# phpman > man > NN(1) [NN(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/NN/1/markdown) General Commands Manual [NN(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/NN/1/markdown) ## 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 pre‐ sented on the screen. This will be done very quickly, because _nn_ uses the NOV database via the NNTP **XOVER** command. The news server to use can be overridden by setting the environment variable _$NNTPSERVER_ to the name of the system (such as **news.newserver.com**), or by setting the variable _nntp-server_ (on the command line only, since it is looked at before the init file), as "nntp- server=news.some.domain"). If you use multiple servers, you probably want to set the _nn-di__‐ _rectory_ and _newsrc_ variables on the command line to an alternate names as well, since some of the data files are server dependent. If you are using a slow tcp link (such as _ppp_ over a modem) and **NNTP**, see the **NOTES** section at the end of this manual. 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 de‐ scribed. 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 Op‐ tions 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. -**l**_N_ 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. -**s**_WORD_ Collect only articles which contain the string _WORD_ in their subject (case is ig‐ nored). 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 sub‐ ject. -**n**_WORD_ or -**n/**_regexp_ Same as -**s** except that it matches on the sender's name instead of the article's sub‐ ject. 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 op‐ tion is used, _nn_ will _never_ mark unread articles as read (i.e. .newsrc is not up‐ dated). -**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. Other‐ wise, 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 col‐ lected, 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 explic‐ itly 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 com‐ mand. 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 com‐ mand. 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 con‐ trolled 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 se‐ lected. 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 un‐ read 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: 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 arti‐ cle. 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 approximation to the actual subject line which may be much 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 arti‐ cles. 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-re‐ port-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, subject- match-minimum. ## 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 config‐ ured, 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** vari‐ able). The attribute of an article can be changed explicitly using the selection mode commands de‐ scribed below, or it will change automatically for example when you have read or saved a se‐ lected article. If a command may change any article attributes, it will be noted in the de‐ scription of the command. The following descriptions of the attributes will only mention the most important commands that may set (or preserve) the attribute. 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 _pre__‐ _sented_ on a menu. Depending on how _nn_ is configured, these articles will automati‐ cally 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). 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-selec‐ tion 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 sim‐ plifies the house-keeping between invocations of _nn_. **leave** Menu attribute "+" - indicates that the article is marked for later treatment by the **leave-article** (**l**) command. These articles may be selected (on demand) when you have read all selected articles in a group. However, if you do not select them then imme‐ diately, 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 arti‐ cle until you either read the article, change the attribute, or it is expired. So as‐ signing 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 arti‐ cles 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 at‐ tributes). 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, re‐ plying 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 capability by placing an asterisk (*) after the selection letter or digit. Most commands which are used to select articles will work as toggle commands. If the article is not already selected, the _selected_attribute 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 arti‐ cle 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-sub**‐‐ **ject** 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**} Reverse selections. All selected articles on the current page are deselected, and vice-versa. (Use the **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 ar‐ ticles with a specific attribute, or all available articles. To access all the func‐ tions 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 de‐ scribed 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 at‐ tributes. **>** {**page+1**} Goto next menu page. **<** {**page-1**} Goto previous menu page, or to last menu page if on first menu page. **$** {**page=$**} Goto last 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 arti‐ cles have been read, return to selection mode in the _current_ group. It will mark _se__‐ _lected_ 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 se‐ lected articles will still be selected the next time you enter the group. None of these com‐ mands will change any attributes themselves (by default). **N** {**next-group**} Go forward to the next group in the presentation sequence. If the variable **marked-by-** **next-group** is set articles on the menu can optionally be marked _seen_ **P** {**previous**} Go back to the previous group. This command will enter selection mode on the last ac‐ tive 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. Oth‐ erwise, 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 en‐ ter 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 onwards 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 **con**‐‐ **firm-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 mark‐ ing 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-re‐ turn, 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**. When consolidated menus are used, _nn_ operates with two kinds of subjects: open and closed. 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. a Kim F. Storm 12 [4] Future plans for nn b.Kim F. Storm 43 [3] More plans for nn 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 re‐ quest. 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 arti‐ cles), 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 com‐ mands: **)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. _selected_ Menu line is fully high-lighted (if all UNREAD are selected). ### 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 (U0), the information between the brackets will be high- lighted (to show that something is selected, but not all the unread articles). **Notice**: 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 at‐ tribute 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. **Kill** This submenu allows you to mark articles _read_ and remove them from the menu 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 page at a time. To get the next page of an article, simply hit **space**, and when you are on the last page of an article, hit **space** to get to the next selected article. Articles are 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. **g**_N_ {**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**} Repeat search for last regular expression. **h** {**page=0**} 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 in‐ cluding 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 se‐ lected article. **p** {**previous**} Goto previous 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 arti‐ cle (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 selec‐ tion 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.) **Related** **variables**: case-fold-search, charset, compress, data-bits, date, header-lines, mark- overlap, monitor, overlap, scroll-clear-page, stop, trusted-escape-codes, wrap-header-margin. ## 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-continuation, preview-mark-read, window. ## SAVING ARTICLES 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. **E** {**save-header**} Save only the header of the articles. **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)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/patch/1/markdown) (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. During the unpacking, the normal output from the unshar process will appear on the screen, and the menu or article text will be redrawn when the process is 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 ar‐ ticle. 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 de‐ code 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 _ig__‐ _nore_ 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**. The save commands will prompt for a file name which is expanded according to the rules de‐ scribed in the section on file name expansion below. For each group, it is possible to spec‐ ify 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 speci‐ fied 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 aster‐ isk 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 automati‐ cally 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 indi‐ vidual articles, either in the selection mode, or in the article reading mode. When articles are saved in a file with a full or partial 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 (un‐ less **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-com‐ mand, 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 ar‐ ticle 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 arti‐ cle. You can also _cancel_ (delete) individual articles in a folder using the normal **C** {**cancel**} com‐ mand 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, i.e. the **mail-format** and **mmdf-** **format** variables are ignored. **Related** **variables**: backup-folder-path, keep-backup-folder, trace-folder-packing. ## FILE NAME EXPANSION When the save commands prompts for a file name, the following file name expansions are per‐ formed on the file name you enter: **+**_folder_ The **+** is replaced by the contents of the **folder** variable (default value "~/News/") re‐ sulting 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) com‐ mand-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. **$G** will be expanded to the name of the current group. **$L** will be expanded to the _last_ _component_ of the name of the current group. You may use this to create default save file names like +src/$L in the comp.sources groups. **$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 us‐ ing 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 next part of the list. The current completion can be deleted with the **erase** key. 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 arti‐ cles, 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 read‐ ing 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 speci‐ fied 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** vari‐ able. **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 posted letter if it is forwarded (i.e. not edited), or if the variable **include-full-header** is set. **:post** {**post**} Post a new article to any newsgroup. This command will prompt you for a _comma-sepa__‐ _rated_ 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 (typ‐ ically 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 oper‐ ation 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): a)bort c)c e)dit h)old i)spell m)ail p)ost r)eedit s)end v)iew w)rite 7)bit Action: (post article) 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 **a**bort (_no_ don't post), **p** post article (same as **s**end), **r** throw away the edited text and edit the original text, **s** send the article or letter, **v** view the article (through the **pager**), **w** append it to a file (before you send it), **y** confirm _default_ _answer_ (e.g. _yes_ post it), or **7** strip the high-order bit from all characters in the message If you have selected a 7-bit character set (this is determined by the values of the **charset** and **data-bits** variables), _nn_ will not allow you to post an article or send a letter whose body contains characters with the high-order bit set. It will warn you after you have first edited the message and disable the c)c, m)ail, p)ost, s)end and y)es actions. You can then either e)dit the message to delete those characters, use 7)bit to strip the high-order bits, a)bort the message, or h)old it and select an 8-bit character set from _nn_. To complete an unfinished response saved by the h)old command, simply enter any response ac‐ tion, 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 re‐ sponse is completed. If your message contains 8-bit characters, the **charset** variable is not set to "unknown" and the message does not already have a **MIME-Version** or **Content-**_XXX_ header, _nn_ will add the fol‐ lowing headers to your message before sending it: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=_charset_ Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit It must be noted that sending 8-bit characters over the current news and mail networks is risky at best; although large parts of the network will pass through such characters un‐ changed, high-order bits may occasionally be stripped. Although the MIME standard provides solutions for this by encoding the characters, this is not yet supported by _nn_. Adding the above headers is an interim solution that is compatible with current practice and is much better than just sending the message without any hints about the character set used. **Related** **variables**: append-signature-mail, append-signature-post, charset, data-bits, 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 Pre‐ sentation 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 exe‐ cuted. 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 "" (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. When executed, the goto command will prompt you for the name of the newsgroup, folder, or file to open. It will use the first letter you enter to distinguish these three possibili‐ ties: **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 equiva‐ lent 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 direc‐ tory, 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. **=** and _number_ These answers are equivalent to the same answers described below applied to the cur‐ rent 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_ In this case you will get the newest N articles in the group, or if you specified the current group (by hitting **return** to the group name prompt or entering the number di‐ rectly), you will get that many _extra_ articles included on the same menu (without cre‐ ating a new menu level). **j** This answer can only be given if there are unread articles in the group. It will in‐ struct 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. **s**_word_ 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. **n**_word_ Same as the **s** form except that it searched for articles where the sender _name_ matches _word_. **e**_word_ 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. No‐ tice 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.) When the goto command creates a new menu level, _nn_ will not perform auto kill or selection in the group. You can use the **+** command in menu mode to perform the auto-selections. 