tin(1) A Usenet newsreader tin(1)
NAME
tin, rtin, tind - A Usenet newsreader
SYNOPSIS
tin [[-h|-H|-V] | [[[-a] [-dlnq|-Q] [-ArzX]] [[-R|-S] -s
News-dir] [-cuvUZ] [-N|-M address] [-o|-w]] [-D
debug-level] [-G article-limit] [-f newsrc-file] [-g
server] [-m Mail-dir] [-p port] [-I
index-dir] [newsgroup[,...]]]
rtin [[-h|-H|-V] | [[[-a] [-dlnq|-Q] [-AzX]] [-cvZ] [[-S]
-s News-dir] [-N|-M address] [-o|-w]] [-D debug-level] [-G
article-limit] [-f newsrc-file] [-g server] [-m Mail-dir]
[-p port] [newsgroup[,...]]]
tind [[-h|-H|-V] | [-d|-P|-v] [-D debug-level] [-G
article-limit] [-f newsrc-file] [-I index-dir]]
DESCRIPTION
tin is a full-screen easy to use Usenet newsreader. It can
read news locally (i.e., /var/spool/news) or remotely
(rtin or tin -r option) via a NNTP (Network News Transport
Protocol) server. It will automatically utilize NOV (News
OVerview) style index files if available locally or via
the NNTP XOVER command.
tin has four separate levels of operation: Group selection
level, Group level, Thread level and Article level. Use
the `h' (help) command to view a list of the commands
available at a particular level.
On startup tin will show a list of the newsgroups found in
$HOME/.newsrc. An arrow '->' or highlighted bar will point
to the first newsgroup. Move to a group by using the ter
minal arrow keys (terminal dependent) or `j' and `k'. Use
PgUp/PgDn (terminal dependent) or Ctrl-U and Ctrl-D to
page up/down. Enter a newsgroup by pressing <RETURN>.
The <TAB> key enters the next newsgroup with unread arti
cles.
OPTIONS
-a Toggle ANSI color (default is off).
-A Force authentication on initial connect.
-c Create/update index files for every group in
$HOME/.newsrc or file specified by the ``-f''
option and mark all articles as read.
-d Don't load newsgroup descriptions (interactive
mode).
Delete index files for each group before
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indexing article (tind index daemon only).
-D debug-level
Enter debug-level (1 = NNTP, 2 = all).
-f file Use the specified file of subscribed to news
groups in place of $HOME/.newsrc.
-g server Use the server and newsrc specified in
$HOME/.tin/newsrctable.
-G article-limit
Limit the number of articles/group to retrieve
from the server.
-h Help listing all command line options.
-H Brief introduction to tin that is also shown
the first time it is started.
-I dir Directory in which to store newsgroup index
files. Default is $HOME/.tin/.news. This
option is disabled if tin is compiled as read
ing news via NNTP only.
-l Get number of articles per group from the
active file - this might result in incorrect
article counts but is usually faster than the
default which is to read the active file and
then check the article count via a GROUP com
mand ``-ln''.
-m dir Mailbox directory to use. Default is
$HOME/Mail.
-M user Mail unread articles to specified user for
later reading. For more information read sec
tion AUTOMATIC MAILING AND SAVING NEW NEWS.
-n Only load groups from the active file that are
subscribed to in the user's $HOME/.newsrc.
This allows a noticeable speedup when connect
ing via a slow line, but tin cannot tell which
groups are moderated.
-N Mail unread articles to yourself for later
reading. For more information read section
AUTOMATIC MAILING AND SAVING NEW NEWS.
-o Quick post all postponed articles and exit.
-p port Port to use if reading via NNTP (default is
119). This also overrides the environment
variable $NNTPPORT if set.
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-P Purge group index files of articles that no
longer exist. Care should be taken when using
this command as it checks each and every arti
cle in each group that is accessed. On a low
speed connection this can have an undesirable
effect and it also knocks the hell out of your
file-system (tind index daemon only).
-q Don't check for new newsgroups.
-Q Quick start. Start tin as quickly as possible.
Currently this is equivalent to ``-nqd''.
-r Read news remotely from the default NNTP
server specified in the environment variable
$NNTPSERVER or contained in the file
/etc/nntpserver.
-R Read news saved by the ``-S'' option.
-s dir Save/read articles to/in directory. Default is
$HOME/News.
-S Save unread articles for later reading by the
``-R'' option. For more information read sec
tion AUTOMATIC MAILING AND SAVING NEW NEWS.
-u Create/update index files for every group in
$HOME/.newsrc or file specified by the ``-f''
option. This option is disabled if tin
retrieves its index files via a NNTP server.
-U Start tin in the background to update index
files while reading news in the foreground.
This option is disabled if tin retrieves its
index files via a NNTP server.
-v Verbose mode for ``-c'', ``-M'', ``-S'',
``-u'' and ``-Z'' options.
-V Print version and date information.
-w Quick mode to post an article and then exit.
In order for this to be quick, tin is started
in the same way as with ``-n'' and so only
those groups in the newsrc are available for
posting.
-X No-overwrite mode. $HOME/.newsrc and files in
$HOME/.tin will not be overwritten but may be
created if they don't exist.
-z Only start tin if there is any new/unread
news. If there is news tin will position
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cursor at first group with unread news. Useful
for putting in login file.
-Z Check if there is any new/unread news and exit
with appropriate status. If ``-v'' option is
specified the number of unread articles in
each group is printed. An exit code 0 indi
cates no news, 1 that an error occurred and 2
that new/unread news exists. Useful for writ
ing scripts.
tin can also dynamically change its options by the `M'
menu command. Any changes are written to
$HOME/.tin/tinrc. For more information see section GLOBAL
OPTIONS MENU AND TINRC CONFIGURABLE VARIABLES.
The index daemon version, tind, supports the ``-d'',
``-f'', ``-h'', ``-I'' and ``-v'' options.
A list of groups can be specified after the other command
line options. This can be useful if you wish to yank in or
subscribe to a hand-picked subset of the active news
groups. The list may include the usual newsgroup wildcard
characters. It can be comma or space separated, eg:
alt.config news.*,!news.test
If you specify a single group-name, or a wildcard that
matches a single group, then you will automatically enter
that group. Otherwise the normal group selection screen
will appear, but with all the matching groups present too,
as though you had yanked just those groups in.
Once you use `y' to yank in all active groups, or `r' to
toggle the read/unread status, then the command line
groups will be gone. You can use `Y' to reread the active
file and get them back.
NB: With the ``-n'' flag, only unsubscribed groups in the
$HOME/.newsrc file (or the newsrc-file given by the ``-f''
command-line switch or via $HOME/.tin/newsrctable) can be
matched.
NEWS ADMINISTRATION
Maintaining Netnews on large networks of machines can be a
pretty time consuming job as I discovered when I was given
the job of maintaining our news system and news users.
A user starting tin for the first time can be automati
cally subscribed to a list of newsgroups that are deemed
appropriate by the news administrator. The subscriptions
file should be created in your news lib directory (i.e.,
$NEWSLIBDIR/subscriptions) and should have file permis
sions set to 0644. If you read news via NNTP, then your
1.4.1 November 19th, 1999 4
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news server must support the LIST SUBSCRIPTIONS command.
It is part of the Common NNTP Extensions and all modern
servers should understand it.
SCREEN FORMAT
tin has four separate levels of operation: Selection
level, Group level, Thread level and Article level.
At the Group Selection level the title displays (the name
of the newsserver and) the number of subscribed groups
(containing new unread articles). The newsgroups are dis
played in the middle of the screen with the number of
unread articles displayed on the same line in front.
->M 1 2 comp.security.announce Announcements from the CERT abou
M 2 1 news.admin.announce Announcements for news adminstra
3 22 news.software.misc News-related software other than
4 1475 news.software.nntp The Network News Transfer Protoc
X 5 124 news.software.readers Discussion of software used to r
There may also be a character prefixing the line. An
explanation follows:
u This group is unsubscribed. To see only your
subscribed groups use the `r' or `y' toggle
keys.
M This is a moderated group. Any posts you make
will have to be approved by the group adminis
trator before it will be made public. tin will
ask for confirmation before you post to a moder
ated group.
N This is a new newsgroup which has been created
since you last used tin. New newsgroups are not
subscribed to by default (However, see the
$AUTOSUBSCRIBE / $AUTOUNSUBSCRIBE environment
variables). Subscribe to it in the normal way if
you wish the group to continue to appear in your
Selection Menu. Simply ignore new newsgroups and
they will be gone the next time you start tin.
You will have to yank in all the groups to find
them in a later session.
D This group no longer exists. If you no longer
wish to see this group then unsubscribe from it
in the normal way. This flag will only appear if
you have set 'strip_bogus' to "ask" in the
Options Menu.
X You may no longer make posts to this group.
Often a group will be superseded by a more
appropriately named one.
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= This group has been renamed and you may no
longer post to it. If you do, then you will
receive an error from your newsserver telling
you the correct group to post to.
At the Group level the title contains the name of the
group, the number of conversation threads, the threading-
method, the total number of articles, the number of killed
articles and the number of hot articles. i.e., alt.sources
(5T(B) 23A 0K 0H). It might also contain an R if your are
in 'show_only_unread' mode and an M if the group is moder
ated. (The later does not work with the ``-n'' command-
line switch!). If a thread has unread articles in it it's
marked with a `+' in font of the total number of articles
in the thread. If a thread has hot articles in it (see
also section FILTERING ARTICLES) it's marked with a `*' in
font of the total number of articles in the thread. There
might also be shown the number of lines of the first
(unread) article in the thread right before the subject -
this is controlled by the 'show_lines' option.
de.admin.net-abuse.announce (11T(B) 13A 0K 0HM)
-> 1 + 3 108 bincancels in de.talk.sex Christopher Lueg <l
2 + 69 EMP/ECP gecancelt. xynx. BI= 10 Henning Weede <hwee
3 + 93 EMP gecancelt. SouthBeach/Palms Henning Weede <hwee
4 * 368 <1997-11-12> Fremdcancel-FAQ Thomas Roessler <ro
At the Thread level the screen usually (depends on the
threading method used) looks like this:
-> 0 [ 7] What is this funny tree in the thr Robert F. Simmig
1 [ 12] `-> Sephan Wagner <s
2 [ 230] | `->Tin thread-level (was: What is Bob Johnson <bob
3 [ 22] `->tin threading menu Brian Richardson
At the Article level the page header has the following
format:
Sun, 28 Dec 1997 21:21:01 de.admin.news.groups Thread 20 of 86
Lines 50 Re: EINSPRUCH zu RESULT:de.comm.mobil.ALL RespNo 47 of 59
Urs Janssen <urs@akk.org> at Arbeitskreis Kultur und Kommunikati
article-body
COMMON MOVING KEYS
This table shows the common keys used for moving around
all levels within tin.
