Provided by: nn_6.7.3-15_amd64 bug

NAME

       nn - efficient net news interface (No News is good news)

SYNOPSIS

       nn [ options ] [ newsgroup  |  +folder  |  file ]...
       nn -g [ -r ]
       nn -a0 [ newsgroup ]...

DESCRIPTION

       Net  news is a world-wide information exchange service covering numerous topics in science
       and every day life.  Topics are organized in news groups, and these groups  are  open  for
       everybody to post articles on a subject related to the topic of the group.

       Nn  is  a `point-and-shoot' net news interface program, or a news reader for short (not to
       be confused with the human news reader).  When you use nn, you can  decide  which  of  the
       many  news  groups  you  are  interested  in, and you can unsubscribe to those which don't
       interest you.  nn will let you read the new (and old) articles in each of the  groups  you
       subscribe  to  using  a  menu based article selection prior to reading the articles in the
       news group.

       When a news group is entered, nn will locate all the  presently  unread  articles  in  the
       group,   and  extract  their  sender,  subject,  and  other  relevant  information.   This
       information is then rearranged, sorted, and marked in various ways to give it  a  pleasant
       format when it is presented on the screen.

       This  will  be  done  very  quickly,  because  nn uses the NOV database via the NNTP XOVER
       command.  The news server to use can be overridden by  setting  the  environment  variable
       $NNTPSERVER  to  the  name  of  the system (such as news.newserver.com), or by setting the
       variable nntp-server (on the command line only, since it is  looked  at  before  the  init
       file), as "nntp-server=news.some.domain").  If you use multiple servers, you probably want
       to set the nn-directory and newsrc variables on the command line to an alternate names  as
       well, since some of the data files are server dependent.  If you are using a slow tcp link
       (such as ppp over a modem) and NNTP, see the NOTES section at the end of this manual.

       When the article menu appears on the screen, nn will be in a mode called  selection  mode.
       In  this  mode,  the  articles  which  seems  to  be interesting can be selected by single
       keystrokes (using the keys a-z and 0-9).  When all the interesting articles among the ones
       presently  displayed  have  been  selected, the space bar is hit, which causes nn to enter
       reading mode.

       In reading mode, each of the selected articles will be presented.  You use the  space  bar
       to  go  on  to  the  next page of the current article, or to the next article.  Of course,
       there are all sorts of commands to scroll text up and down,  skip  to  the  next  article,
       responding to an article, decrypt an article, and so on.

       When  all  the  selected articles in the current group have been read, the last hit on the
       space bar will cause nn will continue to the next group with unread  articles,  and  enter
       selection mode on that group.

FREQUENTLY USED OPTIONS

       nn  accepts  a  lot of command line options, but here only the frequently used options are
       described.  Options can also be set permanently by including appropriate variable settings
       in  the  init  file  described later.  All options are described in the section on Command
       Line Options towards the end of this manual.

       The frequently used command line options are:

       -a0    Catch up on unread articles and groups.  See the section "Catch up" below.

       -g     Prompt for the name of a news group or folder to be entered (with completion).

       -r     Used with -g to repeatedly prompt for groups to enter.

       -lN    Print only the first N lines of the first page of each article before prompting  to
              continue.   This  is useful on slow terminals and modem lines to be able to see the
              first few lines of longer articles.

       -sWORD Collect only articles which contain the string  WORD  in  their  subject  (case  is
              ignored).   This  is  normally  combined  with  the  -x  and -m options to find all
              articles on a specific subject.

       -s/regexp
              Collect only articles whose subject matches the regular expression regexp.  This is
              normally  combined  with  the  -x and -m options to find all articles on a specific
              subject.

       -nWORD or -n/regexp
              Same as -s except that it matches on the sender's name  instead  of  the  article's
              subject.  This is normally combined with the -x and -m options to find all articles
              from a specific author.  It cannot be mixed with the -s option!

       -i     Normally searches with -n and -s are case independent.  Using this option, the case
              becomes significant.

       -m     Merge  all  articles  into  one `meta group' instead of showing them one group at a
              time.  This is normally used together with the -x and -s options  to  get  all  the
              articles  on  a  specific  subject  presented on a single menu (when you don't care
              about which group they belong to).  When -m is used, no articles will be marked  as
              read.

       -x[N]  Present  (or  scan) all (or the last N) unread as well as read articles.  When this
              option is used, nn will never mark unread articles as read  (i.e.  .newsrc  is  not
              updated).

       -X     Read/scan  unsubscribed  groups  also.   Most  useful  when  looking for a specific
              subject in all groups, e.g.
                   nn -mxX -sSubject all

       news.group  or  file  or  +folder
              If none of these arguments are given, all subscribed  news  groups  will  be  used.
              Otherwise,  only  the  specified  news  groups  and/or  files will be collected and
              presented.  In specifying a news groups, the following `meta notation' can be used:
              If the news group ends with a `.' (or `.all'), all subgroups of the news group will
              be collected, e.g.
                   comp.sources.
              If  a  news group starts with a `.' (or `all.'), all the matching subgroups will be
              collected, e.g.
                   .sources.unix
              The argument `all' identifies all (subscribed) news groups.

COMMAND INPUT

       In general, nn commands consist of one or two key-strokes, and nn reacts instantly to  the
       commands  you  give  it;  you  don't have to enter return after each command (except where
       explicitly stated).

       Some commands have more serious effects than others, and  therefore  nn  requests  you  to
       confirm  the  command.   You confirm by hitting the the y key, and reject by hitting the n
       key.  Some `trivial' requests may also be confirmed simply by hitting space.  For example,
       to  confirm  the  creation  of a save file, just hit space, but if one or more directories
       also have to be created, you must enter y.

       Many commands will require that you enter a line of text, e.g. a  file  name  or  a  shell
       command.   If  you  enter  space as the first character on a line, the line will be filled
       with a default value (if one is defined).  For example, the default value for a file  name
       is  the  last  file  name you have entered, and the default shell command is your previous
       shell command.  You can edit this default value as well as a directly  typed  text,  using
       the  following editing commands.  The erase, kill, and interrupt keys are the keys defined
       by the current tty settings.  On systems without job control,  the  suspend  key  will  be
       control-Z while it is the current suspend character on system with job control.

       erase
              Delete the last character on the line.

       delete-word   (normally ^W)
              Delete the last word or component of the input.

       kill
              Delete all characters on the line.

       interrupt  and  control-G
              Cancel the command which needs the input.

       suspend
              Suspend nn if supported by the system.  Otherwise, spawn an interactive shell.

       return
              Terminate the line, and continue with the command.

       Related variables: erase-key, flow-control, flush-typeahead, help-key, kill-key, word-key.

