potential readers.  Most  sites are educational . institutions, but many research organisations,7  companies, and government departments are also part of 9 Usenet.  This number is growing exponentially, as many as 7 20,000,000 users are on the internet and most private ; individuals will only begin to connect over the next couple 	 of years.      How FNEWS displays news  FNEWS offers 4 displays:  3      TREE <---> REGISTERED <----> GROUP <----> ITEM                    ^ $                   |  Initial screen.       ; Initially you are placed in the REGISTERED display, use the 9 left and right  arrow keys to move left and right through  the display levels.   9 To register to a new group, go into the top TREE menu (by ; pressing  a left arrow) then press left and right arrows to 9 move about the tree and press a right arrow on a group to 2 register to it and enter the 'REGISTERED' display.  : You can search for a specific group, e.g.  'search os.vms'6 would find 'comp.os.vms', (from any part of the tree).  :  News items are sorted by subject and date (of writing) to& make  reading a 'conversation' easier.     Displays   The Registered Display<  The REGISTERED display, this is the initial screen you will see upon entering FNEWS.  H ------------------------------------------------------------------------. Registered, 5 groups of 1824 total  FNEWS 1.1c  1    Name                            Items   Unread H ------------------------------------------------------------------------, -->comp.lang.c                     200     6.    comp.os.vms                 lcl 455     455,    rec.arts.drwho                  5       0,    sci.space.news                  356     4,    alt.cd-rom                  <?> 23      4   FNEWS>H ------------------------------------------------------------------------  : A group marked as <?> is 'uncached' this means that no one< else has read that group for a couple of weeks, so the index7 is not stored locally, if you enter that group then the : index will be fetched dynamically, and stored for a couple	 of weeks.   9 A group marked as `lcl' is stored locally, this means the : items have  been loaded onto the local systems disk, these< groups can be read even when your news-server is not running or your network is down.  9 The number of `unread' items shown is only an approximate : value, it may be corrected when you enter a group, this is9 because groups often contain non-contiguous item numbers.   ; Use the up and down arrow keys to select a group, and right  arrow to enter it.  6 To mark all items in a group as read or unread use KP9; (Application KeyPad '9') or F9, (Gold-KP9 sets all items to  unread), or type in       > skip 
      > unskip   < To register to a new group press the left arrow key to enter8 the TREE display.  You will enter into the branch of the8 tree which contains the group which you were on when you pressed the left arrow.   < You can re-order the groups within the registered display by< deleting them using PF4 and un-deleting them using GOLD-PF4.7 You can sort them into alphabetical order by typing in:       > sort   6 Remeber to type SAVE or EXIT if you want to record any8 changes to your registered groups.  (ie if you QUIT then changes will be lost).     The Group Display :  The GROUP display shows you all the items within a group.  O ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ; New comp.os.vms      175 new of 417 items      29533->29976   M   Subject                                                 From     Lines Date O ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- O   * Re: IRC (chat?) program for VMS (29959)               sjunke   22    17-Oct O   * Re: How much to charge for CPU time? (29947)          CADS_COL 15    16-Oct O ->* Re: Maximum number of parameters in a link command*   gezelter 36    16-Oct O   * Re: problem with vms PHONE utility? (29849)           s01964   22    15-Oct O   * @PROCEDURE.COM/OUTPUT=... works  (29837)              kega     20    15-Oct O   * Re: @PROCEDURE.COM/OUTPUT=... worksREFRESH (29952)    lmrsys   20    16-Oct O   * Re: @PROCEDURE.COM/OUTPUT=... works (29956)           YOUNG    73    17-Oct O   * Remember NOdynamic on id.(Re: Re: Limited rights f*   kega     19    15-Oct O   * Re: Macintosh to DEClaser (29854)                     brydon   32    15-Oct O   * Re: DECnet for SUN: Info Needed (29810)               dwatts   43    14-Oct O   * Re: Longest record length in STREAM file? (29805)     gotmaew  64    14-Oct O -------------------------------------------------------------------------------  FNEWS>  < By default you are only shown items which you have not read, type in 
      > all to see the complete list.   8 The number in brackets, e.g. (29956), is a unique number: which was assigned to that item by your local news-server.  < The * character is infront of each UNREAD item, these will dissappear as you read items.   ; The date shown is the date (GMT) that the item was written, 8 items  are sorted by date of writing, and replies appear& beneath the original item in the list.    # Valid comands while reading an item  Command          Description+ new              Strip away all read items.   all              Show all items.0 search string    Searches subjects for a string. (PF3) : skip (KP9)       Mark item as read, and move to next item.3 skip /followup   Skip item and all followups to it.  (KP6) % unskip (Gold-    Mark item as unread.  KP9)  up [n]           Move up n lines" down [n]         Move down n lines- gup [n]          Move group window up n lines / gdown [n]        Move group window down n lines - mail             Mail that item to some user. 6 reply            Mail an answer to the current poster.; follow           Posts a reply to an article in that group. 8 fetch            Updates the index for this group on the                  fly. 2 extract          Extracts an item into a vms file.
