I have at last modified LIB VED_GN to work without any extraneous
C programs such as were previously required for connection to an
NNTP news server. Instead it uses telnet. I.e. it sets up a telnet
connection to the news server and then sends NNTP requests and receives
the replies.
Moreover it keeps a continuous connection to the news server, unlike the
previous version, so it is very much faster. It is also more tailorable
and adaptable.
The version I have currently has been tested on SunOS 4.1.3, on
Solaris 2.3, on HP-UX 8.something.
There is not a VMS version, but someone who knows about mailboxes
might find it takes only a few minutes to fix to work on VMS
where telnet is available.
If any Poplog user would like to try it out, just ask me and I'll
send the library file and the help file.
Here are the commands provided at present.
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<ENTER> gn comp.ai
List unread articles in comp.ai
<ENTER> gn comp.ai 20650
Show article 20650 in comp.ai
<ENTER> gn
in an ordinary file - get .newsrc file
<ENTER> gn
in .newsrc file - get "subject index file" for news group
on current line, i.e. list of unread articles, with subject
and author
<ENTER> gn
in "subject index file" - get news article
<ENTER> gn ?
in .newsrc file - show number of unread articles in newsgroup
on current line
<ENTER> gn 100
In .newsrc file, get subject index file for current news
group but show only 100 latest articles in the group
<ENTER> gn -
show only the gn_index_limit latest articles for current news
group
<ENTER> gn
in news article file - go back to Subject index file
<ENTER> gn .
In subject index file: bring current group up to date in .newsrc
<ENTER> gn new
Create a file listings numbers of unread articles for all groups
listed in .newsrc
<ENTER> gn renew
Ditto but force re-reading of active file
<ENTER> gn active
List the active news file
<ENTER> gna
Get next article by same author
<ENTER> gns
Get next article on same subject
<ENTER> gnn
Get next article in the same news group
<ENTER> gn close
Close the telnet connection.
The next two are already part of the Poplog library
<ENTER> followup
Prepare followup to current article
<ENTER> followup reply
Prepare email reply to current article, addressed to author
<ENTER> postnews
Post a news article
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There may be further development of ved_gn.
Aaron
PS
For sussex users there is already a version in ~aarons/ved_gn.p
with the help file in ~aarons/ved_gn
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