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NN(1)                                General Commands Manual                                NN(1)

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 in-
       terest 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 informa-
       tion is then rearranged, sorted, and marked in various ways to give it a  pleasant  format
       when it is presented on the screen.

       This  will  be done very quickly, because nn uses the NOV database via the NNTP XOVER com-
       mand.  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-directory 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 key-
       strokes (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,  re-
       sponding to an article, decrypt an article, and so on.

       When  all  the  selected articles in the current group have been read, the last hit on the
       space bar will cause nn will continue to the next group with unread  articles,  and  enter
       selection mode on that group.

FREQUENTLY USED OPTIONS
       nn  accepts  a  lot of command line options, but here only the frequently used options are
       described.  Options can also be set permanently by including appropriate variable settings
       in  the  init  file  described later.  All options are described in the section on Command
       Line Options towards the end of this manual.

       The frequently used command line options are:

       -a0    Catch up on unread articles and groups.  See the section "Catch up" below.

       -g     Prompt for the name of a news group or folder to be entered (with completion).

       -r     Used with -g to repeatedly prompt for groups to enter.

       -lN    Print only the first N lines of the first page of each article before prompting  to
              continue.   This  is useful on slow terminals and modem lines to be able to see the
              first few lines of longer articles.

       -sWORD Collect only articles which contain the string WORD in their subject (case  is  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
              subject.

       -nWORD or -n/regexp
              Same as -s except that it matches on the sender's name  instead  of  the  article's
              subject.  This is normally combined with the -x and -m options to find all articles
              from a specific author.  It cannot be mixed with the -s option!

       -i     Normally searches with -n and -s are case independent.  Using this option, the case
              becomes significant.

       -m     Merge  all  articles  into  one `meta group' instead of showing them one group at a
              time.  This is normally used together with the -x and -s options to get all the ar-
              ticles  on a specific subject presented on a single menu (when you don't care about
              which group they belong to).  When -m is used, no articles will be marked as read.

       -x[N]  Present (or scan) all (or the last N) unread as well as read articles.   When  this
              option is used, nn will never mark unread articles as read (i.e. .newsrc is not up-
              dated).

       -X     Read/scan unsubscribed groups also.  Most useful when looking for a  specific  sub-
              ject in all groups, e.g.
                   nn -mxX -sSubject all

       news.group  or  file  or  +folder
              If  none  of  these  arguments  are given, all subscribed news groups will be used.
              Otherwise, only the specified news groups and/or files will be collected  and  pre-
              sented.  In specifying a news groups, the following `meta notation' can be used:
              If the news group ends with a `.' (or `.all'), all subgroups of the news group will
              be collected, e.g.
                   comp.sources.
              If a news group starts with a `.' (or `all.'), all the matching subgroups  will  be
              collected, e.g.
                   .sources.unix
              The argument `all' identifies all (subscribed) news groups.

COMMAND INPUT
       In  general, nn commands consist of one or two key-strokes, and nn reacts instantly to the
       commands you give it; you don't have to enter return after each command (except where  ex-
       plicitly stated).

       Some commands have more serious effects than others, and therefore nn requests you to con-
       firm 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 follow-
       ing 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 fa-
              vorite 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 cur-
              rent 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, mes-
       sage-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 ar-
       ticles - one article per line, the prompt line where you enter commands, and  the  message
       line where nn prints various messages to you.

       Each menu line begins with an article id which is a unique letter (or digit if your screen
       can show more than 26 menu lines).  To select an articles for reading,  you  simply  enter
       the  corresponding id, and the menu line will be high-lighted to indicate that the article
       is selected.  When you have selected all the interesting articles on the present menu, you
       simply hit space.

       If  there are more articles collected for the current group than could be presented on one
       screenful of text, you will be presented with the next portion of articles to select from.
       When  you  have had the opportunity to select among all the articles in the group, hitting
       space will enter reading mode.

       If no articles have been selected in the current group, hitting space will enter selection
       mode  on the next news group, or exit nn if the current group was the last news group with
       unread articles. It is thus possible to go through ALL unread  articles  (without  reading
       any of them) just by hitting space a few times.

       The articles will be presented on the menu using one of the following layouts:

       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 ar-
       ticle.

       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 per-
       form a series of simplifications on the name, e.g. changing first names into initials, re-
       moving  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  lay-
       out  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 ar-
       ticles.   The  number of articles with the same subject will be shown as a braketed number
       in front of the subject, e.g. with layout 1:
            x Name.........   123  [4] Subject..............
       For further information see the section on consolidated menus below.

       Related variables: collapse-subject, columns, confirm-entry,  confirm-entry-limit,  entry-
       report-limit,  fsort, kill, layout, limit, lines, long-menu, re-layout, repeat, slow-mode,
       sort, sort-mode, split,  subject-match-limit,  subject-match-offset,  subject-match-parts,
       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  arti-
       cles, selected articles, articles marked for later treatment, etc.  Depending on how nn is
       configured, these attributes can be saved between invocations of nn, or some of  them  may
       only be used while nn is running.

       The  attribute  is shown on the menu using either a single character following the article
       id or by high-lighting the menu line, depending on the attribute and the  capabilities  of
       the  terminal.   You  can also change the attributes to your own taste (see the attributes
       variable).

       The attribute of an article can be changed explicitly using the  selection  mode  commands
       described below, or it will change automatically for example when you have read or saved a
       selected article.  If a command may change any article attributes, it will be noted in the
       description  of  the command.  The following descriptions of the attributes will only men-
       tion 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 pre-
              sented the next time you enter the group.

       seen   Menu attribute "," - indicates that the article is unread, but  that  it  has  been
              presented  on a menu.  Depending on how nn is configured, these articles will auto-
              matically 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, con-
              firm-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  at-
              tribute will automatically change to read.

       auto-selected
              These  articles  have the same appearance as selected articles on the menu, and the
              only difference is that these articles have been  selected  automatically  via  the
              auto-selection facility rather than manually by you.  Very few commands differenti-
              ate between these attributes and if they do, it is explicitly stated in  this  man-
              ual.  The main difference is that these articles are only marked as unread when you
              leave the group (supposing they will also be auto-selected the next  the  group  is
              entered).  This simplifies the house-keeping between invocations of nn.

       leave  Menu  attribute  "+"  - indicates that the article is 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 immediately, they are stored as the leave-next attribute described below.

       leave-next
              Menu attribute "=" - indicates that the article is marked for  later  treatment  by
              the  leave-next  (L)  command.  This is a permanent attribute, which will remain on
              the article until you either read the article, change the attribute, or it  is  ex-
              pired.   So  assigning this attribute to an article will effectively keep it unread
              until you do something.  If the variable select-leave-next  is  set,  nn  will  ask
              whether these articles should be selected on entry to a group (but naturally, doing
              so will change the leave-next attribute to select).

       cancelled
              Menu attribute "#" - indicates that the article has been cancelled.  This is mainly
              useful  when  tidying  a  folder;  it  is set by the cancel (C) command, and can be
              cleared by any command that change attributes, e.g. you can select and deselect the
              article.

       killed Menu  attribute  "!"  -  indicates that the article has been killed (e.g.  by the K
              {kill-select} command).  Killed articles are immediately removed from the menu,  so
              you  should not normally see articles with this attribute.  If you do, report it as
              a bug!

