NEWSRDR User's Guide May, 1994 This manual describes NEWSRDR, an NNTP-based news reader for VMS systems. Revision/Update Information: This is a revised manual. Operating System and Version: VAX/VMS V5.0 or later; OpenVMS AXP V1.0 or later Software Version: NEWSRDR V4.8 Matthew Madison MadGoat Software ________________________ 23 May 1994 Permission is granted to copy and redistribute this document for no commercial gain. The information in this document is subject to change without notice and should not be construed as a commitment by the author. The author assumes no responsibility for any errors that may appear in this document. DISCLAIMER: The author, the author's employer, and MadGoat Software make no representations or warranties with respect to the contents hereof and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for any particular purpose. The following are trademarks of Digital Equipment Corporation: AXP DEC OpenVMS VAX VMS __________ Copyright ©1993, 1994 MadGoat Software. All Rights Reserved. _______________________________________________________ Contents _________________________________________________ PREFACE vii _________________________________________________ NEW AND CHANGED FEATURES ix _______________________________________________________ CHAPTER 1 USING NEWSRDR 1-1 _________________________________________________ 1.1 USING NEWSRDR FOR THE FIRST TIME 1-2 1.1.1 Cancelling a Subscription _____ 1-2 _________________________________________________ 1.2 READING NEW NEWS 1-3 1.2.1 Redisplaying an Article _______ 1-3 1.2.2 Following a Thread ____________ 1-4 1.2.3 Relaxed vs. Strict Threading __ 1-4 1.2.4 Reading by Subject ____________ 1-4 _________________________________________________ 1.3 SKIPPING ARTICLES 1-5 _________________________________________________ 1.4 MARKING ARTICLES FOR LATER REFERENCE 1-6 _________________________________________________ 1.5 PERMANENTLY IGNORING TOPICS OR AUTHORS 1-6 1.5.1 Removing Ignore Settings ______ 1-7 _________________________________________________ 1.6 READING SPECIFIC ARTICLES 1-7 iii Contents _________________________________________________ 1.7 SAVING ARTICLES 1-8 _________________________________________________ 1.8 PRINTING ARTICLES 1-8 1.8.1 Specifying PRINT Defaults _____ 1-9 _________________________________________________ 1.9 POSTING ARTICLES 1-9 1.9.1 Followup Articles _____________ 1-10 1.9.2 Cancelling an Article _________ 1-11 _________________________________________________ 1.10 SENDING MAIL MESSAGES 1-11 _________________________________________________ 1.11 PROFILE SETTINGS 1-12 1.11.1 Personal Name _________________ 1-12 1.11.2 Article Headers _______________ 1-12 1.11.3 Automatic Editing, Editor Name __________________________ 1-13 1.11.4 Signature _____________________ 1-13 _________________________________________________ 1.12 SUBPROCESSES 1-14 _________________________________________________ 1.13 KEYPAD KEYS 1-14 _________________________________________________ 1.14 SETTING YOUR REPLY-TO ADDRESS 1-14 _________________________________________________ 1.15 HEADER CACHING 1-15 _________________________________________________ 1.16 MOVING YOUR NEWSRDR PROFILE 1-15 iv Contents _________________________________________________ 1.17 USING A NEWSRC FILE 1-16 1.17.1 Specifying Newsgroup Order ____ 1-17 _______________________________________________________ PART II COMMAND DESCRIPTIONS ATTACH CMD-3 BACK CMD-4 CANCEL CMD-5 CURRENT CMD-6 DEFINE/KEY CMD-8 DIRECTORY CMD-11 DIRECTORY/GROUP CMD-14 EXIT CMD-16 EXTRACT CMD-17 FOLLOWUP CMD-20 FORWARD CMD-21 GROUP CMD-23 HELP CMD-24 MAIL CMD-25 NEXT CMD-27 POST CMD-28 PRINT CMD-31 READ CMD-35 REPLY CMD-38 SET ARCHIVE_DIRECTORY CMD-43 SET AUTO_READ_NEW CMD-44 SET AUTO_SAVE_PROFILE CMD-45 SET DIRECTORY_WIDTH CMD-46 SET EDIT CMD-47 SET FORCE_MAIL_PROTOCOL CMD-50 SET FORM CMD-51 SET HEADERS CMD-52 SET IGNORE CMD-55 SET NEWGROUP_ACTION CMD-58 SET NEWSRC CMD-60 SET PERSONAL_NAME CMD-62 v Contents SET QUEUE CMD-63 SET REPLY CMD-64 SET SEEN CMD-65 SET SIGNATURE CMD-67 SET UNSEEN CMD-69 SHOW CMD-71 SPAWN CMD-74 STORE CMD-77 SUBSCRIBE CMD-78 UNSUBSCRIBE CMD-80 UPDATE CMD-82 _______________________________________________________ FIGURES CMD-1 Spawned editor command procedure _____________________ CMD-49 _______________________________________________________ TABLES CMD-1 Header names __________________ CMD-52 vi _______________________________________________________ Preface There are several USENET news-related utilities available for VMS, some of which provide full local storage of news and UUCP protocol support, and some of which provide emulation of various network news readers available for UNIX systems. With the advent of NNTP, it becomes easier to gain access to USENET news by using one local system to store news and using "remote" news readers on other systems. The NEWSRDR utility provides an interface to USENET news that should be more familiar to VMS users. NEWSRDR attempts to follow the conventions of the VMS MAIL utility in its presentation and command structure whenever possible. __________________________________________________________________ Intended Audience This manual is intended for all users of the NEWSRDR utility and system managers responsible for installing and setting up NEWSRDR. __________________________________________________________________ Document Structure This document consists of two parts. The first briefly describes how to use NEWSRDR. The second describes all of the NEWSRDR commands in detail. __________________________________________________________________ Related Documents The reader is assumed to know something about USENET news, and should probably have as a reference Internet RFC 1036, Standard for Interchange of USENET Messages, which explains the structure of USENET news articles. The system manager should also have RFC 977, Network vii Preface News Transfer Protocol, which describes NNTP news service. viii _______________________________________________________ New and Changed Features See the file AAAREADME.TOO in the NEWSRDR distribution kit for a complete change history. ix _______________________________________________________ 1 Using NEWSRDR NEWSRDR is designed to be executed as a VMS "foreign" command. To set up the command symbol, you need to know where the NEWSRDR executable image is located for the command: $ NEWSRDR :== $disk:[dir]NEWSRDR Once the symbol is set up, you can invoke NEWSRDR with the command: $ NEWSRDR The NEWSRDR command can take up to two qualifiers: /[NO]UPDATE and /NEWGROUP_ACTION. The default for /UPDATE is /UPDATE=FULL, which causes NEWSRDR to obtain information from the NNTP server about all available newsgroups. You can specify /UPDATE=PARTIAL, which has the same effect as the UPDATE/PARTIAL command, or /NOUPDATE, to have no updates occur at all. Use the /NEWGROUP_ACTION qualifier to override your NEWGROUP_ACTION setting in your NEWSRDR profile (see SET NEWGROUP_ACTION for more information). Possible values are /NEWGROUP_ACTION=NONE, SUBSCRIBE, and PROMPT. The default behavior is to honor the NEWGROUP_ ACTION setting in your profile. You can also specify /UPDATE=BOTH, which causes a full update to occur, immediate followed by a partial update. This may be needed at some sites where the news server's "active" file is not kept up-to-date with the low-bound article number for its newsgroups. If you get extraneous "new articles" messages with the default NEWSRDR update behaviour, using /UPDATE=BOTH should eliminate those extraneous messages. 1-1 Using NEWSRDR __________________________________________________________________ 1.1 Using NEWSRDR for the First Time If you have never used NEWSRDR before, NEWSRDR will inform you that it cannot find a NEWSRDR profile and that it will create one for you. Your NEWSRDR profile contains information about which editor you use for composing messages, which article headers you wish to see when reading articles, and which newsgroups you are subscribed to. It is by default placed in your login directory and is called NEWSRDR_PROFILE.NRPF. To start reading news, the first thing you will need to do is to subscribe to one or more newsgroups. If you already know what newsgroups are available and which ones you want to subscribe to, you can use the SUBSCRIBE command right away to subcribe to those groups: News> SUBSCRIBE newsgroup [,newsgroup...] You can use wildcards in the newsgroup names to subscribe to a collection of newsgroups with a single command. If you want to look at the list of available newsgroups, use the command: News> DIRECTORY/GROUP/ALL Once you have subscribed to the newsgroups you are interested in, you should next use the EXIT command to leave NEWSRDR and save your subscription information in your profile. When you next start NEWSRDR, you'll be ready to begin reading news. ___________________________ 1.1.1 Cancelling a Subscription The UNSUBSCRIBE command (format the same as for SUBSCRIBE, above) is used to cancel a subscription to a newsgroup. 1-2 Using NEWSRDR __________________________________________________________________ 1.2 Reading New News Once you have subscribed to some newsgroups, information about which articles you have seen in those newsgroups is stored in your NEWSRDR profile. The command News> READ/NEW is used to start reading news articles you have not yet seen. This command is executed by default if you simply press RETURN at the first NEWSRDR command prompt, much like VMS MAIL. News articles are presented in a page-by-page format, also like VMS MAIL. At the bottom of each page, the number of remaining lines in the article and the message "Press RETURN for more..." will appear. Simply pressing the RETURN key will cause the next page of the article to be displayed. If you wish to skip to the next unseen article, you can use the READ/NEXT/NEW (or just NEXT) command. At the end of each article, just pressing RETURN will have the same effect as entering READ/NEXT/NEW. ___________________________ 1.2.1 Redisplaying an Article The CURRENT command is used to redisplay the article you are currently viewing from the beginning. If the article is encoded with the ROT13 cipher (sometimes done for articles containing potentially sensitive or offensive material), you can read the encoded text with the command CURRENT/ROTATE. 1-3 Using NEWSRDR ___________________________ 1.2.2 Following a Thread You can use the READ command to follow a discussion thread within a newsgroup. While reading an article, enter News> READ/THREAD to cause NEWSRDR to scan forward through the newsgroup, displaying those articles that reference the current message, or that contain the same subject as the article you are currently reading. Once started, just press RETURN to continue reading the thread. When there are no more articles with matching subject lines, the current article is set back to the first article in the thread, so you can continue reading where you left off. ___________________________ 1.2.3 Relaxed vs. Strict Threading By default, NEWSRDR uses a "relaxed" form of threading, based both on the References: header and subject-line matching. This is the best form of threading to use when a newsgroup is gatewayed to a mailing list, since replies coming from the mailing list will generally not have References: headers in them. If you want NEWSRDR to use only the References: header to determine threading ("strict" threading), specify the /STRICT qualifier on the commands that take the /THREAD qualifier (READ/THREAD, DIRECTORY/THREAD, SET SEEN/THREAD). ___________________________ 1.2.4 Reading by Subject If you wish to read articles on a group of topics, you can use the READ/SUBJECT command to specify one or more wildcard patterns to match subject headers. For example the command, News> READ/SUBJECT=(*DEC*,*VAX*) 1-4 Using NEWSRDR would cause NEWSRDR to scan forward through the newsgroup, displaying those articles whose subject headers contain "DEC" or "VAX". Once the first matching article is displayed, just pressing the RETURN key will page through the article and continue the subject scan using the same patterns. If you don't want to see an entire article, use the command News> READ/SUBJECT to move ahead to the next matching article. Once all matching articles have been found, the patterns are cleared and the current article is set back to where you were before doing the first READ/SUBJECT. __________________________________________________________________ 1.3 Skipping Articles If you have just subscribed to a particularly busy newsgroup, you may wish to skip over all the articles already posted to the newsgroup and read only those that are posted from now on. The command News> SET SEEN [/ALL] [article-range...] can be used to mark articles in a newsgroup as "seen", so they will not show up when you use READ/NEW. You can specify /ALL to mark all available articles as seen, or you can specify the articles to be marked by number (or use a dot to refer to the current article). A range of articles can be specified by giving the number of the first and last article in the range separated by a hyphen (such as "23-45"; a dot (".") can be used to refer to the current article, if there is one, and the keywords FIRST and LAST can be used to refer to the first and last available articles in the newsgroup. Multiple numbers or ranges can be given by separating them with commas. 