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 **B**command, 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_ **G** dk.general **return** **u** _Jump_ _directly_ _to_ _the_ _gnu.emacs_ _group_ _and_ _continue_ _from_ _there_ **G** gnu.emacs **return** **j** _Include_ _the_ _last_ _10_ _READ_ _articles_ _in_ _the_ _current_ _group_ _menu_ **G** 10 **return** _Find_ _all_ _articles_ _in_ _rec.music.misc_ _on_ _the_ _subject_ _Floyd_ **G** rec.music.misc **return** **=** floyd **return** _Open_ _the_ _folder_ _+nn_ **G** +nn **return** _Split_ _current_ _article_ _as_ _a_ _digest_ _(in_ _reading_ _mode)_ **G** **%** **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 com‐ pletely 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 cur‐ rent (or specified) subject in the current group for a period of 30 days (which should be enough for the discussion to die out). You can control the default kill period, or change it into a "select" period via the **default-kill-select** variable. If this "default behaviour" is not what you want, just answer either _k_ or _s_ to kill or select articles, respectively, which will bring you on to the rest of the questions. _AUTO_ _SELECT_ _on_ _(s)ubject_ _or_ [_(n)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man//n/markdown)ame_ _(s)_ (The _SELECT_ will be substituted with _KILL_ depending on the previous answer). Here you specify whether you want the kill or select to depend on the subject of the 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 **%** fol‐ lowed by the corresponding article identifier. 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. 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 _in_sensi‐ tive). 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)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man//30/markdown)_ 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 perma‐ nent 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. ## THE FORMAT OF THE KILL FILE The kill file consists of one line for each entry. Empty lines and lines starting with a # character are ignored. _nn_ automatically places a # character in the first position of ex‐ pired entries when it compiles the kill file. You can then edit the kill file manually from time to time to clean out these entries. Each line has the following format [_expire_ _time_ :] [_group_ _name_] : _flags_ : _string_ [: _string_]... Permanent entries have no _expire_ _time_ (in which case the colon is omitted as well!). Other‐ wise, 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 or‐ der 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 matches follow-ups to that sub‐ ject (i.e. where the Subject: line starts with Re:). For example, to kill all "Re:"'s in rec.humor use the following kill entry: rec.humor:!>s/:. ### < (optional) When used with a subject (flag **s**), the kill entry only matches base articles with that subject (i.e. where the Subject: line does not start with Re:). For example, to kill all articles asking for help (but not follow-ups) in the tex group, add this to your kill file: comp.text.tex:!s", the following commands can be placed in the setup file: **set** included-mark > **lock** included-mark Some variables only make sense when set on the command line, since they are examined early in startup, before the init files are read. The syntax for setting variables on the command line is: **variable**=_value_ The value may need to be quoted if it contains white space or special characters. They can be intermixed with other options, and are examined prior to other argument parsing. 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 expres‐ sion. **:set** _partial-name_ **space** The **space** (**comp1-key**) key will complete the variable name as usual, but as a side ef‐ fect it will display the variable's current value in the message line. Variables are global by default, but a local instantiation of the variable can be created us‐ ing the **:local** command. The local variable will overlay the global variable as long as the current group is active, i.e. the global variable will be used again when you exit the cur‐ rent group. The initial value of the local variable will be the same as the global variable, unless a new value is specified in the **:local** command: **:local** _variable_ [ _value_ ] 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 administrative information is not available. Setting **also-full-di**‐‐ **gest** 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.ques‐ tions, 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 se‐ quence, 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 re‐ sponses 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). **attributes** _symbols_ (string, default ....) Each element in this string represents a symbol used to represent an article attribute when displayed on the screen. See the section on Marking Articles and Attributes. **auto-junk-seen** _(boolean,_ _default_ _true)_ When set, articles which have the _seen_ _attribute_ (,) will be marked read when the cur‐ rent group is left. If not set, these articles will still be either unread or marked seen the next time the group is entered (see also **confirm-junk-seen** and **retain-seen-** **status**_)._ **auto-preview-mode** _(boolean,_ _default_ _false)_ 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. Further‐ more, 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 un‐ conditionally 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-rw** (boolean, default false) If set, a subject of an article read or posted is automatically used for subsequent auto-selecting (if not already selected). This is the most efficient way to see your own posts automatically. **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) When set, a copy of the initial .newsrc and select files will save be the first time they are changed. _nn_ remembers the initial contents of these files internally, so the backup variable can be set any time if not set on start-up. **backup-folder-path** _file_ (string, default "BackupFolder~") When removing deleted articles from a folder, this variable defines the name of the file where a (temporary) copy of the original folder is saved. If the _file_ name doesn't contain a `/', the file will be located in the .nn directory. Otherwise the file name is used directly as the relative or full path name of the backup file. If possible, the old folder will be 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 ) 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. **charset** _charset_ (string, default "us-ascii") The character set in use on your terminal. Legal values are "us-ascii", "iso-8859-_X_", where _X_ is a nonzero digit, and "unknown". Setting this variable also sets the **data-** **bits** variable to the default bit width of the character set (7 for "us-ascii" and "un‐ known", 8 for the "iso-8859-_X_" sets). The value of this variable also determines whether _nn_ allows 8-bit characters in the body of articles being posted and letters being mailed (unless the value is "unknown", in which case this is determined by the value of the **data-bits** variable). If neces‐ sary, _nn_ will add extra headers to the message indicating its the character set. **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 tra‐ ditionally 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 long to be presented in full on the menus will be "collapsed" by removing a sufficient number of characters from the subject starting at the given _offset_ in the subject. This is useful in source groups where the "Part (01/10)" string sometimes disappears from the menu. When not set (or negative), the subjects are truncated. **columns** _col_ (integer, default screen width) This variable contains the screen width i.e. character positions per line. **comp1-key** _key_ (key, default **space**) The key which gives the first/next completion, and the 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 ar‐ ticles 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. Answering no to the "Enter?" prompt will cause _nn_ to skip to the next group without marking the current group as read. If you answer by hitting **interrupt**, _nn_ will ask the question "Mark as read?" which allows you to mark the current group as read before going to the next group. If this second question is also answered by hitting **inter**‐‐ **rupt**, _nn_ will quit immediately. **confirm-entry-limit** _articles_ (integer, default 0) Specifies the minimum number of unread articles in a group for which the **confirm-entry** functionality is activated. **confirm-junk-seen** (boolean, default false) 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 practically perfect alignment at the cost of less space for the subject itself. **cross-filter-seq** (boolean, default true) When set, cross posted articles will be presented in the first possible group, i.e. according to the current presentation sequence (_cross_-post _filter_ing on _seq_uence). The article is automatically marked read in the other cross posted groups unless you unsubscribe to the first group in which it was shown before reading the other groups. Likewise, it is sufficient to leave the article unread in the first group to keep it for later handling. If not set, cross-postings are shown in the first group occurring on the Newsgroups: line which the user subscribes to (i.e. you let the poster decide which group is most appropriate to read his posting). **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. **cross-post-limit** _N_ (integer, default 0) If this variable is set to a value other than 0, then any articles posted to more than _N_ newsgroups are automatically skipped. A value of 5 is pretty good for discarding ``spam'' articles. **data-bits** _bits_ (integer, default 7) When set to 7, _nn_ will display characters with the 8th bit set using a meta-notation **M-**_7bit-char_. If set to 8, these characters are sent directly to the screen (unless **monitor** is set). Setting the **charset** variable also sets this variable to the default bit width of character set. It also controls whether keyboard input is 7 or 8 bits, and thus whether key maps con‐ tain 127 or 255 entries. See the key mapping section for more details. If the **charset** has value "unknown", the value of **data-bits** also determines whether _nn_ allows 8-bit characters in the body of articles being posted and letters being mailed (this is normally determined directly by the **charset** variable). **date** (boolean, default true) If set _nn_ will show the article posting date when articles are read. **debug** _mask_ (integer, default 0) Look in the source if you are going to use this. **decode-header-file** _file_ (string, default "Decode.Headers") The name of the file in which the header and initial text of articles decoded with the **:decode** command is saved. Unless the file name starts with a `/', the file will be created in the same directory as the decoded files. The information is not saved if this variable is not set. **decode-skip-prefix** _N_ (integer, default 2) When non-null, the **:decode** command will automatically skip _up_ _to_ _N_ characters at the beginning of each line to find valid uuencoded data. This allows _nn_ to automatically decode (multi-part) postings which are both uuencoded and packed with shar. **default-distribution** _distr_ (string, default "world") The distribution to use as the default suggestion when posting articles using the **fol**‐‐ **low** and **post** commands if the corresponding **follow-distribution** or **post-distribution** variable contains the **default** option. **default-kill-select** _[1]days_ (number, default 30) Specifies the default action for the **K** {**kill-select**} command if the first prompt is answered by **return**. It contains the number of days to keep the kill or select entry in the kill file (1-99 days). If it has the value _days_+100 (e.g. 130), it denotes that the default action is to _select_ rather than kill on the subject for the specified period. **default-save-file** _file_ (string, default +$F) The default save file used when saving articles in news groups where no save file has been specified in the init file (either in a **save-files** section or in the presentation sequence). It can also be specified using the abbreviation "+" as the file name when prompted for a file name even in groups with their own save file. **delay-redraw** (boolean, default false) Normally, _nn_ will redraw the screen after extended commands (:cmd) that clear the screen. When **delay-redraw** is set _nn_ will prompt for another extended command instead of redrawing the screen (hit **return** to redraw). **echo-prefix-key** (boolean, default true) When true, hitting a prefix key (see the section on key mapping below) will cause the prefix key to be echoed in the message line to indicate that another key is expected. **edit-patch-command** (boolean, default true) When true, the **:patch** command will show the current **patch-command** and give you a chance to edit it before applying it to the articles. **edit-print-command** (boolean, default true) When true, the **print** command will show the current **printer** command and give you a chance to edit it before printing the articles. Otherwise the articles are just printed using the current **printer** command. **edit-response-check** (boolean, default true) When editing a response to an article, it normally does not have any meaning to send the initial file prepared by _nn_ unaltered, since it is either empty or only contains included material. When this variable is set, exiting the editor without having changed the file will automatically abort the response action without confirmation. **edit-unshar-command** (boolean, default false) When true, the **:unshar** command will show the current **unshar-command** and give you a chance to edit it before applying it to the articles. **editor** _command_ (string, default not set) When set, it will override the current EDITOR environment variable when editing re‐ sponses and new articles. **embedded-header-escape** _string_ (string, default '~') When saving an article to a file, header lines embedded in the body of the article are escaped using this string to make it possible for _nn_ to split the folder correctly af‐ terwards. Header lines are not escaped if this variable is not set. **enter-last-read-mode** _mode_ (integer, default 1) Normally, _nn_ will remember which group is active when you quit, and offer to jump di‐ rectly to this group when you start _nn_ the next time. This variable is used to con‐ trol this behaviour. The following _mode_ values are recognized: 0: Ignore the remembered group (r.g.). 