       The attributes are saved in two files: .newsrc (read articles) and .nn/select  (other  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,  se-
       lect-leave-next.

SELECTION MODE COMMANDS
       The  primary purpose of the selection mode is of course to select the articles to be read,
       but numerous other commands may also be performed in this  mode:  saving  of  articles  in
       files,  replying  and following up on articles, mailing/forwarding articles, shell escapes
       etc.

       As described above, the selected articles are marked either by showing  the  corresponding
       menu line in standout mode (reverse video), or if the terminal does not have this capabil-
       ity 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  ar-
       ticle is not already selected, the selectedattribute on the article(s), independent on the
       previous attribute.  Otherwise, the article(s) will be deselected and marked unread.  Con-
       sequently, 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 ar-
       ticle 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  dese-
              lected.   The following article becomes the current article.  If the variable auto-
              select-subject is set, all articles with the same subject as the given article  are
              selected.

       .    {select}
              Select or deselect the current article and move the cursor to the next article.

       ,    {line+1}
              Move the cursor to the next article.  You can use the down arrow as well.

       /    {line-1}
              Move cursor to previous article.  You can use the up arrow as well.

       *    {select-subject}
              Select  or  deselect  all articles with same subject as current article.  This will
              work across several menu pages if necessary.

       -x   {select-range}
              Select or deselect the range of articles between the current article and the  arti-
              cle  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 dese-
              lected.

       +    {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 com-
              mand = . 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  attri-
              bute changes, either on individual articles, all articles on the current menu page,
              all articles with a specific attribute, or all available articles.  To  access  all
              the  functions  of  this command, the J key may have to be hit up to four times, to
              loop through different one-line menus.  The full functionality of the junk-articles
              command is described in a separate section below.

       L    {leave-next}
              This  is  a specialized version of the generic J {junk-articles} command to set the
              leave-next attribute on a subset of the articles on the menu.  It is also described
              further below.

       The  following commands move between the pages belonging to the same news group when there
       are more articles than will fit on a single page.  These commands will not change any  ar-
       ticle attributes.

       >    {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 ar-
              ticles 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  ar-
              ticles have been read, return to selection mode in the current group.  It will mark
              selected articles read as they are read,  but  unread  articles  are  not  normally
              changed (can be controlled with the variable marked-by-read-return.)

       X    {read-skip}
              Mark  all  unmarked  articles  seen  on all menu pages (or the pages defined by the
              marked-by-read-skip variable), and enter reading mode  immediately  with  the  cur-
              rently selected articles.  As the selected articles are read, they are marked read.
              When all selected articles have been read, nn will enter selection mode in the next
              news  group.   When  no  articles are selected, it goes directly to the next group.
              This can be used to skip all the articles in a large news group without  having  to
              go through all the menu pages.

       If  you  don't  want to read the current group now, but want to keep it for later, you can
       use the following commands which will only mark seen and read articles as read.  Currently
       selected articles will still be selected the next time you enter the group.  None of these
       commands will change any attributes themselves (by default).

       N    {next-group}
              Go forward to the next group in the presentation 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
              active group (two P commands in sequence will bring you to the current group).   If
              there  are  still  some  unread  articles in the group, only those articles will be
              shown.  Otherwise, all the articles which were unread when nn was invoked  will  be
              shown marked with the read attribute (which can be changed as usual).

       As described in the "Article Attributes" section, the read and seen articles will normally
       be marked read when you leave the group, and these articles are not shown  the  next  time
       you enter the group.

       In  all  releases prior to release 6.4, it was impossible to have individual articles in a
       group marked unread when you left a group, and the default behaviour of  release  6.4  on-
       wards will closely match the traditional behaviour.  This means that the seen and read ar-
       ticles are treated alike for most practical purposes with the default variable settings.

       If you don't like nn to silently mark the seen articles read, you  can  set  the  variable
       confirm-junk-seen  to  get nn to prompt you for confirmation before doing this, or you can
       unset the variable auto-junk-seen to simply keep the seen articles for the next  time  you
       enter the group.  You then have to use the J {junk-articles} to mark articles read.

       Using  return  {continue-no-mark}  will also allow you to keep articles unread rather than
       marking them seen when scrolling through the menu pages and  entering  reading  mode.   If
       this is your preferred reading style, you can remap space to this command.

       Related  variables:  auto-junk-seen,  auto-preview-mode,  auto-select-subject,  case-fold-
       search, confirm-auto-quit, confirm-entry, confirm-junk-seen, marked-by-next-group, marked-
       by-read-return, marked-by-read-skip, retain-seen-status, select-on-sender.

CONSOLIDATED MENUS
       Normally,  nn  will use one menu line for each article, so if there are many articles with
       identical subjects, each menu page will only contain a few different  subjects.   To  have
       each  subject  occur only once on the menu, nn can operate with consolidated menus by set-
       ting 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  arti-
       cles 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  request.   The  `.'  marker on subject `b' shows that all three articles within
       that subject have been read (or seen).

       To select (or deselect) ALL the articles within a closed subject, simply select the  arti-
       cle shown on the menu; this will automatically select (or deselect) the rest (see auto-se-
       lect-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 (U<T).

       [S/T]  There are S selected articles of T total (S<U=T).

       [S/U:T]
              There are S selected of U unread of T total (S<U<T).

       If  there  are  any  selected articles (S>0), 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
       attribute changes, either on individual articles, all articles on the current  menu  page,
       all articles with a specific attribute, or all available articles.

       To  access  all  the  functions  of  this command, the J key may have to be hit up to four
       times, to loop through different one-line menus:

       Mark Read
              This submenu allows you to mark articles read.

       Unmark This submenu allows you to mark articles unread.

       Select This submenu allows you to select articles based on their attribute.

       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 attri-
              bute 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  at-
       tribute 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 ar-
              chive.

       ^    {page=1}
              Move to the first page (excluding the header) of the article.

       $    {page=$}
              Move to the last page of the article.

       gN   {line=@}
              Move to line N in the article.

       /regexp   {find}
              Search  forward for text matching the regular expression regexp in the article.  If
              a matching text is found, it will be high-lighted.

       .    {find-next}
              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
              including its header.  Another H command will return to the current subarticle.

       D    {rot13}
              Turn  rot13 (caesar) decryption on and off for the current article, and redraw cur-
              rent 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  se-
              lected  article.   When  all  the  selected articles in the current group have been
              read, these left over articles can be automatically selected and shown  once  more,
              or the treatment can be postponed to the next time you enter the group.
                This  is  particularly useful if you see an article which you may want to respond
              to unless one the following articles is already saying what you intended to say.

