*** bbs NETWORK NEWS ACCESS *** Welcome to bbs's rn. There are more options to rn than you want to think about, so we won't list all of them here. If you want to find out about more of them, use the help commands described below. There are some important things to remember, though: * Rn is not a modified readnews. Don't expect the commands to be identical. * Rn runs in cbreak mode. This means you don't have to type carriage return on single character commands. (There are some multi-character commands.) * At ANY prompt in rn, you may type h for help. There are many different help menus, depending on where you are in rn. Typing h in the middle of a multi-character command will list escape substitutions. * Typing a space to any prompt means to do the normal thing. You could spend all day reading news (many folks do) and never hit anything but the space bar. On bbs, you are subscribed to nothing unless you request a subscription to a particular group. There are two ways to request a subscription. 1) As you enter rn, you are occasionally informed of new groups with the following message: Newsgroup soc.human-nets not in .newsrc--add? [yn] If you reply with a y or a , you will see this message next: Put newsgroup where? [$^.L] Simply hit and you will have a subscription to a group (in this case soc.human-nets). 2) You may subscribe to an existing group with the g command. An example follows: ******** End of newsgroups--what next? [qnp] g alt.pagan Newsgroup alt.pagan not in .newsrc--add? [yn] y Put newsgroup where? [$^L] ******** 70 unread articles in alt.pagan--read now? [ynq] Now you are ready to read news in the alt.pagan news group. To see a list of groups to which you are not subscribed (but may wish to) type l at any news prompt. A list of a few groups appears at the end of this handout. Newsgroup Selection commands: n Go to the next newsgroup with unread news. N Go to the next newsgroup. p Go to the previous newsgroup with unread news. P Go to the previous newsgroup. g name Go to the named newsgroup. Subscribe to new newsgroups this way too. l pat List unsubscribed newsgroups containing pattern. q Quit rn. Paging commands: Display the next page. Display one more line. ^R Restart the current article ^B Back up one page. ^L Refresh the screen. q Quit the pager, go to end of article. Leave article read or unread. j Junk this article (mark it read). Goes to end of article. n Scan forward for next unread article. N Go to next article. - Go to previously displayed article. Article Selection commands: n, Scan forward for next unread article. N Go to next article. ^N Scan forward for next unread article with same subject. p,P,^P Same as n,N,^N, only going backwards. - Go to previously displayed article. number Go to specified article. f,F Submit a followup article (F = include this article). C Cancel this article, if yours. c Catch up (mark all articles as read). ^L Refresh the screen. You can get back to the pager with this. j Junk this article (mark it read). Stays at end of article. = List subjects of unread articles. u Unsubscribe to this newsgroup. q Quit this newsgroup for now.