ANSI/vt100 Other Terminals
Beg. of list/article Home ^ (1)
End of list/article End $ (2)
Page Up PgUp ^U or ^B or b
Page Down PgDn ^D or ^F or <SPACE>
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Line Up Up arrow k or ^P (not at article level)
Line Down Down arrow j or ^N (not at article level)
(1) also g in the article, config and help menus
(2) also G in the article, config and help menus
COMMON EDITING COMMANDS
An emacs style editing package allows the easy editing of
input strings. An history list allows the easy reuse of
previously entered strings. In addition to the cursor
keys, the following commands are available when editing a
string:
^A, ^E move to beginning or end of line, respectively.
^F, ^B non-destructive move forward or back one loca
tion, respectively.
^D delete the character currently under the cursor,
or send EOF if no characters in the buffer.
^H, <DEL> delete character left of the cursor.
^K delete from cursor to end of line.
^P, ^N move through history, previous and next, respec
tively.
^L, ^R redraw the current line.
<CR> places line on history list if non-blank,
appends newline and returns to the caller.
<ESC> aborts the present editing operation.
GLOBAL COMMANDS
The following commands are available at all 4 menu levels
and always have the same effect.
! Shell escape. ! by itself will launch a shell, !
<command> will run an external <command> This
facility may have been disabled by the System
Administrator
& Toggle use of ANSI color.
^L Redraw the current screen.
^O Reload postponed article. If your system blocks
CTRL-O you must quote it by pressing CTRL-V
first. The postpone-menu offers the following
actions: `y' = reload and spawn editor; `Y' =
post article (without spawning editor); `A' =
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post all postponed articles (without spawning
editor); `n' = skip this article; `q' = quit
postponed menu. Currently there is no 'simple'
way to delete a postponed article from the post
poned-file, you have to use the following com
mand sequence instead: reload it with '^O',
enter editor with 'y', quit editor, discard
posting with 'q'. See also ``-o'' command-line
switch.
O Reload postponed article. See also ``-o'' com
mand-line switch.
W List articles posted by user. The date posted,
the newsgroup and the subject are listed.
v Print tin version information.
NEWSGROUP SELECTION COMMANDS
4 Select group 4.
^R Reset $HOME/.newsrc file. This will destroy all
records of which articles have been read, so use
this carefully.
# Choose a range of articles to be affected by the
next command. See the section RANGES for more
information.
/ Search for a group by name and description (if
displayed).
? Backward search through the group names and
descriptions.
<CR> Read current group.
<TAB> Enter next group with unread news. Will wrap
around to the beginning of the group selection
list looking for unread groups.
c Make current group as all read [after confirma
tion] and move to the next group in the group
selection list.
C Mark current group as all read [after confirma
tion] and enter the next unread group in the
group selection list.
d Toggle display to show just the group name or
the group name and the group descriptions.
g Choose a new group by name. This command can be
used to access any group, even those not
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tin(1) A Usenet newsreader tin(1)
currently yanked in.
h Help screen of newsgroup selection commands. You
can use / and ? to search on this screen.
H Toggle the display of help mini menu at the bot
tom of the screen.
i Toggle the display of the description of the
current newsgroup in the last line. This will
not be available if tin was started with the -d
option.
I Toggle inverse video.
m Move the current group within the group selec
tion list. By entering `1' the group will
become the first displayed group in the list, by
entering `8' the eighth group in the list etc.
By entering `$' the group will be the last group
displayed.
M User configurable options menu (for more infor
mation see section GLOBAL OPTIONS MENU AND TINRC
CONFIGURABLE VARIABLES).
n Enter next group with unread news. This key is
identical to <TAB>
N Positions the cursor on the next group with
unread articles in it.
q Quit tin - ask the user to confirm if 'con
firm_to_quit' is on.
Q Quit tin - don't ask the user to confirm.
r Toggle display of all subscribed to groups and
just those groups containing unread articles.
Command has no effect if groups were specified
on the command line when tin was started.
R Mail a bug report or comment to <tin-
bugs@tin.org>. This is the best way of getting
bugs fixed and features added/changed.
s Subscribe to current group.
S Subscribe to groups matching user specified pat
tern.
u Unsubscribe to current group. This can be used
to remove bogus groups. See 'strip_bogus' in
the GLOBAL OPTIONS MENU AND TINRC CONFIGURABLE
1.4.1 November 19th, 1999 9
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VARIABLES section.
U Unsubscribe to groups matching user specified
pattern.
w Post an article to current group. If posting
fails for some reason, you'll get the chance to
edit (`e') the article again, postpone (`o') it
for later processing (see also ``-o''command-
line switch) or discard (`q') it.
X Quit tin without saving any changes to the con
figuration.
y Yanks in all groups. Toggles the displayed
groups between all the groups in the $NEWSLIB
DIR/active file and just those that are sub
scribed to in $HOME/.newsrc.
Y Reread the active file to see if any new news
has arrived since starting tin.
z Mark all articles in the current group as
unread.
Z Identical to z.
GROUP INDEX COMMANDS
4 Select article 4.
^A Auto select article(s) using a menu. Read the
section FILTERING ARTICLES for more information.
^K Kill article(s) using a menu. Read the section
FILTERING ARTICLES for more information.
# Choose a range of articles to be affected by the
next command. See the section RANGES for more
information.
- Re-enter the last message that was viewed.
/ Search forward for specified subject.
? Search backward for specified subject.
* Select current thread for later processing.
+ Perform auto-selection on current group.
. Toggle selection of current thread. If at least
one unread article, (but not every unread arti
cle) in the current thread is selected, then all
unread articles become selected.
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; For each thread in current group, if it at least
one unread article is selected, all unread arti
cles become selected. This is useful for auto-
selection on author where reader wants to see
entire thread.
= Prompts for a pattern with which to match on.
All threads whose subjects match the pattern
will be marked selected. A pattern of ``*'' will
match all subjects. Entering just <CR> will re-
use the last pattern that was entered.
@ Reverse all selections on all articles.
~ Undo all selections on all articles. It clears
the toggle effect of `X' command. Thus after
first doing a `X', one can then do `~' to reset
articles. Thus, one can iteratively whittle down
uninteresting threads.
| Pipe current article / thread / auto-selected
(hot) articles / articles matching pattern /
tagged articles into command. See the section
MAILING PIPING PRINTING REPOSTING AND SAVING
ARTICLES for more information.
[ Auto select article(s) with a single key [after
confirmation]. The defaults used for selection
are based upon the following four tinrc config
variables:
default_filter_select_case
default_filter_select_expire
default_filter_select_global
default_filter_select_header
Read the section GLOBAL OPTIONS MENU AND TINRC
CONFIGURABLE VARIABLES for a full explanation of
these variables and FILTERING ARTICLES for more
information on filtering.
] Kill article(s) with a single key [after confir
mation]. The defaults used for killing are based
upon the following four tinrc config variables:
default_filter_kill_case
default_filter_kill_expire
default_filter_kill_global
default_filter_kill_header
Read the section GLOBAL OPTIONS MENU AND TINRC
CONFIGURABLE VARIABLES for a full explanation of
these variables and FILTERING ARTICLES for more
information on filtering.
<CR> Read current article.
<TAB> View next unread article or group.
1.4.1 November 19th, 1999 11
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a Author forward search. This searches for arti
cles with a specific From: line.
A Author backward search. Otherwise, see 'a'
above.
B Search the body of all articles in group (can be
slow). You can abort the search using 'q'.
c Mark all articles as read [after confirmation]
then return to the group selection list.
C Mark all articles as read [after confirmation]
and enter the next group with unread news.
d Cycle the display of the author through all the
possible options for the tinrc variable
'show_author'.
g Choose a new group by name. This command can be
used to access any group, even those not cur
rently yanked in.
G Toggle article/group limit.
h Help screen of group index commands. You can use
/ and ? to search on this screen.
H Toggle the display of help mini menu at the bot
tom of the screen.
i Display the subject of the first article in the
current thread in the last line.
I Toggle inverse video.
K Mark article/thread as read and move onto the
next unread article/thread.
l Open the thread under the current cursor posi
tion.
L Look up article by ``Message:-ID:''.
m Mail current article / thread / auto-selected
(hot) articles / articles matching pattern /
tagged articles to someone. See the section
MAILING PIPING PRINTING REPOSTING AND SAVING
ARTICLES for more information.
M User configurable options menu (for more infor
mation see section GLOBAL OPTIONS MENU AND TINRC
CONFIGURABLE VARIABLES).
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n Go to next group.
N Go to next unread article.
o Send current article / thread / auto-selected
(hot) articles / articles matching pattern /
tagged articles to printer. See the section
MAILING PIPING PRINTING REPOSTING AND SAVING
ARTICLES for more information.
p Go to previous group.
P Go to previous unread article.
q Return to previous level.
Q Quit tin - don't ask the user to confirm.
r Toggle the display between all articles and
unread articles
R Mail a bug report or comment to <tin-
bugs@tin.org>. This is the best way of getting
bugs fixed and features added/changed.
s Save current article / thread / auto-selected
(hot) articles / articles matching pattern /
tagged articles. See the section MAILING PIPING
PRINTING REPOSTING AND SAVING ARTICLES for more
information.
S Save tagged articles automatically without fur
ther prompting.
t Toggle tag-status of current article / thread
for mailing (`m') / piping (`|') / printing
(`o') / saving (`s') / reposting (`x').
T Automatically tag in order all the parts of the
current multi-part message
u Cycle the threading mode through no threading,
threading by subject, threading by references,
threading on both subject and references.
U Untag all articles that were tagged.
w Post an article to current group. If posting
fails for some reason, you'll get the chance to
edit (`e') the article again, postpone (`o') it
for later processing (see also ``-o''command-
line switch) or discard (`q') it.
x Repost an already posted article / thread /
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auto-selected (hot) articles / articles matching
pattern / tagged articles to another news
group(s). Useful for reposting from global to
local newsgroups. Do not use this to cross-post
your own articles.
X Mark all unread articles that have not been
selected as read, redraw screen to reflect
changes and put index at the first thread to
begin reading. Pressing `X' again will toggle
back to the way it was before. See `~' command
for clearing the toggle effect.
z Mark current article as unread.
Z Mark current thread as unread.
THREAD LISTING COMMANDS
4 Select article 4 within thread.
# Choose a range of articles to be affected by the
next command. See the section RANGES for more
information.
- Re-enter the last message that was viewed.
/ Search forward for a specified subject.
? Search backwards for a specified subject.
* Select the current thread for later processing.
. Toggle selection of current article.
@ Reverse article selections.
~ Undo all selections on current thread.
<CR> Read current article within thread.
<TAB> View next unread article within thread.
a Author forward search. This searches for arti
cles with a specific From: line. The search will
wrap over into the next thread if nothing is
found in the current one.