       L    {leave-next}
              Mark the current article with the leave-next attribute and continue with  the  next
              selected article.

       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  article  (it will not skip to the next group if it is the last article).  The
              attribute on the current article will be restored, except for the unread  attribute
              which will be changed to seen.

       b    {back-article}
              Goto  the  article  before  current article on the menu even if it is not selected.
              This is similar to the a command, except for the direction.

       The following commands perform an immediate return from reading mode to selection mode  in
       the current group or skip to the next group.

       =    {goto-menu}
              Return  to selection mode in the current group (think of = as the "icon" of the se-
              lection 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  di-
              rectly  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  be-
       low will enter reading mode for one article only, and then return to the menu mode immedi-
       ately 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  bina-
       ries,  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 sub-
              ject, 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 com-
              mand  to  which  the  current  article will be piped.  The default print command is
              specified at compile time, but it can be changed by setting the  printer  variable.
              The output will be identical to that of the O command.

       :patch    {patch}
              Send  articles  through patch(1) (or the program defined in the patch-command vari-
              able).  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 di-
              rectory.
                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 fin-
              ished.
                The output is also appended to a file named Unshar.Result in  the  unshar  direc-
              tory.
                The file specified in unshar-header-file (default "Unshar.Headers") in the unshar
              directory will contain the header and initial text (before the shar data) from  the
              article.   You  can  use the `G' {goto-group} command to look at the Unshar.Headers
              file.

       :decode   {decode}
              Decode uuencoded articles into binary files.  You will be prompted for the name  of
              a  directory in which you want nn to place the decoded binary files (the file names
              are taken from the uuencoded data).
                nn will combine several articles into single files as needed, and  you  can  even
              decode unrelated packages (into the same directory) with one decode command.
                To  be  able to decode a binary file which spans several articles, nn may have to
              ignore lines which fail the normal sanity  checks  on  uuencoded  data  instead  of
              treating  them as transmission errors.  Consequently, it is strongly recommended to
              check the resulting decoded file using the checksum which is normally contained  in
              the  original  article.  (Actually, you are also supposed to do this after decoding
              with a stand-alone uudecode program).
                The header and initial information in the decoded articles are saved in the  file
              specified in decode-header-file (default "Decode.Headers") in the same directory as
              the decoded files.
                If decode-skip-prefix is non-null, :decode will attempt to ignore up to that many
              characters  on  each line to find the encoded data.  This is particularly useful in
              some binaries groups where files are both uuencoded and packed with shar;  nn  will
              ignore  the prefix added to each line by shar, and thus be able to unshar, concate-
              nate, 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
       specify a default save file in the init file, either in connection with the group  presen-
       tation  sequence  or in a separate save-files section (see below).  If a default save file
       is specified for the group, nn will show this on the prompt line when it prompts  for  the
       file  name.  You can edit this name as usual, but if you kill the entire name immediately,
       nn will replace the default name with the last file name you entered.  If you kill this as
       well, nn will leave you with a blank line.

       If  the quick-save variable is set, nn will only prompt for a save file name when the cur-
       rent 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 as-
       terisk  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 auto-
       matically 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  se-
       lection  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  sin-
       gle  file as well as in separate files, and the save in separate files feature can be used
       also when saving individual articles, either in the selection  mode,  or  in  the  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 cre-
       ating a new folder, while appending to an existing folder will be done in  the  format  of
       the folder (unless folder-format-check is false).

       Related variables: confirm-append, confirm-create, decode-header-file, decode-skip-prefix,
       default-save-file, folder-save-file, edit-patch-command, edit-print-command,  edit-unshar-
       command,  folder,  folder-format-check,  mail-format, mmdf-format, patch-command, printer,
       quick-save, save-counter, save-counter-offset, save-report, suggest-default-save,  unshar-
       command, unshar-header-file.

FOLDER MAINTENANCE
       When  more than one article is saved in a folder, nn is able to split the folder, and each
       article in the folder can be treated like a separate article.

       This means that you can save, decode, reply, follow-up, etc. just as with the original ar-
       ticle.

       You  can  also cancel (delete) individual articles in a folder using the normal C {cancel}
       command described later.  When you quit from the folder, you will then be given the option
       to remove the cancelled articles from the folder.

       The original folder is saved in a file named `BackupFolder~' in the .nn directory (see the
       backup-folder-path variable) by renaming or copying the old folder as  appropriate.   When
       the  folder  has  been  compressed,  the backup folder will be removed unless the variable
       keep-backup-folder is set.

       If all articles in a folder are cancelled, the folder will be removed or truncated to zero
       length  (whatever  is  allowed by directory and file permissions).  In this case no backup
       folder is retained even when keep-backup-folder is set!

       If the variable trace-folder-packing is set, nn will show  which  articles  are  kept  and
       which are removed as the folder is rewritten.

       Folders are rewritten in the format of the original folder, 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
       performed on the file name you enter:

       +folder
              The  + is replaced by the contents of the folder variable (default value "~/News/")
              resulting in the name of a file in the folder directory.  Examples:
                   +emacs, +nn, +sources/shar/nn

       +      A single plus is replaced by the expansion of the file name contained  in  the  de-
              fault-save-file variable (or by folder-save-file when saving from a folder).

       ~/file The  ~  is replaced by the contents of the environment variable HOME, i.e. the path
              name of your home directory.  Examples:
                   ~/News/emacs, ~/News/nn, ~/src/shar/nn

       ~user/file
              The ~user part is  replaced  by  the  user's  home  directory  as  defined  in  the
              /etc/passwd file.

       |command-line
              Instead  of  writing to a file, the articles are piped to the given shell (/bin/sh)
              command-line.  Each save or write command will create a separate pipe, but all  ar-
              ticles  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  dou-
              ble 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
       using the space, tab, and ? keys.

       Hitting  space  anywhere during input will complete the current component of the file name
       or group name with the first available possibility.

       If this possibility is not the one you want, keep on hitting space until it appears.

       When the right completion has appeared, you can just continue typing  the  file  or  group
       name,  or  you can hit tab to fix the current component, and get the first possibility for
       the next component, and then use space to go through the other possible completions.

       The ?  key will produce a list of the possible completions of the current  component.   If
       the list is too long for the available space on screen, the key can be repeated to get the
       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 ar-
       ticles, send replies to the author of an article, and you can send mail  to  another  user
       with  the  option  of  including an article in the letter.  In reading mode, a response is
       made to the current article, while in selection mode you will be prompted for  an  article
       to respond to.

       The  following  commands  are  available (the lower-case equivalents are also available in
       reading mode):

       R    {reply}
              Reply through mail to the author of the article.  This is the preferred way to  re-
              spond to an article unless you think your reply is of general interest.

       F    {follow}
              Follow-up  with  an  article  in the same newsgroup (unless an alternative group is
              specified in the article header).  The distribution of the  follow-up  is  normally
              the same as the original article, but this can be modified via the follow-distribu-
              tion variable.

