nn Beginner Help
NAME
nn - efficient net news interface (No News is good news)
SYNOPSIS
nn [ options ] [ newsgroup | +folder | file ]...
nn -g [ -r ]
nn -a0 [ newsgroup ]...
DESCRIPTION
Net news is a world-wide information exchange service
covering numerous topics in science and every day life.
Topics are organized in news groups, and these groups are
open for everybody to post articles on a subject related to
the topic of the group.
Nn is a `point-and-shoot' net news interface program, or a
news reader for short (not to be confused with the human
news reader). When you use nn, you can decide which of the
many news groups you are interested in, and you can
unsubscribe to those which don't interest you. nn will let
you read the new (and old) articles in each of the groups
you subscribe to using a menu based article selection prior
to reading the articles in the news group.
When a news group is entered, nn will locate all the
presently unread articles in the group, and extract their
sender, subject, and other relevant information. This
information is then rearranged, sorted, and marked in
various ways to give it a pleasant format when it is
presented on the screen.
This will be done very quickly, because nn uses its own
database to maintain all the necessary information on a
directly accessible form (this database is built and
maintained by the nnmaster(8) program).
When the article menu appears on the screen, nn will be in a
mode called selection mode. In this mode, the articles
which seems to be interesting can be selected by single
keystrokes (using the keys a-z and 0-9). When all the
interesting articles among the ones presently displayed have
been selected, the space bar is hit, which causes nn to
enter reading mode.
In reading mode, each of the selected articles will be
presented. You use the space bar to go on to the next page
of the current article, or to the next article. Of course,
there are all sorts of commands to scroll text up and down,
skip to the next article, responding to an article, decrypt
an article, and so on.
When all the selected articles in the current group have
been read, the last hit on the space bar will cause nn will
continue to the next group with unread articles, and enter
selection mode on that group.
FREQUENTLY USED OPTIONS
nn accepts a lot of command line options, but here only the
frequently used options are described. Options can also be
set permanently by including appropriate variable settings
in the init file described later. All options are described
in the section on Command Line Options towards the end of
this manual.
The frequently used command line options are:
-a0 Catch up on unread articles and groups. See the
section "Catch up" below.
-g Prompt for the name of a news group or folder to be
entered (with completion).
-r Used with -g to repeatedly prompt for groups to enter.
-lN Print only the first N lines of the first page of each
article before prompting to continue. This is useful
on slow terminals and modem lines to be able to see the
first few lines of longer articles.
-sWORD
Collect only articles which contain the string WORD in
their subject (case is ignored). This is normally
combined with the -x and -m options to find all
articles on a specific subject.
-s/regexp
Collect only articles whose subject matches the regular
expression regexp. This is normally combined with the
-x and -m options to find all articles on a specific
subject.
-nWORD or -n/regexp
Same as -s except that it matches on the sender's name
instead of the article's subject. This is normally
combined with the -x and -m options to find all
articles from a specific author. It cannot be mixed
with the -s option!
-i Normally searches with -n and -s are case independent.
Using this option, the case becomes significant.
-m Merge all articles into one `meta group' instead of
showing them one group at a time. This is normally
used together with the -x and -s options to get all the
articles on a specific subject presented on a single
menu (when you don't care about which group they belong
to). When -m is used, no articles will be marked as
read.
-x[N]
Present (or scan) all (or the last N) unread as well as
read articles. When this option is used, nn will never
mark unread articles as read (i.e. .newsrc is not
updated).
-X Read/scan unsubscribed groups also. Most useful when
looking for a specific subject in all groups, e.g.
nn -mxX -sSubject all
news.group or file or +folder
If none of these arguments are given, all subscribed
news groups will be used. Otherwise, only the
specified news groups and/or files will be collected
and presented. In specifying a news groups, the
following `meta notation' can be used:
If the news group ends with a `.' (or `.all'), all
subgroups of the news group will be collected, e.g.
comp.sources.
If a news group starts with a `.' (or `all.'), all the
matching subgroups will be collected, e.g.
.sources.unix
The argument `all' identifies all (subscribed) news
groups.
COMMAND INPUT
In general, nn commands consist of one or two key-strokes,
and nn reacts instantly to the commands you give it; you
don't have to enter return after each command (except where
explicitly stated).
Some commands have more serious effects than others, and
therefore nn requests you to confirm the command. You
confirm by hitting the the y key, and reject by hitting the
n key. Some `trivial' requests may also be confirmed simply
by hitting space. For example, to confirm the creation of a
save file, just hit space, but if one or more directories
also have to be created, you must enter y.
Many commands will require that you enter a line of text,
e.g. a file name or a shell command. If you enter space as
the first character on a line, the line will be filled with
a default value (if one is defined). For example, the
default value for a file name is the last file name you have
entered, and the default shell command is your previous
shell command. You can edit this default value as well as a
directly typed text, using the following editing commands.
The erase, kill, and interrupt keys are the keys defined by
the current tty settings. On systems without job control,
the suspend key will be control-Z while it is the current
suspend character on system with job control.
erase
Delete the last character on the line.
delete-word (normally ^W)
Delete the last word or component of the input.
kill
Delete all characters on the line.
interrupt and control-G
Cancel the command which needs the input.
suspend
Suspend nn if supported by the system. Otherwise,
spawn an interactive shell.
return
Terminate the line, and continue with the command.
Related variables: erase-key, flow-control, flush-
typeahead, help-key, kill-key, word-key.
BASIC COMMANDS
There are numerous commands in nn, and most of them can be
invoked by a single keystroke. The descriptions in this
manual are based on the standard bindings of the commands to
the keys, but it is possible to customize these using the
map command described later. For each of the keystroke
commands described in this manual, the corresponding command
name will also be shown in curly braces, e.g. {command}.
The following commands work in both selection mode and in
reading mode. The notation ^X means `control X':
? {help}
Help. Gives a one page overview of the commands
available in the current mode.
^L {redraw}
Redraw screen.
^R {redraw}
Redraw screen (Same as ^L).
^P {message}
Repeat the last message shown on the message line. The
command can be repeated to successively show previous
messages (the maximum number of saved messages is
controlled via the message-history variable.)
! {shell}
Shell escape. The user is prompted for a command which
is executed by your favorite shell (see the shell
variable). Shell escapes are described in detail later
on.
Q {quit}
Quit nn. When you use this command, you neither lose
unread articles in the current group nor the selections
you might have made (unless the articles are expired in
the meantime of course).
V {version}
Print release and version information.
:command {command}
Execute the command by name. This form can be used to
invoke any of nn's commands, also those which cannot be
bound to a key (such as :coredump), or those which are
not bound to a key by default (such as post and
unshar).
Related and basic variables: backup, backup-suffix,
confirm-auto-quit, expert, mail, message-history, new-
group-action, newsrc, quick-count.
SELECTION MODE
In selection mode, the screen is divided into four parts:
the header line showing the name of the news group and the
number of articles, the menu lines which show the collected
articles - one article per line, the prompt line where you
enter commands, and the message line where nn prints various
messages to you.
Each menu line begins with an article id which is a unique
letter (or digit if your screen can show more than 26 menu
lines). To select an articles for reading, you simply enter
the corresponding id, and the menu line will be high-lighted
to indicate that the article is selected. When you have
selected all the interesting articles on the present menu,
you simply hit space.
If there are more articles collected for the current group
than could be presented on one screenful of text, you will
be presented with the next portion of articles to select
from. When you have had the opportunity to select among all
the articles in the group, hitting space will enter reading
mode.
If no articles have been selected in the current group,
hitting space will enter selection mode on the next news
group, or exit nn if the current group was the last news
group with unread articles. It is thus possible to go
through ALL unread articles (without reading any of them)
just by hitting space a few times.
The articles will be presented on the menu using one of the
following layouts:
9
0: x Name......... Subject.............. +123
1: x Name......... 123 Subject..............
2: x 123 Subject...................................
3: x Subject...........................................
4: x Subject........................................
Here x is the letter or digit that must be entered to select
the article, Name is the real name of the sender (or the
mail address if the real name cannot be found), Subject is
the contents of the "Subject:" line in the article, and 123
is the number of lines in the article.
Layout 0 and 1 are just two ways to present the same
information, while layout 2 and 3 are intended for groups
whose articles have very long subject lines, e.g.
comp.sources.
