The slrn reference manual
Matthias Friedrich <matt@mafr.de>
Thomas Schultz <tststs@gmx.de>
Thomas Wiegner <wiegner@gmx.de>
Peter J Ross <peadar.ruadh@gmail.com>
Version 0.9.9, September 2008
Using and customizing the slrn newsreader
______________________________________________________________________
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
1.1 Downloading slrn
1.2 Getting help
1.3 About this manual
1.3.1 History
2. Configuration
2.1 A brief introduction to the built-in S-Lang prompt
3. Command line switches
4. Environment variables
5. The slrn configuration file
5.1 Basics
5.2 Preprocessing of configuration files
5.2.1 #iffalse, #ifntrue
5.2.2 #iftrue, #ifnfalse
5.2.3 #if$ENV
5.2.4 #ifn$ENV
5.2.5 #if$ENV string1 string2 ...
5.2.6 #ifn$ENV string1 string2 ...
5.2.7 #ifdef SYMBOL1 SYMBOL1
5.2.8 #ifndef SYMBOL1 SYMBOL2 ...
5.3 Configuration commands
5.3.1 autobaud
5.3.2 charset
5.3.3 color
5.3.4 compatible_charsets
5.3.5 group_display_format
5.3.6 grouplens_add
5.3.7 header_display_format
5.3.8 ignore_quotes
5.3.9 include
5.3.10 interpret
5.3.11 mono
5.3.12 nnrpaccess
5.3.13 posting_host
5.3.14 server
5.3.15 set
5.3.16 setkey
5.3.17 strip_re_regexp
5.3.18 strip_sig_regexp
5.3.19 strip_was_regexp
5.3.20 unsetkey
5.3.21 visible_headers
6. Configuration variables
6.1 abort_unmodified_edits
6.2 art_help_line
6.3 art_status_line
6.4 auto_mark_article_as_read
6.5 beep
6.6 broken_xref
6.7 cansecret_file
6.8 cc_followup
6.9 cc_post_string
6.10 charset
6.11 check_new_groups
6.12 color_by_score
6.13 confirm_actions
6.14 custom_headers
6.15 custom_sort_by_threads
6.16 custom_sort_order
6.17 decode_directory
6.18 display_cursor_bar
6.19 drop_bogus_groups
6.20 editor_command
6.21 editor_uses_mime_charset
6.22 emphasized_text_mask
6.23 emphasized_text_mode
6.24 failed_posts_file
6.25 fallback_charset
6.26 fold_headers
6.27 followup_custom_headers
6.28 followup_date_format
6.29 followup_string
6.30 followup_strip_signature
6.31 followupto_string
6.32 force_authentication
6.33 generate_date_header
6.34 generate_email_from
6.35 generate_message_id
6.36 group_help_line
6.37 group_status_line
6.38 grouplens_host
6.39 grouplens_port
6.40 grouplens_pseudoname
6.41 header_help_line
6.42 header_status_line
6.43 hide_pgpsignature
6.44 hide_quotes
6.45 hide_signature
6.46 hide_verbatim_marks
6.47 hide_verbatim_text
6.48 highlight_unread_subjects
6.49 highlight_urls
6.50 hostname
6.51 ignore_signature
6.52 inews_program
6.53 kill_score
6.54 lines_per_update
6.55 macro_directory
6.56 mail_editor_command
6.57 mail_editor_is_mua
6.58 max_low_score
6.59 max_queued_groups
6.60 metamail_command
6.61 mime_charset
6.62 min_high_score
6.63 mouse
6.64 netiquette_warnings
6.65 new_subject_breaks_threads
6.66 no_autosave
6.67 no_backups
6.68 non_Xbrowser
6.69 organization
6.70 overview_date_format
6.71 post_editor_command
6.72 post_object
6.73 postpone_directory
6.74 prefer_head
6.75 printer_name
6.76 process_verbatim_marks
6.77 query_next_article
6.78 query_next_group
6.79 query_read_group_cutoff
6.80 quote_string
6.81 read_active
6.82 realname
6.83 reject_long_lines
6.84 reply_custom_headers
6.85 reply_string
6.86 replyto
6.87 save_directory
6.88 save_posts
6.89 save_replies
6.90 score_editor_command
6.91 scorefile
6.92 scroll_by_page
6.93 sendmail_command
6.94 server_object
6.95 show_article
6.96 show_thread_subject
6.97 signature
6.98 signoff_string
6.99 simulate_graphic_chars
6.100 smart_quote
6.101 sorting_method
6.102 spoiler_char
6.103 spoiler_display_mode
6.104 spool_active_file
6.105 spool_activetimes_file
6.106 spool_check_up_on_nov
6.107 spool_inn_root
6.108 spool_newsgroups_file
6.109 spool_nov_file
6.110 spool_nov_root
6.111 spool_overview_file
6.112 spool_root
6.113 supersedes_custom_headers
6.114 top_status_line
6.115 uncollapse_threads
6.116 unsubscribe_new_groups
6.117 use_blink
6.118 use_color
6.119 use_flow_control
6.120 use_grouplens
6.121 use_header_numbers
6.122 use_localtime
6.123 use_metamail
6.124 use_mime
6.125 use_recommended_msg_id
6.126 use_slrnpull
6.127 use_tilde
6.128 use_tmpdir
6.129 use_uudeview
6.130 username
6.131 warn_followup_to
6.132 wrap_flags
6.133 wrap_method
6.134 write_newsrc_flags
6.135 Xbrowser
7. Interactive functions
7.1 group functions
7.1.1 add_group
7.1.2 bob
7.1.3 catchup
7.1.4 eob
7.1.5 evaluate_cmd
7.1.6 group_search
7.1.7 group_search_backward
7.1.8 group_search_forward
7.1.9 help
7.1.10 line_down
7.1.11 line_up
7.1.12 move_group
7.1.13 page_down
7.1.14 page_up
7.1.15 post
7.1.16 post_postponed
7.1.17 quit
7.1.18 redraw
7.1.19 refresh_groups
7.1.20 repeat_last_key
7.1.21 save_newsrc
7.1.22 select_group
7.1.23 subscribe
7.1.24 suspend
7.1.25 toggle_group_formats
7.1.26 toggle_hidden
7.1.27 toggle_list_all
7.1.28 toggle_scoring
7.1.29 transpose_groups
7.1.30 uncatchup
7.1.31 unsubscribe
7.2 article functions
7.2.1 article_bob
7.2.2 article_eob
7.2.3 article_left
7.2.4 article_line_down
7.2.5 article_line_up
7.2.6 article_page_down
7.2.7 article_page_up
7.2.8 article_right
7.2.9 article_search
7.2.10 author_search_backward
7.2.11 author_search_forward
7.2.12 browse_url
7.2.13 cancel
7.2.14 catchup
7.2.15 catchup_all
7.2.16 create_score
7.2.17 decode
7.2.18 delete
7.2.19 delete_thread
7.2.20 enlarge_article_window
7.2.21 evaluate_cmd
7.2.22 exchange_mark
7.2.23 expunge
7.2.24 fast_quit
7.2.25 followup
7.2.26 forward
7.2.27 forward_digest
7.2.28 get_children_headers
7.2.29 get_parent_header
7.2.30 grouplens_rate_article
7.2.31 goto_article
7.2.32 goto_last_read
7.2.33 header_bob
7.2.34 header_eob
7.2.35 header_line_down
7.2.36 header_line_up
7.2.37 header_page_down
7.2.38 header_page_up
7.2.39 help
7.2.40 hide_article
7.2.41 locate_article
7.2.42 mark_spot
7.2.43 next
7.2.44 next_high_score
7.2.45 next_same_subject
7.2.46 pipe
7.2.47 post
7.2.48 post_postponed
7.2.49 previous
7.2.50 print
7.2.51 quit
7.2.52 redraw
7.2.53 repeat_last_key
7.2.54 reply
7.2.55 request
7.2.56 save
7.2.57 show_spoilers
7.2.58 shrink_article_window
7.2.59 skip_quotes
7.2.60 skip_to_next_group
7.2.61 skip_to_previous_group
7.2.62 subject_search_backward
7.2.63 subject_search_forward
7.2.64 supersede
7.2.65 suspend
7.2.66 tag_header
7.2.67 toggle_collapse_threads
7.2.68 toggle_header_formats
7.2.69 toggle_header_tag
7.2.70 toggle_headers
7.2.71 toggle_pgpsignature
7.2.72 toggle_quotes
7.2.73 toggle_rot13
7.2.74 toggle_signature
7.2.75 toggle_sort
7.2.76 toggle_verbatim_marks
7.2.77 toggle_verbatim_text
7.2.78 uncatchup
7.2.79 uncatchup_all
7.2.80 undelete
7.2.81 untag_headers
7.2.82 view_scores
7.2.83 wrap_article
7.2.84 zoom_article_window
7.3 readline functions
7.3.1 bdel
7.3.2 bol
7.3.3 complete
7.3.4 cycle
7.3.5 del
7.3.6 delbol
7.3.7 delbow
7.3.8 deleol
7.3.9 down
7.3.10 enter
7.3.11 eol
7.3.12 left
7.3.13 quoted_insert
7.3.14 right
7.3.15 self_insert
7.3.16 trim
7.3.17 up
______________________________________________________________________
1. Introduction
slrn (``S-Lang read news'') is a newsreader, i.e. a program that
accesses a newsserver to read messages from the Internet News service
(also known as ``Usenet''). It runs in console mode on various Unix-
like systems (including Linux), 32-bit Windows, OS/2, BeOS and VMS.
Beside the usual features of a newsreader, slrn supports scoring rules
to highlight, sort or kill articles based on information from their
header. It is highly customizable, allows free key-bindings and can
easily be extended using the sophisticated S-Lang macro language.
Offline reading is possible by using either slrnpull (shipped with
slrn) or a local newsserver (like leafnode or INN).
1.1. Downloading slrn
Directions for downloading the latest version of slrn are available
from the slrn web site at <http://slrn.sourceforge.net/download.html>.
If you are running Linux, slrn is probably included in your
distribution. However, please note that some distributors modify the
sources; in this case, slrn might not always behave as it is described
here.
1.2. Getting help
First of all, please read the documentation found in this file and in
the slrn FAQs at <http://slrn.sourceforge.net/docs/slrn-FAQ.html>.
Questions not covered by the docs are on-topic in
news.software.readers. If you speak German, you also might want to
subscribe to de.comm.software.newsreader.
slrn-user is a mailing list for discussion of the use, development and
extension of slrn. You can subscribe to it through the web interface
at <http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/slrn-user>.
To keep track of slrn's development, simply subscribe to slrn-
announce. It is a moderated list that informs you about new releases,
important bugfixes or major changes to the website. The subscription
address is <http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/slrn-
announce>. All announcements are also mailed to slrn-user, so there
is no need to read both lists.
1.3. About this manual
This manual is the official reference for using and customizing the
slrn newsreader. If you find that slrn behaves differently than
described here, it means you found a bug (either in this manual or in
slrn itself) and should report it.
The manual is written in SGML using the ``linuxdoc'' DTD and has been
``rendered'' using the linuxdoc-tools package. The manual and other
official documentation have their own web page at
<http://slrn.sourceforge.net/documentation.html> where you can find
these files in several different formats, as well as instructions on
how to get the latest development version (which might be useful if
you need documentation for a developer version of slrn).
If you want to contribute to the manual (e.g. write additional
chapters), please contact us, either privately or via the slrn-user
mailing list at <http://lists.sourceforge.net/mailman/listinfo/slrn-
user>. We also appreciate feedback about errors, bad language or
suggestions concerning this manual.
1.3.1. History
This manual was started by Matthias Friedrich and Thomas Schultz in
1999 since there was no up-to-date end-user documentation available.
As of version 0.9.7.0, it has been part of the official documentation.
Since they first started it, the manual has undergone the following
revisions:
2008-07-04: Revision 2.7
Updated the manual for changes in version 0.9.9.
2004-10-04: Revision 2.6
Added a brief introduction to the S-Lang prompt within slrn and
updated the manual for version 0.9.8.1.
2003-08-25: Revision 2.5
Updated the manual for version 0.9.8.0.
2002-04-31: Revision 2.4
Added a section that describes the ``preprocessing'' facility
and changed the manual's structure.
2002-03-13: Revision 2.3
Updated the manual for version 0.9.7.4.
2001-11-05: Revision 2.2
Updated the manual for version 0.9.7.3.
2001-08-20: Revision 2.1
Updated the manual for slrn 0.9.7.2; added a section about the
functions of the ``readline'' interface.
2001-06-06: Revision 2
Added a section that describes all interactive functions and
updated the manual for slrn 0.9.7.1.
2001-03-28: Revision 1.1
Manual updated to reflect the changes in slrn 0.9.7.0.
2000-09-27: Revision 1
First public release, explaining all slrnrc commands,
configuration and environment variables and command line
switches.
2. Configuration
Basically, there are four ways to change slrn's behaviour:
o ``environment variables''
o ``a global configuration file''
o ``a personal configuration file''
o ``command line options''
The list is sorted by priority - environment variables are overridden
by settings in configuration files that are in turn overridden by
command line options.
Have a look at the following chapters for a detailed description of
the above configuration facilities.
Note: Please do not use options that are called ``obsolete'' in this
manual. They are only included for backwards compatibility and will
probably be removed before version 1.0 is released.
2.1. A brief introduction to the built-in S-Lang prompt
When trying various configuration settings, you may find it quite
inconvenient to constantly toggle between slrn and your editor and to
restart slrn each time you made a change. Maybe you also want to play
around with some settings without making (permanent) changes to your
config file. In these cases, making yourself familiar with the built-
in S-Lang prompt of slrn can be worthwhile.
You get to the prompt by calling ``evaluate_cmd'' (by default bound to
``CTRL-X ESC'') in either group or article mode. You will notice that
the bottom status line changes and displays S-Lang> - behind that
prompt, you can enter your commands. Basically, you can do anything
here that you could do in a macro, so if you want to explore the full
capabilities of this prompt, you'll have to read the documentation
that comes with S-Lang and look at the file slrnfuns.txt that comes
with slrn.