1: Enter r.g. if the group is unread (with user confirmation) 2: Enter r.g. or first unread group after it in the sequence (w/conf). 3: Enter r.g. if the group is unread (no confirmation) 4: Enter r.g. or first unread group after it in the sequence (no conf). **entry-report-limit** _articles_ (integer, default 300) Normally, _nn_ will just move the cursor to the upper left corner of the screen while it is reading articles from the database on entry to a group. For large groups this may take more than a fraction of a second, and _nn_ can then report what it is doing. If it must read more articles than the number specified by this variable, _nn_ will report which group and how many articles it is reading. **erase-key** _key_ (key, default tty erase key) The key which erases the last input character when _nn_ is prompting for a string, e.g. a file name. **expert** (boolean, default false) If set _nn_ will use slightly shorter prompts (e.g. not tell you that ? will give you help), and be a bit less verbose in a few other cases (e.g. not remind you that posted articles are not available instantly). **expired-message-delay** _pause_ (integer, default 1) If a selected article is found to have been expired, _nn_ will normally give a message about this and sleep for a number of seconds specified by this variable. Setting this variable to zero will still make _nn_ give the message without sleeping afterwards. Setting it to -1 will cause the message not to be shown at all. **flow-control** (boolean, default true) When set, _nn_ will turn on xon/xoff flow-control before writing large amounts of text to the screen. This should guard against lossage of output, but in some network con‐ figurations it has had the opposite effect, losing several lines of the output. This variable is always true on systems with CBREAK capabilities which can do single char‐ acter reads without disabling flow control. **flush-typeahead** (boolean, default false) When true, _nn_ will flush typeahead prior to reading commands from the keyboard. It will not flush typeahead while reading parameters for a command, e.g. file names etc. **folder** _directory_ (string, default ~/News) The full pathname of the _folder_ _directory_ which will replace the + in folder names. It will be initialized from the FOLDER environment variable if it is not set in the _init_ file. **folder-format-check** (boolean, default true) When saving an article with a full or partial header in an existing folder, _nn_ will check the format of the folder to be able to append the article in the proper format. If this variable is not set, folders are assumed to be in the format specified via the **mmdf-format** and **mail-format** variables, and articles are saved in that format without checking. Otherwise, the ***-format** variables are only used to determine the format for _new_ folders. **folder-save-file** _file_ (string, default not set) The default save file used when saving articles _from_ a folder. **follow-distribution** _words_ (string, default see below) This variable controls how the Distribution: header is constructed for a follow-up to an original article. Its value is a list of _words_ selected from the following list: [ [ **always** ] **same** ] [ **ask** ] [ **default** | _distribution_ ] This is interpreted in two steps: - First the default distribution is determined. If **same** is specified and the original article has a Distribution: header, that header is used. Else if **default** is specified (or _distribution_ is omitted), the value of **default-distribution** is used. And finally, if only a _distribution_ (any word) is specified that is used as the default. - Then if **ask** is specified, the user will be asked to confirm the default distribution or provide another distribution. However, if **always** (and **same**) is specified, and the default was taken from the original article's distribution, the original distribution is used _without_ confirmation. The default value of **follow-distribution** is **always** **same** **default**, i.e. use either the original distribution or the **default-distribution** without confirmation in either case. **from-line-parsing** _strictness_ (integer, default 2) Specifies how strict _nn_ must parse a "From " line in a folder to recognize it as a mail format message separator line. The following strictness values determine whether a line starting with "From " will be recognized as a separator line: 0: Always. 1: Line must have at least 8 fields. 2: Line must contain a valid date and time (ctime style). **fsort** (boolean, default true) When set, folders are sorted alphabetically according to the subject (and age). Oth‐ erwise, the articles in a folder will be presented in the sequence in which they were saved. **guard-double-slash** (boolean, default false) Normally, when entering a file name, entering two slashes `//' in a row (or following a slash by a plus `/+') will cause _nn_ to erase the entire line and replace it with the `/' (or `+'). On some systems, two slashes are used in network file names, and on those systems **guard-double-slash** can be set; that will cause _nn_ to require _three_ slashes in a row to clear the input. **header-lines** _list_ (string, no default) When set, it determines the list of header fields that are shown when an article is read instead of the normal one line header showing the author and subject. See the full description in the section on Customized Article Headers below. **help-key** _key_ (key, default **?**) The key which ends the current completion and gives a list of possible completions for the next component when _nn_ is prompting for a string, e.g. a file name. **ignore-re** (boolean, default false) If set, articles with subjects already seen in a previous invocation of nn or another newsreader - and not auto-selected - are automatically killed. A great way to read even less news! **ignore-xon-xoff** (boolean, default false) Normally, _nn_ will ignore ^S and ^Q in the input from the terminal (if they are not handled in the tty driver). Setting this variable will treat these characters as nor‐ mal input. **include-art-id** (boolean, default false) The first line in a response with included material normally reads "...somebody... writes:" without a reference to the specific article from which the quotation was taken (this is found in the References: line). When this variable is set, the line will also include the article id of the referenced article: "In ...article... ... writes:". **include-full-header** (boolean, default false) When set, the **mail** (M) command will always include the full header of the original ar‐ ticle. If it is not set, it only includes the header when the article is forwarded without being edited. **include-mark-blank-lines** (boolean, default false) When set, the **included-mark** is placed on blank lines in included articles. Otherwise, blank lines are left blank (to make it easy to delete whole paragraphs with `d}' in vi and `C-@ M-] C-W' in emacs). **included-mark** _string_ (string, default ">") This string is prefixed to all lines in the original article that are included in a reply or a follow-up. (Now you have the possibility to change it, but please don't. Lines with a mixture of prefixes like : orig-> <> } ] #- etc. are very difficult to comprehend. Let's all use the standard folks! (And hack inews if it is the 50% rule that bothers you.) **inews** _shell-command_ (string, default "INEWS_PATH -h") The program which is invoked by _nn_ to deliver an article to the news transport. The program will be given a complete article including a header containing the newsgroups to which the article is to be posted. See also **inews-pipe-input**. It is _not_ used when cancelling an article! **inews-pipe-input** (boolean, default true) When set, the article to be posted will be piped into the **inews** program. Otherwise, the file containing the article will be given as the first (and only) argument to the **inews** command. **initial-newsrc-file** _file_ (string, default '.defaultnewsrc') Defines the name of a file which is used as the initial .newsrc file for new users. The name may be a full path name, or as the default a file name which will be looked for in a number of places: in the standard news lib directory (where it can be shared with other news readers), in nn's lib directory, and in the database directory. Groups which are not present in the initial .newsrc file will be automatically unsub‐ scribed provided **new-group-action** is set to a value allowing unsubscribed groups to be omitted from .newsrc. **keep-backup-folder** (boolean, default false) When set, the backup folder (see **backup-folder-path**) created when removing deleted ar‐ ticles from a folder is not removed. Notice that a backup folder is not created if all articles are removed from a folder! **keep-unsubscribed** (boolean, default true) When set, unsubscribed groups are kept in .newsrc. If not set, _nn_ will automatically remove all unsubscribed from .newsrc if **tidy-newsrc** is set. See also **unsubscribe-** **mark-read**. **kill** (boolean, default true) If set, _nn_ performs automatic kill and selection based on the _kill_ file. **kill-debug** (boolean, default false) When set, _nn_ will display a trace of the auto-kill/select process on entry to a group. It is automatically turned off if `q' is entered as the answer to a "hit any key" prompt during the debug output. **kill-key** _key_ (key, default tty kill key) The key which deletes the current line when _nn_ is prompting for a string, e.g. a file name. **kill-reference-count** _N_ (integer, default 0) When this variable is non-zero, all articles which have _N_ or more references on the References: line (corresponding to the number of >>'s on the menu line) will be auto- killed if they are not auto-selected (or preserved) via an entry in the kill file. It should probably not be used globally for all groups, but can be set on a per-group via the entry macros. **layout** _number_ (integer, default 1) Set the menu layout. The argument must be a number between 0 and 4. **limit** _max-articles_ (integer, default infinite) _Limit_ the maximum number of articles presented in each group to _max-articles._ The de‐ fault is to present _all_ unread articles no matter how many there are. Setting this variable, only the most recent _max-articles_ articles will be presented, but all the articles will still be marked as read. This is useful to get up-to-date quickly if you have not read news for a longer period. **lines** _lin_ (integer, default screen height) This variable contains the screen height i.e. number of lines. **long-menu** (boolean, default false) If set _nn_ will not put an empty line after the header line and an empty line before the prompt line; this gives you two extra menu lines. **macro-debug** (boolean, default false) If set _nn_ will trace the execution of all macros. Prior to the execution of each com‐ mand or operation in a macro, it will show the name of the command or the input string or key stroke at the bottom of the screen. **mail** _file_ (string, default not set) _file_ must be a full path name of a file. If defined, _nn_ will check for arrival of new mail every minute or so by looking at the specified file. **mail-alias-expander** _program_ (string, default not set) When set, aliases used in mail responses may be expanded by the specified _program_. The program will be given the completed response in a file as its only argument, and the aliases should be expanded directly in this file (of course the _program_ may use temporary files and other means to expand the aliases as long the the result is stored in the provided file). Notice: currently there are no alias expanders delivered with _nn_. Warning: Errors in the expansion process may lead to the response not being sent. **mail-format** (boolean, default false) When set, _nn_ will save articles in a format that is compatible with normal mail fold‐ ers. Unless **folder-format-check** is false, it is only used to specify the format used when new folders are created. This variable is ignored if **mmdf-format** is set. **mail-header** _headers_ (string, default not set) The _headers_ string specifies one or more extra header lines (separated by semi-colons `;') which are added to the header of mail sent from _nn_ using the **reply** and **mail** com‐ mands. For example: set mail-header Reply-To: ;Organization: TI - DK To include a semicolon `;' in a header, precede it by a backslash (which must be dou‐ bled because of the conventions for entering strings). **mail-record** _file_ (string, default not set) _file_ must be a full path name of a file. If defined, all replies and mail will be saved in this file in standard _mailbox_ format, i.e. you can use you favourite mailer (and _nn_) to look at the file. **mail-script** _file_ (string, default not set) When set, _nn_ will use the specified file instead of the standard _aux_ script when exe‐ cuting the **reply** and **mail** commands. **mailer** _shell-command_ (string, default REC_MAIL) The program which is invoked by _nn_ to deliver a message to the mail transport. The program will be given a complete mail message including a header containing the recip‐ ient's address. See also **mailer-pipe-input**. **mailer-pipe-input** (boolean, default true) When set, the message to be sent will be piped into the **mailer** program. Otherwise, the file containing the message will be given as the first (and only) argument to the **mailer** command. **marked-by-next-group** _N_ (integer, default 0) Specifies the amount of (unmarked) articles on the menu marked _seen_ by the **N** {**next-** **group**} command in selection mode. See **marked-by-read-skip** for possible values of _N_. **marked-by-read-return** _N_ (integer, default 0) Specifies the amount of (unmarked) articles on the menu marked _seen_ by the **Z** {**read-re**‐‐ **turn**} command in selection mode. See **marked-by-read-skip** for possible values of _N_. **marked-by-read-skip** _N_ (integer, default 4) Specifies the amount of (unmarked) articles on the menu marked _seen_ by the **X** {**read-** **skip**} command in selection mode. The following values of _N_ are recognized: 0: No articles are marked seen 1: Current page is marked seen 2: Previous pages are marked seen 3: Previous and current pages are marked seen 4: All pages are marked seen **mark-overlap** (boolean, default false) When set, _nn_ will draw a line (using the underline capabilities of the terminal if possible) to indicate the end of the overlap (see the **overlap** variable). **mark-overlap-shading** (boolean, default false) When set, _nn_ will _shade_ overlapping lines (see the **overlap** variable) using the at‐ tributes defined by the **shading-on** and **shading-off** variables (of if not set, with the underline attribute). This is typically used to give overlapping lines a different colour on terminals which have this capability. **menu-spacing** _mode_ (integer, default 0) When _mode_ is a non-zero number as described below, _nn_ will add blank lines between the lines on the menu to increase readability at the cost of presenting fewer articles on each page. The following values of _mode_ are recognized: 0: Don't add blank lines between menu lines. 