Layout 4 is a hybrid between layout 1 and 3. It will
normally use layout 1, but it will use layout 3 (with a
little indentation) for menu lines where the subject is
longer than the space available with layout 1.
Layout 1 is the default layout, and an alternative menu line
layout is selected using the -L option or by setting the
layout variable. Once nn is started the layout can be
changed at any time using the " key {layout}.
The Name is limited to 16 characters, and to make maximum
use of this space, nn will perform a series of
simplifications on the name, e.g. changing first names into
initials, removing domain names from mail addresses (if the
real name is not found) etc. It does a good job, but some
people on the net put weird things into the From: field (or
actually into their password file) which result in nn
producing quite cryptic, and sometimes funny "names".
One a usual 80 column terminal, the Subject is limited to
about 60 characters (75 in layout 3) and is thus only an
longer. To get as much out of this space, Re: prefixes (in
various forms) are recognized and replaced by a single `>'
character (see the re-layout variable).
Since articles are sorted according to the subject, two or
more adjacent articles may share the same subject (ignoring
any `>'s). In this case, only the first article will show
the subject of the article; the rest will only show the `>'
character in the subject field (or a `-' if there is no `>'
at the beginning of the line). A typical menu will thus
only show each subject once, saving a lot of time in
scanning the news articles.
If consolidated menus (see section below) are enabled,
adjacent articles sharing the same subject will be shown
with a single line on the menu corresponding to the first of
the articles. The number of articles with the same subject
will be shown as a braketed number in front of the subject,
e.g. with layout 1:
x Name......... 123 [4] Subject..............
For further information see the section on consolidated
menus below.
Related variables: collapse-subject, columns, confirm-
entry, confirm-entry-limit, entry-report-limit, fsort, kill,
layout, limit, lines, long-menu, re-layout, repeat, slow-
mode, sort, sort-mode, split, subject-match-limit, subject-
match-offset, subject-match-parts.
ARTICLE ATTRIBUTES
While nn is running and between invocations, nn associates
an attribute with each article on your system. These
attributes are used to differentiate between read and unread
articles, selected articles, articles marked for later
treatment, etc. Depending on how nn is configured, these
attributes can be saved between invocations of nn, or some
of them may only be used while nn is running.
The attribute is shown on the menu using either a single
character following the article id or by high-lighting the
menu line, depending on the attribute and the capabilities
of the terminal. You can also change the attributes to your
own taste (see the attributes variable).
The attribute of an article can be changed explicitly using
the selection mode commands described below, or it will
change automatically for example when you have read or saved
a selected article. If a command may change any article
attributes, it will be noted in the description of the
command. The following descriptions of the attributes will
only mention the most important commands that may set (or
The following attributes may be associated with an article:
read Menu attribute "." - indicates that the article has
been read or saved. When you leave the group, these
articles will be marked permanently read, and are not
presented the next time you enter the group.
seen Menu attribute "," - indicates that the article is
unread, but that it has been presented on a menu.
Depending on how nn is configured, these articles will
automatically be marked read when you leave the group,
they may remain seen, or they may just be unread the
next time you enter the group (see the auto-junk-seen,
confirm-junk-seen, and retain-seen-status variables).
9 Only the commands continue (space) and read-skip (X)
will mark unread articles on the current (or all) menu
pages as seen when they are used. Other commands that
scroll through the menu pages or enter reading mode
will let unread articles remain unread.
unread
Menu attribute " " - indicates an unread article.
These articles were unread when you entered the group,
and they may remain unread when you leave the group,
unless they have been marked seen by the command that
you used to leave the group or enter reading mode.
selected
Menu line high-lighted (or menu attribute "*") -
indicates that you have selected the article. If you
leave the group, the selected articles will remain
selected the next time you enter the group. When you
have read a selected article, the attribute will
automatically change to read.
auto-selected
These articles have the same appearance as selected
articles on the menu, and the only difference is that
these articles have been selected automatically via the
auto-selection facility rather than manually by you.
Very few commands differentiate between these
attributes and if they do, it is explicitly stated in
this manual. The main difference is that these
articles are only marked as unread when you leave the
group (supposing they will also be auto-selected the
next the group is entered). This simplifies the
house-keeping between invocations of nn.
leave
Menu attribute "+" - indicates that the article is
when you have read all selected articles in a group.
However, if you do not select them then immediately,
they are stored as the leave-next attribute described
below.
leave-next
Menu attribute "=" - indicates that the article is
marked for later treatment by the leave-next (L)
command. This is a permanent attribute, which will
remain on the article until you either read the
article, change the attribute, or it is expired. So
assinging this attribute to an article will effectively
keep it unread until you do something. If the variable
select-leave-next is set, nn will ask whether these
articles should be selected on entry to a group (but
naturally, doing so will change the leave-next
attribute to select).
cancelled
Menu attribute "#" - indicates that the article has
been cancelled. This is mainly useful when tidying a
folder; it is set by the cancel (C) command, and can be
cleared by any command that change attributes, e.g. you
can select and deselect the article.
killed
Menu attribute "!" - indicates that the article has
been killed (e.g. by the K {kill-select} command).
Killed articles are immediately removed from the menu,
so you should not normally see articles with this
attribute. If you do, report it as a bug!
The attributes are saved in two files: .newsrc (read
articles) and .nn/select (other attributes). Plain unread
articles are saved by not occurring in either of these
files. Both files are described in more detail later on.
Related variables: attributes, auto-junk-seen, confirm-
junk-seen, retain-seen-status, select-leave-next.
SELECTION MODE COMMANDS
The primary purpose of the selection mode is of course to
select the articles to be read, but numerous other commands
may also be performed in this mode: saving of articles in
files, replying and following up on articles,
mailing/forwarding articles, shell escapes etc.
As described above, the selected articles are marked either
by showing the corresponding menu line in standout mode
(reverse video), or if the terminal does not have this
Most commands which are used to select articles will work as
toggle commands. If the article is not already selected,
the selectedattribute on the article(s), independent on the
previous attribute. Otherwise, the article(s) will be
deselected and marked unread. Consequently, any article can
be marked unread simply be selecting and deselecting it.
During selection, the cursor will normally be placed on the
article following the last article whose attribute was
changed (initially the first article). The article pointed
out by the cursor is called the current article, and the
following commands work relative to the current article and
cursor position.
abc...z 01..9 {article N}
The article with the given identification letter or
digit is selected or deselected. The following article
becomes the current article. If the variable auto-
select-subject is set, all articles with the same
subject as the given article are selected.
. {select}
Select or deselect the current article and move the
cursor to the next article.
, {line+1}
Move the cursor to the next article. You can use the
down arrow as well.
/ {line-1}
Move cursor to previous article. You can use the up
arrow as well.
* {select-subject}
Select or deselect all articles with same subject as
current article. This will work across several menu
pages if necessary.
-x {select-range}
Select or deselect the range of articles between the
current article and the article specified by x. For
example you can select all articles from e to k by
simply typing e-k.
The following commands may change the attributes on all
articles on the current menu page, or on all articles on all
menu pages.
@ {select-invert}
find command to select all articles.)
~ {unselect-all}
Deselect all auto-selected articles in the group (this
works across all menu pages). If the command is
executed twice, the selected articles will also be
deselected.
+ {select-auto}
Perform auto-selections in the group (see the section
on "auto kill/select" below).
= {find}
Prompts for a regular expression, and selects all
articles on the menu (all pages) which matches the
regular expression. Depending on the variable select-
on-sender matching is performed against the subject
(default) or the sender of the articles. An empty
answer (= return) will reuse the previous expression.
Example: The command = . return will select all
articles in the group.
J {junk-articles}
This is a very versatile command which can be used to
perform all sorts of attribute changes, either on
individual articles, all articles on the current menu
page, all articles with a specific attribute, or all
available articles. To access all the functions of
this command, the J key may have to be hit up to four
times, to loop through different one-line menus. The
full functionality of the junk-articles command is
described in a separate section below.
L {leave-next}
This is a specialized version of the generic J {junk-
articles} command to set the leave-next attribute on a
subset of the articles on the menu. It is also
described further below.
The following commands move between the pages belonging to
the same news group when there are more articles than will
fit on a single page. These commands will not change any
article attributes.
> {page+1}
Goto next menu page.