However, you can also do some simple things without understanding much
about S-Lang:
o To find out the current value of a config variable, use a command
like this one:
message(string(get_variable_value("use_metamail")))
After this, the current value of the variable will appear in the bot-
tom status line. By the way, the call to string() is only needed when
querying an integer variable, so you can omit it if you want when get-
ting the value of a string variable.
o If you want to set a config variable at runtime, you need to know
whether its type is integer or string (if in doubt, look it up in
this manual). To set a variable, use something like
set_integer_variable("use_metamail", 0)
% for integer variables
set_string_variable("metamail_command", "metamutt")
% for string variables
Note that changing a variable does not always have an immediate
effect: For example, changing ``sorting_method'' does not automati-
cally imply a re-sorting of the articles. By the way, you can call the
intrinsic function sort_by_sorting_method from the S-Lang prompt
afterwards in this specific case.
o You can also load macros dynamically using a line like
() = evalfile("my-macro.sl")
Note that you need those funny leading brackets and the equals sign in
this case, because evalfile returns 1 on success. Using the given
notation, we simply ignore the returned value. If we didn't do any-
thing with it, it would be left on the stack and when this happens too
often, you'll get a stack overflow at some point. If you really want
to understand this, please read the file slang.txt that comes with the
S-Lang documentation. Otherwise, simply use the notation given here.
3. Command line switches
The following options can be used when calling slrn from the command
line:
-a Read active file when checking for new news. This can be
permanently turned on by setting ``read_active'' to 1.
-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. For example, you can use the following slrnrc
entry if you want to read mailing lists (stored as MH mail
directories in /home/username/Mail/) with slrn -DMAIL:
#ifdef MAIL
set spool_inn_root "/home/username/Mail"
set spool_root "/home/username/Mail"
set spool_nov_root "/home/username/Mail"
set server_object "spool"
set read_active 1
server "/home/username/Mail" ".jnewsrc.mail"
#endif
Similarly, you can test if a given environment variable is set:
#if$DISPLAY
set editor_command "xjed '%s' -g %d -tmp"
#endif
-f file
Use file as the newsrc file for this session. This is
permanently set via the ``server'' configuration command.
-h [snews://]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. The prefix snews:// indicates that slrn
should attempt a secure connection. This will result in an error
message when SSL support is not compiled in. Like -p, this
option is only accepted after --nntp or when NNTP is the default
mode.
-i 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.
-n Do not check for new groups (usually resulting in a faster
startup). You can permanently set this via
``check_new_groups''.
-m Force mouse support (without checking if it works on the current
terminal). To permanently activate mouse support, you can use
the ``mouse'' configuration variable.
-p N
Use port N to connect to the NNTP server.
-w Wait for a key before switching to full screen mode. This is
useful if you want to read the startup messages.
-w0
Like -w, but only waits if a warning or error message occurred
on startup (e.g. an expired scorefile entry or a bogus group)
--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. In NNTP mode, this logs the
dialog with the server; the spool backend currently only uses
this for error messages.
--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 the ``force inews'' compile time
option is set).
--pull
Spool outgoing articles locally for slrnpull to send.
--show-config
Print version, some compile time settings, internal variables
after parsing the slrnrc, and environment variables used by
slrn.
--spool
Read directly from spool.
--version
Print version and some compile time settings.
4. Environment variables
This section contains a list of all environment variables that are
relevant for slrn. Please note that environment variables have a low
priority. They can be overridden by both configuration file and
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 and uses ``Xbrowser''
when browsing a URL. Otherwise, ``non_Xbrowser'' is called.
EDITOR
See ``$SLRN_EDITOR''.
HOME
See ``$SLRNHOME''.
HOSTNAME
If no ``hostname'' is given, the value of this environment
variable is used. As a last resort, slrn will call
gethostname(3), gethostbyname(3) and getaddrinfo(3) (if
available) to find a value it can work with. The hostname can
also be hardcoded when building slrn (see OUR_HOSTNAME in
slrnfeat.h). The value of OUR_HOSTNAME can either be the
hostname as a string or the name of a file containing the
hostname. Note that the environment variable overrides the
hardcoded default and that the configuration variable overrides
both.
LOGNAME
See ``$USER''.
NAME
If you did not set ``realname'', slrn tries to get a value from
$NAME. On Unix systems, it also queries the /etc/passwd gecos
field.
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''. It is possible to compile in a default setting in case
the user does not set $NNTPSERVER. This is done in slrnfeat.h by
either setting NNTPSERVER_FILE to the name of a file containing
the hostname or by directly setting NNTPSERVER_NAME to the
hostname. In case both are defined, slrn first tries to read the
file and only uses NNTPSERVER_NAME as a fallback.
ORGANIZATION
If ``organization'' is unset, the value of this variable is
used. It overrides the compile time setting of OUR_ORGANIZATION
(default is unset) in slrnfeat.h. Both the environment variable
and the compile time default can optionally point to a file from
which the organization line will be read.
PRINTER
On Unix systems, slrn pipes the current article to an external
program in order to print it. If you do not specify the program
using ``printer_name'', it uses ``lpr -P$PRINTER'' as the
default.
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 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
The help window you get when hitting ``?'' inside slrn shows
the default key bindings, which may or may not be the ones you
are currently using. This is why slrn allows you to change the
help text by creating a ``help file'' and letting $SLRNHELP
point to it (the absolute filename is needed here). If $SLRNHELP
is unset, slrn tries to read help.txt in the config directory.
Your slrn distribution should include the file help.txt which
you can copy and modify to suit your needs. It also serves as an
example of the syntax of slrn help files.
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.
SLRNPULL_ROOT
If you want to use slrnpull, you need to define a directory
where it will look for its configuration files and spool the
articles. An absolute filename is needed here. There is a
compile time default for it in slrnfeat.h (SLRNPULL_ROOT_DIR,
default: "/var/spool/news/slrnpull"), which can be overridden by
the environment variable $SLRNPULL_ROOT. If an alternate root
directory is given via the command line parameter ``-d'', it
overrides both.
SLRN_EDITOR
If you did not define an editor in ``editor_command'' et al,
slrn checks this variable. If it is unset, slrn subsequently
looks at $SLANG_EDITOR, $EDITOR and $VISUAL. The last desperate
call goes to edit (VMS and Windows), e (OS/2) or vi (Unix).
SLRN_SLANG_DIR
If set slrn will search for S-Lang macros here. If not set slrn
will search in the default path, which is defined at compile
time (usually <INSTALLPATH>/share/slrn/slang).
TMP
Indicates the directory in which slrn should save temporary
files. If it is unset or does not contain an existing directory,
$TMPDIR is tried. If both are unset, /tmp is used on UNIX
systems, the current working directory on OS/2 and Windows and
SYS$LOGIN: on VMS.
An exception to this are temporary files created to invoke
``metamail''. In this case, $TMP is only queried on OS/2 and
Windows NT.
TMPDIR
See ``$TMP''.
USER
If ``username'' is unset, slrn tries to get your login name from
the system first. If this fails, it looks at $USER and $LOGNAME.
VISUAL
See ``$SLRN_EDITOR''.
5. The slrn configuration file
5.1. Basics
Most customizations in slrn are done using an initialization file. If
your administrator wanted to provide reasonable defaults for your
system, he might have created a global configuration file. When
reading such a file, slrn tells you its filename at startup (use
``slrn -w'' if you want to read the startup messages easily).
The right place for your own settings is your personal configuration
file, which by default is .slrnrc (or slrn.rc on VMS, OS/2 and
Windows) in your home directory. It is possible to override settings
from the global file here.
An slrn configuration file consists of ``configuration commands'',
each one on a line of its own. Most commands require arguments that
can be either strings or integer values. If a string contains
whitespace, you have to enclose it in double quotes (").
The percent sign (%) is used as the comment character. From this
character on, everything else on the same line will be ignored.
Example:
% Name of signature file to use
set signature ".signature"
If you set the same variable more than once in your configuration
file, the last setting will take effect.
The easiest way to build a personal configuration file is to make a
copy of the annotated sample slrn.rc that is included in the slrn
distribution and to tailor it to your needs.
This manual contains a list of all ``configuration commands'' and
``variables''.
5.2. Preprocessing of configuration files
slrn uses routines from libslang to parse its configuration files.
Among other things, a simple preprocessing facility similar to cpp(1)
is provided that makes it possible to use a number of conditions in
your configuration files.
Apart from minor syntactic differences, this is how they are used:
#if...
% Configuration commands to use if the condition is true.
#elif...
% ``else if''
% Commands to use if the first condition is false but
% the above condition is true.
#else
% Execute these commands if none of the above conditions
% were true. This is the fallback case.
#endif
As usual, you can only use one ``#if'' condition, any number of
``#elif'' conditions (including none) and up to one ``#else'' state-
ment. If the ``#endif'' statement is missing, everything up to the end
of the file is included.
Conditions may be nested, but you may not use whitespace in front of
the ``#'' characters. However, whitespace may be used freely after the
leading ``#'' which is useful for indenting.
5.2.1. #iffalse, #ifntrue
The equivalent of ``#if 0'' in cpp(1) which always returns false.
This can be used to deactivate a part of your configuration without
having to set a comment character (``%'') in front of each line.
Example:
#iffalse
This code will never
be included in your
configuration file.
#endif
5.2.2. #iftrue, #ifnfalse
The inverse of ``iffalse''. This condition is always true which means
that configuration commands in this block will always be executed.
5.2.3. #if$ENV
This condition is true if the environment variable $ENV is set.
Example:
#if$DISPLAY
% The environment variable DISPLAY is set, so we assume
% that X is running and use an editor with GUI.
set editor_command "gvim +%d %s"
#else
% DISPLAY is unset, so we fall back to a textmode editor
set editor_command "vi +%d %s"
#endif
5.2.4. #ifn$ENV
This condition is true if the environment variable ENV is not set.
5.2.5. #if$ENV string1 string2 ...
The condition is true if the contents of the environment variable ENV
are equal to at least one of its argument strings. The arguments have
to be separated using whitespace. There is no quoting mechanism for
space or tabulator characters.
Example:
#if$TERM rxvt
% In my rxvt, ``default'' is a light background;
% ``color15'' is re-defined as a dark shade of blue.
color normal "black" "default"
color headers "color15" "default"
color thread_number "blue" "default"
% [...] More color settings follow
#elif$TERM linux wsvt*
% On the Linux or NetBSD console, I prefer a black background
% to reduce flickering:
color normal "lightgray" "black"
color headers "brightblue" "black"
color thread_number "brown" "black"
% [...] More color settings follow
#endif
The strings may contain wildcard characters. The ``?'' character
matches an arbitrary single character and ``*'' matches any number of
characters (including none). To use them literally, you have to escape
them with a backslash (``\*'' and ``\?''). The backslash itself also
has to be escaped when used literally (``\\'').
5.2.6. #ifn$ENV string1 string2 ...
The condition is true if the contents of the environment variable ENV
are equal to none of its argument strings. The arguments have to be
separated using whitespace. There is no quoting mechanism for space or
tabulator characters.
As with ``#if$ENV'', wildcards can be used.
5.2.7. #ifdef SYMBOL1 SYMBOL1
This condition is true if any of its arguments is a defined
preprocessor symbol. You can define symbol using the ``-D'' command
line switch.
Depending on the operating system, one of the following symbols is
defined: ``UNIX'', ``WIN32'', ``NT'', ``VMS'', ``OS2''.
Example:
#ifdef UNIX
% On Unix, printer_name is the command to use for printing
set printer_name "lpr -Pmy_printer"
#elifdef WIN32
% On Win32, printer_name is set to the print queue
set printer_name "MyPrinter"
#endif
5.2.8. #ifndef SYMBOL1 SYMBOL2 ...
This condition is true if none of its arguments is a defined
preprocessor symbol.
5.3. Configuration commands
5.3.1. autobaud
Usage: autobaud
Default: off
The autobaud command may be used to synchronize the output rate slrn
uses to the terminal baud rate.
5.3.2. charset
Usage: charset option charset
option can be one of these:
display
slrn will use this character set when displaying articles.
Default: detected from locale settings if supported by OS.
(autodetection not supported in (cyg)win)
outgoing
This setting will be used for the charset encoding of outgoing
articles and emails. Setting a value like "iso-8859-15,utf-8" is
possible; slrn will try the settings from left to right and use
the first for which encoding succeeds.
config
Set this value if your .slrnrc contains non-ascii characters.
Default: us-ascii
editor
Set this value if the encoding your editor uses is different
from the locale setting.
Default: value from charset display
5.3.3. color
Usage: color display_element foreground background [attributes]
If your terminal supports ANSI color sequences, you can use the color
command to define your own color scheme. You can assign a different
color to almost every element on your screen.
display_element can be one of these:
article
Regular text in the article body.
author
The author's name / email address in header overview.
boldtext
Text in the article body that is interpreted as *bold*.
box
Text inside of selection boxes (like the one you see when
choosing a sorting mode).
cursor
The cursor you see in the group window and in header overview.
date
The article date in the header overview.
description
The group descriptions (taglines) in group window.
error
Error messages in the bottom line.
frame
The frame around selection boxes (see also: ``box'').
from_myself
The ``From:'' header line or realname in header overview, in
case it contains your ``name''.
group
The group names in group window.
grouplens_display
``GroupLens'' scores.
header_name
The name of header lines in the pager (e.g. ``From:'').
header_number
The header number in header overview.
headers
The content of header lines in the pager.
high_score
The exclamation mark (``!'') used to denote ``high scoring''
articles in header overview.
italicstext
Text in the article body that is interpreted as /italic/.
menu
The first line of your display. If ``mouse reporting'' is turned
on, it contains a menu.
menu_press
A menu item while you click on it.
message
The messages and prompts in the bottom line of the screen.
neg_score
The subject / score of articles with a negative score value,
depending on the setting of ``color_by_score''.
normal
Everything that does not have its own color object.
pos_score
The subject / score of articles with a positive score value,
depending on the setting of ``color_by_score''.
pgpsignature
``PGP signatures'' appended to the article body.
quotes
``Quoted text'' in the article body. It is now possible to
distinguish up to 8 levels of quoted material by using color
objects ``quotes0'' to ``quotes7''.
response_char
The highlighted character you need to press if you want to make
a selection (e.g. in ``[Y]es or [N]o?'').
selection
The ``cursor'' used in selection boxes (see also: ``box'').
signature
``Signatures'' appended to the article body.
status
The status lines slrn displays.
subject
The subject in header overview (see also: ``unread_subject'').
thread_number
The number of articles in the thread (displayed in header
overview next to collapsed threads).
tilde
The ``tilde'' displayed at the end of the article body.
tree
The thread tree drawn in the header overview.
underlinetext
Text in the article body that is interpreted as _underlined_.
unread_subject
Color for unread subjects. Please see the entry on
``highlight_unread_subjects'' for details.
url
Used to ``highlight URLs'' in the article body.
verbatim
Text in the article body enclosed by ``verbatim marks''.
The foreground and background colors have to be set to one of the
following strings:
black gray
red brightred
green brightgreen
brown yellow
blue brightblue
magenta brightmagenta
cyan brightcyan
lightgray white
Additionally, you can use the default foreground / background colors
of your terminal via the keyword ``default''.