 [filename]  <enter>         Read item                          The Item Display.   O ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- O     @PROCEDURE.COM/OUTPUT=... works  (29837)              kega     20    15-Oct O ->  Re: @PROCEDURE.COM/OUTPUT=... worksREFRESH (29952)    lmrsys   20    16-Oct O   * Re: @PROCEDURE.COM/OUTPUT=... works (29956)           YOUNG    73    17-Oct O ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- J comp.os.vms  "Re: @PROCEDURE.COM/OUTPUT=... worksREFRESH"  8/325 New itemsO ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- " From: lmrsys@xxx.yy.com     Item 8  H >>> have been set.  I tried re-assigning SYS$OUTPUT and capturing a SHOWG >>> SYMBOL/GLOBAL ..., but the SHOW SYMBOL command bypasses SYS$OUTPUT.  > I > Time to time I've discovered that reassigning SYS$OUTPUT will not work. K > Both reassigning SYS$OUTPUT (like $ DEFINE/USER_MODE SYS$OUTPUT TEMP.TMP) 8 > and using /OUTPUT to the DCL command sometimes failes. > L > My best workaround, that has worked so far, is to issue the command insideH > a command procedure and when calling the procedure using the techniqueD > with /OUTPUT=filename. (E.g. $ @DO_IT/OUTPUT=SYS$SCRATCH:TEMP.TMP) >   F Actually, if you have a single DCL commmand's output you want to save," SPAWN/OUTPUT=filename works great.O -------------------------------------------------------------------------------  FNEWS>
 78% shown.O -------------------------------------------------------------------------------   < The top window contains a small section of the GROUP display: so  you can scan the subjects and skip items quickly.  The- size of this  window is set with the command:       >window nlines   8 The arrow keys will move the cursor in the GROUP window,9 PAGEUP and PAGEDOWN will move the item.  Gold up and down 3 arrow will move the group window up and down pages.   < <Space-Bar> will read the next page of an item, and when the< wholeitem has been displayed it will search the group for an unread item.  <  <Enter> (from the application keypad) will skip the rest of4 the current item and then find the next unread item.  < PF3 (or will search for text within an item.  (only one at a time)   ; Using GOLD+L to learn new key definitions you can over-ride ; any of these key settings or put them under different keys.   8 If FNEWS can't access an item on the news server it will- search until it finds one that it can access.      The Tree DisplayP -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TREE [comp], 1827 groups total  O   Name                 Title                                              Items P --------------------------------------------------------------------------------P ->comp.admin.policy    Discussions of site administration policies.           31P   .ai.*                <dir>                                                   8P   .apps.spreadsheets   Spreadsheets on various platforms.                     12P   .arch.*              <dir>                                                   2P   .archives.*          <dir>                                                   2P   .bbs.*               <dir>                                                   2P   .benchmarks          Discussion of benchmarking techniques and results.     23P   .binaries.*          <dir>                                                  10P   .bugs.*              <dir>                                                   5P   .cad.cadence         Users of Cadence Design Systems products.              15P   .client-server       ?                                                      19P   .cog-eng             Cognitive engineering.                                  2P   .compilers           Compiler construction, theory, etc. (Moderated)        21P   .compression.*       <dir>                                                   2P   .databases.*         <dir>                                                   6P   .dcom.*              <dir>                                                  14P   .doc.*               <dir>                                                   2P   .dsp                 Digital Signal Processing using computers.             