1: Add a blank line between articles with _different_ subjects. 2: Add a blank line between _all_ articles. **merge-report-rate** _rate_ (integer, default 1) When _nn_ is invoked with the -m option (directly or via _nngrap_), a status report of the merging process is displayed and updated on the screen every _rate_ seconds. The report contains the time used so far and an estimate of the time needed to complete the merge. **message-history** _N_ (integer, default 15) Specifies the maximum number, _N_, of older messages which can be recalled with the **^P** {**message**} command. **min-window** _size_ (integer, default 7) When the **window** variable is not set, _nn_ will clear the screen to preview an article if there are less than _size_ unused lines at the bottom of the menu screen. **mmdf-format** (boolean, default false) When set, _nn_ will save articles in MMDF format. Unless **folder-format-check** is false, it is only used to specify the format used when new folders are created. **monitor** (boolean, default false) When set, _nn_ will show _all_ characters in the received messages using a "cat -v" like format. Otherwise, only the printable characters are shown (default). **motd** (boolean, default true) When set, _nn_ will display the _message_ _of_ _the_ _day_ on start-up if it has changed since it was last shown. The message is taken from the file "motd" in the lib directory. It can also be shown (again) using the **:motd** command. **multi-key-guard-time** _timeout_ (integer, default 2) When reading a multi-key sequence from the keyboard, _nn_ will expect the characters constituting the multi-key to arrive "quickly" after each other. When a partial multi-key sequence is read, _nn_ will wait (at least) _timeout_ tenths of a second for each of the following characters to arrive to complete the multi-key sequence. If the multi-key sequence is _not_ completed within this period, _nn_ will read the partial multi-key sequence as individual characters instead. This way it is still possible to use for example the ESC key on a terminal with vt100 like arrow keys. When _nn_ is used via an rlogin connection, you may have to increase the timeout to get reliable recog‐ nition of multi-keys. **new-group-action** _action_ (integer, default 3) This variable controls how new groups are treated by _nn_. It is an integer variable, and the following values can be used. Some of these actions (marked with an *) will only work when **keep-unsubscribed** is set, since the presence of a group in .newsrc is the only way to recognize it as an old group: **0**) Ignore groups which are not in .newsrc. This will obviously include new groups, and therefore you must explicitly add any new groups that you care about (by editing the _.newsrc_ file, or using the **G** menu command and then subscribing to the group). When **NNTP** is being used, this setting prevents the _active.times_ data from being read from the server; this can be helpful when using a slow link, since the data can often be hundreds of KBytes long. **1***) Groups not in .newsrc are considered to be new, and are inserted at the beginning of the .newsrc file. **2***) Groups not in .newsrc are considered to be new, and are appended to the end of the .newsrc file. **3**) New groups are recognized via a time-stamp saved in the file .nn/LAST and in the database, i.e. it is not dependent on the groups currently in .newsrc. The new groups are automatically appended to .newsrc with subscription. Old groups not present in .newsrc will be considered to be unsubscribed. **4**) As **3**, but the user is asked to confirm that the new group should be appended to .newsrc. If rejected, the group will not be appended to .newsrc, and thus be regarded as unsubscribed. **5**) As **4**, except that the information is stored in a format compatible with the _rn_ news reader (.rnlast). This needs to be tested! **new-style-read-prompt** (boolean, default true) When set, the reading mode prompt line includes the group name and the number of se‐ lected articles in the group. **news-header** _headers_ (string, default not set) The _headers_ string specifies one or more extra header lines (separated by semi-colons `;') which are added to the header of articles posted from _nn_ using the **follow** and **post** commands. See **mail-header** for an example. **news-record** _file_ (string, default not set) Save file for follow-ups and postings. Same rules and format as the **mail-record** vari‐ able. **news-script** _file_ (string, default not set) When set, _nn_ will use the specified file instead of the standard _aux_ script when exe‐ cuting the **follow** and **post** commands. **newsrc** _file_ (string, default "~/.newsrc") Specifies the file used by _nn_ to register which groups and articles have been read. The default setting corresponds to the .newsrc file used by other news readers. Notice that _nn_ release 6.4 onwards _does_ _allow_ individual articles to be marked unread, and some arti‐ cles marked unread, and thus no longer messes up .newsrc for other news readers! Also see _nntp-server_. **nn-directory** _directory_ (string, default "~/.nn") It only makes sense to set this variable on the command line, e.g. "nn-direc‐ tory=$HOME/.nn2" since it is looked at before the init file is read. It must be set to a full pathname. Usually set when using multiple servers; see _newsrc_ above and _nntp-server_ below. **nntp-cache-dir** _directory_ (string, default "~/.nn") When NNTP is used, _nn_ needs to store articles temporarily on disk. This variable specifies which directory _nn_ will use to hold these files. The default value may be changed during configuration. This variable can only be set in the init file. **nntp-cache-size** _size_ (integer, default 10, maximum 10) Specifies the number of temporary files in the nntp cache. The default and maximum values may be changed during configuration. **nntp-debug** (boolean, default false) When set, a trace of the nntp related traffic is displayed in the message line on the screen. **nntp-server** _hostname_ or _filename_ _(string)_ It only makes sense to set this variable on the command line, e.g. "nntp- server=news.some.domain", since it is looked at before the init file, If you use mul‐ tiple servers, you probably want to set the _nn-directory_ and _newsrc_ variables on the command line to alternate names as well, since some of the data files are server de‐ pendent. **old** [_max-articles_] (integer, default not set) When **old** is set, _nn_ will present (or scan) all (or the last _max-articles_) unread as well as read articles. While **old** is set, _nn_ will _never_ mark any unread articles as read. **old-packname** (boolean, default false) When set, nn display names identically to nn-6.6.5 (and earlier). Only set this if you have a large number of entries in your killfile that no longer work due to the new behaviour. Note that in the long run, this option will go away, so it's best to up‐ date your killfile rather than set this. **orig-to-include-mask** _N_ (integer, default 3) When replying to an article, _nn_ will include some of the header lines which may be used to construct a proper mail address for the poster of the original article. These addresses are placed on _Orig-To:_ lines in the reply header and will automatically be removed before the letter is sent. This variable specifies which headers from the ar‐ ticle are included; its value _N_ is the sum of the following values: 1: _Reply-To:_ 2: _From:_ 4: _Path:_ **overlap** _lines_ (integer, default 2) Specifies the number of overlapping lines from one page to the next when paging through an article in reading mode. The last line from the previous page will be un‐ derlined if the terminal has that capability. **pager** _shell-command_ (string, default $PAGER) This is the pager used by the **:admin** command (and _nnadmin_) when it executes certain commands, e.g. grepping in the Log file. **patch-command** _shell-command_ (string, default "patch -p0") This is the command which is invoked by the **:patch** command. **post-distribution** _words_ (string, default see below) This variable controls how the Distribution: header is constructed when posting an original article. Its value is a list of _words_ selected from the following list: [ **ask** ] [ **default** | _distribution_ ] This is interpreted in two steps: - First the default distribution is determined. If **default** is specified (or _distribu__‐ _tion_ is omitted), the value of **default-distribution** is used. Otherwise, the specified _distribution_ (any word) is used as the default. - Then if **ask** is specified, the user will be asked to confirm the default distribution or provide another distribution. The default value of **post-distribution** is **ask** **default**, i.e. use the **default-distribu**‐‐ **tion** with confirmation from the user. **preview-continuation** _cond_ (integer, default 12) This variable determines on what terms the following article should be automatically shown when previewing an article, and the **next-article** command is used, or **continue** is used at the end of the article. The following values can be used: **0** - never show the next article (return to the menu). **1** - always show the next article (use 'q' to return to the menu). **2** - show the next article if it has the same subject as the current article, else re‐ turn to the menu. The value should be the _sum_ of two values: one for the action after using **continue** on the last page of the article, and one for the action performed when the **next-article** command is used _multiplied_ _by_ _10_. **preview-mark-read** (boolean, default true) When set, previewing an article will mark the article as read. **previous-also-read** (boolean, default true) When set, going back to the previously read group with **P** {**previous**} will include arti‐ cles read in the current invocation of _nn_ even if there are still unread articles in the group. **print-header-lines** _fields_ (string, default "FDGS") Specifies the list of header fields that are output when an article is printed via the **:print** command and **print-header-type** is 1 (short header). The _fields_ specification is described in the section on Customized Article Headers below. **print-header-type** _N_ (integer, default 1) Specifies what kind of header is printed by the **:print** command, corresponding to the three **save-*** commands: _0_ prints only the article body (no header), _1_ prints a short header, and _2_ prints the full article header. **printer** _shell-command_ (string, default is system dep.) This is the default value for the **print** command. It should include an option which prevents the spooler from echoing a job-id or similar to the terminal to avoid prob‐ lems with screen handling (e.g. lp -s on System V). **query-signature** (boolean, default ...) Will cause _nn_ to require confirmation before appending the .signature file to out-go‐ ing mail or news if the corresponding **append-sig-**... variable is set. **quick-count** (boolean, default true) When set, calculating the total number of unread articles at start-up is done by sim‐ ple subtracting the first unread article number from the total number of articles in each group. This is very fast, and fairly accurate but it may be a bit too large. If not set, each line in .newsrc will be interpreted to count every unread article, thus giving a very accurate number. This variable is also used by _nncheck_. **quick-save** (boolean, default false) When set, _nn_ will not prompt for a file name when an article is saved (unless it be‐ longs to a folder). Instead it uses the save file specified for the current group in the init file or the default save file. **re-layout** _N_ (integer, default 0) Normally on the menu, _nn_ will prefix the subject a number of `>'s corresponding to the number of references on the References: line. The **re-layout** variable may be set to use a different prefix on the subjects: 0: One `>' per reference is shown (default). 1: A single `>' is shown if the Subject contains Re:. 2: The number of references is shown as `n>' 3: A single Re: is shown. 4: If any references use layout 0, else layout 1. **re-layout-read** _N_ (integer, default -1) When the **header-lines** variable is not set, or contains the "*" field specifier, a line similar to the menu line will be used as the header of the article in reading mode, including the sender's name and the article's subject. When this variable is nega‐ tive, the subject on this header line will be prefixed according to the **re-layout** variable. Otherwise, it will define the format of the "Re:" prefix to be used instead of the **re-layout** used on the menu. **read-return-next-page** (boolean, default false) When set, the **Z** {**read-return**} command will return to the _next_ menu page rather than the current menu page. **record** _file_ (string, no default) Setting this _pseudo_ variable will set both the **mail-record** and the **news-record** vari‐ ables to the specified pathname. **repeat** (boolean, default false) When set, _nn_ will not eliminate duplicated subject lines on menus (I cannot imagine why anyone should want that, but....) **repeat-group-query** (boolean, default false) When set, invoking _nn_ with the **-g** option will always repeat the query for a group to enter until you quit explicitly. (Same as setting the **-r** option permanently). **report-cost** (boolean, default true) This variable is ignored unless _nn_ is running with accounting enabled (see _nnacct_). When set, _nn_ will report the cost of the current session and the total on exit. **response-check-pause** _pause_ (integer, default 2) Specifies the number of seconds to wait after posting an article to see whether the action *might* have failed. Some commands run in the background and may thus not have completed during this period, so even when _nn_ says "Article posted", it may still fail (in which case you are informed via mail). **response-default-answer** _action_ (string, default "send") The default action to be taken when hitting **return** to the "response action" prompt (abort, edit, send, view, write). If it is unset, no default action is defined. **retain-seen-status** (boolean, default false) Normally, seen articles will just be unread the next time the group is entered (unless they were marked read by **auto-junk-seen**). If **retain-seen-status** is set, the seen at‐ tribute on the articles will survive to the next time the group is entered. (This is not recommended because it may result in very large select files). **retry-on-error** _times_ (integer, default 0) When set, _nn_ will try the specified number of _times_ to open an article before report‐ ing that the article does not exist any more. This may be necessary in some network environments. **save-closed-mode** _mode_ (integer, default 13) When saving an article in selection mode (i.e. by selecting it from the menu), _nn_ will simply save the specified article if the article's subject is _open_. When the selected menu entry is a closed subject, the **save-closed-mode** variable determines how many ar‐ ticles among the closed articles should be saved: 0: save root article (the one on the menu) only 1: save selected articles within subject 2: save unread (excl selected) articles within subject 3: save selected+unread articles within subject 4: save all articles within subject If `10' is added to the above values, _nn_ will not save the selected subject immedi‐ ately; instead it will ask which articles to save using the above value as the default answer. **save-counter** _format_ (string, default "%d") This is the printf-format which _nn_ uses to create substitution string for the trailing * in save file names. You can set this to more complex formats if you like, but be sure that it will produce different strings for different numbers. An alternative format which seems to be popular is ".