BASIC COMMANDS

       There  are numerous commands in nn, and most of them can be invoked by a single keystroke.
       The descriptions in this manual are based on the standard bindings of the commands to  the
       keys,  but  it  is possible to customize these using the map command described later.  For
       each of the keystroke commands described in this manual, the  corresponding  command  name
       will also be shown in curly braces, e.g. {command}.

       The  following  commands work in both selection mode and in reading mode.  The notation ^X
       means `control X':

       ?    {help}
              Help.  Gives a one page overview of the commands available in the current mode.

       ^L   {redraw}
              Redraw screen.

       ^R   {redraw}
              Redraw screen (Same as ^L).

       ^P   {message}
              Repeat the last message shown on the message line.  The command can be repeated  to
              successively  show  previous  messages  (the  maximum  number  of saved messages is
              controlled via the message-history variable.)

       !    {shell}
              Shell escape.  The user is prompted  for  a  command  which  is  executed  by  your
              favorite  shell  (see  the  shell variable).  Shell escapes are described in detail
              later on.

       Q    {quit}
              Quit nn.  When you use this command,  you  neither  lose  unread  articles  in  the
              current  group  nor  the  selections  you  might have made (unless the articles are
              expired in the meantime of course).

       V    {version}
              Print release and version information.

       :command  {command}
              Execute the command by name.  This form can be used to invoke any of nn's commands,
              also  those  which cannot be bound to a key (such as :coredump), or those which are
              not bound to a key by default (such as post and unshar).

       Related and basic  variables:  backup,  backup-suffix,  confirm-auto-quit,  expert,  mail,
       message-history, new-group-action, newsrc, quick-count.

SELECTION MODE

       In selection mode, the screen is divided into four parts: the header line showing the name
       of the news group and the number of articles, the menu  lines  which  show  the  collected
       articles - one article per line, the prompt line where you enter commands, and the message
       line where nn prints various messages to you.

       Each menu line begins with an article id which is a unique letter (or digit if your screen
       can  show  more  than 26 menu lines).  To select an articles for reading, you simply enter
       the corresponding id, and the menu line will be high-lighted to indicate that the  article
       is selected.  When you have selected all the interesting articles on the present menu, you
       simply hit space.

       If there are more articles collected for the current group than could be presented on  one
       screenful of text, you will be presented with the next portion of articles to select from.
       When you have had the opportunity to select among all the articles in the  group,  hitting
       space will enter reading mode.

       If no articles have been selected in the current group, hitting space will enter selection
       mode on the next news group, or exit nn if the current group was the last news group  with
       unread  articles.  It  is thus possible to go through ALL unread articles (without reading
       any of them) just by hitting space a few times.

       The articles will be presented on the menu using one of the following layouts:

       0:     x Name.........  Subject.............. +123

       1:     x Name.........   123  Subject..............

       2:     x 123  Subject...................................

       3:     x Subject...........................................

       4:     x    Subject........................................

       Here x is the letter or digit that must be entered to select the article, Name is the real
       name  of the sender (or the mail address if the real name cannot be found), Subject is the
       contents of the "Subject:" line in the article, and 123 is the  number  of  lines  in  the
       article.

       Layout 0 and 1 are just two ways to present the same information, while layout 2 and 3 are
       intended for groups whose articles have very long subject lines, e.g. comp.sources.

       Layout 4 is a hybrid between layout 1 and 3.  It will normally use layout 1, but  it  will
       use  layout  3 (with a little indentation) for menu lines where the subject is longer than
       the space available with layout 1.

       Layout 1 is the default layout, and an alternative menu line layout is selected using  the
       -L option or by setting the layout variable.  Once nn is started the layout can be changed
       at any time using the " key {layout}.

       The Name is limited to 16 characters, and to make maximum  use  of  this  space,  nn  will
       perform  a series of simplifications on the name, e.g. changing first names into initials,
       removing domain names from mail addresses (if the real name is not found) etc.  It does  a
       good  job,  but  some people on the net put weird things into the From: field (or actually
       into their password file) which result in nn producing quite cryptic, and sometimes  funny
       "names".

       One  a  usual  80  column  terminal,  the Subject is limited to about 60 characters (75 in
       layout 3) and is thus only an approximation to the actual subject line which may  be  much
       longer.   To get as much out of this space, Re: prefixes (in various forms) are recognized
       and replaced by a single `>' character (see the re-layout variable).

       Since articles are sorted according to the subject, two  or  more  adjacent  articles  may
       share  the  same  subject  (ignoring any `>'s).  In this case, only the first article will
       show the subject of the article; the rest will only show the `>' character in the  subject
       field  (or  a  `-'  if there is no `>' at the beginning of the line).  A typical menu will
       thus only show each subject once, saving a lot of time in scanning the news articles.

       If consolidated menus (see section below) are enabled, adjacent articles sharing the  same
       subject  will  be  shown  with a single line on the menu corresponding to the first of the
       articles.  The number of articles with the same subject will be shown as a braketed number
       in front of the subject, e.g. with layout 1:
            x Name.........   123  [4] Subject..............
       For further information see the section on consolidated menus below.

       Related  variables:  collapse-subject, columns, confirm-entry, confirm-entry-limit, entry-
       report-limit, fsort, kill, layout, limit, lines, long-menu, re-layout, repeat,  slow-mode,
       sort,  sort-mode,  split,  subject-match-limit, subject-match-offset, subject-match-parts,
       subject-match-minimum.

ARTICLE ATTRIBUTES

       While nn is running and between invocations, nn associates an attribute with each  article
       on  your  system.   These  attributes  are  used  to differentiate between read and unread
       articles, selected articles, articles marked for later treatment, etc.  Depending  on  how
       nn is configured, these attributes can be saved between invocations of nn, or some of them
       may only be used while nn is running.

       The attribute is shown on the menu using either a single character following  the  article
       id  or  by high-lighting the menu line, depending on the attribute and the capabilities of
       the terminal.  You can also change the attributes to your own taste  (see  the  attributes
       variable).

       The  attribute  of  an article can be changed explicitly using the selection mode commands
       described below, or it will change automatically for example when you have read or saved a
       selected article.  If a command may change any article attributes, it will be noted in the
       description of the command.  The  following  descriptions  of  the  attributes  will  only
       mention the most important commands that may set (or preserve) the attribute.