< {page-1}
Goto previous menu page, or to last menu page if on
first menu page.
^ {page=1}
Goto first menu page.
The following commands are used to enter reading mode for
the selected articles, and to move between news groups (in
selection mode). They may change article attributes if
noted below.
space {continue}
Continue to next menu page, or if on last menu page,
read the selected articles. If no articles have been
selected, continue to the next news group. The unread
articles on the current menu page will automatically be
marked seen.
return {continue-no-mark}
Identical to the continue command, except that the
unread articles on the current menu page will remain
unread. (The newline key has the same effect).
Z {read-return}
Enter reading mode immediately with the currently
selected articles. When all articles have been read,
return to selection mode in the current group. It will
mark selected articles read as they are read, but
unread articles are not normally changed (can be
controlled with the variable marked-by-read-return.)
X {read-skip}
Mark all unmarked articles seen on all menu pages (or
the pages defined by the marked-by-read-skip variable),
and enter reading mode immediately with the currently
selected articles. As the selected articles are read,
they are marked read. When all selected articles have
been read, nn will enter selection mode in the next
news group. When no articles are selected, it goes
directly to the next group. This can be used to skip
all the articles in a large news group without having
to go through all the menu pages.
If you don't want to read the current group now, but want to
keep it for later, you can use the following commands which
will only mark seen and read articles as read. Currently
selected articles will still be selected the next time you
enter the group. None of these commands will change any
attributes themselves (by default).
N {next-group}
Go forward to the next group in the presentation
P {previous}
Go back to the previous group. This command will enter
selection mode on the last active group (two P commands
in sequence will bring you to the current group). If
there are still some unread articles in the group, only
those articles will be shown. Otherwise, all the
articles which were unread when nn was invoked will be
shown marked with the read attribute (which can be
changed as usual).
As described in the "Article Attributes" section, the read
and seen articles will normally be marked read when you
leave the group, and these articles are not shown the next
time you enter the group.
In all releases prior to release 6.4, it was impossible to
have individual articles in a group marked unread when you
left a group, and the default behaviour of release 6.4 will
closely match the traditional behaviour. This means that
the seen and read articles are treated alike for most
practical purposes with the default variable settings.
If you don't like nn to silently mark the seen articles
read, you can set the variable confirm-junk-seen to get nn
to prompt you for confirmation before doing this, or you can
unset the variable auto-junk-seen to simply keep the seen
articles for the next time you enter the group. You then
have to use the J {junk-articles} to mark articles read.
Using return {continue-no-mark} will also allow you to keep
articles unread rather than marking them seen when scrolling
through the menu pages and entering reading mode. If this
is your preferred reading style, you can remap space to this
command.
Related variables: auto-junk-seen, auto-preview-mode,
auto-select-subject, case-fold-search, confirm-auto-quit,
confirm-entry, confirm-junk-seen, marked-by-next-group,
marked-by-read-return, marked-by-read-skip, retain-seen-
status, select-on-sender.
CONSOLIDATED MENUS
Normally, nn will use one menu line for each article, so if
there are many articles with identical subjects, each menu
page will only contain a few different subjects. To have
each subject occur only once on the menu, nn can operate
with consolidated menus by setting the variable
consolidated-menu.
An open subject is a subject which is shown in the
traditional way with one menu line for each article with the
given subject. In other words, when consolidated menus are
not used, all subjects are open (by default).
A closed subject is a multi-article subject which is
presented by a single menu line. This line will be the
normal menu line for the first (oldest) article with the
subject, but with the subject field annotated with a
bracketed number showing the number of articles with that
subject, e.g.
9 a Kim F. Storm 12 [4] Future plans for nn
b.Kim F. Storm 43 [3] More plans for nn
9 In this example, there are four unread articles with subject
`a' of which the first is posted by me and has 12 lines.
The rest of the articles are hidden, and will only be shown
on request. The `.' marker on subject `b' shows that all
three articles within that subject have been read (or seen).
To select (or deselect) ALL the articles within a closed
subject, simply select the article shown on the menu; this
will automatically select (or deselect) the rest (see auto-
select-closed). When all the unread articles within a
closed subject are selected, the menu line will be high-
lighted.
If you want to view the individual articles in a subject
(maybe to select individual articles), you can open the
subject with the commands:
(x Open subject x on menu.
(( Open current subject.
When you have completed viewing the opened subject, you can
close it again using the commands:
)x Close subject x on menu (x is any article with the
subject).
)) Close current subject.
In the basic layout of the menu line for a closed subject as
shown above, ALL articles in the closed subject are supposed
to be either:
unread
The menu line is not high-lighted.
read/seen
There is a `.' (read attribute) following the article
id.
If neither of these cases apply, i.e. there is a mixture of
unread, selected, and seen/read articles, the bracketed
number will have one of the following formats:
[U:T]
There are U unread articles of T total (U<T).
[S/T]
There are S selected articles of T total (S<U=T).
[S/U:T]
There are S selected of U unread of T total (S<UNotice: Consolidated menus only work with the `subject' and
`lexical' sorting methods.
Variables related to consolidated menus are: auto-select-
closed, consolidated-menu, counter-delim-left, counter-
delim-right, counter-padding, save-closed-mode.
THE JUNK-ARTICLES AND LEAVE-NEXT COMMANDS
The J {junk-articles} command is a very flexible command
which can perform all sorts of attribute changes, either on
individual articles, all articles on the current menu page,
all articles with a specific attribute, or all available
articles.
To access all the functions of this command, the J key may
have to be hit up to four times, to loop through different
one-line menus:
Mark Read
This submenu allows you to mark articles read.
Unmark
This submenu allows you to mark articles unread.
Select
This submenu allows you to select articles based on
their attribute.
The L {leave-next} command is an extension of the J command
with a fifth menu:
Leave
This menu allows you to mark articles for later
handling with the leave-next attribute which will keep
the article unread until you explicitly change the
attribute (e.g. by reading it) or it is expired.
For each of these submenus, nn will list the most plausible
choices you may use, but all of the following answers can be
used at all submenus. When you have entered a choice, nn
will afterward ask whether the change should be made to all
menu pages or only the current page.
J Show next submenu.
L Change attribute on all leave articles.
N Change attribute on all leave-next articles.
R Change attribute on all read articles.
S Change attribute on all seen articles.
U Change attribute on all unmarked (i.e. unread)
articles.
A Change attribute on all articles no matter their
current attribute.
* Change attribute on all selected articles on the
current page.
+ Change attribute on all selected articles on all pages.
a-z0-9
Change attribute on one or more specific articles on
the current page. You end the list of articles by a
space or by using one of the other choices described
above.
Change attribute on current article.
, / Move the current article down or up the menu without
changing any attributes.
READING MODE COMMANDS
In reading mode, the selected articles are presented one
normally marked read when you go to the next article, while
going back to the menu, quitting nn, etc. will retain the
attribute on the current article.
When you are on the last page of the last article, hit space
to enter selection mode on the next group (or the current
group if reading mode was entered using the Z command).
To read an article, the following text scrolling commands
are available:
space {continue}
Scroll one page forward or continue with the next
article or group as described above.
backspace / delete {page-1}
Go one page backwards in article.
d {page+1/2}
Scroll one half page forward.
u {page-1/2}
Go one half page backwards.
return {line+1}
Scroll one line forward in the article.
tab {skip-lines}
Skip over lines starting with the same character as the
last line on the current page. This is useful to skip
over included text or to the next file in a shell
archive.
^ {page=1}
Move to the first page (excluding the header) of the
article.
$ {page=$}
Move to the last page of the article.
gN {line=@}
Move to line N in the article.
/regexp {find}
Search forward for text matching the regular expression
regexp in the article. If a matching text is found, it
will be high-lighted.
. {find-next}
Show the header of the article, and continue from the
top of the article.
H {full-digest}
If the current article is extracted from a digest, show
the entire digest article including its header.
Another H command will return to the current
subarticle.
D {rot13}
Turn rot13 (caesar) decryption on and off for the
current article, and redraw current page. If the
article is saved while it is decrypted on the screen,
it will be saved in decrypted form as well!
c {compress}
Turn compression on and off for the current article and
redraw current page. With compression turned on,
multiple spaces and tabs are shown as a single space.