A Author backward search. Otherwise, see 'a'
above.
B Search the body of all articles in group (can be
slow). You can abort the search using 'q'.
c Mark thread as read [after confirmation] and
1.4.1 November 19th, 1999 14
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return to the group index page.
C Mark thread as read [after confirmation] and
enter the next thread containing unread news.
d Cycle the display of the author through all the
possible options for the tinrc variable
'show_author'.
h Help screen of thread listing commands. You can
use / and ? to search on this screen.
H Toggle the display of help mini menu at the bot
tom of the screen.
i Display the subject of the current article in
the last line.
I Toggle inverse video.
K Mark thread as read.
L Look up article by ``Message:-ID:''.
m Mail current article / thread / auto-selected
(hot) articles / articles matching pattern /
tagged articles to someone. See the section
MAILING PIPING PRINTING REPOSTING AND SAVING
ARTICLES for more information.
q Return to previous level.
Q Quit tin - don't ask the user to confirm.
r Toggle display to show all articles or only
unread articles.
R Mail a bug report or comment to <tin-
bugs@tin.org>. This is the best way of getting
bugs fixed and features added/changed.
s Save current article / thread / auto-selected
(hot) articles / articles matching pattern /
tagged articles. See the section MAILING PIPING
PRINTING REPOSTING AND SAVING ARTICLES for more
information.
S Save tagged articles automatically without fur
ther prompting.
t Toggle tag status of current article for mailing
(`m') / piping (`|') / printing (`o') / saving
(`s') / reposting (`x').
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U Untag all tagged threads
w Post an article to current group. If posting
fails for some reason, you'll get the chance to
edit (`e') the article again, postpone (`o') it
for later processing (see also ``-o''command-
line switch) or discard (`q') it.
z Mark current article in thread as unread.
Z Mark all articles in thread as unread.
ARTICLE VIEWER COMMANDS
0 Read the first (base) article in this thread.
4 Read response 4 in this thread.
^A Auto select article(s) using a menu. Read the
section FILTERING ARTICLES for more information.
^E Reply through mail to the author of the current
article with a copy of the article with all
headers included.
^G Perform PGP operations on article.
^H Toggles the display of all the header fields.
^K Kill article(s) using a menu. Read the section
FILTERING ARTICLES for more information.
^T Toggle the TAB width between 4 and 8 characters.
^W Post a followup to the current article with a
copy of the article with all headers included.
" Toggle $TEX2ISO decoding for current article.
% Toggle ROT-13 decoding for this article. This is
the same as d.
- Re-enter the last message that was viewed.
/ Forward search the text of this article.
: Skip to the end of the quoted text in this arti
cle.
< Goto the first article in the current thread.
> Goto the last article in the current thread.
_ Toggle word highlighting on/off.
1.4.1 November 19th, 1999 16
tin(1) A Usenet newsreader tin(1)
| Pipe current article / thread / auto-selected
(hot) articles / articles matching pattern /
tagged articles into command. See the section
MAILING PIPING PRINTING REPOSTING AND SAVING
ARTICLES for more information.
[ Auto select article(s) with a single key. The
defaults used for selection are set based upon
the following four tinrc config variables:
default_filter_select_case
default_filter_select_expire
default_filter_select_global
default_filter_select_header
Read the section GLOBAL OPTIONS MENU AND TINRC
CONFIGURABLE VARIABLES for a full explanation of
these variables and FILTERING ARTICLES for more
information on filtering.
] Kill article(s) with a single key. The defaults
used for killing are based upon the following
four tinrc config variables:
default_filter_kill_case
default_filter_kill_expire
default_filter_kill_global
default_filter_kill_header
Read the section GLOBAL OPTIONS MENU AND TINRC
CONFIGURABLE VARIABLES for a full explanation of
these variables and FILTERING ARTICLES for more
information on filtering.
<CR> Goto next base article.
<TAB> Goto next unread article.
a Author forward search.
A Author backward search.
B Search the body of all articles in group (can be
slow). You can abort the search using 'q'.
c Mark the current thread as read [after confirma
tion] and return to the group index page.
C Mark the rest of the current thread as read
[after confirmation] and enter the next thread
with unread articles. If no unread articles are
left in this group, enter the next group with
unread news.
d Toggle ROT-13 decoding for this article.
D Cancel the current article. It must have been
posted by the same user. The cancel message can
1.4.1 November 19th, 1999 17
tin(1) A Usenet newsreader tin(1)
be seen in the newsgroup 'control' or 'con
trol.cancel'.
e Edit the current article. Only available when in
a mailgroup.
f Post a followup to the current article with a
copy of the article included.
F Post a followup to the current article without
including a a copy of the article.
g Goto the start of the article
G Goto the end of the article
h Help screen of article pager commands. You can
use / and ? to search on this screen.
H Toggle the display of the mini help menu at the
bottom of the screen.
i Display the subject of the current article in
the last line.
I Toggle inverse video.
k Mark article as read and move on to next unread
article. Behaves identically to N.
K Mark rest of thread as read and move onto the
next unread thread.
l Show the thread menu that the current article is
a part of.
L Look up article by ``Message:-ID:''.
m Mail current article / thread / auto-selected
(hot) articles / articles matching pattern /
tagged articles to someone. See the section
MAILING PIPING PRINTING REPOSTING AND SAVING
ARTICLES for more information.
M User configurable options menu (for more infor
mation see section GLOBAL OPTIONS MENU AND TINRC
CONFIGURABLE VARIABLES).
n Go to the next article.
N Go to the next unread article.
o Send current article / thread / auto-selected
(hot) articles / articles matching pattern /
1.4.1 November 19th, 1999 18
tin(1) A Usenet newsreader tin(1)
tagged articles to printer. See the section
MAILING PIPING PRINTING REPOSTING AND SAVING
ARTICLES for more information.
p Go to the previous article.
P Go to the previous unread article.
q Return to the previous level.
Q Quit tin - don't ask the user to confirm.
r Reply through mail to the author of the current
article with a copy of the article included.
R Reply through mail to the author of the current
article without including the original article.
s Save current article / thread / auto-selected
(hot) articles / articles matching pattern /
tagged articles. See the section MAILING PIPING
PRINTING REPOSTING AND SAVING ARTICLES for more
information.
S Save tagged articles automatically without fur
ther prompting.
t Toggle tag status of current article for mailing
(`m') / piping (`|') / printing (`o') / saving
(`s') / reposting (`x').
T Return to group selection level.
u Goto parent article.
w Post an article to the current group. If posting
fails for some reason, you'll get the chance to
edit (`e') the article again, postpone (`o') it
for later processing (see also ``-o''command-
line switch) or discard (`q') it.
x Repost an already posted article / thread /
auto-selected (hot) articles / articles matching
pattern / tagged articles to another news
group(s). Useful for reposting from global to
local newsgroups. Do not use this to crosspost
your own articles.
z Mark article as unread.
Z Mark the current thread as unread.
GLOBAL OPTIONS MENU AND TINRC CONFIGURABLE VARIABLES
At startup, tin reads in the configuration file. This
1.4.1 November 19th, 1999 19
tin(1) A Usenet newsreader tin(1)
contains a list of variables that can be used to configure
the way tin works. If it exists, the global configuration
file, /usr/lib/news/tinrc is read. After that, the users
own configuration file is read from $HOME/.tin/tinrc. The
global file is useful for distributing system-wide
defaults to new users who have no private tinrc yet.
The variables are user configurable by editing
$HOME/.tin/tinrc directly. Most of them can also be set in
the GLOBAL OPTIONS MENU which is accessed by pressing `M'
at all levels. It allows the user to customize the
behaviour of tin. The options are saved to the file
$HOME/.tin/tinrc when you exit tin so don't edit the file
directly whilst tin is running.
In the OPTIONS menu use the cursor keys in the usual way
to move around. Use <CR> to 'open' the option you wish to
change. You will need to enter a new value or use <SPACE>
to toggle the available options. <CR> will save the new
value, <ESCAPE> will abort without saving changes.
As with the other menus, `^L' will redraw the screen. You
can use `/' and `?' to search for a specific option. Use
'q' to exit the OPTIONS menu and keep your changes. Use
'Q' to exit without keeping your changes.
Here is a full list of all the available variables. The
name in braces is the name of the corresponding setting in
$HOME/.tin/tinrc.
Add posted articles to filter (add_posted_to_filter)
If ON add posted articles to filter for highlighting
follow-ups. Default is ON.
Insert 'User-Agent:'-header (advertising)
Turn ON advertising in header (``User-Agent:'').
Default is ON.
Skip multipart/alternative parts (alternative_handling)
If ON strip multipart/alternative messages automati
cally.
Character to show deleted articles (art_marked_deleted)
The character used to show that an article was
deleted. Default is 'D'.
Character to show inrange articles (art_marked_inrange)
The character used to show that an article is in a
range. Default is '#'.
Character to show articles that will be marked
unread (art_marked_return)
The character used to show that an article will return
as an unread article when the group is next entered.
1.4.1 November 19th, 1999 20
tin(1) A Usenet newsreader tin(1)
Default is '-'.
Character to show selected articles (art_marked_selected)
The character used to show that an article/thread is
auto-selected (hot). Default is '*'.
Character to show unread articles (art_marked_unread)
The character used to show that an article has not
been read. Default is '+'.
Ask before using metamail (ask_for_metamail)
If ON tin will ask before using metamail to display
MIME messages. This only occurs if 'use_metamail' is
also switched ON. Default is ON.
Send you a blind cc automatically (auto_bcc)
If ON automatically put your name in the ``Bcc:''
field when mailing an article. Default is OFF
Send you a cc automatically (auto_cc)
If ON automatically put your name in the ``Cc:'' field
when mailing an article. Default is OFF
List thread using right arrow key (auto_list_thread)
If ON automatically list thread when entering it using
right arrow key. Default is ON.
Use Archive-name: header for save (auto_save)
If ON articles/threads with ``Archive-name:'' in
header will be automatically saved with the Archive-
name & part/patch no and post processed if process
type is not set to none. Default is OFF
Save articles in batch mode (-S) (batch_save)
If set ON articles/threads will be saved in batch mode
when save ``-S'' or mail ``-M'' is specified on the
command line. Default is OFF.
Show mini menu & posting etiquette (beginner_level)
If set ON a mini menu of the most useful commands will
be displayed at the bottom of the screen for each
level. Also a short posting etiquette will be dis
played after composing an article. Default is ON.
Cache NNTP overview files locally (cache_overview_files)
If ON, create local copies of NNTP overview files.
This can be used to considerably speed up accessing
large groups when using a slow connection.
Catchup read groups when quitting (catchup_read_groups)
If set ON the user is asked when quitting if all
groups read during the current session should be
marked read. Default is OFF.
