HELP VED_NET (Unix only)                              A. Sloman June 1991

LIB VED_NET
LIB VED_GN

A VED interface for reading UNIX  net news.
See * VED_POSTNEWS for sending news.

The facilities described below allow you to browse in VED through news
bulletin boards under the control of a file specifying which news groups
you are interested in. Since you are always in VED, all normal VED
commands remain available, including ved_mail, ved_send, etc.

The most common command is
    ENTER gn
By repeatedly using that, and using VED cursor move keys, and the
REDO key, you can browse for hours, once you have set up your news
control file vednewsrc (usually just .newsrc in your login directory).

If you just want to read ONE news article read the section after the
introduction, below.

More details follow the table of contents below.

Please note that this software is provided "as is" in the hope that it
will be of use. It is not supported.

CONTENTS - (Use ENTER g to access required sections)

 -- Introduction
 -- Reading one article, e.g. ENTER gn comp.lang.lisp.2800
 -- The structure of news files: pathnames
 -- More general facilities
 -- News directories used
 -- The vednewsrc file format
 -- Use "!" to suppress a group in the vednewsrc file
 -- Listing available news groups (NEEDS TO BE CHANGED ON EACH SITE)
 -- The "subject index" file format
 -- Options for formatting the subject index file
 -- Using the subject index to choose what to read
 -- ENTER gn (Get News)
 -- 1. ENTER gn <path spec> (invokes ENTER net)
 -- 2. ENTER gn (in an ordinary file - get vednewsrc file)
 -- 3. ENTER gn (in vednewsrc file - get "subject index file")
 -- 4. ENTER gn (in "subject index file" - get news file)
 -- 5. ENTER gn (in news file - go back to Subject index file)
 -- 6. ENTER gn . (Bring current group up to date)
 -- 7. ENTER gn1 (in vednewsrc file - try only ONE news group)
 -- Additional ENTER gn commands
 -- Saving a "subject index file" for future use
 -- ENTER net and ENTER oldnet
 -- Path specifications for news groups, using ENTER net
 -- ENTER net flags: specify subject lines or 'ls' listing
 -- ENTER net (with arguments)
 -- ENTER net (with no argument)
 -- ENTER net -lt
 -- ENTER net -lt uk
 -- ENTER net uk.events
 -- ENTER net -s <path spec> (Make subject index file)
 -- ENTER gn -s <path spec>
 -- ENTER net -s uk.events.30*
 -- ENTER gn -s uk.events.30*
 -- ENTER net comp
 -- ENTER gn comp
 -- ENTER net comp.lang.lisp.1082
 -- ENTER gn comp.lang.lisp.1082
 -- ENTER oldnet comp.ai
 -- ENTER save <filename>
 -- Browsing with the active file
 -- Sending news: ENTER postnews
 -- ENTER followup (prepare followup article)
 -- ENTER followup reply (prepare reply to original poster)
 -- Renaming <group>.general -> <group>.followup
 -- Acknowledgements
 -- Further reading

-- Introduction -------------------------------------------------------

This package uses VED as an interface for reading NET news files. It
overcomes various problems with the standard news readers (readnews and
rn). In particular you are never in the grip of a special program: you
are always in VED and free to switch between reading news and doing
anything else then coming back to exactly where you were. So you can
easily reply to a message, copy a bit of a news item into a file,
send some or all of a news item to someone else, using ved_send, etc.

The program also allows you easily to go back to an earlier file, or to
scan up and down the current file, to copy bits of files in or out, etc.

-- Reading one article, e.g. ENTER gn comp.lang.lisp.2800 -----------

If you just want to read one news article, perhaps recommend by a
friend, or if you don't want to bother with setting up the environment
for regular use, as described below, you can use the article's
"pathname" as an argument for ENTER gn. E.g. to read the article
'comp.lang.lisp.2800' (if it exists) type

    ENTER gn comp.lang.lisp.2800

If you mis-type part of the "path name" e.g. comp.lng.lisp.2800 you
will get an error message saying something like "invalid directory".
If you type the number of an article that does not exist you will
(at present) just get a blank file. (This should be changed).