This makes it much easier to read right justified text
which separate words with several spaces. (See also
the compress variable)
The following commands are used to move among the selected
articles.
n {next-article}
Move to next selected article. This command skips the
rest of the current article, marks it read, and jumps
directly to the first page of the next selected article
(or to the next group if it was the last selected
article).
l {leave-article}
Mark the current article with the leave attribute and
continue with the next selected article. When all the
selected articles in the current group have been read,
these left over articles can be automatically selected
and shown once more, or the treatment can be postponed
to the next time you enter the group.
This is particularly useful if you see an article
which you may want to respond to unless one the
following articles is already saying what you intended
to say.
L {leave-next}
Mark the current article with the leave-next attribute
and continue with the next selected article.
k {next-subject}
Kill subject. Skips rest of current article, and all
following articles with the same subject. The skipped
articles are marked read. To kill a subject
permanently use the K command.
* {select-subject}
Show next article with same subject (even if it is not
selected). This command will select all following
articles with the same subject as the current article
(similar to the `*' command in selection mode). This
can be used to select only the first article on a
subject in selection mode, and then select all follow-
ups in reading mode if you find the article
interesting.
a {advance-article}
Goto the following article on the menu even if it is
not selected. This command skips the rest of the
current article and jumps directly to the first page of
the next article (it will not skip to the next group if
it is the last article). The attribute on the current
article will be restored, except for the unread
attribute which will be changed to seen.
b {back-article}
Goto the article before current article on the menu
even if it is not selected. This is similar to the a
command, except for the direction.
The following commands perform an immediate return from
reading mode to selection mode in the current group or skip
to the next group.
= {goto-menu}
Return to selection mode in the current group (think of
= as the "icon" of the selection menu). The articles
read so far will be marked read.
N {next-group}
Skip the rest of the selected and unread articles in
the current group and go directly to the next group.
Only the read (and seen) articles in the current group
are marked as read.
X {read-skip}
Mark all articles in the current group as read and go
directly to the next group. (You will be asked to
confirm this command.)
PREVIEWING ARTICLES IN SELECTION MODE
In selection mode, it is possible to read a specific article
on the menu without entering reading mode for all the
selected articles on the menu. Using the commands described
below will enter reading mode for one article only, and then
return to the menu mode immediately after (depending on the
setting of the preview-continuation variable).
If there are more than 5 free lines at the bottom of the
menu screen, nn will use that space to show the article (a
minimal preview window can be permanently allocated with the
window variable). Otherwise, the screen will be cleared to
show the article.
After previewing an article, it will be marked read (if the
preview-mark-read variable is set), and the following
article will become the current article.
%x {preview}
Preview article x.
%% {preview}
Preview the current article.
When the article is being shown, the following reading mode
commands are very useful:
= {goto-menu}
Skip the rest of the current article, and return to
menu mode.
n {next-article}
Skip the rest of the current article, and preview the
next article.
l {leave-article}
Mark the article as selected (!) on the menu for
handling later on. Then skip the rest of the current
article, and preview the next article.
%y {preview}
Preview article y .
If the variable auto-preview-mode is set, just hitting the
article id in menu mode will enter preview mode on the
specified article.
Related variables: auto-preview-mode, min-window, preview-
The following commands are used to save articles in files,
unpack archives, decode binaries, etc. It is possible to
use the commands in both reading mode to save the current
article and in selection mode to save one or more articles
on the menu.
The saved articles will be appended to the specified file(s)
followed by an empty line each. Both files and directories
will be created as needed. When an article has been saved
in a file, a message reporting the number of lines saved
will be shown if the save-report variable is set (default
on).
S {save-full}
Save articles including the full article header.
O {save-short}
Save articles with a short header containing only the
name of the sender, the subject, and the posting date
of the article.
W {save-body}
Write article without a header.
:print {print}
Print article. Instead of a file name, this command
will prompt for the print command to which the current
article will be piped. The default print command is
specified at compile time, but it can be changed by
setting the printer variable. The output will be
identical to that of the O command.
:patch {patch}
Send articles through patch(1) (or the program defined
in the patch-command variable). Instead of a file
name, you will be prompted for the name of a directory
in which you want the patch command to be executed. nn
will then pipe the body of the article through the
patch command.
The output from the patch process will be shown on
the screen and also appended to a file named
Patch.Result in the patch directory.
:unshar {unshar}
Unshar articles. You will be prompted for the name of
a directory in which you want nn to unshar the
articles. nn will then pipe the proper parts of the
article body into a Bourne Shell whose working
directory will be set to the specified directory.
finished.
The output is also appended to a file named
Unshar.Result in the unshar directory.
The file specified in unshar-header-file (default
"Unshar.Headers") in the unshar directory will contain
the header and initial text (before the shar data) from
the article. You can use the `G' {goto-group} command
to look at the Unshar.Headers file.
:decode {decode}
Decode uuencoded articles into binary files. You will
be prompted for the name of a directory in which you
want nn to place the decoded binary files (the file
names are taken from the uuencoded data).
nn will combine several articles into single files as
needed, and you can even decode unrelated packages
(into the same directory) with one decode command.
To be able to decode a binary file which spans
several articles, nn may have to ignore lines which
fail the normal sanity checks on uuencoded data instead
of treating them as transmission errors. Consequently,
it is strongly recommended to check the resulting
decoded file using the checksum which is normally
contained in the original article. (Actually, you are
also supposed to do this after decoding with a stand-
alone uudecode program).
The header and initial information in the decoded
articles are saved in the file specified in decode-
header-file (default "Decode.Headers") in the same
directory as the decoded files.
If decode-skip-prefix is non-null, :decode will
attempt to ignore up to that many characters on each
line to find the encoded data. This is particularly
useful in some binaries groups where files are both
uuencoded and packed with shar; nn will ignore the
prefix added to each line by shar, and thus be able to
unshar, concatenate, and decode multi-part postings
automatically.
In reading mode, the following keys can also be used to
invoke the save commands:
s Same as S.
o Same as O.
w Same as W.
P Same as :print.
to specify a default save file in the init file, either in
connection with the group presentation sequence or in a
separate save-files section (see below). If a default save
file is specified for the group, nn will show this on the
prompt line when it prompts for the file name. You can edit
this name as usual, but if you kill the entire name
immediately, nn will replace the default name with the last
file name you entered. If you kill this as well, nn will
leave you with a blank line.
If the quick-save variable is set, nn will only prompt for a
save file name when the current article is inside a folder;
otherwise, the default save file defined in the init file
will be used unconditionally.
If the file (and directories in the path) does not exist, nn
will ask whether the file (and the directories) should be
created.
If the file name contains an asterisk, e.g.
part*.shar
nn will save each of the articles in uniquely named files
constructed by replacing the asterisk by numbers from the
sequence 1, 2, 3, etc. The format of the string that
replaces the * can be changed with the save-counter
variable, and the first number to use can be changed via
save-counter-offset.
In selection mode, nn will prompt you for the identifier of
one or more articles you want to save. When you don't want
to save more articles, just hit space. The saved articles
will be marked read.
If you enter an asterisk `*' when you are prompted for an
article to save, nn will automatically save all the selected
articles on the current menu page and mark them read.
Likewise, if you enter a plus `+', nn will save all the
selected articles on all menu pages and mark them read.
This is very useful to unpack an entire package using the
:unshar and :decode commands. It can also be used in
combination with the save selected articles feature to save
a selection of articles in separate, successively numbered
files. But do not confuse these two concepts! The S* and
S+ commands can be used to save the selected articles in a
single file as well as in separate files, and the save in
separate files feature can be used also when saving
individual articles, either in the selection mode, or in the
header, any header lines in the body of the article will be
escaped by a tilde (e.g. ~From: ...) to enable nn to split
the folder into separate articles. The escape string can be
redefined via the embedded-header-escape variable.
Articles can optionally be saved in MAIL or MMDF compatible
format by setting the mail-format and mmdf-format variables.
These variables only specify the format used when creating a
new folder, while appending to an existing folder will be
done in the format of the folder (unless folder-format-check
is false).
Related variables: confirm-append, confirm-create, decode-
header-file, decode-skip-prefix, default-save-file, folder-
save-file, edit-patch-command, edit-print-command, edit-
unshar-command, folder, folder-format-check, mail-format,
mmdf-format, patch-command, printer, quick-save, save-
counter, save-counter-offset, save-report, suggest-default-
save, unshar-command, unshar-header-file.