       The following attributes may be associated with an article:

       read   Menu  attribute  "." - indicates that the article has been read or saved.  When you
              leave the group, these articles will  be  marked  permanently  read,  and  are  not
              presented the next time you enter the group.

       seen   Menu  attribute  ","  -  indicates that the article is unread, but that it has been
              presented on a menu.  Depending on  how  nn  is  configured,  these  articles  will
              automatically  be  marked  read  when you leave the group, they may remain seen, or
              they may just be unread the next time you enter the group (see the  auto-junk-seen,
              confirm-junk-seen, and retain-seen-status variables).
              Only  the  commands continue (space) and read-skip (X) will mark unread articles on
              the current (or all) menu pages as seen when they are used.   Other  commands  that
              scroll through the menu pages or enter reading mode will let unread articles remain
              unread.

       unread Menu attribute " " - indicates an unread article.  These articles were unread  when
              you  entered the group, and they may remain unread when you leave the group, unless
              they have been marked seen by the command that you used to leave the group or enter
              reading mode.

       selected
              Menu  line  high-lighted (or menu attribute "*") - indicates that you have selected
              the article.  If you leave the group, the selected articles  will  remain  selected
              the  next  time  you  enter  the group.  When you have read a selected article, the
              attribute will automatically change to read.

       auto-selected
              These articles have the same appearance as selected articles on the menu,  and  the
              only  difference  is  that  these articles have been selected automatically via the
              auto-selection  facility  rather  than  manually  by  you.    Very   few   commands
              differentiate  between  these attributes and if they do, it is explicitly stated in
              this manual.  The main difference is that these articles are only marked as  unread
              when  you  leave  the group (supposing they will also be auto-selected the next the
              group is entered).  This simplifies the house-keeping between invocations of nn.

       leave  Menu attribute "+" - indicates that the article is marked for  later  treatment  by
              the leave-article (l) command.  These articles may be selected (on demand) when you
              have read all selected articles in a group.  However, if you  do  not  select  them
              then immediately, they are stored as the leave-next attribute described below.

       leave-next
              Menu  attribute  "="  - indicates that the article is marked for later treatment by
              the leave-next (L) command.  This is a permanent attribute, which  will  remain  on
              the  article  until  you  either  read  the article, change the attribute, or it is
              expired.  So assigning this attribute to an article will effectively keep it unread
              until  you  do  something.   If  the variable select-leave-next is set, nn will ask
              whether these articles should be selected on entry to a group (but naturally, doing
              so will change the leave-next attribute to select).

       cancelled
              Menu attribute "#" - indicates that the article has been cancelled.  This is mainly
              useful when tidying a folder; it is set by the  cancel  (C)  command,  and  can  be
              cleared by any command that change attributes, e.g. you can select and deselect the
              article.

       killed Menu attribute "!" - indicates that the article has been killed  (e.g.   by  the  K
              {kill-select}  command).  Killed articles are immediately removed from the menu, so
              you should not normally see articles with this attribute.  If you do, report it  as
              a bug!

       The  attributes  are  saved  in  two  files: .newsrc (read articles) and .nn/select (other
       attributes).  Plain unread articles are saved by not occurring in either of  these  files.
       Both files are described in more detail later on.

       Related  variables:  attributes,  auto-junk-seen,  confirm-junk-seen,  retain-seen-status,
       select-leave-next.

SELECTION MODE COMMANDS

       The primary purpose of the selection mode is of course to select the articles to be  read,
       but  numerous  other  commands  may  also be performed in this mode: saving of articles in
       files, replying and following up on articles, mailing/forwarding articles,  shell  escapes
       etc.

       As  described  above, the selected articles are marked either by showing the corresponding
       menu line in standout mode (reverse  video),  or  if  the  terminal  does  not  have  this
       capability by placing an asterisk (*) after the selection letter or digit.

       Most  commands  which  are  used  to select articles will work as toggle commands.  If the
       article is not already selected, the selectedattribute on the article(s),  independent  on
       the  previous  attribute.  Otherwise, the article(s) will be deselected and marked unread.
       Consequently, any article can be marked unread simply be selecting and deselecting it.

       During selection, the cursor will normally be placed on the  article  following  the  last
       article  whose  attribute  was changed (initially the first article).  The article pointed
       out by the cursor is called the current article, and the following commands work  relative
       to the current article and cursor position.

       abc...z 01..9  {article N}
              The  article  with  the  given  identification  letter  or  digit  is  selected  or
              deselected.  The following article becomes the current article.   If  the  variable
              auto-select-subject is set, all articles with the same subject as the given article
              are selected.

       .    {select}
              Select or deselect the current article and move the cursor to the next article.

       ,    {line+1}
              Move the cursor to the next article.  You can use the down arrow as well.

       /    {line-1}
              Move cursor to previous article.  You can use the up arrow as well.

       *    {select-subject}
              Select or deselect all articles with same subject as current  article.   This  will
              work across several menu pages if necessary.

       -x   {select-range}
              Select  or  deselect  the  range  of  articles  between the current article and the
              article specified by x.  For example you can select all articles from  e  to  k  by
              simply typing e-k.

       The following commands may change the attributes on all articles on the current menu page,
       or on all articles on all menu pages.

       @    {select-invert}
              Reverse selections.  All selected articles on the current page are deselected,  and
              vice-versa.  (Use the find command to select all articles.)

       ~    {unselect-all}
              Deselect  all  auto-selected  articles  in  the  group  (this works across all menu
              pages).  If the command is executed twice,  the  selected  articles  will  also  be
              deselected.

       +    {select-auto}
              Perform auto-selections in the group (see the section on "auto kill/select" below).

       =    {find}
              Prompts  for a regular expression, and selects all articles on the menu (all pages)
              which matches the regular expression.  Depending on the  variable  select-on-sender
              matching  is performed against the subject (default) or the sender of the articles.
              An empty answer (= return) will  reuse  the  previous  expression.   Example:   The
              command = . return will select all articles in the group.

       J    {junk-articles}
              This  is  a  very  versatile  command  which  can  be  used to perform all sorts of
              attribute changes, either on individual articles, all articles on the current  menu
              page, all articles with a specific attribute, or all available articles.  To access
              all the functions of this command, the J key may have to be hit up to  four  times,
              to  loop  through  different  one-line  menus.  The full functionality of the junk-
              articles command is described in a separate section below.

       L    {leave-next}
              This is a specialized version of the generic J {junk-articles} command to  set  the
              leave-next attribute on a subset of the articles on the menu.  It is also described
              further below.

       The following commands move between the pages belonging to the same news group when  there
       are  more  articles  than  will  fit on a single page.  These commands will not change any
       article attributes.

       >    {page+1}
              Goto next menu page.

       <    {page-1}
              Goto previous menu page, or to last menu page if on first menu page.

       $    {page=$}
              Goto last menu page.

       ^    {page=1}
              Goto first menu page.