-- The structure of news files: pathnames -----------------------------

The news files are divided into groups, e.g. comp, sci, soc, uk, eunet,
etc. Each group can be further subdivided, and the subdivisions are
further subdivided, giving a tree structure, which is mapped onto
the Unix directory structure. Here are examples of some group names
that may or may not be available on your machine:

    comp.ai
    comp.sys
    comp.sys.sequent
    comp.sys.dec
    comp.sys.sun
    comp.editors
    comp.lang.prolog
    comp.lang.lisp
    comp.lang.lisp.franz
    comp.lang.c
    sci.psychology
    sci.physics
    local.test
    local.announce

Thus, if the news directory is in the location /usr/spool/news (where
it often is) the article comp.lang.lisp.2800 will be in the file

    /usr/spool/news/comp/lang/lisp/2800

The ved_gn program automatically does the translation for you.


-- More general facilities --------------------------------------------

The NEWS browsing facilities allow you to define a top level menu of
news groups that interest you (your "vednewsrc" file), and then when you
select one of those groups the program will check to see whether there
are any new news items in that group, and if so create a VED file, the
subject index file for that group, giving a menu of unread news items in
the group, so that you can select the ones you wish to read. The menu
shows the subject and the sender's name, for each news item.

There are two command interfaces. One (ENTER net) uses the command
line, where you have to specify the desired group and what you want to
do with it. The other "get news" command (ENTER gn) uses the current
file to determine what to do when you give the command. You can use the
REDO button to invoke ved_gn repeatedly, and it will take appropriate
action depending on the context.

If you use ENTER gn with an argument it assumes you want the command
line interface, and invokes it, so you can get by with only one command
name.

For most purposes ENTER gn will do everything you want.


-- News directories used ----------------------------------------------

All the commands need to know the root of the news directory.

There are two global variables defining root news directories:

For reading current news files:
  vednewsdir
    defaults to '/usr/spool/news' used by ved_net and ved_gn

    (This file is often a symbolic link to another directory where
    the news files really are).

For reading 'archived' news files:
  vedoldnewsdir
    defaults to '/usr/spool/oldnews' used by ved_oldnet
    (This facility is not always provided).

If these names are wrong for your machine, you can put alternative names
into your vedinit.p file, e.g.

    '/sys/news' -> vednewsdir;

Path names for individual news groups and news files are automatically
appended to the appropriate root news directory names.

The ENTER gn command also needs to know which is the user's
"newsrecord" file, i.e. the file that keeps a record of which news
groups you are interested in and which numbers for each group you have
already been told about. This file is stored in the global variable

    vednewsrc, which defaults to:  '$HOME/.newsrc'

You can assign a different filename to vednewsrc if you wish the
VED-based newsreader to use a different file from your standard .newsrc.
E.g. in your vedinit.p do something like

    '$HOME/.vednewsrc' -> vednewsrc;

or if you prefer it to be controlled by an environment variable NEWSRC
defined in your .login file, then put into your vedinit.p file

    '$NEWSRC' -> vednewsrc;

and in your .login file do

    setenv NEWSRC ~/.newsrc

or whatever you wish it to be.


-- The vednewsrc file format ------------------------------------------

The vednewsrc file defines the set of news groups you are interested
in, and for each group contains a number specifying the latest message
in that group that you have read. E.g. the line specifying that you
want to see news in group comp.ai and that the last one you read was
number 93 would be

    comp.ai: 93

The format of this file is the same as for the '.newsrc' file used by
the 'readnews' and 'rn' commands, except that in the readnews format,
    comp.ai: 1-93

the VED news reader ignores everything but the last integer on the line.

Each line in the vednewsrc file starts with the name of a news group,
followed by a colon then a space followed by a number which is 0 if you
have never seen any files in that group, or else records the latest news
file in that group that you have read.

E.g. the file might include lines like the following, in any order:

sussex: 5
sussex.announce: 15
comp.ai: 50
comp.lang.lisp: 0
uk.lisp: 0
comp.lang.prolog: 18
comp.misc: 46
comp.sys.atari.st: 553
eunet.news: 6
local: 0
comp.sys.sun: 32
comp.sys.sequent: 2650
comp.sys.dec: 99
sussex.test: 4

WARNING: don't include any spurious spaces (e.g. before the colon).

If you have previously used the 'readnews' command, you will have a
similar format except that there may be more than one number, e.g.
    comp.ai: 0-55,900-987
Only the last number in the line will be taken note of or changed
by the VED news reader.

