I accidentally hit Ctrl/N at this prompt, and it responded with:

Using newsrc group #1: default.

And it reset me to the top of my newsgroups list. Other than that,
everything seems to be fine;/normal. What does this mean?

Note that "man trn" and then searching for ^N tells me stuff about what
Ctrl/N would do at the "End of article..." prompt, but there is nothing in
there about at the other prompt.

--
In the corner of the room on the ceiling is a large vampire bat who
is obviously deranged and holding his nose.

Kenny McCormack <gazelle@shell.xmission.com> wrote:

>I accidentally hit Ctrl/N at this prompt, and it responded with:

> Using newsrc group #1: default.

You have using a default .newsrc. If you subscribe to multiple News servers,
you need a separate .newsrc for each. I distinguish among them following
the pine naming convention, which merely gives me the option of using
alpine as a newsreader.

In ~/.trn/access, you put them in order. The file is self documenting.
Just edit it.

>And it reset me to the top of my newsgroups list. Other than that,
>everything seems to be fine;/normal. What does this mean?

>Note that "man trn" and then searching for ^N tells me stuff about what
>Ctrl/N would do at the "End of article..." prompt, but there is nothing in
>there about at the other prompt.

trn 4 doesn't have a man page with full documentation. This is why it's
forever going to remain in test mode.

In article <snmjfd$95s$3@dont-email.me>, Adam H. Kerman <ahk@chinet.com> wrote:
>Kenny McCormack <gazelle@shell.xmission.com> wrote:
>
>>I accidentally hit Ctrl/N at this prompt, and it responded with:
>
>> Using newsrc group #1: default.
>
>You have using a default .newsrc. If you subscribe to multiple News servers,
>you need a separate .newsrc for each. I distinguish among them following
>the pine naming convention, which merely gives me the option of using
>alpine as a newsreader.

OK, thanks. What I'm most concerned with is: Did hitting ^N do anything
bad? One of the things I've gotten used to with trn over the years is that
almost all keys do something, and often that something isn't good.

So, you have to be careful not to hit random keys...

Anyway, I only have one newsserver, so I guess none of this applies to me.

>In ~/.trn/access, you put them in order. The file is self documenting.
>Just edit it.

I have a ~/.trn directory, but it is empty. So, I would have to create
that file from scratch (if I needed it, which, apparently, I don't).

>>And it reset me to the top of my newsgroups list. Other than that,
>>everything seems to be fine;/normal. What does this mean?
>
>>Note that "man trn" and then searching for ^N tells me stuff about what
>>Ctrl/N would do at the "End of article..." prompt, but there is nothing in
>>there about at the other prompt.
>
>trn 4 doesn't have a man page with full documentation. This is why it's
>forever going to remain in test mode.

Interesting.

--
Reading any post by Fred Hodgin, you're always faced with the choice of:
lunatic, moron, or troll.

I always try to be generous and give benefit of the doubt, by assuming troll.

Kenny McCormack <gazelle@shell.xmission.com> wrote:
>Adam H. Kerman <ahk@chinet.com> wrote:
>>Kenny McCormack <gazelle@shell.xmission.com> wrote:

>>>I accidentally hit Ctrl/N at this prompt, and it responded with:

>>> Using newsrc group #1: default.

>>You have using a default .newsrc. If you subscribe to multiple News servers,
>>you need a separate .newsrc for each. I distinguish among them following
>>the pine naming convention, which merely gives me the option of using
>>alpine as a newsreader.

>OK, thanks. What I'm most concerned with is: Did hitting ^N do anything
>bad?

Sorry. I left something out. If you defined multiple News servers in your
access file each with its own .newsrc, ^N and ^P switches among them.
As you are using a default .newsrc and no other, there's nothing to
switch to.

>. . .

>>In ~/.trn/access, you put them in order. The file is self documenting.
>>Just edit it.

>I have a ~/.trn directory, but it is empty. So, I would have to create
>that file from scratch (if I needed it, which, apparently, I don't).

A new installation of .trn creates those files.

You'd need an access file to more easily switch among News servers. If
you use exactly one server at a time without an access file, then rename
the .newsrc of the server you aren't presently using so the other becomes
the default.

>>>. . .

In news.software.readers, Kenny McCormack <gazelle@shell.xmission.com> wrote:
> OK, thanks. What I'm most concerned with is: Did hitting ^N do anything
> bad? One of the things I've gotten used to with trn over the years is that
> almost all keys do something, and often that something isn't good.

Nothing really bad, it just restarts at the top of the newsrc. If you
wanted to read all your groups in order, that can be annoying, but
that's about it.

> So, you have to be careful not to hit random keys...
>
> Anyway, I only have one newsserver, so I guess none of this applies to me.

You can have one news server and use multiple newsrc files for it, if
say you want to group your groups. I find using a different DOTDIR for
storing all of the state is more useful, sometimes I want to read the
same article in two instances of trn (maybe not the same binary, or
maybe with different options), and just using a different entry in
~/.trn/access doesn't cut it.

I'm a bit of an outlier in using a trn4 with patches outside the
standard distribution however.

If you do want to go with the access method, this is the contents of
my .trn/access, last edited in 2014. For the last five years at least
I've only used the default panix server. Instead, I've used DOTDIR
method for non-default servers since then. Eg, for the Mozilla groups

alias moztrn="NNTPSERVER=news.mozilla.org DOTDIR=$HOME/archive/mozilla trn4.new"

:r! cat ~/.trn/access
[default]
#NNTP Server = news1.nfs100.access.net
#NNTP Server = news.panix.com
#NNTP Server = news-test.panix.com
NNTP Server = reader2.panix.com

[eternalseptember]
NNTP Server = news.eternal-september.org
Auth User = pogonatus
Auth Password = [redacted]

[lugnet]
NNTP Server = lugnet.com
NNTP Port = 1119

[vmware]
NNTP Server = news.vmware.com

[alt]
NNTP Server = news.alt.net

[Group 1]
ID = default
Newsrc = ~/.newsrc

[Group 2]
ID = eternalseptember
Newsrc = ~/.trn/eternalseptemberrc

[Group 3]
ID = lugnet
Newsrc = ~/.trn/lugnetrc
Add Groups = no

[Group 4]
ID = vmware
Newsrc = ~/.trn/vmwarerc
Add Groups = no

[Group 5]
ID = alt
Newsrc = ~/.trn/altrc
Add Groups = no

The NNTP Port option doesn't work and emits a warning every time I start
trn, but I don't care enough to fix it.

These days I'm using this trn:

https://github.com/acli/trn

1000% better "Content-Type: ...; charset=" handling. Still has bugs,
notably UTF-7 doesn't work, but so much better than "dump it to the
terminal and pray".

Elijah
------
is using a different Pnews from the acli version, however