Intro to rn for beginners
Elizabeth Schwartz
(along with whatever gnu has.) Does anyone have or know of some nice
introduction to News docs for beginners? The rn manual is a bit too
much and we could use some general introcution to the net material also.
Please reply via Email if this is a FAQ (frequently asked question?)
thanks, betsy
--
Betsy Schwartz Internet: bet...@cs.umb.edu
System Administrator BITNET:ESCHWARTZ%UMBSK...@NS.UMB.EDU
U-Mass Boston Computer Science Dept.
Harbor Campus Boston, MA 02125-3393
Fred Stluka
> We have just brought up news at our site with rn being the available reader
> (along with whatever gnu has.) Does anyone have or know of some nice
> introduction to News docs for beginners? The rn manual is a bit too
> much and we could use some general introcution to the net material also.
Here is a short summary sheet of some useful "rn" commands. For
more details on each, see the man page.
"rn" summary sheet
------------------
Help:
h Help at any of the 3 levels (lists all available commands)
man rn Manual page available from Unix command line
g spc.announce.usenet
g news.announce.newusers
g news.newusers.questions
Lots of help on using news in the news articles themselves
Reading everything:
rn Invoke rn
space,ret Take default action
- Same as first command in each prompt
- Can see *everything* by always hitting space or ret
- Next page or line of this article, then
- Next article in this newsgroup, then
- Next newsgroup in .newsrc file.
Skipping some articles:
space,ret Continue reading (skip nothing)
n Skip to beginning of next article
k Kill (mark as read) this entire subject thread
- Can undo this via m or M
K Permanently kill this thread (add to "kill file")
- Can undo this by editing or deleting kill file
^K Edit kill file
c Catchup (mark all articles as read)
- Can undo this via m or M
u Unsubscribe to the newsgroup
- Can undo this via "g newsgroup" command
Browsing through articles you've already seen:
l,L List names of newsgroups
g newsgroup Go to specified newsgroup
n,N,^N Next article or newsgroup
p,P,^P Previous article or newsgroup
- Toggle between 2 articles or newsgroups
= List subjects of unread messages
D *Sometimes* lists subjects of all messages (undocumented)
42 Go to 42nd article or newsgroup (any number works)
m,M Mark article as unread
1-$ Mark all articles as unread
Paging through an article
ret Display next line of article
space Display next screen of article
b Display previous screen of article
^R Start article over
q Quit this article
h Help (*lots* of other commands)
Adding articles:
f,F To add a "followup" article to the one you just read
$f,$F To add a new article (not a followup)
Pnews To add a new article (from Unix shell, not from rn)
C To cancel (delete) the article you just read so no
one else will see it from now on.
- Unreliable
- Can only cancel your own articles
Sending mail:
r,R To reply to poster of article via mail
Other:
rn newsgroup At Unix prompt, to see only one group
! Escape from "rn" into a Unix shell
| Pipe article to a Unix command
q Quit (from article, from newsgroup, or from rn)
s,S Save personal copy of message in a file
--Fred
--
Fred Stluka Internet: stl...@software.org
Software Productivity Consortium UUNet: ...!uunet!software!stluka
2214 Rock Hill Rd, Herndon VA 22070 USA Voice: (703)742-7236
Junaid Alim/ADVISOR Merkel
>(along with whatever gnu has.) Does anyone have or know of some nice
>introduction to News docs for beginners? The rn manual is a bit too
>much and we could use some general introcution to the net material also.
> Please reply via Email if this is a FAQ (frequently asked question?)
> thanks, betsy
>
>--
Dear Ms. Schwartz,
During the past spring quarter, I was taking an operating systems
course that taught us how to write script files. A special proj-
ect was assigned to me that dealt with writing an online guide
to rn. I wrote a "moron" online manual for rn i.e. a very easy to
use manual. I used the material from the rn manual. I tried to
use it on some freshman who only knew a little bit about the VAX
or UNIX. They seemed to be quite at ease with the guide. So if
you want the script file and the files needed to run it, then please e-mail me at the following address... "al...@ee.fit.edu" (ign
oring the double quotes, ofcourse). Thanks...
--- Jade