rct@occrsh.UUCP (06/23/86)
Concerning the lack of traffic in this group lately, perhaps that's an indication of notes users' relative satisfaction with their software as compared to news :-). On a more serious note (boo...), a news user in another group recently suggested that it shouldn't be too big a deal to handle newsgroup names longer than 14-characters. Technically, it isn't that big a deal when the newsgroups aliasing feature of notes is used. The problem is that all the affected sites haven't gotten together on a standardized list of aliases for such abominations as mod.computers.*. As a result, I'm still getting everything from the various subgroups of mod.computers.* lumped together into a single notesfile. Flaming at the die-hard news community that they aren't conforming to the "unique-in-the-first-14- characters" convention doesn't accomplish squat, because as far as they are concerned, notes users are vermin that pollute their beloved newsgroups with "Orphaned Response"s, and, anyway, they're conforming to the 14-character convention because EACH COMPONENT of the newsgroup name is unique in the first 14 characters. Well, gee... That's great when a site is running news 'cause the above example resides on disk as /usr/spool/news/ mod/ computers/ category1 category2 etc. or some such... Bottom line: are there any plans in the works to allow some future release of the notes software to handle cases such as mod.computers.* in a more graceful fashion? I enjoy the notes interface for handling articles very much, and will probably stay with it pending the results of an evaluation of 2.11 news when it comes out this August. Notes won the last such evalution easily due to a much-superior user interface and/or article presentation format. (I say this knowing full well that many changes have been made to the news software, particularly in the user-interface programs. That's why I'm willing to evaluate 2.11 news when it's available.) Flaming comments from news users will be cheerfully ignored. Constructive criticism directed towards a greater understanding of how news and notes handle articles will do much for bridging the gap in a more transparent manner. Aww.... ok. Flame if you wish. If I can get you to discuss the problem, whether in a rational fashion or not, then we're accomplishing something. :-) --Bob Tracy AT&T Network Systems Oklahoma City ihnp4!occrsh!rct P.S. Standard disclaimer about the above being my opinions and not necessarily those of my employer hereby included.
wunder@hpcea.HP (Walter R. Underwood) (06/29/86)
I'm working on a version of Notes here at HP that does use subdirectories for newsgroups. It is based on NYU Notes from Lou Salkind, which keeps all the headers on a News article. Unfortunately, it ain't finished, but this group will be the first to know when it is available. OK, maybe I'll tell Ray Essick first. We've got a *lot* of Notes sites inside HP. We'll give this one a thorough test over the next couple of months. wunder
rs@mirror.UUCP (07/02/86)
] How does notes deal with long names?
There are two "solutions"; one extant, one not yet done. I'm referring
to notes 1.7 and later; this may also include "NYU" notes, but I'm not
sure. The basic problem is this: notes stores its database in a one-level
directory tree, while news uses the hierarchy. If you're not running a
BSD4.[23] filesystem, then net.unix-wizards becomes net.unix-wizar, and
so on.
First, get in touch with the administrator at the site doing the
news/notes gateway for you. Make sure he's running recent code.
Tell him to update his .utilities/newsgroups file. This file maps
newsgroup names to notesfile names. For example, here's an excerpt
from ours:
# General/followup
net.followup:net.general
# Mod groups whose names must be truncated
mod.c.68k:mod.computers.68k
mod.c.apollo:mod.computers.apollo
# Net groups whose names must be truncated
net.announce.n:net.announce.newusers
Note that the "newsgroups" file can also handle neat tricks like automatically
directing responses in net.general to net.followup, while leaving new
basenotes in net.general in that news group. The "newsgroups" file is
used by the newsinput and newsoutput programs.
Now, suppose you feed or are fed by BSD site that DOES use the long names.
No problem, create an entry for them in .utilties/net.how with their
sitename. For example, here's an excerpt from .utilities/net.how/bsd-site,
someone we feed who wants long names:
mod.c.apollo:mod.computers.apollo
This program is normally only used by nfxmit, so you'll have to get the
other site to set up something similar for you. Someone recently
submitted a patch to nfrcv, however, that causes it to use the "net.how"
files to -- a big win.
All this stuff just lets us avoid the real problem: changing notes's
directory structure. I've done some looking at this, and exchanged
mail with Ray Essick. The work is involved, albeit fairly straightforward.