If a line contains the exclamation mark "!" instead of a colon then it
is assumed that you wish that newsgroup to be ignored by the ENTER gn
command, and the next line will be examined instead. You can therefore
also use "!" to insert comments.

The numbers after the colon will be altered when you browse. E.g. if a
line contains
    comp.ai: 239

and there are new items with numbers 240 to 260, and you happen to
read only items 240, 251 and 253, then the line will be changed
automatically to
    comp.ai: 253

indicating that in future you don't want to be shown any earlier comp.ai
news files. If you do want to go back to earlier numbers, then edit the
vednewsrc file yourself, to change the number, so that you can go back
to old messages later and re-read them.

If you do not write the vednewsrc file, then it is left with the numbers
unchanged and you can look at all the same news entries again next time.


Generally the system manager will not keep all news files indefinitely,
so you may find that although the last item you read in a group was
number 305, the currently available items start from 530. I.e. items
306-529 have been deleted to save space, and you have missed them
forever - unless someone has archived them.


-- Use "!" to suppress a group in the vednewsrc file -------------------

Insert "!" in the line if you want to ignore a group temporarily, or
insert a comment in the vednewsrc file.

E.g.
    comment! temporarily not using lisp, but remember last item read
    comp.lisp! 300

Alternatively "#" at the beginning of a line will be treated as
indicating a comment line, which is ignored. Blank lines are also
ignored.


-- Listing available news groups (NEEDS TO BE CHANGED ON EACH SITE) ---

You can examine a list of available groups to choose from in the
'active' news file.

At Sussex this is
    '/usr/lib/news/active' on SYMA

Also available on some COGS CRN machines at Sussex as

    '/syma/news/lib/active'

The active file shows which news groups are available and the numbers of
the news files in each. If new to news, you could copy the whole file
into your .newsrc then edit it to the above format, in order to browse,
then delete the groups you don't want, or suppress them using "!".

Some of the groups are real junk. There is a group called 'junk' that
does not necessarily contain only junk. It will contain items that the
current news software has not installed properly, or items that arrive
after the time at which they are supposed to be out of date. Sometimes
they are worth reading.

There is further information in the following files in the same
directory as the "active" file

    newsgroups
        This file gives a description of each news group.

    moderators
        This file gives email addresses of the "moderators" for
        groups that are moderated.

    history
        This is a VERY large file giving information about recently
        received news articles. It can grow to several megabytes.


-- The "subject index" file format ------------------------------------

The 'ENTER gn' command described below creates a temporary "subject
index file" for a news group specified by the current line in the
vednewsrc file. You can then select which message you wish to read, by
re-using the 'gn' command.

The first line of the subject index file for a particular news group has
the directory path name for the news group, the second line the name of
the group. The third line is an instruction telling you to use 'gn' to
read selected messages, e.g.

    /usr/spool/news/comp/lang/prolog
           comp.lang.prolog
    --------------USE <ENTER> gn to get news file-----------------

The rest of the file lists the articles in that news group, whose
numbers are higher than the number recorded in your vednewsrc file: i.e.
the articles that arrived after the one you last looked at. Each entry
is of the form

    article number  Subject  Sender

So if the cursor is on the line
    comp.ai: 2290

in the vednewsrc file, the 'gn' command might create, in VED, a subject
index file containing:

   /usr/spool/news/comp/ai
   comp.ai
   ------------------USE <ENTER> gn to get news file---------------
2291  [Re: AI and Intelligence] [geb@cadre.dsl.PITTSBURGH.EDU (Gordon E. Banks)]
2292  [Re: AI and Intelligence] [ap1i+@andrew.cmu.edu (Andrew C. Plotkin)]
2293  [Re: AI and Intelligence] [jeff@lorrie.atmos.washington.edu (Jeff L. Bowden)]
2294  [Re: Learned Behavior vs. Hard-Wired Behavior] [Makey@LOGICON.ARPA (Jeff Makey)]
2295  [Re: Learned Behavior vs. Hard-Wired Behavior] [tim@hoptoad.uucp (Tim Maroney)]

The viewing window will be offset to the right so that the numbers on
the left are not shown. What you will see will be more like this:

 [Re: AI and Intelligence] [geb@cadre.dsl.PITTSBURGH.EDU (Gordon E. Banks)]
 [Re: AI and Intelligence] [ap1i+@andrew.cmu.edu (Andrew C. Plotkin)]
 [Re: AI and Intelligence] [jeff@lorrie.atmos.washington.edu (Jeff L. Bowden)]
 [Re: Learned Behavior vs. Hard-Wired Behavior] [Makey@LOGICON.ARPA (Jeff Makey)]
 [Re: Learned Behavior vs. Hard-Wired Behavior] [tim@hoptoad.uucp (Tim Maroney)

An asterisk is visible to the left of the Subject if you have already
read the same file in another news group in the current session.


