unocc07@zeus.unl.edu (Dave Caplinger) (09/27/89)
Concerning the discussion of "followup threads" (VAXNOTES vs NEWS), I thought I would throw this in. Anyone with access to a UNIX box might want to get ahold of the sources to NN, and run it. NN is a visual reader in the same spirit as VN, but NN sorts the subject lines of articles together (by arrival date?), so all of a particular reply-chain is grouped together on the screen. NN (similarly to VN) then lets you select the articles you want to read (kind of how MARK in ANU NEWS /should/ work), and then read just those. While you are reading a reply chain, you can decide that this topic stinks, and kill the whole subject, which will bring you to the next article in the newsgroup that does not have the same subject (or RE: subject). This isn't the most detailed explanation of NN, but I hope that you will take a look at it if you have a chance. I think that some of these features would be /great/ to have in ANU NEWS, but I'm not holding my breath; they're not trivial. :-) -/ Dave Caplinger /--------------------------------------------------------- Microcomputer Specialist, Campus Computing, Univ. of Nebraska at Omaha mspecial@zeus.unl.edu ...!uunet!unocss!dent MSPECIAL@UNOMA1
Mats.Sundvall@bmc.uu.se (09/27/89)
In article <3556.251f5901@zeus.unl.edu>, unocc07@zeus.unl.edu (Dave Caplinger) writes: > Concerning the discussion of "followup threads" (VAXNOTES vs NEWS), I > thought I would throw this in. Anyone with access to a UNIX box might > want to get ahold of the sources to NN, and run it. > > NN is a visual reader in the same spirit as VN, but NN sorts the subject > lines of articles together (by arrival date?), so all of a particular > reply-chain is grouped together on the screen. NN (similarly to VN) The arrival date is OK but if you sort it on the date and time it was posted you eliminate the time it take to deliver the item to the system where the reader is. This time will of course vary on different system thus giving different ordering on different systems. Of course you then have to assume everyone have a correct timezone entry in the configuration. > then lets you select the articles you want to read (kind of how MARK > in ANU NEWS /should/ work), and then read just those. While you are > reading a reply chain, you can decide that this topic stinks, and kill > the whole subject, which will bring you to the next article in the > newsgroup that does not have the same subject (or RE: subject). Of course you can order on the subject. But maybe it would be better with a unique identifier on the first item in a converstion stream stored in every followup item. Not just the immediate parent of the item. Then it does not matter if some items in the conversation stream have been deleted from the system. Of course you cannot do this with items imported from mailinglists. Maybe the subject sorting is OK if you do not find an orig-item line. > > This isn't the most detailed explanation of NN, but I hope that you will > take a look at it if you have a chance. I think that some of these > features would be /great/ to have in ANU NEWS, but I'm not holding my > breath; they're not trivial. :-) > > -/ Dave Caplinger /--------------------------------------------------------- > Microcomputer Specialist, Campus Computing, Univ. of Nebraska at Omaha > mspecial@zeus.unl.edu ...!uunet!unocss!dent MSPECIAL@UNOMA1 -- Mats Sundvall Biomedical Center +46/18174583 University of Uppsala Mats.Sundvall@BMC.UU.SE Sweden psi%24020019700620::MATS