1.4.1 November 19th, 1999 21
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Standard background color (col_back)
Standard background color
Color of sender (From:) (col_from)
Color of sender (From:)
col_head
Color of header-lines
col_help
Color of help pages
col_invers_bg
Color of background for inverse text
col_invers_fg
Color of foreground for inverse text
col_markdash
Color of words emphasised like _this_. See also
word_h_display_marks
col_markstar
Color of words emphasised like *this*. See also
word_h_display_marks
col_minihelp
Color of mini help menu
col_newsheaders
Color of actual news header fields
col_normal
Standard foreground color
col_quote
Color of quoted lines
col_quote2
Color of twice quoted lines
col_quote3
Color of >=3 times quoted lines
col_response
Color of response counter. This is the text that says
'Response x of y' in the article viewer.
col_signature
Color of signatures
col_subject
Color of article subject
1.4.1 November 19th, 1999 22
tin(1) A Usenet newsreader tin(1)
col_text
Color of text-lines
col_title
Color of title text on all the menu screens
Confirm commands before executing (confirm_action)
Ask for confirmation before executing certain danger
ous commands (e.g., `c'atchup). Default is ON. Com
mands that this affects are marked in this manual with
'[after confirmation]'.
Confirm before quitting (confirm_to_quit)
If ON you will be asked to confirm that you wish to
exit tin when you use the 'q' command. Default is ON.
they are intended for internal use only.
default_art_search
default_author_search
default_config_search
The last article/author/config option that was
searched for
default_editor_format
The format string used to create the editor start com
mand with parameters. Default is '%E +%N %F' (i.e.,
/bin/vi +7 .article).
default_filter_days
Default is 28.
default_filter_kill_case
Defaults for quick (1 key) kill filter case. ON =
filter case sensitive, OFF = ignore case. Default is
OFF.
default_filter_kill_expire
Defaults for quick (1 key) kill filter expire. ON =
limit to 'default_filter_days', OFF = don't ever
expire. Default is OFF.
default_filter_kill_global
Defaults for quick (1 key) kill filter global.
ON=apply to all groups OFF=apply to current group.
Default is ON.
default_filter_kill_header
Defaults for quick (1 key) kill filter header. 0,1 =
``Subject:'', 2,3 = ``From:'', 4 = ``Message-Id:'' &
full ``References:'' line, 5 = ``Message-Id:'' & last
``References:'' entry only, 6 = ``Message-Id:'' entry
only, 7 = ``Lines:''
1.4.1 November 19th, 1999 23
tin(1) A Usenet newsreader tin(1)
default_filter_select_case
Defaults for quick (1 key) auto-selection filter case.
ON=filter case sensitive OFF=ignore case. Default is
OFF.
default_filter_select_expire
Defaults for quick (1 key) auto-selection filter
expire. ON = limit to 'default_filter_days', OFF =
don't ever expire. Default is OFF.
default_filter_select_global
Defaults for quick (1 key) auto-selection filter
global. ON=apply to all groups OFF=apply to current
group. Default is ON.
default_filter_select_header
Defaults for quick (1 key) auto-selection filter
header. 0,1 = ``Subject:'', 2,3 = ``From:'', 4 =
``Message-Id:'' & full ``References:'' line, 5 =
``Message-Id:'' & last ``References:'' entry only, 6 =
``Message-Id:'' entry only, 7 = ``Lines:''
default_goto_group
default_group_search
default_mail_address
Mail directory (default_maildir)
The directory where articles/threads are to be saved
in mailbox format. This feature is mainly for use
with the Elm mail program. It allows the user to save
articles/threads/groups simply by giving '=' as the
filename to save to. Default is $HOME/Mail.
Invocation of your mail command (default_mailer_format)
The format string used to create the mailer command
with parameters that is used for mailing articles to
other people. Default is '%M "%T" < %F' (i.e.,
/bin/mail "iain" < .article). The flexible format
allows other mailers with different command line
parameters to be used such as 'elm -s "%S" "%T" <
"%F"' (i.e., elm -s "subject" "iain" < .article) or
'sendmail -oem -t < %F' (i.e. sendmail -oem -t <
.article).
default_move_group
default_pipe_command
default_post_newsgroups
default_post_subject
1.4.1 November 19th, 1999 24
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Printer program with options (default_printer)
The printer program with options that is to be used to
print articles. The default is lpr(1) for BSD
machines and lp(1) for SysV machines. Printing from
tin may have been disabled by the System Administrator
default_range_group
default_range_select
default_range_thread
default_regex_pattern
default_repost_group
default_save_file
default_save_mode
Directory to save articles/threads in (default_savedir)
Directory where articles/threads are saved. Default is
$HOME/News.
default_select_pattern
default_shell_command
Create signature from path/command (default_sigfile)
The path that specifies the signature file to use when
posting, following up to or replying to an article. If
the path is a directory then the signature will be
randomly generated from files that are in the speci
fied directory. Default is $HOME/.Sig.
default_subject_search
Show RFC 2047 ^H-header undecoded (display_mime_all
header_asis)
Similar to display_mime_header_asis, but works on
CTRL-h (show all headers) instead of news_head
ers_to_display.
Show RFC 2047 header undecoded (display_mime_header_asis)
If ON, RFC 1522 (now RFC 2047)-style header fields are
displayed without decoding. No effect on header dis
played at the top of each page in article mode and
summary mode (they are always decoded). Default is
OFF so that RFC 1522 (RFC 2047)-style headers (desig
nated in news_header_to_display) will be decoded back
to 8bit when displayed.
Draw -> instead of highlighted bar (draw_arrow)
Allows groups/articles to be selected by an arrow '->'
1.4.1 November 19th, 1999 25
tin(1) A Usenet newsreader tin(1)
if set ON or by an highlighted bar if set OFF.
Force redraw after certain commands (force_screen_redraw)
Specifies whether a screen redraw should always be
done after certain external commands. Default is OFF.
Scroll full page (OFF=half page) (full_page_scroll)
If set ON scrolling of groups will be a full page at a
time, otherwise half a page at a time. Currently this
is not implemented in the pager and in the GLOBAL
OPTIONS MENU.
Number of articles per group to get (getart_limit)
If use_getart_limit is ON and getart_limit is > 0 not
more than getart_limit articles/group are fetched from
the server. If use_getart_limit is ON and getart_limit
is < 0 tin will start fetching articles from your
first unread minus absolute value of getart_limit.
Default is 0, which means no limit.
Catchup group using left key (group_catchup_on_exit)
If ON catchup group when leaving with the left arrow
key. Default is ON.
Max. length of group names shown (groupname_max_length)
Maximum length of the names of newsgroups to be dis
played so that more of the newgroup description can be
displayed. Default is 32.
info_in_last_line
If ON, show current group description or article sub
ject in the last line (not in the pager and global
menu) - `i' toggles setting. This facility is useful
as the full width of the screen is available to dis
play long subjects.
Use inverse video for page headers (inverse_okay)
If ON use inverse video for page headers at different
levels. Default is ON.
Keep failed articles in ~/dead.articles (keep_dead_arti
cles)
If ON keep all failed postings in $HOME/dead.articles
besides keeping the last failed posting in
$HOME/dead.article. Default is ON.
Keep posted articles in ~/Mail/posted (keep_posted_arti
cles)
If ON keep all postings in $HOME/Mail/posted. Default
is ON.
Handling of killed articles (kill_level)
This option controls the processing and display of
articles that are killed. There are 3 options: 0
1.4.1 November 19th, 1999 26
tin(1) A Usenet newsreader tin(1)
(default) is the 'traditional' behaviour of tin. Only
unread articles are killed once only by marking them
read. Options 1 and 2 will process all articles in the
group and therefore there is a processing overhead
when using them. Option 1 will thread killed articles
as normal but they will be marked with a 'K'. Option
2 simply does not display killed articles. kill_level
was first present is tin-1.2 and has been resurrected
for 1.4
Use 8bit characters in mail headers (mail_8bit_header)
Allows 8bit characters unencoded in the header of mail
message. Default is OFF. Turning it ON is effective
only if mail_mime_encoding is also set to 8bit. Leav
ing it OFF is safe for most users and compliant to
Internet Mail Standard (STD 11/RFC 822 and RFC 2047).
Mail address (mail_address)
User's mail address (and fullname), if not user
name@host. This is used when creating articles and
sending mail.
MIME encoding in mail messages (mail_mime_encoding)
MIME encoding of the body in mail message, if neces
sary (8bit, base64, quoted-printable, 7bit) Default is
8bit and no encoding (or charset conversion) is per
formed (i.e., local charset is used as it is). If set
to 7bit, CJK text in 8bit encoding (EUC-CN, EUC-TW,
EUC-JP, EUC-KR, Big5, Shift_JIS) is supposed to be
converted into ISO-2022-KR/JP/CN. Only EUC-KR to
ISO-2022-KR conversion has been implemented, however.
Accordingly, setting it to 7bit has no effect on MIME
charsets/encodings other than EUC-KR (Korean).
Quote line when mailing (mail_quote_format)
Default is "In article %M you wrote:"
Mark saved articles/threads as read (mark_saved_read)
If ON mark articles that are saved as read. Default is
ON.
MM_CHARSET (mm_charset)
Charset supported locally, which is also used for MIME
header (charset parameter and charset name in header
encoding) in mail and news posting unless local
charset/encoding needs to be converted into other
charset/encoding as in case of EUC-KR which is con
verted to ISO-2022-KR if mail_mime_encoding is set to
7bit. Possible values include ISO-8859-X (where X is
1 to 10), EUC-JP, EUC-CN, EUC-KR, EUC-TW, Big5,
Shift_JIS, and so forth. If MIME_STRICT_CHARSET is
defined at the compile time, text in charset other
than the value of this parameter is considered not
displayable and represented as '?'. Otherwise, all
1.4.1 November 19th, 1999 27
tin(1) A Usenet newsreader tin(1)
character sets are regarded as compatible with the
display. If it's not set, the value of the environment
variable $MM_CHARSET is used. US-ASCII or compile-time
default is used in case neither of them is defined.
newnews
These are internal timers used by tin to keep track of
new newsgroups. Do not change them unless you under
stand what they are for.
Display these header fields (or *) (news_headers_to_dis
play)
Which news headers you wish to see. If you want to see
_all_ the headers, place an '*' as this value. This is
the only way a wildcard can be used. If you enter
'X-' as the value, you will see all headers beginning
with 'X-' (like X-Alan or X-Pape). You can list more
than one by delimiting with spaces. Not defining any
thing turns off this option.
Do not display these header fields (news_head
ers_to_not_display)
Same as news_headers_to_display except it denotes the
opposite. An example of using both options might be
if you thought X- headers were A Good Thing(tm), but
thought Alan and Pape were miscreants...well then you
would do something like this: news_headers_to_dis
play=X- news_headers_to_not_display=X-Alan X-Pape Not
defining anything turns off this option.