       The following commands are used to enter reading mode for the selected  articles,  and  to
       move between news groups (in selection mode).  They may change article attributes if noted
       below.

       space     {continue}
              Continue to next menu page, or if on last menu page, read  the  selected  articles.
              If  no  articles  have  been selected, continue to the next news group.  The unread
              articles on the current menu page will automatically be marked seen.

       return    {continue-no-mark}
              Identical to the continue command, except that the unread articles on  the  current
              menu page will remain unread.  (The newline key has the same effect).

       Z    {read-return}
              Enter  reading  mode  immediately  with  the currently selected articles.  When all
              articles have been read, return to selection mode in the current  group.   It  will
              mark  selected articles read as they are read, but unread articles are not normally
              changed (can be controlled with the variable marked-by-read-return.)

       X    {read-skip}
              Mark all unmarked articles seen on all menu pages (or  the  pages  defined  by  the
              marked-by-read-skip   variable),  and  enter  reading  mode  immediately  with  the
              currently selected articles.  As the selected articles are read,  they  are  marked
              read.   When  all selected articles have been read, nn will enter selection mode in
              the next news group.  When no articles are selected, it goes directly to  the  next
              group.   This  can  be  used to skip all the articles in a large news group without
              having to go through all the menu pages.

       If you don't want to read the current group now, but want to keep it for  later,  you  can
       use the following commands which will only mark seen and read articles as read.  Currently
       selected articles will still be selected the next time you enter the group.  None of these
       commands will change any attributes themselves (by default).

       N    {next-group}
              Go forward to the next group in the presentation sequence.  If the variable marked-
              by-next-group is set articles on the menu can optionally be marked seen

       P    {previous}
              Go back to the previous group.  This command will enter selection mode on the  last
              active  group (two P commands in sequence will bring you to the current group).  If
              there are still some unread articles in the group,  only  those  articles  will  be
              shown.   Otherwise,  all the articles which were unread when nn was invoked will be
              shown marked with the read attribute (which can be changed as usual).

       As described in the "Article Attributes" section, the read and seen articles will normally
       be  marked  read  when you leave the group, and these articles are not shown the next time
       you enter the group.

       In all releases prior to release 6.4, it was impossible to have individual articles  in  a
       group  marked  unread  when  you  left  a  group, and the default behaviour of release 6.4
       onwards will closely match the traditional behaviour.  This means that the seen  and  read
       articles are treated alike for most practical purposes with the default variable settings.

       If  you  don't  like  nn to silently mark the seen articles read, you can set the variable
       confirm-junk-seen to get nn to prompt you for confirmation before doing this, or  you  can
       unset  the  variable auto-junk-seen to simply keep the seen articles for the next time you
       enter the group.  You then have to use the J {junk-articles} to mark articles read.

       Using return {continue-no-mark} will also allow you to keep articles  unread  rather  than
       marking  them  seen  when  scrolling through the menu pages and entering reading mode.  If
       this is your preferred reading style, you can remap space to this command.

       Related  variables:  auto-junk-seen,  auto-preview-mode,  auto-select-subject,  case-fold-
       search, confirm-auto-quit, confirm-entry, confirm-junk-seen, marked-by-next-group, marked-
       by-read-return, marked-by-read-skip, retain-seen-status, select-on-sender.

CONSOLIDATED MENUS

       Normally, nn will use one menu line for each article, so if there are many  articles  with
       identical  subjects,  each  menu page will only contain a few different subjects.  To have
       each subject occur only once on the menu,  nn  can  operate  with  consolidated  menus  by
       setting the variable consolidated-menu.

       When consolidated menus are used, nn operates with two kinds of subjects: open and closed.

       An  open subject is a subject which is shown in the traditional way with one menu line for
       each article with the given subject.  In other words,  when  consolidated  menus  are  not
       used, all subjects are open (by default).

       A  closed  subject  is  a  multi-article subject which is presented by a single menu line.
       This line will be the normal menu line for the first (oldest) article  with  the  subject,
       but  with  the  subject  field  annotated  with  a  bracketed number showing the number of
       articles with that subject, e.g.
            a Kim F. Storm     12  [4] Future plans for nn
            b.Kim F. Storm     43  [3] More plans for nn
       In this example, there are four unread articles with subject `a' of  which  the  first  is
       posted  by  me  and  has  12 lines.  The rest of the articles are hidden, and will only be
       shown on request.  The `.'  marker on subject `b' shows that  all  three  articles  within
       that subject have been read (or seen).

       To  select  (or  deselect)  ALL  the  articles  within a closed subject, simply select the
       article shown on the menu; this will automatically select  (or  deselect)  the  rest  (see
       auto-select-closed).   When  all the unread articles within a closed subject are selected,
       the menu line will be high-lighted.

       If you want to view the individual articles in  a  subject  (maybe  to  select  individual
       articles), you can open the subject with the commands:

       (x     Open subject x on menu.

       ((     Open current subject.

       When  you  have  completed  viewing  the  opened subject, you can close it again using the
       commands:

       )x     Close subject x on menu (x is any article with the subject).

       ))     Close current subject.

       In the basic layout of the menu line for a closed subject as shown above, ALL articles  in
       the closed subject are supposed to be either:

       unread The menu line is not high-lighted.

       selected
              Menu line is fully high-lighted (if all UNREAD are selected).

       read/seen
              There is a `.' (read attribute) following the article id.

       If  neither  of  these  cases  apply,  i.e.  there  is  a mixture of unread, selected, and
       seen/read articles, the bracketed number will have one of the following formats:

       [U:T]  There are U unread articles of T total (U<T).

       [S/T]  There are S selected articles of T total (S<U=T).

       [S/U:T]
              There are S selected of U unread of T total (S<U<T).

       If there are any selected articles (S>0), the information between  the  brackets  will  be
       high-lighted (to show that something is selected, but not all the unread articles).

       Notice:  Consolidated menus only work with the `subject' and `lexical' sorting methods.

       Variables  related  to  consolidated  menus  are:  auto-select-closed,  consolidated-menu,
       counter-delim-left, counter-delim-right, counter-padding, save-closed-mode.

THE JUNK-ARTICLES AND LEAVE-NEXT COMMANDS

       The J {junk-articles} command is a very flexible command which can perform  all  sorts  of
       attribute  changes,  either on individual articles, all articles on the current menu page,
       all articles with a specific attribute, or all available articles.

       To access all the functions of this command, the J key may have  to  be  hit  up  to  four
       times, to loop through different one-line menus:

       Mark Read
              This submenu allows you to mark articles read.

       Unmark This submenu allows you to mark articles unread.

       Select This submenu allows you to select articles based on their attribute.

