NAME

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

Nn is a `point-and-shoot' net news interface program, or a news reader for short (not to be confused with the human news reader). When you use nn, you can decide which of the many news groups you are interested in, and you can unsubscribe to those which don't interest you. nn will let you read the new (and old) articles in each of the groups you subscribe to using a menu based article selection prior to reading the articles in the news group.

When a news group is entered, nn will locate all the presently unread articles in the group, and extract their sender, subject, and other relevant information. This information is then rearranged, sorted, and marked in various ways to give it a pleasant format when it is presented on the screen.

This will be done very quickly, because nn uses its own database to maintain all the necessary information on a directly accessible form (this database is built and maintained by the nnmaster(8) program).

When the article menu appears on the screen, nn will be in a mode called selection mode. In this mode, the articles which seems to be interesting can be selected by single keystrokes (using the keys a-z and 0-9). When all the interesting articles among the ones presently displayed have been selected, the space bar is hit, which causes nn to enter reading mode.

In reading mode, each of the selected articles will be presented. You use the space bar to go on to the next page of the current article, or to the next article. Of course, there are all sorts of commands to scroll text up and down, skip to the next article, responding to an article, decrypt an article, and so on.

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

FREQUENTLY USED OPTIONS

The frequently used command line options are:

-a0

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

-g

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

-r

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

-lN

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

-sWORD

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

-nWORD or -n/regexp

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

-i

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

-m

Merge all articles into one `meta group' instead of showing them one group at a time. This is normally used together with the -x and -s options to get all the 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.

-x[N]

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

-X

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

news.group or file or +folder

If none of these arguments are given, all subscribed news groups will be used. Otherwise, only the specified news groups and/or files will be collected and 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.

COMMAND INPUT

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. Some `trivial' requests may also be confirmed simply by hitting space. For example, to confirm the creation of a save file, just hit space, but if one or more directories also have to be created, you must enter y.

Many commands will require that you enter a line of text, e.g. a file name or a shell command. If you enter space as the first character on a line, the line will be filled with a default value (if one is defined). For example, the default value for a file name is the last file name you have entered, and the default shell command is your previous shell command. You can edit this default value as well as a directly typed text, using the following editing commands. The erase, kill, and interrupt keys are the keys defined by the current tty settings. On systems without job control, the suspend key will be control-Z while it is the current suspend character on system with job control.

erase

Delete the last character on the line.

delete-word (normally ^W)

Delete the last word or component of the input.

kill

Delete all characters on the line.

interrupt and control-G

Cancel the command which needs the input.

suspend

Suspend nn if supported by the system. Otherwise, spawn an interactive shell.

return

Terminate the line, and continue with the command.

Related variables: erase-key, flow-control, flush-typeahead, help-key, kill-key, word-key.

BASIC COMMANDS

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

?    {help}

Help. Gives a one page overview of the commands available in the current mode.

^L    {redraw}

Redraw screen.

^R    {redraw}

Redraw screen (Same as ^L).

^P    {message}

Repeat the last message shown on the message line. The command can be repeated to successively show previous messages (the maximum number of saved messages is controlled via the message-history variable.)

!    {shell}

Shell escape. The user is prompted for a command which is executed by your favorite shell (see the shell variable). Shell escapes are described in detail later on.

Q    {quit}

Quit nn. When you use this command, you neither lose unread articles in the current group nor the selections you might have made (unless the articles are expired in the meantime of course).

V    {version}

Print release and version information.

:command {command}

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

Related and basic variables: backup, backup-suffix, confirm-auto-quit, expert, mail, message-history, new-group-action, newsrc, quick-count.

SELECTION MODE

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

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

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

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

0:

x Name......... Subject.............. +123

1:

x Name......... 123 Subject..............

2:

x 123 Subject...................................

3:

x Subject...........................................

4:

x Subject........................................

Here x is the letter or digit that must be entered to select the article, Name is the real name of the sender (or the mail address if the real name cannot be found), Subject is the contents of the "Subject:" line in the article, and 123 is the number of lines in the article.

Layout 0 and 1 are just two ways to present the same information, while layout 2 and 3 are intended for groups whose articles have very long subject lines, e.g. comp.sources.

Layout 4 is a hybrid between layout 1 and 3. It will normally use layout 1, but it will use layout 3 (with a little indentation) for menu lines where the subject is longer than the space available with layout 1.

Layout 1 is the default layout, and an alternative menu line layout is selected using the -L option or by setting the layout variable. Once nn is started the layout can be changed at any time using the " key {layout}.

The Name is limited to 16 characters, and to make maximum use of this space, nn will perform a series of simplifications on the name, e.g. changing first names into initials, removing domain names from mail addresses (if the real name is not found) etc. It does a good job, but some people on the net put weird things into the From: field (or actually into their password file) which result in nn producing quite cryptic, and sometimes funny "names".

One a usual 80 column terminal, the Subject is limited to about 60 characters (75 in layout 3) and is thus only an approximation to the actual subject line which may be much longer. To get as much out of this space, Re: prefixes (in various forms) are recognized and replaced by a single `>' character (see the re-layout variable).

Since articles are sorted according to the subject, two or more adjacent articles may share the same subject (ignoring any `>'s). In this case, only the first article will show the subject of the article; the rest will only show the `>' character in the subject field (or a `-' if there is no `>' at the beginning of the line). A typical menu will thus only show each subject once, saving a lot of time in scanning the news articles.

If consolidated menus (see section below) are enabled, adjacent articles sharing the same subject will be shown with a single line on the menu corresponding to the first of the articles. The number of articles with the same subject will be shown as a braketed number in front of the subject, e.g. with layout 1:
   x Name......... 123 [4] Subject..............
For further information see the section on consolidated menus below.

Related variables: collapse-subject, columns, confirm-entry, confirm-entry-limit, entry-report-limit, fsort, kill, layout, limit, lines, long-menu, re-layout, repeat, slow-mode, sort, sort-mode, split, subject-match-limit, subject-match-offset, subject-match-parts.

ARTICLE ATTRIBUTES

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

The attribute of an article can be changed explicitly using the selection mode commands described below, or it will change automatically for example when you have read or saved a selected article. If a command may change any article attributes, it will be noted in the description of the command. The following descriptions of the attributes will only mention the most important commands that may set (or preserve) the attribute.

The following attributes may be associated with an article:

read

Menu attribute "." - indicates that the article has been read or saved. When you leave the group, these articles will be marked permanently read, and are not presented the next time you enter the group.

seen

Menu attribute "," - indicates that the article is unread, but that it has been presented on a menu. Depending on how nn is configured, these articles will automatically be marked read when you leave the group, they may remain seen, or they may just be unread the next time you enter the group (see the auto-junk-seen, confirm-junk-seen, and retain-seen-status variables).