1-5 Using NEWSRDR You can also use SET SEEN to skip over a collection of articles related to one topic. When reading an article, the command News> SET SEEN/THREAD can be used to skip all further articles in the newsgroup with subject text that contains the subject of the article you're currently reading. __________________________________________________________________ 1.4 Marking Articles for Later Reference If you have read an article or a group of articles that you want to come back to later, you can mark the articles "unseen" with the SET UNSEEN command: News> SET UNSEEN [/ALL] [article-range...] If you don't specify /ALL or any article numbers, the current article is marked "unseen". __________________________________________________________________ 1.5 Permanently Ignoring Topics or Authors If you wish to follow a newsgroup but are not interested in a particular topic being discussed in the newsgroup, you can use the SET IGNORE command to permanently ignore articles with subject lines containing particular text: News> SET IGNORE [/GLOBAL] /SUBJECT="pattern" The pattern you specify can contain VMS wildcards. Any articles in the newsgroup with subjects matching the pattern will automatically be skipped and marked "seen". If you wish to ignore matching articles in any newsgroup, use the /GLOBAL qualifier. If you wish to ignore articles posted by a particular person, rather than about a particular subject, use the /FROM qualifier on SET IGNORE: News> SET IGNORE [/GLOBAL] /FROM="pattern" 1-6 Using NEWSRDR Any article with a From line matching the specified pattern will be ignored. You can also ignore articles that are cross-posted to newsgroups you aren't interested in by using the /NEWSGROUPS qualifier, or ignore articlees based on Message-ID by using the /MESSAGE_ID qualifier. ___________________________ 1.5.1 Removing Ignore Settings Ignore settings are kept in your NEWSRDR profile. After a particular thread or author has died down, you may wish to remove the ignore settings for a newsgroup with the SET NOIGNORE command: News> SET NOIGNORE [/GLOBAL] [/FROM="pat"] [/SUBJECT="pat"] You can find out what the ignore settings are for the current newsgroup with the SHOW IGNORE command. __________________________________________________________________ 1.6 Reading Specific Articles To read a particular article in a particular newsgroup, you first have to select the newsgroup with the GROUP command: News> [GROUP] groupname (Note that the word GROUP is optional.) You can then use the READ command, specifying the number of the article you wish to read: News> [READ] articlenumber (Note that the word READ is optional.) If you are not sure of the article number, you can use the DIRECTORY command to obtain a listing of articles, including the article number, address of the article poster, and subject of the article: 1-7 Using NEWSRDR News> DIRECTORY [/SEEN] [/UNSEEN] [article-number] If you specify an article number on the DIRECTORY command, the directory listing begins with the specified article. Otherwise, the directory listing begins with the article you are currently reading, or, if you haven't read any articles, the first article in the newsgroup. Directory listings are presented in a paged format just like news articles. __________________________________________________________________ 1.7 Saving Articles You can save the text of any article or range of articles into a VMS file with the EXTRACT command: News> EXTRACT [/[NO]APPEND] [file-spec] [article-range...] If you omit the file-spec, the file name defaults to the current newsgroup name (with special characters translated to underscores), and /APPEND is turned on by default. You can specify a single article by number or an entire range or articles (see the description of SET SEEN, above, for a description of article ranges). Multiple numbers or ranges can be specified, separated by commas. If you do not specify any article number at all, the current article is copied to the file. You must specify a file-spec if you want to specify an article range. __________________________________________________________________ 1.8 Printing Articles You can send any article or range of articles to a print queue with the PRINT command: News> PRINT [article-range...] You can specify a single article by number or an entire range or articles (see the description of SET SEEN, above, for a description of article ranges). Multiple numbers or ranges can be specified, separated 1-8 Using NEWSRDR by commas. If you do not specify any article number at all, the current article is added to the print job. A single print job is maintained by NEWSRDR for all articles to be printed. The print job is released when you exit NEWSRDR or you use the PRINT/NOW command. You can cancel a pending print job with the PRINT/CANCEL command. The PRINT command has several options for controlling the print job; see the complete command description for further information. ___________________________ 1.8.1 Specifying PRINT Defaults You can define a default print queue with the SET QUEUE command: News> SET QUEUE queue-name This will direct subsequent print jobs to the specified queue, rather than to SYS$PRINT. You can also define the default form to be used for print jobs with SET FORM: News> SET FORM form-name Use SET NOFORM to revert to using the queue's form default. Both of these settings can be overridden by using the appropriate qualifiers on the PRINT command. The settings are saved in your NEWSRDR profile. __________________________________________________________________ 1.9 Posting Articles The POST command is used to post an article to one or more newsgroups: News> POST [/EDIT] [/[NO]SUBJECT="subject"] [groupname...] If you omit the "groupname", the article is posted to the current newsgroup. The /EDIT qualifier is used to 1-9 Using NEWSRDR invoke a text editor to compose the article (see the description of the SET command, below). The /SUBJECT qualifier can be used to specify or omit a subject line for the article. If you do not use the /SUBJECT qualifier, you will be prompted for a subject line. Once you have been prompted for the text of your news article, or if editing, you have saved the article text with the text editor, you will be asked if you really want to post the article. If you answer "yes", or just press the RETURN key, the article will be posted. If you answer "no", the article will not be posted. If you decide not to post an article, or the article posting fails for some reason, you will be given the opportunity to keep the file containing the article text you entered. ___________________________ 1.9.1 Followup Articles A followup article is a reply to a specific article which can either be posted or mailed to the author of the original article. You must be reading an article to send a reply. REPLY (or FOLLOWUP) command is used to compose and send replies: News> REPLY [/MAIL] [/POST] [/EDIT] [/NOEXTRACT] [/[NO]SUBJECT="text"] By using the /POST and /MAIL qualifiers, you can post your reply to the newsgroup, send it by mail, or both. If you do not specify /MAIL or /POST, the reply is posted. The /EDIT and /SUBJECT qualifiers mean the same as for the POST command. If you use an editor to compose the reply, the text of the original article is automatically placed in the reply (prefixed with greater-than signs) before the editor is invoked. The /NOEXTRACT qualifier can be used to prevent this from occurring. 1-10 Using NEWSRDR ___________________________ 1.9.2 Cancelling an Article If you post an article that you wish you hadn't, you can have the article removed from the news system by using the CANCEL command: News> CANCEL [artnum] You must either specify the article number or be reading the article you wish to cancel in order to issue the CANCEL command. __________________________________________________________________ 1.10 Sending Mail Messages You can use the MAIL (or SEND) command to send messages to other users, which has much the same format as the SEND command in VMS MAIL: News> MAIL [/EDIT] [/TO=(address...)] [/SUBJECT="subj"] [fspec] The only difference between this command and the VMS MAIL SEND command is the use of the /TO qualifier to specify the destination(s) of the mail message. If you omit the /TO qualifier, you will be prompted for the address(es) of the recipient(s). Note that mail addresses within NEWSRDR are NOT the same as for VMS MAIL, but are addresses used by your Internet mailer. For example, if you use PMDF's "IN%" prefix to direct mail to Internet addresses from VMS MAIL, you would not use that prefix in NEWSRDR; NEWSRDR will tack the prefix onto the address for you automatically when sending your message through VMS MAIL. You also need to use quotation marks around addresses only if you specify them with the /TO qualifier on the MAIL command. 1-11 Using NEWSRDR __________________________________________________________________ 1.11 Profile Settings NEWSRDR has several settings which you can change with the SET command. These settings are saved in your NEWSRDR profile, preserved between NEWSRDR sessions. You can display the current settings with the SHOW ALL command, which will also display the node name of the news server and the name of the current newsgroup. ___________________________ 1.11.1 Personal Name Just as VMS MAIL allows you to set up a "personal name" which is included with your address on your outgoing mail, NEWSRDR allows you to do on news articles you post: News> SET PERSONAL_NAME "your name" You may use any name you like as your personal name. ___________________________ 1.11.2 Article Headers News articles are generally accompanied by large numbers of header lines which identify various aspects of the articles, some of which you may not be interested in. The command News> SET HEADERS [NO]headername... is used to turn on or off the display of particular header lines when you read subsequent articles. The header names you can specify are: FROM, DATE, NEWSGROUPS, SUBJECT, MESSAGE_ID, PATH, REPLY_ TO, SENDER, FOLLOWUP_TO, EXPIRES, REFERENCES, DISTRIBUTION, ORGANIZATION, KEYWORDS, APPROVED, LINES, and XREF. Specifying NO in front of a header name turns off its display in subsequent messages. 1-12 Using NEWSRDR ___________________________ 1.11.3 Automatic Editing, Editor Name If you would like to use a text editor every time you compose an article or mail message, you can use the SET EDIT command to enable automatic editing: News> SET [NO]EDIT [/EDITOR=(editorname,CALL)] If you use SET EDIT, the text editor will automatically be invoked for every POST, REPLY, and MAIL command, unless you use the /NOEDIT qualifier. You can turn off automatic editing with the SET NOEDIT command. In either case, you can specify which text editor you would like to use with the /EDITOR qualifier. Any callable editor may used; TPU (a.k.a. EVE) is the default. VMS comes with one other callable editor: EDT. The DEC Language-Sensitive Editor (LSE), if installed on your system, can also be used. There may also be other callable editors available at your site. If the editor you wish to use is not callable, you can instead set up a command procedure to be spawned as a subprocess which will invoke the editor: News> SET [NO]EDIT [/EDITOR=("@command-procedure",SPAWN)] The command procedure must be of the form shown in Figure CMD-1. ___________________________ 1.11.4 Signature Some people like to have a standard "signature" be included at the end of each article they post. This signature usually contains the person's name, E-mail address, company name, and a disclaimer of some kind. The SET SIGNATURE command allows you to specify the name of a file to be used as a signature for articles you post and mail messages you send: 1-13 Using NEWSRDR News> SET [NO]SIGNATURE file-spec The specified file should contain no more than eight lines of text, each line containing no more than 80 characters. The contents of the file will automatically be appended to every article you post and every mail message you send through NEWSRDR. Use the SET NOSIGNATURE command to disable the inclusion of a signature file. __________________________________________________________________ 1.12 Subprocesses NEWSRDR provides SPAWN and ATTACH commands for creating and moving among subprocesses. These commands are patterned after their