FOLDER MAINTENANCE
When more than one article is saved in a folder, nn is able
to split the folder, and each article in the folder can be
treated like a separate article.
This means that you can save, decode, reply, follow-up, etc.
just as with the original article.
You can also cancel (delete) individual articles in a folder
using the normal C {cancel} command described later. When
you quit from the folder, you will then be given the option
to remove the cancelled articles from the folder.
The original folder is saved in a file named `BackupFolder~'
in the .nn directory (see the backup-folder-path variable)
by renaming or copying the old folder as appropriate. When
the folder has been compressed, the backup folder will be
removed unless the variable keep-backup-folder is set.
If all articles in a folder are cancelled, the folder will
be removed or truncated to zero length (whatever is allowed
by directory and file permissions). In this case no backup
folder is retained even when keep-backup-folder is set!
If the variable trace-folder-packing is set, nn will show
which articles are kept and which are removed as the folder
is rewritten.
Folders are rewritten in the format of the original folder,
trace-folder-packing.
FILE NAME EXPANSION
When the save commands prompts for a file name, the
following file name expansions are performed on the file
name you enter:
+folder
The + is replaced by the contents of the folder
variable (default value "~/News/") resulting in the
name of a file in the folder directory. Examples:
+emacs, +nn, +sources/shar/nn
+ A single plus is replaced by the expansion of the file
name contained in the default-save-file variable (or by
folder-save-file when saving from a folder).
~/file
The ~ is replaced by the contents of the environment
variable HOME, i.e. the path name of your home
directory. Examples:
~/News/emacs, ~/News/nn, ~/src/shar/nn
~user/file
The ~user part is replaced by the user's home directory
as defined in the /etc/passwd file.
|command-line
Instead of writing to a file, the articles are piped to
the given shell (/bin/sh) command-line. Each save or
write command will create a separate pipe, but all
articles saved or written in one command (in selection
mode) are given as input to the same shell command.
Example:
| pr | lp
This will print the articles on the printer after they
have been piped through pr.
It is possible to create separate pipes for each
saved article by using a double pipe symbol in the
beginning of the command, e.g.
|| cd ~/src/nn ; patch
The following symbols are expanded in a file name or
command:
$F will be expanded to the name of the current group with
the periods replaced by slashes, e.g. rec/music/synth.
$G will be expanded to the name of the current group.
groups.
$N will be expanded to the (local) article number, e.g.
1099. In selection mode it is only allowed at the end
of the file name!
$(VAR)
is replaced by the string value of the environment
variable VAR.
Using these symbols, a simple naming scheme for `default
folder name' is +$G which will use the group name as folder
name. Another possibility is +$F/$N.
As mentioned above, you can also instruct nn to save a
series of files in separate, unique files. All that is
required is that the file name contains an asterisk, e.g.
+src/hype/part*.shar
This will cause each of the articles to be saved in
separate, unique files named part1.shar, part2.shar, and so
on, always choosing a part number that results in a unique
file name (i.e. if part1.shar did already exist, the first
article would be saved in part2.shar, the next in
part3.shar, and so on).
Related variables: default-save-file, folder, folder-save-
file, save-counter, save-counter-offset.
FILE AND GROUP NAME COMPLETION
When entering a file name or a news group name, a simple
completion feature is available using the space, tab, and ?
keys.
Hitting space anywhere during input will complete the
current component of the file name or group name with the
first available possibility.
If this possibility is not the one you want, keep on hitting
space until it appears.
When the right completion has appeared, you can just
continue typing the file or group name, or you can hit tab
to fix the current component, and get the first possibility
for the next component, and then use space to go through the
other possible completions.
The ? key will produce a list of the possible completions of
the current component. If the list is too long for the
available space on screen, the key can be repeated to get
The default value for a file name is the last file name you
have entered, so if you enter a space as the first character
after the prompt, the last file name will be repeated (and
you can edit it if you like). In some cases, a string will
already be written for you in the prompt line, and to get
the default value in these cases, use the kill key. This
also means that if you neither want the initial value, nor
the default value, you will have to hit the kill twice to
get a clean prompt line.
Related variables: comp1-key, comp2-key, help-key,
suggest-default-save.
POSTING AND RESPONDING TO ARTICLES
In both selection mode and reading mode you can post new
articles, post follow-ups to articles, send replies to the
author of an article, and you can send mail to another user
with the option of including an article in the letter. In
reading mode, a response is made to the current article,
while in selection mode you will be prompted for an article
to respond to.
The following commands are available (the lower-case
equivalents are also available in reading mode):
R {reply}
Reply through mail to the author of the article. This
is the preferred way to respond to an article unless
you think your reply is of general interest.
F {follow}
Follow-up with an article in the same newsgroup (unless
an alternative group is specified in the article
header). The distribution of the follow-up is normally
the same as the original article, but this can be
modified via the follow-distribution variable.
M {mail}
Mail a letter or forward an article to a single
recipient. In selection mode, you will be prompted for
an article to include in your letter, and in reading
mode you will be asked if the current article should be
included in the letter. You will then be prompted for
the recipient of the letter (default recipient is
yourself) and the subject of the letter (if an article
is included, you may hit space to get the default
subject which is the subject of the included article).
The header of the article is only included in the
:post {post}
Post a new article to any newsgroup. This command will
prompt you for a comma-separated list of newsgroups to
post to (you cannot enter a space because space is used
for group name completion as described below).
If you enter ? {help-key} as the first key, nn will
show you a list of all available news groups and their
purpose. While paging through this list, you can enter
q to quit looking at the list. You can also enter /
followed by a regular expression (typically a single
word) which will cause nn to show a (much shorter) list
containing only the lines matching the regular
expression.
Normally, you will be prompted for the distribution
of the article with the default take from default-
distribution, but this can be changed via the post-
distribution variable.
Generally, nn will construct a file with a suitable header,
optionally include a copy of the article in the file with
each non-empty line prefixed by a `>' character (except in
mail mode), and invoke an editor of your choice (using the
EDITOR environment variable) on this file, positioning you
on the first line of the body of the article (if it knows
the editor).
When you have completed editing the message, it will compare
it to the unedited file, and if they are identical (i.e. you
did not make any changes to the file), or it is empty, the
operation is cancelled. Otherwise you will be prompted for
an action to take on the constructed article (enter first
letter followed by return, or just return to take the
default action):
9 a)bort c)c e)dit h)old i)spell m)ail r)eedit s)end
v)iew w)rite
Action: (post article)
9 You now have the opportunity to perform one of the following
actions:
a throw the response away (will ask for confirmation),
c mail a copy of a follow-up to the poster of the
article,
e edit the file again,
h hold response for later completion,
i run an (interactive) spell-checker on the text,
m mail a (blind) copy to a specified recipient,
n same as abort (no don't post)
p post article (same as send)
Page 28 (printed 1/19/95)
w append it to a file (before you send it).
y confirm default answer (e.g. yes post it)
To complete an unfinished response saved by the h)old
command, simply enter any response action, e.g. R {reply}.
This will notice the unfinished response and ask you whether
you want to complete it now. Only one unfinished response
can exist at a time. Notice that the $A environment
variable may no longer be valid as a path to the original
article when the response is completed.
Related variables: append-signature-mail, append-
signature-post, default-distribution, follow-distribution,
post-distribution, edit-response-check, editor, include-
art-id, include-full-header, included-mark, mail-header,
mail-record, mail-script, mailer, mailer-pipe-input, news-
header, news-record, news-script, orig-to-include-mask,
pager, query-signature, record, response-check-pause,
response-default-answer, save-counter, save-counter-offset,
save-report, spell-checker.
JUMPING TO OTHER GROUPS
By default nn will present the news groups in a predefined
sequence (see the section on Presentation Sequence later
on). To override this sequence and have a look at any other
group the G {goto-group} command available in both selection
and reading mode enables you to move freely between all the
newsgroups.
Furthermore, the G command enables you to open folders and
other files, to read old articles you have read before, and
to grep for a specific subject in a group.
It is important to notice that normally the goto command is
recursive, i.e. a new menu level is created when the
specified group or folder is presented, and when it has been
read, nn will continue the activity in the group that was
presented before the goto command was executed. However, if
there are unread articles in the target group you can avoid
entering a new menu level by using the j reply described
below. The current menu level (i.e. number of nested goto
commands) will be shown in the prompt line as "<N>" (in
reverse video).
