• Personal tuning of "slrn" news reader - tips?

    From Lars Poulsen@3:633/10 to All on Fri Nov 21 22:09:47 2025
    This thread has nothing to do with old computers, but only with old
    computer USERS. But since it is related to the use of USEnet, which
    is only used by people like me who are old enough to join the American Association of Retired People, it is probably OK.

    As I have mentioned before, I use slrn on Fedora linux to read USEnet.
    It works pretty well except for
    1) Lines longer than my TTY window (Windows-Putty-TERM=xterm) are
    truncated instead of folded. It becomes a problem when reading a
    post full of long paragraphs posted by someone who is posting using a
    program that folds it for them on their screen as they type, but
    does not insert the line breaks in the message.
    2) It has no way (of course!) to let me click on an embedded link;
    I have to select the link my dragging the cursor on the putty
    window to highlight it, then move to a browser window and paste it
    into the address bar.

    The second of these is probably not fixable, but I am hopeful that
    there is something I can add to my .slrnrc file to do the right thing.

    Alternatively, does anyone have a better suggestion for a news reader
    to use, that will let me use the same .newsrc file from a linux system
    and from multiple Windows systems? (Home, work, when traveling, etc.)
    I like Thunderbird, but it will maintain a local .newsrc on each machine
    where you run it.

    --
    Lars Poulsen - an old geek in Santa Barbara, California

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.1
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Niklas Karlsson@3:633/10 to All on Fri Nov 21 23:09:31 2025
    On 2025-11-21, Lars Poulsen <lars@beagle-ears.com> wrote:

    As I have mentioned before, I use slrn on Fedora linux to read USEnet.
    It works pretty well except for
    1) Lines longer than my TTY window (Windows-Putty-TERM=xterm) are
    truncated instead of folded. It becomes a problem when reading a
    post full of long paragraphs posted by someone who is posting using a
    program that folds it for them on their screen as they type, but
    does not insert the line breaks in the message.

    slrn by default has the 'w' keybinding to wrap long lines in the post
    you're viewing.

    Niklas
    --
    When being picked up against their will by larger creatures, cats and human children share not only the ability to temporarily sprout extra limbs and perform incredible acts of contortionism, but also to temporarily increase their
    weight.

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.1
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Niklas Karlsson@3:633/10 to All on Fri Nov 21 23:13:02 2025
    On 2025-11-21, Niklas Karlsson <nikke.karlsson@gmail.com> wrote:
    On 2025-11-21, Lars Poulsen <lars@beagle-ears.com> wrote:

    As I have mentioned before, I use slrn on Fedora linux to read USEnet.
    It works pretty well except for
    1) Lines longer than my TTY window (Windows-Putty-TERM=xterm) are
    truncated instead of folded. It becomes a problem when reading a
    post full of long paragraphs posted by someone who is posting using a
    program that folds it for them on their screen as they type, but
    does not insert the line breaks in the message.

    slrn by default has the 'w' keybinding to wrap long lines in the post
    you're viewing.

    Or not? It works when I use it, and I haven't messed with the
    keybindings at all. Yet the help file has an uppercase 'W' and so does
    my .slrnrc (which should be fully default keybinding wise). But yeah,
    either 'w' or 'W'.

    Niklas
    --
    If infinite rednecks fired infinite shotguns at an infinite number of road signs, they'd eventually create all the great literary works of the world in braille. --Discordian Quote File

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.1
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Charlie Gibbs@3:633/10 to All on Sat Nov 22 00:16:22 2025
    On 2025-11-21, Lars Poulsen <lars@beagle-ears.com> wrote:

    This thread has nothing to do with old computers, but only with old
    computer USERS. But since it is related to the use of USEnet, which
    is only used by people like me who are old enough to join the American Association of Retired People, it is probably OK.

    Still, it's nice to get away from the crap you find on social media
    (although you could consider Usenet to be the granddaddy of them all).

    As I have mentioned before, I use slrn on Fedora linux to read USEnet.