Only the commands continue (space) and read-skip (X) will mark unread articles on the current (or all) menu pages as seen when they are used. Other commands that scroll through the menu pages or enter reading mode will let unread articles remain unread.

unread

Menu attribute " " - indicates an unread article. These articles were unread when you entered the group, and they may remain unread when you leave the group, unless they have been marked seen by the command that you used to leave the group or enter reading mode.

selected

Menu line high-lighted (or menu attribute "*") - indicates that you have selected the article. If you leave the group, the selected articles will remain selected the next time you enter the group. When you have read a selected article, the attribute will automatically change to read.

auto-selected

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

leave

Menu attribute "+" - indicates that the article is marked for later treatment by the leave-article (l) command. These articles may be selected (on demand) when you have read all selected articles in a group. However, if you do not select them then immediately, they are stored as the leave-next attribute described below.

leave-next

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

cancelled

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

killed

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

The attributes are saved in two files: .newsrc (read articles) and .nn/select (other attributes). Plain unread articles are saved by not occurring in either of these files. Both files are described in more detail later on.

Related variables: attributes, auto-junk-seen, confirm-junk-seen, retain-seen-status, select-leave-next.

SELECTION MODE COMMANDS

As described above, the selected articles are marked either by showing the corresponding menu line in standout mode (reverse video), or if the terminal does not have this capability by placing an asterisk (*) after the selection letter or digit.

Most commands which are used to select articles will work as toggle commands. If the article is not already selected, the selectedattribute on the article(s), independent on the previous attribute. Otherwise, the article(s) will be deselected and marked unread. Consequently, any article can be marked unread simply be selecting and deselecting it.

During selection, the cursor will normally be placed on the article following the last article whose attribute was changed (initially the first article). The article pointed out by the cursor is called the current article, and the following commands work relative to the current article and cursor position.

abc...z 01..9 {article N}

The article with the given identification letter or digit is selected or deselected. The following article becomes the current article. If the variable auto-select-subject is set, all articles with the same subject as the given article are selected.

.    {select}

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

,    {line+1}

Move the cursor to the next article. You can use the down arrow as well.

/    {line-1}

Move cursor to previous article. You can use the up arrow as well.

*    {select-subject}

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

-x    {select-range}

Select or deselect the range of articles between the current article and the article specified by x. For example you can select all articles from e to k by simply typing e-k.

The following commands may change the attributes on all articles on the current menu page, or on all articles on all menu pages.

@    {select-invert}

Reverse selections. All selected articles on the current page are deselected, and vice-versa. (Use the find command to select all articles.)

~    {unselect-all}

Deselect all auto-selected articles in the group (this works across all menu pages). If the command is executed twice, the selected articles will also be deselected.

+    {select-auto}

Perform auto-selections in the group (see the section on "auto kill/select" below).

=    {find}

Prompts for a regular expression, and selects all articles on the menu (all pages) which matches the regular expression. Depending on the variable select-on-sender matching is performed against the subject (default) or the sender of the articles. An empty answer (= return) will reuse the previous expression. Example: The command = . return will select all articles in the group.

J    {junk-articles}

This is a very versatile command which can be used to perform all sorts of attribute changes, either on individual articles, all articles on the current menu page, all articles with a specific attribute, or all available articles. To access all the functions of this command, the J key may have to be hit up to four times, to loop through different one-line menus. The full functionality of the junk-articles command is described in a separate section below.

L    {leave-next}

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

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

>    {page+1}

Goto next menu page.

<    {page-1}

Goto previous menu page, or to last menu page if on first menu page.

$    {page=$}

Goto last menu page.

^    {page=1}

Goto first menu page.

The following commands are used to enter reading mode for the selected articles, and to move between news groups (in selection mode). They may change article attributes if noted below.

space    {continue}

Continue to next menu page, or if on last menu page, read the selected articles. If no articles have been selected, continue to the next news group. The unread articles on the current menu page will automatically be marked seen.

return    {continue-no-mark}

Identical to the continue command, except that the unread articles on the current menu page will remain unread. (The newline key has the same effect).

Z    {read-return}

Enter reading mode immediately with the currently selected articles. When all articles have been read, return to selection mode in the current group. It will mark selected articles read as they are read, but unread articles are not normally changed (can be controlled with the variable marked-by-read-return.)

X    {read-skip}

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

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

N    {next-group}

Go forward to the next group in the presentation sequence. If the variable marked-by-next-group is set articles on the menu can optionally be marked seen

P    {previous}

Go back to the previous group. This command will enter selection mode on the last active group (two P commands in sequence will bring you to the current group). If there are still some unread articles in the group, only those articles will be shown. Otherwise, all the articles which were unread when nn was invoked will be shown marked with the read attribute (which can be changed as usual).

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

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

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

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

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

CONSOLIDATED MENUS

When consolidated menus are used, nn operates with two kinds of subjects: open and closed.

An open subject is a subject which is shown in the traditional way with one menu line for each article with the given subject. In other words, when consolidated menus are not used, all subjects are open (by default).

A closed subject is a multi-article subject which is presented by a single menu line. This line will be the normal menu line for the first (oldest) article with the subject, but with the subject field annotated with a bracketed number showing the number of articles with that subject, e.g.

   a Kim F. Storm 12 [4] Future plans for nn
   b.Kim F. Storm 43 [3] More plans for nn

In this example, there are four unread articles with subject `a' of which the first is posted by me and has 12 lines. The rest of the articles are hidden, and will only be shown on request. The `.' marker on subject `b' shows that all three articles within that subject have been read (or seen).

To select (or deselect) ALL the articles within a closed subject, simply select the article shown on the menu; this will automatically select (or deselect) the rest (see auto-select-closed). When all the unread articles within a closed subject are selected, the menu line will be high-lighted.

If you want to view the individual articles in a subject (maybe to select individual articles), you can open the subject with the commands:

(x

Open subject x on menu.

((

Open current subject.

When you have completed viewing the opened subject, you can close it again using the commands:

)x

Close subject x on menu (x is any article with the subject).

))

Close current subject.

In the basic layout of the menu line for a closed subject as shown above, ALL articles in the closed subject are supposed to be either:

unread

The menu line is not high-lighted.

selected

Menu line is fully high-lighted (if all UNREAD are selected).

read/seen

There is a `.' (read attribute) following the article id.

If neither of these cases apply, i.e. there is a mixture of unread, selected, and seen/read articles, the bracketed number will have one of the following formats:

[U:T]

There are U unread articles of T total (U<T).

[S/T]

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

[S/U:T]

There are S selected of U unread of T total (S<U<T).

If there are any selected articles (S>0), the information between the brackets will be high-lighted (to show that something is selected, but not all the unread articles).

Notice: Consolidated menus only work with the `subject' and `lexical' sorting methods.