Please note that the colors in the right column are all ``bright'' (or
``bold''). On many terminals, they can only be used for the
foreground. If you think your terminal has more than 8 background
colors, but slrn refuses to use them, you might need to chose a
different terminfo entry. On modern xterms and rxvt, setting $TERM to
xterm-16color should work.
Some terminals support more than 16 colors, and slrn can then use 256
colors when compiled against slang-2. The additional values for
foreground and background colors are specified as colorN, where N is a
decimal number from 0 to 256. In this case, $TERM may need to be set
to xterm-256color.
After the color settings, you can optionally use attributes (like
underline and bold) the same way you would specify them using the
``mono'' command (see there for details).
A sample color scheme (which simply sets the colors to their compile
time default) can be found in the slrn.rc file that should have come
with your slrn distribution.
5.3.4. compatible_charsets
This command is obsolete, use ``charset'' instead.
5.3.5. group_display_format
Usage: group_display_format number format-string
This command allows you to change the way the groups are presented to
you in the group window. You can save up to 10 different formats and
switch among them using ``toggle_group_formats'' (default binding: ESC
a).
The default settings are:
group_display_format 0 " %F%-5u %n%45g%d"
group_display_format 1 " %F%-5u %n%50g%-8l-%h"
group_display_format 2 " %F%-5u [%-6t] %n"
number is the number of the format (0-9).
The following % escapes can be used:
F Group flag (`U' for unsubscribed, `N' for new)
d Group description (needs to be downloaded once with slrn -d)
h ``High water mark'' (highest article number in the group)
l ``Low water mark'' (lowest article number in the group)
n Group name
t Total number of articles in the group (estimate)
u Number of unread articles in the group
The special descriptors ``%g'' and ``%?'' work like in
``header_display_format''.
5.3.6. grouplens_add
Usage: grouplens_add newsgroup
Add newsgroup to the list of groups for which you want to download
GroupLens scores.
5.3.7. header_display_format
Usage: header_display_format number format-string
This command can be used to customize the way article headers are
presented in the header overview in article mode. You can specify up
to 10 different formats and switch among them using
``toggle_header_formats'' (default binding: ESC a). This command may
also be used with a prefix argument to select a particular format,
e.g., ESC 0 ESC a will select the 0th format.
Here are slrn's default settings:
header_display_format 0 "%F%B%-5S%G%-5l:[%12r]%t%s"
header_display_format 1 "%F%B%G%-5l:[%12r]%t%s"
header_display_format 2 "%F%B%-5l:%t%s"
header_display_format 3 "%F%B%-5S%-5l:%t%50s %r"
header_display_format 4 "%F%B%-5S [%10r]:%t%49s %-19g[%17d]"
number is the number of the format (0-9).
format-string is a string containing printf(3) style % escapes. This
is the generic format:
%[[-*]w]x
The brackets indicate optional items: w may consist of one or more
digits and specifies the width of the field. In fields with a fixed
width, the minus sign (-) can be used to right justify an item, the
asterisk (*) to center justify it. Please note that these modifiers
have no effect if the text does not fit into the field.
The item specifier (x) is required and, depending on its value, has
the following meaning:
% percent character
B body status for true offline reading: 'H' means no body
(header only), 'M' means body is marked for download
C prints `C' if current thread is collapsed
D date (as defined by overview_date_format)
F flags (read/unread, `*' and `#' tags, header number)
G GroupLens score
P prints `P' if current article has a parent (inside threads)
S score
T thread tree
b article size (usually in kilobyte)
c number of messages in current subthread
d date
f from header
l article length (number of lines)
n server number
r author's real name
s subject
t number of messages in thread plus tree
Additionally, the special format descriptor %Xg can be used. It is not
substituted by text, but specifies that the next write on the screen
should take place in column X (numbered from 0). If X is negative, the
cursor is placed X columns from the right edge of the window.
Thus, "%F%-5l:%t%s%-20g %r" indicates that the header window will
contain (in that order): the flags, the number of lines the article
contains (right justified in a 5 character field), a `:', the tree,
the subject, and, beginning 20 columns from the right edge of the
window and separated by a blank, the author's real name.
A %? construct can be used to print a string only if one of the above
descriptors expands to a non-zero string (i.e. one that is not empty
and does not contain only a single whitespace or the number `0'). It
has the following syntax:
%?<descriptor>?<optional string>?
%?<descriptor>?<string if true>&<string if false>?
You can use escape sequences in optional strings; however, it is not
possible to nest them, nor to have literal `?' or `&' characters in
them.
Example: If you want to display the number of messages for collapsed
threads and the number of lines in the message otherwise, you can use
the following:
%?C?%-3c&%-3l?
Note: The descriptor %b automatically choses a ``unit'' (bytes /
kilobytes / megabytes) and works best when given four characters of
space, i.e. %-4b. The descriptors %t and %T write directly to the
screen, so they cannot be ``tested'' with the %? operator and ignore
the requested field width (i.e. ``%10t'' is the same as ``%t''; the
``10'' is ignored). The descriptor %t is included for backwards
compatibility and equivalent to ``%?C?%-3c& ? %T''.
See also: ``group_display_format'', ``overview_date_format''
5.3.8. ignore_quotes
Usage: ignore_quotes pattern [pattern] ...
The regular expressions given here are used to determine quoted lines
in the body of an article. You can define up to 5 different patterns
(this is meant to make up for the lack of an OR operator in S-Lang
regexps). Please try to keep them as exact as possible, so that slrn
is able to distinguish different quoting levels - e.g. use ``^>''
rather than ``^>*''.
By default, only one pattern is set: ``^ ? ?[><:=|]''
5.3.9. include
Usage: include filename
You can use this command to load an additional file that contains
configuration commands. With this feature, you can easily keep startup
files for different key bindings, colors etc. filename is relative to
your home directory (see ``$SLRNHOME''). This can safely be done
multiple times and recursively.
Example:
include ".slrnrc-colors"
5.3.10. interpret
Usage: interpret filename
This command loads and executes an S-Lang macro file. filename may be
an absolute or relative path. Relative paths are resolved by checking
first your ``macro_directory'' if set, then $SLRNHOME if set, then
$HOME, and finally the default directory set at compile-time for the
macros included with slrn.
This command has no effect if the S-Lang interpreter has been
deactivated at compile time.
5.3.11. mono
Usage: mono display_element attributes
You can use this command to customize slrn's appearence on monochrome
displays. See section ``color'' for a description of display_element.
attributes can be one of
o bold
o blink
o underline
o reverse
or ``none'' to turn off video attributes. The attributes can also be
combined (simply separate them with blanks). You can find sample
settings in the slrn.rc file that should have come with your slrn
distribution.
If you don't like blinking, you can turn it off altogether via
``use_blink''. If you run slrn with colors, these settings will not
have any effect.
5.3.12. nnrpaccess
Usage: nnrpaccess host username password
This command can be used to set the necessary data for servers that
request NNRP authentification. host is the full hostname of the
server.
If you do not feel comfortable with leaving your password written on
disk, you might want to set the password (and optionally the username
as well) to an empty string (""). slrn will then prompt for it on
startup. If your server requires a username, but no password, set it
to a blank (" ") and you won't be prompted.
5.3.13. posting_host
Usage: posting_host hostname
The hostname specified in this command will be used to generate
Message-IDs. Please note that it is usually not necessary to set this
manually, as slrn uses the fully-qualified domain name of the machine
it is running on for this task, which is the correct solution in most
cases.
However, if your system is part of a local network, it might not have
an official hostname. As the current MESSFOR draft permits the use of
hostnames without a DNS record for Message-ID generation, some
providers started to give each user a unique hostname that may be used
here.
Note: Do not use this command unless you fully understand the
implications. Specifically, do not enter an arbitrary string here!
Instead, please turn off ``generate_message_id'' if the hostname found
by slrn is not unique.
5.3.14. server
Usage: server nntp-server[:port] newsrc-file
By default, slrn uses .jnewsrc in your home directory (jnews.rc on
VMS, OS/2 and Windows) as its newsrc file. If you want to define a
different filename for it or if you want to access more than one
server, you can use this command. It tells slrn to use newsrc-file
when connecting to nntp-server (which has to be the full hostname of
the server and an optional port number or, if you are reading from
spool, the path of the spool directory).
If your server requires a password, you will also need to use the
``nnrpaccess'' command.
5.3.15. set
Usage: set varname value
The set command is used to assign values to the ``configuration
variables'' described below. varname has to be a valid variable name.
value is either a string (best enclosed in double quotes ``"'') or an
integer value (number), depending on the variable.
Example:
set realname "Matthias Friedrich"
set kill_score -9999
Note: If you set a variable which controls a feature that has not been
compiled in, slrn will not give you an error message. The setting will
simply remain without an effect.
5.3.16. setkey
Usage: setkey keymap function key-sequence
This command allows you to map slrn's functions to keys. There are
three different keymaps: The ``group'' keymap contains all functions
in group mode, ``article'' contains the functions in article mode
(note that header overview and pager do not have separate keymaps);
finally, the ``readline'' keymap can be used to customize the line
editor.
function specifies the function that is executed when key-sequence is
pressed. In key-sequence, special keys can be addressed in different
ways. First of all, the control key plus a character C is written as
^C.
The special function keys found on most keyboards have the following
(case insensitive) names:
<PageUp>
<PageDown>
<Up>
<Down>
<Right>
<Left>
<Delete>
<BackSpace>
<Insert>
<Home>
<End>
<Enter>
<Return>
<Tab>
<BackTab>
<Space>
<Esc>
Additionally, the keys <F1> through <F20> denote the function keys.
When you use these symbolic names, slrn uses the terminfo database (if
available) to look up the key sequences generated be those keys, so if
these names do not seem to work, make sure you selected the correct
terminal (e.g. via the $TERM environment variable).
Alternatively, you can specify special keys by entering the key
sequence they generate directly. To do this, the following shortcuts
may be useful:
\e escape
\r return
\\ backslash
\NNN the key sending keycode (octal) NNN
A full list of available functions can be found in sections ``group
functions'' and ``article functions''.
5.3.17. strip_re_regexp
Usage: strip_re_regexp pattern [pattern] ...
Here, you can define up to 5 different regular expressions to detect
non-standard back references created by broken user agents. They will
be stripped on followups.
By default, slrn only checks for the standard ``Re:''. This test is
performed before strip_re_regexp is even tried and it cannot be turned
off.
Note: This variable does not affect the way slrn sorts subjects. For
example, ``subject'' and ``Re: subject'' are equivalent when sorting;
``subject'' and ``AW: subject'' are not, even if you defined ``^AW:''
in strip_re_regexp. The reason for this is that it would be too
expensive to do a full regexp search whenever comparing subjects.
5.3.18. strip_sig_regexp
Usage: strip_sig_regexp pattern [pattern] ...
slrn itself makes sure that you use the signature delimiter that
current drafts prescribe (``-- '' - mind the trailing space!). If you
want it to recognize different delimiters as well (e.g. ones created
by broken software), you can use this command to define (up to five)
regular expressions that match them.
5.3.19. strip_was_regexp
Usage: strip_was_regexp pattern [pattern] ...
When changing the ``Subject:'' header line, some people follow a
convention and include the old subject in brackets (e.g. ``new subject
(was: old subject)''). You can use this command to strip the old
subject automatically on followups and when creating scorefile entries
based on the subject (so it will still match when the old subject is
stripped). To do this, I recommend the setting `` ?(was:.*)$''.
Note: This variable does not affect sorting. See ``strip_re_regexp''
for an explanation.
5.3.20. unsetkey
Usage: unsetkey keymap key-sequence
The unsetkey command undoes a key binding. Please see ``setkey'' for
more information.
Example:
unsetkey group "\e"
5.3.21. visible_headers
Usage: visible_headers header_lines
With this command, you can specify a comma-separated list of
header_lines that should still be visible in the article pager when
the display of all headers is turned off (this is toggled via
``toggle_headers'', by default bound to `t').
Note that the strings are not regular expressions. However, substrings
can be used; e.g. ``X-'' matches all headers beginning with ``X-''.
It's also possible to exclude certain headers by preceding them with a
bang (`!'). If multiple entries match, the last one decides whether or
not the header is displayed, so ``X-,!X-Trace:'' shows all X-headers
except ``X-Trace:''.
Headers mentioned in visible_headers that don't occur in the article
are silently ignored.
Example:
visible_headers "From:,Subject:,Newsgroups:,Followup-To:,Reply-To:"
6. Configuration variables
The following variables can be set using the ``set'' configuration
command:
6.1. abort_unmodified_edits
Type: integer
Default: 0
If non-zero, slrn aborts posting or email operations if the user did
not modify the article.
See also: ``editor_command'', ``post_editor_command'',
``mail_editor_command''
6.2. art_help_line
Type: string
Default: (unset)
This string is displayed in the bottom line while you are reading an
article. It is intended as a quick help when you cannot remember what
key to press ;-) If unset, the following line is used (localized):
SPC:Pgdn B:PgUp u:Un-Mark-as-Read f:Followup n:Next p:Prev q:Quit
See also: ``group_help_line'', ``header_help_line''
6.3. art_status_line
Type: string
Default: (unset)
This variable can be used to customize the status line of the article
pager. It accepts all % escapes that work for
``header_display_format'' plus the ones listed here:
H Prints `H' unless headers are hidden
I Prints `P' unless PGP signatures are hidden
L Current line (e.g. "1/18")
P Percentage of the way through the article
Q Prints `Q' unless quotes are hidden
T Prints `S' unless signatures are hidden
V Prints `V' unless verbatim text is hidden
W Prints `W' if wrapping is enabled
p Prints `<' if the window is panned (scrolled horizontally)
v Prints `v' unless verbatim marks are hidden
When unset, slrn uses "%p%n : %s %-20g -- %L (%P)" (localized).
See also: ``group_status_line'', ``header_status_line'',
``top_status_line''
6.4. auto_mark_article_as_read
Type: integer
Default: 1
If non-zero, every article you open will automatically be marked as
read.
6.5. beep
Type: integer
Default: 1
This variable controls how slrn tries to get your attention.
0 do not beep
1 send audible bell
2 send visible bell
3 send both visible and audible bell
6.6. broken_xref
Type: integer
Default: 0
When you set this variable to a non-zero value, slrn requests articles
by Message-ID instead of header number. This provides support for
servers with broken "Xref:" headers and should otherwise be left
untouched.
6.7. cansecret_file
Type: string
Default: (unset)
If you want slrn to put cancel-locks into the articles you post, set
this variable to a file that contains the secret (the password, which
you can chose arbitrarily) you want to use to generate them.
