Tin lists new newsgroups when it starts up. On World, where we get all the newsgroups we can, this can be a nuisance. You can keep tin from listing all the groups in two ways. For a one-shot quiet startup:
world% tin -qFor a permanent solution, to tin would never show new newsgroups, you could create an alias to make "tin" always mean "tin -q&qout;.
Another permanent solution is to set the AUTOUNSUBSCRIBE shell variable to the value "*".
For most customers, environment variables are established at login time according to the contents of the file ".cshrc". If you use a shell other that csh and don't know the startup file to edit, just ask (mail to staff).
You can use any editor to edit .cshrc, if you don't already have a preference we recommend pico, just do
world% pico .cshrcyou'll see some other environment variables set, add the line
setenv AUTOUNSUBSCRIBE '*'To make the change take effect immediately, after you have edited and saved the file, run:
world% source .cshrc
You can also automatically subscribe to all new groups, with "AUTOSUBSCRIBE", or you can use a more fine-tuned approach, automatically unsubscribing from all but "sci" groups for example. For details, see the man page for tin, let us know if you get stuck.
world% tin "*cats*"tin will display all the groups that have "*cats*" in their names.
world% tin "*briefs"tin will show all the groups that have names ending with "briefs". (we have in mind the wire services when we mention "briefs", not undergarments. However, USENET being what it is, you may find a bit of a mix if you try that.)
world% tin "alt.fan*"finds all the groups that start with "alt.fan".
The quotes are necessary for customers who use the default csh shell; they prevent the shell from interpreting the stars as parts of file names.
Try following these brief instructions first. If you get stuck, look at the step-by-step instructions that follow. The detailed instructions are rather lengthy, as they try to anticipate what could go wrong or be confusing at each step, and they assume you've never used a newsreader before. You almost certainly don't need to read the entire section of detailed instructions, and you may not need to refer to them at all, but they are there in case you need more information along the way.
world% tin
world% cd ~/News
world% sz -b picturename.gif
world% rm picturename.gif
*Step-by-step Instructions
We have attempted, below, to discuss anything that could go wrong while trying to download binary files from newsgroups. Please let us know if you discover something knew that isn't included here. These instructions have been tested with pictures only, please send us email staff@world.std.com if you try it with sounds (or something else) and it works (or it doesn't).
Throughout this document, <enter> means press the key marked "Enter" or "Return", whichever one you use to move to a new line when you're typing.
1. Start tin. If, after typing the command tin and hitting <enter> the system complains about your terminal type, you probably typed something (like a space, perhaps) when you should have simply pressed <enter> in response to the "TERM=(vt100)" prompt that appeared after you logged in. The easiest way to fix this is simply to logout and dial in again. If you use a modem script to login, that is likely where the problem is. Fix it (you're on your own), or dial in without the script. Make sure that your modem program has terminal emulation set to vt100, vt102 or any higher vt number: *both* the World and your modem package have to be told, *separately*, to have things be in sync.
If you've never used tin, it will give you some startup message about what's it's doing: press any key to continue.
Tin may ask you if you want to subscribe to certain newsgroups, prompting you with "(y/n/q)" after each groupname. Hit "q" to get Tin to "quit asking". The system knows to keep you in Tin, and that you did not mean to "quit tin" at this point.
2. Move to the newsgroup you're interested in.
Once you are in the group selection menu (it says "Group Selection" at the top of the screen), you'll be presented with a list of newsgroups running down the screen. Use the slash "/" and 'keyword' to search for a newsgroup with that keyword somewhere in the group's name. If you want pictures, press "/" and type 'picture', then press <enter>.
Now there are three possible reactions to your search: a. It found your newsgroup, skip b. and c. b. It found something, but not what you wanted. Hit "/", then <enter>, to search again, repeatedly if necessary, and go to the next step if it fails to find what you want (note: it will eventually return to the first item it found in your search, as the searches are circular). c. If it doesn't find the newsgroup you want, it may be that there's no such group. Or, more likely you've previously 'unsubscribed' to it. To regain access to them, you have to 'yank' back in any unsubscribed newsgroups. To do this, type 'y' (while still at the group selection menu.) It will reply with 'yanked in XXXX groups', XXXX being the number of groups that had been unsubscribed to. If you then press "/" Tin will remember what you had been searching for "picture", and locate the first newsgroup that matches. When the newsgroup you want is highlighted, note whether it has a 'u' next to it, indicating that it's been unsubscribed to, and if so, type 's' to subscribe to it again.
