butlerc@mof.govt.nz (Chris Butler, Ministry of Forestry Computer Cntre) (10/12/89)
Hi Folks, We are going to use ANU NEWS as a local bulletin board for our users (with local newsgroups, some moderated). The problem that faces us is that the user needs to be notified when they login (or very soon afterwards) that they have new items in *Registered Local* newsgroups. Before we sit down & do some code cutting, has anyone already been there & done that? If so we would love to hear from you. Could be something of general interest, so might pay to post back to the newsgroup. Thanks in advance, +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | | Internet: | | Chris Butler | C.Butler@mof.govt.nz | | Senior Systems Programmer | Path: | | Ministry of Forestry Computer Centre | ...!uunet!mof.govt.nz!C.Butler | | | Bitnet: | |--------------------------------------| C.Butler%mof.govt.nz@uunet.uu.net | | Snail Mail: MoF Computer Centre | INFOPSI: | | Forest Research Inst. | PSI%mof.govt.nz::BUTLERC | | Private Bag 3020 |-------------------------------------| | Rotorua | Phone: +64 (073) 475-604 | | NEW ZEALAND | Fax: +64 (073) 479-380 | +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
fritz@unocss.UUCP (Tim Russell) (10/13/89)
SLOANE@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (Bob Sloane) writes: |Just out of curiosity, why not put the command "$ NEWS/SCAN" in your |SYLOGIN.COM file, or have users put it in their LOGIN.COM files? It sounds |like this is just what you want to me. Bleah.. I dare say that the original poster wants a specific program that only shows registered, local groups. He probably also wants something faster than NEWS/SCAN. Here, we use a newsgroup to communicate announcements/etc to the user room consulting staff.. A small FAST program to notify the user of messages in certain groups would definitely be appreciated. Alas, I don't have time to write it. NEWS/SCAN just isn't an option when you log in and out as often as we do and NEWS takes around 30 seconds to start up.. -- Tim Russell Univ. Of Nebr. at Omaha russell@{zeus.unl.edu | unoma1.bitnet} "I'm against any law that I wouldn't break if I could get away with it." -- A. Whitney Brown, SNL
RAND@merrimack.edu (Rand P. Hall) (10/13/89)
In article <2108@unocss.UUCP>, fritz@unocss.UUCP (Tim Russell) writes: > Bleah.. I dare say that the original poster wants a specific program > that only shows registered, local groups. He probably also wants something > faster than NEWS/SCAN. > > Here, we use a newsgroup to communicate announcements/etc to the > user room consulting staff.. A small FAST program to notify the user of > messages in certain groups would definitely be appreciated. Alas, I > don't have time to write it. NEWS/SCAN just isn't an option when you log > in and out as often as we do and NEWS takes around 30 seconds to start up.. Am I overlooking something or is this a simple solution to the problem at hand: Write a command procedure or hll program to: get the last mod date of newsrc.; loop: read record from newsrc.; if newsgroup is local !you do organize local groups logically, yes? and field2 is 1 then !registered look at each file in [NEWS.newsgroup] and compare date to date(newsrc.;) goto loop Am I lost, or what? Rand P. Hall UUCP: {uunet,bbn,ulowell}!ginosko!hubdub!rand Merrimack College CSNET: rand@merrimack.edu N. Andover, MA 508.683.7111 Dukakis = 15% tax hike + $1.3 billion deficit
gih900@UUNET.UU.NET (Geoff Huston) (10/13/89)
>The problem that faces us is that the user needs to be notified when they >login (or very soon afterwards) that they have new items in *Registered Local* >newsgroups. > >Before we sit down & do some code cutting, has anyone already been there & done >that? If so we would love to hear from you. >Could be something of general interest, so might pay to post back to the >newsgroup. Most of what you are asking for is in NEWS already...From the .HLP file, referring to the qualifiers that may be used with the $ NEWS command :..... /SCAN If this qualifier is present, NEWS will scan the local item area for any unseen items in your registered newsgroups. If any unseen items located NEWS will output a 1 line message indicating that there is NEW news. /SCAN will immediately exit after performing this scan of newsgroups. To alter your LOGIN.COM to output a new News message similar to the new mail message add the entry: $ NEWS/SCAN to LOGIN.COM /ALLSCAN If this qualifier is present, NEWS will scan the local item area for any unseen items in your registered newsgroups. NEWS will output a message for each registered newsgroup which contains unseen items. This is a more verbose form of the /SCAN qualifier. /ALLSCAN will immediately exit after performing this scan of newsgroups. To alter your LOGIN.COM to output a new News message similar to the new mail message add the entry: $ NEWS/ALLSCAN to LOGIN.COM /UNSEEN This qualifier will only invoke an interactive session of NEWS if there are unseen items in registered newsgroups. If there are no such unseen items then NEWS will exit immediately. Otherwise NEWS will invoke an interactive session with the directory screen set to /NEW. i.e /SCAN for a 1 line message (fast) /ALLSCAN for a detailed message indicating which newsgroups (which takes more time). Both these commands refer to REGISTERED newsgroups. If you want to check for REGISTERED LOCAL newsgroups then add additional invocation qualifiers and write a new scan routine routine which is a copy of the existing one with the additonal check for the LOCAL flag being set. Geoff Huston
fritz@unocss.UUCP (Tim Russell) (10/15/89)
RAND@merrimack.edu (Rand P. Hall) writes: |Am I overlooking something or is this a simple solution to the problem |at hand: |Write a command procedure or hll program to: |get the last mod date of newsrc.; |loop: | read record from newsrc.; | if newsgroup is local !you do organize local groups logically, yes? | and field2 is 1 then !registered | look at each file in [NEWS.newsgroup] and compare date to date(newsrc.;) | goto loop |Am I lost, or what? You're not lost at all! That's essentially what I need, although I'd rather go through the NEWS.GROUPS file than rack up all those file accesses. I was merely posting my laziness to the net - I won't have time to even think about writing that program decently (i.e. very configurable, command line options, etc) until after finals in December. If it's still pending then I'll probably give it a shot. -- Tim Russell Univ. Of Nebr. at Omaha russell@{zeus.unl.edu | unoma1.bitnet} "I'm against any law that I wouldn't break if I could get away with it." -- A. Whitney Brown, SNL
sutton@decus.com.au (Colin Sutton) (10/15/89)
In article <1197@mof.govt.nz>, butlerc@mof.govt.nz (Chris Butler, Ministry of Forestry Computer Cntre) writes: > > The problem that faces us is that the user needs to be notified when they > login (or very soon afterwards) that they have new items in *Registered Local* > newsgroups. > > Before we sit down & do some code cutting, has anyone already been there & done > that? If so we would love to hear from you. > Could be something of general interest, so might pay to post back to the > newsgroup. Just one line in your sylogin.com: news/noscreen dir/new (until NEWS version 6 :-) Colin Sutton M.Sc. SUTTON@DECUS.COM.AU Development Manager - Wormald Control Systems Tel (61)(2)8887566 25-27 Paul Street North, North Ryde NSW 2133 Australia Fax (61)(2)8874452