Variables related to consolidated menus are: auto-select-closed, consolidated-menu, counter-delim-left, counter-delim-right, counter-padding, save-closed-mode.

THE JUNK-ARTICLES AND LEAVE-NEXT COMMANDS

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

Mark Read

This submenu allows you to mark articles read.

Unmark

This submenu allows you to mark articles unread.

Select

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

Kill

This submenu allows you to mark articles read and remove them from the menu based on their attribute.

The L {leave-next} command is an extension of the J command with a fifth menu:

Leave

This menu allows you to mark articles for later handling with the leave-next attribute which will keep the article unread until you explicitly change the attribute (e.g. by reading it) or it is expired.

For each of these submenus, nn will list the most plausible choices you may use, but all of the following answers can be used at all submenus. When you have entered a choice, nn will afterward ask whether the change should be made to all menu pages or only the current page.

J

Show next submenu.

L

Change attribute on all leave articles.

N

Change attribute on all leave-next articles.

R

Change attribute on all read articles.

S

Change attribute on all seen articles.

U

Change attribute on all unmarked (i.e. unread) articles.

A

Change attribute on all articles no matter their current attribute.

*

Change attribute on all selected articles on the current page.

+

Change attribute on all selected articles on all pages.

a-z0-9

Change attribute on one or more specific articles on the current page. You end the list of articles by a space or by using one of the other choices described above.

.

Change attribute on current article.

, /

Move the current article down or up the menu without changing any attributes.

READING MODE COMMANDS

When you are on the last page of the last article, hit space to enter selection mode on the next group (or the current group if reading mode was entered using the Z command).

To read an article, the following text scrolling commands are available:

space    {continue}

Scroll one page forward or continue with the next article or group as described above.

backspace / delete {page-1}

Go one page backwards in article.

d    {page+1/2}

Scroll one half page forward.

u    {page-1/2}

Go one half page backwards.

return    {line+1}

Scroll one line forward in the article.

tab    {skip-lines}

Skip over lines starting with the same character as the last line on the current page. This is useful to skip over included text or to the next file in a shell archive.

^    {page=1}

Move to the first page (excluding the header) of the article.

$    {page=$}

Move to the last page of the article.

gN    {line=@}

Move to line N in the article.

/regexp    {find}

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

.    {find-next}

Repeat search for last regular expression.

h    {page=0}

Show the header of the article, and continue from the top of the article.

H    {full-digest}

If the current article is extracted from a digest, show the entire digest article including its header. Another H command will return to the current subarticle.

D    {rot13}

Turn rot13 (caesar) decryption on and off for the current article, and redraw current page. If the article is saved while it is decrypted on the screen, it will be saved in decrypted form as well!

c    {compress}

Turn compression on and off for the current article and redraw current page. With compression turned on, multiple spaces and tabs are shown as a single space. This makes it much easier to read right justified text which separate words with several spaces. (See also the compress variable)

The following commands are used to move among the selected articles.

n    {next-article}

Move to next selected article. This command skips the rest of the current article, marks it read, and jumps directly to the first page of the next selected article (or to the next group if it was the last selected article).

l    {leave-article}

Mark the current article with the leave attribute and continue with the next selected article. When all the selected articles in the current group have been read, these left over articles can be automatically selected and shown once more, or the treatment can be postponed to the next time you enter the group. This is particularly useful if you see an article which you may want to respond to unless one the following articles is already saying what you intended to say.

L    {leave-next}

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

p    {previous}

Goto previous article.

k    {next-subject}

Kill subject. Skips rest of current article, and all following articles with the same subject. The skipped articles are marked read. To kill a subject permanently use the K command.

*    {select-subject}

Show next article with same subject (even if it is not selected). This command will select all following articles with the same subject as the current article (similar to the `*' command in selection mode). This can be used to select only the first article on a subject in selection mode, and then select all follow-ups in reading mode if you find the article interesting.

a    {advance-article}

Goto the following article on the menu even if it is not selected. This command skips the rest of the current article and jumps directly to the first page of the next article (it will not skip to the next group if it is the last article). The attribute on the current article will be restored, except for the unread attribute which will be changed to seen.

b    {back-article}

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

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

=    {goto-menu}

Return to selection mode in the current group (think of = as the "icon" of the selection menu). The articles read so far will be marked read.

N    {next-group}

Skip the rest of the selected and unread articles in the current group and go directly to the next group. Only the read (and seen) articles in the current group are marked as read.

X    {read-skip}

Mark all articles in the current group as read and go directly to the next group. (You will be asked to confirm this command.)

Related variables: case-fold-search, compress, data-bits, date, header-lines, mark-overlap, monitor, overlap, scroll-clear-page, stop, trusted-escape-codes, wrap-header-margin.

PREVIEWING ARTICLES IN SELECTION MODE

If there are more than 5 free lines at the bottom of the menu screen, nn will use that space to show the article (a minimal preview window can be permanently allocated with the window variable). Otherwise, the screen will be cleared to show the article.

After previewing an article, it will be marked read (if the preview-mark-read variable is set), and the following article will become the current article.

%x    {preview}

Preview article x.

%%    {preview}

Preview the current article.

When the article is being shown, the following reading mode commands are very useful:

=    {goto-menu}

Skip the rest of the current article, and return to menu mode.

n    {next-article}

Skip the rest of the current article, and preview the next article.

l    {leave-article}

Mark the article as selected (!) on the menu for handling later on. Then skip the rest of the current article, and preview the next article.

%y    {preview}

Preview article y .

If the variable auto-preview-mode is set, just hitting the article id in menu mode will enter preview mode on the specified article.

Related variables: auto-preview-mode, min-window, preview-continuation, preview-mark-read, window.

SAVING ARTICLES

The saved articles will be appended to the specified file(s) followed by an empty line each. Both files and directories will be created as needed. When an article has been saved in a file, a message reporting the number of lines saved will be shown if the save-report variable is set (default on).

S    {save-full}

Save articles including the full article header.

O    {save-short}

Save articles with a short header containing only the name of the sender, the subject, and the posting date of the article.

W    {save-body}

Write article without a header.

:print    {print}

Print article. Instead of a file name, this command will prompt for the print command to which the current article will be piped. The default print command is specified at compile time, but it can be changed by setting the printer variable. The output will be identical to that of the O command.

:patch    {patch}

Send articles through patch(1) (or the program defined in the patch-command variable). Instead of a file name, you will be prompted for the name of a directory in which you want the patch command to be executed. nn will then pipe the body of the article through the patch command. The output from the patch process will be shown on the screen and also appended to a file named Patch.Result in the patch directory.