       M    {mail}
              Mail a letter or forward an article to a single recipient.  In selection mode,  you
              will  be prompted for an article to include in your letter, and in reading mode you
              will be asked if the current article should be included in the  letter.   You  will
              then  be  prompted  for the recipient of the letter (default recipient is yourself)
              and the subject of the letter (if an article is included, you may hit space to  get
              the default subject which is the subject of the included article).
                The  header  of  the  article is only included in the posted letter if it is for-
              warded (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-sep-
              arated  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 avail-
              able  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  expres-
              sion  (typically  a  single word) which will cause nn to show a (much shorter) list
              containing only the lines matching the regular expression.
                 Normally, you will be prompted for the distribution of the article with the  de-
              fault  take from default-distribution, but this can be changed via the post-distri-
              bution variable.

       Generally, nn will construct a file with a suitable header, optionally include a  copy  of
       the  article  in  the file with each non-empty line prefixed by a `>' character (except in
       mail mode), and invoke an editor of your choice (using the EDITOR environment variable) on
       this  file,  positioning you on the first line of the body of the article (if it knows the
       editor).

       When you have completed editing the message, it will compare it to the unedited file,  and
       if they are identical (i.e. you did not make any changes to the file), or it is empty, the
       operation is cancelled.  Otherwise you will be prompted for an action to take on the  con-
       structed  article  (enter  first letter followed by return, or just return to take the de-
       fault 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 abort (no don't post),
         p    post article (same as send),
         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 let-
       ter 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
       action,  e.g. R {reply}.  This will notice the unfinished response and ask you whether you
       want to complete it now.  Only one unfinished response can exist at a time.   Notice  that
       the  $A environment variable may no longer be valid as a path to the original article when
       the response is completed.

       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 following 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, de-
       fault-distribution, follow-distribution, post-distribution,  edit-response-check,  editor,
       include-art-id, include-full-header, included-mark, mail-header, mail-record, mail-script,
       mailer, mailer-pipe-input, news-header,  news-record,  news-script,  orig-to-include-mask,
       pager,   query-signature,  record,  response-check-pause,  response-default-answer,  save-
       counter, save-counter-offset, save-report, spell-checker.

JUMPING TO OTHER GROUPS
       By default nn will present the news groups in a predefined sequence (see  the  section  on
       Presentation  Sequence  later on).  To override this sequence and have a look at any other
       group the G {goto-group} command available in both selection and reading mode enables  you
       to move freely between all the newsgroups.

       Furthermore,  the G command enables you to open folders and other files, to read old arti-
       cles 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  com-
       mand  was  executed.   However,  if  there are unread articles in the target group you can
       avoid entering a new menu level by using the j reply described below.   The  current  menu
       level  (i.e. number of nested goto commands) will be shown in the prompt line as "<N>" (in
       reverse video).

       The goto command is very powerful, but unfortunately also a little  bit  tricky  at  first
       sight,  because  the  facilities it provides depend on the context in which the command is
       used.

       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 possibil-
       ities:

       return An empty answer is equivalent to the current newsgroup.

       letter The answer is taken to be the name of a newsgroup.  If a news group with the  given
              name  does  not  exist, nn will treat the answer as a regular expression and locate
              the first group in the presentation sequence  (or  among  all  groups)  whose  name
              matches the expression.

       +
              The  answer  is  taken  to  be the name of a folder.  If only `+' is entered, it is
              equivalent to the default save file for the current group.

       / or ./ or ~/
              The answer is taken to be the name of a file, either relative to the current 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 split-
              ting 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
              current group (e.g. G return = and G = are equivalent).

       Specifying a folder, a file, or an article (with %) will cause nn to treat the file like a
       digest  and split it into separate articles (not physically!)  which are then presented on
       a menu in the usual way, allowing you to read or  save  individual  subarticles  from  the
       folder.

       When  you  enter  a group name, nn will ask you how many articles in the group you want to
       see on the menu.  You can give the following answers:

       a number N
              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 num-
              ber directly), you will get that many extra articles  included  on  the  same  menu
              (without creating a new menu level).

       j      This  answer  can only be given if there are unread articles in the group.  It will
              instruct nn to jump directly to the specified group in  the  presentation  sequence
              without creating a new menu level.

       u      This  instructs  nn to present the unread articles in the group (if there are any).
              If you have already read the group (in the current invocation of nn), the u  answer
              will instruct nn to present the articles that were unread when you entered nn.

       a      This instruct nn to present all articles in the group.

       sword or =word
              This  instructs nn to search all articles in the groups, but only present the arti-
              cles containing the word word in the subject.  Notice that  case  is  ignored  when
              searching for the word in the subject lines.

       nword  Same  as  the  s  form  except  that it searched for articles where the sender name
              matches word.

       eword  Same as the s form except that it Psearched for articles where either  the  subject
              or the sender name matches word.

       word = /regexp
              When  the  first  character  of  the word specified with the s, n, and e forms is a
              slash `/', the rest of the input is interpreted as a regular expression  to  search
              for.   Notice  that regular expression matching is case insensitive when case-fold-
              search is set (default).

       return The meaning of an empty answer depends on the context: if there are unread articles
              in  the  specified group the unread articles will be presented, otherwise all arti-
              cles in the group will be included in the menu.

       If you specified the current group, and the menu already contains all the available  arti-
       cles, 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  se-
              quence with unread articles or which has previously been visited.

       P    {previous}
              When  used  within  an A or B command, it skips backwards to the preceding group in
              the sequence with unread articles or which has previously been visited.

       Once you have entered an A or Bcommand, you can freely mix the A, B, P, and N commands  to
       find  the  group  you  want, and you can also use the G command to be prompted for a group
       name.

       To show the use of the goto command some typical examples on its use are given below:

       Present the unread articles in the dk.general group
            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  avail-
              able in both selection and reading mode.

       Entries  in  the kill file may apply to a single newsgroup or to all newsgroups.  Further-
       more, entries may be permanent or they may be expired a given number of days  after  their
       entry.

       To increase performance, nn uses a compiled version of the kill file which is read in when
       nn is invoked.  The compiled kill file will automatically be updated if  the  normal  kill
       file has been modified.

       The following dialog is used to build the kill file entry:

       AUTO (k)ill or (s)elect (CR => Kill subject 30 days)
              If  you simply want nn to kill all articles with the subject of the current article
              (in reading mode) or a specific article (which nn  will  prompt  for  in  selection
              mode),  just hit return.  This will cause nn to create an entry in the kill file to
              kill the current (or specified) subject in the current group for  a  period  of  30
              days (which should be enough for the discussion to die out).
              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 ques-
              tions.

       AUTO SELECT on (s)ubject or (n)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 ar-
              ticle (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  selec-
              tion mode, you can use the name (or subject) from an article on the menu by answer-
              ing with % followed 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-
              sensitive).
              Otherwise, nn will select or kill articles which contain the specified string  any-
              where in the name or subject (ignoring case).

       SELECT in (g)roup `dk.general' or in (a)ll groups  (g)
              You  must  now  specify  whether  the selection or kill should apply to the current
              group only (g or space) or to all groups (a).