-- Options for formatting the subject index file ----------------------

If you wish to see only the SUBJECT and not the information about the
SENDER, then do, in your vedinit.p

    vars gn_show_sender = false;

The default value is -true-.

If you wish to EXCLUDE files whose subject lines include "Re:", which
implies that they are comments on previous message, you should do

    vars gn_include_Re = false;

The default value is -true-.

[Additional control variables are listed in LIB * VED_NET with comments
indicating their function.]


-- Using the subject index to choose what to read ---------------------

The subject index file can be treated as a menu of options: to select
an article for reading, simply put the cursor on the line in question
and then type
    ENTER gn

This command (unlike most VED commands) behaves differently in different
contexts, as described below.


-- ENTER gn (Get News) ----------------------------------------------

This is probably the most convenient command for reading news.
It has several modes determined by context, following a suggestion by
Chris Thornton. This makes it unnecessary to remember several different
commands.


-- 1. ENTER gn <path spec> (invokes ENTER net) -------------------

If you give it a path name as argument, it behaves exactly like
ENTER net, described below, e.g.
    ENTER gn comp.ai.3056
is the same as
    ENTER net comp.ai.3056

This is convenient for reading a single article. To get a complete list
of article numbers in a group leave out the number, e.g.

    ENTER gn comp.ai


-- 2. ENTER gn (in an ordinary file - get vednewsrc file) ----------

If it is in a type of VED file that it does not recognise, i.e. not a
VED news file, then ved_gn uses the file name held in the variable
-vednewsrc- to find your news record file and reads it in to VED.
(See the section above on the format for this file.)

This gives you a menu of news groups to choose from, using the
REDO key or the 'gn' command.


-- 3. ENTER gn (in vednewsrc file - get "subject index file") -------

Search from current line in vednewsrc file looking for a news group that
has some unread news items, and build a subject index file for that
group.

If you are already in the vednewsrc file, then the gn command uses the
current line to identify a news group and the number of the last news
item read in that group. It looks at news files in that group to see
whether there are any with later numbers, and if so creates a
subject index file for that group (in the format described above).

If there is nothing new in the group named on the current line, 'gn'
searches down the vednewsrc file (ignoring lines containing "!"), until
it finds a group with unread items, and builds a subject index file
showing the new items.

The command ENTER gn1 (described below) will try only ONE news group
instead of searching on.

The subject index file and the individual news files are read in with
VEDWRITEABLE false, so re-name the file if you want to save it.


-- 4. ENTER gn (in "subject index file" - get news file) ------------

ENTER gn
ENTER gn <number>
If you are already in a NEWS index file created by gn with the above
format, then the gn command will Get the News file corresponding to the
current line, or corresponding to the number given as argument.

If you are at the end of the file and no argument is given it quits the
file and goes to the vednewsrc file.

In the first case it will also mark the current line with an asterisk to
the left of the subject, and move the cursor to the next line. Since the
same file can occur in other news groups, the program remembers the
inode number of the file so that if you build an index for another group
it will mark the corresponding file with an asterisk to tell you that
you have already looked at it.

When gn gets the news file it puts the sender's name on the status line.
The newsfile will been displayed from the start of the main text, i.e.
hide the header lines by scrolling them off the screen.  If you want to
see the header lines each time you access a new newsfile, put the
following line in your vedinit.p:

    false -> ved_hide_header;

The number of the last file read in this group is updated in the
vednewsrc file, unless a bigger number was previously recorded.

-- 5. ENTER gn (in news file - go back to Subject index file) -------

When you have finished reading a news file then <ESC> q, or ENTER q
will make it go away. You can also use ENTER gn for this (or the
<REDO> key if 'gn' was your previous command).

The news files are read in with VEDWRITEABLE false, so rename if you
want to save them, or use ENTER save <filename>. Whenever you come
back to an index file in which gn was used, the cursor will have moved
to the next line, ready to be used on the next newsgroup or index entry.

