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.

       Links to the latest version of slrn may be found at http://www.jedsoft.org/slrn/

AUTHOR

       John E. Davis <jed@jedsoft.org>