bobm@rtech.UUCP (Bob Mcqueer) (12/05/86)
Third time's the charm. I tried posting this originally in response to
the person who requested vn source, but it never got out due to some
problems here. My apologies to everybody here at rtech reading this for
the third time.
This is just to tell folks that I intend to post the next "major release" of
vn in a few weeks. I'm "soaking" it at rtech at the moment. Since I just
put it up locally, I'll be giving it those few weeks trial before I publish
it for general use. Consider it a Christmas present. It will have, besides
bug fixes:
1) SYSV ifdef's similar to those sent by several people.
2) Andy M.'s changes integrated in with a few tweezes (smarter mail and
followup interface).
3) A search string capability while reading articles from changes sent by
folks in Australia. Also arrow key support based on Aussie changes,
and an ifdef or two primarily of interest to them, and their
strange net.
4) My additions:
a) a menu selection from the % command to jump to a new newsgroup
b) improved -w, -t options. multiple negations will now work.
c) distribution lines in followups.
d) no "100%" prompt on last line of articles when they are the
same length as the screen.
e) no longer a compiled in limit for number of newsgroups.
f) a facility for remapping the command keys on a user basis.
g) options to get the % command list on entry, and to change how
unsubscribed groups are handled for updates.
Now, a few questions. Since the net has drastically reorganized, I'm not
really sure where all to put things anymore. Somebody told me that when I
repost it ought to go to "mod.sources". Agreed. At the moment there are
no articles in our mod.sources directory. Can anybody tell me who to mail
it to? There is also comp.sources now. I'm assuming that net.sources is
no longer appropriate. Anything I missed?
I'm sure that with the reorganization anybody running the current vn version
has hit the compiled in newsgroup limit. If you're getting "too many
newsgroups" error messages and dropping off the tail end of the active
list, by all means compile with an upped HASHSIZE and HASHMAX if you haven't
done so already. HASHSIZE 1201, HASHMAX 800 would be what I would be sending
the old version out with, these days. And that's probably not enough inside
ATT and other places with tons of local newsgroups.
One more thing. We're not running 2.11 news yet here. As long as the
format of the active file doesn't get changed, and the naming conventions
for articles and spooling directories doesn't get changed, I can't see
it having any effect on vn, but one never knows. Can anybody running the
current vn with 2.11 news let me know it works?
Ciao.
--
Bob McQueer
{amdahl, sun, mtxinu, hoptoad, cpsc6a}!rtech!bobm