:unshar    {unshar}

Unshar articles. You will be prompted for the name of a directory in which you want nn to unshar the articles. nn will then pipe the proper parts of the article body into a Bourne Shell whose working directory will be set to the specified directory. During the unpacking, the normal output from the unshar process will appear on the screen, and the menu or article text will be redrawn when the process is finished. The output is also appended to a file named Unshar.Result in the unshar directory. The file specified in unshar-header-file (default "Unshar.Headers") in the unshar directory will contain the header and initial text (before the shar data) from the article. You can use the `G' {goto-group} command to look at the Unshar.Headers file.

:decode    {decode}

Decode uuencoded articles into binary files. You will be prompted for the name of a directory in which you want nn to place the decoded binary files (the file names are taken from the uuencoded data). nn will combine several articles into single files as needed, and you can even decode unrelated packages (into the same directory) with one decode command. To be able to decode a binary file which spans several articles, nn may have to ignore lines which fail the normal sanity checks on uuencoded data instead of treating them as transmission errors. Consequently, it is strongly recommended to check the resulting decoded file using the checksum which is normally contained in the original article. (Actually, you are also supposed to do this after decoding with a stand-alone uudecode program). The header and initial information in the decoded articles are saved in the file specified in decode-header-file (default "Decode.Headers") in the same directory as the decoded files. If decode-skip-prefix is non-null, :decode will attempt to ignore up to that many characters on each line to find the encoded data. This is particularly useful in some binaries groups where files are both uuencoded and packed with shar; nn will ignore the prefix added to each line by shar, and thus be able to unshar, concatenate, and decode multi-part postings automatically.

In reading mode, the following keys can also be used to invoke the save commands:

s

Same as S.

o

Same as O.

w

Same as W.

P

Same as :print.

The save commands will prompt for a file name which is expanded according to the rules described in the section on file name expansion below. For each group, it is possible to specify a default save file in the init file, either in connection with the group presentation sequence or in a separate save-files section (see below). If a default save file is specified for the group, nn will show this on the prompt line when it prompts for the file name. You can edit this name as usual, but if you kill the entire name immediately, nn will replace the default name with the last file name you entered. If you kill this as well, nn will leave you with a blank line.

If the quick-save variable is set, nn will only prompt for a save file name when the current article is inside a folder; otherwise, the default save file defined in the init file will be used unconditionally.

If the file (and directories in the path) does not exist, nn will ask whether the file (and the directories) should be created.

If the file name contains an asterisk, e.g.
   part*.shar
nn will save each of the articles in uniquely named files constructed by replacing the asterisk by numbers from the sequence 1, 2, 3, etc. The format of the string that replaces the * can be changed with the save-counter variable, and the first number to use can be changed via save-counter-offset.

In selection mode, nn will prompt you for the identifier of one or more articles you want to save. When you don't want to save more articles, just hit space. The saved articles will be marked read.

If you enter an asterisk `*' when you are prompted for an article to save, nn will automatically save all the selected articles on the current menu page and mark them read.

Likewise, if you enter a plus `+', nn will save all the selected articles on all menu pages and mark them read.

This is very useful to unpack an entire package using the :unshar and :decode commands. It can also be used in combination with the save selected articles feature to save a selection of articles in separate, successively numbered files. But do not confuse these two concepts! The S* and S+ commands can be used to save the selected articles in a single file as well as in separate files, and the save in separate files feature can be used also when saving individual articles, either in the selection mode, or in the article reading mode.

When articles are saved in a file with a full or partial header, any header lines in the body of the article will be escaped by a tilde (e.g. ~From: ...) to enable nn to split the folder into separate articles. The escape string can be redefined via the embedded-header-escape variable.

Articles can optionally be saved in MAIL or MMDF compatible format by setting the mail-format and mmdf-format variables. These variables only specify the format used when creating a new folder, while appending to an existing folder will be done in the format of the folder (unless folder-format-check is false).

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

FOLDER MAINTENANCE

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

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

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

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

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

Folders are rewritten in the format of the original folder, i.e. the mail-format and mmdf-format variables are ignored.

Related variables: backup-folder-path, keep-backup-folder, trace-folder-packing.

FILE NAME EXPANSION

+folder

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

+

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

~/file

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

~user/file

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

|command-line

Instead of writing to a file, the articles are piped to the given shell (/bin/sh) command-line. Each save or write command will create a separate pipe, but all articles saved or written in one command (in selection mode) are given as input to the same shell command. Example:
   | pr | lp
This will print the articles on the printer after they have been piped through pr. It is possible to create separate pipes for each saved article by using a double pipe symbol in the beginning of the command, e.g.
   || cd ~/src/nn ; patch

The following symbols are expanded in a file name or command:

$F

will be expanded to the name of the current group with the periods replaced by slashes, e.g. rec/music/synth.

$G

will be expanded to the name of the current group.

$L

will be expanded to the last component of the name of the current group. You may use this to create default save file names like +src/$L in the comp.sources groups.

$N

will be expanded to the (local) article number, e.g. 1099. In selection mode it is only allowed at the end of the file name!

$(VAR)

is replaced by the string value of the environment variable VAR.

Using these symbols, a simple naming scheme for `default folder name' is +$G which will use the group name as folder name. Another possibility is +$F/$N.

As mentioned above, you can also instruct nn to save a series of files in separate, unique files. All that is required is that the file name contains an asterisk, e.g.
   +src/hype/part*.shar
This will cause each of the articles to be saved in separate, unique files named part1.shar, part2.shar, and so on, always choosing a part number that results in a unique file name (i.e. if part1.shar did already exist, the first article would be saved in part2.shar, the next in part3.shar, and so on).

Related variables: default-save-file, folder, folder-save-file, save-counter, save-counter-offset.

FILE AND GROUP NAME COMPLETION

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

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

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

The ? key will produce a list of the possible completions of the current component. If the list is too long for the available space on screen, the key can be repeated to get the next part of the list.

The current completion can be deleted with the erase key.

The default value for a file name is the last file name you have entered, so if you enter a space as the first character after the prompt, the last file name will be repeated (and you can edit it if you like). In some cases, a string will already be written for you in the prompt line, and to get the default value in these cases, use the kill key. This also means that if you neither want the initial value, nor the default value, you will have to hit the kill twice to get a clean prompt line.

Related variables: comp1-key, comp2-key, help-key, suggest-default-save.

POSTING AND RESPONDING TO ARTICLES

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

R    {reply}

Reply through mail to the author of the article. This is the preferred way to respond to an article unless you think your reply is of general interest.

F    {follow}

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

M    {mail}

Mail a letter or forward an article to a single recipient. In selection mode, you will be prompted for an article to include in your letter, and in reading mode you will be asked if the current article should be included in the letter. You will then be prompted for the recipient of the letter (default recipient is yourself) and the subject of the letter (if an article is included, you may hit space to get the default subject which is the subject of the included article). The header of the article is only included in the posted letter if it is forwarded (i.e. not edited), or if the variable include-full-header is set.