counterparts in VMS MAIL. __________________________________________________________________ 1.13 Keypad Keys NEWSRDR provides a DEFINE/KEY command for defining keys to perform NEWSRDR commands. This command is also patterned after its counterpart in VMS MAIL. In addition, you can create a file containing a collection of DEFINE/KEY commands to be loaded each time NEWSRDR is executed. The file should be placed in your SYS$LOGIN directory and should be called NEWSRDR_ KEYDEFS.NRKEY. Alternatively, you can place the key definitions in another file and assign the name of that file to the logical name NEWSRDR_KEYDEFS. __________________________________________________________________ 1.14 Setting Your Reply-To Address Typically, when you post an article, the "From" address that is entered in the article is used to address E-mail for replies that are mailed directly to you. If you prefer to have replies sent to a different E-mail address, you can define a logical name containing your preferred E-mail address: $ DEFINE NEWSRDR_REPLY_TO "username@hostname" 1-14 Using NEWSRDR No syntax checking is performed on this address, so you must specify your address carefully. Also, please note that some systems do not use the Reply-To header to address replies. Note: Your system manager can prevent you from using this feature. __________________________________________________________________ 1.15 Header Caching Some NEWSRDR commands, such as READ/THREAD, require access to article headers for their operation. To cut down on network and news server load, and generally improve performance over multiple uses of these header-intensive commands, article headers are cached in memory by NEWSRDR when they are retrieved from the server. By default, up to 128 sets of headers may be cached at once. However, you can control the header cache size by defining the logical name NEWSRDR_ HEADER_CACHE_SIZE to be the maximum number of sets of headers you wish to have cached. For example: $ DEFINE NEWSRDR_HEADER_CACHE_SIZE 256 This will cause NEWSRDR to hold up to 256 sets of article headers. Please note that the header cache works on a per-group basis only. This means that it works best when you do all your work in one group at a time, rather than jumping around to different newsgroups, reading a few articles at a time. __________________________________________________________________ 1.16 Moving Your NEWSRDR Profile By default, NEWSRDR expects your profile to be called NEWSRDR_PROFILE.NRPF and to be located in your login directory. You can alter this by defining the logical name NEWSRDR_PROFILE to be the full file specification for your NEWSRDR profile: 1-15 Using NEWSRDR $ DEFINE NEWSRDR_PROFILE file-spec Add the logical name definition to your login command procedure to have it take effect each time you log in. __________________________________________________________________ 1.17 Using a NEWSRC File By default, all information about newsgroups you subscribe to and the articles you have seen in those groups is kept in your NEWSRDR profile. You may additionally have that information stored in a "newsrc" file. There are two main reasons for using a newsrc file: 1 You use another news reader besides NEWSRDR and you want to be able to use either and maintain the same subscription/article information for both. Most other news readers use a newsrc file by default. 2 You want to be able to control the order in which you visit newsgroups during your NEWSRDR session. You specify the use of a newsrc file with the SET NEWSRC command: News> SET NEWSRC [file-spec] [/SUBSCRIBED_ONLY] If you omit the file-spec, it defaults to SYS$LOGIN:XX.NEWSRC. Specifying the /SUBSCRIBED_ ONLY qualifier causes NEWSRDR to include only the newsgroups you subscribe to in the newsrc file; by default, all newsgroups are listed (for compatibility with other news readers). Use the SET NONEWSRC to disable the use of a newsrc file. NEWSRDR reads in your newsrc file after reading your NEWSRDR profile, and updates the subscription and article information. On exiting, NEWSRDR updates the newsrc file after updating your NEWSRDR profile. It will not overwrite an existing newsrc file, but will instead create a new version. 1-16 Using NEWSRDR ___________________________ 1.17.1 Specifying Newsgroup Order The newsrc file is a plain text file which can be modified with any VMS text editor. You can specify the order in which NEWSRDR visits newsgroups by rearranging the lines in the newsrc file. Be careful not to change the contents of the lines as you rearrange them; only news reader programs should make such changes. 1-17 _______________________________________________________ Part II Command Descriptions Command Descriptions ATTACH _______________________________________________________ ATTACH Switches control of your terminal from your current process to another process in the same job. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT ATTACH [process-name] _______________________________________________________ Command Qualifiers Defaults /PARENT _______________________________________________________ PARAMETERS process-name Name of the process to which the connection is to be made. The process must be in the same job as your current process. _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION This command is a parallel to the DCL ATTACH command. It allows you to transfer your terminal to another subprocess in your job by name, or directly to the process which created your current subprocess. _______________________________________________________ QUALIFIERS /PARENT Specifies that your terminal should be attached to the process that created the subprocess to which your terminal is currently attached. This is the default if no process name is specified. CMD-3 Command Descriptions BACK _______________________________________________________ BACK Synonym for READ/PREVIOUS. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT BACK _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION Please see the description of the READ command (READ) for further information. CMD-4 Command Descriptions CANCEL _______________________________________________________ CANCEL Cancels an article by sending a cancel control message to the server. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT CANCEL [artnum] _______________________________________________________ PARAMETERS artnum Article number of the article to be cancelled. If not specified, the current article is cancelled. You should only cancel those articles for which you are the author. _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION This command constructs and posts a Usenet control message that cancels the specified article. CMD-5 Command Descriptions CURRENT _______________________________________________________ CURRENT Redisplays the current article from the beginning. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT CURRENT _______________________________________________________ Command Qualifiers Defaults /EDIT /FULL_HEADERS /ROTATE /THREAD_BASE _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION While reading an article, if you are paged part or all the way through the article, the CURRENT command will rewind the article to the beginning and redisplay the first page. _______________________________________________________ QUALIFIERS /EDIT Displays the article using a text editor (the one set with SET EDIT). /FULL_HEADERS Includes all available headers in the article display, not just those selected with SET HEADERS. /ROTATE Applies the ROT13 cipher to the article text before display. Some articles are enciphered with ROT13 because they may contain sensitive or offensive CMD-6 Command Descriptions CURRENT material, leaving it up to the reader to determine whether the article warrants deciphering and reading. /THREAD_BASE Re-displays the base note of the current thread, if you are using READ/THREAD to follow a thread. CMD-7 Command Descriptions DEFINE/KEY _______________________________________________________ DEFINE/KEY Defines a key to execute a NEWSRDR command. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT DEFINE/KEY key-name string _______________________________________________________ Command Qualifiers Defaults /[NO]ECHO /ECHO /IF_STATE=state-list /[NO]LOCK_STATE /NOLOCK_STATE /[NO]SET_STATE=state /NOSET_STATE /[NO]TERMINATE /NOTERMINATE _______________________________________________________ PARAMETERS key-name Specifies the name of the key you are defining. Use the following key names when defining keys: _______________________________________________________ Key_name___________VT100_key______LK201_key____________ PF1 PF1 PF1 PF2 PF2 PF2 PF3 PF3 PF3 PF4 PF4 PF4 KP0, KP1-KP9 keypad 0-9 keypad 0-9 PERIOD keypad keypad period period COMMA keypad comma keypad comma MINUS keypad minus keypad minus CMD-8 Command Descriptions DEFINE/KEY _______________________________________________________ Key_name___________VT100_key______LK201_key____________ ENTER ENTER key Enter key E1, FIND n/a Find E2, INSERT_HERE n/a Insert Here E3, REMOVE n/a Remove E4, SELECT n/a Select E5, PREV_SCREEN n/a Prev Screen E6, NEXT_SCREEN n/a Next Screen HELP n/a Help DO n/a Do F17-F20____________n/a____________F17-F20______________ string Specifies the string you want entered when you press the defined key. _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION This command is implemented by passing the entire command to the VMS Screen Management (SMG) routines for processing by SMG$DEFINE_KEY. NEWSRDR does no processing on the command. Key definitions are not remembered between NEWSRDR sessions. To have keys defined automatically each time you run NEWSRDR, create a file containing DEFINE/KEY commands called NEWSRDR_KEYDEFS.NRKEY, located in SYS$LOGIN. Alternatively, you can call the file something else and define the logical name NEWSRDR_ KEYDEFS to point to that file. _______________________________________________________ QUALIFIERS /[NO]ECHO Specifies whether the command line is echoed when you press the defined key. You cannot specify both /NOECHO CMD-9 Command Descriptions DEFINE/KEY and /NOTERMINATE. The default is /ECHO. /IF_STATE=state-list Specifies one or more states, any one of which must be set in order to enable the specified key definition. If you omit this qualifier, the current state is used. To specify more than one state, separate the state names with commas and surround the list with parentheses. /[NO]LOCK_STATE Causes the state specified by the /SET_STATE qualifier to be permanently retained when the defined key is pressed. The state is retained until changed by using another key that sets a state. If omitted or negated, the specified state is retained only until you press another key. /[NO]SET_STATE=state Establishes a state that is set when the defined key is pressed. A state name can be any alphanumeric string. The state lasts for one further keypress only, unless /LOCK_STATE is specified. If you omit or negate this qualifier, the state remains unchanged when the defined key is pressed. You cannot specify both /SET_ STATE and /TERMINATE. /[NO]TERMINATE Determines whether the specified command string is executed when the defined key is pressed. If not terminated, you must press RETURN for the command to be executed. The default is /NOTERMINATE. CMD-10 Command Descriptions DIRECTORY _______________________________________________________ DIRECTORY Lists information about articles in the current newsgroup. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT DIRECTORY [article-range] _______________________________________________________ Command Qualifiers Defaults /GROUP /EXCLUDE=(keyword=(pattern...)...) /FROM=(pattern...) /KEYWORD=(keyword...) /SUBJECT=(pattern...) /SEEN /STRICT /THREAD /UNSEEN /WIDTH=(keyword...) _______________________________________________________ PARAMETERS article-range Range of articles to be included in the directory listing. If omitted, the current article through the last article in newsgroup are listed. _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION The DIRECTORY command lists the article number, originator, and subject of articles in the current newsgroup, one article per line. Articles you have seen are marked with an "x" in the listing. CMD-11 Command Descriptions DIRECTORY Specifying any of /EXCLUDE, /FROM, /KEYWORD, or /SUBJECT can narrow down the directory listing to include or omit articles matching the specified criteria. When specified in combination, only those articles matching all of the specified criteria are listed. _______________________________________________________ QUALIFIERS /GROUP See the description for the DIRECTORY/GROUP command. /EXCLUDE=(keyword=(pattern...)