dave@utcsrgv.UUCP (Dave Sherman) (09/28/83)
When the next version of news comes out, I would like it if there were
a command to update the .newsrc file, just like quitting and typing
readnews again (which is a pain, particularly because articles posted
to multiple groups can then get displayed again).
One of the most annoying things in readnews is when it dumps
core or otherwise dies, and you have to plow through all the
junk you just spent an hour reading, hitting the 'n' key.
Also, readnews sometimes gets stuck on a LONG search (particularly
if you request 'N net.whatever' and net.whatever is a large group;
it doesn't use the same algorithm as if you simply got to net.whatever
in the normal course of things), and hitting rubout only gives you
the choice between Abort? (i.e., don't update .newsrc for all work
done so far) and resuming the interminable search (while you go
and have a cup of coffee).
I should say that I think that overall, the news software is great,
and I appreciate all the work that Mark and the others have put into
it. My criticism is purely constructive.
Dave Sherman
Toronto
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{cornell,decvax,ihnp4,linus,utzoo,uw-beaver}!utcsrgv!lsuc!davedave@utcsrgv.UUCP (Dave Sherman) (10/02/83)
A number of people have pointed out to me by mail that the "-u" option
(which can go into .newsrc, of course) does just what I want in terms
of updating the .newsrc on a regular basis, although not at explicit request.
Thanks; I should have looked at the documentation again before complaining.
My apologies.
Dave Sherman
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{cornell,decvax,ihnp4,linus,utzoo,uw-beaver}!utcsrgv!lsuc!davepag@hao.UUCP (Peter Gross) (10/02/83)
On the subject of wishlists, here is my favorite: Currently readnews uses the presentation order determined by the ordering of the active file. As system administrator, I try to make this as logical as possible. Yet it is impossible to come up with an order that satisfies everyone. My wish is that readnews be modified to use the presentation order of each user's .newsrc. That would allow each person to customize the order they see news- groups according to their personal tastes rather than that of the system administrator. --peter
dave@utcsrgv.UUCP (Dave Sherman) (10/02/83)
Bruce (umcp-cs!israel) makes a lot of good points. I generally agree.
However, marking the first article in a group may not be useful, when
article 1 is a never-expire introduction to the group, or article 50
is the netiquette document and we're now on to article 10,000. Perhaps
a file could record all the numbers of articles more than two weeks old,
plus the first number of the current articles, e.g.:
1,50,117,144,1090-
Dave Sherman
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{cornell,decvax,ihnp4,linus,utzoo,uw-beaver}!utcsrgv!lsuc!daveisrael@umcp-cs.UUCP@tekecs.UUCP (israel@umcp-cs.UUCP) (10/03/83)
While we are discussing wishlists, here are my wishs for changes to the "readnews" msgs interface. I'll start off with the easy ones. a) When you start reading news, readnews gives a default newsgroup subscription list of "general, all.general, net.announce" and those are the only newsgroups in your .newsrc. When you read another newsgroup, it will be added to your .newsrc, but calling "readnews" with no arguments still gets you the default list (i.e. does not get you the new newsgroup). To get it, you either have to put an options line in your .newsrc with each new newsgroup explicitly on it, or you have to set "options -n all" (or something similar). I feel that readnews with no parameters (and no options line) should default to every newsgroup you currently subscribe to. This way, everytime you want to read a new newsgroup, "readnews -n <group>", and from then on you'll get it. b) When you unsubscribe from a newsgroup, the only way to start reading it again is by editing your .newsrc to change the "!" into a ":". Even calling it explicitly with "readnews -n <group>" or saying "readnews -x -n <group>" (read <group> and ignore the .newsrc file) will not work. readnews should re-subscribe you to a newsgroup if you asked for that group explicitly, and the -x option should totally ignore your .newsrc. These two suggestions are because I feel that when using a program like readnews, you should not need to know any other programs at all (such as editors and the like). You shouldn't have to know how to use the editor just to read more than the default groups, or to start re-reading an old group you un-subscribed to. And on the the more difficult changes ... c) /usr/lib/news/active should have the first valid message number as well as the last number. This will tremendously speed up new users, as well as "readnews -x"'s and re-subscribing to old groups. d) Readnews would be a lot easier to use if it prompted for commands in cbreak mode (either as the default, or as an option). For example, 'n' would act like 'n<CR>' does now. I wrote a bulletin board system that worked that way, and it was so much nicer to use. (Not only my opinion, most (or all) of our local users felt the same way) This isn't a trivial change; there is a lot of stuff to be done, especially with the multiple character commands (like 's' and <digits>). (If someone is going to implement this, I can send you my code as a good launching point for those changes). e) How about a command 'S <number>' which would skip to that number like <number> does, but would mark all the ones in-between as read? Maybe it should just be 'S' and work like 'N'. I've had two users in the last two days ask me how to mark the entire rest of a newsgroup as "read" from within readnews, and all I could tell them was "readnews -n <group> >/dev/null &". Also, someone here ran checknews, and it and readnews disagreed on whether there were new messages. It turned out that his home directory from /etc/passwd was one place and his environment home directory was another, and "checknews" seems to use the environment while "readnews" was using the /etc/passwd entry. Shouldn't these two programs use the same .newsrc (Personally, I feel that they should both use the environment variable; I think that gives the user more power, though it's a rare case when they disagree.) Anyway, the first two suggestions could be just differences of opinion on the way certain cases should be handled, so if someone (preferably one of the authors) has reasonable rationales for why these should be handled the way they are rather than the way I've suggested that they act, I would love to hear them. ~~~ Bruce ~~~ Usenet: seismo!umcp-cs!israel Arpanet: israel.umcp-cs@Udel-Relay
diamant@cwruecmp.UUCP (John Diamant) (10/07/83)
In regard to the problem with checknews claiming there is news and readnews disagreeing, it seems that when two lines such as: net.mumble: 1-45 net.mumble: 1-23,45 appear in the .newsrc file, checknews will believe there is unread news in net.mumble. I have not looked at the code, but what appears to be happening is that when a comma appears in a category (regardless of whether it was the most recent list of articles read), checknews will believe there are unread articles. Note that in this case, the articles between 23 and 45 were read, and checknews screwed up. I have also noticed that my newsrc file is filling up with multiple entries for the same category (as above). Does anyone know if this is a bug in readnews or simply that it is not implemented to eliminate outdated newsrc lines? John Diamant Usenet: ...decvax!cwruecmp!diamant CSNet: diamant@Case ARPA: diamant.Case@Udel-Relay