:post    {post}

Post a new article to any newsgroup. This command will prompt you for a comma-separated list of newsgroups to post to (you cannot enter a space because space is used for group name completion as described below). If you enter ? {help-key} as the first key, nn will show you a list of all available news groups and their purpose. While paging through this list, you can enter q to quit looking at the list. You can also enter / followed by a regular expression (typically a single word) which will cause nn to show a (much shorter) list containing only the lines matching the regular expression. Normally, you will be prompted for the distribution of the article with the default take from default-distribution, but this can be changed via the post-distribution variable.

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

When you have completed editing the message, it will compare it to the unedited file, and if they are identical (i.e. you did not make any changes to the file), or it is empty, the operation is cancelled. Otherwise you will be prompted for an action to take on the constructed article (enter first letter followed by return, or just return to take the default action):

   a)bort c)c e)dit h)old i)spell m)ail r)eedit s)end v)iew w)rite
   Action: (post article)

You now have the opportunity to perform one of the following actions:

a    throw the response away (will ask for confirmation),
c    mail a copy of a follow-up to the poster of the article,
e    edit the file again,
h    hold response for later completion,
i    run an (interactive) spell-checker on the text,
m    mail a (blind) copy to a specified recipient,
n    same as abort (no don't post)
p    post article (same as send)
r    throw away the edited text and edit the original text,
s    send the article or letter,
v    view the article (through the pager), or
w    append it to a file (before you send it).
y    confirm default answer (e.g. yes post it)

To complete an unfinished response saved by the h)old command, simply enter any response action, e.g. R {reply}. This will notice the unfinished response and ask you whether you want to complete it now. Only one unfinished response can exist at a time. Notice that the $A environment variable may no longer be valid as a path to the original article when the response is completed.

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

JUMPING TO OTHER GROUPS

Furthermore, the G command enables you to open folders and other files, to read old articles you have read before, and to grep for a specific subject in a group.

It is important to notice that normally the goto command is recursive, i.e. a new menu level is created when the specified group or folder is presented, and when it has been read, nn will continue the activity in the group that was presented before the goto command was executed. However, if there are unread articles in the target group you can avoid entering a new menu level by using the j reply described below. The current menu level (i.e. number of nested goto commands) will be shown in the prompt line as "<N>" (in reverse video).

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

When executed, the goto command will prompt you for the name of the newsgroup, folder, or file to open. It will use the first letter you enter to distinguish these three possibilities:

return

An empty answer is equivalent to the current newsgroup.

letter

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

+

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

/ or ./ or ~/

The answer is taken to be the name of a file, either relative to the current directory, relative to your home directory, or an absolute path name for the file.

%

In reading mode, this reply corresponds to reading the current article (and splitting it as a digest). In selection mode, it will prompt for an article on the menu to read.

@

This choice is equivalent to the archive file for the current group. nnmaster maintains archive files with all old and current articles for the groups which have the auto-archive option set in the GROUPS file (see nnmaster(8)).

= and number

These answers are equivalent to the same answers described below applied to the current group (e.g. G return = and G = are equivalent).

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

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

a number N

In this case you will get the newest N articles in the group, or if you specified the current group (by hitting return to the group name prompt or entering the number directly), you will get that many extra articles included on the same menu (without creating a new menu level).

j

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

u

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

a

This instruct nn to present all articles in the group.

sword or =word

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

nword

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

eword

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

word = /regexp

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

return

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

If you specified the current group, and the menu already contains all the available articles, nn will directly prompt for a word to search for in the subject of all articles (the prompt will be an equal sign.)

When the goto command creates a new menu level, nn will not perform auto kill or selection in the group. You can use the + command in menu mode to perform the auto-selections.

There are three commands in the goto family:

G    {goto-group}

This is the general goto command described above.

B    {back-group}

Backup one or more groups. You can hit this key one or more times to go back in the groups already presented (including those without new articles); when you have found the group you are looking for, hit space to enter it.

A    {advance-group}

Advance one or more groups. This command is similar to the B command, but operates in the opposite direction.

N    {next-group}

When used within an A or B command, it skips forward to the next group in the sequence with unread articles or which has previously been visited.

P    {previous}

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

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

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

Present the unread articles in the dk.general group
   G dk.general return u

Jump directly to the gnu.emacs group and continue from there
   G gnu.emacs return j

Include the last 10 READ articles in the current group menu
   G 10 return

Find all articles in rec.music.misc on the subject Floyd
   G rec.music.misc return
   = floyd return


Open the folder +nn
   G +nn return

Split current article as a digest (in reading mode)
   G %

Related variables: case-fold-search, default-save-file, folder-save-file

AUTOMATIC KILL AND SELECTION

K    {kill-select}

Create an entry in your personal kill file. The contents of the entry is specified during a short dialog that is described in details below. This command is available in both selection and reading mode.

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

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

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

AUTO (k)ill or (s)elect (CR => Kill subject 30 days)

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

You can control the default kill period, or change it into a "select" period via the default-kill-select variable.

If this "default behaviour" is not what you want, just answer either k or s to kill or select articles, respectively, which will bring you on to the rest of the questions.

AUTO SELECT on (s)ubject or (n)ame (s)

(The SELECT will be substituted with KILL depending on the previous answer). Here you specify whether you want the kill or select to depend on the subject of the article (s or space), or on the name of the author (n).

SELECT NAME:

(Again SELECT may be substituted with KILL and SUBJECT may replace NAME). You must now enter a name (or subject) to select (or kill). In reading mode, you may just hit return (or %) to use the name (or subject) of the current article. In selection mode, you can use the name (or subject) from an article on the menu by answering with % followed by the corresponding article identifier.

When the name or subject is taken from an article (the current or one from the menu), nn will only select or kill articles where the name or subject matches the original name or subject exactly including case.

If the first character typed at the prompt is a slash `/', the rest of the line is used as a regular expression which is used to match the name or subject (case insensitive).

Otherwise, nn will select or kill articles which contain the specified string anywhere in the name or subject (ignoring case).

SELECT in (g)roup `dk.general' or in (a)ll groups (g)

You must now specify whether the selection or kill should apply to the current group only (g or space) or to all groups (a).

Lifetime of entry in days (p)ermanent (30)

You can now specify the lifetime of the entry, either by entering a number specifying the number of days the entry should be active, or p to specify the entry as a permanent entry. An empty reply is equivalent to 30 days.

CONFIRM SELECT ....

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

Related variables: default-kill-select, kill.

THE FORMAT OF THE KILL FILE

Each line has the following format
[expire time :] [group name] : flags : string [: string]...

Permanent entries have no expire time (in which case the colon is omitted as well!). Otherwise, the expire time defines the time (as a time_t value) when the entry should be expired.

