crl@pur-phy.UUCP (Charles LaBrec) (10/17/84)
Why is this article in group control? > Relay-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site pur-phy.UUCP > Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site sunybcs.UUCP > Path: pur-phy!pucc-h!CS-Mordred!pur-ee!inuxc!ihnp4!mhuxj!aluxp!aluxe!mhuxi!mhuxm!sftig!sftri!sfmag!eagle!ulysses!burl!clyde!watmath!su > From: 305sdj@sunybcs.UUCP (David Szczepanski) > Newsgroups: net.games > Subject: help needed with STARCROSS > Message-ID: <667@sunybcs.UUCP> > Date: 12 Oct 84 02:54:09 GMT > Date-Received: 14 Oct 84 18:48:26 GMT > Distribution: net > Organization: State University of New York @ Buffalo,NY > Lines: 10 > > # > Also, users are telling me that new newsgroups are being put at the beginning of their .newsrc's. Is this the way it now works? I notice that only the man page for vnews has been posted. Are more forthcoming? Charles LaBrec UUCP: pur-ee!Physics:crl, purdue!Physics:crl INTERNET: crl @ pur-phy.UUCP
dave@uwvax.UUCP (Dave Cohrs) (10/21/84)
I can't help on your first question. > Also, users are telling me that new newsgroups are being put at > the beginning of their .newsrc's. Is this the way it now works? Yup. That's how it works. Keep in mind that you can now edit your .newsrc and put the groups in whatever order you like so this really doesn't matter. > I notice that only the man page for vnews has been posted. Are > more forthcoming? Methinks the old man pages are still valid for all other programs, no? -- (Bug? What bug? That's a feature!) Dave Cohrs ...!{allegra,heurikon,ihnp4,seismo,uwm-evax}!dave dave@wisc-rsch.arpa
crl@pur-phy.UUCP (Charles LaBrec) (10/23/84)
I have finally taken some time to look at 2.10.2, and have decided that the way sortactive() works is undesirable, to say the least. I really dislike new groups being put at the top. I set up my .newsrc to see IMPORTANT groups there, and just because some unimportant one that I want to read comes in, I have to edit the .newsrc. What a pain. Furthermore, it sorts them in a semi-random order sometimes. Here is a good example. A new user without a .newsrc starts reading, does a few groups, and quits. The next time he/she starts, the next batch will be placed at the beginning, circumventing the active file order, which at least is reasonable. By the end of a few sessions, his/her .newsrc will be a mess. If new groups were added to the end, the default would be to keep the .newsrc in active file order, more or less. What I meant about semi-random is this: the function that does the compares for qsort() in sortactive() only compares the line numbers that that group is found in the .newsrc. When a group is not in the .newsrc, its line number is considered to be -1. So all groups not listed compare equally. Consider the following .newsrc and active files: .newsrc: active: general: general e: a b: b c d e After the sort, I think the active would look like: general e b c d a So what was once 2nd is now last. At our site, this means a local group would get put at the end. With a longer .newsrc, it would really jumble it. Since the compare routine gets called with a struct pointer that contains both the newsrc line index and the active file position, I intend to check for an index of -1, and then sort by active file pos. Does anyone out there see a problem with this? About the man pages, for one I notice that checknews has a new option -N to check only specific groups. I'd really appreciate a new set of all the man pages so that I don't (and my users don't) have to look at the source to determine what is new. (Expire also has a new switch or two.) Charles LaBrec UUCP: pur-ee!Physics:crl, purdue!Physics:crl INTERNET: crl @ pur-phy.UUCP