HELP VED_POSTNEWS                                    A.Sloman March 1989
                                                Revised J.Meyer Nov 1989
LIB * VED_POSTNEWS

This file describes facilities for sending news, using Unix news posting
mechanisms. News may be posted on the local machine or on a remote
machine on which the user has an account. VED_POSTNEWS can also be used
to cancel a message you have previously sent and read in using VED_GN
(See HELP * VED_NET)

NB. On some Unix systems the library file LIB * VED_POSTNEWS
($usepop/pop/lib/ved_postnews.p) will require editing. In particular the
name of the default remote host may need changing, and also the
locations of some of the Unix commands and files.

(This software is not supported, but is offered in case it is useful.)


-- Summary of facilities ----------------------------------------------

<ENTER> postnews
    Either - prepare header for news file
    OR -  send current file as news, if the header is already there.
<ENTER> postnews new
    Creates a temporary file with a prepared news header.
<ENTER> postnews <host>
    As above, but use the machine <host> as the news gateway.
<ENTER> postnews cancel
    If done while reading a news article will send a cancel message
    for that article, which should have been posted by you.
<ENTER> followup
    Followup to a news article
<ENTER> followup reply
    Prepare a reply to sender of a news article.


         CONTENTS - (Use <ENTER> g to access required sections)

 -- Summary of facilities
 -- Preconditions
 -- <ENTER> postnews
 -- Inserting the header
 -- Sending the message
 -- Adding a "signature" at the end
 -- Reading news
 -- <ENTER> followup [reply] (followup or reply to a news article)
 -- Acknowledgement

-- Preconditions ------------------------------------------------------

This command can be run either on a machine that runs inews (e.g. SYMA
at Sussex) or via a network link to such a machine, provided that you
have a login account on that machine, and have set up your .rhosts
file to allow remote access without logging in and giving the password.

If you are not on the news host, VED_POSTNEWS will use 'rsh' (remote
shell) to run a program on the news host for you. But if you don't have
a login account on that machine, it will fail.

On some machines LIB * VED_POSTNEWS will need to be edited to include
the correct name for the remote machine. On some machines 'rsh' is not
available but 'remsh' is. The library file may need to be edited for
your site.


-- <ENTER> postnews ---------------------------------------------------

Does one of two things.
    If there is no appropriate header at the top of the file it inserts
        one.
    If there is one already, it sends the file as news.

So it is typically used twice on every file, once to insert the header
and then once to send the news.

When sending the news you can specify the host to be used. E.g. at
Sussex:

    <ENTER> postnews syma

This is convenient if the default remote host is temporarily out of
action.

However, it should not normally be necessary for you to specify a remote
host, as the library file LIB VED_POSTNEWS will do so, if it has been
set up properly for your site.


-- Inserting the header -----------------------------------------------

If the argument "new" is given to postnews (ie. <ENTER> postnews new), or the
first line of the current file does not start with one of
    Subject:
    Newsgroups:
    References:
    Distribution:

then it inserts a number of header lines at the top of the current VED
buffer, i.e.

    Subject:
    Newsgroups:     (e.g. local.test, uk.ikbs)
    Distribution:   (e.g. local, uk, eunet, world)
    Keywords:

You then edit out the parenthesised portions and insert whatever is
needed.

For a list of permissible news groups see one of the files
    /usr/lib/news/active
    /usr/lib/news/newsgroups

on your news host. If you are using VED on a different machine, you
can examine such files on the remote host without logging through
to them, if you give the command

    <ENTER> rved <hostname> /usr/lib/news/newsgroups

e.g. if news files are kept on a machine called newshost

    <ENTER> rved newshost /usr/lib/news/newsgroups


-- Sending the message ------------------------------------------------

When the header is ready:

    <ENTER> postnews

sends the file. A message is printed at the bottom of the screen, and
the screen is set into non-raw and non-graphics mode so that if there is
an error message from the news host you will be able to read it. After a
few seconds delay, which should give time for any error messages to be
printed out, you will get the following prompt:

    VED HERE: PRESS RETURN TO CONTINUE

If there is an error message saying that the article was not posted
and saved in a file, the name of the file will refer to the machine
on which the news programs are run, which may not be the same as the
machine from which you sent the message. It will usually be a file
called 'dead.article' in your login directory on the news host.


-- Adding a "signature" at the end ------------------------------------

If you have a '.signature' file no more than 4 lines long on the machine
on which the news is actually sent (i.e. not necessarily the one you are
logged in to) it will be added to the message by -inews- on that
machine.

For more details see LIB * VED_POSTNEWS


-- Reading news -------------------------------------------------------

The VED command <ENTER> gn can be used to read news on some machines, if
you have a .newsrc file in the appropriate format. See HELP * VED_NET
for details.


-- <ENTER> followup [reply] (followup or reply to a news article) -----

If you use '<ENTER> gn' to read an article and you wish to send a
followup article to the same news groups, you can use the
    <ENTER> followup

command to prepare your followup article with appropriate headers.

Note that if the news-header includes a line starting

    Followup-To: <news groups>

then the news groups listed will be used for the "followup" rather than
the original news groups.

If you wish to reply only to the sender use
    <ENTER> followup reply

In either case, you can then use '<ENTER> postnews' to send the article
when you have finished. For more information see HELP * VED_NET.


-- Acknowledgement ----------------------------------------------------

The design of this package made considerable use of suggestions from
Leila Burrell-Davies.

Jonathan Meyer suggested the "<ENTER> postnews new" option


--- C.unix/help/ved_postnews
--- Copyright University of Sussex 1991. All rights reserved. ----------