       Lifetime of entry in days (p)ermanent  (30)
              You can now specify the lifetime of the entry, either by entering a number specify-
              ing  the  number of days the entry should be active, or p to specify the entry as a
              permanent entry.  An empty reply is equivalent to 30 days.

       CONFIRM SELECT ....
              Finally, you will be asked to confirm the entry, and you should especially note the
              presence  or absence of the word exact which specify whether an exact match applies
              for the entry.

       Related variables: default-kill-select, kill.

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
       expired 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!).  Oth-
       erwise, the expire time defines the time (as a time_t value) when the entry should be  ex-
       pired.

       The group name field can have three forms:

       news.group.name
              If  it  is  the  name of a single news group (e.g. comp.unix), the entry applies to
              that group only.

       /regular expression
              If it starts with a slash `/' followed by a regular expression  (e.g.  /^news\..*),
              the entry applies to all groups whose name are matched by the regular expression.

       empty  An empty group field will apply the entry to all groups.

       The  flags  field consists of a list of characters which identifies the type of entry, and
       the interpretation of each string field.  When used, the flag characters must be  used  in
       the order in which they are described below:

       ~    (optional)
              When this flag is present on any of the entries for a specific group, it causes all
              entires which are not auto-selected to be killed.  This is a simple way to say: I'm
              interested in this and that, but nothing else.

       +    or ! (optional)
              Specify  an  auto-select  +  or an auto-kill ! entry, respectively.  If neither are
              used, the article is neither selected nor killed which  is  useful  in  combination
              with the `~' flag.

       > (optional)
              When  used  with a subject (flag s), the kill entry only matches follow-ups to that
              subject (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</:^HELP

       n or s or a (mandatory)
              Specify whether the corresponding string applies to the name n or to the subject  s
              of an article.  If flag a is used, the corresponding string is ignored (but must be
              present), and the entry applies to articles with a non-empty References: line.

       / (optional)
              Specifies that the corresponding string is a regular expression which the sender or
              subject  is  matched against.  If not specified, a simple string match is performed
              using the given string.

       = (optional)
              Specifies that the match against the name or subject is case  sensitive.   Further-
              more,  when regular expression matching is not used, the name or subject must be of
              the same length of the string to match.  Otherwise, the match will be case insensi-
              tive, and a string may occur anywhere in the name or subject to match.

       | or & (mandatory if multiple strings)
              If more than one string is specified, the set of flags corresponding to each string
              must be separated by either an or operator `|' or an and operator `&'.  The and op-
              erator  has a higher precedence than the or operator, e.g.  a complex match expres-
              sion a|b&c|d will succeed if either of a, b&c, or d matches.

       The string field in the entry is the name, subject or  regular  expression  that  will  be
       matched  against the name or subject of each article in the group (or all groups).  Colons
       and backslashes must be escaped with a backslash in the string.

       Example 1:  Auto-select articles from `Tom Collins'  (exact)  on  subject  `News'  in  all
       groups:
           :+n=&s:Tom Collins:News

       Example 2:  Kill all articles which are neither from `Tom' or `Eve' in some.group.  Select
       only articles from Eve:
           some.group:~n:Tom
           some.group:+n:Eve

       The second example can also be written as a single entry with  an  or  operator  (in  this
       case, the select/kill attribute only applies to the succeeding strings):
           some.group:~n|+n:Tom:Eve

       To  remove  expired  entries, to "undo" a K command, and to make the more advanced entries
       with more than one string, you will have to edit the kill file manually.  To recompile the
       file,  you  can  use the :compile command.  When you invoke nn, it will also recompile the
       kill file if the compiled version is out of date.

SHELL ESCAPES
       The !  commands available in selection and reading mode are identical in  operation  (with
       one exception).  When you enter the shell escape command, you will be prompted for a shell
       command.  This command will be fed to the shell specified in the shell  variable  (default
       loaded  from  the SHELL environment variable or /bin/sh) after the following substitutions
       have been performed on the command:

       File name expansion
              The earlier described file name expansions will be performed on all arguments.

       $G     will be substituted with the name of the current news group.

       $L     will be substituted with the last component of the name of the current news group.

       $F     will be substituted with the name of the current news group with  the  periods  re-
              placed by slashes.

       $N     will be substituted with the (local) article number (only defined in reading mode).

       $A     is  replaced by the full path name of the file containing the current article (only
              defined in reading mode).

       %      Same as $A.

       $(VAR) is replaced by the string value of the environment variable VAR.

       When the shell command is completed, you will be asked to hit any key to continue.  If you
       hit  the  !   key again, you will be prompted for a new shell command.  Any other key will
       redraw the screen and return you to the mode you came from.

       Related variables: shell, shell-restrictions.

MISCELLANEOUS COMMANDS
       Below are more useful commands which are available in both selection and reading modes.

       U    {unsub}
              Unsubscribe to the current group.  You will not see this group any more unless  you
              explicitly  request it.  If the variable unsubscribe-mark-read is set, all articles
              in the group will be marked read when you unsubscribe.
                If the variable keep-unsubscribed is not set, the  group  will  be  removed  from
              .newsrc.   If you are not subscribing to the group, you will be given the possibil-
              ity to resubscribe to the group!  This may be used in connection with the G command
              to resubscribe a group.

       C    {cancel}
              Cancel  (delete) an article in the current group or folder.  Cancelling articles in
              a folder will cause the folder to be rewritten when it  is  closed.   In  selection
              mode,  you  will  be  prompted for the identifier of the article to cancel.  Normal
              users can only cancel their own articles.  See also the section on  folder  mainte-
              nance.

       Y    {overview}
              Provide an overview of the groups with unread articles.

       "    {layout}
              Change menu layout in selection mode.  The menu will be redrawn using the next lay-
              out (cycling through ..., 2, 3, 4, 0, 1, ...)

       Most of the commands in nn are bound to a key and can be activated by a single  keystroke.
       However, there are a few commands that cannot be bound to a key directly.

       As shown in the keystroke command descriptions, all commands have a name, and it is possi-
       ble to activate a command by name with the extended command key  (:).   Hitting  this  key
       will  prompt  you for the name of a command (and parameters).  For example, an alternative
       to hitting the R key to reply to an article is to enter the extended command  :reply  fol-
       lowed  by return.  The :post and :unshar commands described earlier can also be bound to a
       key.  The complete list of commands which can be bound to keys is provided in the  section
       on Key Mappings below.

       The  following extended commands cannot be bound to a key, mainly because they require ad-
       ditional parameters on the prompt line, or because it should not be possible  to  activate
       them too easily.

       :admin Enter  administrative mode.  This is identical in operation to the nnadmin(1M) pro-
              gram.

       :bug   Prepare and send a bug report to the nn-bugs mailing address.

       :cd [ directory ]
              Change current working directory.  If the directory argument is  not  provided,  nn
              will prompt for it.

