slrn - An easy to use NNTP / spool based newsreader.


SYNOPSIS

       slrn  [-aCdknmw]  [-C-] [-Dname] [-f newsrc-file] [-i con­
       fig-file]  [-k0]   [--create]   [-create]   [--debug file]
       [--help]  [--inews]  [--kill-log file] [--nntp [-h server]
       [-p port]] [--spool] [--version]


DESCRIPTION

       slrn is an easy to use but powerful  NNTP  /  spool  based
       newsreader.

       It  is  highly  customizable,  supports  scoring, free key
       bindings and can be extended using the s-lang  macro  lan­
       guage.

       To  use  slrn, you either need to set the NNTPSERVER envi­
       ronment variable to the server you want to read news  from
       or specify a server on the command line.  A newsrc file is
       needed, too.  In case you do not yet  have  one,  you  can
       create it using ``slrn -f ~/.jnewsrc --create''.

       Inside slrn, online help is available via the '?' key.


OPTIONS

       The  following  options can be used when calling slrn from
       the command line.  They override  both  environment  vari­
       ables  and  settings  in  private and global configuration
       files.

       -a     Read active file when checking for new news.

       -C     Use colors without checking if  the  terminal  sup­
              ports it.

       -C-    Don't use colors, even if the terminal supports it.

       -d     Get group descriptions  (taglines)  from  the  news
              server.  Please note that this may cause a download
              of several hundred kilobytes and thus  can  take  a
              long time.  The output is saved to a local file, so
              you only need to do this once.  May not  be  speci­
              fied in combination with --create.

       -Dname Add  name  to  the list of predefined preprocessing
              tokens, which can be used in your  slrnrc  file  to
              have conditionally interpreted lines.  See the slrn
              reference manual for details.

       -f newsrc-file
              Use file as the newsrc file for this session.  This
              is  permanently  set  via  the server configuration
              command.

              Connect to the NNTP server on host, overriding  the
              $NNTPSERVER  environment  variable.   If no port is
              given, the default NNTP port (119)  will  be  used.
              This  option  is only accepted after --nntp or when
              NNTP is the default mode.

       -i config-file
              Read file as the initialization (slrnrc) file.  The
              default  is to use .slrnrc (or slrn.rc on VMS, OS/2
              and Windows) in your home directory.

       -k     Don't read the score file.

       -k0    Read the score file, but inhibit expensive scoring.
              A  scoring  rule is expensive if it contains header
              lines  that  are  not  included  in  the   server's
              overview files.  This makes applying them slow.

       -m     Force  mouse  support (without checking if it works
              on the current terminal).

       -n     Do not check for new groups (usually resulting in a
              faster startup).

       -p N   Use port N to connect to the NNTP server.

       -w     Wait  for  a  key  before  switching to full screen
              mode, allowing the user to read startup messages.

       --create
              Read the active file (the list of all groups)  from
              the news server to create an initial newsrc file.

       -create
              Obsolete version of --create.

       --debug file
              Write debugging output to file.

       --help Show help for command line switches.

       --inews
              Use an external inews program to post articles.

       --kill-log file
              Keep  a log of all articles that were killed by the
              scorefile in file.

       --nntp Use builtin NNTP support for  reading  and  posting
              (an  external  program  is used to post if slrn was
              compiled with --enable-force-inews).

       --pull Spool outgoing articles  locally  for  slrnpull  to


       --spool
              Read directly from spool.

       --version
              Print version and some compile time settings.


ENVIRONMENT

       slrn  uses  the  following  list of environment variables.
       Note: environment variables can be overridden by  configu­
       ration files or command line switches.

       COLORTERM
              If this variable is set, slrn will assume that your
              terminal supports ANSI color  sequences.   It  also
              enables  a  workaround for a problem with the mouse
              reporting when running slrn inside of an rxvt.

       DISPLAY
              If set, slrn assumes that X11 is running.

       EDITOR See $SLRN_EDITOR.

       HOME   See $SLRNHOME.

       HOSTNAME
              If no hostname is given, the value of this environ­
              ment variable is used.

       LOGNAME
              See $USER.

       NAME   Set it to your realname, if slrn can't determine it
              otherwise.

       NNTPSERVER
              You can use this variable to tell slrn  which  NNTP
              server  to connect to.  It can be overridden by the
              command line option -h.

       ORGANIZATION
              The name of your organization.

       PRINTER
              On unix systems, slrn pipes the current article  to
              ``lpr -P $PRINTER'' to print it.

       PWD    This  variable  is  only  used on unix systems that
              don't support getcwd(3).  In these cases, it should
              be set to the current directory at the time slrn is
              invoked.  This is usually done  by  the  shell  and
              nothing the user has to worry about.

              The  value  of this variable is used as the default
              if you do not set replyto in your slrnrc file.

       SLANG_EDITOR
              See $SLRN_EDITOR.

       SLRNHELP
              You can set this variable to  a  file  slrn  should
              read  its  online  help  from.  This is only needed
              when the default key bindings have been changed and
              you want the help function to reflect this.

       SLRNHOME
              When  interpreting  filenames  as  relative to your
              home directory, slrn uses this variable to find out
              what  your  home  directory  is.   If  $SLRNHOME is
              unset, $HOME is used instead.

       SLRNPULL_ROOT
              If you want to use slrnpull, you need to  define  a
              directory  where it will look for its configuration
              files and spool the articles.  An absolute filename
              is needed here.

       SLRN_EDITOR
              The  editor to start for editing articles.  If this
              variable  is  unset,  slrn  subsequently  looks  at
              $SLANG_EDITOR, $EDITOR and $VISUAL.

       SLRN_LIB_DIR
              This  variable  can be used to set the directory in
              which slrn looks for its global configuration  file
              (slrn.rc)   and   newsgroup   descriptions   (news­
              groups.dsc).

       TMP    Indicates the directory in which slrn  should  save
              temporary files.

       TMPDIR See $TMP.

       USER   Your username, if slrn can't get it from the system
              by other means.

       VISUAL See $SLRN_EDITOR.


FILES

       $HOME/.slrnrc
              User-specific configuration file.

       $SLRN_LIB_DIR/slrn.rc
              System-wide configuration file.

              default newsrc file for slrn.

       $HOME/.jnewsrc.dsc
              Per user newsgroups descriptions.

       $SLRN_LIB_DIR/newsgroups.dsc
              Global newsgroup descriptions.


SEE ALSO

       The documentation that comes with  slrn,  especially  man­
       ual.txt,  FAQ,  score.txt  and SCORE_FAQ.  If you consider
       writing s-lang macros,  also  look  at  README.macros  and
       slrnfuns.txt.

       Recent  versions of the slrn manual and the FAQ as well as
       additional information can also be found on  slrn's  offi­
       cial home page: http://slrn.sourceforge.net/

       Questions about slrn that are not covered by existing doc­
       umentation may  be  posted  to  the  newsgroup  news.soft­
       ware.readers  where they will be answered by knowledgeable
       users  or  the  author  of  the  program.   In   addition,
       announcements of new versions of slrn are posted there.

       The  latest version of slrn is available via anonymous ftp
       from slrn.sourceforge.net in pub/slrn.


AUTHOR

       John E. Davis <davis@space.mit.edu>

       Please send any bug reports  to  the  current  maintainer,
       Thomas Schultz <tststs@gmx.de>


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