30P   .editors             Topics related to computerized text editing.           32     FNEWS>P --------------------------------------------------------------------------------  7 Groups are displayed in a tree like fashion, press left 7 arrow to go up the tree, (e.g. from alt.rec to alt) and 9 press right arrow to go into a branch, (e.g. from comp to : comp.os) or press right arrow on a group to register to it	 (or PF4).   8 The <?>  means a group is not locally cached, fnews will< read the index on the fly, and then cache it for the next 60 days.   ; 'lcl' means a group is stored locally, so messages are kept : longer, and are faster to read.  You can request groups be made local. (ask you sysadmin)  9 To search for a group like alt.alien.visitors, just type: #      FNEWS> search a.visit <return>      Command-Ref      GOLD+L8 Using GOLD+L (or <CONTROL>+L) you can define new keys or: redefine old ones.  Simply press GOLD+L, then type in what6 you want the new key to do, this might be: <leftarrow>; <downarrow> <rightarrow>  to move to the next group,  or it : might just be part of a command, e.g. "extract good.jokes"  9 Once you have finished typing in the learn sequence press 7 GOLD+L again and then press the key you want to define.   ; You can define control keys, functions keys, and gold keys. ) The definition is stored in a file called 1 SYS$LOGIN:fnews.defkey The only way to remove key ! definitions is to edit this file.    ALL 9 The ALL command will show all items in a group, including ; the ones you have read, the items are displayed in order of : writing and grouped together by subject, so new items will be inbetween old items.    DEREG  Deregisters you from a group.    DOWN9 Equivalent to page down key (which you may not have), you  can also give a number, e.g.: 
      > down 3    EXTRACT * Extracts an item into a file.  Qualifiers:      /append   EXIT* Saves your current status, and then exits.   FETCH ; Fetches any 'new' items from the news-server, usefull after , posting an item to see if it's really there.   FOLLOW0 Sends a follow up item to the current news item.     MAIL% E-Mails the current item to any user.    GUP ; Equivalent to gold+uparrow, moves up the group display, you+ can also give a number, e.g.:       > gup 3     GDOWNm; Equivalent to gold+downarrow, moves down the group display, ! you can also give a number, e.g.:       > gdown 3   HEAD< All future items are displayed complete with headers.You may/ have to read a new item before it takes affect.    NEW < The NEW command will show only unread items in a group, this8 is the default, to see 'read' items use the ALL command.   NOHEAD Turns of HEAD setting.   POST( Posts an item to the current news group.   QUIT. Exits without saving what you have read today.   REGISTER< To register/deregister groups, or move them about within the: REGISTERED menu, press PF4 to delete a group, and GOLD+PF4& to re-register it at the new position.   SAVE< Saves your current status (registered groups and items read)) in fnews.rc in your sys$login: directory.    SEARCH9 Searches the current group subject lines,  or the current   item, or the list of all groups.4 When it finds a match it will prompt you with  [ynq]      y = Yes, goto that one.      n = Next one please      q = Give up looking.    SORT' Sorts the Registered groups into order.    SKIP9 If you are in the group or item windows then it marks the 5 current item as 'read'.  If you are in the REGISTERED 9 display then the whole group is set as being 'read', (use  UNSKIP to set them as unread).   Valid qualifiers: ?          /all        Skips all items even when inside a group. 7     /point    Skips all items up to the current point. :     /follow   Skips this item and all items with the same subject.   UP; Equivalent to page up key (which you may not have), you can  also give a number, e.g.:       > up 3    WINDOW; Sets the top window to the specified number of lines. e.g.:       > win 6   FNEWS_EDITOR: You can define the logical FNEWS_EDITOR to be "TPU" if you9 don't like using EDT.  Similarly on unix you can redefine < this symbol.  You can also define this to run any command or procedure if you want.  