The group name field can have three forms:

news.group.name

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

/regular expression

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

empty

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

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

~    (optional)

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

+    or ! (optional)

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

> (optional)

When used with a subject (flag s), the kill entry only matches follow-ups to that subject (i.e. where the Subject: line starts with Re:). For example, to kill all "Re:"'s in rec.humor use the following kill entry: rec.humor:!>s/:.

< (optional)

When used with a subject (flag s), the kill entry only matches base articles with that subject (i.e. where the Subject: line does not start with Re:). For example, to kill all articles asking for help (but not follow-ups) in the tex group, add this to your kill file:
   comp.text.tex:!s</:^HELP

n or s or a (mandatory)

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

/ (optional)

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

= (optional)

Specifies that the match against the name or subject is case sensitive. Furthermore, when regular expression matching is not used, the name or subject must be of the same length of the string to match. Otherwise, the match will be case insensitive, and a string may occur anywhere in the name or subject to match.

| or & (mandatory if multiple strings)

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

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

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

:+n=&s:Tom Collins:News

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

some.group:~n:Tom
some.group:+n:Eve

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

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

SHELL ESCAPES

File name expansion

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

$G

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

$L

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

$F

will be substituted with the name of the current news group with the periods replaced by slashes.

$N

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

$A

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

%

Same as $A.

$(VAR)

is replaced by the string value of the environment variable VAR.

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

Related variables: shell, shell-restrictions.

MISCELLANEOUS COMMANDS

U    {unsub}

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

C    {cancel}

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

Y    {overview}

Provide an overview of the groups with unread articles.

"    {layout}

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

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

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

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

:admin

Enter administrative mode. This is identical in operation to the nnadmin(1M) program.

:bug

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

:cd [ directory ]

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

:clear

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

:compile

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

:coredump

Abort with a core dump. For debugging purposes only.

:define macro

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

:dump table

Same as the :show command described below.

:help [ subject ]

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

:load [ file ]

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

:local variable [ value ]

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

:lock variable

Lock the specified variable so it cannot be modified.

:man

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

:map arguments

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

:mkdir [ directory ]

Create the directory (and the directories in its path). It will prompt for at directory name if the argument is omitted.

:motd

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

:pwd

Print path name of current working directory on message line.

:q

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

:q!

Quit nn without updating the .newsrc file.

:Q

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

:rmail

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

:set variable [ value ]

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

:sh

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

:show groups mode

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

:show kill

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

:show rc [ group ]

Show the .newsrc and select file entries for the current or the specified group.

:show map [ mode ]

Show the key bindings in the current or specified mode.

:sort [ mode ]

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

:toggle variable

Toggle a boolean variable.

:unread [ group ] [ articles ]

Mark the current (or specified) group as unread. If the articles argument is omitted, the number of unread articles in the group will be set to the number of unread articles when nn was invoked. Otherwise, the argument specifies the number of unread articles.

:unset variable

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

:x

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

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

CATCH UP

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

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

y

Mark all articles as read in current group.

n

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

r

Enter reading mode to read the group.

U

Unsubscribe to the group.

?

Give a list of actions.

q

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

VARIABLES AND OPTIONS

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

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

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

For example:
   set time
   unset time
   set notime
   toggle time

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

String variables may specify directory names, default values for prompts, etc. They are set using the command
   set variable string
Normally, the string value assigned to the variable value starts at the first non-blank character after the variable name and ends with the last non-blank character (excluding comments) on the line. To include leading or trailing blanks, or the comment start symbol, #, in the string they must be escaped using a backslash `\', e.g. to set included-mark to the string " # ", the following assignment can be used:

   set included-mark \ \#\ # blank-#-blank

To include a backslash in the string, it must be duplicated `\\'. A backslash may also be used to include the following special characters in the string: \a=alarm, \b=backspace, \e=escape, \f=form-feed, \n=new-line, \r=return, \t=tab.

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

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

The current variable settings can be shown with the :set command:

:set (without arguments)

This will give a listing of the variables which have been set in either the init file or interactively.

:set all

This will give a listing of all variables. Modified variables will be marked with a `*' and local variables will be marked with a `>'. A locked variable is marked with a `!'.

:set /regexp

This will give a listing of all variables whose name matches the given regular expression.

:set partial-name space

The space (comp1-key) key will complete the variable name as usual, but as a side effect it will display the variable's current value in the message line.

Variables are global by default, but a local instantiation of the variable can be created using the :local command. The local variable will overlay the global variable as long as the current group is active, i.e. the global variable will be used again when you exit the current group. The initial value of the local variable will be the same as the global variable, unless a new value is specified in the :local command:

   :local variable [ value ]

The following variables are available:

also-full-digest    (boolean, default false)

When a digest is split, the digest itself is not normally included on the menu, and as such the initial adminstrative information is not available. Setting also-full-digest will cause the (unsplit) digest to be included on the menu. These articles are marked with a @ at the beginning of the subject.

also-subgroups    (boolean, default true)

When set, a group name in the presentation sequence will also cause all the subgroups of the group to be included, for example, comp.unix will also include comp.unix.questions, etc. When also-subgroups is not set, subgroups are only included if the group name is followed by a `.' in which case the main group is not included, i.e. `comp.unix' is not included when `comp.unix.' is specified in the presentation sequence, and vice-versa. Following a group name by an asterisk `*', e.g. comp.unix*, will include the group as well as all subgroups independently of the setting of also-subgroups.

append-signature-mail    (boolean, default false)

When false, it is assumed that the .signature file is automatically appended to responses sent via E-mail. If true, .signature will be appended to the letter (see query-signature).

append-signature-post    (boolean, default false)

When false, it is assumed that the .signature file is automatically appended to posted articles. If true, .signature will explicitly be appended to posted articles (see query-signature).

attributes symbols    (string, default ....)

Each element in this string represents a symbol used to represent an article attribute when displayed on the screen. See the section on Marking Articles and Attributes.

auto-junk-seen    (boolean, default true)

When set, articles which have the seen attribute (,) will be marked read when the current group is left. If not set, these articles will still be either unread or marked seen the next time the group is entered (see also confirm-junk-seen and retain-seen-status).

auto-preview-mode        (boolean, default false)

Enables Auto Preview Mode. In this mode, selecting an article on the menu using its article id (letter a-z) will enter preview mode on that article immediately. Furthermore, the `n' {next-article} command will preview the next article on the menu only if it has the same subject as the current article; otherwise, it will return to the menu with the cursor placed on the next article. The continue command at the end of the article and the `=' {goto-menu} returns to the menu immediately as usual.

auto-read-mode-limit N    (integer, default 0)

When operating in auto reading mode, nn will auto-select all unread articles in the group, skip the article selection phase, and enter reading mode directly after entry to the group. Auto reading mode is disabled when auto-read-mode-limit is zero; it is activated unconditionally if the value is negative, and conditionally if the value is greater than zero and the number of unread articles in the current group does not exceed the given value.

