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slrn(1) User Manuals slrn(1)
NAME
slrn - An easy to use NNTP / spool based newsreader.
SYNOPSIS
slrn [-aCdknmw] [-C-] [-Dname] [-f newsrc-file] [-i config-file] [-k0] [--create] [--de-
bug file] [--help] [--inews] [--kill-log file] [--nntp [-h server] [-p port]] [--show-con-
fig] [--spool] [--version]
DESCRIPTION
slrn is an easy to use but powerful NNTP / spool based newsreader.
It is highly customizable, supports scoring, free key bindings and can be extended using
the embedded S-Lang interpreter.
To use slrn, you either need to set the NNTPSERVER environment variable to the server you
want to read news from or specify a server on the command line. A newsrc file is needed,
too. In case you do not yet have one, you can create it using ``slrn -f ~/.jnewsrc --cre-
ate''.
Inside slrn, online help is available via the '?' key.
OPTIONS
The following options can be used when calling slrn from the command line. They override
both environment variables and settings in private and global configuration files.
-a Read active file when checking for new news.
-C Use colors without checking if the terminal supports it.
-C- Don't use colors, even if the terminal supports it.
-d Get group descriptions (taglines) from the news server. Please note that this may
cause a download of several hundred kilobytes and thus can take a long time. The
output is saved to a local file, so you only need to do this once. May not be
specified in combination with --create.
-Dname Add name to the list of predefined preprocessing tokens, which can be used in your
slrnrc file to have conditionally interpreted lines. See the slrn reference manual
for details.
-f newsrc-file
Use file as the newsrc file for this session. This is permanently set via the
server configuration command.
-h host[:port]
Connect to the NNTP server on host, overriding the $NNTPSERVER environment vari-
able. If no port is given, the default NNTP port (119) will be used. This option
is only accepted after --nntp or when NNTP is the default mode.
-i config-file
Read file as the initialization (slrnrc) file. The default is to use .slrnrc (or
slrn.rc on VMS, OS/2 and Windows) in your home directory.
-k Don't read the score file.
-k0 Read the score file, but inhibit expensive scoring. A scoring rule is expensive if
it contains header lines that are not included in the server's overview files.
This makes applying them slow.
-m Force mouse support (without checking if it works on the current terminal).
-n Do not check for new groups (usually resulting in a faster startup).
-p N Use port N to connect to the NNTP server.
-w Wait for a key before switching to full screen mode, allowing the user to read
startup messages.
--create
Read the active file (the list of all groups) from the news server to create an
initial newsrc file.
--debug file
Write debugging output to file.
--help Show help for command line switches.
--inews
Use an external inews program to post articles.
--kill-log file
Keep a log of all articles that were killed by the scorefile in file.
--nntp Use builtin NNTP support for reading and posting (an external program is used to
post if slrn was compiled with --enable-force-inews).
--pull Spool outgoing articles locally for slrnpull to send.
--show-config
Print detailed information about slrn configuration.
--spool
Read directly from spool.
--version
Print version and some compile time settings.
ENVIRONMENT
slrn uses the following list of environment variables. Note: environment variables can be
overridden by configuration files or command line switches.
COLORTERM
If this variable is set, slrn will assume that your terminal supports ANSI color
sequences. It also enables a workaround for a problem with the mouse reporting
when running slrn inside of an rxvt.
DISPLAY
If set, slrn assumes that X11 is running.
EDITOR See $SLRN_EDITOR.
HOME See $SLRNHOME.
HOSTNAME
If no hostname is given, the value of this environment variable is used.
LOGNAME
See $USER.
NAME Set it to your realname, if slrn can't determine it otherwise.
NNTPSERVER
You can use this variable to tell slrn which NNTP server to connect to. It can be
overridden by the command line option -h.
ORGANIZATION
The name of your organization.
PRINTER
On unix systems, slrn pipes the current article to ``lpr -P $PRINTER'' to print it.
PWD This variable is only used on unix systems that don't support getcwd(3). In these
cases, it should be set to the current directory at the time slrn is invoked. This
is usually done by the shell and nothing the user has to worry about.
REPLYTO
The value of this variable is used as the default if you do not set replyto in your
slrnrc file.
SLANG_EDITOR
See $SLRN_EDITOR.
SLRNHELP
You can set this variable to a file slrn should read its online help from. This is
only needed when the default key bindings have been changed and you want the help
function to reflect this. If unset, slrn looks for help.txt in the configuration
directory.
SLRNHOME
When interpreting filenames as relative to your home directory, slrn uses this
variable to find out what your home directory is. If $SLRNHOME is unset, $HOME is
used instead.
SLRN_EDITOR
The editor to start for editing articles. If this variable is unset, slrn subse-
quently looks at $SLANG_EDITOR, $EDITOR and $VISUAL.
SLRN_SLANG_DIR
If set, slrn will search for slang macros here. If not set slrn will search in the
default path, which is defined at compile time (usually share_dir/slang).
TMP Indicates the directory in which slrn should save temporary files.
TMPDIR See $TMP.
USER Your username, if slrn can't get it from the system by other means.
VISUAL See $SLRN_EDITOR.
FILES
$HOME/.slrnrc
User-specific configuration file.
config_dir/slrn.rc
System-wide configuration file. config_dir is set at compile time (/usr/local/etc
by default).
$HOME/.jnewsrc
default newsrc file for slrn.
$HOME/.jnewsrc.dsc
Per user newsgroups descriptions.
share_dir/newsgroups.dsc
Global newsgroup descriptions. share_dir is set at compile time (/usr/lo-
cal/share/slrn by default).
SEE ALSO
The documentation that comes with slrn, especially FIRST_STEPS, manual.txt, FAQ and
score.txt. If you consider writing S-Lang macros, also look at README.macros and slrn-
funs.txt.
Recent versions of the slrn manual and the FAQ as well as additional information can also
be found on slrn's official home page: http://slrn.sourceforge.net/
Questions about slrn that are not covered by existing documentation may be posted to the
newsgroup news.software.readers where they will be answered by knowledgeable users or the
author of the program. In addition, announcements of new versions of slrn are posted
there.
Links to the latest version of slrn may be found at http://www.jedsoft.org/slrn/
AUTHOR
John E. Davis <jed AT jedsoft.org>
Unix February 2008 slrn(1)
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