Quote line when following up (news_quote_format)
Format of quote line when posting/following up an
article (%A=Address, %D=Date, %F=Addr+Name, %G=Group
name, %M=Message-Id, %N=Name). Default is "%F wrote:"
PgDn goes to next article at EOF (pgdn_goto_next)
If ON the PGDN or DOWN command will goto next article
when pressed at end of message
Goto first unread article in group (pos_first_unread)
If ON put cursor at first unread article in group oth
erwise at last article. Default is ON.
Use 8bit characters in news headers (post_8bit_header)
Allows 8bit characters unencoded in the header of news
article. Default is OFF. Only enacted if
post_mime_encoding is also set to 8bit. In a number
of local hierarchies where 8bit characters are used,
using unencoded (raw) 8bit characters in header is
acceptable and sometimes even recommended so that you
need to check the convention adopted in the local
hierarchy of your interest to determine what to do
with this and post_mime_encoding.
1.4.1 November 19th, 1999 28
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MIME encoding in news messages (post_mime_encoding)
MIME encoding of the body in news message, if neces
sary. (8bit, base64, quoted-printable, 7bit) Default
is 8bit, which leads to no encoding (or charset con
version, i.e., local charset is posted as it is). If
set to 7bit, Chinese and Japanese text (in 8bit encod
ings such as EUC-CN, EUC-TW, EUC-JP, Shift_JIS, Big5)
is supposed to be converted into ISO-2022-CN/JP, but
it's NOT yet implemented. Therefore, currently 7bit
has NO effect (i.e. equivalent to 8bit) whatever MIME
charset/encoding is chosen.
post_process_command
Full pathname of a command to be run after success
fully uudecoding an article / thread. This option
should be used in conjunction with post processing
type 2=(uudecode) A sample script (for Linux) demon
strates a possible use for this:
# !/bin/bash
# Sample Tin newsreader postprocessor.
# $1 is the filename that has been uudecoded.
#
[ ! -f "$1" ] && exit 1
case ${1##*.} in
# View pictures in console mode or X
#
gif|jpg|GIF|JPG)
[ -z "$DISPLAY" ] && zgv $1 || xv $1
;;
# List zip archives
#
zip)
unzip -l $1
;;
*)
echo "Unsupported or missing suffix: ${1##*.}"
file $1
;;
esac
echo ""
echo "Press <RETURN> to exit."
read ans
# end of sample script
Post process saved art/thread with (post_process_type)
This specifies the default type of post processing to
perform on saved articles. The following types of pro
cessing are allowed:
1.4.1 November 19th, 1999 29
tin(1) A Usenet newsreader tin(1)
--none.
--unpacking of multi-part shar files (shell
archives).
--unpacking of multi-part uuencoded files.
--unpacking of multi-part uuencoded files, which
produce a *.zoo archive whose contents is listed.
--unpacking of multi-part uuencoded files, which
produce a *.zoo archive whose contents is
extracted.
--unpacking of multi-part uuencoded files, which
produce a *.zip archive whose contents is listed.
--unpacking of multi-part uuencoded files, which
produce a *.zip archive whose contents is
extracted.
--unpacking of multi-part uuencoded files, which
produce a *.lha archive whose contents is listed
(AmigaOS version only).
--unpacking of multi-part uuencoded files, which
produce a *.lha archive whose contents is
extracted (AmigaOS version only).
Print all headers when printing (print_header)
If ON, then the full article header is sent to the
printer. Otherwise only the ``Subject:'' and ``From:''
fields are output. Default is OFF.
Process only unread articles (process_only_unread)
If ON only save/print/pipe/mail unread articles
(tagged articles excepted). Default is ON.
Show empty Followup-To in editor (prompt_followupto)
If ON show empty Followup-To header when editing an
article
Characters used as quote-marks (quote_chars)
The character used in quoting included text to article
followups and mail replies. The '_' character repre
sents a blank character and is replaced with ' ' when
read. Default is '>_'.
Quote empty lines (quote_empty_lines)
If ON quote empty lines, too. Default is OFF due to
backward compatibility, but it is highly recommended
to turn it on as it makes quotes much more readable.
Expression for highlighting quoted text (quote_regex)
A regular expression that will be applied when reading
articles. All matching lines are shown in col_quote.
If quote_regex is blank, then tin uses a builtin
default for this.
Expression for highlighting twice quoted text
(quote_regex2)
A regular expression that will be applied when reading
1.4.1 November 19th, 1999 30
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articles. All matching lines are shown in col_quote2.
If quote_regex2 is blank, then tin uses a builtin
default for this.
Expression for highlighting =>3 times quoted text
(quote_regex3)
A regular expression that will be applied when reading
articles. All matching lines are shown in col_quote3.
If quote_regex3 is blank, then tin uses a builtin
default for this.
Quote signatures (quote_signatures)
If ON quote signatures, too.
Interval in secs to reread active
(reread_active_file_secs)
The news active file is reread at regular intervals to
show if any new news has arrived. Default is 1200.
Setting this to 0 will disable this feature.
Save mail in MMDF style (save_to_mmdf_mailbox)
Allows articles to be saved to a MMDF style mailbox
instead of mbox format. Default is OFF unless reading
news on SCO Unix which uses MMDF by default.
In group menu, show author by (show_author)
--None (0) only the ``Subject:'' line will be dis
played.
--Addr (1) ``Subject:'' line & the address part of
the ``From:'' line are displayed.
--Name (2) ``Subject:'' line & the authors full
name part of the ``From:'' line are displayed.
--Both (3) ``Subject:'' line & all of the ``From:''
line are displayed.
Default is 2, authors full name.
Show description of each newsgroup (show_description)
If ON show a short group description text after news
group name at the group selection level. The ``-d''
commandline flag will override the setting and turn
descriptions off. The text used is taken from the
$NEWSLIBDIR/newsgroups file. Default is ON.
Show last line of previous page (show_last_line_prev_page)
The last line of the previous page will be displayed
as the first line of next page. Default is OFF.
Show no. of lines in thread listing (show_lines)
Show number of lines of first unread article in thread
listing (ON/OFF).
Show only unread articles (show_only_unread)
If ON show only new/unread articles otherwise show all
articles. Default is ON.
1.4.1 November 19th, 1999 31
tin(1) A Usenet newsreader tin(1)
Show only groups with unread articles
(show_only_unread_groups)
If ON show only subscribed to groups that contain
unread articles. Default is OFF.
Display signatures (show_signatures)
If OFF don't show signatures when displaying articles.
Display X-Comment-To: header (show_xcommentto)
If ON, the real name in the ``X-Comment-To:'' header
is displayed in the upper-right corner. Default is
OFF.
Prepend signature with '\n-- \n' (sigdashes)
If ON prepend the signature with sigdashes. Default is
ON.
Add signature when reposting (signature_repost)
If ON add signature to reposted articles.
Sort articles by (sort_article_type)
This specifies how articles should be sorted. The fol
lowing sort types are allowed:
--don't sort articles (none=0).
--sort articles by ``Subject:'' field (descending=1
& ascending=2).
--sort articles by ``From:'' field (descending=3 &
ascending=4).
--sort articles by ``Date:'' field (descending=5 &
ascending=6).
--sort articles by filtering score (descending=7 &
ascending=8).
Sort by ascending Date (6) is the default.
Spamtrap warning address parts (spamtrap_warn
ing_addresses)
Set this option to a list of comma-separated strings
to be warned if you are replying to an article by mail
where the e-mail address contains one of these
strings. The matching is case-insensitive.
Space goes to next unread article (space_goto_next_unread)
If ON the SPACE command will goto next unread article
at article viewer level when the end of the article is
reached (rn-style pager)
Start editor with line offset (start_editor_offset)
Set ON if the editor used for posting, follow-ups and
bug reports has the capability of starting and posi
tioning the cursor at a specified line within a file.
Default is ON.
Strip blanks of end of lines (strip_blanks)
Strips the blanks from the end of each line therefore
1.4.1 November 19th, 1999 32
tin(1) A Usenet newsreader tin(1)
speeding up the display when reading on a slow termi
nal or via modem. Default is ON.
Remove bogus groups from newsrc (strip_bogus)
Bogus groups are groups that are present in your
.newsrc file that no longer exist on the news server.
There are 3 options. 0 means do nothing & always keep
bogus groups. 1 means bogus groups will be permanently
removed. 2 means that bogus groups will appear on the
Group Selection Menu, prefixed with a 'D'. This allows
you to unsubscribe from them as and when you wish.
Default is 0 (Always Keep).
No unsubscribed groups in newsrc (strip_newsrc)
If ON, then unsubscribed groups will be permanently
removed from your .newsrc file. Default is OFF.
Do tab after X automatically (tab_after_X_selection)
If enabled will automatically goto the first unread
article after having selected all hot articles and
threads with the `X' command at group index level.
Default is OFF.
Tab goes to next unread article (tab_goto_next_unread)
If enabled pressing <TAB> at the article viewer level
will goto the next unread article immediately instead
of first paging through the current one. Default is
ON.
Thread articles by (thread_articles)
Defines which threading method to use. The choices
are: 0) Don't thread, 1) Thread on Subject only 2)
Thread on References only, 3) Thread on References
then Subject (default). It's also possible to set the
threading type on a per group basis by setting the
group attribute variable 'thread_arts' to 0 - 3 in the
file $HOME/.tin/attributes. (See also GROUP
ATTRIBUTES)
Catchup thread by using left key (thread_catchup_on_exit)
If ON catchup group/thread when leaving with the left
arrow key. Default is ON.
Remove ~/.article after posting (unlink_article)
If ON remove ~/.article after posting. Default is ON.
Use builtin inews (use_builtin_inews)
Allows the builtin NNTP inews to be enabled/disabled.
This has no effect when reading/posting direct to
local spool where external inews(1) will always be
used. Default is ON (enabled).
Limit number of articles fetched from server
(use_getart_limit)
1.4.1 November 19th, 1999 33
tin(1) A Usenet newsreader tin(1)
If enabled tin fetches max. getart_limit arti
cles/group from the server. Default is OFF.
Use ANSI color (use_color)
If enabled tin uses ANSI-colors. Default is OFF.
Use interactive mail reader (use_mailreader_i)
Interactive mailreader: if ON mailreader will be
invoked earlier for reply so you can use more of its
features (eg. MIME, pgp, ...) this option has to suit
default_mailer_format
Use metamail upon MIME articles (use_metamail)
If ON metamail can/will be used to display MIME arti
cles. Default is ON.
Use mouse in xterm (use_mouse)
Allows the mouse key support in a xterm(1x) to be
enabled/disabled. Default is OFF.