You can also quit the current news file and return to the index using
ENTER gn (or the REDO button).


-- 6. ENTER gn . (Bring current group up to date) -------------------

Suppose you have not read a group for a long time and there are very
many message numbers to catch up on. If you want to skip them all,
and update the .newsrc file AS IF you had read them all, do

    ENTER gn .

You can do this whether currently in a particular news file or in the
subject index file for a group or in the vednewsrc file. In the latter
case it will "update" the group on the current line.


-- 7. ENTER gn1 (in vednewsrc file - try only ONE news group) -------

If the current file is the vednewsrc file then either of the commands
    ENTER gn1

will check the news group on the current line to see if there are any
unread news items in that group, and if so will make an index file. If
not it prints a message and stops, unlike 'ENTER gn' which continues
searching down the vednewsrc file until it finds a news group with
unread items.

-- Additional ENTER gn commands ---------------------------------------

There are additional "ENTER gn" commands that, for historical reasons,
are equivalent to corresponding "ENTER net" commands, as explained
below.


-- Saving a "subject index file" for future use -----------------------

If the gn command presents you with a long list of articles in a group
and you wish to read one of them now, while saving some of the earlier
ones for browsing at another time you can save the subject index file,
using a command like

    ENTER name news_to_read

to change the name of the file.

Delete the entries that don't interest you, then, PROVIDED that you
leave the first three lines of the file untouched i.e. the header lines,
you can later use the ENTER gn command to go directly from this file
to the news articles (if they have not been purged!).


-- ENTER net and ENTER oldnet -------------------------------------

Can be used inside VED
    a. to find which news (or old news) directories exist
    b. to find which files exist in those directories (using 'ls')
    c. to scan the 'Subject' lines of news items
    c. to read news files

-- Path specifications for news groups, using ENTER net -------------

The ENTER net and ENTER oldnet commands may include path
specifications optionally preceded by a flag.

In the formats given below <path spec> is a path specification. Path
specifications are the same as news groups, except that the specification
may include news file numbers or wild-cards.

E.g. to access the news group comp.sys.atar.st and files in it whose
numbers start with 30, the argument to ENTER net (or oldnet) may be a
<path spec> in the form

    comp.sys.atari.st.30*

The actual path name used might be
    /usr/spool/news/comp/sys/atari/st/30*

or, if reading archived news

    /usr/spool/oldnews/comp/sys/atari/st/30*


-- ENTER net flags: specify subject lines or 'ls' listing -----------

An optional first argument can begin with '-', in which case it is
called a 'flag', and controls the behaviour of ved_net.

The flag '-s' specifies that a subject index file should be made
for the group, as shown below. Commands using this flag can also
be used with "ENTER gn".

If there is anything else beginning with '-' then it is assumed to give
flags for the 'ls' command, whose output, for the given news group
directory specification, will be read into a temporary VED file.

E.g '-t' means use reverse chronological order, as shown below.
Otherwise the alphabetical order of file names will be used.


-- ENTER net (with arguments) ---------------------------------------

The following formats are accepted:

    ENTER net    [<ls flags | -s>] <path spec>
    ENTER oldnet [<ls flags | -s>] <path spec>

E.g.
    ENTER net -lt foo.baz.grumble

will produce a reverse chronological long listing of the contents of the
directory for the group.

In all cases VEDWRITEABLE is made FALSE.

There are two cases handled by ENTER net (or oldnet)
    1. If the argument corresponds to a name of a non-directory file,
    then that file will be read in to VED, with the 'Subject:' line at
    the top of the window, e.g. ENTER net comp.ai.300
    will read in message number 300 in the 'comp.ai' news group.

    2. If the argument corresponds to a news directory, or if it
    contains wild cards, then 'ls -C <path spec>' will be
    invoked, and the output in columns will be read into VED.

Similar comments apply to ENTER oldnet

Examples follow.


-- ENTER net (with no argument) -------------------------------------
is the same as ENTER ls -C /usr/spool/news

This gives the top level news directory names in columns, in
alphabetical order, e.g. (January 1989):

 /usr/spool/news
batch   control general junk    misc    rec     soc     to
comp    eunet   gnu     local   news    sci     talk    uk

Any of these names can then be used as an argument to ENTER net
to find out what lower level news categories there are, as shown
below. NB. you may find different sub-headings available if you
try this.