%02d" . **save-counter-offset** _N_ (integer, default 0) Normally, file names created with the _part.*_ form will substitute the _*_ with succes‐ sive numbers starting from one. Setting this variable will cause these numbers to start from _N_+1. **save-header-lines** _fields_ (string, default "FDNS") Specifies the list of header fields that are saved when an article is saved via the **O** {**save-short**} command. The _fields_ specification is described in the section on Custom‐ ized Article Headers below. **save-report** (boolean, default true) When set, a message reporting the number of lines written is shown after saving an ar‐ ticle. Since messages are shown for a few seconds, this may slow down the saving of many articles (e.g. using the **S*** command). **scroll-clear-page** (boolean, default true) Determines whether _nn_ clears the screen before showing each new page of an article. **scroll-last-lines** _N_ (integer, default 0) Normally, _nn_ will show each new page of an article from the top of the screen (with proper marking of the overlap). When this variable is set to a negative value, _nn_ will scroll the text of the new pages from the bottom of the screen instead. If it is set to a positive value, _nn_ will show pages from the top as usual, but switch to scrolling when there are _less_ _than_ the specified number of lines left in the article. **select-leave-next** (boolean, default false) When set, you will be asked whether to select articles with the **leave-next** attribute on entry to a group with left over articles. **select-on-sender** (boolean, default false) Specifies whether the **find** (=) command in article selection mode will match on the subject or the sender. **shading-on** _code_... (control string, default not set) Specifies the escape code to be sent to the terminal to cause "shading" of the follow‐ ing output to the screen. This is used if the **mark-overlap-shading** is set, and by the `+' attribute in the **header-lines** variable. **shading-off** _code_... (control string, default not set) Specifies the escape code to be sent to the terminal to turn off the shading defined by **shading-on**. Shading will typically be done by changing the foreground colour to change, e.g. on term ti924-colour set shading-on ^[ [ 3 2 m set shading-off ^[ [ 3 7 m set mark-overlap-shading unset mark-overlap end **shell** _program_ (string, default $SHELL) The shell program used to execute shell escapes. **shell-restrictions** (boolean, default false) When set (in the init file), _nn_ will not allow the user to invoke the shell in any way, including saving on pipes. It also prevents the user from changing certain vari‐ ables containing commands. **show-purpose-mode** _N_ (integer, default 1) Normally, _nn_ will show the purpose of a group the first time it is read, provided a purpose is known. Setting this variable, this behaviour can be changed as follows: 0: Never show the purpose. 1: Show the purpose for new groups only. 2: Show the purpose for all groups. When **NNTP** is being used, a setting of 0 prevents the newsgroups purpose data from be‐ ing read from the server; this can be helpful when using a slow link, since the data can often be hundreds of KBytes long. **sign-type** (string, default pgp) What program nn will use to sign messages via the Sign command. Only _pgp_ and _gpg_ are currently valid. **silent** (boolean, default false) When set, _nn_ won't print the logo or "No News" if there are no unread articles. Only useful to set in the init file or with the **-Q** option. **slow-mode** (boolean, default false) When set, _nn_ will cut down on the screen output to give better response time at low speed. Normally, _nn_ will use standout mode (if possible) to mark selected articles on the menu, but when **slow-mode** is set, _nn_ will just put an asterisk `*' next to the ar‐ ticle identifier on selected articles. Also when **slow-mode** is set _nn_ will avoid re‐ drawing the screen in the following cases: After a **goto-group** command an empty menu is shown (hit **space** to make it appear), and after responding to an article, only the prompt line is shown (use ^L to redraw the screen). To avoid redrawing the screen af‐ ter an extended command, set the **delay-redraw** variable as well. **slow-speed** _speed_ (integer, default 1200) If the terminal is running at this baud rate or lower, the **on** **slow** (see the section on init files) condition will be true, and the **on** **fast** will be false (and vice-versa). **sort** (boolean, default true) When set, _nn_ will sort articles according to the current **sort-mode** on entry to a group. Otherwise, articles will be presented in order of arrival. If not set on en‐ try to a menu for merged groups, the articles from each group will be kept together on the menu. If **sort** is unset while merged groups are presented on the menu, the arti‐ cles will be reordered by local article number (which may not keep articles from the same group together). **sort-mode** _mode_ (integer, default 1) The default sort algorithm used to sort the articles on entry to a news group. It is a numeric value corresponding to one of the sorting methods described in connection with the :sort command: 0 - arrival (ordered by article number) 1 - subject (subjects ordered after age of first article) 2 - lexical (subjects in lexicographical order) 3 - age (articles ordered after posting date only) 4 - sender (articles ordered after sender's name) **spell-checker** _shell-command_ (string, default not set) When set, responses can be checked for spelling mistakes via the (i)spell action. The command to perform the spelling is given the file containing the full article includ‐ ing header as its only argument. If the spell checker can fix spelling mistakes, it must apply the changes directly to this file. **split** (boolean, default true) When set, digests will automatically and silently be split into sub-articles which are then handled transparently as normal articles. Otherwise, digests are presented as one article (which you can split on demand with the **G** command). **stop** _lines_ (integer, default not set) When **stop** is set, _nn_ will only show the first _lines_ lines of the of each article be‐ fore prompting you to continue. This is useful on slow terminals and modem lines to be able to see the first few lines of longer articles (and skipping the rest with the **n** command). **subject-match-limit** _length_ (integer, default 256) Subjects will be considered identical if their first _length_ characters match. Setting this uncritically to a low value may cause unexpected results! **subject-match-offset** _offset_ (integer, default 0) When set to a positive number, that many characters at the beginning of the subject will be ignored when comparing subjects for ordering and equality purposes. **subject-match-parts** (boolean, default false) When set, two subjects will be considered equal if they are identical up to the first (differing) digit. Together with the **subject-match-offset** variable, this can be used in source groups where the subject often has a format like: vXXXXXX: Name of the package (Part 01/04) Setting **subject-match-offset** to 8 and **subject-match-parts** to true will make _nn_ con‐ sider all four parts of the package having the same subject (and thus be selectable with `*'). Notice that changing the **subject-match-**... variables manually will not have an immedi‐ ate effect. To reorder the menu, an explicit **:sort** command must be performed. These variables are mainly intended to be set using the **:local** command in **on** **entry** macros for source and binary groups (entry macros are evaluated before the menu is collected and sorted). **subject-match-minimum** _characters_ (integer, default 4) When set to a positive number, that many characters at the beginning of the subject must match before the subject-match-parts option comes into affect. This is impor‐ tant, because the part matching causes the rest of the line to be ignored after the first digit pair is discovered. This begins after any subject-match-offset has been applied. **suggest-default-save** (boolean, default true) When set, _nn_ will present the **default-save-file** when prompting for a save file name in a group without a specific save file, or **folder-save-file** when saving from a folder. When not set, no file name is presented, and to use the default save file, a single + must be specified. **tidy-newsrc** (boolean, default false) When set, _nn_ will automatically remove lines from .newsrc which represent groups not found in the active file or unsubscribed groups if **keep-unsubscribed** is not set. **time** (boolean, default true) When set, _nn_ will show the current time in the prompt line. This is useful on systems without a _sysline_ [_(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man//1/markdown)_ utility. **trace-folder-packing** (boolean, default true) When set, a trace of the retained and deleted messages is printed when a folder is rewritten. **trusted-escape-codes** _codes_ (string, default none) When set to a list of one or more characters, _nn_ will trust and output _escape_ charac‐ ters in an article if it is followed by one of the characters in the list. For exam‐ ple, to switch to or from kanji mode, control codes like "_esc_ $" and "_esc_ ( J" may be present in the text. To allow these codes, use the following command: set trusted-escape-codes ($ You can also set it to **all** to pass all escape codes through to the screen. Notice that _nn_ thinks all characters (including _esc_) output to the screen as occupy one col‐ umn. **unshar-command** _shell-command_ (string, default "/bin/sh") This is the command which is invoked by the **unshar** command. **unshar-header-file** _file_ (string, default "Unshar.Headers") The name of the file in which the header and initial text of articles unpacked with the **:unshar** command is saved. Unless the file name starts with a `/', the file will be created in the same directory as the unpacked files. The information is not saved if this variable is not set. Setting it to "Unshar.Result" will cause the headers and the results from the unpacking process to be merged in a meaningful way (unless **mmdf-** **format** is set). **unsubscribe-mark-read** (boolean, default true) When set, unsubscribing to a group will automatically mark all current articles read; this is recommended to keep the size of .newsrc down. Otherwise, unread articles in the unsubscribe groups are kept in .newsrc. If **keep-unsubscribed** is false, this vari‐ able has no effect. **update-frequency** (integer, default 1) Specifies how many changes need to be done to the .newsrc or select files before they are written back to disk. The default setting causes .newsrc to be updated every time a group has been read. **use-editor-line** (boolean, default true) Most editors accept arguments of the form: editor [-arguments] +n filename where editor is the name of the editor, and n is the line number to put the cursor upon entering the file. If use-editor-line is false, it will not add the "+n" to the arguments. **use-path-in-from** (boolean, default false) When **mail-format** is set, saved articles will be preceded by a specially formatted "From " line: From origin date Normally, the origin will be the name of the news group where the article appeared, but if **use-path-in-from** is set, the contents of the "Path:" header will be used as the origin. **use-selections** (boolean, default true) When set, _nn_ uses the selections and other article attributes saved last time _nn_ was used. If not set, _nn_ ignores the select file. **visible-bell** (boolean, default true) When set, _nn_ will flash the screen instead of "ringing the bell" if the visible bell (flash) capability is defined in the termcap/terminfo database. **window** _size_ (integer, default not set) When set, _nn_ will reserve the last _size_ lines of the menu screen for a preview window. If not set, _nn_ will clear the screen to preview an article if there are less than **min-** **window** lines at the bottom of the screen. As a side effect, it can also be used to reduce the size of the menus, which may be useful on slow terminals. **word-key** _key_ (key, default ^W) The key which erases the last input component or word when _nn_ is prompting for a string, e.g. the last name in a path name. **wrap-header-margin** _size_ (integer, default 6) When set (non-negative), the customized header fields specified in **header-lines** will be split across several lines if they don't fit on one line. When _size_ is greater than zero, lines will be split at the first space occurring in the last _size_ columns of the line. If not set (or negative), long header lines will be truncated if they don't fit on a single line. ## CUSTOMIZED ARTICLE HEADER PRESENTATION Normally, _nn_ will just print a (high-lighted) single line header containing the author, sub‐ ject, and date (optional) of the article when it is read. By setting the **header-lines** variable as described below, it is possible to get a more infor‐ mative multi line header with optional high-lighting and underlining. The **header-lines** variable is set to a list of header line identifiers, and the customized headers will then contain exactly these header lines _in_ _the_ _specified_ _order_. The same specifications are also used by the **:print** and **save-short** commands via the **print-** **header-lines** and **save-header-lines** variables. The following header line identifiers are recognized in the **header-lines**, **print-header-lines**, and **save-header-lines** variables: **A** Approved: **a** Spool-File:(path of spool file containing the article) **B** Distribution: **C** Control: **D** Date: **d** Date-Received: **F** From: **f** Sender: **G** Newsgroup:(current group) **g** Newsgroup:(current group if cross-posted or merged) **I** Message-Id: **K** Keywords: **L** Lines: **N** Newsgroups: **n** Newsgroups: (but only if cross posted) **O** Organization: **P** Path: **R** Reply-To: **S** Subject: **v** Save-File:(the default save file for this article) **W** Followup-To: **X** References: **x** Back-References: **Y** Summary: The 'G' and 'g' fields will include the local article number if it is known, e.g. Newsgroup: news.software.nn/754 The following special symbols are recognized in the **header-lines** variable (and ignored other‐ wise): Preceding the identifier with an equal sign "=" or an underscore "_" will cause the header field contents to be high-lighted or underlined. A plus sign "+" will use the shading attribute defined by **shading-on** and **shading-off** to high- light the field contents. If no shading attribute is defined it will underline the field in‐ stead. Including an asterisk "*" in the list will produce the standard one line header at that point. Example: The following setting of the **header-lines** variable will show the author (under‐ lined), organization, posting date, and subject (high-lighted) when articles are read: set header-lines _FOD=S ## COMMAND LINE OPTIONS Some of the command line options have already been described, but below we provide a complete list of the effect of each option by showing the equivalent **set**, **unset**, or **toggle** command. Besides the options described below, you can set _any_ of _nn_'s variables directly on the com‐ mand line via an argument of the following format: variable=value To set or unset a boolean variable, the value can be specified as _on_ or _off_ (_t_ and _f_ will also work). Notice that the init files are read _before_ the options are parsed (unless you use the -**I** op‐ tion). Therefore, the options which are related to boolean variables set in the init file will toggle the value set there, rather than the default value. Consequently, the meaning of the options are also user-defined. The explanations below describe the effect related to the default setting of the variables, with the `reverse' effect in square brackets. -**a**_N_ {**set** **limit** _N_} _Limit_ the maximum number of articles presented in each group to _N._ This is useful to get up-to-date quickly if you have not read news for a longer period. -**a0** Mark _all_ unread articles as read. See the full explanation at the beginning of this manual. -**B** {**toggle** **backup**} Do not [do] backup the rc file. -**d** {**toggle** **split**} Do not [do] split digests into separate articles. -**f** {**toggle** **fsort**} Do not [do] sort folders according to the subject (present the articles in a folder in the sequence in which they were saved). -**g** Prompt for the name of a news group or folder to be entered -**i** {**toggle** **case-fold-search**} Normally searches with -**n** and -**s** are case independent. Using this option, the case becomes significant. -**I** Do not read the init file. This must be the first option!! The global _setup_ file is still read. -**I**_file-list_ Specifies an alternate list of init files to be loaded instead of the standard global and private init files. The list is a comma-separated list of file names. Names which does not contain a `/' are looked for in the ~/.nn directory. An empty element in the list is interpreted as the global init file. The list of init files must _not_ be separated from the **-I** option by blanks, and it must be the first option. Example: The default behaviour corresponds to using -I,init (first the global file, then the file ~/.nn/init). The global _setup_ file is still read as the first init file indepen‐ dently of the -I option used. -**k** {**toggle** **kill**} Do not [do] perform automatic kill and selection of articles. -**l**_N_ {**set** **stop** _N_} Stop after printing the first _N_ lines of each article. This is useful on slow termi‐ nals. -**L**[_f_] {**set** **layout** _f_} Select alternative menu layout _f_ (0 to 4). If _f_ is omitted, menu layout 3 is se‐ lected. -**m** {_no_ _corresponding_ _variable_} Merge all articles into one `meta group' instead of showing them one group at a time. When -m is used, no articles will be marked as read. -**n**_WORD_ Collect only articles which contain the string _WORD_ in the sender's name (case is ig‐ nored). If _WORD_ starts with a slash `/', the rest of the argument is used as a _regu__‐ _lar_ _expression_ instead of a fixed string. -**N** {_no_ _corresponding_ _variable_} Disable updating of the rc file. This includes not recording that groups have been read or unsubscribed to (although _nn_ will think so until you quit). -**q** {**toggle** **sort**} Do not [do] sort the articles (q means quick, but it isn't any quicker in practice!) -**Q** {**toggle** **silent**} Quiet mode - don't [do] print the logo or "No News" messages. -**r** {**toggle** **repeat-group-query**} Make -**g** repeat query for a group to enter. -**s**_WORD_ Collect only articles which contain the string _WORD_ in their subject (case is ig‐ nored). If _WORD_ starts with a slash `/', the rest of the argument is used as a _regu__‐ _lar_ _expression_ instead of a fixed string. -**S** {**toggle** **repeat**} Do not [do] eliminate duplicated subject lines on menus. -**T** {**toggle** **time**} Do not [do] show the current time in the prompt line. -**w**[_N_] {**set** **window** _N_} Reserve _N_ lines of the menu screen for a preview window. If _N_ is omitted, the preview window is set to 5 lines. -**W** {**toggle** **confirm-messages**} [Don't] Wait for confirmation on all messages. -**x**[_N_] {**set** **old** **N**} Present (or scan) all (or the last _N_) unread as well as read articles. This will _never_ mark unread articles as read. -**X** {_no_ _corresponding_ _variable_} Read/scan unsubscribed groups also. Most useful when looking for a specific subject in all groups, e.g. nn -mxX -sSubject all ## MACRO DEFINITIONS Practically any combination of commands and key strokes can be defined as a macro which can be bound to a single key in menu and/or reading mode. The macro definition must specify a sequence of commands and key strokes as if they were typed directly from the keyboard. For example, a string specifying a file name must follow a save command. This manual does not give a complete specification of all the input required by the various commands; it is recommended to execute the desired command sequence from the keyboard prior to defining the macro to get the exact requirements of each command. Although it is possible to define temporary macros interactively using the **:define** command, macro definitions are normally placed in the _init_ file. Macros are numbered from 0 to 100, i.e. it is possible to define a total of 101 different macros (implicit macros defined with the **map** command uses internal numbers from 101 to 200). To define macro number _M_, the following construction is used (the line breaks are mandatory): **define** _M_ _body_ **end** The _body_ consists of a sequence of _tokens_ separated by white space (blanks or newlines). However, certain _tokens_ continue to the end of the current line. The following _tokens_ may occur in the macro _body_: _Comments_ Empty lines and text following a # character (preceded by white space) is ignored. _Command_ _Names_ Any command name listed in the key mapping section can be included in a macro causing that command to be invoked when the macro is executed. _Extended_ _Commands_ All the extended commands which can be executed through the **command** command (normally bound to the : key) can also be executed in a macro. An extended command starts with a colon (:) and continues to the end of the current line. Example: :show groups total _Key_ _Strokes_ A key stroke (which is normally mapped into a command depending on the current mode) is specified as a key name enclosed in single quotes. Examples (A-key, left arrow key, RETURN key): 'A' 'left' '^M' _Shell_ _Commands_ External commands can be invoked as part of a macro execution. There are two forms of shell command invocations available depending on whether a command _may_ produce output or require user input, or it is _guaranteed_ to complete without input or output to the terminal. The difference is that in the latter case, _nn_ does not prepare the terminal to be used by another program. When the command completes, the screen is _not_ redrawn automatically; you should use the **redraw** command to do that. The tho forms are: :!echo this command uses the terminal :!!echo this command does not > /tmp/file _Strings_ Input to commands prompting for a string, e.g. a file name, can be specified in a macro as a double quoted string. Example (save without prompting for a file name): **save-short** "+$G" _Conditionals_ Conditionals may occur anywhere in a macro; a conditional is evaluated when the macro is executed, and if the condition is false _the_ _rest_ _of_ _the_ _current_ _line_ _is_ _ignored_. The following conditionals are available: **?menu** True in menu mode **?show** True in reading mode **?folder** True when looking at a folder **?group** True when looking at a news group **?yes** Query user, true if answer is yes **?no** Query user, true if answer is no Example (stop macro execution if user rejects to continue): **prompt** "continue? " **?no** **break** In addition to these conditionals, it is possible to test the current value of boolean and integer variables using the following form: **?**_variable_**=**_value_ This conditional will be true (1) if the variable is an integer variable whose current value is the one specified, or (2) if the variable is a boolean variable which is ei‐ ther **on** or **off**. Examples: ?layout=3 :set layout 1 ?monitor=on break ?sort=off :sort age **break** Terminate macro execution completely. This includes nested macros. Example (stop if looking at a folder): **?folder** **break** **return** Terminate execution of current macro. If the current macro is called from another macro, execution of that macro continues immediately. **input** Query the user for a key stroke or a string, for example a file name. Example (prompt the user for a file name in the usual way): **save-short** **input** **yes** Confirm unconditionally _if_ a command requires confirmation. It is ignored if the com‐ mand does not require confirmation. Example (confirm creation of new files): **save-short** "+$G" **yes** **no** Terminate execution of current macro _if_ a command requires confirmation; otherwise ig‐ nore it. If neither **yes** nor **no** is specified when a command requires confirmation, the user must answer the question as usual - if the user confirms the action execution continues normally; otherwise the execution of the current macro is terminated. Exam‐ ple (do not create new files): **save-short** "+$L/misc" **no** **prompt** _string_ Print the _string_ in the prompt line (highlighted). The string must be enclosed in double quotes. Example: **prompt** "Enter recipient name" When the macro terminates, the original prompt shown on entry to the macro will auto‐ matically be redrawn. If this is not desirable (e.g. if the macro goes from selec‐ tion to reading mode), the redrawing of the prompt can be disabled by using a **prompt** command with an empty _string_ (""). Example: **prompt** "Enter reading mode?" # old prompt is saved ?no return # and old prompt is restored read-skip # changes the prompt **prompt** "" # so forget old prompt **echo** _string_ Display the _string_ in the prompt line for a short period. Example: ?show **echo** "Cannot be used in reading mode" break **puts** _string-to-end-of-line_ The rest of the line is output directly to the terminal without interpretation. **macro** _M_ Invoke macro number _M_. The maximum macro nesting level is five (also catches macro loops). I use the following macro to quickly save all the selected files in a file whose name is en‐ tered as usual. It also works in reading mode (saving just the current article). **define** 1 :unset save-report save-short input yes ?menu '+' :set save-report **end** ## KEY MAPPINGS The descriptions of the keys and commands provided in this manual reflects the default key mappings in _nn_. However, you can easily change these mappings to match your personal de‐ mands, and it is also possible to remap keys depending on the terminal in use. Permanent remapping of keys must be done through the _init_ file, while temporary changes (for the dura‐ tion of the current invocation of _nn_) can be made with the **:map** command. The binding and mapping of keys are controlled by four tables: ### The multikey definition table This table is used for mapping multicharacter key sequences into single characters. By default the table contains the mappings for the four cursor keys, and there is room for 10 user-defined multikeys. The fourteen multikeys are named: **up**, **down**, **right**, **left** (the four arrow keys), and **#0** through **#9** for the user-defined keys. Multikey #_i_ (where _i_ is a digit or an arrow key name) is defined using the following command: **map** **#**_i_ _key-sequence_ where the _sequence_ is a list of 7-bit character names (see below) separated by spaces. For example, if the HOME key sends the sequence ESC [ H, you can define multikey #0 to be the home key using the command: map #0 ^[ [ H ### The input key mapping table All characters that are read from the keyboard will be mapped through the input map‐ ping table. Consequently, you can globally remap one key to produce any other key value. By default all keys are mapped into themselves. An entry in the input key mapping table to map _input-key_ into _new-key_ is made with the command **map** **key** _input-key_ _new-key_ For example, to make your ESC key function as **interrupt** you can use the command map key ^[ ^G ### The selection mode key binding table This table defines for each key which command should be invoked when that key is pressed in selection mode, i.e. when the article menu is shown. The command to bind a _key_ to a _command_ in selection mode is: **map** **menu** _key_ _command_ For example, to have the HOME key defined as multikey #0 above bound to the **select** command, the following command is used: map menu #0 select To remap a key to select a specific article on the menu (which the `a' through `z' keys do by default), the _command_ must be specified as `**article** _N_' where _N_ is the entry number on the menu counted from zero (i.e. a=0, b=1, ..., z=25, 0=26, ..., 9=35). For example, to map `J' to select article `j', the following command is used: map menu J article 9 ### The reading mode key binding table This table defines for each key which command should be invoked when that key is pressed in reading mode, i.e. when the article text is shown. The command to bind a _key_ to a _command_ in reading mode is: **map** **show** _key_ _command_ In addition to the direct mappings described above, the following variations of the **map** com‐ mand are available: ### User defined keymaps Additional keymaps can be defined using the command **make** **map** _newmap_ This will create a new keymap which can initialized using normal **map** commands, e.g. **map** _newmap_ _key_ _command_ To activate a user-defined keymap, it must be bound to a _prefix_ _key_: **map** _base-map_ _prefix-key_ **prefix** _newmap_ When used, the prefix key itself does not activate a command, but instead it require another key to be entered and then execute the command bound to that key in the keymap which is bound to the prefix key. For example, to let the key sequence "^X i" execute macro number 10 in both modes, the following commands can be used: make map ctl-x map ctl-x i macro 10 map both ^X prefix ctl-x ### Mapping keys in both modes Using the pseudo-keymap `both', it is possible to map a key to a command in both se‐ lection and reading mode at once. For example, to map the home key to macro number 5 in both modes, the following command can be used: map both #0 macro 5 ### Aliasing A key can also be mapped directly to the command currently bound to another key. Later remapping of the other key will not change the mapping of the `aliased' key. This is done using the following command: map _keymap_ _new-key_ **as** _old-key_ ### Binding macros to keys A previously defined macro can be bound to a key using the command: map _keymap_ _key_ **macro** _macro-number_ ### Implicit macro definitions An implicit macro can also be defined directly in connection with the **map** command: map _keymap_ _key_ **(** _body_... **)** Keys and character names are specified using the following notation: _C_ A single printable character represents the key or character itself. **^**_C_ This notation represents a control key or character. DEL is written as **^?