NAME
slrn - An easy to use NNTP / spool based newsreader.
SYNOPSIS
slrn [-aCdknmw] [-C-] [-Dname] [-f newsrc-file] [-i config-file] [-k0]
[--create] [--debug file] [--help] [--inews] [--kill-log file] [--nntp
[-h server] [-p port]] [--show-config] [--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 --create’’.
Inside slrn, online help is available via the ’?’ key.
OPTIONS
The following options can be used when calling slrn from the command
line. They override both environment 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 variable. If no port is given, the default NNTP
port (119) will be used. This option is only accepted after
--nntp or when NNTP is the default mode.
-i config-file
Read file as the initialization (slrnrc) file. The default is
to use .slrnrc (or slrn.rc on VMS, OS/2 and Windows) in your
home directory.
-k Don’t read the score file.
-k0 Read the score file, but inhibit expensive scoring. A scoring
rule is expensive if it contains header lines that are not
included in the server’s overview files. This makes applying
them slow.
-m Force mouse support (without checking if it works on the current
terminal).
-n Do not check for new groups (usually resulting in a faster
startup).
-p N Use port N to connect to the NNTP server.
-w Wait for a key before switching to full screen mode, allowing
the user to read startup messages.
--create
Read the active file (the list of all groups) from the news
server to create an initial newsrc file.
--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 slrn-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 subsequently 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/local/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 slrnfuns.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.
The latest version of slrn is available from
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/slrn/
AUTHOR
John E. Davis <jed@jedsoft.org>