
slrn(1)                          User Manuals                          slrn(1)



NAME
       slrn - An easy to use NNTP / spool based newsreader.

SYNOPSIS
       slrn [-aCdknmw] [-C-] [-Dname] [-f newsrc-file] [-i config-file] [-k0]
       [--create] [--debug file] [--help] [--inews] [--kill-log file] [--nntp
       [-h server] [-p port]] [--show-config] [--spool] [--version]

DESCRIPTION
       slrn is an easy to use but powerful NNTP / spool based newsreader.

       It is highly customizable, supports scoring, free key bindings and can
       be extended using the embedded S-Lang interpreter.

       To use slrn, you either need to set the NNTPSERVER environment variable
       to the server you want to read news from or specify a server on the
       command line.  A newsrc file is needed, too.  In case you do not yet
       have one, you can create it using ``slrn -f ~/.jnewsrc --create''.

       Inside slrn, online help is available via the '?' key.

OPTIONS
       The following options can be used when calling slrn from the command
       line.  They override both environment variables and settings in private
       and global configuration files.

       -a     Read active file when checking for new news.

       -C     Use colors without checking if the terminal supports it.

       -C-    Don't use colors, even if the terminal supports it.

       -d     Get group descriptions (taglines) from the news server.  Please
              note that this may cause a download of several hundred kilobytes
              and thus can take a long time.  The output is saved to a local
              file, so you only need to do this once.  May not be specified in
              combination with --create.

       -Dname Add name to the list of predefined preprocessing tokens, which
              can be used in your slrnrc file to have conditionally
              interpreted lines.  See the slrn reference manual for details.

       -f newsrc-file
              Use file as the newsrc file for this session.  This is
              permanently set via the server configuration command.

       -h host[:port]
              Connect to the NNTP server on host, overriding the $NNTPSERVER
              environment variable.  If no port is given, the default NNTP
              port (119) will be used.  This option is only accepted after
              --nntp or when NNTP is the default mode.

       -i config-file
              Read file as the initialization (slrnrc) file.  The default is
              to use .slrnrc (or slrn.rc on VMS, OS/2 and Windows) in your
              home directory.

       -k     Don't read the score file.

       -k0    Read the score file, but inhibit expensive scoring. A scoring
              rule is expensive if it contains header lines that are not
              included in the server's overview files.  This makes applying
              them slow.

       -m     Force mouse support (without checking if it works on the current
              terminal).

       -n     Do not check for new groups (usually resulting in a faster
              startup).

       -p N   Use port N to connect to the NNTP server.

       -w     Wait for a key before switching to full screen mode, allowing
              the user to read startup messages.

       --create
              Read the active file (the list of all groups) from the news
              server to create an initial newsrc file.

       --debug file
              Write debugging output to file.

       --help Show help for command line switches.

       --inews
              Use an external inews program to post articles.

       --kill-log file
              Keep a log of all articles that were killed by the scorefile in
              file.

       --nntp Use builtin NNTP support for reading and posting (an external
              program is used to post if slrn was compiled with
              --enable-force-inews).

       --pull Spool outgoing articles locally for slrnpull to send.

       --show-config
              Print detailed information about slrn configuration.

       --spool
              Read directly from spool.

       --version
              Print version and some compile time settings.

ENVIRONMENT
       slrn uses the following list of environment variables.  Note:
       environment variables can be overridden by configuration files or
       command line switches.

       COLORTERM
              If this variable is set, slrn will assume that your terminal
              supports ANSI color sequences.  It also enables a workaround for
              a problem with the mouse reporting when running slrn inside of
              an rxvt.

       DISPLAY
              If set, slrn assumes that X11 is running.

       EDITOR See $SLRN_EDITOR.

       HOME   See $SLRNHOME.

       HOSTNAME
              If no hostname is given, the value of this environment variable
              is used.

       LOGNAME
              See $USER.

       NAME   Set it to your realname, if slrn can't determine it otherwise.

       NNTPSERVER
              You can use this variable to tell slrn which NNTP server to
              connect to.  It can be overridden by the command line option -h.

       ORGANIZATION
              The name of your organization.

       PRINTER
              On unix systems, slrn pipes the current article to ``lpr -P
              $PRINTER'' to print it.

       PWD    This variable is only used on unix systems that don't support
              getcwd(3).  In these cases, it should be set to the current
              directory at the time slrn is invoked.  This is usually done by
              the shell and nothing the user has to worry about.

       REPLYTO
              The value of this variable is used as the default if you do not
              set replyto in your slrnrc file.

       SLANG_EDITOR
              See $SLRN_EDITOR.

       SLRNHELP
              You can set this variable to a file slrn should read its online
              help from.  This is only needed when the default key bindings
              have been changed and you want the help function to reflect
              this.  If unset, slrn looks for help.txt in the configuration
              directory.

       SLRNHOME
              When interpreting filenames as relative to your home directory,
              slrn uses this variable to find out what your home directory is.
              If $SLRNHOME is unset, $HOME is used instead.

       SLRN_EDITOR
              The editor to start for editing articles.  If this variable is
              unset, slrn subsequently looks at $SLANG_EDITOR, $EDITOR and
              $VISUAL.

       SLRN_SLANG_DIR
              If set, slrn will search for slang macros here. If not set slrn
              will search in the default path, which is defined at compile
              time (usually share_dir/slang).

       TMP    Indicates the directory in which slrn should save temporary
              files.

       TMPDIR See $TMP.

       USER   Your username, if slrn can't get it from the system by other
              means.

       VISUAL See $SLRN_EDITOR.

FILES
       $HOME/.slrnrc
              User-specific configuration file.

       config_dir/slrn.rc
              System-wide configuration file. config_dir is set at compile
              time (/usr/local/etc by default).

       $HOME/.jnewsrc
              default newsrc file for slrn.

       $HOME/.jnewsrc.dsc
              Per user newsgroups descriptions.

       share_dir/newsgroups.dsc
              Global newsgroup descriptions. share_dir is set at compile time
              (/usr/local/share/slrn by default).

SEE ALSO
       The documentation that comes with slrn, especially FIRST_STEPS,
       manual.txt, FAQ and score.txt.  If you consider writing S-Lang macros,
       also look at README.macros and slrnfuns.txt.

       Recent versions of the slrn manual and the FAQ as well as additional
       information can also be found on slrn's official home page:
       http://slrn.sourceforge.net/

       Questions about slrn that are not covered by existing documentation may
       be posted to the newsgroup news.software.readers where they will be
       answered by knowledgeable users or the author of the program.  In
       addition, announcements of new versions of slrn are posted there.

       The latest version of slrn is available from
       http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/slrn/

AUTHOR
       John E. Davis <jed@jedsoft.org>



Unix                             February 2008                         slrn(1)