The scheme I came up with involved creating a "notesfiles" file. This
mapped notesfile titles to notesfile directories. For example:
mod.computers.apollo:mod/computers/apollo
mymail:/u2/rs/mail/.incoming
The first line assumes /usr/spool/notes as the directory.
This system provides three nice features: notesfiles can have multiple
names, notesfiles can exist in private places (they can now, but it's
a pain to create such ones; nfcreate insists on /usr/spool/notes), and
handling the wildcard expansion is straightforward.
With all this said, now for the bad news. I am particularly interested
in such a solution, and have a few ideas of where to make the changes.
As I said earlier, LOTS of things have to be changed. However, we are
a BSD4.2 site (and gateway), and feed only 4.2 sites. I do not expect
I will ever do any work on this.
I am interested in keeping notes alive. As mod.sources moderator, if
someone put lots of work in and created a new release, I would send
it out post-haste. Minimum requirements are that it would have to
be based on 1.7 or later, be approved by Essick, and provide some sort
of mapping like I propose above. Ideally, it all comes before the
reorganization of the net on 9/1. Perhaps the best bet is to wait for
major sites like HP, Gould, or UofI to do something.
--
Rich $alz {mit-eddie, ihnp4!inmet, wjh12, cca, datacube}!mirror!rs
Mirror Systems 2067 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA, 02140
Telephone: 6,176,610,777
"Hi, mom!"dave@onfcanim.UUCP (Dave Martindale) (07/04/86)
Forgive me if this is a stupid question (I've never seen a copy of notes), but: Very early versions of the "news" system (perhaps A news, or maybe very early "B" news, had the same 14-character limit on article names, because each newsgroup got a directory. This was recognized as a serious problem, and fixed by the simple method of changing periods to slashes when building a file name from a newsgroup name. Now, why couldn't such a simple fix be made to notesfiles as well? Most of the software could continue to deal with newsgroup names containing periods, and only when a file or directory was actually accessed would it be necessary to do the transliteration. If this isn't possible, why not? And if it is possible, why not just make the change?
wunder@hpcea.HP (Walter R. Underwood) (07/06/86)
Putting netesfiles in subdirectories is easy. Basically, you map dots to slashes before you open a file. We also changed the filenames to include dots, like "BODY.TEXT" so they could never interfere with a legal subdirectory name. There are some other changes, but it was no big deal. I have been corresponding (a little bit) with Ray and with Lou Salkind. This version is based on NYU Notes from Lou, and is missing some of the nice administration stuff in 1.7. It does accept notes longer than 64K, and keeps all News headers. If you are reading this on News, you should be able to trace the path back to hpcea, read my organization, check out the Posting Version, etc. wunder
levy@ttrdc.UUCP (Daniel R. Levy) (07/10/86)
In article <3590004@hpcea.HP>, wunder@hpcea.UUCP writes: >Putting netesfiles in subdirectories is easy. Basically, you map >dots to slashes before you open a file. We also changed the filenames >to include dots, like "BODY.TEXT" so they could never interfere with >a legal subdirectory name. > >wunder But you do have to make sure the subdirectories are there first or else the creat() will fail. (What does notes do about newgroup/rmgroup?) -- ------------------------------- Disclaimer: The views contained herein are | dan levy | yvel nad | my own and are not at all those of my em- | an engihacker @ | ployer or the administrator of any computer | at&t computer systems division | upon which I may hack. | skokie, illinois | -------------------------------- Path: ..!{akgua,homxb,ihnp4,ltuxa,mvuxa, vax135}!ttrdc!ttrda!levy
levy@ttrdc.UUCP (Daniel R. Levy) (07/10/86)
In article <1042@ttrdc.UUCP>, levy@ttrdc.UUCP (Daniel R. Levy) writes: >But you do have to make sure the subdirectories are there first or else >the creat() will fail. Whoops, I mean open() since notes files are already there. -- ------------------------------- Disclaimer: The views contained herein are | dan levy | yvel nad | my own and are not at all those of my em- | an engihacker @ | ployer or the administrator of any computer | at&t computer systems division | upon which I may hack. | skokie, illinois | -------------------------------- Path: ..!{akgua,homxb,ihnp4,ltuxa,mvuxa, vax135}!ttrdc!ttrda!levy