auto-select-closed mode    (integer, default 1)

Normally, selecting a closed subject (usually in consolidated menu mode) will select (or deselect) all unread articles with the given subject (or all articles if they are all read). This behaviour can be changed via the value of this variable as follows: 0: select only the first article with the subject (shown on menu).
1: select only the unread articles with the subject.
2: select all available articles with the subject.

auto-select-subject    (boolean, default false)

When set, selecting an article from the menu using the article id (a-z), all articles on the menu with the same subject will automatically be selected as well.

backup    (boolean, default true)

When set, a copy of the initial .newsrc and select files will save be the first time they are changed. nn remembers the initial contents of these files internally, so the backup variable can be set any time if not set on start-up.

backup-folder-path file    (string, default "BackupFolder~")

When removing deleted articles from a folder, this variable defines the name of the file where a (temporary) copy of the original folder is saved. If the file name doesn't contain a `/', the file will be located in the .nn directory. Otherwise the file name is used directly as the relative or full path name of the backup file. If possible, the old folder will be renamed to the backup folder name; otherwise the old folder is copied to the backup folder.

backup-suffix suffix    (string, default ".bak")

The suffix appended to file names to make the corresponding backup file name (see backup).

bug-report-address address    (string, default nn-bugs@dkuug.dk)

The mail address to which bug reports created with the :bug command are sent.

case-fold-search        (boolean, default true)

When set, string and regular expression matching will be case independent. This is related to all commands matching on names or subjects, except in connection with auto-kill and auto-select where the individual kill file entries specifies this property.

check-db-update-time H    (integer, default 12)

When non-zero, nn will issue a warning if the database has not been updated in the last H hours. The warning will tell you whether no news has arrived (feed broken?), or whether it is just nnmaster which has not updated the database (dead?).

check-group-access    (boolean, default false)

When set, nn will perform a check on the readability of a group's readability before showing the menu for that group. Normally, this is not necessary since all users traditionally have access to all news groups. Setting (and locking) this variable may be used to limit access to a news group via the permissions and ownership of the group's spool directory (this will only work for non-NNTP sites).

collapse-subject offset    (integer, default 25)

When set (non-negative), subject lines which are too long to be presented in full on the menus will be "collapsed" by removing a sufficient number of characters from the subject starting at the given offset in the subject. This is useful in source groups where the "Part (01/10)" string sometimes disappears from the menu. When not set (or negative), the subjects are truncated.

columns col    (integer, default screen width)

This variable contains the screen width i.e. character positions per line.

comp1-key key    (key, default space)

The key which gives the first/next completion, and the default value when nn is prompting for a string, e.g. a file name.

comp2-key key    (key, default tab)

The key which ends the current completion and gives the first completion for the next component when nn is prompting for a string, e.g. a file name.

compress        (boolean, default false)

This variable controls whether text compression (see the compress command) is turned on or off when an article is shown. The compression is still toggled for the current article with the compress command key.

confirm-append        (boolean, default false)

When set, nn will ask for confirmation before appending an article to an existing file (see also confirm-create).

confirm-auto-quit        (boolean, default false)

When set, nn will ask for confirmation before quitting after having read the last group. If not confirmed, nn will recycle the presentation sequence looking for groups that were skipped with the `N' {next-group} command. But it will not look for new articles arrived since the invocation of nn.

confirm-create        (boolean, default true)

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

confirm-entry        (boolean, default false)

When set, nn will ask for confirmation before entering a group with more than confirm-entry-limit unread articles (on the first menu level). It is useful on slow terminals if you don't want to wait until nn has drawn the first menu to be able to skip the group. Answering no to the "Enter?" prompt will cause nn to skip to the next group without marking the current group as read. If you answer by hitting interrupt, nn will ask the question "Mark as read?" which allows you to mark the current group as read before going to the next group. If this second question is also answered by hitting interrupt, nn will quit immediately.

confirm-entry-limit articles    (integer, default 0)

Specifies the minimum number of unread articles in a group for which the confirm-entry functionality is activated.

confirm-junk-seen        (boolean, default false)

When set, nn will require confirmation before marking seen articles as read when auto-junk-seen is set.

confirm-messages        (boolean, default false)

In some cases, nn will sleep one second (or more) when it has shown a message to the user, e.g. in connection with macro debugging. Setting confirm-messages will cause nn to wait for you to confirm all messages by hitting any key. (It will show the symbol <> to indicate that it is awaiting confirmation.)

consolidated-manual    (boolean, default false)

When set, the online manual will be presented with one menu line for each program in the nn package.

consolidated-menu        (boolean, default false)

When set, nn will automatically close all multi-article subjects on entry to a group, so that each subject only occur once on the menu page.

counter-delim-left    (string, default "[")

The delimiter string output to the left of the article counter in a closed subject's menu line.

counter-delim-right    (string, default "] ")

The delimiter string output to the right of the article counter in a closed subject's menu line.

counter-padding pad        (integer, default 5)

On a consolidated menu, the subjects may not be very well aligned because the added [...] counters have varying length. To (partially) remedy this, all counters (and subjects without counters) are prefixed by up to pad spaces to get better alignment. Increasing it further may yield practially perfect alignment at the cost of less space for the subject itself.

cross-filter-seq        (boolean, default true)

When set, cross posted articles will be presented in the first possible group, i.e. according to the current presentation sequence (cross-post filtering on sequence). The article is automatically marked read in the other cross posted groups unless you unsubscribe to the first group in which it was shown before reading the other groups. Likewise, it is sufficient to leave the article unread in the first group to keep it for later handling. If not set, cross-postings are shown in the first group occurring on the Newsgroups: line which the user subscribes to (i.e. you let the poster decide which group is most appropriate to read his posting).

cross-post        (boolean, default false)

Normally, nn will only show cross-posted articles in the first subscribed group on the Newsgroups: line. When cross-post is set, nn will show cross-posted articles in all subscribed groups to which they are posted.

data-bits bits    (integer, default 7)

When set to 7, nn will display characters with the 8th bit set using a meta-notation M-7bit-char. If set to 8, these characters are sent directly to the screen (unless monitor is set).

