johnc@haddock.UUCP (03/25/87)
Folks around here are using 'notes' a lot for internal discussions, and 'readnews' or 'rn' for usenet. There is some dissatisfaction, and I thought I'd prod y'all to get some recommendations. Notes seems to have a lot of persistent problems with permissions and using huge amounts of disk space. It also bombs out bizarrely on occasion, with messages that aren't very useful. (Whaddaya mean, "Permission denied"? On what file? Why does notes complain that there's no "core" file?) The one nice thing that people have to say about 'notes' is that it knows how to group responses (followups) with the base note, and lets you sequence through them as a sublist. The versions we have of 'rn' and 'readnews' and 'vnews' don't seem to do this. I've considered hacking vnews to make it show followups with the base article. This doesn't look too hard, but then again, it doesn't look totally trivial. Has someone out there done it already? Can I save some time by getting your version? Is there perhaps a New, Improved edition of 'rn' that does this? (Maybe ours will, but it just isn't documented? :-) Or maybe there's another glorious user interface that does it all? I'm also tempted to convert vnews into a mail interface, while I'm at it. Wouldn't it be nice if there were a pseudo-newsgroup called 'mail' that contained all your personal mail and could be read or answered just like any other newsgroup? Of course, it would be moderated and archived.... -- John Chambers (617)247-1155 ...!ima!johnc [No, I don't work at cdx39 any more.]
dave@lsuc.UUCP (03/31/87)
In article <403@haddock.UUCP> johnc@haddock.UUCP writes: >The one nice thing that people have to say about 'notes' is that it knows >how to group responses (followups) with the base note, and lets you sequence >through them as a sublist. The versions we have of 'rn' and 'readnews' and >'vnews' don't seem to do this. RTFM. It's been a feature of rn since rn came out. It's the -S option. For simplicity, set RNINIT to all the rn options you want (or to the name of a file which cotains the options). >Is there perhaps a New, Improved edition of 'rn' that does this? (Maybe >ours will, but it just isn't documented? :-) It's always been documented. The rn documentation is rather long, but it's worth reading right through once you've used rn for a while. David Sherman The Law Society of Upper Canada Toronto -- { seismo!mnetor cbosgd!utgpu watmath decvax!utcsri ihnp4!utzoo } !lsuc!dave
erinadv@utgpu.UUCP (04/01/87)
In article <1674@lsuc.UUCP> dave@lsuc.UUCP (David Sherman) writes: >In article <403@haddock.UUCP> johnc@haddock.UUCP writes: >>The one nice thing that people have to say about 'notes' is that it knows >>how to group responses (followups) with the base note, and lets you sequence >>through them as a sublist. The versions we have of 'rn' and 'readnews' and >>'vnews' don't seem to do this. > >RTFM. It's been a feature of rn since rn came out. It's the -S >option. For simplicity, set RNINIT to all the rn options you want >(or to the name of a file which cotains the options). > >>Is there perhaps a New, Improved edition of 'rn' that does this? (Maybe >>ours will, but it just isn't documented? :-) > >It's always been documented. The rn documentation is rather long, but >it's worth reading right through once you've used rn for a while. > >David Sherman >The Law Society of Upper Canada >Toronto >-- >{ seismo!mnetor cbosgd!utgpu watmath decvax!utcsri ihnp4!utzoo } !lsuc!dave At university of Toronto it seems that replies to rn articles go into a mail box in the user's directory that can be read by the command "mail" seperate from all other messages. subject: A new purchase of word processing software I putchased ABILITY software by MIGENT. I find it the most useful of any software purchase I have made. James Lundy ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Life in the fast lane is not all it is cracked up to be. ------------------------------------------------------------------------
mangoe@mimsy.UUCP (04/04/87)
David Sherman writes: >>The one nice thing that people have to say about 'notes' is that it knows >>how to group responses (followups) with the base note, and lets you sequence >>through them as a sublist. The versions we have of 'rn' and 'readnews' and >>'vnews' don't seem to do this. >RTFM. It's been a feature of rn since rn came out. It's the -S >option. For simplicity, set RNINIT to all the rn options you want >(or to the name of a file which cotains the options). Perhaps YOU should read the manual. This isn't what the -S option does. It causes article search to scan forward for an article with the same *subject*. If the followup arrives before the article to which it is a response, you will get them in reverse order. Unfortunately, about a third of the replys I see have no "References:" line, which means that it is impossible to link them up properly anyway. C. Wingate
johnc@haddock.UUCP (04/07/87)
>>>The one nice thing that people have to say about 'notes' is that it knows >>>how to group responses (followups) with the base note, and lets you sequence >>>through them as a sublist. The versions we have of 'rn' and 'readnews' and >>>'vnews' don't seem to do this. > >>RTFM. It's been a feature of rn since rn came out. It's the -S >>option. For simplicity, set RNINIT to all the rn options you want >>(or to the name of a file which cotains the options). > >Perhaps YOU should read the manual. This isn't what the -S option does. It >causes article search to scan forward for an article with the same >*subject*. If the followup arrives before the article to which it is a >response, you will get them in reverse order. > >Unfortunately, about a third of the replys I see have no "References:" line, >which means that it is impossible to link them up properly anyway. > Hi; me again. I'm the sucker that started this one. After a bit of a search, I found the manual page, so I finally *could* RTFM. It's true, the -S option isn't nearly as nice as the way notes does it. The article and responses are all sort of jumbled together in any order, with the article not necessarily first. Also, notes has the '-' command that backs up one response, and the '=' command that returns to the original article from any response. I find I use these a lot, and so far I can't figure out how to get rn to do them. Also, notes has a 'S' command which is like the 's' command, but it stores the entire chain of articles (original + responses) to a file. I use this much more than the 's' command. TFM for rn doesn't seem to describe any command that does this. OK, so I'm maybe asking for yet more bells and whistles on a program that is already too big and bulky. And I admit that rn has some goodies that are sorely lacking in notes. I'm not demanding anything of anybody. I'm just noting that the folks around here are using both of these user agents, and are not really perfectly satisfied with either. Even their strongest partisans give each one lukewarm praise at best. It seems that maybe it would be useful to publicly compare them, and say what makes each a good user agent, and say what is clumsy about each. Maybe also someone will speak up and say "Do I have the program for you!" I'm not married to rn or notes or vnews or ...; they just seem like the main contestants in a rather limited field. They are all good programs, but like Ford's Model T, we can hope they will be superseded by something even better. [I hope we won't be as disappointed by news agents as we have been with cars. :-] I especially like the idea of merging mail and news agents. They really do very similar things, after all. Why have two slightly different tools for slightly different jobs, when maybe one general tool will do? [Well, yes, I do have more than one screwdriver, now that you mention it.] -- John Chambers (617)247-1155 <...!ima!johnc> [The above opinions are my own; for a small fee, they can be yours, too.]