** _125_, _0175_, _0x7D_ Characters and keys can be specified by their ordinal value in decimal, octal, and hexadecimal notation. **up**, **down**, **right**, **left** These names represent the cursor keys. **#0** through **#9** These symbols represent the ten user-defined multikeys. If the variable **data-bits** is 7, key maps can specify binding of all keys in the range 0x00 to 0x7F, and the 8th bit will be stripped in all keyboard input. If the variable **data-bits** is 8, the 8th bit is not cleared, and key maps are extended to allow binding of keys in the range 0xA0 to 0xFE (corresponding to the national characters defined by the ISO 8859 charac‐ ter sets). Binding commands to these keys can be done either by using their numeric value, or directly specifying the 8 bit character in the map command, e.g. map menu 0xC8 macro 72 map key ´e % To show the current contents of the four tables, the following versions of the **:map** command are available: **:map** Show the current mode's key bindings. ### :map menu Show the selection mode key bindings. ### :map show Show the reading mode key bindings. **:map** **#** Show the multikey definition table. ### :map key Show the input key mapping table. ## STANDARD KEY BINDINGS Below is a list of all the commands that can be bound to keys, either in selection mode, in reading mode, or both. For each command the default command key bindings in both modes are shown. If the key is not bound in one of the modes, but it can be bound, the corresponding part will just be empty. If the command cannot be bound in one of the modes, that mode will contain the word **nix**. _Function_ _Selection_ _mode_ _Reading_ _mode_ **advance-article** **nix** a **advance-group** A A **article** _N_ a-z0-9 **nix** **back-article** **nix** b **back-group** B B **cancel** C C **command** : : **compress** **nix** c **continue** **space** **space** **continue-no-mark** **return** **nix** **decode** **find** = / **find-next** **nix** . **follow** F fF **full-digest** **nix** H **goto-group** G G **goto-menu** **nix** = Z **help** ? ? **junk-articles** J **nix** **kill-select** K K **layout** " **nix** **leave-article** **nix** l **leave-next** L L **line+1** , **down** **return** **line-1** / **nix** **line=@** **nix** g **macro** _M_ **mail** M m M **message** ^P ^P **next-article** **nix** n **next-group** N N **next-subject** **nix** k **nil** **overview** Y Y **page+1** > **nix** **page+1/2** **nix** d **page-1** < **delete** **backspace** **page-1/2** **nix** u **page=0** **nix** h **page=1** ^ ^ **page=$** $ $ **patch** **post** **preview** % % **previous** P p **print** P **quit** Q Q **read-return** Z **nix** **read-skip** X X **redraw** ^L ^R ^L ^R **reply** R r R **rot13** **nix** D **save-full** S s S **save-short** O o O **save-header** E e E **save-body** W w W **select** . **nix** **select-auto** + **nix** **select-invert** @ **nix** **select-range** - **nix** **select-subject** * * **shell** ! ! **skip-lines** **nix** **tab** **unselect-all** ~ **nix** **unshar** **unsub** U U **version** V V See the descriptions of the default bindings for a description of the commands. The pseudo command **nil** is used to _unbind_ a key. ## THE INIT FILES The _init_ files are used to customize _nn_'s behaviour to local conventions and restrictions and to satisfy each user's personal taste. Normally, _nn_ reads up to three init files on start-up if they exist (all init files are op‐ tional): $LIB/**setup** A system-wide file located in the library directory. This file is _always_ loaded be‐ fore any other init file (even when the -**I** option is specified). It cannot contain a group presentation sequence. $LIB/**init** Another system-wide (global) init file located in the library directory. This file may be ignored via the -**I** option. ~/.nn/**init** The private init file located in the user's _.nn_ directory. It is read after the global init file to allow the user to change the default setup. The init file is parsed one line at a time. If a line ends with a backslash `\', the back‐ slash is ignored, and the following line is appended to the current line. The init file may contain the following types of commands (and data): ### Comments Empty lines and lines with a # character as the first non-blank character are ignored. Except where # has another meaning defined by the command syntax (e.g. multi-keys are named #_n_), trailing comments on input lines are ignored. ### Variable settings You can **set** (or **unset**) all the variables described earlier to change nn's behaviour permanently. The **set** and **unset** commands you can use in the init file have exactly the same format as the **:set** and **:unset** commands described earlier (except that the : pre‐ fix is omitted.) Variables can also be locked via the **lock** command; this is typically done in the _setup_ file to enforce local policies. ### Key mappings You can use all the versions of the **map** command in the init file. ### Macro Definitions You can define sequences of commands and key strokes using the **define**...**end** construc‐ tion, which can then be bound to single keys with the **map** command. ### Load terminal specific files You can load a terminal specific file using the **load** _file_ The character **@** in the _file_ will be replaced by the terminal type defined in the TERM environment variable. _nn_ silently ignores the **load** command if the file does not exist (so you don't have to have a specific init file for terminals which does not require remapping). If the file is not specified by an absolute pathname, it must reside in your ~/.nn directory. Examples: # load local customizations load /usr/lib/nninit # load personal terminal specific customizations load init.@ ### Switch to loading a different init file You can skip the rest of the current init file and start loading a different init file with the following command: **chain** _file_ If this occur in the private or global init file, the chained init file may contain a sequence part which will replace the private or global presentation sequence respec‐ tively. ### Stop loading current init file You can skip the rest of the current init file with the following command: **stop** ### Give error messages and/or terminate If an error is detected in the init file, the following commands can be used to print an error message and/or terminate execution: **error** _fatal_ _error_ _message_... Print the message and terminate execution. **echo** _warning_ _message_... Print the message and continue. **exit** [ _status_ ] Terminate _nn_ with the specified exit status or 0 if omitted. ### Change working directory of nn You can use the **cd** command to change the working directory whenever you enter _nn_. Ex‐ ample: # Use folder directory as working directory inside _nn_ cd ~/News ### Command groups The init file can contain groups of commands which are executed under special condi‐ tions. The command groups are described in the section on command groups below. ### One or more save-files sections A **save-files** section is used to assign default save files to specific groups: **save-files** _group-name_ _(pattern)_ _file-name_ ... **end** The group name (patterns) and save file names are specified in the same way as in the presentation sequence (see below). Example: **save-files** news* +news/$L comp.sources* /u/src/$L/ **end** ### The news group presentation sequence The _last_ part of the init file may specify the sequence in which you want the news groups to be presented. This part starts with the command **sequence** and continues to the end of the init file. Both init files may contain a presentation sequence. In this case, the global sequence is _appended_ to the private sequence. ## COMMAND GROUPS Command groups may only occur in the init file, and they provide a way to have series of com‐ mands executed at certain points during news reading. In release 6.4 onwards, these possibilities are still rather rudimentary, and a mixture of normal init file syntax and macro syntax is used depending on whether the command group is only executed on start-up or several times during the _nn_ session. A command group begins with the word **on** and ends with the word **end**. The following command groups are conditionally executed during the parsing of the init file if the specified _condi__‐ _tion_ is true. They may also have an optional **else** part which is executed if the _condition_ is false: **on** _condition_ commands [ **else** commands ] **end** The following conditional command groups may be used in the init file to be executed at start-up: **on** **[** _test_ **]** The commands (init file syntax) in the group are executed only if the specified _test_ is true. A shell is spawned to execute the command "[ _test_ ]", so all the options of the [**test**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/test/1/markdown) command is available. For example, to unset the flow-control variable if the tty is a pseudo-tty, the following conditional can be used: on [ -n "`tty | grep ttyp`" ] unset flow-control end **on** **!**_shell_ _command_ The command group is executed if the given _shell_ _command_ exits with 0 status (suc‐ cess). Care should be taken that the command does not produce any output, e.g. by redirecting its output to /dev/null. For example, to prevent people from reading news if load is above a specific level, the following conditional might be placed in the global setup file. on !load-above 5 error load is too high, try again later. end **on** **`**_shell_ _command_**`** _string_... The command group is executed if the _first_ _output_ _line_ from executing the specified _shell_ _command_ is listed among the specified _string_ values. The _shell_ _command_ can be omitted on subsequent occurrences of this conditional, in which case the output from the last **shell** **command** is used. For example, the following conditional can be used to switch to an init file which has a limited sequence for news reading during working hours, evenings, and nights: on `date +%H` 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 chain init.work end on `` 17 18 19 20 21 chain init.evening else chain init.night end **on** **``** _string_... This is equivalent to the previous form except that instead of executing a shell com‐ mand, the output from the previous **on** **$**_variable_ [ _value_ ] If no _value_ strings are specified, the command group is executed if the given _variable_ is defined in the environment. Otherwise, the command group is executed only if the value of the _variable_ occur in the _value_ list. For example, if you want _nn_ to look for mail in whatever $MAIL is set to - if it is set - you can use the following code: on $MAIL set mail $(MAIL) end ### on slow The commands (init file syntax) in the group are executed only if the current terminal output speed is less than or equal to the baud rate set in the **slow-speed** variable. This can be used to optimize the user-interface for slow terminals by setting suitable variables: **on** **slow** set confirm-entry set slow-mode set delay-redraw unset visible-bell set compress unset header-lines set stop 5 set window 10 **end** ### on fast Same as **on** **slow** except that the commands are only executed when the terminal is run‐ ning at a speed above the **slow-speed** value. **on** **term** _term-type_... The commands are executed if one of the _term-type_ names is identical to value of the TERM environment variable. **on** **host** _host-name_... The commands are executed if the local host's name occur in the _host-name_ list. **on** **program** _program-name_... The commands are executed if the current program (_nn_, _nncheck_, etc) in the _program-_ _name_ list. The following **on** command groups are really macros which may be executed during _nn_'s normal processing, and as such they cannot have an **else** part. **on** **entry** [ _group_ _list_ ] These commands (macro format!) are executed every time _nn_ enters a news group. If a group list is not specified, the commands are associated with all groups which don't have its own entry macro specified in the group sequence. Otherwise, the entry macro will be associated with the groups in the list. The group list is specified using the meta-notations described in the presentation sequence section. _All_ `:' commands at the beginning of the command group are executed _before_ _nn_ collects the articles in the group, so it is possible to set or unset variables like **cross-post** and **auto-read-mode-limit** before any articles are collected and the menu is (not) shown. The non-`:' commands, and `:' commands that follows a command of another type will be executed immediately _after_ the first menu page is presented. The execution of a `:' command can be postponed by using a double `::' as the command prefix. **on** **entry** comp.sources* alt.sources :set cross-post on # set before collection :local auto-read-mode-limit -1 # set before showing menu ::unset cross-post # set after collection **end** ### on start-up These `:' commands (macro format!) are executed on start-up just before _nn_ enters the first news group. However, postponed commands (i.e. non-`:' commands) will not be ex‐ ecuted until the first group is shown (it works like an entry macro). ## GROUP PRESENTATION SEQUENCE News groups are normally presented in the sequence defined in the system-wide **init** file in _nn_'s library directory. You can personalize the presentation sequence by specifying an alternative sequence in the private _init_ file. The sequence in the private init file is used _before_ the global presenta‐ tion sequence, and need only describe the deviations from the default presentation sequence. The presentation sequence must start with the word **sequence** followed by a list of the news group names in the order you want them to be presented. The group names must be separated by white space. The sequence list must be the _last_ part of the init file (the parsing of commands from the init file stops when the word **sequence** is encoun‐ tered). You may use a full group name like "comp.unix.questions", or just the name of a main group or subgroup, e.g. "comp" or "comp.unix". However, if "comp" precedes "comp.unix.questions" in the list, this subgroup will be placed in the normal alphabetic sequence during the collec‐ tion of all the "comp" groups. Groups which are not explicitly mentioned in any of the sequence files will be placed after the mentioned groups, unless `!!' is used and it has not been disabled (as described below). Each group name may be followed by a file or folder name (must start with either of `/' `~' or `+') which will specify the default save file for that group (and its subgroups). A sin‐ gle `+' following the group name is an abbreviation for the last save file name used. For example, the following two sequences are equivalent: group1 +file group2 +file group3 +file group1 +file group2 + group3 + When an article is saved, the default save name will be used as the initial contents of the file name prompt for further editing. It therefore does not need to be be a complete file name (unless you use the quick save mode). Each group name may also be associated with a so-called **entry** **action**. This is basically an (unnamed) macro which is invoked on entry to the group (following the same rules as the `on entry' command group related to :set and :unset commands). The entry action begins with a left parenthesis `**(**' and ends with a right parenthesis `**)**' on an otherwise empty line: comp.sources. +src/$L/ ( :set cross-post ) The last entry action can be repeated by specifying an empty set of parenthesis, e.g. comp.unix. +unix () The entry action of a preceding group in the sequence can be associated with the current group(s) by specifying the name of the group in the parentheses instead of the commands, e.g. comp.unix. +unix (comp.sources.unix) A macro can also be associated with the entry action by specifying its number in the same way as the group name above, e.g. rec.music. +music (30) Notice that it is the _current_ definition of the macro which is associated with the group, so if the macro is later redefined with the `:define' command, it will not have any effect on the entry action. Group names can be specified using the following notations: group.name Append the group (if it exists) to the presentation sequence list. If **also-subgroups** is set (default), all subscribed subgroups of the group will be included as well (if there are any). Examples: "comp", "comp.unix", "comp.unix.questions". If the group does not exits (e.g. "comp"), the subgroups will be included even when **also-subgroups** is not set, i.e. "comp" is equivalent to "comp.". group.name. Append the subgroups of the specified group to the presentation sequence. The group itself (if it exists) is not included. Examples: "comp.", "comp.unix.". .group.name Append the groups whose name ends with the specified name to the sequence. Example: ".test". group.name* Append the group and its subgroups to the presentation sequence list (even when **also-** **subgroups** is not set). Example: "comp.unix*". The following meta notation can be used in a sequence file. The group.name can be specified using any of the forms described above: ! groups Completely ignore the group or groups specified unless they are already in the presen‐ tation sequence (i.e. has been explicitly mentioned earlier in the sequence). !:_code_ groups Ignore a selection of groups based on the given _code_ letter (see below), unless they are already included in the sequence. Notice that these forms _only_ excludes groups from the presentation sequence, i.e. they _do_ _not_ include the remaining groups at this point; that must be done explicitly elsewhere. !:U groups Ignore unsubscribed groups, i.e. if they are neither new, nor present and subscribed in .newsrc. This is useful to ignore a whole hierarchy except for a few groups which are explicitly mentioned in .newsrc and still see new groups as they are created. !:X groups Ignore unsubscribed _and_ new groups, i.e. if they are not currently present and sub‐ scribed in .newsrc. This is useful to ignore a whole hierarchy except for a few groups which are explicitly mentioned in .newsrc. New groups in the hierarchy are ig‐ nored unless `NEW' occurs earlier in the sequence. !:O groups Ignore old groups, i.e. _unless_ they are new. This is useful to ignore a whole hierar‐ chy but still see new groups which are created in the hierarchy (it might become in‐ teresting some day). Individual groups can still be included in the sequence if they are specified before the `!:O' entry. !:N groups Ignore new groups in the hierarchy. !! Stop building the presentation sequence. This eliminates all groups that are not al‐ ready in the presentation sequence. **NEW** This is a pseudo group name which matches all _new_ groups; you could place this symbol early in your presentation sequence to see new groups `out of sequence' (to attract your attention to them). **RC** This is a pseudo group name which matches all groups occurring in the .newsrc file. It will cause the groups in .newsrc to be appended to the presentation sequence in the sequence in which they are listed in .newsrc. **RC:**_number_ Similar to the **RC** entry, but limited to the first _number_ lines of the .newsrc file. Example: RC:10 (use 10 lines of .newsrc). **RC:**_string_ Similar to the **RC** entry, but limited to the lines up to (and including) the first line (i.e. group) starting with the given _string_. For example: RC:alt.sources < group.name Place the group (and its subgroups) at the beginning of the presentation sequence. Notice that each `<' entry will place the group(s) at the beginning of the current se‐ quence, i.e. < A < B < C will generate the sequence C B A. > group.name Place the group (and its subgroups) after all other groups that are and will be en‐ tered into the presentation sequence. @ Disable the `!!' command. This can be included in the personal presentation sequence if the global **sequence** file contains a !! entry (see example 1 below). % .... % Starts and ends a region of the sequence where it is possible to include groups which has been eliminated earlier. This may be useful to alter the sequence of some groups, e.g. to place comp.sources.bugs after all other source groups, the following sequence can be used: ! comp.sources.bugs comp.sources* % comp.sources.bugs % **Example** **1:** In a company where ordinary users only should read the local news groups, and ig‐ nore the rest (including new news groups which are otherwise always subscribed to initially), can use the following global presentation sequence: general follow ! local.test local !! The "expert" users in the company must put the **@** command somewhere in their private sequence to avoid losing news groups which they have not explicitly mentioned in their init file. **Example** **2:** This is the global sequence for systems with heavy news addicts who setup their own sequences anyway. # all must read the general news first < general # test is test, and junk is junk, # so it is placed at the very end > test > .test > junk # this is the standard sequence which everybody may # change to their own liking local # our local groups dk # the Danish groups eunet.general # to present it before eunet.followup eunet # the other European groups comp # the serious groups news # news on news sci # other serious groups rec # not really that important (don't quote me) misc # well, it must be somewhere # the groups that are not listed above goes here Notice the use of comments in the sequence where they are allowed at the end of non-empty lines as well. **Example** **3:** My own presentation sequence (in the init file) simply lists my favourite groups and the corresponding default save files: **sequence** !:U alt* # ignore unsubscribed alt groups news.software.nn +nn comp.sys.ti* +ti/$L NEW # show new groups here news* rec.music.synth +synth/ comp.emacs*,gnu.emacs +emacs/misc comp.risks +risks eunet.sources +src/unix/ comp.sources* +src/$L/ The presentation sequence is not used when _nn_ is called with one or more news group names on the command line; it is thus possible to read ignored groups (on explicit request) without changing the init file. (Of course, you can also use the **G** command to read ignored groups). ## MERGING NEWS GROUPS The third example above contains the following line: comp.emacs*,gnu.emacs +emacs/misc This is the syntax used to _merge_ groups. When two or more groups are merged, all new arti‐ cles in these groups are presented together as if they were one group. To merge groups, their names must be listed together in the sequence, and only separated by a single comma. To merge the groups resulting from a single group pattern (e.g. comp.emacs*), the group pat‐ tern must be followed by a comma and a blank (e.g. comp.emacs*, ...). Merged groups are presented as the first group in the "list", and the word "MERGED" will be shown after the group name. The **Y** {**overview**} command will still show merged groups as indi‐ vidual groups, but they will be annotated with the symbol `&' on the first of the groups, and a `+' on the rest of the groups. In the current version, the concept of the _current_ _group_ in connection with merged groups is a bit fuzzy. This should only be noticeable with the **G** command, which will take the most re‐ cently used group among the merged groups as the current group. So things like **G** **=** **...** may not always work as expected. ## ENVIRONMENT The following environment variables are used by _nn_: **EDITOR**. The editor invoked when editing replies, follow-ups, and composing mail. _nn_ knows about the following editors: _vi_, _ded_, _GNU_ _emacs_, and _micro-emacs_, and will try to position the cursor on the first line following the header, i.e. after the blank line which must not be deleted! If an article has been included, the cursor is placed on the first line of the included text (to allow you to delete sections easily). **LOGNAME**. This is taken as the login name of the current user. It is used by _nn_ to return failed mail. If it is not defined, _nn_ will use the value of USER, or if that is not defined either, _nn_ will use the call `who am i' to get this information. If all attempts fail, the failed mail is dropped in the bit bucket. **PAGER**. This is used as the initial value of the **pager** variable. **SHELL**. This is the shell which is spawned if the system cannot suspend _nn_, and it will be used to execute the shell escapes. **TERM**. The terminal type. ## NOTES When **NNTP** is being used over a slow link (as with the _ppp_ protocol and a modem), it may be desirable to suppress the retrieval of the information about new newsgroups, and their pur‐ pose, since they can be hundreds of KBytes in size. To do this, the **new-group-action** and **show-purpose-mode** variables should be set to 0 in your _init_ file. See the descriptions of those variables for more info. Unfortunately, the list of active newsgroups is still fetched, since nn uses it to determine which groups to check for new articles. Even this could be avoided, but the cost would be checking for new articles in every group, which might well be slower overall, although startup would be faster. ## FILES ~/.newsrc The record of read articles. ~/.nn/select The record of selected and seen articles. ~/.nn/init Personal configuration and presentation sequence. ~/.nn/kill The automatic kills and selections. ~/.nn/KILL.COMP The compiled kill file. ~/.nn/LAST The time stamp of the last new news group we have seen. ~/.nn/NEXTG Active group last time _nn_ was quit. ~/.nn/.param Parameter file for the aux script $lib/setup System-wide setup - always read first. $lib/init System-wide setup and presentation sequence. $lib/aux The response edit and send script. $lib/routes Mapping rules for mail addresses (on non-domain systems). $db/* The news data base. /etc/termcap Terminal data base [BSD]. /usr/lib/terminfo/*Terminal data base [SysV]. /usr/local/lib/nntp_serverName of remote nntp server, if not changed by setting the environ‐ ment variable NNTPSERVER or the _nntp-server_ variable on the command line. The name $lib and $db are the directories used for the auxiliary files and the news data base respectively. Their name and location is defined at compile time. Common choices are /usr/local/lib/nn or /usr/lib/news/nn for $lib and /usr/spool/nn or /usr/spool/news/.nn for $db. ## SEE ALSO Other netnews documentation. RFC 1341, MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) [nncheck(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/nncheck/1/markdown), [nngoback(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/nngoback/1/markdown), [nngrab(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/nngrab/1/markdown), [nngrep(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/nngrep/1/markdown), [nnpost(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/nnpost/1/markdown), [nntidy(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/nntidy/1/markdown) [nnusage(1M)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/nnusage/1M/markdown), [nnspew(8)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/nnspew/8/markdown) ## ORIGINAL AUTHOR Kim F. Storm, Texas Instruments A/S, Denmark ## CURRENT MAINTAINER Michael T Pins The NNTP support was designed and implemented by Ren´e Seindal, Institute of Datalogy, Univer‐ sity of Copenhagen, Denmark. The news.software.nn group is used for discussion on all subjects related to the nn news reader. This includes, but is not limited to, questions, answers, ideas, hints, information from the development group, patches, etc. 4th Berkeley Distribution Release 6.6 [NN(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/NN/1/markdown)