       :clear Clear the screen (without redraw).  This may be useful at the beginning of the init
              file (possibly guarded by "on program nn"), or in some macros.

       :compile
              Recompile the kill file.  This is not necessary under normal operation since nn au-
              tomatically  compiles the file on start-up if it has changed, but it can be used if
              you modify the kill file while nn is suspended.

       :coredump
              Abort with a core dump.  For debugging purposes only.

       :define macro
              Define macro number macro as described in the Macro Definition section  below.   If
              macro is omitted, the next free macro number will be chosen.

       :dump table
              Same as the :show command described below.

       :help [ subject ]
              Provide  online  help on the specified subject.  If you omit the subject, a list of
              the available topics will be given.

       :load [ file ]
              Load the specified file.  If the  file  argument  is  omitted,  the  init  file  is
              reloaded.  The sequence part (if present) is ignored.

       :local variable [ value ]
              Make  the  variable local to the current group.  Subsequent changes to the variable
              will only be effective until the current group is left.  If a value  is  specified,
              it  will  be  assigned  to  the local variable.  To assign a new value to a boolean
              variable, the values on and off must be used.

       :lock variable
              Lock the specified variable so it cannot be modified.

       :man   Call up the online manual.  The manual is presented as a  normal  folder  with  the
              program name in the `From' field and the section title in the `subject' field.  All
              the normal commands related to a folder works for the online manual as  well,  e.g.
              you can save and print sections of the manual.

       :map arguments
              This  is  the command used for binding commands to the keys.  It is fully described
              in the Key Mapping section below.

       :mkdir [ directory ]
              Create the directory (and the directories in its path).  It will prompt for at  di-
              rectory name if the argument is omitted.

       :motd  Show  the  message  of  the  day  (maintained by the news administrator in the file
              "motd" in the lib directory.  This file  is  automatically  displayed  on  start-up
              whenever it changes if the motd variable is set.

       :pwd   Print path name of current working directory on message line.

       :q     Has  no  effect  besides redrawing the screen if necessary.  If an extended command
              (one which is prefixed by a :) produces any output requiring the screen to  be  re-
              drawn,  the  screen will not be redrawn immediately if the variable delay-redraw is
              set (useful on slow terminals).  Instead another : prompt is shown to allow you  to
              enter a new extended command immediately.  It is sufficient to hit return to redraw
              the screen, but it has been my experience that entering q return in this  situation
              happens quite often, so it was made a no-op.

       :q!    Quit nn without updating the .newsrc file.

       :Q     Quit nn.  This is equivalent to the normal Q command.

       :rmail Open  your  mailbox  (see  the mail variable) as a folder to read the incoming mes-
              sages.  This is not a full mail interface (depending on the nn  configuration,  you
              may not be able to delete messages, add cc: on replies, etc), but it can give you a
              quick glance at new mail without leaving nn.

       :set variable [ value ]
              Set a boolean variable to true or assign the value to a string or integer variable.
              The :set command is described in details in the section on VARIABLES.

       :sh    Suspend nn, or if that is not possible, spawn an interactive shell.

       :show groups mode
              Show  the  total  number or the number of unread articles in the current group, de-
              pending on mode: all (list the number of unread articles in  all  groups  including
              groups which you have unsubscribed to), total (list the total number of articles in
              all existing groups), sequence (list unread groups in presentation sequence order),
              subscr  (list  all  subscribed groups), unsub (list unsubscribed groups only).  Any
              other mode results in a listing of the number of unread articles in all  subscribed
              groups  including  those you have suppressed with the `!'  symbol in the group pre-
              sentation sequence.  To get just the currently unread groups  in  the  presentation
              sequence, use the `Y' {overview} command.

       :show kill
              Show the kill entries that applies to the current group and to all groups.

       :show rc [ group ]
              Show the .newsrc and select file entries for the current or the specified group.

       :show map [ mode ]
              Show the key bindings in the current or specified mode.

       :sort [ mode ]
              Reorder  the  articles  on  the menu according to mode or if omitted to the default
              sort-mode.  The following sorting modes are available:
              arrival: list articles by local article number which will be the same as the  order
              in which they arrived on the system (unless groups are merged),
              subject:  articles with identical subjects are grouped and ordered after age of the
              oldest article in the group,
              lexical: subjects in lexicographical order,
              age: articles ordered after posting date only,
              sender: articles ordered after sender's name.

       :toggle variable
              Toggle a boolean variable.

       :unread [ group ] [ articles ]
              Mark the current (or specified) group as unread.  If the articles argument is omit-
              ted, the number of unread articles in the group will be set to the number of unread
              articles when nn was invoked.  Otherwise, the argument specifies the number of  un-
              read articles.

       :unset variable
              Set a boolean variable to false or clear an integer variable.

       :x     Quit nn and mark all articles in the current group as read!

       Related  variables:  backup,  bug-report-address,  delay-redraw, keep-unsubscribed, unsub-
       scribe-mark-read, mail, pager, sort-mode.

CATCH UP
       If you have not read news for some time, there are probably more news than  you  can  cope
       with.  Using the option -a0 nn will put you into catch-up mode.

       The first question you will get is whether to catch up interactively or automatically.  If
       you instruct nn to catch up automatically, it will simply mark all articles in all  groups
       as read, thus bringing you completely up-to-date.

       If  you  choose  the interactive mode, nn will locate all groups with unread articles, and
       for each group it will prompt you for an action to take on the group.  An  action  is  se-
       lected using a single letter followed by return.  The following actions are available:

       y      Mark all articles as read in current group.

       n      Do not update group (this is the default action if you just hit return).

       r      Enter reading mode to read the group.

       U      Unsubscribe to the group.

       ?      Give a list of actions.

       q      Quit.   When you quit, nn will ask whether the rest of the groups should be updated
              unconditionally or whether they should remain unread.

VARIABLES AND OPTIONS
       It is possible to control the behaviour of nn through the setting (and unsetting)  of  the
       variables described below.  There are several ways of setting variables:
       - Through command line options when nn is invoked.
       - Through assignments on the command line when nn is invoked.
       - Through global set commands in the init file.
       - Through set or local commands executed from entry macros.
       - Through the :set extended command when you run nn.

       There are four types of variables:
       - Boolean variables
       - Integer variables
       - String variables
       - Key variables

       Boolean  variables  control  a  specific function in nn, e.g.  whether the current time is
       shown in the prompt line.  A boolean variable is set to true with the command
            set variable
       and it is set to false with either of the following (equivalent) commands:
            unset variable
            set novariable

       You can also toggle the value of a boolean variable using the command:
            toggle variable

       For example:
            set time
            unset time
            set notime
            toggle time

       Integer variables control an amount e.g. the size of the preview window,  or  the  maximum
       number of articles to read in each group.  They are set with the following command:
            set variable value
       In some cases, not setting an integer value has a special meaning, for example, not having
       a minimal preview window or reading all articles in the groups no matter  how  many  there
       are.  The special meaning can be re-established by the following command:
            unset variable
       For example:
            set window 7
            unset limit

       String  variables  may specify directory names, default values for prompts, etc.  They are
       set using the command
            set variable string
       Normally, the string value assigned to the variable value starts at  the  first  non-blank
       character  after  the  variable name and ends with the last non-blank character (excluding
       comments) on the line.  To include leading or trailing blanks, or the comment  start  sym-
       bol,  #,  in  the string they must be escaped using a backslash `\', e.g. to set included-
       mark to the string " # ", the following assignment can be used:
            set included-mark  \ \#\   # blank-#-blank
       To include a backslash in the string, it must be duplicated `\\'.  A backslash may also be
       used  to  include  the following special characters in the string: \a=alarm, \b=backspace,
       \e=escape, \f=form-feed, \n=new-line, \r=return, \t=tab.