       Kill   This  submenu  allows you to mark articles read and remove them from the menu based
              on their attribute.

       The L {leave-next} command is an extension of the J command with a fifth menu:

       Leave  This menu allows you to mark  articles  for  later  handling  with  the  leave-next
              attribute  which  will  keep  the  article  unread  until you explicitly change the
              attribute (e.g. by reading it) or it is expired.

       For each of these submenus, nn will list the most plausible choices you may use,  but  all
       of  the following answers can be used at all submenus.  When you have entered a choice, nn
       will afterward ask whether the change should be made to all menu pages or only the current
       page.

       J      Show next submenu.

       L      Change attribute on all leave articles.

       N      Change attribute on all leave-next articles.

       R      Change attribute on all read articles.

       S      Change attribute on all seen articles.

       U      Change attribute on all unmarked (i.e. unread) articles.

       A      Change attribute on all articles no matter their current attribute.

       *      Change attribute on all selected articles on the current page.

       +      Change attribute on all selected articles on all pages.

       a-z0-9 Change attribute on one or more specific articles on the current page.  You end the
              list of articles by a space or by using one of the other choices described above.

       .      Change attribute on current article.

       , /    Move the current article down or up the menu without changing any attributes.

READING MODE COMMANDS

       In reading mode, the selected articles are presented one page at a time.  To get the  next
       page of an article, simply hit space, and when you are on the last page of an article, hit
       space to get to the next selected article.  Articles are normally marked read when you  go
       to  the  next  article,  while  going  back to the menu, quitting nn, etc. will retain the
       attribute on the current article.

       When you are on the last page of the last article, hit space to enter  selection  mode  on
       the next group (or the current group if reading mode was entered using the Z command).

       To read an article, the following text scrolling commands are available:

       space     {continue}
              Scroll  one  page  forward  or continue with the next article or group as described
              above.

       backspace / delete  {page-1}
              Go one page backwards in article.

       d    {page+1/2}
              Scroll one half page forward.

       u    {page-1/2}
              Go one half page backwards.

       return    {line+1}
              Scroll one line forward in the article.

       tab  {skip-lines}
              Skip over lines starting with the same character as the last line  on  the  current
              page.   This  is  useful  to skip over included text or to the next file in a shell
              archive.

       ^    {page=1}
              Move to the first page (excluding the header) of the article.

       $    {page=$}
              Move to the last page of the article.

       gN   {line=@}
              Move to line N in the article.

       /regexp   {find}
              Search forward for text matching the regular expression regexp in the article.   If
              a matching text is found, it will be high-lighted.

       .    {find-next}
              Repeat search for last regular expression.

       h    {page=0}
              Show the header of the article, and continue from the top of the article.

       H    {full-digest}
              If  the  current article is extracted from a digest, show the entire digest article
              including its header.  Another H command will return to the current subarticle.

       D    {rot13}
              Turn rot13 (caesar) decryption on and off  for  the  current  article,  and  redraw
              current page.  If the article is saved while it is decrypted on the screen, it will
              be saved in decrypted form as well!

       c    {compress}
              Turn compression on and off for the current article and redraw current page.   With
              compression  turned on, multiple spaces and tabs are shown as a single space.  This
              makes it much easier to read right justified text which separate words with several
              spaces.  (See also the compress variable)

       The following commands are used to move among the selected articles.

       n    {next-article}
              Move to next selected article.  This command skips the rest of the current article,
              marks it read, and jumps directly to the first page of the  next  selected  article
              (or to the next group if it was the last selected article).

       l    {leave-article}
              Mark  the  current  article  with  the  leave  attribute and continue with the next
              selected article.  When all the selected articles in the current  group  have  been
              read,  these  left over articles can be automatically selected and shown once more,
              or the treatment can be postponed to the next time you enter the group.
                This is particularly useful if you see an article which you may want  to  respond
              to unless one the following articles is already saying what you intended to say.

       L    {leave-next}
              Mark  the  current article with the leave-next attribute and continue with the next
              selected article.

       p    {previous}
              Goto previous article.

       k    {next-subject}
              Kill subject.  Skips rest of current article, and all following articles  with  the
              same subject.  The skipped articles are marked read.  To kill a subject permanently
              use the K command.

       *    {select-subject}
              Show next article with same subject (even if it is  not  selected).   This  command
              will  select  all  following  articles with the same subject as the current article
              (similar to the `*' command in selection mode).  This can be used  to  select  only
              the first article on a subject in selection mode, and then select all follow-ups in
              reading mode if you find the article interesting.

       a    {advance-article}
              Goto the following article on the menu even if it is not  selected.   This  command
              skips  the  rest of the current article and jumps directly to the first page of the
              next article (it will not skip to the next group if it is the last  article).   The
              attribute  on the current article will be restored, except for the unread attribute
              which will be changed to seen.

       b    {back-article}
              Goto the article before current article on the menu even if  it  is  not  selected.
              This is similar to the a command, except for the direction.

       The  following commands perform an immediate return from reading mode to selection mode in
       the current group or skip to the next group.

       =    {goto-menu}
              Return to selection mode in the current group (think of =  as  the  "icon"  of  the
              selection menu).  The articles read so far will be marked read.

       N    {next-group}
              Skip  the  rest  of  the  selected  and unread articles in the current group and go
              directly to the next group.  Only the read (and seen) articles in the current group
              are marked as read.

       X    {read-skip}
              Mark  all  articles in the current group as read and go directly to the next group.
              (You will be asked to confirm this command.)

       Related variables: case-fold-search, charset,  compress,  data-bits,  date,  header-lines,
       mark-overlap,  monitor,  overlap,  scroll-clear-page,  stop,  trusted-escape-codes,  wrap-
       header-margin.

PREVIEWING ARTICLES IN SELECTION MODE

       In selection mode, it is possible to read a specific article on the menu without  entering
       reading  mode  for  all  the  selected articles on the menu.  Using the commands described
       below will enter reading mode for one article only, and  then  return  to  the  menu  mode
       immediately after (depending on the setting of the preview-continuation variable).

       If  there  are  more  than 5 free lines at the bottom of the menu screen, nn will use that
       space to show the article (a minimal preview window can be permanently allocated with  the
       window variable).  Otherwise, the screen will be cleared to show the article.

       After  previewing an article, it will be marked read (if the preview-mark-read variable is
       set), and the following article will become the current article.

       %x   {preview}
              Preview article x.

       %%   {preview}
              Preview the current article.

       When the article is being shown, the following reading mode commands are very useful:

       =    {goto-menu}
              Skip the rest of the current article, and return to menu mode.

       n    {next-article}
              Skip the rest of the current article, and preview the next article.

       l    {leave-article}
              Mark the article as selected (!) on the menu for handling later on.  Then skip  the
              rest of the current article, and preview the next article.

