NAME

       nwrite - enhanced write

SYNOPSIS

       nwrite [-i minutes] [-a] user[.ttyname] [user[.ttyname] ...]

DESCRIPTION

       nwrite  copies  lines  from  your terminal to the terminals of one or more users.  When called, it begins
       copying lines you type to the recipient's terminal(tty). Before sending the first line  of  text,  nwrite
       prepends the message

         Message from <name> on <tty> [to user [users ...]] at <time> ...

       Communication  continues until an end of file is read from the terminal or an interrupt is sent.  At that
       point nwrite writes `EOF' (or `EOF (sendername)' if whoeof is set) on the other terminal and exits.

       If you want to write to a user who is logged in more than once, the  ttyname  argument  may  be  used  to
       indicate  the appropriate terminal name, OR, you can let nwrite find the first writable tty, and write to
       that. Additionally, you can use the -i option to specify a number of minutes; ttys  more  idle  than  the
       number you specify will be ignored when looking for ttys to write to.

       Permission  to  write  may  be  denied  or  granted by use of the mesg command.  At the outset writing is
       allowed.  Certain commands, in particular nroff and pr(1) disallow messages in  order  to  prevent  messy
       output.

NWRITERC

       To control how incoming nwrites look to you, create a ~/.nwriterc with lines of the form:

         option  value

       Where value is either 0 or 1 (meaning no and yes) and option is one of:

       headers
              Display "user> " before each incoming line.

       beep   Cause the terminal to beep when the message header comes through.

       nodelay
              Do not wait for the first line of input before displaying the message header.

       bold   Takes the following string values:

              never  no bolding (default)

              header message header only

              tag    message header and "login>" line tags

              all    bold everything

       showtarg
              Used to control the behavior of the message header. Takes the following string values:

              never  never show recipient list

              multi  only if more than one recipient (default)

              always always show recipients

       whoeof When  sending  EOF,  append  username  to differentiate between many Users at once like this: "EOF
              (user)".

       Note that your home directory must be world executable and the .nwriterc itself must be world readable.

EXAMPLE NWRITERC

        headers        1
        nodelay        0
        beep           0
        bold           header
        showtarg       multi

OPTIONS

       -a     arguments are zeroed so that the process table entry does not reveal who you are writing to.  (Not
              available on all systems.)

       -i <minutes>
              Ignore ttys more idle than <minutes> minutes.

FILES

       /var/run/utmp
              to find user

       /etc/nwrite.rc
              to set system default preferences

       ~user/.nwriterc
              to obtain target's preferences

AUTHORS

        Marco Nicosia,    marco@csua.berkeley.edu, Summer 1993
        Aaron C. Smith,   aaron@csua.berkeley.edu, Summer 1994-Spring 1995
        Alan Coopersmith, alanc@csua.berkeley.edu, Summer 1995-present
        Master ftp site: ftp://ftp.csua.berkeley.edu/pub/nwrite/

SEE ALSO

       mesg(1) , who(1) ,