The goto command is very powerful, but unfortunately also a
little bit tricky at first sight, because the facilities it
provides depend on the context in which the command is used.
Page 29 (printed 1/19/95)
return
An empty answer is equivalent to the current newsgroup.
letter
The answer is taken to be the name of a newsgroup. If
a news group with the given name does not exist, nn
will treat the answer as a regular expression and
locate the first group in the presentation sequence (or
among all groups) whose name matches the expression.
+
The answer is taken to be the name of a folder. If
only `+' is entered, it is equivalent to the default
save file for the current group.
/ or ./ or ~/
The answer is taken to be the name of a file, either
relative to the current directory, relative to your
home directory, or an absolute path name for the file.
% In reading mode, this reply corresponds to reading the
current article (and splitting it as a digest). In
selection mode, it will prompt for an article on the
menu to read.
@ This choice is equivalent to the archive file for the
current group. nnmaster maintains archive files with
all old and current articles for the groups which have
the auto-archive option set in the GROUPS file (see
nnmaster(8)).
= and number
These answers are equivalent to the same answers
described below applied to the current group (e.g. G
return = and G = are equivalent).
Specifying a folder, a file, or an article (with %) will
cause nn to treat the file like a digest and split it into
separate articles (not physically!) which are then
presented on a menu in the usual way, allowing you to read
or save individual subarticles from the folder.
When you enter a group name, nn will ask you how many
articles in the group you want to see on the menu. You can
give the following answers:
a number N
Page 30 (printed 1/19/95)
included on the same menu (without creating a new menu
level).
j This answer can only be given if there are unread
articles in the group. It will instruct nn to jump
directly to the specified group in the presentation
sequence without creating a new menu level.
u This instructs nn to present the unread articles in the
group (if there are any). If you have already read the
group (in the current invocation of nn), the u answer
will instruct nn to present the articles that were
unread when you entered nn.
a This instruct nn to present all articles in the group.
sword or =word
This instructs nn to search all articles in the groups,
but only present the articles containing the word word
in the subject. Notice that case is ignored when
searching for the word in the subject lines.
nword
Same as the s form except that it searched for articles
where the sender name matches word.
eword
Same as the s form except that it Psearched for
articles where either the subject or the sender name
matches word.
word = /regexp
When the first character of the word specified with the
s, n, and e forms is a slash `/', the rest of the input
is interpreted as a regular expression to search for.
Notice that regular expression matching is case
insensitive when case-fold-search is set (default).
return
The meaning of an empty answer depends on the context:
if there are unread articles in the specified group the
unread articles will be presented, otherwise all
articles in the group will be included in the menu.
If you specified the current group, and the menu already
contains all the available articles, nn will directly prompt
for a word to search for in the subject of all articles (the
prompt will be an equal sign.)
Page 31 (printed 1/19/95)
There are three commands in the goto family:
G {goto-group}
This is the general goto command described above.
B {back-group}
Backup one or more groups. You can hit this key one or
more times to go back in the groups already presented
(including those without new articles); when you have
found the group you are looking for, hit space to enter
it.
A {advance-group}
Advance one or more groups. This command is similar to
the B command, but operates in the opposite direction.
N {next-group}
When used within an A or B command, it skips forward to
the next group in the sequence with unread articles or
which has previously been visited.
P {previous}
When used within an A or B command, it skips backwards
to the preceding group in the sequence with unread
articles or which has previously been visited.
Once you have entered an A or Bcommand, you can freely mix
the A, B, P, and N commands to find the group you want, and
you can also use the G command to be prompted for a group
name.
To show the use of the goto command some typical examples on
its use are given below:
Present the unread articles in the dk.general group
9 G dk.general return u
Jump directly to the gnu.emacs group and continue from there
9 G gnu.emacs return j
Include the last 10 READ articles in the current group menu
9 G 10 return
Find all articles in rec.music.misc on the subject Floyd
9 G rec.music.misc return
= floyd return
Page 32 (printed 1/19/95)
Related variables: case-fold-search, default-save-file,
folder-save-file
AUTOMATIC KILL AND SELECTION
When there is a subject or an author which you are either
very interested in, or find completely uninteresting, you
can easily instruct nn to auto-select or auto-kill articles
with specific subjects or from specific authors. These
instructions are stored in a kill file, and the most common
types of entries can be created using the following command:
K {kill-select}
Create an entry in your personal kill file. The
contents of the entry is specified during a short
dialog that is described in details below. This
command is available in both selection and reading
mode.
Entries in the kill file may apply to a single newsgroup or
to all newsgroups. Furthermore, entries may be permanent or
they may be expired a given number of days after their
entry.
To increase performance, nn uses a compiled version of the
kill file which is read in when nn is invoked. The compiled
kill file will automatically be updated if the normal kill
file has been modified.
The following dialog is used to build the kill file entry:
AUTO (k)ill or (s)elect (CR => Kill subject 30 days)
If you simply want nn to kill all articles with the
subject of the current article (in reading mode) or a
specific article (which nn will prompt for in selection
mode), just hit return. This will cause nn to create
an entry in the kill file to kill the current (or
specified) subject in the current group for a period of
30 days (which should be enough for the discussion to
die out).
9 You can control the default kill period, or change it
into a "select" period via the default-kill-select
variable.
9 If this "default behaviour" is not what you want, just
Page 33 (printed 1/19/95)
article (s or space), or on the name of the author (n).
SELECT NAME:
(Again SELECT may be substituted with KILL and SUBJECT
may replace NAME). You must now enter a name (or
subject) to select (or kill). In reading mode, you may
just hit return (or %) to use the name (or subject) of
the current article. In selection mode, you can use
the name (or subject) from an article on the menu by
answering with % followed by the corresponding article
identifier.
9 When the name or subject is taken from an article (the
current or one from the menu), nn will only select or
kill articles where the name or subject matches the
original name or subject exactly including case.
9 If the first character typed at the prompt is a slash
`/', the rest of the line is used as a regular
expression which is used to match the name or subject
(case insensitive).
9 Otherwise, nn will select or kill articles which
contain the specified string anywhere in the name or
subject (ignoring case).
SELECT in (g)roup `dk.general' or in (a)ll groups (g)
You must now specify whether the selection or kill
should apply to the current group only (g or space) or
to all groups (a).
Lifetime of entry in days (p)ermanent (30)
You can now specify the lifetime of the entry, either
by entering a number specifying the number of days the
entry should be active, or p to specify the entry as a
permanent entry. An empty reply is equivalent to 30
days.
CONFIRM SELECT ....
Finally, you will be asked to confirm the entry, and
you should especially note the presence or absence of
the word exact which specify whether an exact match
applies for the entry.
Related variables: default-kill-select, kill.
9
Page 34 (printed 1/19/95)
string]...
Permanent entries have no expire time (in which case the
colon is omitted as well!). Otherwise, the expire time
defines the time (as a time_t value) when the entry should
be expired.
The group name field can have three forms:
news.group.name
If it is the name of a single news group (e.g.
comp.unix), the entry applies to that group only.
/regular expression
If it starts with a slash `/' followed by a regular
expression (e.g. /^news\..*), the entry applies to all
groups whose name are matched by the regular
expression.
empty
An empty group field will apply the entry to all
groups.
The flags field consists of a list of characters which
identifies the type of entry, and the interpretation of each
string field. When used, the flag characters must be used
in the order in which they are described below:
~ (optional)
When this flag is present on any of the entries for a
specific group, it causes all entires which are not
auto-selected to be killed. This is a simple way to
say: I'm interested in this and that, but nothing else.
+ or ! (optional)
Specify an auto-select + or an auto-kill ! entry,
respectively. If neither are used, the article is
neither selected nor killed which is useful in
combination with the `~' flag.
> (optional)
When used with a subject (flag s), the kill entry only
Page 35 (printed 1/19/95)
ups) in the tex group, add this to your kill file:
comp.text.tex:!s</:^HELP
n or s or a (mandatory)
Specify whether the corresponding string applies to the
name n or to the subject s of an article. If flag a is
used, the corresponding string is ignored (but must be
present), and the entry applies to articles with a
non-empty References: line.