Cancel-locks are a way of making sure that nobody else but you can
cancel or supersede your articles (as long as he does not have your
password, so keep it to yourself). Please note that this feature needs
to be enabled at compile time (it requires the additional library
canlock) and that cancel locks only have an effect if the server
supports them.
6.8. cc_followup
Type: integer
Default: 1
This variable controls whether slrn sends email copies ("courtesy
copies") of followups:
0 Never send email copies automatically
1 Prompt if original poster requested a copy
2 Send email copy if original poster requested it
3 Always prompt
4 Send copy if poster requested it; prompt otherwise
The original poster can indicate that he wishes to receive an email
copy by adding an "(X-)Mail-Copies-To:" header line to his posting. If
it contains the keyword "nobody" ("never" is not covered by current
drafts, but also accepted), the poster does not want any email copies.
slrn will not prompt you in that case.
When using settings three or four, please keep in mind that many
people on usenet consider "courtesy copies" to be impolite because
they do not want to read the same message both in their private email
and in a newsgroup.
See Also: ``cc_post_string''
6.9. cc_post_string
Type: string
Default: "[This message has also been posted to %n.]" (localized)
This string will be included in the mail copies of any article you
send. However, it won't be displayed in the editor and will not be
included in the posting sent to the newsgroup.
The variable may contain the sequence %n, which will be replaced by
the newsgroup(s) the article was posted to. If you need a "verbatim" %
character, use %%.
Note: cc_followup_string used to support all % sequences defined by
``followup_string''. This has been changed, as it could lead to wrong
data getting inserted in some cases. If you miss a special sequence,
please report it as a feature request.
See Also: ``cc_followup''
6.10. charset
This variable is obsolete, use ``charset'' instead.
6.11. check_new_groups
Type: integer
Default: 1
If you do not want to check for new groups on startup and when doing a
``group refresh'' (by default bound to `G'), you can set this variable
to 0. This has the same effect as using the command-line parameter -n.
6.12. color_by_score
Type: integer
Default: 3
Determines whether or not color should be used to indicate the score
of an article. The following settings are possible:
0 scores do not influence colors
1 scores are colored by their value
2 subjects are colored by score
3 both scores and subjects are colored by score
If this feature is enabled, slrn uses the color objects neg_score,
pos_score and high_score when printing the score / subject of articles
with a non-zero score value.
6.13. confirm_actions
Type: integer
Default: 31
This variable decides in which situations slrn will ask you to confirm
an action. It has a bitmapped value which can be the sum of any
combination of the following numbers:
1 Confirm marking groups as read or un-read.
2 Confirm printing an article.
4 Confirm posts, followups, replies and supersedes.
8 Confirm leaving a group by following a news: URL.
16 Confirm quitting <tt/slrn/.
Thus, the default means that the user is always asked for
confirmation.
6.14. custom_headers
Type: string
Default: (unset)
Use this variable to create additional header lines when posting to a
newsgroup. Note that they will only be added to articles you wrote
using ``post'' (by default bound to `P'). If you want to have
additional headers in followups, you need to set them in
``followup_custom_headers'' instead; headers in supersedes are set
with ``supersedes_custom_headers''. The header lines you add this way
will also show up in your editor so you can modify them.
Although this variable currently does not support any % escapes, you
need to double any % signs you may want to use inside it. This is
because all other *_custom_headers variables do support % escapes and
people who used the same values (mostly X-Faces) in all cases
frequently were surprised at the different results.
Note: It is generally not possible to override existing headers using
custom_headers. An exception to this rule is the "Message-ID:" header
line which can optionally be set by using this variable. However,
there is usually no need to do this as slrn has an excellent algorithm
for creating Message-IDs itself. Let me repeat this: Only override the
"Message-ID:" header if you know exactly what you are doing. When
doing this, it's essential that you know (and, of course, follow) the
RFCs and the rules of your ISP.
Example:
set custom_headers "X-URL: http://foo.com\nX-No-Archive: yes"
See also: ``reply_custom_headers''
6.15. custom_sort_by_threads
Type: integer
Default: 0
If ``sorting_method'' is set to 12 (custom sorting), this variable is
used to decide whether or not to thread headers. In this case, any
non-zero value activates threading.
See also: ``custom_sort_order''
6.16. custom_sort_order
Type: string
Default: (unset)
If custom sorting is enabled by setting ``sorting_method'' to 12, this
variable defines the sort order you want to use. It is a comma-
separated list of the following keywords:
author Sort alphabetically (A-z) by realname
body Sort articles without body first (true offline mode)
date Sort by date, oldest first
highscore Sort high scoring articles, those without high scores first
id Sort alphabetically (A-z) by Message-ID
lines Sort by number of article lines, lowest number first
number Sort by server number, lowest first
score Sort by score, lower numbers first
subject Sort alphabetically (a-z) by subject, ignoring case
As you can see, all keywords use an ascending sort order by default.
You can however capitalize each keyword to reverse its order (i.e.
Highscore would sort high scoring articles first, which is usually
what you expect).
When comparing two articles, slrn steps through this list, starting
with the first keyword, until it finds an entry for which the articles
differ.
You may want to use different criteria for sorting initial articles of
threads than for "siblings" inside of threads. This is possible by
using the delimiter '|': The comma-separated list before this
delimiter is applied when sorting initial articles in threads; the
string after the delimiter specifies the sort order to be used inside
threads. For example, if you want to see high scoring and recent
threads first, but sort the messages within the thread from oldest to
newest, you could set custom_sort_order to Highscore,Date|date.
There is no performance penalty when using custom sorting. Actually,
the other sorting methods are merely there for convenience and use the
same algorithm internally. As an example, here is a list of those
settings for custom_sort_order that are equivalent to the ``sorting
methods'':
0 and 1 ""
2 and 3 "Highscore,subject"
4 and 5 "Score"
6 and 7 "Score,subject"
8 and 9 "Highscore,Date"
0 and 11 "Highscore,date"
6.17. decode_directory
Type: string
Default: (unset)
The directory where uuencoded files, shar archives and things like
that are placed after decoding. This variable has no effect if slrn is
built without support for decoding articles (i.e. if SLRN_HAS_DECODE
in slrnfeat.h is disabled at compile time; default on VMS). If
decode_directory is unset, ``save_directory'' is used.
6.18. display_cursor_bar
Type: integer
Default: 0
If non-zero, the "cursor" will be displayed as a horizontal bar across
the screen rather than an arrow ("->") in the first column.
6.19. drop_bogus_groups
Type: integer
Default: 1
When a group is removed from the server, slrn will automatically drop
it from your newsrc file, which is generally what you want to do in
this situation. However, some broken servers make groups appear as if
they were removed, requiring their users to re-subscribe manually when
they become available again. If your server is affected, you can set
this variable to zero.
6.20. editor_command
Type: string
Default: (unset)
The value of this variable is used as a shell command to start your
favourite editor. However, slrn will prefer the more specific
variables - there is one for each case in which an editor is needed:
Posting an article or a followup:
slrn uses ``post_editor_command''
Replying by mail:
slrn uses ``mail_editor_command''
Editing a score file:
slrn uses ``score_editor_command''
editor_command is a kind of fall-back if the more specific editor
command is not set. If editor_command is empty, slrn looks at
``$SLRN_EDITOR'' et al.
The following % escapes can be used:
%s name of the file to edit
%d number of the first line of the message body
If no escapes are found, the filename is simply appended to the
specified command.
Example:
set editor_command "jed '%s' -g %d -tmp"
See also: ``charset editor''
6.21. editor_uses_mime_charset
This variable is obsolete, use ``charset'' instead.
6.22. emphasized_text_mask
Type: integer
Default: 1
This variable controls what parts of an article should be scanned for
emphasized text (like *this*, _this_ or /that/), which will then be
processed according to the value of ``emphasized_text_mode''. It has a
bitmapped value which can be the sum of any combination of the
following numbers:
1 scan message portion (the non-quoted, non-signature part)
2 scan quoted text
4 scan signature
8 scan header lines
For example, if you wanted slrn to look for emphasized text in both
the message and the quoted portions, you would set this variable to 3
(1+2).
6.23. emphasized_text_mode
Type: integer
Default: 3
This variable controls how slrn displays text that has been recognized
as emphasized. If it is non-zero, the text will be highlighted
according to the color objects boldtext, italicstext and
underlinetext. Additionally, there are two values which have special
meanings: If set to 1, the characters which were used for emphasis
(`*', `/' and `_', respectively) are not printed on the screen; if set
to 2, these characters are written as spaces. In all other cases
(including the default value), they will not be changed.
See also: ``emphasized_text_mask''
6.24. failed_posts_file
Type: string
Default: (unset)
If posting failed for some reason, your article will be saved to the
file specified by failed_posts_file.
It this variable is unset, it defaults to the value of
SLRN_FAILED_POST_FILE in slrnfeat.h, typically either "slrn-failed-
post.txt" (UNIX and VMS) or "failpost.txt" (OS/2 and Windows).
See also: ``save_posts''
6.25. fallback_charset
Type: string
Default: iso-8859-1
Violating RFC recommendations, some broken newsreaders post unencoded
8 bit characters in the headers or post non us-ascii characters in the
body with a missing "Content-Type:" declaration. Setting this variable
will help slrn to guess the correct encoding of the posting.
Hint: It might be a good idea to set this variable to "Windows-1252"
if you read Western or to "iso-8859-2" if you read Eastern European
newgroups.
Note: There is no need to set this variable to "utf-8"; slrn will
always try "utf-8" first.
6.26. fold_headers
This variable is obsolete.
6.27. followup_custom_headers
Type: string
Default: (unset)
Use this variable to create additional headers when posting a
followup. You can use all % escapes that are defined in
``followup_string''. The headers you add this way will also show up in
your editor and can be modified.
Note: It is generally not possible to override existing headers using
followup_custom_headers. See note at ``custom_headers'' for details.
See also: ``reply_custom_headers'', ``supersedes_custom_headers''
6.28. followup_date_format
Type: string
Default: (unset)
This variable defines the format string for the "%D" specifier in
``followup_string''. Its syntax is identical to the one of
strftime(3).
If unset, slrn uses %Y-%m-%d (localized).
See also: ``use_localtime''
6.29. followup_string
Type: string
Default: "On %D, %r <%f> wrote:" (localized)
Each followup you write will automatically be prefixed by the value of
followup_string. The following % sequences are recognized and replaced
with the corresponding text that is extracted from the article you are
answering:
%s Subject
%m Message-ID
%r Real name
%R Real name up to the first space (first name)
%f Email address
%n Current newsgroup
%d Date
%D Date (as defined by followup_date_format)
%% %
Note: It is common practice to have at least the name of the person
you are quoting in your followup_string.
See also: ``followup_date_format'', ``reply_string''
6.30. followup_strip_signature
Type: integer
Default: 1
If non-zero, the signature is stripped automatically from the article
you are answering when writing followups or replies. This is
considered good netiquette whenever you do not want to refer to the
signature in your reply.
See also: ``ignore_signature'', ``hide_signature'',
``strip_sig_regexp''
6.31. followupto_string
Type: string
Default: "["Followup-To:" header set to %n.]" (localized)
When you write a followup to a crossposting, slrn will ask you whether
you want to set a "Followup-To:" header line (which is good netiquette
in many cases). If you tell slrn to include the header at that point,
it will also insert followupto_string as the first line of the body of
your article to inform your readers about this.
In this variable, you can use the same percent escapes as in
``followup_string''.
6.32. force_authentication
Type: integer
Default: 1
If this variable is set to ``0'', slrn sends authentication data only
if the server requests it. Although this conforms to RFC 2980, in
practice you need to volunteer authentication to some servers, so the
default setting is ``1'' whenever a username and password are
specified with the nnrpaccess command. Usually, changing this setting
from the default will produce undesirable results, such as being able
to read but not post, or seeing only a limited number of newsgroups.
Note: If you need to set this variable on a per-server basis, use a
startup_hook():
Example:
______________________________________________________________________
define startup_hook()
{
!if (strcmp (server_name(), "send-no-password.com"))
set_integer_variable("force_authentication", 0);
}
______________________________________________________________________
See also: ``nnrpaccess''
6.33. generate_date_header
Type: integer
Default: 0
Usually, the generation of "Date:" header lines can be left to the
server. If it does not do this correctly, please complain to its
administrator, as a working system clock is essential for a news
server.
That being said, you can still have slrn generate that header line
itself by changing this variable; you might want to use this to make
postings sent via slrnpull reflect the time they were written.
However, please note that this might lead to articles being rejected
if your system clock does not work correctly or an outgoing post was
left in the queue for a long time.
6.34. generate_email_from
Type: integer
Default: (system dependent)
If non-zero, a "From:" header line is generated when sending email. On
Unix systems, this is usually not necessary, because the MTA will do
the job for you and might even be configured to reject messages that
already have a "From:" header.
This variable defaults to 0, except on Windows and OS/2, where this
feature is turned on by default. Its value cannot be changed when
SLRN_HAS_STRICT_FROM was enabled at compile time (default is off).
6.35. generate_message_id
Type: integer
Default: 1
If non-zero, slrn creates its own "Message-ID:" header lines
(consisting of the string "slrn", time, process id, user- and
hostname) when posting. Setting this variable has no effect if
creation of Message-IDs has been disabled at compile time.
Note: Although creating your own Message-IDs has a lot of advantages,
you should only allow slrn to do so if the hostname of the machine it
is running on is a FQDN (fully qualified domain name) or you can
provide a unique hostname. Otherwise, you cannot guarantee that your
Message-IDs are unique and should leave the job to your news server.
Also consider turning on ``use_recommended_msg_id''.
See also: ``posting_host'', ``username''
6.36. group_help_line
Type: string
Default: (unset)
This string is displayed in the bottom line of the group menu. It is
intended as a quick help. If unset, the following line is used
(localized):
SPC:Select p:Post c:CatchUp l:List q:Quit ^R:Redraw (u)s:(Un)Subscribe
See also: ``art_help_line'', ``header_help_line''
6.37. group_status_line
Type: string
Default: (unset)
This variable affects the status line in group mode. It accepts all %
escapes that are defined for ``group_display_format'' plus the
following ones:
D Prints `*' if newsrc file needs saving, `-' otherwise
L Current line (e.g. "1/34")
P Percentage of the way through the group window
s Name of the current server
When unset, slrn takes -%D-News Groups: %s %-20g -- %L (%P)
(localized) as the default.
See also: ``art_status_line'', ``header_status_line'',
``top_status_line''
6.38. grouplens_host
Type: string
Default: (unset)
If you intend to use GroupLens, this variable has to contain the name
of the server that carries the GroupLens scores.