Wildcard matching (wildcard)
Allows you to select how tin matches strings. The
default is 0 and uses the wildmat notation, which is
how this has traditionally been handled. Setting this
to 1 allows you to use full POSIX regular expressions.
You will probably want to update your filter file if
you use this regularly. NB: Newsgroup names will
always be matched using the wildmat notation.
What to display instead of mark (word_h_display_marks)
Should the leading and ending stars and dashes also be
displayed, even when they are highlighting marks? 0 -
no 1 - yes, display mark 2 - print a space
instead 3 - print a space, but only in signatures
Word highlighting in message body (word_highlight)
Enable word highlighting. See word_h_display_marks for
the options available is this is enabled.
Quote line when cross-posting (xpost_quote_format)
Format is the same as for news_quote_format, this is
used when answering to a crossposting to several
groups with no ``Followup-To:'' set
GROUP ATTRIBUTES
tin allows certain attributes to be set on a per group
basis. These group attributes are read from the file
$HOME/.tin/attributes. A later version will provide a
menu interface to set all the attributes. At present you
will have to edit the file with your editor.
Note that the scope=<groupname> line has to be specified
before the attributes are specified for that group. All
attributes are set to a reasonable default so you only
1.4.1 November 19th, 1999 34
tin(1) A Usenet newsreader tin(1)
have to specify the attribute that you want to change
(i.e., savedir). All toggle attributes are set by specify
ing ON/OFF. Otherwise, these function exactly the same as
their global equivalents. The following group attributes
are available:
scope
maildir
Identical to the tinrc variable default_maildir
savedir
Identical to the tinrc variable default_savedir
savefile
organization
from
Identical to the tinrc variable mail_address
sigfile
followup_to
printer
auto_select
auto_save
batch_save
delete_tmp_files
show_only_unread
Identical to the tinrc variable of the same name
thread_arts
Identical to the tinrc variable thread_articles
show_author
Identical to the tinrc variable of the same name
sort_art_type
Identical to the tinrc variable sort_article_type
post_proc_type
Identical to the tinrc variable post_process_type
mailing_list
Used when a group is a mailing list. All responses to
the group will be directed to this email address
instead
1.4.1 November 19th, 1999 35
tin(1) A Usenet newsreader tin(1)
x_headers
A list of headers that will be automatically added
when posting
x_body
A piece of text that will be added at the start of a
message body. If this string starts with a / or ~ then
it is assumed to be the name of a file containing the
text to insert.
quick_kill_scope
quick_kill_expire
quick_kill_case
quick_kill_header
quick_select_scope
quick_select_expire
quick_select_case
quick_select_header
x_comment_to
news_quote_format
Identical to the tinrc variable of the same name
quote_chars
Identical to the tinrc variable of the same name
ispell
Examples:
# in *sources* set post process type to shar
scope=*sources*
post_proc_type=1
# in *binaries* set post process type to uudecode
# remove tmp files and set Followup-To: poster
scope=*binaries*
post_proc_type=2
delete_tmp_files=ON
followup_to=poster
# in fido.* newsgroups change quote_chars
# and add X-Comment-To: line
scope=fido.*
quote_chars=%s>_
x_comment_to=ON
1.4.1 November 19th, 1999 36
tin(1) A Usenet newsreader tin(1)
# in *.test newsgroups, don't append signature
# and preset Subject
scope=*.test
sigfile=--none
x_headers=Subject: test - ignore - no reply
FILTERING ARTICLES
When there is a subject or an author which you are either
very interested in, or find completely uninteresting, you
can easily instruct tin to auto-select or auto-kill arti
cles that match rules that you specify. This can be any
thing from the name of the author to the number of lines
in an article.
When tin starts up the user's killfile $HOME/.tin/filter
is read. Each time a newsgroup is entered the rules are
applied and articles killed or selected when they meet
certain criteria.
The degree to which rules are applied depend on the
kill_level tinrc setting. By default killed articles will
only be marked read. Adjust kill_level for more agressive
processing. Articles that match an auto-selection rule are
marked with a ``*''.
Filtering rules can be manually entered into
$HOME/.tin/filter (but don't do this whilst running tin
else you will lose your changes) or by using an on screen
menu within tin.
The filtering capabilities of tin have been significantly
enhanced over previous versions to include scoring and
better pattern matching. It is recommended that you read
the file filtering in the tin documentation directory.
The on screen filtering menu is accessed by pressing `^K'
at the group and page levels. It allows the user to kill
or select an article that matches the current ``Subject:''
line, ``From:'' line or a string entered by the user. The
user entered string can be applied to the ``Subject:'' or
``From:'' lines of an article. The kill description can be
limited to the current newsgroup or it can apply to all
newsgroups. Once entered the user can abort the command
and not save the kill description, edit the kill file or
save the kill description.
POSTING ARTICLES
tin allows posting of articles, follow-up to already
posted articles and replying direct through mail to the
author of an article.
Use the `w' command to post an article to a newsgroup.
After entering the post subject the default editor (i.e.,
vi) or the editor specified by the $EDITOR environment
1.4.1 November 19th, 1999 37
tin(1) A Usenet newsreader tin(1)
variable will be started and the article can be entered.
To crosspost articles simply add a comma and the name of
the newsgroup(s) to the end of the ``Newsgroups:'' line at
the beginning of the article. After saving and exiting the
editor you are asked if you wish to a)bort posting the
article, e)dit the article again or p)ost the article to
the specified newsgroup(s).
Use the `W' command to display a history of the articles
you have posted. The date the article was posted, which
newsgroups the article was posted to and the articles sub
ject line are displayed.
Use the `f' / `F' / `^W' command to post a follow-up arti
cle to an already posted article. The `f' command will
copy the text of the original article into the editor. The
`^W' command will copy the text and all headers of the
original article into the editor. The editing procedure is
the same as when posting an article with the `w' command.
Use the `r' / `R' / `^E' command to reply direct through
mail to the author of an already posted article. The `r'
command will copy the text of the original article into
the editor. The `^E' command will copy the text and all
headers of the original article into the editor. The edit
ing procedure is the same as when posting an article with
the `w' command. After saving and exiting the editor you
are asked if you wish to a)bort sending the article, e)dit
the article again or s)end the article to the author.
CUSTOMIZING THE ARTICLE QUOTE STRING
When posting a followup to an article or replying direct
to the author of an article via email the text of the
article can be quoted. The beginning of the quoted text
can contain information about the quoted article (i.e.,
Name and the Message Id of the article). To allow for dif
ferent situations certain information from the article can
be used in the quoted string. The following variables are
expanded if found in the tinrc variables 'mail_quote_for
mat' or 'news_quote_format':
%A Address (Email)
%D Date
%F Full address (%N (%A))
%G Groupname
%M Message Id
%N Name of user
i.e.,
mail_quote_format=On %D in %G you wrote:
news_quote_format=In %M, %F wrote:
would expand to:
On 21 Jul 1992 09:45:51 -0400 in alt.sources you wrote:
In <abcINN123@ecrc.de>, Iain Lea (iain@ecrc.de) wrote:
The quoted text section of an article is marked by a pre
ceding quote string at the beginning of each quoted line.
1.4.1 November 19th, 1999 38
tin(1) A Usenet newsreader tin(1)
The default quote string is set to '>_'. The default can
be changed by setting the tinrc variable 'quote_chars' to
ones own preference. (note that '_' underline is used to
represent a space).
MAILING PIPING PRINTING REPOSTING AND SAVING ARTICLES
The command interface to mail (`m'), pipe (`|'), print
(`o'), repost (`x') and save (`s' and 'S') articles is the
same for ease of use.
Auto-saving with 'S' is a special case and operates only
on tagged articles. They will processed without any fur
ther prompting according to the default save paramters
defined in tinrc or by any attributes set for the current
group.
Otherwise, the initial prompt will ask you to select which
a)rticle, t)hread, h)ot (auto-selected) r)egex pattern,
t)agged articles you wish to mail, pipe etc.
Tagged articles must have already been tagged with the `t'
command. All tagged articles can be untagged by the 'U'
untag command.
If a regex pattern is selected you are asked to enter a
pattern (i.e., to match all articles subject lines con
taining 'net News' you enter "net News"). Any articles
that match the entered expression will be mailed, piped
etc. See also the wildcard= tinrc variable for advanced
pattern matching options.
To save articles to a mailbox with the name of the current
newsgroup (i.e., Alt.sources) enter '=' or '=<mailbox
name>' when asked for the save filename.
To save in <news.group.name>/<filename> format enter
'+<filename>'. Environment variables are allowed within a
filename (i.e., $SOURCES/dir/filename).
When saving articles you can specify whether the saved
files should be post processed (i.e., unshar(1) shell
archive, uudecode(1) multiple parts etc). A default pro
cess type can be set by the 'Process type:' in the `M'
options menu.
AUTOMATIC MAILING AND SAVING NEW NEWS
tin allows new/unread news articles to be mailed (``-M''
and ``-N'' option) or saved (``-S'' option) in batch mode
for later reading. Useful when going on holiday and you
don't want to return and find that expire has removed a
whole load of unread articles. Best to run from crontab
everyday while away, after which you will be mailed a
report of which articles were mailed/saved from which
newsgroups and the total number of articles mailed/saved.
1.4.1 November 19th, 1999 39
tin(1) A Usenet newsreader tin(1)
Articles are saved in a private news structure under your
<savedir> directory (default is $HOME/News). Be careful of
using this option if you read a lot of groups because you
could overflow your file system. If you only want to save
a few groups it would be best to backup your full
$HOME/.newsrc and create a new one that only contains the
newsgroups you want to mail/save. Saved news can be read
later by tin -R.
tin -M iain -c -f newsrc.mail
(mail any unread articles in news
groups specified in file newsrc.mail
and mark them as read)
tin -S -c -f newsrc.save
(save any unread articles in news
groups specified in file newsrc.save
and mark them as read)
tin -R (read any articles saved by tin -S)
RANGES
A range is simply a group of items marked using the range
('#') key. Certain tin commands will operate on a range if
one exists rather than just the current item. A range is
an expression of the form <min>-<max>, eg. 10-15 will
highlight items 10 through 15 on the current screen. Other
than absolute numeric positions, '.' can be used in place
of the current cursor position and '$' can be used to mean
the highest number available. Currently the only commands
that understand ranges are 'K', 'z' and 'Z' at the Group
level.
SIGNATURES
tin will recognize a signature in either $HOME/.signature
or $HOME/.Sig. If $HOME/.signature exists, then the signa
ture will be pulled into the editor for mail commands. A
signature in $HOME/.signature will not be pulled into the
editor for posting commands since inews(1) will append the
signature itself.
A signature in $HOME/.Sig will be pulled into the editor
for both posting and mailing commands.