/ (optional)
Specifies that the corresponding string is a regular
expression which the sender or subject is matched
against. If not specified, a simple string match is
performed using the given string.
= (optional)
Specifies that the match against the name or subject is
case sensitive. Furthermore, when regular expression
matching is not used, the name or subject must be of
the same length of the string to match. Otherwise, the
match will be case insensitive, and a string may occur
anywhere in the name or subject to match.
| or & (mandatory if multiple strings)
If more than one string is specified, the set of flags
corresponding to each string must be separated by
either an or operator `|' or an and operator `&'. The
and operator has a higher precedence than the or
operator, e.g. a complex match expression a|b&c|d will
succeed if either of a, b&c, or d matches.
The string field in the entry is the name, subject or
regular expression that will be matched against the name or
subject of each article in the group (or all groups).
Colons and backslashes must be escaped with a backslash in
the string.
Example 1: Auto-select articles from `Tom Collins' (exact)
on subject `News' in all groups:
9 :+n=&s:Tom Collins:News
9
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NN(1) UNIX System V (Release 6.4.18) NN(1)
make the more advanced entries with more than one string,
you will have to edit the kill file manually. To recompile
the file, you can use the :compile command. When you invoke
nn, it will also recompile the kill file if the compiled
version is out of dat.
SHELL ESCAPES
The ! commands available in selection and reading mode are
identical in operation (with one exception). When you enter
the shell escape command, you will be prompted for a shell
command. This command will be fed to the shell specified in
the shell variable (default loaded from the SHELL
environment variable or /bin/sh) after the following
substitutions have been performed on the command:
File name expansion
The earlier described file name expansions will be
performed on all arguments.
$G will be substituted with the name of the current news
group.
$L will be substituted with the last component of the name
of the current news group.
$F will be substituted with the name of the current news
group with the periods replaced by slashes.
$N will be substituted with the (local) article number
(only defined in reading mode).
$A is replaced by the full path name of the file
containing the current article (only defined in reading
mode).
% Same as $A.
$(VAR)
is replaced by the string value of the environment
variable VAR.
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NN(1) UNIX System V (Release 6.4.18) NN(1)
U {unsub}
Unsubscribe to the current group. You will not see
this group any more unless you explicitly request it.
If the variable unsubscribe-mark-read is set, all
articles in the group will be marked read when you
unsubscribe.
If the variable keep-unsubscribed is not set, the
group will be removed from .newsrc. If you are not
subscribing to the group, you will be given the
possibility to resubscribe to the group! This may be
used in connection with the G command to resubscribe a
group.
C {cancel}
Cancel (delete) an article in the current group or
folder. Cancelling articles in a folder will cause the
folder to be rewritten when it is closed. In selection
mode, you will be prompted for the identifier of the
article to cancel. Normal users can only cancel their
own articles. See also the section on folder
maintenance.
Y {overview}
Provide an overview of the groups with unread articles.
" {layout}
Change menu layout in selection mode. The menu will be
redrawn using the next layout (cycling through ..., 2,
3, 4, 0, 1, ...)
Most of the commands in nn are bound to a key and can be
activated by a single keystroke. However, there are a few
commands that cannot be bound to a key directly.
As shown in the keystroke command descriptions, all commands
have a name, and it is possible to activate a command by
name with the extended command key (:). Hitting this key
will prompt you for the name of a command (and parameters).
For example, an alternative to hitting the R key to reply to
an article is to enter the extended command :reply followed
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NN(1) UNIX System V (Release 6.4.18) NN(1)
operation to the nnadmin(1M) program.
:bug Prepare and send a bug report to the nn-bugs mailing
address.
:cd [ directory ]
Change current working directory. If the directory
argument is not provided, nn will prompt for it.
:clear
Clear the screen (without redraw). This may be useful
at the beginning of the init file (possibly guarded by
"on program nn"), or in some macros.
:compile
Recompile the kill file. This is not necessary under
normal operation since nn automatically compiles the
file on start-up if it has changed, but it can be used
if you modify the kill file while nn is suspended.
:coredump
Abort with a core dump. For debugging purposes only.
:define macro
Define macro number macro as described in the Macro
Definition section below. If macro is omitted, the
next free macro number will be chosen.
:dump table
Same as the :show command described below.
:help [ subject ]
Provide online help on the specified subject. If you
omit the subject, a list of the available topics will
be given.
:load [ file ]
Load the specified file. If the file argument is
omitted, the init file is reloaded. The sequence part
(if present) is ignored.
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NN(1) UNIX System V (Release 6.4.18) NN(1)
a normal folder with the program name in the `From'
field and the section title in the `subject' field.
All the normal commands related to a folder works for
the online manual as well, e.g. you can save and print
sections of the manual.
:map arguments
This is the command used for binding commands to the
keys. It is fully described in the Key Mapping section
below.
:mkdir [ directory ]
Create the directory (and the directories in its path).
It will prompt for at directory name if the argument is
omitted.
:motd
Show the message of the day (maintained by the news
administrator in the file "motd" in the lib directory.
This file is automatically displayed on start-up
whenever it changes if the motd variable is set.
:pwd Print path name of current working directory on message
line.
:q Has no effect besides redrawing the screen if
necessary. If an extended command (one which is
prefixed by a :) produces any output requirering the
screen to be redrawn, the screen will not be redrawn
immediately if the variable delay-redraw is set (useful
on slow terminals). Instead another : prompt is shown
to allow you to enter a new extended command
immediately. It is sufficient to hit return to redraw
the screen, but it has been my experience that entering
q return in this situation happens quite often, so it
was made a no-op.
:q! Quit nn without updating the .newsrc file.
:Q Quit nn. This is equivalent to the normal Q command.
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NN(1) UNIX System V (Release 6.4.18) NN(1)
:sh Suspend nn, or if that is not possible, spawn an
interactive shell.
:show groups mode
Show the total number or the number of unread articles
in the current group, depending on mode: all (list the
number of unread articles in all groups including
groups which you have unsubscribed to), total (list the
total number of articles in all existing groups),
sequence (list unread groups in presentation sequence
order), subscr (list all subscribed groups), unsub
(list unsubscribed groups only). Any other mode
results in a listing of the number of unread articles
in all subscribed groups including those you have
suppressed with the `!' symbol in the group
presentation sequence. To get just the currently
unread groups in the presentation sequence, use the `Y'
{overview} command.
:show kill
Show the kill entries that applies to the current group
and to all groups.
:show rc [ group ]
Show the .newsrc and select file entries for the
current or the specified group.
:show map [ mode ]
Show the key bindings in the current or specified mode.
:sort [ mode ]
Reorder the articles on the menu according to mode or
if omitted to the default sort-mode. The following
sorting modes are available:
arrival: list articles by local article number which
will be the same as the order in which they arrived on
the system (unless groups are merged),
subject: articles with identical subjects are grouped
and ordered after age of the oldest article in the
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NN(1) UNIX System V (Release 6.4.18) NN(1)
unread articles when nn was invoked. Otherwise, the
argument specifies the number of unread articles.
:unset variable
Set a boolean variable to false or clear an integer
variable.
:x Quit nn and mark all articles in the current group as
read!
Related variables: backup, bug-report-address, delay-
redraw, keep-unsubscribed, unsubscribe-mark-read, mail,
pager, sort-mode.
CATCH UP
If you have not read news for some time, there are probably
more news than you can cope with. Using the option -a0 nn
will put you into catch-up mode.
The first question you will get is whether to catch up
interactively or automatically. If you instruct nn to catch
up automatically, it will simply mark all articles in all
groups as read, thus bringing you completely up-to-date.
If you choose the interactive mode, nn will locate all
groups with unread articles, and for each group it will
prompt you for an action to take on the group. An action is
selected using a single letter followed by return. The
following actions are available:
y Mark all articles as read in current group.
n Do not update group (this is the default action if you
just hit return).
r Enter reading mode to read the group.
U Unsubscribe to the group.
? Give a list of actions.
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NN(1) UNIX System V (Release 6.4.18) NN(1)
- Through set or local commands executed from entry macros.
- Through the :set extended command when you run nn.