    I'm running Debian Bookworm. On a command line in a terminal window
    I run slrnpull to post and retrieve news, and slrn to read news and
    create new messages.

    It works pretty well except for
    1) Lines longer than my TTY window (Windows-Putty-TERM=xterm) are
    truncated instead of folded. It becomes a problem when reading a
    post full of long paragraphs posted by someone who is posting using a
    program that folds it for them on their screen as they type, but
    does not insert the line breaks in the message.

    Press the "w" key and the text will be re-flowed. Press it again
    to go back to truncated lines.

    2) It has no way (of course!) to let me click on an embedded link;
    I have to select the link my dragging the cursor on the putty
    window to highlight it, then move to a browser window and paste it
    into the address bar.

    In mine, just hovering the mouse over anything that looks like a URL
    causes the URL to be highlighted. Right-click and select "copy" from
    the pop-up menu - no dragging required.

    The second of these is probably not fixable, but I am hopeful that
    there is something I can add to my .slrnrc file to do the right thing.

    I've made no configuration changes aside from specifying which newsgroups
    to read.

    Alternatively, does anyone have a better suggestion for a news reader
    to use, that will let me use the same .newsrc file from a linux system
    and from multiple Windows systems? (Home, work, when traveling, etc.)
    I like Thunderbird, but it will maintain a local .newsrc on each machine where you run it.

    I'm quite happy with slrn[pull]. I run it on my laptop so I have
    one copy wherever I go.

    --
    /~\ Charlie Gibbs | Growth for the sake of
    \ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | growth is the ideology
    X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | of the cancer cell.
    / \ if you read it the right way. | -- Edward Abbey

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.1
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Lars Poulsen@3:633/10 to All on Sat Nov 22 00:22:00 2025
    On 2025-11-21, Niklas Karlsson <nikke.karlsson@gmail.com> wrote:
    slrn by default has the 'w' keybinding to wrap long lines in the post
    you're viewing.

    Or not? It works when I use it, and I haven't messed with the
    keybindings at all. Yet the help file has an uppercase 'W' and so does
    my .slrnrc (which should be fully default keybinding wise). But yeah,
    either 'w' or 'W'.

    Thank you. I had managed to not see it in many passes of hitting "?".
    I wonder if one can make it do that at startup ...

    --
    Lars Poulsen - an old geek in Santa Barbara, California

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.1
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Peter Flass@3:633/10 to All on Fri Nov 21 19:13:02 2025
    On 11/21/25 15:09, Lars Poulsen wrote:
    This thread has nothing to do with old computers, but only with old
    computer USERS. But since it is related to the use of USEnet, which
    is only used by people like me who are old enough to join the American Association of Retired People, it is probably OK.

    As I have mentioned before, I use slrn on Fedora linux to read USEnet.
    It works pretty well except for
    1) Lines longer than my TTY window (Windows-Putty-TERM=xterm) are
    truncated instead of folded. It becomes a problem when reading a
    post full of long paragraphs posted by someone who is posting using a
    program that folds it for them on their screen as they type, but
    does not insert the line breaks in the message.

    Why does your terminal fold automatically? Is this a setting?



    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.1
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Mechanicjay@3:633/10 to All on Sat Nov 22 03:38:41 2025
    On Fri, 21 Nov 2025 22:09:47, Lars Poulsen <lars@beagle-ears.com> wrote:
    This thread has nothing to do with old computers, but only with old
    computer USERS. But since it is related to the use of USEnet, which
    is only used by people like me who are old enough to join the American >Association of Retired People, it is probably OK.

    Hey, I'm many decades away from retirement and I'm here!

    2) It has no way (of course!) to let me click on an embedded link;
    I have to select the link my dragging the cursor on the putty
    window to highlight it, then move to a browser window and paste it
    into the address bar.

    You can set both your X and non x browsers in your .slrnrc file:
    set non_Xbrowser "lynx '%s'"
    set Xbrowser "lynx '%s'"

    You can select urls in a message with the 'u' (or it is 'U'?) key -- if there are multiple urls you can select which you'd like to open in the browser. No mouse required! Though if you're reading in a putty session, the Xbrowser part isn't going to work so well.