       %y   {preview}
              Preview article y .

       If  the  variable  auto-preview-mode is set, just hitting the article id in menu mode will
       enter preview mode on the specified article.

       Related variables: auto-preview-mode, min-window, preview-continuation, preview-mark-read,
       window.

SAVING ARTICLES

       The  following  commands  are  used  to  save  articles  in files, unpack archives, decode
       binaries, etc.  It is possible to use the commands  in  both  reading  mode  to  save  the
       current article and in selection mode to save one or more articles on the menu.

       The  saved  articles  will  be appended to the specified file(s) followed by an empty line
       each.  Both files and directories will be created as needed.  When  an  article  has  been
       saved  in a file, a message reporting the number of lines saved will be shown if the save-
       report variable is set (default on).

       S    {save-full}
              Save articles including the full article header.

       O    {save-short}
              Save articles with a short header containing only  the  name  of  the  sender,  the
              subject, and the posting date of the article.

       E    {save-header}
              Save only the header of the articles.

       W    {save-body}
              Write article without a header.

       :print    {print}
              Print  article.   Instead  of  a  file name, this command will prompt for the print
              command to which the current article will be piped.  The default print  command  is
              specified  at  compile time, but it can be changed by setting the printer variable.
              The output will be identical to that of the O command.

       :patch    {patch}
              Send articles through  patch(1)  (or  the  program  defined  in  the  patch-command
              variable).   Instead  of  a  file  name,  you  will  be  prompted for the name of a
              directory in which you want the patch command to be executed.  nn  will  then  pipe
              the body of the article through the patch command.
                The  output  from the patch process will be shown on the screen and also appended
              to a file named Patch.Result in the patch directory.

       :unshar   {unshar}
              Unshar articles.  You will be prompted for the name of a  directory  in  which  you
              want  nn to unshar the articles.  nn will then pipe the proper parts of the article
              body into a Bourne Shell whose working directory  will  be  set  to  the  specified
              directory.
                During  the  unpacking,  the normal output from the unshar process will appear on
              the screen, and the menu or article text  will  be  redrawn  when  the  process  is
              finished.
                The  output  is  also  appended  to  a  file  named  Unshar.Result  in the unshar
              directory.
                The file specified in unshar-header-file (default "Unshar.Headers") in the unshar
              directory  will contain the header and initial text (before the shar data) from the
              article.  You can use the `G' {goto-group} command to look  at  the  Unshar.Headers
              file.

       :decode   {decode}
              Decode  uuencoded articles into binary files.  You will be prompted for the name of
              a directory in which you want nn to place the decoded binary files (the file  names
              are taken from the uuencoded data).
                nn  will  combine  several articles into single files as needed, and you can even
              decode unrelated packages (into the same directory) with one decode command.
                To be able to decode a binary file which spans several articles, nn may  have  to
              ignore  lines  which  fail  the  normal  sanity checks on uuencoded data instead of
              treating them as transmission errors.  Consequently, it is strongly recommended  to
              check  the resulting decoded file using the checksum which is normally contained in
              the original article.  (Actually, you are also supposed to do this  after  decoding
              with a stand-alone uudecode program).
                The  header and initial information in the decoded articles are saved in the file
              specified in decode-header-file (default "Decode.Headers") in the same directory as
              the decoded files.
                If decode-skip-prefix is non-null, :decode will attempt to ignore up to that many
              characters on each line to find the encoded data.  This is particularly  useful  in
              some  binaries  groups where files are both uuencoded and packed with shar; nn will
              ignore the prefix added to  each  line  by  shar,  and  thus  be  able  to  unshar,
              concatenate, and decode multi-part postings automatically.

       In reading mode, the following keys can also be used to invoke the save commands:

       s      Same as S.

       o      Same as O.

       w      Same as W.

       P      Same as :print.

       The  save  commands  will  prompt for a file name which is expanded according to the rules
       described in the section on file name expansion below.  For each group, it is possible  to
       specify  a  default  save  file  in  the  init  file,  either in connection with the group
       presentation sequence or in a separate save-files section (see below).  If a default  save
       file  is specified for the group, nn will show this on the prompt line when it prompts for
       the file name.  You can edit this  name  as  usual,  but  if  you  kill  the  entire  name
       immediately, nn will replace the default name with the last file name you entered.  If you
       kill this as well, nn will leave you with a blank line.

       If the quick-save variable is set, nn will only prompt for  a  save  file  name  when  the
       current  article  is inside a folder; otherwise, the default save file defined in the init
       file will be used unconditionally.

       If the file (and directories in the path) does not exist, nn will  ask  whether  the  file
       (and the directories) should be created.

       If the file name contains an asterisk, e.g.
            part*.shar
       nn  will  save  each  of the articles in uniquely named files constructed by replacing the
       asterisk by numbers from the sequence 1, 2,  3,  etc.   The  format  of  the  string  that
       replaces  the * can be changed with the save-counter variable, and the first number to use
       can be changed via save-counter-offset.

       In selection mode, nn will prompt you for the identifier of one or more articles you  want
       to  save.   When you don't want to save more articles, just hit space.  The saved articles
       will be marked read.

       If you enter an asterisk `*' when you are  prompted  for  an  article  to  save,  nn  will
       automatically save all the selected articles on the current menu page and mark them read.

       Likewise,  if  you  enter  a  plus `+', nn will save all the selected articles on all menu
       pages and mark them read.

       This is very useful to unpack an entire package using the :unshar  and  :decode  commands.
       It  can  also  be  used  in  combination with the save selected articles feature to save a
       selection of articles in separate, successively numbered files.  But do not confuse  these
       two  concepts!   The  S*  and  S+  commands can be used to save the selected articles in a
       single file as well as in separate files, and the save in separate files  feature  can  be
       used also when saving individual articles, either in the selection mode, or in the article
       reading mode.

       When articles are saved in a file with a full or partial header, any header lines  in  the
       body of the article will be escaped by a tilde (e.g. ~From: ...) to enable nn to split the
       folder into separate articles.  The escape string  can  be  redefined  via  the  embedded-
       header-escape variable.

       Articles  can  optionally  be saved in MAIL or MMDF compatible format by setting the mail-
       format and mmdf-format variables.  These variables  only  specify  the  format  used  when
       creating a new folder, while appending to an existing folder will be done in the format of
       the folder (unless folder-format-check is false).