       Key variables control the keys used to control special functions during user input such as
       line editing and completion.  They are set using the command
            set variable key-name

       A variable can be locked which makes further modification of the variable impossible:
            lock variable
       This  can  be used in the setup init file which is loaded unconditionally to enforce local
       conventions or restrictions.  For example, to fix the included-mark variable to the string
       ">", the following commands can be placed in the setup file:
            set included-mark >
            lock included-mark
       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  com-
       mand 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 ex-
              pression.

       :set partial-name space
              The space (comp1-key) key will complete the variable name as usual, but as  a  side
              effect 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
       using 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
       current 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-digest  will cause the (unsplit) digest to be included on the menu.  These ar-
              ticles 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  sub-
              groups  of  the  group  to  be  included,  for example, comp.unix will also include
              comp.unix.questions, etc.  When also-subgroups is not set, subgroups are  only  in-
              cluded  if  the group name is followed by a `.' in which case the main group is not
              included, i.e.  `comp.unix' is not included when `comp.unix.' is specified  in  the
              presentation  sequence, and vice-versa.  Following a group name by an asterisk `*',
              e.g. comp.unix*, will include the group as well as all subgroups  independently  of
              the setting of also-subgroups.

       append-signature-mail    (boolean, default false)
              When false, it is assumed that the .signature file is automatically appended to 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  arti-
              cles (see query-signature).

       attributes symbols  (string, default ....)
              Each element in this string represents a symbol used to represent an article attri-
              bute when displayed on the screen.  See the section on  Marking  Articles  and  At-
              tributes.

       auto-junk-seen (boolean, default true)
              When  set,  articles which have the seen attribute (,) will be marked read when the
              current 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 re-
              tain-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.
              Furthermore, the `n' {next-article} command will preview the next  article  on  the
              menu only if it has the same subject as the current article; otherwise, it will re-
              turn 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 en-
              try to the group.
                Auto reading mode is disabled when auto-read-mode-limit is zero; it is  activated
              unconditionally if the value is negative, and conditionally if the value is greater
              than zero and the number of unread articles in the current group  does  not  exceed
              the given value.

       auto-select-closed mode  (integer, default 1)
              Normally,  selecting  a closed subject (usually in consolidated menu mode) will se-
              lect (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  arti-
              cles 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  inter-
              nally, 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; oth-
              erwise 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 mtpins AT nndev.org)
              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 "unknown", 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 vari-
              able).  If necessary, 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 be-
              fore showing the menu for that group.  Normally, this is not  necessary  since  all
              users  traditionally  have  access  to all news groups.  Setting (and locking) this
              variable may be used to limit access to a news group via the permissions and owner-
              ship 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 articles arrived since the invocation of nn.

       confirm-create      (boolean, default true)
              When set, nn will ask for confirmation before creating a new file or directory when
              saving or unpacking an article (see also confirm-append).

       confirm-entry       (boolean, default false)
              When set, nn will ask for confirmation before entering a group with more than  con-
              firm-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 with-
              out 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  hit-
              ting interrupt, 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  sub-
              ject's menu line.

       counter-delim-right (string, default "] ")
              The  delimiter  string  output to the right of the article counter in a closed sub-
              ject'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  align-
              ment.  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 filtering on sequence).
              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 News-
              groups: 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  dis-
              carding ``spam'' articles.

       data-bits bits (integer, default 7)
              When  set  to 7, nn will display characters with the 8th bit set using a meta-nota-
              tion 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
              contain 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 auto-
              matically 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
              follow and post commands if the corresponding follow-distribution or post-distribu-
              tion 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  en-
              try  in the kill file (1-99 days).  If it has the value days+100 (e.g. 130), it de-
              notes 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  pre-
              sentation  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 in-
              stead 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 ex-
              pected.

       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  con-
              firmation.

       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  cor-
              rectly afterwards.  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
              directly to this group when you start nn the next time.  This variable is  used  to
              control 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  mes-
              sage about this and sleep for a number of seconds specified by this variable.  Set-
              ting this variable to zero will still make nn give the message without sleeping af-
              terwards.  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  net-
              work  configurations  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 character 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  for-
              mat.   If  this variable is not set, folders are assumed to be in the format speci-
              fied 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 deter-
              mine 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 orig-
              inal  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 de-
              fault.
              - Then if ask is specified, the user will be asked to confirm the default distribu-
              tion  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  ei-
              ther 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).
              Otherwise, 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 follow-
              ing 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  an-
              other  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
              normal 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
              article.   If  it  is not set, it only includes the header when the article is for-
              warded without being edited.

       include-mark-blank-lines (boolean, default false)
              When set, the included-mark is placed on blank lines in included articles.   Other-
              wise,  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 in-
              ews 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.   Other-
              wise,  the  file containing the article will be given as the first (and only) argu-
              ment 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 di-
              rectory.  Groups which are not present in the initial .newsrc file will be automat-
              ically  unsubscribed  provided  new-group-action  is set to a value allowing unsub-
              scribed 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
              articles  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  automati-
              cally  remove all unsubscribed from .newsrc if tidy-newsrc is set.  See also unsub-
              scribe-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
              default 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
              command  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
              folders.  Unless folder-format-check is false, it is only used to specify the  for-
              mat  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 commands.  For example:
                   set mail-header Reply-To: storm AT texas.dk;Organization: TI - DK
              To include a semicolon `;' in a header, precede it by a backslash  (which  must  be
              doubled 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
              executing 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 re-
              cipient'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-
              return}  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  dif-
              ferent 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 arti-
              cles 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 di-
              rectory.  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  par-
              tial  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 recognition of multi-keys.

       new-group-action action  (integer, default 3)
              This variable controls how new groups are treated by nn.  It is  an  integer  vari-
              able,  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 begin-
              ning 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  re-
              garded 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
              selected 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 fol-
              low 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
              variable.

       news-script file    (string, default not set)
              When set, nn will use the specified file instead of the standard  aux  script  when
              executing 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
              articles marked unread, and thus no longer messes up .newsrc for other  news  read-
              ers!  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
              multiple 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 dependent.

