sjb (08/09/82)
With all this recent talk about moving the notes sequencer info out of the notes spool and into the user's home directory, the point that the B news community has a .newsrc file to show which articles have been read. Well, why not use this .newsrc file to also decide the order of presentation of groups instead of the active file? This would be ideal for those who want the user to have as much direct control over the software he uses as possible. It does not sound too hard to do (I will do it even, if there is interest), but what about putting it into the next distribution? Reaction?
bj (08/10/82)
B news should use the order of newsgroups in the .newsrc to determine the order articles are shown. I would have done it already except I am so busy and its sooo easy to become su and change the active file. Another feature that should be put in readnews is a way to have several "labeled" options lines in the .newsrc. That way I can type "readnews" to get the important newsgroups, "readnews -o work" to get the newsgroups that are related to my work, and then (when I am not busy), "readnews -o trash" to get everything else that might be interesting. Don't bother to flame about how I could do this with command files, the alias mechanism in csh, or whatever your favorite hack is - I know all about them. The reason for adding this to readnews is to keep all the lists together in .newsrc rather than scattering them around my area. B.J. decvax!yale-comix!herbison-bj Herbison-BJ@Yale