NN Tutorial

Netnews is a world-wide information exchange service covering a wide range of topics. The netnews is organized as a hierarchy of news groups devoted to many different topics. At the top level of the hierarchy are comp (for computer-related topics), misc (for miscellaneous topics), news (for news-related topics), rec (for recreation-related topics), sci (for science-related topics), soc (for society-related topics), talk (for talk), and various other categories. Indiviual groups are organized in a tree-like structure, for example, rec.sport.football.college, devoted to college football, is one of just one of several rec.sport.football groups, rec.sport.football is just one of the rec.sport heirarchies, and sport is just one of the rec heirarchies. Most news groups are open so that anyone can post articles providing forums for active interchange of ideas and opinions.

Nn is a netnews reader program that allows you to read, post, and otherwise manipulate netnews articles. With thousands of netnews groups, one of the most important jobs that nn performs is to allow you to specify the groups to which you want to subscribe. With sometimes hundreds of articles in individual groups, another important function of nn is to let you quickly select which articles you want to read from a menu.

Getting Started.

Nn can be invoked from the Internet Nebraska menu. Alternatively, it can be invoked from the command line of the Unix shell by simply typing `nn'. When nn starts, you will enter one of the news groups to which you subscribe. When a news group is entered, nn will locate all the active, but unread articles in the group. Nn lists these articles in a menu (one article per line) giving the sender, subject, and other relevant information. The articles are sorted and marked in various ways to make the list readable and to allow the list to be scanned quickly.

When the article menu appears on the screen, nn is in selection mode. In this mode, the articles that you wish to read can be selected by single keystrokes (using the keys a-z and 0-9 to specify the article). When all the desired articles among those displayed have been selected, type the space-bar, which causes nn to move to the next page of articles (if there are more articles) or to enter reading mode (if all active articles have been presented). There are many commands in selection mode, for example to subscribe or unsubscribe to a group, to go forward or backward a page in the article list, to go to another group, etc. To see a list of these commands type `?' in selection mode.

In reading mode, each of the selected articles will be presented in order. Use the space bar to go on to the next page of the current article (if there is more text in the current article) or to go to the next article (if the end of the current article has been reached). There are many commands in reading mode, for example to scroll up or down in an article, to save an article to a file, to reply to an article, to post a follow up article, etc. To see a list of these commands type `?' in reading mode.

When all the selected articles in the current group have been read, typing the space bar will cause nn to enter selection mode for the next group with active, unread articles. To quit nn, type `Q'.

Command Input.

In general, nn commands consist of one or two key-strokes, and nn reacts instantly to the commands you give it; you don't have to enter after each command (except where explicitly stated). Some commands have more serious effects than others, and therefore nn requests you to confirm the command. You confirm by hitting the the 'y' key, and reject by hitting the 'n' key.

The following commands work in both selection mode and in reading mode. (The notation ^X means `control X'.) 

          ?    {help}
               Help.  Gives a one page overview of the commands
               available in the current mode.

          ^L or ^R   {redraw}
               Redraw screen.

          !    {shell}
               Shell escape.  The user is prompted for a command
               which is executed by your favorite shell.

          Q    {quit}
               Quit nn.  When you use this command, you neither lose
               unread articles in the current group nor the selections
               you might have made.

          :command  {command}
               Execute the command by name.  This form can be used to
               invoke any of nn's commands, also those which cannot be
               bound to a key (such as :coredump), or those which are
               not bound to a key by default (such as :post and
               :unshar).

Selection Mode

In selection mode, the screen is divided into four parts: the header line showing the name of the news group and the number of articles, the menu lines which show the collected articles - one article per line, the prompt line where you enter commands, and the message line where nn prints various messages to you.

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

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

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

The articles will be presented on the menu using the following layout: 

          Id  Author.Name  Lines.in.Message  Subject.of.Message
To unsubscribe from the current group, either hit 'U' from selection mode, or exit nn (via 'Q') and manually remove the newsgroup from your .newsrc file.

Reading Mode

There are also many commands which can be invoked in reading mode. Below are some of the most common: 
          space      Scroll one page forward.

          return     Scroll one line forward.

          delete     Scroll one page back.

          n          Skip to next article.

          p          Return to previous article.

          =          Return to selection mode for current group.

          N          Skip to next group.

          r          Mail reply to author of article.

          m          Mail copy of current article to anybody.

          f          Post follow-up to current article (with same subject).

          :post      Post a new article.

          /PATTERN   Search current article for PATTERN.

Frequently used command line options

When started from the command line, nn uses the following format: 
          nn [ options ] [ newsgroup ]
Some of the most common options are as follows: 
          -g   Prompt for the name of a news group or folder to be
               entered (with completion).  When prompted for a group
               name, hitting  anywhere during the input of a
               name will complete the current component of the name
               with the first available possibility.  Hitting 
               a second time will give the next possibility, and so
               on.

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

          -sWORD
               Collect only articles which contain the string WORD in
               their subject (case is ignored).  This is normally
               combined with the -x and -m options to find all
               articles on a specific subject.

          -s/regexp
               Collect only articles whose subject matches the regular
               expression regexp.  This is normally combined with the
               -x and -m options to find all articles on a specific
               subject.

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

          newsgroup
               If this argument is not given, all subscribed news
               groups will be used.  Otherwise, only the specified
               news groups will be collected and presented.  In
               specifying a news groups, the following `meta
               notation' can be used:  If the news group ends with a
               `.' (or `.all'), all subgroups of the news group will
               be collected, e.g.
                    comp.sources.
               If a news group starts with a `.' (or `all.'), all the
               matching subgroups will be collected, e.g.
                    .sources.unix
               The argument `all' identifies all (subscribed) news
               groups.

Changing Subscriptions

By default, users on inetnebr.com are subscribed to a small subset of the thousands of available news groups. To get a listing of all available groups, go to a UNIX shell and type the following: 
        falcon% cd
        falcon% mv .newsrc .newsrc.save
        falcon% nn
            Exit nn by hitting 'Q'
        falcon% sort .newsrc > .newsrc.sorted
        falcon% mv .newsrc.sorted .newsrc
The list of all available newsgroups will be contained in the file ".newsrc.sorted" and your previous .newsrc file will be save in ".newsrc.save". You may then use a text editor, such as joe or vi, to remove from .newsrc any groups which you don't wish to read.

This tutorial contains only a small subset of the available nn commands. For more complete information, consult the various help screens (accessed by hitting '?' from within nn) or the man page for nn (accessed by typing "man nn" at a shell prompt).

Excerpted from tne nn man page

[RETURN] manager@inetnebr.com
Last updated 4/04/96