It also controls whether keyboard input is 7 or 8 bits, and thus whether key maps contain 127 or 255 entries. See the key mapping section for more details.

date        (boolean, default true)

If set nn will show the article posting date when articles are read.

debug mask    (integer, default 0)

Look in the source if you are going to use this.

decode-header-file file    (string, default "Decode.Headers")

The name of the file in which the header and initial text of articles decoded with the :decode command is saved. Unless the file name starts with a `/', the file will be created in the same directory as the decoded files. The information is not saved if this variable is not set.

decode-skip-prefix N    (integer, default 2)

When non-null, the :decode command will automatically skip upto N characters at the beginning of each line to find valid uuencoded data. This allows nn to automatically decode (multi-part) postings which are both uuencoded and packed with shar.

default-distribution distr    (string, default "world")

The distribution to use as the default suggestion when posting articles using the follow and post commands if the corresponding follow-distribution or post-distribution variable contains the default option.

default-kill-select [1]days    (number, default 30)

Specifies the default action for the K {kill-select} command if the first prompt is answered by return. It contains the number of days to keep the kill or select entry in the kill file (1-99 days). If it has the value days+100 (e.g. 130), it denotes that the default action is to select rather than kill on the subject for the specified period.

default-save-file file    (string, default +$F)

The default save file used when saving articles in news groups where no save file has been specified in the init file (either in a save-files section or in the presentation sequence). It can also be specified using the abbreviation "+" as the file name when prompted for a file name even in groups with their own save file.

delay-redraw        (boolean, default false)

Normally, nn will redraw the screen after extended commands (:cmd) that clear the screen. When delay-redraw is set nn will prompt for another extended command instead of redrawing the screen (hit return to redraw).

echo-prefix-key        (boolean, default true)

When true, hitting a prefix key (see the section on key mapping below) will cause the prefix key to be echoed in the message line to indicate that another key is expected.

edit-patch-command    (boolean, default true)

When true, the :patch command will show the current patch-command and give you a chance to edit it before applying it to the articles.

edit-print-command    (boolean, default true)

When true, the print command will show the current printer command and give you a chance to edit it before printing the articles. Otherwise the articles are just printed using the current printer command.

edit-response-check    (boolean, default true)

When editing a response to an article, it normally does not have any meaning to send the initial file prepared by nn unaltered, since it is either empty or only contains included material. When this variable is set, exiting the editor without having changed the file will automatically abort the response action without confirmation.

edit-unshar-command    (boolean, default false)

When true, the :unshar command will show the current unshar-command and give you a chance to edit it before applying it to the articles.

editor command    (string, default not set)

When set, it will override the current EDITOR environment variable when editing responses and new articles.

embedded-header-escape string    (string, default '~')

When saving an article to a file, header lines embedded in the body of the article are escaped using this string to make it possible for nn to split the folder correctly afterwards. Header lines are not escaped if this variable is not set.

enter-last-read-mode mode    (integer, default 1)

Normally, nn will remember which group is active when you quit, and offer to jump directly to this group when you start nn the next time. This variable is used to control this behaviour. The following mode values are recognized: 0: Ignore the remembered group (r.g.).
1: Enter r.g. if the group is unread (with user confirmation)
2: Enter r.g. or first unread group after it in the sequence (w/conf).
3: Enter r.g. if the group is unread (no confirmation)
4: Enter r.g. or first unread group after it in the sequence (no conf).

entry-report-limit articles    (integer, default 300)

Normally, nn will just move the cursor to the upper left corner of the screen while it is reading articles from the database on entry to a group. For large groups this may take more than a fraction of a second, and nn can then report what it is doing. If it must read more articles than the number specified by this variable, nn will report which group and how many articles it is reading.

erase-key key    (key, default tty erase key)

The key which erases the last input character when nn is prompting for a string, e.g. a file name.

expert        (boolean, default false)

If set nn will use slightly shorter prompts (e.g. not tell you that ? will give you help), and be a bit less verbose in a few other cases (e.g. not remind you that posted articles are not available instantly).

expired-message-delay pause    (integer, default 1)

If a selected article is found to have been expired, nn will normally give a message about this and sleep for a number of seconds specified by this variable. Setting this variable to zero will still make nn give the message without sleeping afterwards. Setting it to -1 will cause the message not to be shown at all.

flow-control    (boolean, default true)

When set, nn will turn on xon/xoff flow-control before writing large amounts of text to the screen. This should guard against lossage of output, but in some network configurations it has had the opposite effect, losing several lines of the output. This variable is always true on systems with CBREAK capabilities which can do single character reads without disabling flow control.

flush-typeahead    (boolean, default false)

When true, nn will flush typeahead prior to reading commands from the keyboard. It will not flush typeahead while reading parameters for a command, e.g. file names etc.

folder directory    (string, default ~/News)

The full pathname of the folder directory which will replace the + in folder names. It will be initialized from the FOLDER environment variable if it is not set in the init file.

folder-format-check    (boolean, default true)

When saving an article with a full or partial header in an existing folder, nn will check the format of the folder to be able to append the article in the proper format. If this variable is not set, folders are assumed to be in the format specified via the mmdf-format and mail-format variables, and articles are saved in that format without checking. Otherwise, the *-format variables are only used to determine the format for new folders.

folder-save-file file    (string, default not set)

The default save file used when saving articles from a folder.

follow-distribution words    (string, default see below)

This variable controls how the Distribution: header is constructed for a follow-up to an original article. Its value is a list of words selected from the following list:

[ [ always ] same ] [ ask ] [ default | distribution ]

This is interpreted in two steps:
- First the default distribution is determined. If same is specified and the original article has a Distribution: header, that header is used. Else if default is specified (or distribution is omitted), the value of default-distribution is used. And finally, if only a distribution (any word) is specified that is used as the default.
- Then if ask is specified, the user will be asked to confirm the default distribution or provide another distribution. However, if always (and same) is specified, and the default was taken from the original article's distribution, the original distribution is used without confirmation.
The default value of follow-distribution is always same default, i.e. use either the original distribution or the default-distribution without confirmation in either case.

from-line-parsing strictness    (integer, default 2)

Specifies how strict nn must parse a "From " line in a folder to recognize it as a mail format message separator line. The following strictness values determine whether a line starting with "From " will be recognized as a separator line:    0: Always.
   1: Line must have at least 8 fields.
   2: Line must contain a valid date and time (ctime style).

fsort        (boolean, default true)

When set, folders are sorted alphabetically according to the subject (and age). Otherwise, the articles in a folder will be presented in the sequence in which they were saved.

guard-double-slash    (boolean, default false)

Normally, when entering a file name, entering two slashes `//' in a row (or following a slash by a plus `/+') will cause nn to erase the entire line and replace it with the `/' (or `+'). On some systems, two slashes are used in network file names, and on those systems guard-double-slash can be set; that will cause nn to require three slashes in a row to clear the input.

header-lines list    (string, no default)

When set, it determines the list of header fields that are shown when an article is read instead of the normal one line header showing the author and subject. See the full description in the section on Customized Article Headers below.

help-key key    (key, default ?)

The key which ends the current completion and gives a list of possible completions for the next component when nn is prompting for a string, e.g. a file name.

ignore-xon-xoff        (boolean, default false)

Normally, nn will ignore ^S and ^Q in the input from the terminal (if they are not ha