brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) (07/08/89)
I think an interface that works a group at a time, showing a menu of subjects and letting the user pick (not like =) is a good idea. I've been wishing something did this for a long time. Even Compuserve got their act together and made an interface like that about a year ago. It's very powerful -- you can take a full month's worth of articles in a busy group and read what you want on a low speed terminal in a fairly short time. But to do that with our current news systems we need: a) An independent directory of article header info so that we don't have to wait to read all the headers in the group before starting. b) An NNTP modification that lets the nntp reader request such a list of header information for a group when the group starts, and gets it quickly. Those doing new database formats and NNTP work should keep this in mind. -- Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473
storm@texas.dk (Kim F. Storm) (07/12/89)
In article <3602@looking.on.ca> brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) writes: >I think an interface that works a group at a time, showing a menu of >subjects and letting the user pick (not like =) is a good idea. I've been >wishing something did this for a long time. ^^^^^^^^^ This something is called 'nn'. >But to do that with our current news systems we need: > a) An independent directory of article header info so that we don't > have to wait to read all the headers in the group before starting. This is exactly why nn has its own database. > b) An NNTP modification that lets the nntp reader request such a > list of header information for a group when the group starts, > and gets it quickly. Currently, nn keeps the database on the local system, because there is no way NNTP can transfer this information. An extension to NNTP to access a remote nn database is on our to-do list. >Those doing new database formats and NNTP work should keep this in mind. We certainly do! -- Kim F. Storm storm@texas.dk Tel +45 429 174 00 Texas Instruments, Marielundvej 46E, DK-2730 Herlev, Denmark No news is good news, but nn is better!
pjg@urth.cc.buffalo.edu (Paul Graham) (07/13/89)
ok, ok. if you want a list of subjects but like rn *and* you don't mind running gnu emacs then try gnews or maybe gnus (i use gnews). you don't need the extra NNTP support brad mentioned because gnews sorts the subjects so it needs them all. i think sorted subject lines are worth the delay. gnews has a simple command to kill a thread or *delay* it until another time and looks very much like rn since that was the model. naturally since it's written in elisp you can change much of it's behavior in a straightforward way (assuming you program in lisp). i used rn for years. i've been using gnews for about a year and a half. i'd never go back. available at berkeley.edu. now if we could just depend on the references: line. -- paul