paul@devon.UUCP (04/08/87)
In article <1674@lsuc.UUCP> dave@lsuc.UUCP (David Sherman) writes: > In article <403@haddock.UUCP> johnc@haddock.UUCP writes: > >The one nice thing that people have to say about 'notes' is that it knows > >how to group responses (followups) with the base note, and lets you sequence > >through them as a sublist. The versions we have of 'rn' and 'readnews' and > >'vnews' don't seem to do this. > > RTFM. It's been a feature of rn since rn came out. It's the -S > option. For simplicity, set RNINIT to all the rn options you want > (or to the name of a file which cotains the options). Although technically true, David's response is not exactly correct. Rn's ``-S'' allows you to see articles grouped together by the "Subject:" header. Whereas, notes' autosequencer brings articles together using the "References:" header (or lack thereof, indicating a "base" note). The notes method of doing things is better (in my opinion) as many people munge the Subject line when replying, thereby breaking -S's ability to follow a chain of replys. Last time I heard anything on TMN Netnews software (are you listening Eric?), the TMN version of vnews was going to have a notes-like autosequencer function. - paul -- paul@devon.UUCP -or- {seismo,ihnp4,allegra,rutgers}!cbmvax!devon!paul "I love work. I could sit and watch people do it all day!"
msb@sq.UUCP (04/09/87)
This was going to be a mailed response, but I decided that enough of it might be of general interest that I would post it. > Hi; me again. I'm the sucker that started this one. After a bit of a > search, I found the manual page, so I finally *could* RTFM. It's true, > the -S option isn't nearly as nice as the way notes does it. The article > and responses are all sort of jumbled together in any order, with the > article not necessarily first. This is true, but you must remember that the notion that there IS an "article" and "responses" is unique to notes. Whether it is a feature or a bug is probably a religious issue. Remember that new chains of discussion often start from side points in articles are are themselves followups -- this means that the real followup structure is tree-like. > Also, notes has the '-' command that > backs up one response, and the '=' command that returns to the original > article from any response. I find I use these a lot, and so far I can't > figure out how to get rn to do them. In rn the '-' command returns you to the last article you saw (provided it was in the same group). The last-article memory only holds one number, so a second '-' takes you back where you were. But you can do a backwards subject-search with control-P. This searches for the next lower numbered article with the same subject whether already read or not. (rn has three forward- and three backward-moving commands. Control-N and control-P do subject-searching; n and p take the next unread article, except that the -S option makes n work like control-N; and N and P take the numerically next article whether already read or not.) There is no equivalent in rn to the notes '=', since the base-article concept is absent. In rn if a group has about 10-20 unread articles I often do an rn '=' to see what there is, and if a discussion seems to be out of order (i.e. if there is a "Re: x" subject and later an "x"), I go directly to what seems to be the first article and then use control-P to find the other one. I have personalized '=' using SUBJLINE to display more information. (RT*M or mail to me for details.) > Also, notes has a 'S' command which is like the 's' command, but it stores > the entire chain of articles (original + responses) to a file. I use this > much more than the 's' command. TFM for rn doesn't seem to describe any > command that does this. Use the '/' command to repeat, say, an 's' command: /string/:s file To include already-read articles, insert an 'r' before the colon. To make "the current article's subject" the string, type %s at that point, or escape-s if you want to see it expanded as you type. If this is too much typing and you want to do it often, you can define a macro of, say, one or two characters for it. For that, RT*M. > I'm > just noting that the folks around here are using both of these user agents, > and are not really perfectly satisfied with either. Even their strongest > partisans give each one lukewarm praise at best. That's probably why...they embody different conceptions. People in the non-notes world are used to a different model, and think it natural, and tend to like rn a LOT. I do. (This is not to say that rn is perfect: for instance, the subject search mode doesn't work well if some articles have a subject that's a substring of others' subject. But I find it very good.) > I especially like the idea of merging mail and news agents. They really > do very similar things, after all. Why have two slightly different tools > for slightly different jobs, when maybe one general tool will do? [Well, > yes, I do have more than one screwdriver, now that you mention it.] Because they're not slightly different jobs. Mail agents are for scanning a relatively low-volume stream of messages sent personally to you, some of which may require rapid response. News agents are for scanning a relatively high-volume, highly structured tree of messages, directed to the world at large and therefore not requiring rapid response from you, to find the few that are in fact of interest to you. Mark Brader "But I do't have a '' key o my termial." utzoo!sq!msb -- Lynn Gold