The following is an example of a $HOME/.Sig file:
NAMES Iain Lea iain@ecrc.de
SNAIL Bruecken Str 12, 90419 Nuernberg 90, Germany
tin also has the capability to generate random signatures
on a per newsgroup basis if so desired. The way to
1.4.1 November 19th, 1999 40
tin(1) A Usenet newsreader tin(1)
accomplish this is to specify the default signature or the
group attribute sigfile as a directory. If for example
the sigfile path is /usr/iain/.sigs and .sigs is a direc
tory then tin will select a random signature from any file
that is in the directory .sigs (note: one signature per
numbered file). A random signature can also consist of a
fixed part signature that can contain your name, address
etc. followed by the random sig. The fixed part of the
random sig is read from the file $HOME/.sigfixed.
TIPS AND TRICKS
tin can be pretty much be navigated by using the four cur
sor keys. The left arrow key goes up a level, the right
arrow key goes down a level, the up arrow key goes up a
line (page at article viewer level) and the down arrow key
goes down a line (page at article viewer level).
The following newsgroups provide useful information con
cerning news software:
--news.software.readers (info. about news user agents
tin, rn, nn, vn etc.)
--news.software.nntp (info. about NNTP)
--news.software.b (info. about news transport agents
Bnews, Cnews and INN)
--news.answers (Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) about
many different themes)
Many prompts (i.e., 'Mark everything as read? (y/n): y')
within tin offer a default choice that the cursor is posi
tioned on. By pressing <CR> the default value is taken.
Many prompts (i.e., 'Post subject []>') within tin can be
aborted by pressing ESC.
When tin is run in an xterm(1x) it will resize itself each
time the xterm(1x) is resized.
tin will reread the active file at set intervals to show
any newly arrived news.
If you find large number of New newsgroups cluttering up
your screen, pressing 'r' will make them go away.
XTERM BUTTONS
If the environment variable $TERM is set to xterm(1x),
then button pressing can be used to select groups and
articles. In this discussion, the buttons are assumed to
be assigned conventionally (i.e., Button1 is the left but
ton).
In general (i.e., for the group, thread and article
menus),
1.4.1 November 19th, 1999 41
tin(1) A Usenet newsreader tin(1)
Button1 (left)
enters next (lower) level if you click on a
article, otherwise pages down.
Button2 (centre)
returns to the previous (upper) level if you
click on a article, otherwise pages up.
Button3 (right)
positions on the article line under mouse cur
sor, or pages down if you've clicked outside the
list of articles.
In the group selection menu, if the mouse is pointing at a
group then:
left button
moves to and selects the group pointed at, just
like <CR>.
centre button
quits the program, just like `q'.
right button
moves to the group pointed at.
In the article menu, if the mouse is pointing at an arti
cle (or thread) then:
left button
reads the article pointed at, just like <CR>, or
the thread, just like `l'.
centre button
exits the menu, catching up on the group if you
have `group_catchup_on_exit` set in your config
uration, just like `q'.
right button
moves to the article (or thread) pointed at.
In the thread menu, if the mouse is pointing at an article
then:
left button
reads article pointed at, just like <CR>.
centre button
exits the menu, catching up on the thread if you
have 'thread_catchup_on_exit' set in your con
figuration, just like `q'.
right button
moves to the article pointed at.
1.4.1 November 19th, 1999 42
tin(1) A Usenet newsreader tin(1)
In other menus and areas button pressing reverts back to
usual cut and paste of xterm(1x), but after one click of
any button.
INDEX FILES
If your news server supports NOV index files (most modern
installations will), then this section can be ignored.
If your news server doesn't support NOV index files, tin
will maintain an index for each newsgroup. There are a
number of methods in which index files can be created and
updated.
The simplest method is that each user creates/updates
his/her own index files that are stored in
$HOME/.tin/.news. This has the advantage that any user can
compile and install tin, but the disadvantage is that each
user is going to be creating duplicate files and using
precious disk space. A good way to keep index files
updated is by doing a tin -U that will update index files
in the background while you are reading news in the fore
ground. You can also update index files via the system
batcher cron with the ``-u'' option:
30 6 * * * /usr/local/bin/tin -u
A slightly better method is to set tin setuid news and
have all index files created and updated in the news spool
directory (i.e., /var/spool/news/.news). This has the
advantage that there will only be one copy of the index
files on each machine on your network, but the disadvan
tage is that you will have tin running setuid news.
A better method is to install the tind index file updating
daemon and have it create and update index files for all
groups in your active file at regular intervals in the
news spool directory (i.e., /var/spool/news/.news). This
has the advantage that there will only be one copy of the
index files on each machine on your network and tin must
not be setuid news, but the disadvantage is that you will
have to have news permissions to install tind and root
permissions to install an entry in the cron batcher system
to have tind regularly update index files.
The best method is to install the tind index file updating
daemon on your NNTP server and have it create and update
index files for all groups in your active file at regular
intervals in the news spool directory (i.e.,
/var/spool/news/.news). This has the advantage that there
will only be one copy of the index files on the NNTP
server for the whole of your network, but the disadvantage
is that you will have to install my NNTP server patches to
allow tin to retrieve index file from your NNTP server and
and you must install an entry in the cron batcher system
1.4.1 November 19th, 1999 43
tin(1) A Usenet newsreader tin(1)
to have tind regularly update index files.
Entering a group the first time tends to be slow because
the index file must be built from scratch unless the tind
update daemon is being used. To alleviate the slowness
start tin to create all index files for the groups you
subscribe to with tin -u -v and go for a coffee. Subse
quent readings of a group will cause incremental updating
of the index file.
If reading news remotely and updating index files locally,
operation will be somewhat slower because the articles
must be retrieved from the NNTP server.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
TINRC Define this variable if you want to specify command
line options that tin should be started with to
save typing them each time it is started. The con
tents of the environment variable are added to the
front of the command line options before it is
parsed therefore allowing an option specified on
the command line to override the same option speci
fied in the environment. Note that environment
variables that are used to set message header lines
can also be set by adding the header name and value
to the $HOME/.tin/headers file.
TIN_HOMEDIR
Define this variable if you do not want the .tin
directory in $HOME/.tin. (i.e., if you want all
tin's private files in /tmp/.tin you would set
$TIN_HOMEDIR to /tmp.
TIN_INDEX_NEWSDIR
Define this variable if you do not want the .news
directory in $HOME/.tin/.news. (i.e., if you want
all tin's news index files in /tmp/.news you would
set $TIN_INDEX_NEWSDIR to /tmp.
TIN_INDEX_MAILDIR
Define this variable if you do not want the .mail
directory in $HOME/.tin/.mail. (i.e., if you want
all tin's mail index files in /tmp/.mail you would
set $TIN_INDEX_MAILDIR to /tmp.
TIN_INDEX_SAVEDIR
Define this variable if you do not want the .save
directory in $HOME/.tin/.save. (i.e., if you want
all tin's save index files in /tmp/.save you would
set $TIN_INDEX_SAVEDIR to /tmp.
TIN_LIBDIR
Define this variable if you want to override the
NEWSLIBDIR path that was compiled into the tin
1.4.1 November 19th, 1999 44
tin(1) A Usenet newsreader tin(1)
binary via the Makefile.
TIN_SPOOLDIR
Define this variable if you want to override the
SPOOLDIR path that was compiled into the tin binary
via the Makefile.
TIN_NOVROOTDIR
Define this variable if you want to override the
NOVROOTDIR path that was compiled into the tin
binary via the Makefile.
TIN_ACTIVEFILE
Define this variable if you want to override the
NEWSLIBDIR/active path that was compiled into the
tin binary via the Makefile.
NNTPSERVER
The default NNTP server to remotely read news from.
This variable only needs to be set if the ``-r''
command line option is specified and the file
/etc/nntpserver does not exist.
NNTPPORT
The NNTP tcp port to read news from. This variable
only needs to be set if the the tcp port is not the
default 119. The ``-p'' command line option over
rides $NNTPPORT.
DISTRIBUTION
Set the article header field ``Distribution:'' to
the contents of the variable instead of the system
default.
TEX2ISO
Set the article viewer to decode German style
umlaut codes to ISO latin1. Value 0 has the same
effect as not defining the variable. Use in combi
nation with $ISO2ASC.
ISO2ASC
Set the ISO to ASCII charset decoding table charac
ter to use in decoding an articles text. Values can
range from 0 to 6.
ORGANIZATION
Set the article header field ``Organization:'' to
the contents of the variable instead of the system
default. If reading news on an Apollo DomainOS
machine the environment variable $NEWSORG has to be
used instead of $ORGANIZATION.
REPLYTO
Set the article header field ``Reply-To:'' to the
1.4.1 November 19th, 1999 45
tin(1) A Usenet newsreader tin(1)
return address specified by the variable. This is
useful if the machine is not registered in the UUCP
mail maps or if you wish to receive replies at a
different machine.
NAME Overrides the fullname given in the gecos-files in
/etc/passwd, see also mail_address.
MAILER This variable has precedence over the default
mailer that is used in all mailing operations
within tin.
EDITOR This variable has precedence over the default edi
tor (i.e., vi(1)) that is used in all editing oper
ations within tin (i.e., posting `w', replying `r',
follow-ups `f', ...).
VISUAL If $EDITOR is unset, then this variable is looked
up for a default editor. If $EDITOR and $VISUAL are
both unset, tin will uses the systems default edi
tor (i.e. vi(1) on UNIX-systems).
AUTOSUBSCRIBE
tin interprets this variable similarly to rn. It
contains a list of patterns, separated by commas
and possibly prefixed with exclamation points. A
new group is checked against the list of patterns;
if it matches, tin subscribes the user to the group
without further query. An exclamation point negates
the meaning of a match on this pattern, and can be
used to cancel certain matches. For example, set
ting
AUTOSUBSCRIBE=comp.os.unix.*,talk.*,!talk.poli
tics.*
will automatically subscribe the user to all new
groups in the comp.os.unix hierarchy, and all talk
groups other than talk.politics groups (which will
be queried for as usual.)
AUTOUNSUBSCRIBE
tin interprets this variable similarly to rn. It is
handled like the $AUTOSUBSCRIBE variable, but
groups matching the list are unsubscribed from
without further query. For example, setting
AUTOUNSUBSCRIBE=alt.flame.*,u*,!uk.*
will automatically unsubscribe the user from all
new alt.flame groups and all groups starting with u
(university groups) other than UK groups (which
will be queried for as usual.)
1.4.1 November 19th, 1999 46
tin(1) A Usenet newsreader tin(1)
SPAMTRAP
Set this variable to a list of comma-separated
strings to be warned if you are replying to an
article by mail where the e-mail address contains
one of these strings. The matching is case-insensi
tive. Example:
SPAMTRAP=spam,delete,remove
METAMAIL
Set this variable to point to metamail(1) or a
replacement (i.e. metamutt).
ISPELL Set this variable to point to ispell(1) or a
replacement and it's cmd-line options.