...) Causes articles matching the specified exclusion criteria to be omitted from the listing. Valid values for keyword are FROM and SUBJECT. /FROM=(pattern...) Specifies one or more patterns to be matched against each article's From header. Only those articles matching one of the specified patterns are listed. /KEYWORD=(keyword...) Specifies one or more keywords. Only those articles with Keywords headers containing the specified keyword(s) are listed. /SUBJECT=(pattern...) Specifies one or more patterns to be matched against each article's Subject header. Only those articles matching one of the specified patterns are listed. /SEEN Specifies that seen articles should be included in the listing. If neither /SEEN nor /UNSEEN is specified, all articles are listed. CMD-12 Command Descriptions DIRECTORY /STRICT Used with the /THREAD qualifier, specifes that "strict" rules be used to determine threading. See Section 1.2.3 for more information. /THREAD Causes the articles to be listed in thread-order. Base notes of threads are displayed normally; subsequent notes in the thread are displayed with the article numbers indented. /UNSEEN Specifies that unseen articles should be included in the listing. If neither /SEEN nor /UNSEEN is specified, all articles are listed. /WIDTH=(keyword...) Alters the format of the DIRECTORY display. Possible values for keyword are: FROM=n Sets the width of the From-address column. SUBJECT=n Sets the width of the Subject column. By default, DIRECTORY uses approximately 20 columns for other fields and spacing and divides the rest of the terminal width evenly between the From column and the Subject column. Note that it is possible to exceed the terminal width by specifying large values for this qualifier; this may produce unexpected results. CMD-13 Command Descriptions DIRECTORY/GROUP _______________________________________________________ DIRECTORY/GROUP Lists information about newsgroups available from the server. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT DIRECTORY/GROUP [group-pat] _______________________________________________________ Command Qualifiers Defaults /ALL /[NO]SORT /NOSORT /UNSEEN _______________________________________________________ PARAMETERS group-pat A group name or a pattern containing wildcards. All groups matching the specified pattern are included in the directory listing. If omitted, all groups are listed. _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION DIRECTORY/GROUP lists the names of the newsgroups to which are subscribed along with the number of the first and last article available from the server in each newsgroup. Also indicated is whether or not you subscribe to the group (more useful with DIR/GROUP/ALL) and the number of articles in the group that you have not yet read. DIR/GROUP/ALL lists information about all groups available from the server. CMD-14 Command Descriptions DIRECTORY/GROUP Note: DIR/GROUP/ALL will not display any useful information unless you have done an full information update with the UPDATE/FULL command first. DIR/GROUP will not flag unmoderated groups unless you have done an UPDATE/FULL first. _______________________________________________________ QUALIFIERS /ALL Lists information about all available newsgroups that match, rather than just the groups to which you subscribe. /[NO]SORT Causes the groups to be listed alphabetically. By default, the listing is displayed in the order in which they appear in your NEWSRDR profile (which is alphabetical also) or in your newsrc file (if you have set one with the SET NEWSRC command). /UNSEEN Specifies that the list should include only those newsgroups where there are unseen articles. CMD-15 Command Descriptions EXIT _______________________________________________________ EXIT Ends an NEWSRDR session. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT EXIT _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION Ends the current NEWSRDR session, updates your NEWSRDR profile, and returns control to DCL. CMD-16 Command Descriptions EXTRACT _______________________________________________________ EXTRACT Copies news articles into a file. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT EXTRACT [file-spec] [article-range ...] _______________________________________________________ Command Qualifiers Defaults /[NO]APPEND See text. /GROUP=(pattern,...) /[NO]HEADERS[=FULL] /HEADERS /[NO]IGNORE /NOIGNORE /MARK /NEW /ROTATE _______________________________________________________ PARAMETERS file-spec Name of the file into which the selected article(s) will be copied. If omitted, the name of the file is taken from the current newsgroup name. For example, an article extracted from newsgroup "comp.sys.belch-fire" would be placed in the file COMP_SYS_BELCH-FIRE.TXT. article-range A single article number or a starting and ending article number separated by a hyphen. All articles in the specified range are copied into the file. If omitted, only the current article is copied. The SET ARCHIVE_DIRECTORY command can be used to specify a default device and directory for extracted articles. If no archive directory is specified, and no CMD-17 Command Descriptions EXTRACT device/directory is specified in file-spec the file is placed in the current directory by default. _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION This command can be used to save articles into a file for future reference. One or more articles can be extracted into a file, but all articles must be in the current newsgroup. Using /APPEND causes the articles to appended to the specified file (which must already exist). Otherwise, a new file is created for the extracted articles. This command could be used from a batch job to periodically pick up any new articles from the news server and place them in your news archive (or a particular file). For example: News> EXTRACT/HEADERS=FULL/GROUP=*/IGNORE/MARK/NEW This command would select all unseen articles from all the newsgroups you are subscribed to, extract them into their default files, and mark them as seen once they have been extracted. _______________________________________________________ QUALIFIERS /[NO]APPEND Causes the articles to appended to the file. The default when file-spec is present on the command is /NOAPPEND; when file-spec is omitted, the default is /APPEND. /GROUP=(pattern,...) Selects articles from the specified newsgroup(s). A wildcard pattern may be specified; when wildcards are used, only subscribed newsgroups matching the pattern are selected. If this qualifier is not used, articles are selected only from the current newsgroup. CMD-18 Command Descriptions EXTRACT /[NO]HEADERS[=FULL] Causes the article header lines to be included in the extraction (the default). Use /NOHEADERS to cause the header lines to be omitted. Use /HEADERS=FULL to include all article headers, overriding the SET HEADERS/EXTRACT settings. /[NO]IGNORE Causes EXTRACT to honor ignore criteria (set with the SET IGNORE command) when selecting articles for extraction. By default, ignore criteria are not honored. /MARK Marks the extracted articles as seen. /NEW Selects only unseen articles. /ROTATE Causes the article body to be deciphered, using the ROT13 cipher, when written to the file. CMD-19 Command Descriptions FOLLOWUP _______________________________________________________ FOLLOWUP This is a synonym for REPLY. See the description of the REPLY command for further information. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT FOLLOWUP [group-name,...] _______________________________________________________ Command Qualifiers Defaults /DISTRIBUTION=(dist ...) /[NO]EDIT /[NO]EXTRACT /FOLLOWUP_TO=(group ...) /MAIL /POST /[NO]SIGNATURE /[NO]SUBJECT="subject-text" /TO=(user-spec ...) CMD-20 Command Descriptions FORWARD _______________________________________________________ FORWARD Forwards a copy of a news article to a user by electronic mail. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT FORWARD [article-number] _______________________________________________________ Command Qualifiers Defaults /[NO]EDIT /[NO]SELF /[NO]SUBJECT[="subject-text"] /[NO]SIGNATURE /TO=(user-spec...) _______________________________________________________ PARAMETERS article-number Number of the article to be sent. If omitted, the current article is sent. _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION This command sends the specified article by E-mail to the specified user or users. The complete article, including all headers, is treated as the text of the message. You can edit the text before it is sent, if desired. _______________________________________________________ QUALIFIERS /[NO]EDIT Specifying /EDIT causes a text editor to be invoked so the message text can be edited before being sent. CMD-21 Command Descriptions FORWARD The default action for this qualifier is determined by the current SET EDIT setting (see the SET command description for more information). /[NO]SELF Specifying /SELF causes a copy of the message to be sent to your username in addition to the intended recipients. Specifying /NOSELF prevents the extra copy from being sent. If omitted, the default is taken from the SET COPY_SELF setting in VMS MAIL. /[NO]SUBJECT[="subject-text"] The /SUBJECT qualifier can be used to specify the subject for the message on the command line. Use /NOSUBJECT to omit a subject from the message altogether. If not specified, you are prompted for a subject line. /[NO]SIGNATURE The /SIGNATURE qualifier can be used to indicate that your "signature" file should or should not be included automatically at the end of the message when it is sent. The default action for this qualifier is determined by the current SET SIGNATURE setting. /TO=("user-spec"...) The /TO qualifier can be used to specify the destination users for the message. If the user-spec includes an at-sign ("@"), the message will be sent via your Internet mail system; otherwise, it will be sent via regular VMS MAIL. Specify multiple addresses by separating them with commas and enclosing the list in parentheses. If omitted, you are prompted for the destination address list. CMD-22 Command Descriptions GROUP _______________________________________________________ GROUP Selects a newsgroup to be your "current" newsgroup. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT GROUP groupname _______________________________________________________ PARAMETERS groupname Name of the group to be made current. _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION You can use this command to explicitly select the current newsgroup, to be able to extract articles from the newsgroup, etc. Note that some NEWSRDR commands (DIRECTORY, READ) implicitly set the current newsgroup for you. CMD-23 Command Descriptions HELP _______________________________________________________ HELP Displays help information. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT HELP [topic...] _______________________________________________________ PARAMETERS topic The name of a topic in the help library. If omitted, a list of topics is displayed. _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION This command should be relatively straightforward to use. CMD-24 Command Descriptions MAIL _______________________________________________________ MAIL Sends an electronic mail message. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT MAIL [file-spec] _______________________________________________________ Command Qualifiers Defaults /[NO]EDIT /[NO]SELF /[NO]SUBJECT[="subject-text"] /[NO]SIGNATURE /TO=(user-spec...) _______________________________________________________ PARAMETERS file-spec Name of the file to be sent by E-mail. If omitted, you are prompted for the text of the message. _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION This command is similar to the SEND command in the VMS MAIL utility, with three small differences: 1 You can specify the destination users on the command line with the /TO qualifier. 2 The destination usernames are assumed to be Internet-style names and are automatically sent through the system's Internet mail system. 3 After composing or editing the text of your message, you are asked for confirmation before the message is sent. CMD-25 Command Descriptions MAIL _______________________________________________________ QUALIFIERS /[NO]EDIT Specifying /EDIT causes a text editor to be invoked so the message text can be edited before being sent. The default action for this qualifier is determined by the current SET EDIT setting (see the SET command description for more information). /[NO]SELF Specifying /SELF causes a copy of the message to be sent to your username in addition to the intended recipients. Specifying /NOSELF prevents the extra copy from being sent. If omitted, the default is taken from the SET COPY_SELF setting in VMS MAIL. /[NO]SUBJECT[="subject-text"] The /SUBJECT qualifier can be used to specify the subject for the message on the command line. Use /NOSUBJECT to omit a subject from the message altogether. If not specified, you are prompted for a subject line. /[NO]SIGNATURE The /SIGNATURE qualifier can be used to indicate that your "signature" file should or should not be included automatically at the end of the message when it is sent. The default action for this qualifier is determined by the current SET SIGNATURE setting. /TO=("user-spec"...) The /TO qualifier can be used to specify the destination users for the message. If the user-spec includes an at-sign ("@"), the message will be sent via your Internet mail system; otherwise, it will be sent via regular VMS MAIL. Specify multiple addresses by separating them with commas and enclosing the list in parentheses. If omitted, you are prompted for the destination address list. CMD-26 Command Descriptions NEXT _______________________________________________________ NEXT A synonym for READ/NEXT/NEW. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT NEXT _______________________________________________________ Command Qualifiers Defaults /GROUP _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION This command, a synonym for READ/NEXT/NEW, causes the next unseen article to be displayed. _______________________________________________________ QUALIFIERS /GROUP Instructs NEWSRDR to move on to the next subscribed newsgroup before searching for new articles, skipping any unread articles in the current newsgroup. If no new article are found in any other newsgroup, the NEWS-W-NONEW message will be displayed, even if there are new articles in the current newsgroup. CMD-27 Command Descriptions POST _______________________________________________________ POST Posts a news article. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT POST [group-name,...] [file-spec] _______________________________________________________ Command Qualifiers Defaults /APPROVED /DISTRIBUTION=(dist-name ...) /[NO]EDIT /EXPIRES=date-time /FILE=file-spec /FOLLOWUP_TO=(group ...) /KEYWORDS=(keyword...) /[NO]SIGNATURE /[NO]SUBJECT[="subject"] /SUMMARY="summary" _______________________________________________________ PARAMETERS group-name Name of the newsgroup to which the article is to be posted. If omitted, the article is posted to the current newsgroup. file-spec File whose contents should be posted as the text of the article. You must specify group-name if you wish to specify file-spec. If omitted, and no /FILE qualifier is specified, you will be prompted for the article text. CMD-28 Command Descriptions POST _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION This command is used to compose and post news articles. If you do not specify a file either with the file-spec parameter or the /FILE qualifier, and you are not using a text editor to compose the article, you are prompted for the article text one line at a time. Once you have entered the text of the article, you are asked to confirm the posting. If you do so, the article is transmitted to the NNTP server to be entered into the news system. _______________________________________________________ QUALIFIERS /APPROVED Adds an Approved: header to the article, with your address on it. /DISTRIBUTION=(dist-name ...) This qualifier can be used to restrict the distribution of the article to a particular area. If not specified, no restrictions are placed on the article's distribution. Typical distribution names are "usa", "na", "ny", etc. /[NO]EDIT Specifying /EDIT causes a text editor to be invoked so the article text can be edited before being sent. The default action for this qualifier is determined by the current SET EDIT setting (see the SET command description for more information). /EXPIRES=date-time Sets the expiration time on the article by adding an Expires: header. Specify the date and time in VMS format; use quotation marks if the date-time string contains any blanks. CMD-29 Command Descriptions POST /FILE=file-spec Specifies a file whose contents should be posted as the text of the article. This qualifier can be used instead of the file-spec parameter to specify the article text file, if you do not wish to enter the name of the newsgroup to which the article should be posted. If omitted, you are prompted for the article text. /FOLLOWUP_TO=(group ...) This qualifier can be used to redirect any followups to this article to be posted to the specified newsgroup(s). By default, followups are posted to the same newsgroup(s) as the posted article. /KEYWORDS=(keyword...) Adds a Keywords: header to the article, listing the specified keywords. Unless quoted, the keywords are converted to lower case. /[NO]SIGNATURE The /SIGNATURE qualifier can be used to indicate that your "signature" file should or should not be included automatically at the end of the article when it is posted. The default action for this qualifier is determined by the current SET SIGNATURE setting. /[NO]SUBJECT[="subject-text"] The /SUBJECT qualifier can be used to specify the subject for the article on the command line. Use /NOSUBJECT to omit a subject from the article altogether. If not specified, you are prompted for a subject line. /SUMMARY="summary-text" Adds a Summary: header to the article, with the specified text. CMD-30 Command Descriptions PRINT _______________________________________________________ PRINT Adds one or more articles to the current print job. The print job is not released to the print queue until you exit NEWSRDR or use the PRINT/NOW command. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT PRINT [article-range] ... _______________________________________________________ Command Qualifiers Defaults /AFTER=time no delay /[NO]BURST[=keyword] default from queue /CANCEL /COPIES=n 1 copy /[NO]FEED default from queue /[NO]FLAG[=keyword] default from queue /FORM=form-name default from queue /[NO]HEADERS /HEADERS /[NO]HOLD no hold /NAME=job-name /NAME=NEWS /NOTIFY /NOW /PARAMETERS=(parameter...) /PRINT /QUEUE=queue-name /QUEUE=SYS$PRINT /[NO]ROTATE /NOROTATE /[NO]SPACE /[NO]TRAILER[=keyword]default from queue _______________________________________________________ PARAMETERS article-range A single article number or a starting and ending article number separated by a hyphen. All articles CMD-31 Command Descriptions PRINT in the specified range are copied into the print job. If omitted, only the current article is copied. _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION This command adds the specified article(s) to the current pending print job. If no print job is pending, a new job is created. Using /NOW (or /PRINT) causes the current pending print job to be closed and submitted to the print queue; using /CANCEL discards the print job without printing it. If you specify attributes on the PRINT command that are incompatible with the current pending print job (such as a different value for /QUEUE), the current print job is closed and printed and a new job is opened before the articles are copied. _______________________________________________________ QUALIFIERS /AFTER=time Requests that the job not be printed until the specified date/time. /[NO]BURST[=keyword] Controls whether a burst page is printed at the start of the print job. Valid keyword values are ALL and ONE; if omitted, ALL is assumed. Note that either value has the same effect, since NEWSRDR combines all printed articles into a single file before printing. /CANCEL Cancels the current pending print job. /COPIES=n Indicates the number of copies of the job to be printed. /[NO]FEED Controls whether form feeds are automatically inserted at the end of a page. CMD-32 Command Descriptions PRINT /[NO]FLAG[=keyword] Controls whether a flag page is printed at the start of the print job. Valid keyword values are ALL and ONE; if omitted, ALL is assumed. Note that either value has the same effect, since NEWSRDR combines all printed articles into a single file before printing. /FORM=form-name Specifies the name of the form that you want for the print job. /[NO]HEADERS Controls whether the article headers are included with the text in the print job. /[NO]HOLD Controls whether the job is held in the queue prior to printing. /NAME=job-name Specifies a name string to identify the job. /NOTIFY Indicates that you should be notified by a broadcast message when the job has been printed. May be specified on the PRINT and PRINT/NOW commands. /NOW Closes the pending print job and submits it for printing. You may specify the /NOTIFY qualifier on this command. /PARAMETERS=(parameter ...) Specifies up to eight optional parameters to be passed to the print queue with the job. /PRINT Synonym for /NOW. CMD-33 Command Descriptions PRINT /QUEUE=queue-name Specifies the name of the print queue to which the job should be submitted. /ROTATE If specified, the text of each article will be deciphered using the ROT13 cipher. /[NO]SPACE Specifies that the output should be double-spaced. /[NO]TRAILER[=keyword] Controls whether a trailer page is printed at the end of the print job. Valid keyword values are ALL and ONE; if omitted, ALL is assumed. Note that either value has the same effect, since NEWSRDR combines all printed articles into a single file before printing. CMD-34 Command Descriptions READ _______________________________________________________ READ Displays a news article. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT [READ] [article-number] _______________________________________________________ Command Qualifiers Defaults /NEXT /PREVIOUS /NEW /FIRST /LAST /GROUP[=group-name] /STRICT /SUBJECT[=(pattern ...)] /THREAD _______________________________________________________ PARAMETERS article-number The number of the article to be read. Should be omitted when using any of the qualifiers except /GROUP. _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION This command displays a news article. You can select the article to be read by number, or by using one of the selection qualifiers. The READ command name may be omitted only if reading a specific article that you specify by number. CMD-35 Command Descriptions READ _______________________________________________________ QUALIFIERS /NEXT When used without /NEW, causes the next available article in the newsgroup to be displayed, even if you have seen it. When used with /NEW, causes the next article you have not yet seen to be displayed. /PREVIOUS Causes the next-lowest-numbered article in the newsgroup to be displayed. /NEW When used without /NEXT, causes the first article in the newsgroup you have not yet seen to be displayed. When used with /NEXT, causes the next unseen article after the article you are currently reading (if any) to be displayed. /FIRST Causes the first available article in the newsgroup to be displayed. /LAST Causes the last available article in the newsgroup to be displayed. /GROUP=group-name Makes the specified group the current group and selects articles from that group. If omitted, articles are selected from the current group. When used with the READ/NEXT/NEW command, no group name is specified. In this case, the /GROUP qualifier instructs NEWSRDR to move on to the next subscribed newsgroup before searching for new articles, skipping any unread articles in the current newsgroup. If no new article are found in any other newsgroup, the NEWS-W-NONEW message will be displayed, even if there are new articles in the current newsgroup. CMD-36 Command Descriptions READ /STRICT Used with the /THREAD qualifier, specifies that strict threading rules should be applied. See Section 1.2.3 for more information. /SUBJECT=(pattern ...) /SUBJECT Causes NEWSRDR to scan forward through the newsgroup until it finds an article matching one of the specified wildcard patterns. If no patterns are specified, the search is continued using the patterns last specified. If there are no more matching articles, NEWSRDR displays a message and clears the patterns, resetting the current article back to the first matching article. /THREAD Causes NEWSRDR to scan forward through the newsgroup until it finds another article with the same subject. Continued use of READ/THREAD can be used to view all articles on one subject, following the thread of conversation. If there are no more articles in the thread, NEWSRDR displays a message and the current article is reset back to the first article you read in the thread. The /NEW qualifier can be used with READ/THREAD to view only unseen articles in the thread. CMD-37 Command Descriptions REPLY _______________________________________________________ REPLY Posts a follow-up article and/or sends a reply message to the author of the current article. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT REPLY [group-name,...] _______________________________________________________ Command Qualifiers Defaults /APPROVED /DISTRIBUTION=(dist ...) /[NO]EDIT /EXPIRES=date-time /[NO]EXTRACT /FOLLOWUP_TO=(group ...) /KEYWORDS=(keyword...) /MAIL /POST /[NO]SELF /[NO]SIGNATURE /[NO]SUBJECT="subject-text" /SUMMARY="summary" /TO=(user-spec ...) _______________________________________________________ PARAMETERS group-name The name of the newsgroup to which the follow-up article should be posted. The groups you specify override the groups listed in the Followup-To or Newsgroups header of the message to which you are replying. If you are not posting your follow-up article, this parameter is ignored. CMD-38 Command Descriptions REPLY _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION This command is used to compose and post and/or mail a follow-up article to the article currently being read. Just as for the MAIL and POST commands, you can use a text editor to compose the message, or be prompted for the message text. Once you have finished entering the message, you are asked to confirm the sending of the reply. Once confirmed, the follow-up message is sent to the NNTP server to be entered into the newsgroup and/or sent through the Internet mailer to the author. For posted replies, if you do not specify one or more group names on the REPLY command, the "Followup- to:" header in the original article determines the newsgroups to which the follow-up is posted. If there is no "Followup-to:" header, the follow-up article is automatically entered into the same newsgroup(s) as the original article. If the "Followup-to:" header specifies the word "poster," then the reply will not be posted and will instead be treated as a mailed reply. For mailed replies, the "Reply-to:" header in the original aritcle determines the destination of the reply message. If there is no "Reply-to:" header, the address in the "From:" header is used instead. _______________________________________________________ QUALIFIERS /APPROVED Adds an Approved: header to the article, with your address on it. /DISTRIBUTION=(dist-name ...) This qualifier can be used to restrict the distribution of the article to a particular area. If not specified, no restrictions are placed on the article's distribution. Typical distribution names are "usa", "na", "ny", etc. CMD-39 Command Descriptions REPLY /[NO]EDIT Specifying /EDIT causes a text editor to be invoked so the article text can be edited before being sent. The default action for this qualifier is determined by the current SET EDIT setting (see the SET command description for more information). /EXPIRES=date-time Sets the expiration time on the article by adding an Expires: header. Specify the date and time in VMS format; use quotation marks if the date-time string contains any blanks. /[NO]EXTRACT If a text editor is used to compose the follow-up message, the current article text is automatically extracted with greater-than signs placed in front of each line of text, to be used as part of the reply. You can use the /NOEXTRACT qualifier to prevent this extraction from occurring. Note that /EXTRACT has no effect if you do not use a text editor for composing the follow-up. /FOLLOWUP_TO=(group ...) This qualifier can be used to redirect any followups to this article to be posted to the specified newsgroup(s). By default, followups are posted to the same newsgroup(s) as the posted article. /KEYWORDS=(keyword...) Adds a Keywords: header to the article, listing the specified keywords. Unless quoted, the keywords are converted to lower case. /MAIL Specifies that the reply is to be mailed to the author of the original message. If neither /MAIL nor /POST is specified, /POST is assumed. A reply may be both mailed and posted. CMD-40 Command Descriptions REPLY /POST Specifies that the reply is to be posted as a follow- up article. If neither /MAIL nor /POST is specified, /POST is assumed. A reply may be both mailed and posted. /[NO]SELF For mailed replies, specifying /SELF causes a copy of the message to be sent to your username in addition to the intended recipients. Specifying /NOSELF prevents the extra copy from being sent. If omitted, the default is taken from the SET COPY_SELF setting in VMS MAIL. /[NO]SIGNATURE The /SIGNATURE qualifier can be used to indicate that your "signature" file should or should not be included automatically at the end of the article when it is sent. The default action for this qualifier is determined by the current SET SIGNATURE setting. /[NO]SUBJECT[="subject-text"] The /SUBJECT qualifier can be used to specify the subject for the message on the command line. Use /NOSUBJECT to omit a subject from the message altogether. If not specified, the subject of the message is determined as follows: o If there is no subject line in the original message, or the subject line is the text "(none)", no subject is added to the message. o If the subject line in the original message begins with "Re:" (upper or lower case), it is copied verbatim to the new message's subject line. o Otherwise, the new subject line is the original subject line with "Re:" added at the beginning. /SUMMARY="summary-text" Adds a Summary: header to the article, with the specified text. CMD-41 Command Descriptions REPLY /TO=("user-spec"...) The /TO qualifier can be used to specify the destination users for the message, when the reply is to be mailed. If the user-spec includes an at-sign ("@"), the message will be sent via your Internet mail system; otherwise, it will be sent via regular VMS MAIL. Specify multiple addresses by separating them with commas and enclosing the list in parentheses. If omitted, the destination address is obtained from the Reply-To header in the article (or the From header, if there is no Reply-To header). CMD-42 Command Descriptions SET ARCHIVE_DIRECTORY _______________________________________________________ SET ARCHIVE_DIRECTORY Establishes a place where extracted articles should be stored. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT SET [NO]ARCHIVE_DIRECTORY [devdir] _______________________________________________________ PARAMETERS devdir A device and/or directory specification. This value will be used as the default device/directory for subsequent EXTRACT commands. _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION This command is used to specify where extracted articles should be stored if no device/directory is specified on EXTRACT commands. If no archive directory is set, or you remove the archive directory setting with SET NOARCHIVE_DIRECTORY, EXTRACT defaults to placing files in the current directory. CMD-43 Command Descriptions SET AUTO_READ_NEW _______________________________________________________ SET AUTO_READ_NEW Controls how NEWSRDR behaves when a READ/NEW command causes a group change. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT SET [NO]AUTO_READ_NEW _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION This command controls how the READ/NEW series of commands behave when they run out of articles in a newsgroup and jump to the next newsgroup that has unseen articles. The default is AUTO_READ_NEW, which causes the first unseen article in the new group to be displayed automatically. If you set NOAUTO_READ_NEW, when the group change occurs you are returned to the News> command prompt. CMD-44 Command Descriptions SET AUTO_SAVE_PROFILE _______________________________________________________ SET AUTO_SAVE_PROFILE Enables automatic saving of your NEWSRDR profile. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT SET [NO]AUTO_SAVE_PROFILE _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION Causes NEWSRDR to save update your NEWSRDR profile automatically each time a READ/NEW or READ/NEXT/NEW command visits a new newsgroup and each time you SPAWN or ATTACH to a different process. CMD-45 Command Descriptions SET DIRECTORY_WIDTH _______________________________________________________ SET DIRECTORY_WIDTH Specifies the default width for fields in DIRECTORY listings. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT SET DIRECTORY_WIDTH _______________________________________________________ Command Qualifiers Defaults /FROM=columns /SUBJECT=columns _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION This command sets the default field widths for the From and Subject fields in DIRECTORY listings. By default, the two fields split the available screen width evenly. You can set a specific width (including zero) for one or both fields. If you set a specific width for one field, the remaining available screen width is used for the other. Specifying no qualifiers resets the widths back to the even-split default. _______________________________________________________ QUALIFIERS /FROM=columns Specifies the number of columns for the From field. /SUBJECT=columns Specifies the number of columns for the Subject field. CMD-46 Command Descriptions SET EDIT _______________________________________________________ SET EDIT Changes the auto-edit setting and text editor. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT SET [NO]EDIT _______________________________________________________ Command Qualifiers Defaults /EDITOR=(editor [,type]) _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION This command is used to turn on or off the automatic use of a text editor for message composition. The setting can be overridden on the POST, MAIL, and REPLY commands with the /[NO]EDIT qualifier. _______________________________________________________ QUALIFIERS /EDITOR=(editor [,type]) This qualifier can be used to specify the editor to be used, which can be either callable or spawned as a subprocess. If type is CALLABLE, then editor must be the name of a callable editor. NEWSRDR can use any callable editor for message composition that meets the following calling standard: o The callable editor's shareable library name must be xxxSHR.EXE, where "xxx" is the name by which the editor will be called. The library must reside in SYS$SHARE or must have an exec-mode logical pointing to the library elsewhere. CMD-47 Command Descriptions SET EDIT o The shareable library must contain an entry point which called xxx$EDIT, which must take the input file-spec and output file-spec, both character strings passed by descriptor, as the first two arguments. If there are optional arguments, the xxx$EDIT routine must not rely on having more than two arguments present. The Digital-supplied editors TPU, EDT, and TECO, and the (layered product) DEC Language-Sensitive Editor (LSE) all follow this calling standard. NEWSRDR uses LIB$FIND_IMAGE_SYMBOL to map the editor into the process's virtual address space at runtime. If type is SPAWN, then editor must be a command string for invoking a command procedure that follows of the form in Figure CMD-1. CMD-48 Command Descriptions SET EDIT Figure CMD-1 Spawned editor command procedure _______________________________________________________ $! Command procedure to invoke an editor for NEWSRDR $! $! To use, put your edit command below and in NEWSRDR use $! the command: $! $! News> SET EDIT/EDITOR=("@device:[dir]filename.COM",SPAWN) $! $! Inputs: $! $! P1: input file name $! P2: output file name $! $! P1 may be a null string. $! $! The example below is for using TPU (for which you should $! really use the callable interface). $! $ DEFINE/USER SYS$INPUT SYS$COMMAND: $ EDIT/TPU/OUTPUT='P2' 'P1' $_EXIT_________________________________________________ CMD-49 Command Descriptions SET FORCE_MAIL_PROTOCOL _______________________________________________________ SET FORCE_MAIL_PROTOCOL Forces NEWSRDR to use the VMS MAIL foreign mail protocol handler for local addresses. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT SET [NO]FORCE_MAIL_PROTOCOL _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION By default, NEWSRDR sends messages directly via VMS MAIL when the destination address does not appear to be a network-type mail address. With SET FORCE_MAIL_ PROTOCOL, you can force all addresses to be handled by your network mail handler (called a "foreign mail protocol" in VMS MAIL terminology). This feature may be useful if your network mailer includes support for per-user aliases and other features in which a network mail address might appear to NEWSRDR to be a local address. CMD-50 Command Descriptions SET FORM _______________________________________________________ SET FORM Specifies the form to use by default for print jobs. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT SET [NO]FORM form-name _______________________________________________________ PARAMETERS form-name The name of the form to use. _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION This command sets the default form to be used by default for print jobs created with the PRINT command. When no form is set, the default form is taken from the print queue. CMD-51 Command Descriptions SET HEADERS _______________________________________________________ SET HEADERS Selects the header lines to appear in article displays. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT SET HEADERS [NO]header-name... _______________________________________________________ Command Qualifiers Defaults /EXTRACT /INTERACTIVE /INTERACTIVE _______________________________________________________ PARAMETERS header-name The name of a header line to be included or, if preceded by "NO", excluded from subsequent article displays. You may specify more than one header name by separating them with commas. Table CMD-1 lists the valid header names and their meanings. Table_CMD-1__Header_names______________________________ Header name_______Meaning_____________________________________ FROM the "From:" line, which indicates who sent the message DATE the "Date:" line, which indicates when the message was originally posted to the network NEWSGROUPS the "Newsgroups:" line, which identifies the newsgroups to which the message belongs CMD-52 Command Descriptions SET HEADERS Table_CMD-1_(Cont.)__Header_names______________________ Header name_______Meaning_____________________________________ SUBJECT the "Subject:" line, usually a brief description of what the message is about MESSAGE_ the "Message-ID:" line, a unique identifier ID for the message PATH the "Path:" line, which shows the path the message took to reach the current system REPLY_TO the "Reply-to:" line, which indicates where mailed replies should be sent SENDER the "Sender:" line, which identifies the entity responsible for submitting the message to the network FOLLOWUP_ the "Followup-to:" line, which indicates the TO newsgroup(s) where follow-up articles should be posted EXPIRES the "Expires:" line, which indicates a suggested expiration date and time for the article REFERENCES the "References:" line, which identifies the message(s) that prompted the submission of the messages DISTRIBUTIOthe "Distribution:" line, which indicates the distribution scope of the message ORGANIZATIOthe "Organization:" line, which identifies the organization to which the sender belongs KEYWORDS the "Keywords:" line, which may include some keywords related to the content of the message SUMMARY the "Summary:" line, a brief summary of the message CMD-53 Command Descriptions SET HEADERS Table_CMD-1_(Cont.)__Header_names______________________ Header name_______Meaning_____________________________________ APPROVED the "Approved:" line, indicating the moderator that approved the message LINES the "Lines:" line, which indicates the size of the message XREF the "Xref:" line, which identifies cross- ___________postings____________________________________ _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION This command can be used to omit uninteresting header lines from article displays or extracted articles, to provide more room for article text. Note that not all articles have all the header lines you can specify on this command; the header line types are provided for completeness. _______________________________________________________ QUALIFIERS /EXTRACT The header settings are applied to extracted articles. /INTERACTIVE The header settings are applied to interactive article displays. CMD-54 Command Descriptions SET IGNORE _______________________________________________________ SET IGNORE Establishes or removes a criterion for permanently ignoring articles. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT SET [NO]IGNORE group-name _______________________________________________________ Command Qualifiers Defaults /GLOBAL /FROM=pattern /MESSAGE_ID=pattern /NEWSGROUPS=pattern /SUBJECT=pattern _______________________________________________________ PARAMETERS group-name The name of the newsgroup to which the ignore criterion should be added. Not specified when /GLOBAL is used. If omitted, the current group is used. _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION This command is used to add or remove an ignore criterion (sometimes called a "kill file") for a single newsgroup or for all newsgroups. The criterion can be based on the author of the article (/FROM), the subject of the article (/SUBJECT), or the Newsgroups header of the article (/NEWSGROUPS). Any articles matching the criterion will automatically be marked as seen and will not be displayed when READ/NEW is used. CMD-55 Command Descriptions SET IGNORE Use SET NOIGNORE to remove an erroneous ignore criterion or when the subject or author you wish to ignore is at a more reasonable activity level. Ignore criteria are stored in your NEWSRDR profile and are retained between NEWSRDR sessions. This command should be used sparingly and with caution. _______________________________________________________ QUALIFIERS /GLOBAL Makes the ignore criterion effective for all newsgroups. /FROM=pattern Bases the criterion on the author (From line) of an article. The pattern may contain VMS wildcards. Any From line matching the wildcard pattern, or containing the specified text if no wildcards are used, will be ignored. You may specify only one ignore criterion per command. /MESSAGE_ID=pattern Bases the criterion on the Message-ID header of an article. The pattern may contain VMS wildcards. Any Message-ID line matching the wildcard pattern, or containing the specified text if no wildcards are used, will cause the article to be ignored. You may specify only one ignore criterion per command. /NEWSGROUPS=pattern Bases the criterion on the Newsgroups header of an article. The pattern may contain VMS wildcards. Any Newsgroups line matching the wildcard pattern, or containing the specified text if no wildcards are used, will be ignored. You may specify only one ignore criterion per command. CMD-56 Command Descriptions SET IGNORE /SUBJECT=pattern Bases the criterion on the subject of an article. The pattern may contain VMS wildcards. Any subject line matching the wildcard pattern, or containing the specified text if no wildcards are used, will be ignored. You may specify only one ignore criterion per command. CMD-57 Command Descriptions SET NEWGROUP_ACTION _______________________________________________________ SET NEWGROUP_ACTION Sets the action NEWSRDR should taken on discovery of a new newsgroup. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT SET NEWGROUP_ACTION action _______________________________________________________ PARAMETERS action The action to be taken on discovery of a new newsgroups. This can be one of NONE, PROMPT, or SUBSCRIBE. See the description section for details. _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION The default action, NONE, has NEWSRDR announce the presence of each new newsgroup, with no further action. Setting the PROMPT action has NEWSRDR prompt you interactively for whether you would like to subscribe to each new newsgroup. The SUBSCRIBE action has NEWSRDR subscribe you to new newsgroups automatically, with no prompting. This setting can be overridden for a single NEWSRDR session with the /NEWGROUP_ACTION qualifier on the NEWSRDR command. For example, if your news server has recently added a large number of newsgroups and your NEWGROUP_ACTION setting is SUBSCRIBE or PROMPT, you could avoid the additional effort of unsubscribing or replying to all the prompts by taking the following steps: 1 Press to break out of NEWSRDR and use the command CMD-58 Command Descriptions SET NEWGROUP_ACTION $ STOP to stop the program without updating your profile. 2 Reinvoke NEWSRDR with the command: = $ NEWSRDR/NEWGROUP_ACTION=NONE CMD-59 Command Descriptions SET NEWSRC _______________________________________________________ SET NEWSRC Enables/disables the use of a newsrc file. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT SET [NO]NEWSRC [file-spec] _______________________________________________________ Command Qualifiers Defaults /[NO]PURGE /PURGE /[NO]SUBSCRIBED_ONLY /NOSUBSCRIBED_ONLY _______________________________________________________ PARAMETERS [file-spec] Name of the newsrc file. If omitted, it defaults to SYS$LOGIN:XX.NEWSRC. _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION This command enables or disables the use of a newsrc file. Newsrc files are described in Section 1.17. They are plain text files, typically used by other news readers, that describe the newsgroups you subscribe to and which articles you have seen. Using a newsrc file increases NEWSRDR's compatibility with other news readers and allows you to control the order in which newsgroups are visited during NEWSRDR sessions by ordering the newsgroups in the newsrc file as you desire. CMD-60 Command Descriptions SET NEWSRC _______________________________________________________ QUALIFIERS /[NO]PURGE Controls whether NEWSRDR automatically purges old versions of your newsrc file. The default is to purge old versions and to rename the new version back to version 1 (just as for your NEWSRDR profile). Use /NOPURGE to keep the old versions. If you use /NOPURGE, you may want to control the number of versions kept in your directory with the DCL command SET FILE/VERSION_LIMIT=n. /[NO]SUBCRIBED_ONLY By default, the newsrc file will list all available newsgroups. This is to maintain compatibility with most other news readers. However, the full list can take up a substantial amount of disk space. Specifying /SUBSCRIBED_ONLY causes NEWSRDR to save information only about the newsgroups you are subscribed to. This may reduce compatibility with other news readers, but saves on disk space and still provides the opportunity to modify the newsgroup visiting order for NEWSRDR sessions. CMD-61 Command Descriptions SET PERSONAL_NAME _______________________________________________________ SET PERSONAL_NAME Establishes a "personal name" to accompany your return address. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT SET [NO]PERSONAL_NAME ["name"] _______________________________________________________ Command Qualifiers Defaults /MAIL _______________________________________________________ PARAMETERS name Any readable text string, not including quotation marks or backslashes, to be used as your personal name. _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION This command is used to set up or remove your personal name. The name is added to your return address for articles you post and mail messages you send. _______________________________________________________ QUALIFIERS /MAIL Causes NEWSRDR to use your VMS MAIL personal name setting. CMD-62 Command Descriptions SET QUEUE _______________________________________________________ SET QUEUE Specifies the queue to use by default for print jobs. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT SET QUEUE queue-name _______________________________________________________ PARAMETERS queue-name The name of the queue to use. _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION This command sets the default queue to be used by default for print jobs created with the PRINT command. The default is SYS$PRINT. CMD-63 Command Descriptions SET REPLY _______________________________________________________ SET REPLY Sets the default sending mechanism for REPLY commands. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT SET REPLY [reply-type ...] _______________________________________________________ Command Qualifiers Defaults /PREFIX=string _______________________________________________________ PARAMETERS reply-type Either POST or MAIL, depending on whether you want your replies to be posted to the newsgroup or mailed to the article poster. You can specify more than one reply type by separating them with commas. _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION This setting is used to determine whether replies are posted, mailed, or both, when you do not specify either the /POST or /MAIL on a REPLY command. _______________________________________________________ QUALIFIERS /PREFIX=string Sets the prefix inserted before each line of an extracted message in a reply to the specified string. By default, the string is ">". The string may be up to 32 characters in length, although a 1- or 2-character string is recommended. CMD-64 Command Descriptions SET SEEN _______________________________________________________ SET SEEN Marks an article or group of articles as "seen". _______________________________________________________ FORMAT SET [NO]SEEN [article-range...] _______________________________________________________ Command Qualifiers Defaults /ALL /STRICT /SUBJECT=(pattern...) /THREAD _______________________________________________________ PARAMETERS article-range A single article number or a starting and ending article number separated by a hyphen. All articles in the specified range are marked "seen". _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION This command is used to mark articles as having been seen, even if you haven't read them. This prevents them from being displayed with the READ/NEW command. SET NOSEEN has the reverse effect; it may be used as an alternative to SET UNSEEN. _______________________________________________________ QUALIFIERS /ALL Causes all articles in the current newsgroup to marked. No other qualifiers may be used with /ALL. CMD-65 Command Descriptions SET SEEN /STRICT Used with the /THREAD qualifier. Specifies that strict threading rules should be applied. See Section 1.2.3 for more information. /SUBJECT=(pattern...) Causes an article to be marked if its subject matches one of the specified patterns. If no article range is specified, it defaults to the current article onward. /THREAD Causes each article in the current newsgroup, from the current article onward, to be marked if the subject of the article matches the subject of the current article. CMD-66 Command Descriptions SET SIGNATURE _______________________________________________________ SET SIGNATURE Establishes a "signature" file. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT SET [NO]SIGNATURE [file-spec] _______________________________________________________ Command Qualifiers Defaults /[NO]AUTOMATIC=(send-ty/AUTOMATIC=(POST,MAIL) _______________________________________________________ PARAMETERS file-spec Name of the file in which you have stored your signature. _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION This command can be used to establish a "signature" file. The contents of the signature file (up to 8 lines of text) is appended to messages you send and articles you post, and can contain information such as your name, company, E-mail address, etc. Use SET NOSIGNATURE to clear the signature setting. _______________________________________________________ QUALIFIERS /AUTOMATIC=(send-type...) /NOAUTOMATIC Specifies when the signature file should be automatically appended: on mail messages, on article postings, or both. Possible values for send-type are MAIL and POST. The default is for automatic signature inclusion on both mail and article postings. Specify CMD-67 Command Descriptions SET SIGNATURE /NOAUTOMATIC to prevent automatic inclusion of the signature file. This setting can be overridden by using the /[NO]SIGNATURE qualifier on the FORWARD, MAIL, POST, and REPLY commands. CMD-68 Command Descriptions SET UNSEEN _______________________________________________________ SET UNSEEN Marks an article or group of articles as "unseen". _______________________________________________________ FORMAT SET UNSEEN [article-range...] _______________________________________________________ Command Qualifiers Defaults /ALL /SUBJECT=(pattern...) /THREAD _______________________________________________________ PARAMETERS article-range A single article number or a starting and ending article number separated by a hyphen. All articles in the specified range are marked "unseen". If omitted, the current article is marked unseen. _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION This command is used to mark articles as having been unseen, so they can be recalled the next time you use READ/NEW or READ/NEXT/NEW. This can be useful for long articles you want to skip in the current NEWSRDR session but would like to come back to later. _______________________________________________________ QUALIFIERS /ALL Causes all articles in the current newsgroup to marked. No other qualifiers may be specified with /ALL. CMD-69 Command Descriptions SET UNSEEN /SUBJECT=(pattern...) Causes an article to be marked if its subject matches one of the specified patterns. If no article range is specified, it defaults to the current article onward. /THREAD Causes each article in the current newsgroup, from the current article onward, to be marked if the subject of the article matches the subject of the current article. CMD-70 Command Descriptions SHOW _______________________________________________________ SHOW Displays profile settings and other information about the NEWSRDR environment. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT { ARCHIVE_DIRECTORY } { CURRENT_GROUP } { DIRECTORY_WIDTH } { EDIT } { } { FORM } { GROUP } { HEADERS } SHOW { } { IGNORE [/GLOBAL] [/LOCAL] [pattern,...] } { NEWSRC } { PERSONAL_NAME } { } { QUEUE } { SERVER } { SIGNATURE_FILE } { } { ALL } _______________________________________________________ PARAMETERS ARCHIVE_DIRECTORY Displays the current archive directory setting. CURRENT_GROUP Displays the name of the current newsgroup, along with the number of the first and last available article in the group. DIRECTORY_WIDTH Displays the current directory width settings. CMD-71 Command Descriptions SHOW EDIT Displays the current SET EDIT setting and the name of your selected text editor. FORM Displays the default print form, if any. GROUP Displays the name of the current newsgroup, along with the number of the first and last available article in the group. (Same as SHOW CURRENT_GROUP.) HEADERS Displays the current SET HEADERS setting. IGNORE Displays the ignore criteria for the current group (/LOCAL) and/or the global ignore criteria (/GLOBAL). The default is /LOCAL. You may specify one or more newsgroup names or wildcard patterns on this command, to see the ignore criteria for those newsgroups. If you do not specify a newsgroup name, the ignore criteria for the current group are displayed. NEWSRC Displays the newsrc file setting. PERSONAL_NAME Displays the current SET PERSONAL_NAME setting. QUEUE Displays the default print queue setting. SERVER Displays the Internet host name of the NNTP news server machine. SIGNATURE_FILE Displays the current SET SIGNATURE setting. CMD-72 Command Descriptions SHOW ALL Displays all of the above information. _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION This command can be used to look at any of your profile settings as well as some information about your NEWSRDR environment. See the description of the SET command for more information about profile settings. CMD-73 Command Descriptions SPAWN _______________________________________________________ SPAWN Creates a subprocess of the current process. The context of the subprocess is copied from the current process. You can use the SPAWN command to leave NEWSRDR temporarily, perform other functions, and then return to NEWSRDR. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT SPAWN [command] _______________________________________________________ Command Qualifiers Defaults /INPUT=filespec /INPUT=SYS$INPUT /[NO]LOGICAL_NAMES /LOGICAL_NAMES /OUTPUT=filespec /OUTPUT=SYS$OUTPUT /PROCESS=subprocess-name /[NO]SYMBOLS /SYMBOLS /[NO]WAIT /WAIT _______________________________________________________ PARAMETERS command Specifies the DCL command string that executes in the context of the created subprocess. When the command completes, the subprocess terminates and control is returned to the parent process. If this parameter is not specified, a subprocess is created that transfers control to DCL command level. _______________________________________________________ QUALIFIERS /INPUT=filespec Specifies an input file containing one or more DCL command strings to be executed by the spawned CMD-74 Command Descriptions SPAWN subprocess. If you specify a command string along with an input file, the command string is processed before the commands in the input file. Once processing is complete, the subprocess is terminated. /[NO]LOGICAL_NAMES Specifies that the logical names of the parent process are to be copied to the subprocess. When you do not want the subprocess to use the logical names of the parent process, enter the qualifier /NOLOGICAL_NAMES. The default is /LOGICAL_NAMES. /OUTPUT=filespec Identifies the output file to which the results of the SPAWN operation are written. Whenever you use the /NOWAIT qualifier, you should also use the /OUTPUT qualifier to specify a new output destination. Doing so prevents output from being displayed while you are specifying new commands. If you omit the /OUTPUT qualifier, output is written by default to the current SYS$OUTPUT device. /PROCESS=subprocess-name Specifies the name of the subprocess to be created. The default name of the subprocess is "USERNAME_n". /[NO]SYMBOLS Determines whether the system passes DCL global and local symbols to the subprocess. The default is /SYMBOLS. /[NO]WAIT Controls whether the system waits until the subprocess is completed before allowing more commands to be specified. The /NOWAIT qualifier allows you to specify new commands while the specified subprocess is running. If you specify /NOWAIT, you should also use the /OUTPUT qualifier to direct the output stream to a file, rather than displaying it on your terminal. CMD-75 Command Descriptions SPAWN Doing so prevents your terminal from being used by more than one process simultaneously. CMD-76 Command Descriptions STORE _______________________________________________________ STORE Forwards a copy of a news article to yourself by VMS Mail. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT STORE [article-number] _______________________________________________________ PARAMETERS article-number Number of the article to be sent. If omitted, the current article is sent. _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION This command sends the specified article by VMS Mail to yourself. The message subject is automatically set to the subject of the article being forwarded. This command could be used to store articles of interest into VMS Mail, where you could organize them into mail folders. CMD-77 Command Descriptions SUBSCRIBE _______________________________________________________ SUBSCRIBE Adds one or more newsgroups to your subscription list. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT SUBSCRIBE newsgroup... _______________________________________________________ Command Qualifiers Defaults /CONFIRM /GOTO /[NO]LOG /LOG _______________________________________________________ PARAMETERS newsgroup Name of a newsgroup you wish to subscribe to, or a wildcard pattern. All available newsgroups matching the specified patterns will be added to your subscription list. _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION This command is used to begin following one or more newsgroups. The newsgroup name and information about articles you have seen in the group are stored in your NEWSRDR profile. _______________________________________________________ QUALIFIERS /CONFIRM When specified, NEWSRDR asks for confirmation before adding a newsgroup to the subscription list. CMD-78 Command Descriptions SUBSCRIBE /GOTO Causes the subscribed newsgroup to be set as the current group. On wildcard subscribes, the last subscribed newsgroup becomes current. /[NO]LOG By default, NEWSRDR issues a message for each successful addition. Use /NOLOG to suppress the messages. CMD-79 Command Descriptions UNSUBSCRIBE _______________________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE Removes one or more newsgroups from your subscription list. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT UNSUBSCRIBE newsgroup... _______________________________________________________ Command Qualifiers Defaults /CONFIRM /[NO]LOG /LOG _______________________________________________________ PARAMETERS newsgroup Name of a newsgroup you no longer wish to subscribe to, or a wildcard pattern. All newsgroups matching the pattern will be removed from the subscription list. _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION This command is used to end your participation in a newsgroup. The group is removed from your NEWSRDR profile, and you will no longer see any articles in that newsgroup. _______________________________________________________ QUALIFIERS /CONFIRM When specified, NEWSRDR asks for confirmation before adding a newsgroup to the subscription list. CMD-80 Command Descriptions UNSUBSCRIBE /[NO]LOG By default, NEWSRDR issues a message for each successful addition. Use /NOLOG to suppress the messages. CMD-81 Command Descriptions UPDATE _______________________________________________________ UPDATE Updates NEWSRDR's newsgroup information from the NNTP server. _______________________________________________________ FORMAT UPDATE _______________________________________________________ Command Qualifiers Defaults /PARTIAL _______________________________________________________ DESCRIPTION This command can be used to discover further available unread articles since the last update. This is done automatically for you at the start of a NEWSRDR session, but if you have spent a long time in NEWSRDR, this command should be used. A message is displayed for each newsgroup in which unseen articles are found. Information about all active newsgroups is provided, unless you specify the /PARTIAL qualifier. _______________________________________________________ QUALIFIERS /PARTIAL Only information about newsgroups to which you are subscribed is obtained. This qualifier should generally not be used, since the information from a full update is needed for some other NEWSRDR commands to work properly. CMD-82