This variable does not have an effect if GroupLens support is
disabled; see ``use_grouplens'' for details.
See also: ``grouplens_port'', ``grouplens_pseudoname''
6.39. grouplens_port
Type: integer
Default: 0
This variable contains the port you want slrn to use when connecting
to ``grouplens_host''.
See also: ``grouplens_pseudoname'', ``use_grouplens''
6.40. grouplens_pseudoname
Type: string
Default: (unset)
This variable is for your registered GroupLens pseudoname.
See also: ``grouplens_host'', ``grouplens_port'', ``use_grouplens''
6.41. header_help_line
Type: string
Default: (unset)
This string is displayed in the bottom line in article mode when no
article is shown (e.g. while you are just browsing through the
headers). If unset, the following line is used (localized):
SPC:Select Ctrl-D:PgDn Ctrl-U:PgUp d:Mark-as-Read n:Next p:Prev q:Quit
See also: ``art_help_line'', ``group_help_line''
6.42. header_status_line
Type: string
Default: (unset)
You can use this variable to customize the status line of the header
window. Here is a list of valid % escapes:
L Current line (e.g. "1/74")
P Percentage of the way through the header list
T Number of articles in the current subthread
h Number of high scoring articles in the group
k Number of articles killed by the scorefile
l Number of low scoring articles
n Name of the current group
p Prints `<' if the window is panned (scrolled horizontally)
r Number of read articles in the group
t Total number of articles in the group
u Number of unread articles in the group
The special descriptors "%g" and "%?" work like in
``header_display_format''.
When unset, the default is (the localized form of)
"%p[%u/%t unread] Group: %n%-20g -- %L (%P)".
See also: ``art_status_line'', ``group_status_line'',
``top_status_line''
6.43. hide_pgpsignature
Type: integer
Default: 0
If non-zero, PGP signatures in articles will not be displayed. The
setting of this variable can be changed using ``toggle_pgpsignature''
(default binding: `]') while slrn is running.
See also: ``hide_signature''
6.44. hide_quotes
Type: integer
Default: 0
This variable can be used to hide quoted text. If it is non-zero,
quoted text from the nth level on is hidden in the article pager
(where n is the value of hide_quotes).
To toggle the value at runtime, you can use the ``toggle_quotes''
command.
6.45. hide_signature
Type: integer
Default: 0
If non-zero, signatures in articles (as defined by
``strip_sig_regexp'') will not be displayed. The setting of this
variable can be changed using ``toggle_signature'' (default binding:
`\') while slrn is running.
See also: ``followup_strip_signature'', ``hide_pgpsignature'',
``ignore_signature''
6.46. hide_verbatim_marks
Type: integer
Default: 0
If ``process_verbatim_marks'' is turned on, you can hide "verbatim
marks" (#v+ and #v-) in the article body by setting this variable to a
non-zero value. It can also be changed using ``toggle_verbatim_marks''
while slrn is running.
6.47. hide_verbatim_text
Type: integer
Default: 0
If ``process_verbatim_marks'' is turned on, you can hide text marked
as "verbatim" by setting this variable to a non-zero value. It can
also be changed using ``toggle_verbatim_text'' while slrn is running.
See also: ``hide_verbatim_marks''
6.48. highlight_unread_subjects
Type: integer
Default: 1
If non-zero, the subjects of unread articles are highlighted. There
are two possible ways of doing this:
When set to one, unread subjects are printed bright (when using
colors) or bold (in monochrome mode). This will obviously not have any
visible effect if the subject is printed bold or in a bright color
anyways. Besides that, the special color "default" does not have a
bright version.
When set to two, unread subjects are printed in the color you set with
``unread_subject''. In this case, only subjects of unread articles can
be ``colored by score''.
6.49. highlight_urls
Type: integer
Default: 1
If non-zero, URLs are highlighted in the article pager using the
``url'' color object. This affects all portions of the message that
are scanned for emphasized text.
Note: When mouse reporting is enabled, highlighted URLs are also
"clickable"; if you use the left or right mouse key, slrn will prompt
you for changes to the URL before launching the browser.
See also: ``emphasized_text_mask'', ``mouse''
6.50. hostname
Type: string
Default: (unset)
hostname is used as the domain part of the email address slrn puts in
your "From:" header, so it should be set to just that. This may or may
not be the hostname of the machine slrn is running on, depending on
whether you have an email account on that machine and whether you want
to use it for your usenet postings.
Please see the entry ``$HOSTNAME'' for a discussion of slrn's default
behaviour if this variable is unset.
Note: In each case, slrn either uses the information you set in
``posting_host'' or returned by gethostbyname(3) to generate its
Message-IDs, so their domain part is not influenced by the value of
this variable.
See also: ``realname'', ``username''
6.51. ignore_signature
Type: integer
Default: 0
If you use ``article_page_down'' (default binding: space) to read an
article "page by page", you might find it annoying if the last page
contains nothing but the author's signature. If you set this variable
to a non-zero value, slrn will not scroll down in those cases, but
immediately goes to the next article instead.
See also: ``hide_signature'', ``strip_sig_regexp''
6.52. inews_program
Type: string
Default: (compile time setting)
To post your articles, you can use an external program (usually
inews(1)) instead of the builtin NNTP routines slrn offers (see
``post_object'' for details). In this case, inews_program can be used
to specify the command you want slrn to pipe outgoing articles to.
Note: This variable will not work if SLRN_HAS_USER_INEWS in slrnfeat.h
was disabled at compile time. Obviously, it also has no effect if
inews support is not compiled in.
6.53. kill_score
Type: integer
Default: -9999
When the score of an article is equal or less than kill_score points,
it will be killed. This means that it will not be displayed in article
mode at all, so you won't be bothered with it.
See also: ``max_low_score'', ``min_high_score''
6.54. lines_per_update
Type: integer
Default: 50
When entering a group or reading an article, slrn displays a
"percentage meter" in the bottom line, telling the user how many
articles (or lines) have already been read. This variable controls how
often this message is updated (default is to update it every 50 read
articles / lines). You may want to change this value, depending on
the speed of your server connection and of your display.
Note: If you set this variable to less than 5, slrn will ignore it and
use the default of 50 instead (or 20, when reading short articles that
contain less than 200 lines).
6.55. macro_directory
Type: string
Default: (compile time setting)
This variable specifies (in a comma separated list) paths to
additional directories where you wish to keep your S-Lang macros.
These paths may be absolute (beginning with "/") or relative to $HOME
(or $SLRNHOME if set), and tell slrn where to look when loading macros
with the ``interpret'' command.
In Unix, the configure script automatically sets the default of this
variable to the directory where the macros that come with slrn are
installed. If it was called without any parameters, this is
/usr/local/share/slrn/slang. If a macro does not exist in a path
listed in macro_directory, slrn will first try to find it in $HOME (or
$SLRNHOME), then in the compile-time default directory.
Example:
interpret "News/macros/my-macro.sl"
interpret "/usr/share/slrn/slang/util.sl"
can be replaced with
set macro_directory "News/macros,/usr/share/slrn/slang"
interpret "my-macro.sl"
interpret "util.sl"
6.56. mail_editor_command
Type: string
Default: (unset)
This variable is interpreted as a shell command which will be used to
invoke your editor of choice when you want to reply by email. If it is
unset, slrn will use the editor defined by ``editor_command''.
Note: The variable may contain % escapes. A list of them can be found
in the section on ``editor_command''.
See also: ``post_editor_command'', ``score_editor_command''
6.57. mail_editor_is_mua
Type: integer
Default: 0
Set this variable if your ``mail_editor_command'' is a Mail User
Agent, i.e. sends the email itself. This makes sure it does not get
sent twice (both by your MUA and slrn).
Example (using mutt as an external mailer):
set mail_editor_command "mutt -H '%s'"
set mail_editor_is_mua 1
6.58. max_low_score
Type: integer
Default: 0
Articles with a score lower than max_low_score will automatically be
marked as read and receive the "HEADER_LOW_SCORE" header flag.
However, they are still displayed in the header overview.
See also: ``kill_score'', ``min_high_score''
6.59. max_queued_groups
Type: integer
Default: 20
To reduce startup time, slrn sends the initial GROUP commands needed
to find the number of unread messages in each group in batches (by
default, 20 at a time). However, there are (few) servers which do not
seem to like this - in those cases, slrn hangs at startup. If you
experience this, try setting max_queued_groups to 1.
Note: If you set this variable to 0 (or lower), it will switch back to
1 automatically.
6.60. metamail_command
Type: string
Default: (unset)
When you select an article which uses a MIME content type or encoding
not supported by slrn, an external program can be launched to view it.
This variable contains the name of the program which will be used in
those cases. slrn will write the article to a temporary file, so the
command used here has to accept a filename as its argument.
If this variable is unset, slrn will try to invoke metamail. Setting
this variable has no effect if MIME support has not been compiled in.
See also: ``use_metamail''
6.61. mime_charset
This variable is obsolete, use ``charset'' instead.
6.62. min_high_score
Type: integer
Default: 1
Articles with a score of at least min_high_score points are marked as
"high" (the "HEADER_HIGH_SCORE" header flag is set; this is indicated
in header overview by an exclamation mark). Articles with "high"
scores are displayed first in sorting modes 2-11 and you will be able
to jump to the next "high scoring" article using ``next_high_score''
(default binding: `!').
See also: ``kill_score'', ``max_low_score'', ``sorting_method''
6.63. mouse
Type: integer
Default: 0
If this variable is non-zero and you run slrn inside an xterm
compatible X terminal emulation program, some basic mouse support will
be activated. The following table lists what you can do with the
mouse:
In group mode:
Object Button Action
---------------------------------------
Top Status line any specified by button label
Group Name any select group
Bottom Status line middle toggle display of unread groups
Bottom Status line left page-down
Bottom Status line right page-up
In article mode:
Object Button Action
---------------------------------------------
Top status line any specified by button label
Header status line left header page down
right header page up
middle hide article window
Article status line left next unread
right previous unread
middle toggle quotes
Header item any select item
Article window left article page down
right article page up
middle hide article window
URL in article window left/right confirm and browse URL
middle browse URL
Note: Setting this variable to -1 will always activate mouse support,
even if it does not work (and is therefore useless) on the current
terminal.
6.64. netiquette_warnings
Type: integer
Default: 1
When non-zero, slrn will warn you if your posting does not conform to
some generally accepted netiquette guidelines. You can still force the
posting, so it's probably a good idea to keep this turned on to make
sure that you do not violate these rules without noticing it.
Note: Currently, this feature warns you when crossposting to more than
four groups or without setting a "Followup-To:", or if the "Followup-
To:" header line contains multiple groups. Additionally, you are
notified if your signature has more than four lines.
See also: ``reject_long_lines''
6.65. new_subject_breaks_threads
Type: integer
Default: 0
In large threads, the tree built by looking at the "References:" can
become quite complex and sometimes confusing. Thus, some people prefer
to see a separate thread tree whenever the "Subject:" header line
changes. Set this variable to 1 if you want this (more, but smaller
trees).
By default, slrn puts articles with identical subjects into the same
thread, even if they are not linked by a "References:" header. If you
want slrn to thread based on references only, set this variable to 2
(also gives you more, but smaller trees). If you want to enable both
of these features, use 3 as the value.
Note: Before comparing subjects, a leading "Re: " and a trailing
"(was: ...)" is cut off. However, the regular expressions in
``strip_re_regexp'' and ``strip_was_regexp'' are not used.
6.66. no_autosave
Type: integer
Default: 0
By default, slrn creates an autosave copy of your newsrc file (ending
in ".as") whenever you leave a group. Thus, you won't lose (much) data
if slrn (or the system it runs on) should go down hard.
If you set this variable to 1, this feature is turned off. If you set
it to 2, slrn will autosave to the newsrc file itself (not to a
temporary file).
See also: ``no_backups''
6.67. no_backups
Type: integer
Default: 0
If non-zero, no backups of the newsrc file are created.
See also: ``no_autosave''
6.68. non_Xbrowser
Type: string
Default: (unset)
The command in this variable will be used to start a text mode web
browser when ``browse_url'' (default binding: `U') is called. slrn
will chose the text mode web browser if ``$DISPLAY'' is unset or no
command could be found in ``Xbrowser''.
6.69. organization
Type: string
Default: (compile time setting)
Using this variable, you can set the "Organization:" header line to an
arbitrary string. A discussion on how slrn obtains the default value
can be found in the entry on ``$ORGANIZATION''.
6.70. overview_date_format
Type: string
Default: (unset)
This variable defines the format string for the "%D" specifier in
``header_display_format''. Its syntax is identical to the one of
strftime(3).
If unset, slrn uses "%d %b %y %H:%M".
See also: ``use_localtime''
6.71. post_editor_command
Type: string
Default: (unset)
This variable is interpreted as a shell command which will be used to
invoke your editor of choice when you edit a new posting or write a
followup. If it is unset, slrn will use the editor defined by
``editor_command''.
Note: The variable may contain % escapes. You will find a list of them
in the section on ``editor_command''.
See also: ``mail_editor_command'', ``score_editor_command''
6.72. post_object
Type: string
Default: (unset)
Controls the method slrn uses to post articles. It can be one of
"nntp" (use builtin NNTP support), "inews" (pipe article to an
external program) or "slrnpull" (spool messages for slrnpull to send).
If the variable is unset, the default depends on the compile time
setting of SLRN_DEFAULT_POST_OBJ in slrnfeat.h.
See also: ``server_object'', ``use_slrnpull''
6.73. postpone_directory
Type: string
Default: (unset)
Directory where articles you want to postpone are saved. If this
variable is unset, slrn will try to use "News/postponed" for this
purpose.
6.74. prefer_head
Type: integer
Default: 0
This variable affects "expensive scoring": If available, slrn uses the
XOVER and XHDR extensions to retrieve only the needed header lines;
otherwise, the HEAD NNTP command is used to get all headers. Although
this notably increases network traffic, it might be faster, depending
on your connection and the number of "expensive" headers you score on.
In this case, you can set this variable and slrn will prefer HEAD over
XOVER / XHDR.
When set to 2, slrn never tries to use XOVER. This is only useful for
servers with broken XOVER implementations.
6.75. printer_name
Type: string
Default: (unset)
This variable can be used to customize the ``print'' function. Its
meaning and the default action depend on the operating system:
On Unix systems, it can contain a command to which slrn will pipe the
article you want to print. For example, you would set it to
"my_print_filter | lpr -Pmy_printer" if you want the article to be
processed by my_print_filter and then printed on "my_printer". If
unset, the default action is to use lpr with the value of ``$PRINTER''
as the -P option.