       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 update 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 automati-
              cally be removed before the letter is sent.  This variable specifies which  headers
              from the article 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
              underlined 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 dis-
              tribution 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 distribu-
              tion or provide another distribution.
              The default value of post-distribution is ask default, i.e. use the default-distri-
              bution with confirmation from the user.

       preview-continuation cond     (integer, default 12)
              This  variable  determines  on what terms the following article should be automati-
              cally 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
              return 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-ar-
              ticle 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
              articles  read in the current invocation of nn even if there are still unread arti-
              cles 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 specifi-
              cation 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
              problems 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-
              going 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
              simple subtracting the first unread article number from the total number  of  arti-
              cles 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
              belongs  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
              negative, the subject on this header line will be prefixed according to the re-lay-
              out 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
              variables 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 (un-
              less  they  were marked read by auto-junk-seen).  If retain-seen-status is set, the
              seen attribute 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 re-
              porting 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 articles 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 de-
              fault 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 suc-
              cessive 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
              Customized Article Headers below.

       save-report    (boolean, default true)
              When  set, a message reporting the number of lines written is shown after saving an
              article.  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 arti-
              cle.

       select-leave-next        (boolean, default false)
              When set, you will be asked whether to select articles with the  leave-next  attri-
              bute 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 fol-
              lowing  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  de-
              fined  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
              variables 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
              being 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 article identifier on selected articles.  Also when slow-mode is  set  nn  will
              avoid  redrawing  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 arti-
              cle, only the prompt line is shown (use ^L to redraw the screen).  To avoid redraw-
              ing the screen after 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
              entry to a menu for merged groups, the articles from each group will  be  kept  to-
              gether  on  the  menu.   If  sort is unset while merged groups are presented on the
              menu, the articles 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 connec-
              tion 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
              including  header as its only argument.  If the spell checker can fix spelling mis-
              takes, 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 pre-
              sented 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
              before 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.  Set-
              ting 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 im-
              mediate 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 sys-
              tems without a sysline (1) 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 char-
              acters  in  an article if it is followed by one of the characters in the list.  For
              example, 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
              column.

       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 ar-
              ticles in the unsubscribe groups are kept  in  .newsrc.   If  keep-unsubscribed  is
              false, this variable 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 win-
              dow.   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,
       subject, 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 in-
       formative 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
       otherwise):

       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 instead.

       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 com-
       plete 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
       command 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
       option).  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  vari-
       ables, with the `reverse' effect in square brackets.

       -aN  {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.

       -Ifile-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  op-
              tion.   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 independently of the -I option used.

       -k   {toggle kill}
              Do not [do] perform automatic kill and selection of articles.

       -lN  {set stop N}
              Stop after printing the first N lines of each article.  This is useful on slow ter-
              minals.

       -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.

       -nWORD Collect only articles which contain the string WORD in the sender's name  (case  is
              ignored).   If  WORD starts with a slash `/', the rest of the argument is used as a
              regular 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 prac-
              tice!)

       -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.

       -sWORD 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
              regular 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 pre-
              view 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  sub-
              ject 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 fol-
       low 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 se-
       quence 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 com-
       mand, 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 de-
       fined 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  manda-
       tory):
            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 caus-
              ing that command to be invoked when the macro is executed.

       Extended Commands
              All  the  extended commands which can be executed through the command command (nor-
              mally 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 out-
              put to the terminal.  The difference is that in the latter case, nn does  not  pre-
              pare  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 cur-
              rent value is the one specified, or (2) if the variable is a boolean variable which
              is either 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
              command 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
              ignore it.  If neither yes nor no is specified when a  command  requires  confirma-
              tion,  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  ter-
              minated.  Example (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 au-
              tomatically be redrawn.  If this is not desirable (e.g.  if the macro goes from se-
              lection 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
       entered 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 du-
       ration 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  follow-
              ing command:
                   map #i key-sequence
              where the sequence is a list of 7-bit character names (see below) separated by spa-
              ces.  For example, if the HOME key sends the sequence ESC [ H, you can define  mul-
              tikey #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
              mapping 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
       command 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  re-
              quire  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
              selection and reading mode at once.  For example, to map the home key to macro num-
              ber 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 character 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 com-
       mand 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  corre-
       sponding  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
       optional):

       $LIB/setup
              A  system-wide  file  located in the library directory.  This file is always loaded
              before any other init file (even when the -I option is specified).  It cannot  con-
              tain 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
       backslash 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  ig-
              nored.   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
              : prefix 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  con-
              struction, 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 re-
              spectively.

       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.
              Example:
                   # 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  con-
              ditions.  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
       commands 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
       condition is true.  They may also have an optional else part which is executed if the con-
       dition 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 op-
              tions of the test(1) 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
              command, the output from the previous

       on $variable [ value ]
              If no value strings are specified, the command group is executed if the given vari-
              able 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  fol-
              lowing code:
                   on $MAIL
                        set mail $(MAIL)
                   end

       on slow
              The  commands (init file syntax) in the group are executed only if the current ter-
              minal 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
              running 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 en-
              try macro will be associated with the groups in the list.  The group list is speci-
              fied using the meta-notations described in the presentation sequence section.
              All `:' commands at the beginning of the command group are executed before nn  col-
              lects  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 executed 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 pre-
       sentation 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 encountered).

       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.ques-
       tions" in the list, this subgroup will be placed in the normal alphabetic sequence  during
       the collection of all the "comp" groups.

       Groups  which are not explicitly mentioned in any of the sequence files will be placed af-
       ter 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 single `+' 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-sub-
              groups  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.  Exam-
              ple: ".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 speci-
       fied using any of the forms described above:

       ! groups
              Completely ignore the group or groups specified unless they are already in the pre-
              sentation 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  sub-
              scribed  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
              ignored 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  hi-
              erarchy  but  still see new groups which are created in the hierarchy (it might be-
              come interesting some day).  Individual groups can still be  included  in  the  se-
              quence 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
              already in the presentation sequence.

       NEW    This is a pseudo group name which matches all new groups; you could place this sym-
              bol early in your presentation sequence to see new groups `out of sequence' (to at-
              tract 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
              sequence, 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 se-
              quence 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
       ignore the rest (including new news groups which are otherwise always subscribed  to  ini-
       tially), 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 se-
       quence 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  ig-
       nored 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 ar-
       ticles 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
       pattern 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
       individual  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 recently 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  de-
       fined  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
       purpose,  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  descrip-
       tions of those variables for more info.

       Unfortunately,  the list of active newsgroups is still fetched, since nn uses it to deter-
       mine 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, al-
       though 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  envi-
       ronment 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), nngoback(1), nngrab(1), nngrep(1), nnpost(1), nntidy(1)
       nnusage(1M), nnspew(8)

ORIGINAL AUTHOR
       Kim F. Storm, Texas Instruments A/S, Denmark

CURRENT MAINTAINER
       Michael T Pins mtpins AT nndev.org

       The NNTP support was designed and implemented by Rene Seindal, Institute of Datalogy, Uni-
       versity 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,  informa-
       tion from the development group, patches, etc.

4th Berkeley Distribution                  Release 6.6                                      NN(1)

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