    Best,
    Jason


    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.1
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From s|b@3:633/10 to All on Sat Nov 22 16:16:21 2025
    On Fri, 21 Nov 2025 22:09:47 -0000 (UTC), Lars Poulsen wrote:

    This thread has nothing to do with old computers, but only with old
    computer USERS. But since it is related to the use of USEnet, which
    is only used by people like me who are old enough to join the American Association of Retired People, it is probably OK.

    For slrn, try

    news.software.readers

    It looks dead, but there are people lurking.

    BTW 17 years from retirement (and not American).

    --
    s|b

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.1
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Lars Poulsen@3:633/10 to All on Sat Nov 22 19:18:47 2025
    On 11/21/25 15:09, Lars Poulsen wrote:
    As I have mentioned before, I use slrn on Fedora linux to read USEnet.
    It works pretty well except for
    1) Lines longer than my TTY window (Windows-Putty-TERM=xterm) are
    truncated instead of folded. It becomes a problem when reading a
    post full of long paragraphs posted by someone who is posting using a
    program that folds it for them on their screen as they type, but
    does not insert the line breaks in the message.

    On 2025-11-22, Peter Flass <Peter@Iron-Spring.com> wrote:
    Why does your terminal fold automatically? Is this a setting?

    My terminal does not fold automatically, but the programs I access
    through it mostly do.

    --
    Lars Poulsen - an old geek in Santa Barbara, California

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.1
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Lawrence D?Oliveiro@3:633/10 to All on Sun Nov 23 02:59:46 2025
    On Sat, 22 Nov 2025 19:18:47 -0000 (UTC), Lars Poulsen wrote:

    On 2025-11-22, Peter Flass <Peter@Iron-Spring.com> wrote:

    Why does your terminal fold automatically? Is this a setting?

    My terminal does not fold automatically, but the programs I access
    through it mostly do.

    There is ?software? line wrap within the terminal driver, controlled by a
    tty mode settings (which can get misled by the cursor not being where the driver thought it was). There is also what one might call ?hardware? line wrap, controlled in the terminal by escape sequences, though this is interpreted by the terminal emulator app nowadays, of course.

    And then full-screen text apps will do their own control over the display anyway, regardless of these, hopefully offering you a choice between
    wrapping and truncating. Or whatever else they might do.

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.1
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Scott Lurndal@3:633/10 to All on Sun Nov 23 16:56:46 2025
    Lawrence =?iso-8859-13?q?D=FFOliveiro?= <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:
    On Sat, 22 Nov 2025 19:18:47 -0000 (UTC), Lars Poulsen wrote:

    On 2025-11-22, Peter Flass <Peter@Iron-Spring.com> wrote:

    Why does your terminal fold automatically? Is this a setting?

    My terminal does not fold automatically, but the programs I access
    through it mostly do.

    There is ?software? line wrap within the terminal driver, controlled by a >tty mode settings (which can get misled by the cursor not being where the >driver thought it was).

    The terminal drive has no knowlege of cursors at all. It simply
    passes through bytes from the input device to the program. In
    cooked mode, it will support the line erase,
    xon/xoff, and rubout/delete characters and handle lf <-> crlf
    conversions if configured.

    It will _store_ the current screen width and height in characters, but
    doesn't apply any semantics to those values; it simply stores them for curses/ncurses/xterm, et alia. It will not "wrap" lines, that's a
    function of the terminal program (xterm, Terminal, et alia).



    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.1
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Leonard Blaisdell@3:633/10 to All on Mon Nov 24 21:43:41 2025
    On 2025-11-23, Scott Lurndal <scott@slp53.sl.home> wrote:

    It will _store_ the current screen width and height in characters, but doesn't apply any semantics to those values; it simply stores them for curses/ncurses/xterm, et alia. It will not "wrap" lines, that's a
    function of the terminal program (xterm, Terminal, et alia).