There are four types of variables:
- Boolean variables
- Integer variables
- String variables
- Key variables
Boolean variables control a specific function in nn, e.g.
whether the current time is shown in the prompt line. A
boolean variable is set to true with the command
set variable
and it is set to false with either of the following
(equivalent) commands:
unset variable
set novariable
You can also toggle the value of a boolean variable using
the command:
toggle variable
For example:
set time
unset time
set notime
toggle time
Integer variables control an amount e.g. the size of the
preview window, or the maximum number of articles to read in
each group. They are set with the following command:
set variable value
In some cases, not setting an integer value has a special
meaning, for example, not having a minimal preview window or
reading all articles in the groups no matter how many there
are. The special meaning can be re-established by the
following command:
unset variable
For example:
set window 7
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NN(1) UNIX System V (Release 6.4.18) NN(1)
can be used:
9 set included-mark \ \#\ # blank-#-blank
9 To include a backslash in the string, it must be duplicated
`\\'. A backslash may also be used to include the following
special characters in the string: \a=alarm, \b=backspace,
\e=escape, \f=form-feed, \n=new-line, \r=return, \t=tab.
Key variables control the keys used to control special
functions during user input such as line editing and
completion. They are set using the command
set variable key-name
A variable can be locked which makes further modification of
the variable impossible:
lock variable
This can be used in the setup init file which is loaded
unconditionally to enforce local conventions or
restrictions. For example, to fix the included-mark
variable to the string ">", the following commands can be
placed in the setup file:
set included-mark >
lock included-mark
The current variable settings can be shown with the :set
command:
:set (without arguments)
This will give a listing of the variables which have
been set in either the init file or interactively.
:set all
This will give a listing of all variables. Modified
variables will be marked with a `*' and local variables
will be marked with a `>'. A locked variable is marked
with a `!'.
:set /regexp
This will give a listing of all variables whose name
matches the given regular expression.
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NN(1) UNIX System V (Release 6.4.18) NN(1)
9 :local variable [ value ]
9
The following variables are available:
also-full-digest (boolean, default false)
When a digest is split, the digest itself is not
normally included on the menu, and as such the initial
adminstrative information is not available. Setting
also-full-digest will cause the (unsplit) digest to be
included on the menu. These articles are marked with a
@ at the beginning of the subject.
also-subgroups (boolean, default true)
When set, a group name in the presentation sequence
will also cause all the subgroups of the group to be
included, for example, comp.unix will also include
comp.unix.questions, etc. When also-subgroups is not
set, subgroups are only included if the group name is
followed by a `.' in which case the main group is not
included, i.e. `comp.unix' is not included when
`comp.unix.' is specified in the presentation sequence,
and vice-versa. Following a group name by an asterisk
`*', e.g. comp.unix*, will include the group as well as
all subgroups independently of the setting of also-
subgroups.
append-signature-mail (boolean, default false)
When false, it is assumed that the .signature file is
automatically appended to responses sent via E-mail.
If true, .signature will be appended to the letter (see
query-signature).
append-signature-post (boolean, default false)
When false, it is assumed that the .signature file is
automatically appended to posted articles. If true,
.signature will explicitly be appended to posted
articles (see query-signature).
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NN(1) UNIX System V (Release 6.4.18) NN(1)
Enables Auto Preview Mode. In this mode, selecting an
article on the menu using its article id (letter a-z)
will enter preview mode on that article immediately.
Furthermore, the `n' {next-article} command will
preview the next article on the menu only if it has the
same subject as the current article; otherwise, it will
return to the menu with the cursor placed on the next
article. The continue command at the end of the
article and the `=' {goto-menu} returns to the menu
immediately as usual.
auto-read-mode-limit N (integer, default 0)
When operating in auto reading mode, nn will auto-
select all unread articles in the group, skip the
article selection phase, and enter reading mode
directly after entry to the group.
Auto reading mode is disabled when auto-read-mode-
limit is zero; it is activated unconditionally if the
value is negative, and conditionally if the value is
greater than zero and the number of unread articles in
the current group does not exceed the given value.
auto-select-closed mode (integer, default 1)
Normally, selecting a closed subject (usually in
consolidated menu mode) will select (or deselect) all
unread articles with the given subject (or all articles
if they are all read). This behaviour can be changed
via the value of this variable as follows:
0: select only the first article with the subject (shown on menu).
1: select only the unread articles with the subject.
2: select all available articles with the subject.
auto-select-subject (boolean, default false)
When set, selecting an article from the menu using the
article id (a-z), all articles on the menu with the
same subject will automatically be selected as well.
backup (boolean, default true)
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NN(1) UNIX System V (Release 6.4.18) NN(1)
renamed to the backup folder name; otherwise the old
folder is copied to the backup folder.
backup-suffix suffix (string, default ".bak")
The suffix appended to file names to make the
corresponding backup file name (see backup).
bug-report-address address (string, default nn-
bugs@dkuug.dk)
The mail address to which bug reports created with the
:bug command are sent.
case-fold-search (boolean, default true)
When set, string and regular expression matching will
be case independent. This is related to all commands
matching on names or subjects, except in connection
with auto-kill and auto-select where the individual
kill file entries specifies this property.
check-db-update-time H (integer, default 12)
When non-zero, nn will issue a warning if the database
has not been updated in the last H hours. The warning
will tell you whether no news has arrived (feed
broken?), or whether it is just nnmaster which has not
updated the database (dead?).
check-group-access (boolean, default false)
When set, nn will perform a check on the readability of
a group's readability before showing the menu for that
group. Normally, this is not necessary since all users
traditionally have access to all news groups. Setting
(and locking) this variable may be used to limit access
to a news group via the permissions and ownership of
the group's spool directory (this will only work for
non-NNTP sites).
collapse-subject offset (integer, default 25)
When set (non-negative), subject lines which are too
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NN(1) UNIX System V (Release 6.4.18) NN(1)
default value when nn is prompting for a string, e.g. a
file name.
comp2-key key (key, default tab)
The key which ends the current completion and gives the
first completion for the next component when nn is
prompting for a string, e.g. a file name.
compress (boolean, default false)
This variable controls whether text compression (see
the compress command) is turned on or off when an
article is shown. The compression is still toggled for
the current article with the compress command key.
confirm-append (boolean, default false)
When set, nn will ask for confirmation before appending
an article to an existing file (see also confirm-
create).
confirm-auto-quit (boolean, default false)
When set, nn will ask for confirmation before quitting
after having read the last group. If not confirmed, nn
will recycle the presentation sequence looking for
groups that were skipped with the `N' {next-group}
command. But it will not look for new articles arrived
since the invocation of nn.
confirm-create (boolean, default true)
When set, nn will ask for confirmation before creating
a new file or directory when saving or unpacking an
article (see also confirm-append).
confirm-entry (boolean, default false)
When set, nn will ask for confirmation before entering
a group with more than confirm-entry-limit unread
articles (on the first menu level). It is useful on
slow terminals if you don't want to wait until nn has
drawn the first menu to be able to skip the group.
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When set, nn will require confirmation before marking
seen articles as read when auto-junk-seen is set.
confirm-messages (boolean, default false)
In some cases, nn will sleep one second (or more) when
it has shown a message to the user, e.g. in connection
with macro debugging. Setting confirm-messages will
cause nn to wait for you to confirm all messages by
hitting any key. (It will show the symbol <> to
indicate that it is awaiting confirmation.)
consolidated-manual (boolean, default false)
When set, the online manual will be presented with one
menu line for each program in the nn package.
consolidated-menu (boolean, default false)
When set, nn will automatically close all multi-article
subjects on entry to a group, so that each subject only
occur once on the menu page.
counter-delim-left (string, default "[")
The delimiter string output to the left of the article
counter in a closed subject's menu line.
counter-delim-right (string, default "] ")
The delimiter string output to the right of the article
counter in a closed subject's menu line.
counter-padding pad (integer, default 5)
On a consolidated menu, the subjects may not be very
well aligned because the added [...] counters have
varying length. To (partially) remedy this, all
counters (and subjects without counters) are prefixed
by up to pad spaces to get better alignment.
Increasing it further may yield practially perfect
alignment at the cost of less space for the subject
itself.
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NN(1) UNIX System V (Release 6.4.18) NN(1)
cross-post (boolean, default false)
Normally, nn will only show cross-posted articles in
the first subscribed group on the Newsgroups: line.
When cross-post is set, nn will show cross-posted
articles in all subscribed groups to which they are
posted.
data-