Okay, the newsgroup you wanted, with pictures, is highlighted, and you've been careful to subscribe to it again (if you'd had to yank it in to find it). Next, clear away all the other newsgroups you'd previously unsubscribed to that you don't have any interest in...press 'y' again and they'll be yanked back out of Tin.
3. Tag the articles.
Once the newsgroup name you're interested in is highlighted, press <enter> to gain access to the list of article titles posted to it. The title is whatever the person who posted it wanted the article to be described as. You might want to move to the second page of postings to review some of the earliest articles. Some might be unavailable (some articles expire every day, and they're probably listed in date order unless you've changed something in Tin.) To go to the second page, hit ^D (that's control-d), for 'Down a page'.
You can move the lightbar or arrow around on the thread selection screen with your up or down arrows or the j and k keys.
Many/most pictures are composed of multiple files. People often create 'part 0' with a description of the image. If there's a part 0, do not tag it. However, if you've got it highlighted, you can press <enter> to read the description to see if you'd be interested in downloading the picture.
To 'tag' the articles that comprise the picture, hit 't' next to each article that's part of the picture you want to download. Only tag the articles that comprise a single picture: don't try to do two pictures at once.
If they're in order on the screen, and they usually are, move to the first one and hit 't', and keep hitting 't' until they're all marked. Be sure to get all of and only the articles which comprise the series. If they're out of order on the screen, tag them in the correct order. (I.e., move to part 1, hit 't', then move to part 2, hit 't', and so on until they're all marked.)
4. Once you've got them all tagged, press 's' to save them. You will be prompted for a file name to save them in. Choose a random name, something like "eraseme" is good. It's will eventually be renamed and all the encoded stuff should get erased by the machine anyway. Just *don't* call it what the file name is going to be called (i.e., don't call it 'puppy.gif' if that's really what it's going to be.)
5 and 6. Tin asks how you want the files 'processed'. Hit 'u' for 'uudecode'. It saves them, makes the final file, then asks if you want to remove the processed files. Say yes.
7. Quit tin. Press 'q' a few times, until you see 'world%'
8. Change to your News directory, which is where Tin saves the file to, unless you've changed it.
world% cd ~/News
(must be cap 'N' News.) Do an ls to determine that the gif or jpeg is in that directory.
9. Download the file. Usually, if the filename is 'puppy.gif', you'd type
world% sz -b puppy.gif
If you don't have zmodem, you have never downloaded a file, or this doesn't work and you can't figure out what will, take a look at our on-line help manual on file transfers:
world% help file-transfer
10. Once you have successfully moved the file to your local host computer, remember to remove the copy in your World account. Picture files are usually rather large and you'll run out of diskspace eventually if you don't take care to remove them each time you download one.
world% rm ~/News/picturename.gif
*Why things work the way they do
News has to be posted as ascii, but computer programs and data files (including pictures and sounds) are 'binary' files -- that is, they use many 'characters' that aren't in the ASCII character set. So, in order to post binary files to newsgroups, people use programs called 'uuconvert' and 'uuencode' to turn binary files into ASCII files. Of course, to be used, these files then have to be 'decoded'.
*Alternate methods (not written: by hand saving and pointer to faqs posted to the picture groups)
*Disk space
You could run out of disk space while doing this. Odds are, if you aren't already getting a warning, this won't prevent you from finishing the procedure, but if it does, or you know you're close, use our /tmp file area.
+ before you start tin, make a tmp directory for yourself. If your login name is geb, for example,
world% mkdir /tmp/geb
+ when it asks what name the files should have, include the directory: world% /tmp/geb/puppy
+ when you want to download the file, specify the directory: world% sz -b /tmp/geb/puppy.gif
+ delete it when you're done, please: world% rm /tmp/geb/* world% rmdir /tmp/geb
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