FILES
$HOME/.newsrc subscribed to newsgroups.
$HOME/.newsauth "nntpserver password [user]" pairs for
NNTP servers that require authoriza
tion.
$HOME/.tin/tinrc options.
$HOME/.tin/attributes
contains user specified group
attributes.
$HOME/.tin/.news newsgroups index files directory.
$HOME/.tin/.mail mailgroups index files directory.
$HOME/.tin/.save saved newsgroups index files direc
tory.
$HOME/.tin/active.mail
active file of user's mailgroups.
$HOME/.tin/active.save
active file of user's saved news
groups.
$HOME/.tin/filter filtering file for article killing and
auto-selection.
$HOME/.tin/group.times
list of last time all groups were
updated (used only by tind index dae
mon).
$HOME/.tin/headers extra header lines to be added to each
article to be posted.
1.4.1 November 19th, 1999 47
tin(1) A Usenet newsreader tin(1)
$HOME/.tin/posted history of articles posted by user.
$HOME/.tin/newsrctable
"nntpserver newsrc shortname [...]"
pairs to use with ``-g'' command-line
switch.
$HOME/.tin/.inputhistory
history of last used strings.
$HOME/.tin/postponed.articles
postponed articles from the `o' com
mand, reuse via ``-o'' command-line
switch or via CTRL-O from within tin.
$HOME/.signature signature. If you are not using
use_builtin_inews, inews(1) automati
cally appends this file to your arti
cle after composing it (you won't see
your signature in the $EDITOR). See
also section SIGNATURES.
$HOME/.Sig signature. Same as above, but inews(1)
won't include it.
$HOME/.sigfixed fixed part of a randomly generated
signature.
/usr/lib/news/tinrc Global configuration file.
/etc/tin/tin.defaults
Global configuration file.
/var/lib/news/active.times
Contains list of new newsgroups as
they are added to the news history
file. This file is only present on
the news-server.
/var/lib/news/newsgroups
Short description of all newsgroups.
This file is only present on the news-
server.
/var/lib/news/subscriptions
List of newsgroups to subscribe first
time user to. This file is only pre
sent on the news-server.
BUGS
See the TODO-file which comes with the source.
HISTORY
Based on the tass newsreader that was developed by Rich
1.4.1 November 19th, 1999 48
tin(1) A Usenet newsreader tin(1)
Skrenta and posted to alt.sources in March 1991. Tass was
itself heavily influenced by NOTES which was developed at
the University of Illinois by Ray Essick and Rob Kolstad
in 1982.
v1.0 PL0 (full) was posted in 8 parts to alt.sources on 23
Aug 1991.
v1.1 PL0 (full) was posted in 11 parts to alt.sources on
13 Feb 1992.
v1.2 PL0 (full) was posted in 14 parts to alt.sources on
25 May 1993.
v1.2 PL1 (patch) was posted in 8 parts to alt.sources on
14 Jul 1993.
v1.2 PL2 (patch) was posted in 5 parts to alt.sources on
25 Sep 1993.
v1.3 PL0 beta has been available from
ftp.scn.de:/pub/news/tin/ since April 1995.
v1.3-unoff-beta has been available from ftp.akk.uni-karl
sruhe.de:/pub/news/clients/tin-unoff/ since March 1996.
v1.4.0 has been available from
ftp.tin.org:/pub/news/clients/tin/v1.4/ since November
13th 1999.
v1.4.1 has been available from
ftp.tin.org:/pub/news/clients/tin/v1.4/ since December 1st
1999.
CREDITS
Rich Skrenta author of tass v3.2 which this newsreader
used as its base.
Bill Davidsen author of envarg.c environment variable
reading routine.
Mike Gleason author of sigfile.c random signature gener
ation routines.
Paul Kramer author of tin v1.2 intro.txt and cmdref.txt
beginners documentation.
Markus Kuhn author of charset.c and iso2asc.txt
ISO-8859-1 documentation.
Arnold Robbins author of strftime.c date formatting rou
tine.
Jim Robinson co-author of original kill.c article kill
and auto-selection routines.
Rich Salz author of wildmat.c pattern matching and
parsdate.y date parsing routines.
Rich Stephan for translating the manual page to german.
Dave Taylor author of curses.c from the elm mailreader.
1.4.1 November 19th, 1999 49
tin(1) A Usenet newsreader tin(1)
Chris Thewalt author of getline.c emacs style editing
routine.
Mark Tomlinson for porting tin to the AmigaOS operating
system.
Andreas Wrede for porting tin to the OS/2 operating sys
tem.
Nigel Ellis & Piers Haken
for porting tin to the Windows/NT operating
system.
Andrew Greer for porting tin to the VAX/VMS operating
system.
Steven Madsen for adding pgp (Pretty Good Privacy) sup
port.
Dieter Becker for generously posting certain releases for
me when my net connection was removed by a
group of very short sighted people.
Philip Hazel <ph10@cam.ac.uk>
for libpcre (Perl-compatible regular
expression library).
I wish to thank the following people for supplying
patches:
David Abbott, Earle Ake, Orbby S. Arka, Joachim Astel,
Anton Aylward, Jens Chr. Bachem, George Baltz, Volker
Barthelmann, Kirk Bauer, Paul Bauwens, Dieter Becker,
Wolfgang Behrens, Fabrice Bellet, Greg Berigan, Enrik
Berkhan, Juergen Bernau, Dan Berry, David Binderman,
Andrey Blochintsev, Chris Blum, Fokke de Boer, Andreas
Borchert, Mark Boucher, Bill Brolik, Herman ten Brugge,
Martin Buck, Jeremy Buhler, Leila Burrell-Davis, Sean
Casey, Peter Castro, Troy Cauble, Andrey A. Chernov,
Albert Chin-A-Young, Tan Kwee Chuan, Boleslaw Ciesielski,
Robert Claeson, Steven Cogswell, Don Costello, Bryan Cur
nutt, Ned Danieley, Lars Dannenberg, Chris Davies, John
Davis, Borislav Deianov, Thomas E. Dickey, Olaf Dietrich,
Theo Van Dinter, Ralf Doeblitz, Bryan Dongray, Michael
Douglass, Craig Durland, Bernd Eckenfels, Phil Edge, Kirk
Edson, Nick Efthymiou, Stefan Elf, Rob Engle, Olle Eriks
son, Brent Ermlick, Bernd Ernesti, Ragnar Hojland
Espinosa, Jason Faultless, Michael Faurot, Werner Fleck,
John M. Flinchbaugh, Andy Gabor, Torsten Gesang, Ruediger
Geys, Callum Gibson, Mike Glendinning, Philippe Goujard,
Dan Greenspan, Karlo Gross, Carl Hage, Paul Halsema, Ed
Hanway, Scott Hauck, Christian Haul, Per Headland, Arnold
Hendriks, Daniel Hermans, Jose Herrero, Dave Hill, Tom
Hite, Torsten Homeyer, Ulli Horlacher, Keith Howell, Tommy
1.4.1 November 19th, 1999 50
tin(1) A Usenet newsreader tin(1)
Hsieh, Shih-Kun Huang, Steve Hunt, Jeff Hurwitt, Jeon
Hyoung-Jo, Pieter Immelman, Jarkko Isokungas, Patrick St.
Jean, Hal Jespersen, Park Sang Jin, Robbin Johnson, Jarkko
Jormanainen, Nelson Kading, Geoffrey Keating, Karsten
Keil, Charles S. Kerr, Fritz Kleeman, Andreas Kies, Janne
Kiviluoto, Tomasz Kloczko, Dwarven Knight, Thomas Koenig,
Karl-Koenig Koenigsson, Martin Kraemer, Thomas Kroener,
Florian Kuehnert, Kris Kugel, Manoj Kumar, Dawid Kuroczko,
Yuri Kuzmenko, Olivier Lacroix, Geoff Lane, Alex Lange,
Alain Lasserre, Stanislav Latishko, Hannu Laurila, Vincent
Lefevre, Alexander Lehmann, Marty Leisner, Thomas Leitner,
Hakan Lennestal, Kevin Lentin, Chua Choon Leong, Chris
Lewis, Andreas Ley, David-Michael Lincke, Otto Lind,
Richard Lloyd, Florian Lohoff, Reinhard Luebke, Clifford
Luke, Michael Lupp, David MacKenzie, Hugh Mahon, Giuseppe
De Marco, Dmitri A. Martynoff, Kazushi Marukawa, William
McBrine, Owen Medd, Philipp Mergenthaler, Arkadiusz
Miskiewicz, Soren Moller, Bruce Momjian, Sergio Morales,
Michael Morrell, Klaus Mueller, Mike Muise, Udo Munk, John
R. Myers, Daniel Naber, Torsten Neumann, Dirk Nimmich,
James Nugen, David E. O'Brien, Michael O'Reilly, Oleg
Ohotnikov, Ronald Orr, Julien Oster, Jeb Palmer, Neil
Parker, Tom Parry, Jim Patterson, Sven Paulus, Walter
Pelissero, Cameron Perkins, Colin Perkins, Eric Peterson,
Tim Pierce, Bill Poitras, Scott W. Powers, Wolfgang Predi
ger, GianPiero Puccioni, Thomas Quinot, Stefan Rapp, Mar
tin Reising, Kyle Rhorer, Ted Richards, Steve Robbins,
Ollivier Robert, Branden Robinson, Jim Robinson, Erik van
Roode, Meelis Roos, Stephen Roseman, Roland Rosenfeld,
Peter Van Rossem, Clifton Royston, Rich Salz, Gary
Sanders, Nickolay Saukh, John Sauter, Christopher Sawtell,
Holger Schif, Volker Schmidt, John Schmitz, Torsten
Schneider, Stefan Scholl, Rainer Scholz, Juergen
Schroeder, Larry Schwimmer, Bart Sears, Karl-Olav Serran
der, Doug Sewell, Philip Shearer, Jungshik Shin, Sergey
Shkonda, Andreas Siegert, Mark Smith, Steve Spearman, Hel
mut Springer, Cliff Stanford, Steve Starck, Jason Steiner,
Ralf Stephan, Michael Stenns, Helmrich Streitmatter, Hans
Werner Strube, Dieter Stueken, Ed Sznyter, Dean Takemori,
Darrell Tangman, Derek Terveer, Carsten Theis, Julian
Thompson, David Tiller, Andry Timonin, Mark Tomlin,
Michael Traub, Adri Verhoef, Paul Vickers, Oliver B.
Warzecha, Jason Wessel, Cary Whitney, Henrik Wist, Greg
Woods, Lloyd Wright, Jens Wuepper, Billy Y., Nickolai Zel
dovich, Zbigniew Zych
AUTHOR
Iain Lea <iain@bricbrac.de>
MAINTAINER
Urs Janssen <urs@tin.org>
1.4.1 November 19th, 1999 51
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