    I've been using slrn for ten years or more. I was unfamiliar with the
    "w" trick for word wrap. Thanks to this thread, I now have a new tool in
    my arsenal. Again, thanks to all!

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.1
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Carlos E.R.@3:633/10 to All on Tue Nov 25 08:13:08 2025
    On 2025-11-23 17:56, Scott Lurndal wrote:
    Lawrence =?iso-8859-13?q?D=FFOliveiro?= <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:
    On Sat, 22 Nov 2025 19:18:47 -0000 (UTC), Lars Poulsen wrote:

    On 2025-11-22, Peter Flass <Peter@Iron-Spring.com> wrote:

    Why does your terminal fold automatically? Is this a setting?

    My terminal does not fold automatically, but the programs I access
    through it mostly do.

    There is ?software? line wrap within the terminal driver, controlled by a
    tty mode settings (which can get misled by the cursor not being where the
    driver thought it was).

    The terminal drive has no knowlege of cursors at all.

    It has to know what character to blink to show the cursor is there. Or underline, or whatever is wanted.



    --
    Cheers, Carlos.
    ES??, EU??;

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.1
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Niklas Karlsson@3:633/10 to All on Tue Nov 25 10:27:23 2025
    On 2025-11-25, Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
    On 2025-11-23 17:56, Scott Lurndal wrote:

    The terminal drive has no knowlege of cursors at all.

    It has to know what character to blink to show the cursor is there. Or underline, or whatever is wanted.

    That's the terminal's (or emulator like PuTTY, Terminal.app, etc) job,
    not the driver's.

    Niklas
    --
    "Once packets are in, who cares where they go out? That's not my department," says Wernher von Route.

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.1
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Anssi Saari@3:633/10 to All on Tue Nov 25 16:41:44 2025
    Lars Poulsen <lars@beagle-ears.com> writes:

    2) It has no way (of course!) to let me click on an embedded link;
    I have to select the link my dragging the cursor on the putty
    window to highlight it, then move to a browser window and paste it
    into the address bar.

    This seems like a limitation of your terminal, Putty. Many terminals can recognize links and perform actions on them. Personally, I use Konsole
    on Windows and Linux. I open links via right click menu on them and that
    menu has a copy link option too.

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.1
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Lawrence D?Oliveiro@3:633/10 to All on Tue Nov 25 20:08:13 2025
    On 25 Nov 2025 10:27:23 GMT, Niklas Karlsson wrote:

    On 2025-11-25, Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

    [The terminal driver] has to know what character to blink to show
    the cursor is there. Or underline, or whatever is wanted.

    That's the terminal's (or emulator like PuTTY, Terminal.app, etc)
    job, not the driver's.

    True. But it is common for terminal drivers to offer a software-wrap
    option. This dates from the days of hardcopy terminals that didn?t
    know how to do hardware wrap, so if the print head was left at the
    last position and kept printing character on top of character, it
    could tear a hole through the paper.

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.1
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Johnny Billquist@3:633/10 to All on Thu Nov 27 20:13:25 2025
    On 2025-11-23 17:56, Scott Lurndal wrote:
    Lawrence =?iso-8859-13?q?D=FFOliveiro?= <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:
    On Sat, 22 Nov 2025 19:18:47 -0000 (UTC), Lars Poulsen wrote:

    On 2025-11-22, Peter Flass <Peter@Iron-Spring.com> wrote:

    Why does your terminal fold automatically? Is this a setting?

    My terminal does not fold automatically, but the programs I access
    through it mostly do.

    There is ?software? line wrap within the terminal driver, controlled by a
    tty mode settings (which can get misled by the cursor not being where the
    driver thought it was).

    The terminal drive has no knowlege of cursors at all. It simply
    passes through bytes from the input device to the program. In
    cooked mode, it will support the line erase,
    xon/xoff, and rubout/delete characters and handle lf <-> crlf
    conversions if configured.

    Depends on the operating system and driver. Not everything is Unix...

    Johnny


    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.1
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)