On Windows98, you can set this variable to the name of the print queue
you want to use. Here, the default is to use the setting in "win.ini".
On Windows XP, you have to share your attached printer and assign a
"share name". The printer_name string has to be set to this "share
name".
print is not yet implemented for VMS.
6.76. process_verbatim_marks
Type: integer
Default: 1
If this variable is set to a non-zero value, slrn will interpret text
enclosed by "#v+" and "#v-" (on a line of their own) as "verbatim".
Verbatim text will be displayed according to the color object
verbatim; emphasized text it might contain will not be highlighted.
This is especially useful when dealing with source code.
Note: slrn is currently the only program that interprets these
verbatim marks. This is due to the lack of a standard that would
describe a way to mark text as "verbatim" in usenet articles.
See also: ``emphasized_text_mask'', ``emphasized_text_mode'',
``hide_verbatim_marks''
6.77. query_next_article
Type: integer
Default: 1
When you use ``article_page_down'' (default binding: space) while you
are already at the end of an article, slrn moves to the next unread
article. If this variable is set to 0, this will happen automatically;
if it is 1, you will be asked to confirm that you want to select the
new article.
See also: ``query_next_group''
6.78. query_next_group
Type: integer
Default: 1
When you use ``article_page_down'' (default binding: space) while you
are at the end of the last unread article in a group, slrn can move to
the next newsgroup that contains unread articles. If this variable is
set to 0, this will happen automatically; if it is 1, you will be
asked to confirm that you want to select a new group.
See also: ``query_next_article''
6.79. query_read_group_cutoff
Type: integer
Default: 100
When you enter a newsgroup and slrn is about to read more than
query_read_group_cutoff article headers, it will prompt you to confirm
(or change) the number of articles to read. This feature is turned off
if you set this variable to 0.
Setting this variable to a negative number -n has a similar effect.
However, slrn will not prompt you in this case; instead, it will
automatically download n articles if more are present.
6.80. quote_string
Type: string
Default: (unset)
This string will be used to indent quoted text in followups and
replies. If the variable is unset, slrn uses ">".
Note: slrn's default is the only quote prefix commonly accepted on
Usenet. Please do not change it unless you are posting to a group or
network that follows different rules.
See Also: ``smart_quote''
6.81. read_active
Type: integer
Default: 0
If this variable is non-zero, slrn will read the active file from the
server when starting. If your server carries few groups or your
network connection is fast (e.g. because you are using a local
newsserver), this may lead to a faster startup. If it is slow, you
should leave the default setting untouched.
6.82. realname
Type: string
Default: (unset)
It is considered good netiquette to set this variable to your real
name. It will be included in the "From:" header line. If you do not
set it, slrn tries to get a value from ``$NAME''. On UNIX systems, it
also queries the /etc/passwd gecos field.
See also: ``hostname'', ``username''
6.83. reject_long_lines
Type: integer
Default: 2
If set to 1, slrn will not allow you to post articles containing non-
quoted lines which are longer than 80 characters. If you set it to 2,
slrn will merely issue a warning that you can decide to ignore (e.g.
when posting source code). Setting this variable to 0 turns the check
off. Please note that long lines are generally considered bad
netiquette.
See also: ``netiquette_warnings''
6.84. reply_custom_headers
Type: string
Default: (unset)
Use this variable to create additional headers when replying to a
posting (via email). You can use all % escapes that are defined in
``followup_string''. The headers you add this way will also show up in
your editor and can be modified.
Note: It is not possible to override existing headers using
reply_custom_headers.
See also: ``custom_headers'', ``followup_custom_headers'',
``supersedes_custom_headers''
6.85. reply_string
Type: string
Default: "In %n, you wrote:" (localized)
This variable determines the attribution line slrn uses when replying
via email. You can use the same % escapes as in ``followup_string''.
6.86. replyto
Type: string
Default: (unset)
You can use this variable to set the address you want replies to your
articles to be sent to. You only need to set this if you do not want
people to send replies to the address in the "From:" header line. If
you do not set this variable, slrn tries to get a default value from
``$REPLYTO''.
See also: ``hostname'', ``username''
6.87. save_directory
Type: string
Default: (unset)
Sets the default directory where saved articles are placed. If it is
unset, slrn uses "News".
Note: If save_directory is not an absolute pathname, it is interpreted
as being relative to your home directory as determined by the
environment variables ``$SLRNHOME'' or ``$HOME''.
See also: ``decode_directory'', ``postpone_directory''
6.88. save_posts
Type: string
Default: (unset)
Specifies a file to which every article you post should be appended
(in standard mailbox format). If unset, slrn will not even try to make
a copy of your postings; if it cannot write to the specified file, it
will give a warning and post nonetheless.
Note: If the filename in save_posts does not contain an absolute path,
it is interpreted as being relative to your home directory (see
``$SLRNHOME'').
Hint: If you get error messages when using this variable, you possibly
pointed it to a directory instead of a file.
See also: ``save_replies''
6.89. save_replies
Type: string
Default: (unset)
Specifies a file to which every reply you send by email should be
appended (in standard mailbox format). The same rules apply as for
``save_posts''.
Note: If you send a Cc (carbon copy) of one of your articles by email,
the posting will only be appended to the folder in save_posts, not to
save_replies.
6.90. score_editor_command
Type: string
Default: (unset)
Defines the program that will be called to edit your score file. If
unset, the editor in ``editor_command'' is used.
Note: The variable may contain % escapes. They are listed in the
section on ``editor_command''.
See also: ``mail_editor_command'', ``post_editor_command''
6.91. scorefile
Type: string
Default: (unset)
If you want to score articles, you need to set this variable to the
filename of your scorefile. It is interpreted as being relative to
your home directory (unless it starts with a slash), or relative to
$SLRNHOME if this is set.
If you want to use more than one scorefile, you need to use an include
statement in the scorefile itself. Please do not confuse this with the
``include'' slrnrc command discussed above.
For further details on scoring, please refer to the file score.txt
that should have come with your slrn distribution. The FAQ also
answers questions about scoring and includes some examples. A future
version of this manual might also include a separate section about the
concept of "scoring".
6.92. scroll_by_page
Type: integer
Default: 0
If set to non-zero, both group window and header window will scroll by
a full page instead of a single line. This does not affect the article
window, as it has separate commands for scrolling by ``lines'' and by
``full pages''.
Note: If you change this variable at runtime, the change will take
effect as soon as you select a group or enter group mode.
6.93. sendmail_command
Type: string
Default: (compile time setting)
slrn uses this string as a command to send email (when forwarding or
replying). Input will be piped to the program if the system supports
it. On systems without pipes, sendmail_command will be given the name
of a temporary file containing the email as the last command line
argument.
The default is set at compile time. On Unix, the configure script
tries to find the sendmail binary; otherwise, you can set
SLRN_SENDMAIL_COMMAND in slrnfeat.h.
Hint: Some sendmail replacements for Windows expect the input to be
piped to the program, what slrn is not able to do. You can handle this
by adding a "<" at the end of the string.
6.94. server_object
Type: string
Default: (unset)
Controls the method slrn uses to read news. It can be either "nntp"
(connect an NNTP server) or "spool" (read from a local spool).
If this variable is unset, the default behaviour depends on the
compile time #define SLRN_DEFAULT_SERVER_OBJ in slrnfeat.h. If NNTP
support is compiled in, it is used by default.
See also: ``post_object'', ``use_slrnpull''
6.95. show_article
Type: integer
Default: 0
If non-zero, the first article is automatically displayed when
entering a group.
6.96. show_thread_subject
Type: integer
Default: 0
When viewing a thread tree, slrn usually does not display subjects
that are identical to the one of the previous posting as this would
make the screen look busy without giving any additional information.
If you still prefer to have all subject lines displayed, you can set
this variable to a non-zero value.
6.97. signature
Type: string
Default: (compile time setting)
slrn can append a signature to all outgoing articles and mails. Set
signature to the name of your signature file or to an empty string if
you don't want to use a signature. slrn will not give any error
message if the file specified in signature does not exist.
The default of this variable is defined in slrnfeat.h
(SLRN_SIGNATURE_FILE): It is ".signature" on Unix and VMS and
"signatur.txt" on OS/2 and Windows.
If the signature contains non us-ascii characters make sure they have
the same encoding defined in ``charset editor''
Note: If your signature file doesn't start with sig dashes ("-- \n"),
slrn will add them automatically.
See also: ``signoff_string''
6.98. signoff_string
Type: string
Default: (unset)
The value of this variable will be inserted before the signature. This
is useful for people who want to sign off their messages with their
name, like it is common in some groups.
Note: If you use this feature, do not append much more than your name
with it, or you will annoy your readers. If you want to tell people
the URL of your homepage or append some funny quote to your postings,
put it in your ``signature file''.
6.99. simulate_graphic_chars
Type: integer
Default: 0
If you see strange characters in the thread tree, you can set this
variable to a non-zero value to make slrn restrict itself to the use
of simple ASCII characters to represent the thread tree. slrn does
this automatically if you use OS/2 or Windows and your system does not
have line drawing characters.
Note: It also might be possible to fix your terminal to support proper
line drawing (which looks much better). Please see the slrn FAQ for
details.
6.100. smart_quote
Type: integer
Default: 1
slrn can be told to insert a blank between your ``quote_string'' and
previously unquoted lines, leading to a result most people find better
readable. This variable controls the way slrn formats quotes:
1 Insert whitespace before previously unquoted lines
2 Do not quote blank lines
3 Do not quote blank lines, but insert a whitespace before others
6.101. sorting_method
Type: integer
Default: 3
This variable controls in which order articles will be displayed in
the header window:
0 do not sort
1 perform threading
2 sort by subject
3 thread, then sort by subject
4 sort by score
5 thread, then sort by score
6 sort by score, then by subject
7 thread, then sort by score and subject
8 sort by date with most recent first
9 thread, then sort by date with most recent first
10 sort by date with most recent last
11 thread, then sort by date with most recent last
12 custom sorting
As all the options offered by sorting_method can be replaced with a
corresponding setting for custom sorting, this variable will be
removed at some point in the future.
To learn more about the powerful options in custom sorting, please
look at the variables ``custom_sort_order'' and
``custom_sort_by_threads''.
6.102. spoiler_char
Type: character
Default: '*'
This character will be used to hide "spoiler" text (i.e. text preceded
by a formfeed character). The interpretation of formfeed characters as
"spoilers" can be turned off at compile time with:
./configure --disable-spoilers
See also: ``spoiler_display_mode''
6.103. spoiler_display_mode
Type: integer
Default: 1
This variable defines what happens when a spoiler is revealed (this is
typically done by hitting space, which is the default binding of
``article_page_down''):
0 keep the display still, and reveal the current spoiler
1 start a new page, and reveal the current spoiler
2 keep the display still, and reveal all spoilers
3 start new page, and reveal all spoilers
See also: ``spoiler_char''
6.104. spool_active_file
Type: string
Default: "data/active"
Sets the location of the active file that lists all available
newsgroups. The filename is relative to ``spool_inn_root'', unless it
starts with a slash ('/').
The default of this variable is set at compile time in slrnfeat.h
(#define SLRN_SPOOL_ACTIVE).
Note: Of course, you only need to set the spool* variables if you want
to read your news directly from spool (e.g. when using slrnpull). When
using an NNTP server, setting them will have no effect.
See also: ``spool_inn_root'', ``server_object'', ``post_object'',
``use_slrnpull''
6.105. spool_activetimes_file
Type: string
Default: "data/active.times"
This variable provides the name of your news server's active.times
file. This file contains the creation dates of the newsgroups.
The notes that can be found in the entry for ``spool_active_file''
also apply to this variable.
See also: ``spool_inn_root''
6.106. spool_check_up_on_nov
Type: integer
Default: 0
If non-zero, slrn checks whether the articles referenced by the news
overview files actually exist. This may add a perceptible delay and is
redundant with servers that keep their overview files up to date.
However, some servers don't, so if you see a lot of "article not
available" errors, you might want to turn this on.
Note: Setting this option also allows slrn to find out the article
size if it's not in the overview file,
See also: ``spool_active_file'', ``spool_nov_file''
6.107. spool_inn_root
Type: string
Default: "/var/lib/news"
The directory that contains the active, active.times and newsgroups
files.
The default of this variable is set at compile time in slrnfeat.h
(#define SLRN_SPOOL_INNROOT).
See also: ``spool_active_file'', ``spool_activetimes_file'',
``spool_newsgroups_file''
6.108. spool_newsgroups_file
Type: string
Default: "data/newsgroups"
This variable provides the name of your news server's newsgroups file.
The file contains a list of newsgroups with short descriptions
(taglines).
The notes that can be found in the entry for ``spool_active_file''
also apply to this variable.
See also: ``spool_inn_root''
6.109. spool_nov_file
Type: string
Default: ".overview"
The name of your news server's overview files.
See also: ``spool_nov_root''
6.110. spool_nov_root
Type: string
Default: "/var/spool/news"
The root directory of the news overview database. Often, this is the
same as ``spool_root''.
See also: ``spool_nov_file''
6.111. spool_overview_file
Type: string
Default: "data/overview.fmt"
This variable provides the name of your news server's overview.fmt
file, which describes the format of the overview files.
The notes that can be found in the entry for ``spool_active_file''
also apply to this variable.
See also: ``spool_inn_root''
6.112. spool_root
Type: string
Default: "/var/spool/news"
The root directory of your news spool.
See also: ``spool_inn_root'', ``spool_nov_root''
6.113. supersedes_custom_headers
Type: string
Default: (unset)
This variable is used to create additional headers when superseding a
message. Otherwise, it works exactly like ``followup_custom_headers''.
See also: ``custom_headers'', ``reply_custom_headers''
6.114. top_status_line
Type: string
Default: (unset)
Using this variable, you can customize the status line slrn displays
at the top of the screen. It can be set to a format string that works
like the one used in ``header_display_format''. The following %
escapes can be used:
% percent character
d current date
n name of the current newsgroup
s name of the current server
t current time
v version of slrn
The special sequences `%g' and `%?' work as described in
``header_display_format''.
When unset, slrn uses "slrn %v ** Press '?' for help, 'q' to quit. **
Server: %s" (localized) as the default.
Note: The current time and date are printed in the preferred
representation for the current locale. If you have date/time
information in the status line, you should be aware that it is not
automatically redrawn every second.
6.115. uncollapse_threads
Type: integer
Default: 0
If non-zero, all threads will be uncollapsed when entering a group.
6.116. unsubscribe_new_groups
Type: integer
Default: 0
If non-zero, new newsgroups won't be subscribed automatically.