-- ENTER net -lt ---------------------------------------------------

is the same as ENTER ls -lt /usr/spool/news. In Feb 1989 on CSUNA
at Sussex, it gave:

/usr/spool/news
total 46
drwxrwxrwx  2 58           2560 Feb 12 06:08 control
drwxrwxrwx  2 58          36352 Feb 12 06:08 junk
drwxr-xr-x  2 58            512 Feb  2 20:04 general
drwxrwxrwx 19 58            512 Feb  1 07:55 sci
drwxrwxrwx 19 58            512 Jan 24 15:01 rec
drwxrwxrwx 10 58            512 Jan 17 12:20 news
drwxrwxrwx 45 58           1024 Dec 18 22:00 comp
drwxr-xr-x 12 58            512 Nov 27 09:45 gnu

    .......  etc ........


-- ENTER net -lt uk ------------------------------------------------

is the same as ENTER ls -lt /usr/spool/news/uk, giving
 /usr/spool/news/uk
 total 10
 drwxrwxrwx  2 News          512 Jan 25 12:48 events
 drwxrwxrwx  2 News          512 Jan 25 05:09 test
 drwxrwxrwx  2 News          512 Jan 24 05:35 jobs
    .......  etc ........


-- ENTER net uk.events --------------------------------------------

on the same day gave:
 /usr/spool/news/uk/events
 296     297     298     299     300     301     302


-- ENTER net -s <path spec> (Make subject index file) ---------------
-- ENTER gn -s <path spec>  (Make subject index file) ---------------

This format produces a subject index file, in the format specified
previously. E.g.

    ENTER net -s uk.events
or
    ENTER gn -s uk.events

Might produce something like this:

/usr/spool/news/uk/events
uk.events
--------------USE <ENTER> gn to get news file-----------------
295  [University of Manchester: computing courses] [ian@ipse2pt5.cs.man.ac.uk (Ian Cottam)]
296  [Correction -Feigenbaum is NOT coming in July] [xuazz@warwick.ac.uk (Simon Musgrave)]
297  [Re: Advertising of University courses] [chgs02@vaxa.strath.ac.uk (Ann)]
298  [NAG/SERC Finite Element Library Course] [cjc@inf.rl.ac.uk (John Collie)]
299  [Apple developer's group meeting: QuickTime demo] [sw@nan.co.uk (Sak Wathanasin)]
300  [C A L L  F O R  P A P E R S : 5th REFINEMENT WORKSHOP] [brianm@r8a.cs.man.ac.uk (Brian Monahan)]
    .......  etc ........

The ENTER gn command, described above, can then be used to Get a News
file into VED, corresponding to the line the cursor is on in the index
file.


-- ENTER net -s uk.events.30* -------------------------------------
-- ENTER gn -s uk.events.30* ------------------------------------------

Would produce only entries for files with names starting '30'. E.g.

Note that the pattern given at the end can include formats described in
connection with sys_file_match in REF * SYSUTIL/sys_file_match

For example, to see only the comp.arch articles whose numbers are in the
range starting 186... to 187..., do

    ENTER gn -s comp.arch.18[6-7]*


-- ENTER net comp ---------------------------------------------------
-- ENTER gn comp ------------------------------------------------------

is the same as ENTER ls -C /usr/spool/news/comp
which gave (Jan 1989):
/usr/spool/news/comp
ai              doc             lang            parallel        sys
arch            editors         laser-printers  periphs         terminals
archives        edu             lsi             protocols       text
binaries        emacs           mail            risks           theory
bugs            fonts           misc            simulation      unix
cog-eng         graphics        music           society         windows
compilers       hypercube       newprod         software-eng    women
databases       ibm             org             sources
dcom            ivideodisc      os              std

To find out what is in the lower level group comp.lang do
    ENTER net comp.lang
or
    ENTER gn comp.lang

which might produce
/usr/spool/news/comp/lang
ada             clu             idl             postscript      smalltalk
apl             eiffel          lisp            prolog          visual
asm370          forth           misc            rexx
c               fortran         modula2         scheme
c++             icon            pascal          sigplan

Similarly to see what files are in the lisp group do
    ENTER net comp.lang.lisp

This may provide a list of numbers, for individual news files, and
also some names for lower level directories, e.g. 'franz' for
comp.lang.lisp.franz. The "-s" flag, possibly with a pattern, as
described above, can then be used to build a subject index file.