       Related variables: confirm-append, confirm-create, decode-header-file, decode-skip-prefix,
       default-save-file,  folder-save-file, edit-patch-command, edit-print-command, edit-unshar-
       command, folder, folder-format-check, mail-format,  mmdf-format,  patch-command,  printer,
       quick-save,  save-counter, save-counter-offset, save-report, suggest-default-save, unshar-
       command, unshar-header-file.

FOLDER MAINTENANCE

       When more than one article is saved in a folder, nn is able to split the folder, and  each
       article in the folder can be treated like a separate article.

       This  means  that  you  can save, decode, reply, follow-up, etc. just as with the original
       article.

       You can also cancel (delete) individual articles in a folder using the normal  C  {cancel}
       command described later.  When you quit from the folder, you will then be given the option
       to remove the cancelled articles from the folder.

       The original folder is saved in a file named `BackupFolder~' in the .nn directory (see the
       backup-folder-path  variable)  by renaming or copying the old folder as appropriate.  When
       the folder has been compressed, the backup folder will  be  removed  unless  the  variable
       keep-backup-folder is set.

       If all articles in a folder are cancelled, the folder will be removed or truncated to zero
       length (whatever is allowed by directory and file permissions).  In this  case  no  backup
       folder is retained even when keep-backup-folder is set!

       If  the  variable  trace-folder-packing  is  set, nn will show which articles are kept and
       which are removed as the folder is rewritten.

       Folders are rewritten in the format of the original folder, i.e. the mail-format and mmdf-
       format variables are ignored.

       Related variables: backup-folder-path, keep-backup-folder, trace-folder-packing.

FILE NAME EXPANSION

       When  the  save  commands  prompts for a file name, the following file name expansions are
       performed on the file name you enter:

       +folder
              The + is replaced by the contents of the folder variable (default value  "~/News/")
              resulting in the name of a file in the folder directory.  Examples:
                   +emacs, +nn, +sources/shar/nn

       +      A  single  plus  is  replaced  by  the  expansion of the file name contained in the
              default-save-file variable (or by folder-save-file when saving from a folder).

       ~/file The ~ is replaced by the contents of the environment variable HOME, i.e.  the  path
              name of your home directory.  Examples:
                   ~/News/emacs, ~/News/nn, ~/src/shar/nn

       ~user/file
              The  ~user  part  is  replaced  by  the  user's  home  directory  as defined in the
              /etc/passwd file.

       |command-line
              Instead of writing to a file, the articles are piped to the given  shell  (/bin/sh)
              command-line.   Each  save  or  write  command will create a separate pipe, but all
              articles saved or written in one command (in selection mode) are given as input  to
              the same shell command.  Example:
                   | pr | lp
              This will print the articles on the printer after they have been piped through pr.
                  It  is  possible  to  create  separate  pipes for each saved article by using a
              double pipe symbol in the beginning of the command, e.g.
                   || cd ~/src/nn ; patch

       The following symbols are expanded in a file name or command:

       $F     will be expanded to the name of the current group  with  the  periods  replaced  by
              slashes, e.g. rec/music/synth.

       $G     will be expanded to the name of the current group.

       $L     will  be  expanded to the last component of the name of the current group.  You may
              use this to create default save file names like +src/$L in the comp.sources groups.

       $N     will be expanded to the (local) article number, e.g. 1099.  In selection mode it is
              only allowed at the end of the file name!

       $(VAR) is replaced by the string value of the environment variable VAR.

       Using  these  symbols,  a simple naming scheme for `default folder name' is +$G which will
       use the group name as folder name.  Another possibility is +$F/$N.

       As mentioned above, you can also instruct nn to save a series of files in separate, unique
       files.  All that is required is that the file name contains an asterisk, e.g.
            +src/hype/part*.shar
       This  will  cause  each  of  the  articles  to  be  saved  in separate, unique files named
       part1.shar, part2.shar, and so on, always choosing a part number that results in a  unique
       file  name  (i.e.  if  part1.shar  did  already exist, the first article would be saved in
       part2.shar, the next in part3.shar, and so on).

       Related  variables:  default-save-file,  folder,  folder-save-file,  save-counter,   save-
       counter-offset.

FILE AND GROUP NAME COMPLETION

       When  entering  a file name or a news group name, a simple completion feature is available
       using the space, tab, and ? keys.

       Hitting space anywhere during input will complete the current component of the  file  name
       or group name with the first available possibility.

       If this possibility is not the one you want, keep on hitting space until it appears.

       When  the  right  completion  has appeared, you can just continue typing the file or group
       name, or you can hit tab to fix the current component, and get the first  possibility  for
       the next component, and then use space to go through the other possible completions.

       The  ?   key will produce a list of the possible completions of the current component.  If
       the list is too long for the available space on screen, the key can be repeated to get the
       next part of the list.

       The current completion can be deleted with the erase key.

       The  default value for a file name is the last file name you have entered, so if you enter
       a space as the first character after the prompt, the last file name will be repeated  (and
       you  can edit it if you like).  In some cases, a string will already be written for you in
       the prompt line, and to get the default value in these cases, use the kill key.  This also
       means  that if you neither want the initial value, nor the default value, you will have to
       hit the kill twice to get a clean prompt line.

       Related variables: comp1-key, comp2-key, help-key, suggest-default-save.

POSTING AND RESPONDING TO ARTICLES

       In both selection mode and reading mode you can post  new  articles,  post  follow-ups  to
       articles,  send replies to the author of an article, and you can send mail to another user
       with the option of including an article in the letter.  In reading  mode,  a  response  is
       made  to  the current article, while in selection mode you will be prompted for an article
       to respond to.

       The following commands are available (the lower-case equivalents  are  also  available  in
       reading mode):

       R    {reply}
              Reply  through  mail  to  the  author of the article.  This is the preferred way to
              respond to an article unless you think your reply is of general interest.

       F    {follow}
              Follow-up with an article in the same newsgroup (unless  an  alternative  group  is
              specified  in  the  article header).  The distribution of the follow-up is normally
              the same as the original  article,  but  this  can  be  modified  via  the  follow-
              distribution variable.

       M    {mail}
              Mail  a letter or forward an article to a single recipient.  In selection mode, you
              will be prompted for an article to include in your letter, and in reading mode  you
              will  be  asked  if the current article should be included in the letter.  You will
              then be prompted for the recipient of the letter (default  recipient  is  yourself)
              and  the subject of the letter (if an article is included, you may hit space to get
              the default subject which is the subject of the included article).
                The header of the article is  only  included  in  the  posted  letter  if  it  is
              forwarded (i.e. not edited), or if the variable include-full-header is set.