6.117. use_blink
Type: integer
Default: (system dependent)
Enables blinking of display if non-zero. The default is 0 if your
terminal supports colors, 1 if not.
Note: If you run a color terminal and find that setting this variable
to 1 makes it possible to use bright colors for the background, please
look into using a different terminfo entry. See section ``color'' for
details.
6.118. use_color
Type: integer
Default: (system dependent)
Forces the use of colors (if set to 1) or the use of monochrom mode
(if set to 0). When unset, color is automatically used if your
terminal supports it according to its termcap entry.
6.119. use_flow_control
Type: integer
Default: 0
If set to non-zero, ^S/^Q processing by the terminal driver is
enabled. This means that you will be able to "freeze" the screen using
Control-S and "thaw" it by pressing Control-Q.
6.120. use_grouplens
Type: integer
Default: 0
If non-zero, slrn will try to contact your ``grouplens server'' to
exchange GroupLens scores.
This variable has no effect if GroupLens has not been enabled at
compile time.
Note: As far as we could find out, GroupLens is not in use any more.
If this is incorrect, we would be grateful for a pointer to additional
information on it.
6.121. use_header_numbers
Type: integer
Default: 1
If non-zero, header numbers are displayed at the left margin to make
article selection more efficient.
6.122. use_localtime
Type: integer
Default: 1
This variable determines if your local timezone is used by the "%D"
specifiers in ``followup_date_format'' and ``overview_date_format''.
The following settings are possible:
0 always use GMT
1 use local timezone in overview_date_format
2 use local timezone in followup_date_format
3 always use local timezone
Note: This setting does not affect the "Date:" header lines in your
own postings. They are not even generated by slrn, unless you set
``generate_date_header''. VMS and BeOS do not support using GMT.
6.123. use_metamail
Type: integer
Default: 1
If non-zero, slrn calls the program given in ``metamail_command'' to
processes MIME articles it cannot handle.
6.124. use_mime
This variable is obsolete.
6.125. use_recommended_msg_id
Type: integer
Default: 0
When posting, some newsservers suggest a Message-ID to the client;
that way, the client knows in advance which Message-ID the article
will have and can save it for later reference. If this variable is
set, slrn makes use of this: The server-proposed ID will be used for
the posting and saved along with the article in the ``save_posts''
folder.
If both this variable and ``generate_message_id'' are set, slrn uses
the server's ID rather than generating its own.
6.126. use_slrnpull
Type: integer
Default: 0
If non-zero, slrn will spool outgoing postings to let slrnpull send
them instead of contacting the newsserver itself. The same effect can
be achieved by setting ``post_object'' to "slrnpull".
See also: ``server_object''
6.127. use_tilde
Type: integer
Default: 1
If non-zero, tildes ("~") are displayed at the end of an article like
it is done in the vi editor.
6.128. use_tmpdir
Type: integer
Default: 0
If non-zero, temporary files for postings, followups and replies will
be held in the directory specified by ``$TMP'' (the entry there also
explains what will happen if $TMP is unset).
6.129. use_uudeview
Type: integer
Default: (compile time setting)
If your copy of slrn has support for external uudeview libraries
(--with-uu), but you still want to use the (faster, but less
sophisticated) builtin routines for decoding binary files, set this
variable to 0. Otherwise, it has no effect.
6.130. username
Type: string
Default: (system specific)
Contains your user name (login name). It is used as the local part of
your email address and as a part of the Message-ID: header (if slrn is
configured to create one).
If it is unset, slrn tries to get your login name from the system
first. If this fails, it looks at ``$USER'' and ``$LOGNAME''. If it
cannot find a valid user name, an error message is issued and the
program is aborted.
Note: Do not confuse your user name with your real name!
See also: ``hostname'', ``realname''
6.131. warn_followup_to
Type: integer
Default: 1
When a "Followup-To:" header line is set, your followup will appear in
different newsgroups than the original posting. If you always want to
be notified of this, you can set this variable to 2. The default
setting (1) only warns you when your followup would not appear in the
group you are currently reading; setting it to 0 disables this warning
completely.
6.132. wrap_flags
Type: integer
Default: 3
This variable controls what text is wrapped in the article pager when
pressing the ``wrap_article'' key (bound to "W" by default):
0 wrap body only
1 wrap headers and body
2 wrap quoted material and body
3 wrap headers, quoted material and body
If you want to wrap long lines automatically, without having to press
a key, you can set the variable to one of these values:
4 wrap body only
5 wrap headers and body
6 wrap quoted material and body
7 wrap headers, quoted material and body
See also: ``wrap_method'', ``wrap_article''
6.133. wrap_method
Type: integer
Default: 2
With this variable, you can control how slrn wraps long lines. When 0,
it wraps at word boundries, leaving words that are longer than your
line width untouched. When 1, it always wraps at the right border of
the screen. When 2, it first tries so find a good place to wrap the
line and wraps at the right border only when necessary.
See also: ``wrap_flags''
6.134. write_newsrc_flags
Type: integer
Default: 0
If this variable is zero, all groups are saved when writing your
newsrc file. If it is 1, unsubscribed groups are not saved; if it is
2, unsubscribed groups are not saved if there are any unread messages
in them.
6.135. Xbrowser
Type: string
Default: (unset)
Used to start an X11 web browser on a URL when ``browse_url'' (default
binding: `U') is called. If ``$DISPLAY'' is set, slrn tries to execute
the command stored in Xbrowser. Otherwise, non_Xbrowser is used
instead. The string may contain "%s" which will be replaced with the
chosen URL. If no such substring is found, the URL is simply appended
to the specified command.
Example:
set Xbrowser "netscape %s &"
See also: ``non_Xbrowser''
7. Interactive functions
This section lists all functions with their compiled in bindings. Some
functions accept a prefix argument; it can be set by pressing escape
and a number before calling the function (e.g. to call
``select_group'' with the prefix argument four, you need to press "ESC
4 ENTER".
If you want, you can use the ``setkey'' configuration command to bind
them to different keys. However, please note that the online help
won't be updated automatically. If you want it to reflect your
changes, you currently need to make use of the ``$SLRNHELP''
environment variable and change ``art_help_line'' et al.
Note: If a function is bound to an uppercase letter, you can call it
without holding down shift as long as the corresponding lowercase
letter is unbound (e.g. pressing `p' in group mode will post an
article, although ``post'' is really bound to `P'). This does not work
the other way round (e.g. pressing `M' will do nothing, as
``move_group'' is bound to `m' and `M' is unbound by default).
7.1. group functions
The functions described here are available in group mode.
7.1.1. add_group
Default: "a"
Prompts for a newsgroup that gets added to your list. If the group is
in your newsrc file, but was hidden or unsubscribed, it is shown.
Otherwise, the server is queried - if the group exists, it is inserted
after the current group. In any case, the cursor is moved to the
group.
7.1.2. bob
Default: "CTRL-K UP" "ESC <"
Moves the cursor to the first newsgroup that is currently visible
("beginning of buffer").
7.1.3. catchup
Default: "c"
Marks the current group as read.
7.1.4. eob
Default: "CTRL-K DOWN" "ESC >"
Moves the cursor to the last newsgroup that is currently visible ("end
of buffer").
7.1.5. evaluate_cmd
Default: "CTRL-X ESC"
Reads a line and interprets it as S-Lang.
7.1.6. group_search
Default: "/"
Old alias of ``group_search_forward''.
7.1.7. group_search_backward
Default: "\"
Works like ``group_search_forward'', but searches backwards.
7.1.8. group_search_forward
Default: "/"
Searches for a substring in group names and descriptions ("tag
lines"), starting at the current cursor position and wrapping around
the list if necessary. Hidden and unsubscribed groups are not taken
into account.
See also: ``group_search_backward''
7.1.9. help
Default: "?"
Displays the online help for group mode.
7.1.10. line_down
Default: "DOWN" "N" "CTRL-N"
Moves the cursor to the next visible group.
7.1.11. line_up
Default: "UP" "CTRL-P"
Moves the cursor to the previous visible group.
7.1.12. move_group
Default: "m"
Allows you to move the current newsgroup to another position. You can
move it around using the keys bound to ``line_up'' and ``line_down''
(the up and down arrow keys by default). When finished, press Return.
It is probably a good idea to make all groups visible first, calling
using ``toggle_hidden'' if necessary. When there are hidden groups,
the current group is placed directly before the next visible group
when moving it towards the top or directly after it when moving to the
bottom, which may or may not be where you really wanted it to be.
7.1.13. page_down
Default: "PAGEDN" "CTRL-D" "CTRL-V"
Scrolls down one page.
7.1.14. page_up
Default: "PAGEUP" "CTRL-U" "ESC V"
Scrolls up one page.
7.1.15. post
Default: "P"
Post an article. The default is to post to the current newsgroup. If
no newsgroup or no subject is specified, slrn does not even invoke the
editor.
7.1.16. post_postponed
Default: "ESC P"
Lets you chose an article from the ``postpone directory'' to re-edit,
post or delete it.
7.1.17. quit
Default: "q" "CTRL-X CTRL-C"
Quits slrn.
7.1.18. redraw
Default: "CTRL-R" "CTRL-L"
Redraws the screen. This should only be necessary when another program
wrote to stdout directly.
7.1.19. refresh_groups
Default: "G"
Queries server for new articles; unless display of all groups was
turned on with ``toggle_list_all'', groups without unread messages are
hidden. This function also checks for new groups if
``check_new_groups'' is on.
7.1.20. repeat_last_key
Default: "."
Repeats the last keystroke.
7.1.21. save_newsrc
Default: "X"
Updates your newsrc file. It contains information about the groups you
are subscribed to, the order in which they should be displayed and
what articles you marked as read. This file is automatically written
when ``quitting'' slrn.
7.1.22. select_group
Default: "RETURN" "SPACE"
Enters the current group for reading. When using a prefix argument,
this function also downloads previously read articles:
1 Select group with article number query.
2 Select group, but do not apply scores.
3 Select group with query, but do not apply scores.
4 Select group.
7.1.23. subscribe
Default: "s"
Subscribe to the current newsgroup. If used with a prefix argument,
slrn will prompt you for a regular expression and subscribe to all
groups matching it.
7.1.24. suspend
Default: "CTRL-Z"
Suspends slrn (if allowed by your shell).
7.1.25. toggle_group_formats
Default: "ESC A"
Toggles between the different ``group display formats''. You can chose
a particular format by specifying a prefix argument (e.g. the function
selects the second display format when called with two as the prefix
argument).
7.1.26. toggle_hidden
Default: "l"
If some groups are hidden because they contain no unread articles,
this function makes them visible and vice versa; however, this
function does not toggle the display of unsubscribed groups (see
``toggle_list_all'' for this).
7.1.27. toggle_list_all
Default: "L"
This function prompts for a wildmat expression and displays all groups
that match it (querying the server if necessary). If your server does
not support the "LIST ACTIVE" NNTP command with a wildmat argument and
``read_active'' is off, only groups from your newsrc file are taken
into account; in that case, you might not find this feature very
useful.
When calling toggle_list_all the second time, the unsubscribed groups
are hidden again. You can also hide the unsubscribed groups by using
this function with the prefix argument one or show all unsubscribed
groups with the prefix argument two (does not query the server).
7.1.28. toggle_scoring
Default: "K"
Toggles between slrn's scoring types:
Full Use "expensive" (full header) scoring which may be slow.
Simple Score based on XOVER data only (faster).
None Turn off scoring.
Cancel Keep current setting.
7.1.29. transpose_groups
Default: "CTRL-X CTRL-T"
Transpose the position of the current group with the one above it in
the list. If there are hidden groups between them, they remain
untouched. If you want to rearrange your group list, you'll probably
find the ``move_group'' function more convenient.
7.1.30. uncatchup
Default: "ESC u"
Marks all articles in the current group as unread.
7.1.31. unsubscribe
Default: "u"
Unsubscribe the current group. If used with a prefix argument, slrn
will ask you for a regular expression and unsubscribe all groups that
match it. Information about read articles in unsubscribed groups is
kept.
7.2. article functions
These functions can be used in article mode, i.e. after selecting a
group and downloading its headers.
7.2.1. article_bob
Default: "<"
Shows the first page ("beginning of buffer") of the current article.
7.2.2. article_eob
Default: ">"
Shows the last page ("end of buffer") of the current article.
7.2.3. article_left
Default: "LEFT"
Pans the article window back to the left (after using
``article_right'').
7.2.4. article_line_down
Default: "ESC DOWN" "RETURN"
Scrolls the article down one line.
7.2.5. article_line_up
Default: "ESC DOWN"
Scrolls the article up one line.
7.2.6. article_page_down
Default: "SPACE"
Scrolls the article down one page.
If a spoiler is visible, this function reveals it. How exactly this is
done depends on the setting of ``spoiler_display_mode''.
If you are already at the end of the article, slrn goes to the next
article (when reading from an slrnpull spool, headers for which no
article bodies are present get skipped). If there is no next unread
article in the group, it goes to the next group. If there is no next
group with unread headers, it returns to the group screen. Whether or
not you are prompted first in these cases depends on the settings of
``query_next_article'' and ``query_next_group''.
7.2.7. article_page_up
Default: "b" "DELETE"
Scrolls the article up one page.
7.2.8. article_right
Default: "RIGHT"
Pan the article window to the right. This is useful if the article
contains long lines and wrapping is turned off.
See also: ``wrap_flags'', ``wrap_article''
7.2.9. article_search
Default: "/"
Searches for a given substring in the current article, starting at the
cursor position.
7.2.10. author_search_backward
Default: "A"
Like ``author_search_forward'', but searching backwards, starting at
the cursor.
7.2.11. author_search_forward
Default: "a"
Searches the "From:" header lines in the current group for a given
substring, starting at the cursor position.
7.2.12. browse_url
Default: "U"
Searches for URLs in the current article and displays them in a menu.
If you select one of them, slrn starts your browser on it. An exeption
to this are "nntp:" URLs - slrn handles those itself by trying to
fetch the referenced article or switching to the given newsgroup.
See also: ``non_Xbrowser'', ``Xbrowser''
7.2.13. cancel
Default: "ESC CTRL-C"
Cancels the current article (i.e. sends a request to delete it to your
server). slrn only allows you to cancel articles you wrote yourself.
Please note that due to abuse of cancel messages, some servers are
configured to ignore them.
7.2.14. catchup
Default: "C" "ESC C"
Marks all articles up to the currently selected one as read.
7.2.15. catchup_all
Default: "c" "ESC c"
Marks all articles in the current group as read.
7.2.16. create_score
Default: "K"
Interactively creates a score file entry based on data from the
currently selected article. If this function is called with a prefix
argument, it opens the score file for manual editing.