The number can be used to specify the particular news item wanted.

-- ENTER net comp.lang.lisp.1082 ------------------------------------
-- ENTER gn comp.lang.lisp.1082 -------------------------------------

These two commands are equivalent. Doing this is approximately like

    ENTER pved /usr/spool/news/comp/lang/lisp/1082

except that it shows only the portion of the file starting with the
Subject line. Like 'pved' it makes vedwriteable false for the file.

When a newsfile has been read in, it is treated like any ordinary VED
file, apart from having vedwriteable FALSE. When you have finished
reading it do either
    ENTER q
or
    <ESC> q

or ENTER gn


-- ENTER oldnet comp.ai ----------------------------------------------

If your system uses the news archiver to save some news files in an
'old' directory, then this command will get you a list of the archived
comp.ai files.

'oldnet' can be used exactly like 'net', with all the same options. The
only difference is that it uses vedoldnewsdir instead of vednewsdir.


-- ENTER save <filename> --------------------------------------------

When you are reading a news file bits of the file can easily be copied
to another file, using marked ranges in the normal way. (HELP *MARK)

Since VED can interfere with some files, e.g. by converting TABS or
removing trailing blanks, the comand ENTER save is provided to copy
the original news file to a named user file. If the file already exists
the news file is appended.

If you wish to store the whole file as it is in the VED buffer, then
    ENTER name myfile

will re-name file as 'myfile' and make VEDWRITEABLE TRUE. Then

    ENTER w1

will store it on the disk.


-- Browsing with the active file -------------------------------------

If you read in the active file described above, e.g.

    ENTER pved /usr/lib/news/active

or on some COGS CRN machines at Sussex

    ENTER pved /syma/news/lib/active

Then instead of copying the entries to another file you can use the
vedexpand facility (see TEACH * VEDEXPAND) to get the group name out of
the file into the ENTER net comand line.

Assuming that you have, in your vedinit.p file

`^` -> vedexpandchar;

you can put the VED cursor just before a group name (such as
comp.lang.lisp) and do

    ENTER net ^f

This will put the group name into the command line, replacing "^f".

See also
TEACH * VEDEXPAND


-- Sending news: ENTER postnews -------------------------------------

The ENTER postnews command can be used to send news.
 See HELP * VED_POSTNEWS for details

-- ENTER followup (prepare followup article) ------------------------
-- ENTER followup reply (prepare reply to original poster) ----------

ENTER followup
    Makes a copy of message in a temporary non-writeable file,
    prepares a header, and then globally indents original message
    with '> '. Delete bits you don't want to quote, add your stuff
    then ENTER postnews

    See HELP * VED_POSTNEWS for full details.

ENTER followup reply
    Is similar but prepares an email heading to go to the sender
    using ved_send. To: line and Cc: line may need some editing.

If you find these commands too verbose, you can, of course, define
abbreviations in your vedinit.p or your private autolodable library
of ved extensions. E.g.

To make 'ENTER fup' prepare a followup article do
    vars ved_fup = ved_followup;

To make 'ENTER fr' prepare a followup reply to sender do:

    define ved_fr;
        dlocal vedargument = 'reply';
        ved_followup();
    enddefine;

To assign these procedures to a VED key sequence use VEDSETKEY. See
HELP * VEDSETKEY

ENTER followup (with or without "reply') sets vedlinemax to 68,
so that your messages are not too 'wide', in case others wish to
quote them by indenting. (This number may be reduced).

-- Renaming <group>.general -> <group>.followup -----------------------

There is a convention according to which if a newsgroup name ends in
'.general' then replies and followups should be addressed to the
corresponding '.followup' news group. However, not all .general
groups have .followup groups corresponding to them, so whether
ved_postnews attempts to conversion depents on whether the variable

    followup_general

has been set to TRUE (don't rename) or FALSE (rename). It defaults to
FALSE, but users can change it to TRUE to prevent the
automatic conversion.

-- Acknowledgements ---------------------------------------------------

Information and suggestions were provided by Chris Thornton, Leila
Burrell-Davis and Ben Rubinstein.

-- Further reading ----------------------------------------------------
See HELP * VED_POSTNEWS for sending news.

On some machines you can find out about alternative mechanisms by
looking at various Unix 'man' files
    man readnews
    man rn
    man vn

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