petitp@cui.UUCP (03/07/86)
Summary:Describes a problem to archive news articles,Proposal/Query of a solution
I have the following problem: In our computer center the news articles are
purged if they are older than 15 days. So if you want to keep interesting
articles you are obliged to save them in your personal directories. When
saving "rn" gives you the choice of two formats: normal or mailbox file. But
both are not very practical when you have saved a large number of files:
retrieval of a particular information becomes tedious. Only the name of a
normal files helps you, or a fgrep like command. With "mail -f" it's no
better since most of the time the "from" field is not interesting (besides
it's very slow). And when articles are hierarchically stored in a big tree of
directories, things become harder.
The obvious tool to solve that problem, would be to use "rn" on a
personal directory. It would fit perfectly since it is meant for that kind of
access. BUT "rn" is not parametrisable for that purpose: the ~/News (%p) and
/usr/spool/news (%P) and /usr/lib/news (%X) directory names are wired in the
"rn" code. The problems would be to maintain a personal "active" file when
saving to the personal directory (inews should be invoked) and to maintain a
separate set of "dot files" (.newsrc etc) when consulting the saved articles.
In that last case marking an article as read would loose signification, since
you want to read it again and again. And the user should be able to
cancel/delete his own saved articles. The way to change of environement i.e.
to pass from public news consultation mode to personal archive consultation
mode isn't clear to me but should be user friendly (without having to change
environment variables all the time or to use different commands).
Does such a feature exist? In that case I am sorry to clutter the net,
but forgive me and tell me where I could find such a "rn".
If it doesn't, has anybody had the same problems, and thought of an even
better solution? Is anybody working on it?
Dominique Petitpierre uucp: mcvax!cernvax!cui!petitp
ISSCO, University of Geneva ean: petitp@cui.unige.chunet
54 route des acacias JANET: petitp%cui.unige.chunet@cs.ucl.ac.uk
CH-1227 GENEVA (Switzerland) BITNET/EARN: petitp%cui.unige.chunet@CERNVAX
Tel: 0041/22/20 93 33 ext 2117 CSNET/ARPA : petitp%cui.unige.chunet@ubc.csnetfaigin@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Daniel P Faigin) (03/09/86)
In article <146@cui.UUCP> petitp@cui.UUCP (PETITPIERRE Dominique) writes: > The obvious tool to solve that problem, would be to use "rn" on a >personal directory. It would fit perfectly since it is meant for that kind of >access. BUT "rn" is not parametrisable for that purpose: the ~/News (%p) and > ... We (myself, Mark Biggar, and Larry Wall, the author of Rn) have had discussions on this a number of times. Not only would this feature have appliations regarding news, but it might also develop into an Rn interface to mail. However, work on this area has been stalled for quite a while, because Larry Wall has been bogged down on our project for many months (he hasn't even signed on to read mail). The way that Larry's project-related work queues look (which take priority), he may not get to work on these ideas for a while. So, take heart. We do understand your problem and are thinking about it. One of these days... And, as for Larry, let me repeat something I said in December: In article <332@well.UUCP> farren@well.UUCP (Mike Farren) writes: > > After trying to send mail to the last address for Larry Wall that I have >the mailer tells me there's no such person there. Can you help? Thanks. Well, I just turned to the person sitting behind me busily writing a compiler and said, "Larry, do you exist?" He replied, "In a tenuous form." Joking aside, yes, Larry Wall does exist. Mail may be sent to him at the address lwall@sdcrdcf.UUCP. This does not mean you should expect a prompt reply. Larry is currently being enslaved (oops) kept busy on a project that works on a machine with no outside access. Although I pester him to read his mail, he is extremely busy and does not have a spare minute to do so. If it is extremely urgent that you get to Larry, try sending mail to either me (faigin@sdcrdcf.UUCP) or Mark Biggar (markb@sdcrdcf.UUCP) and we will see that it gets brought to Larry's attention. [Of course, this still does not imply that he will do anything about it -- corporate deadlines can have weird effects on otherwise sane people] From the Offices of Larry Wall and Daniel Faigin... -- UUCP: {akgua allegra ihnp4 hplabs sdcsvax trwrb cbosgd}!sdcrdcf!faigin ARPA: sdcrdcf!faigin@UCLA-LOCUS.ARPA --or-- sdcrdcf!faigin@LOCUS.UCLA.EDU W: SDC, 2525 Colorado MD 91-01; Santa Monica CA 90406; (213) 820-4111 x6393 H: 11743 Darlington Avenue #9; Los Angeles CA 90049; (213) 826-3357