See also: ``score_editor_command''
7.2.17. decode
Default: ":"
This function decodes files that are included in articles using the UU
or base64 encoding. You first need to specify a temporary file to
which the articles that should be decoded are saved. Then, the actual
decoding takes place; the resulting files are put in the directory
given in ``decode_directory''. When finished, slrn will ask you
whether you want to delete the temporary file, which is usually not
needed any longer at this point.
By placing the cursor on a collapsed thread, you can decode the files
in all articles in it. Multipart binary postings can be decoded by
using ``tag_header'' to tag all parts first (you need to do this in
the correct order; slrn does not re-arrange the parts).
7.2.18. delete
Default: "d"
"Deletes" the current article (i.e. marks it as read) and proceeds to
the next unread header. If the cursor is on a collapsed thread, all
articles in it are marked as read.
7.2.19. delete_thread
Default: "ESC d"
Marks the current article and its subthread (all of its "children" in
the thread tree) as read.
7.2.20. enlarge_article_window
Default: "^"
Enlarges the article window one row.
See also: ``shrink_article_window''
7.2.21. evaluate_cmd
Default: "CTRL-X ESC"
Reads a line and interprets it as S-Lang. Identical with
``evaluate_cmd'' in group mode.
7.2.22. exchange_mark
Default: ","
Returns to the article previously marked using ``mark_spot''. Before
that, the mark is moved to the current article, so you can jump back
to it by calling exchange_mark again.
7.2.23. expunge
Default: "x"
Removes all articles from the list that are marked as read and not
tagged as important (using ``toggle_header_tag'').
7.2.24. fast_quit
Default: "Q"
Quit slrn immediately (without returning to group mode first).
7.2.25. followup
Default: "f"
Write a followup on the current article. The following prefix
arguments are accepted:
1 Insert all headers.
2 Insert all headers, but do not modify the article (no quoting,
don't strip or attach signatures).
7.2.26. forward
Default: "F"
Forward (mail) the current article to someone. All headers are
included when using the prefix argument ``1'', and the subject is
prepended with ``Fwd:''. If you wish, you can edit the e-mail before
it is sent (to add a comment or cut down the article to the relevant
part).
7.2.27. forward_digest
Default: "g"
This function can be used to skip to the next part in mailing list
digests or to find the next section section in many FAQs. To do this,
it first tries to find a line that starts with "Subject:" (followed by
a blank or a tab); if no such line is present, it looks for a line
that starts with a digit.
7.2.28. get_children_headers
Default: "ESC CTRL-P"
Reconstructs the current sub-thread (i.e. finds all children of the
selected posting). Using a prefix argument makes this function less
"thorough", which means that it is faster, but more likely to miss
some articles.
For those who are interested in the technical details of this:
get_children_headers queries the server for articles that have the
current Message-ID in the "References" header line. Unless a prefix
argument is set, this is done recursively for each child. This often
finds additional articles, as the current Message-ID might have been
dropped from the "References" header when it became too long at some
point.
Note: This function depends on the "XPAT" NNTP extension, which is not
supported by all servers. Even when it's supported, it will only find
articles that were posted to the current group.
7.2.29. get_parent_header
Default: "ESC p"
Goes to the current article's parent, downloading it from the server
if necessary. When used with a prefix argument, the whole thread is
reconstructed; the prefix argument two makes this faster, but more
likely to miss some articles (see ``get_children_headers'' for a
discussion of this).
7.2.30. grouplens_rate_article
Default: "0"
Set a GroupLens rating for the current article.
7.2.31. goto_article
Default: "j"
Jumps to an article with a given header number. Here, "header number"
refers to the number assigned to the article by the server, not the
one which is by default shown at the left border of the header window.
7.2.32. goto_last_read
Default: "L"
Jumps to the last article you read.
7.2.33. header_bob
Default: "ESC <"
Goes to the first article in this group ("beginning of buffer").
7.2.34. header_eob
Default: "ESC >"
Goes to the last article in this group ("end of buffer").
7.2.35. header_line_down
Default: "DOWN" "CTRL-N"
Goes to the next visible article in this group.
7.2.36. header_line_up
Default: "UP" "CTRL-P"
Goes to the previous visible article in this group.
7.2.37. header_page_down
Default: "PAGEDN" "CTRL-D" "CTRL-V"
Scrolls the header window down one page.
7.2.38. header_page_up
Default: "PAGEUP" "CTRL-U" "ESC V"
Scrolls the header window up one page.
7.2.39. help
Default: "?"
Displays the online help for article mode.
7.2.40. hide_article
Default: "H"
Hides the article pager (or shows it, if it was hidden).
7.2.41. locate_article
Default: "ESC l"
Locates an article by its Message-ID, downloading it from the server
if necessary.
7.2.42. mark_spot
Default: ";"
Marks the current article. This makes it possible to come back to it
later using ``exchange_mark''.
7.2.43. next
Default: "n"
Goes to the next unread article, uncollapsing threads if necessary.
When reading from an slrnpull spool, headers for which the article
body is not present get skipped. If the group does not contain a next
unread header, slrn skips to the next group. Whether this happens
automatically or you are prompted first depends on the setting of
``query_next_group''.
7.2.44. next_high_score
Default: "!"
Goes to the next article with a ``high score''.
7.2.45. next_same_subject
Default: "="
Goes to the next article that has the same subject as the currently
selected article.
7.2.46. pipe
Default: "|"
Pipes the current article to a program.
7.2.47. post
Default: "P"
Posts an article. This function is identical with ``post'' in group
mode.
7.2.48. post_postponed
Default: "ESC P"
Post a postponed article. Identical with ``post_postponed'' in group
mode.
7.2.49. previous
Default: "p"
Goes to the previous unread article, uncollapsing thread if necessary.
When reading from an slrnpull spool, headers for which the article
body is not present get skipped.
7.2.50. print
Default: "y"
Sends the selected article to a printer. See ``printer_name'' for a
discussion of how exactly this function prints the article and how it
can be customized.
When used with a prefix argument, the article is printed unwrapped and
including all hidden lines (e.g. header lines or signatures that are
not displayed in the article pager).
7.2.51. quit
Default: "q"
Returns to group mode.
7.2.52. redraw
Default: "CTRL-L" "CTRL-R"
Redraws the screen. Identical with ``redraw'' in group mode.
7.2.53. repeat_last_key
Default: "."
Repeats the last keystroke.
7.2.54. reply
Default: "r"
Reply to the selected article via email.
7.2.55. request
Default: "m"
If only the header of an article has been fetched, this command will
mark its body for download the next time slrnpull is run; if the body
was already marked for download, it gets unrequested.
When you use this function on a collapsed thread, it will work on all
postings inside it that do not yet have a body. If some of them are
already marked for download, but some others are not, it does not
toggle the state of each individual article, but requests all bodies.
7.2.56. save
Default: "o"
Saves the current article to a file (in mbox format). If the cursor is
on a collapsed thread or you used ``tag_header'' to tag articles, you
are prompted whether you want to save the whole thread or all tagged
articles, respectively.
The default filename is the name of the current group in the directory
specified by ``save_directory''.
7.2.57. show_spoilers
Default: "ESC ?"
Reveals the next spoiler (i.e. all currently hidden text up to the
next formfeed character). When used with a prefix argument, all
spoilers are revealed. This function can be customized using
``spoiler_display_mode''.
7.2.58. shrink_article_window
Default: "CTRL-^"
Shrinks the article window one row.
See also: ``enlarge_article_window''
7.2.59. skip_quotes
Default: "TAB"
Skips quoted text. What slrn regards as quoted text is determined by
``ignore_quotes''.
7.2.60. skip_to_next_group
Default: "N" "ESC RIGHT"
Goes to the next group that contains unread articles. If there is no
such group, this function returns to group mode.
7.2.61. skip_to_previous_group
Default: "ESC LEFT"
Goes to the previous group that contains unread articles, returning to
group mode if no such group exists.
7.2.62. subject_search_backward
Default: "S"
Like ``subject_search_backward'', but searching backwards.
7.2.63. subject_search_forward
Default: "s"
Searches the subjects in the current group for a given substring,
beginning at the cursor.
7.2.64. supersede
Default: "ESC CTRL-S"
Supersedes the current article, i.e. allows you to re-edit it and
sends it to the server along with a request to replace the original
version with it. Like with ``cancel'', this is not honored by some
servers due to abuse of this feature and only allowed by slrn if you
are the author of the current article.
7.2.65. suspend
Default: "CTRL-Z"
Suspends slrn (if allowed by your shell).
7.2.66. tag_header
Default: "#"
Attaches a numerical tag to the current header and moves the cursor
down one line. If the header is already tagged, the tag is removed.
When applied on a collapsed thread, all articles in it are tagged (or
untagged, respectively). Numerical tags are useful to ``save'' or
``decode'' multiple messages.
7.2.67. toggle_collapse_threads
Default: "ESC t"
(Un-)Collapses the current thread, depending on its current status.
When used with a prefix argument, all threads are (un-)collapsed.
7.2.68. toggle_header_formats
Default: "ESC a"
Toggles between different ``header display formats''. You can pick a
particular format by specifying a prefix argument (e.g. the function
selects the second display format when called with two as the prefix
argument).
7.2.69. toggle_header_tag
Default: "*"
Marks the current article unread, flags it as important (or removes
the flag, if the article already had one) and moves the cursor to the
next line. This flag prevents articles from being marked as read
(both explicitly and by ``catchup'' functions). Using this function
with a prefix argument removes the flags from all headers.
Note: By default, these flags are not "persistent" - as soon as you
leave the group, they are gone. However, the macro set stickytags.sl
can be used to change this and even preserve them between sessions.
7.2.70. toggle_headers
Default: "t"
Toggles between the display of all or just the article headers
selected in ``visible_headers''.
7.2.71. toggle_pgpsignature
Default: "]"
Toggles the variable ``hide_pgpsignature'' that controls the display
of PGP signatures.
7.2.72. toggle_quotes
Default: "T"
Toggles the display of quoted text as recognized using
``ignore_quotes''. When n is set as a prefix arguments, the first n
quote levels remain untouched.
This function also sets the value of ``hide_quotes'' to match the new
state. This means that if the quotes get shown again, it is set to 0;
if a prefix argument is given, it is set to prefix argument + 1;
otherwise, it is restored to the value it got when you last used a
prefix argument (or, if you never did this, to 1).
7.2.73. toggle_rot13
Default: "ESC R"
ROT13-decode article. Calling this function a second time undoes the
effect.
7.2.74. toggle_signature
Default: "\"
Toggles the variable ``hide_signature'' which controls the display of
signatures.
7.2.75. toggle_sort
Default: "ESC S"
Displays a menu that allows you to change the value of
``sorting_method'' which controls the threading / sorting method.
7.2.76. toggle_verbatim_marks
Default: "["
Toggles the variable ``hide_verbatim_marks'', which controls the
display of "verbatim marks".
7.2.77. toggle_verbatim_text
Default: "{"
Toggles the variable ``hide_verbatim_text'', which controls the
display of text marked as "verbatim".
7.2.78. uncatchup
Default: "ESC U"
Marks all articles from the top of the header window up to the current
article as unread.
7.2.79. uncatchup_all
Default: "ESC u"
Marks all headers in the current buffer as unread. If you want a
command that affects all available articles (i.e. not only the ones
you downloaded when entering the group), use ``uncatchup'' in group
mode.
7.2.80. undelete
Default: "u"
Marks the current article (or all articles in a collapsed thread) as
unread and moves the cursor to the next line.
7.2.81. untag_headers
Default: "ESC #"
Removes all numerical tags that were previously set using
``tag_headers''.
7.2.82. view_scores
Default: "v"
Brings up a selection box that lists all scorefile entries that match
on the current article. The available information is: Scoring value of
the entry, name of the entry (this field is optional; please see
score.txt on how to assign names), name of the scorefile and line
number.
If you select an entry, your editor will be started on the scorefile.
If the editor supports it and you have a "%d" escape in your
``score_editor_command'', the cursor is moved to the selected entry,
which makes this function especially useful for finding and fixing
"broken" scorefile entries.
See also: ``create_score''
7.2.83. wrap_article
Default: "W"
Toggles the wrapping of long lines.
See also: ``wrap_method''
7.2.84. zoom_article_window
Default: "z"
Maximizes the article pager (or unmaximizes it, if it already takes up
the whole screen).
7.3. readline functions
These functions can be used while entering data in slrn's readline
interface, i.e. at a prompt at the bottom of the screen.
7.3.1. bdel
Default: "BACKSPACE"
Deletes the character before the cursor.
7.3.2. bol
Default: "HOME" "CTRL-A"
Moves the cursor to the beginning of the line.
7.3.3. complete
Default: "TAB"
When prompting for a filename, this function tries to complete the
content of the line (up to the current position of the cursor) to the
name of a file or directory. If multiple completions are possible, it
will only insert the portion of the name that is common to all of
them. In that case, calling the function again will give you a list of
possible completions to chose from.
On all other prompts, it works like ``self_insert''.
7.3.4. cycle
Default: "SPACE"
This function works like ``complete'', except that it cycles between
all possible completions rather than inserting the largest common
portion.
When no completions are found, this command works like
``self_insert''; if you need a literal space character although a
completion exists, use ``quoted_insert''.
7.3.5. del
Default: "DELETE" "CTRL-D" "CTRL-V"
Deletes the character under the cursor.
7.3.6. delbol
Default: "CTRL-U"
Deletes everything from the beginning of the line to the cursor
position.
7.3.7. delbow
Default: "CTRL-W"
Deletes everything from the beginning of the word to the cursor
position.
7.3.8. deleol
Default: "CTRL-K" "CTRL-L"
Deletes everything from the cursor position to the end of the line.
7.3.9. down
Default: "DOWN" "CTRL-N"
Jumps to the next (later) command line history entry.
7.3.10. enter
Default: "RETURN"
Finishes the editing, returning the current content of the line to the
program.
7.3.11. eol
Default: "END" "CTRL-E"
Moves the cursor to the end of the line.
7.3.12. left
Default: "LEFT" "CTRL-B"
Moves the cursor to the left.
7.3.13. quoted_insert
Default: "BACKTICK"
Inserts the next key into the buffer, even if it is usually bound to a
function.
7.3.14. right
Default: "RIGHT" "CTRL-F"
Moves the cursor to the right.
7.3.15. self_insert
Default: any key not bound to another function
Inserts the key it was called by into the buffer. This is useful if
you want to "unbind" a key in readline mode.
7.3.16. trim
Default: "ESC \"
Strips trailing whitespace from the buffer.
7.3.17. up
Default: "UP" "CTRL-P"
Jumps to the previous (older) command line history entry.
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