       :post     {post}
              Post  a  new  article  to any newsgroup.  This command will prompt you for a comma-
              separated list of newsgroups to post to (you cannot enter a space because space  is
              used for group name completion as described below).
                If  you  enter  ?  {help-key}  as  the  first key, nn will show you a list of all
              available news groups and their purpose.  While paging through this list,  you  can
              enter  q  to  quit looking at the list.  You can also enter / followed by a regular
              expression (typically a single word) which will cause nn to show a  (much  shorter)
              list containing only the lines matching the regular expression.
                 Normally,  you  will  be  prompted  for the distribution of the article with the
              default take from default-distribution, but this  can  be  changed  via  the  post-
              distribution variable.

       Generally,  nn  will construct a file with a suitable header, optionally include a copy of
       the article in the file with each non-empty line prefixed by a `>'  character  (except  in
       mail mode), and invoke an editor of your choice (using the EDITOR environment variable) on
       this file, positioning you on the first line of the body of the article (if it  knows  the
       editor).

       When  you have completed editing the message, it will compare it to the unedited file, and
       if they are identical (i.e. you did not make any changes to the file), or it is empty, the
       operation  is  cancelled.   Otherwise  you  will  be prompted for an action to take on the
       constructed article (enter first letter followed by return, or just  return  to  take  the
       default action):
           a)bort c)c e)dit h)old i)spell m)ail p)ost r)eedit s)end v)iew w)rite 7)bit
           Action: (post article)
       You now have the opportunity to perform one of the following actions:

         a    throw the response away (will ask for confirmation),
         c    mail a copy of a follow-up to the poster of the article,
         e    edit the file again,
         h    hold response for later completion,
         i    run an (interactive) spell-checker on the text,
         m    mail a (blind) copy to a specified recipient,
         n    same as abort (no don't post),
         p    post article (same as send),
         r    throw away the edited text and edit the original text,
         s    send the article or letter,
         v    view the article (through the pager),
         w    append it to a file (before you send it),
         y    confirm default answer (e.g. yes post it), or
         7    strip the high-order bit from all characters in the message

       If  you  have  selected  a  7-bit  character  set (this is determined by the values of the
       charset and data-bits variables), nn will not allow you to  post  an  article  or  send  a
       letter  whose body contains characters with the high-order bit set. It will warn you after
       you have first edited the message and disable  the  c)c,  m)ail,  p)ost,  s)end  and  y)es
       actions.  You  can  then either e)dit the message to delete those characters, use 7)bit to
       strip the high-order bits, a)bort the message, or h)old it and select an  8-bit  character
       set from nn.

       To  complete  an unfinished response saved by the h)old command, simply enter any response
       action, e.g. R {reply}.  This will notice the unfinished response and ask you whether  you
       want  to  complete it now.  Only one unfinished response can exist at a time.  Notice that
       the $A environment variable may no longer be valid as a path to the original article  when
       the response is completed.

       If  your  message  contains 8-bit characters, the charset variable is not set to "unknown"
       and the message does not already have a MIME-Version or Content-XXX header,  nn  will  add
       the following headers to your message before sending it:
            MIME-Version: 1.0
            Content-Type: text/plain; charset=charset
            Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
       It  must be noted that sending 8-bit characters over the current news and mail networks is
       risky at best; although large parts of the  network  will  pass  through  such  characters
       unchanged,  high-order  bits  may  occasionally  be  stripped.  Although the MIME standard
       provides solutions for this by encoding the characters, this is not yet supported  by  nn.
       Adding  the  above headers is an interim solution that is compatible with current practice
       and is much better than just sending the message without any hints about the character set
       used.

       Related   variables:  append-signature-mail,  append-signature-post,  charset,  data-bits,
       default-distribution, follow-distribution, post-distribution, edit-response-check, editor,
       include-art-id, include-full-header, included-mark, mail-header, mail-record, mail-script,
       mailer, mailer-pipe-input, news-header,  news-record,  news-script,  orig-to-include-mask,
       pager,   query-signature,  record,  response-check-pause,  response-default-answer,  save-
       counter, save-counter-offset, save-report, spell-checker.

JUMPING TO OTHER GROUPS

       By default nn will present the news groups in a predefined sequence (see  the  section  on
       Presentation  Sequence  later on).  To override this sequence and have a look at any other
       group the G {goto-group} command available in both selection and reading mode enables  you
       to move freely between all the newsgroups.

       Furthermore,  the  G  command  enables  you  to  open folders and other files, to read old
       articles you have read before, and to grep for a specific subject in a group.

       It is important to notice that normally the goto command is recursive,  i.e.  a  new  menu
       level  is  created  when  the specified group or folder is presented, and when it has been
       read, nn will continue the activity in the  group  that  was  presented  before  the  goto
       command  was  executed.  However, if there are unread articles in the target group you can
       avoid entering a new menu level by using the j reply described below.   The  current  menu
       level  (i.e. number of nested goto commands) will be shown in the prompt line as "<N>" (in
       reverse video).

       The goto command is very powerful, but unfortunately also a little  bit  tricky  at  first
       sight,  because  the  facilities it provides depend on the context in which the command is
       used.

       When executed, the goto command will prompt you for the name of the newsgroup, folder,  or
       file  to  open.   It  will  use  the  first  letter  you  enter to distinguish these three
       possibilities:

       return An empty answer is equivalent to the current newsgroup.

       letter The answer is taken to be the name of a newsgroup.  If a news group with the  given
              name  does  not  exist, nn will treat the answer as a regular expression and locate
              the first group in the presentation sequence  (or  among  all  groups)  whose  name
              matches the expression.

       +
              The  answer  is  taken  to  be the name of a folder.  If only `+' is entered, it is
              equivalent to the default save file for the current group.

       / or ./ or ~/
              The answer is taken to be the name of  a  file,  either  relative  to  the  current
              directory, relative to your home directory, or an absolute path name for the file.

       %      In  reading  mode,  this  reply  corresponds  to  reading  the current article (and
              splitting it as a digest).  In selection mode, it will prompt for an article on the
              menu to read.

       @      This choice is equivalent to the archive file for the current group.

       = and number
              These  answers  are  equivalent  to the same answers described below applied to the
              current group (e.g. G return = and G = are equivalent).

       Specifying a folder, a file, or an article (with %) will cause nn to treat the file like a
       digest  and split it into separate articles (not physically!)  which are then presented on
       a menu in the usual way, allowing you to read or  save  individual  subarticles  from  the
       folder.

       When  you  enter  a group name, nn will ask you how many articles in the group you want to
       see on the menu.  You can give the following answers:

       a number N
              In this case you will get the newest N articles in the group, or if  you  specified
              the  current  group  (by  hitting  return  to the group name prompt or entering the
              number directly), you will get that many extra articles included on the  same  menu
              (without creating a new menu level).

       j      This  answer  can only be given if there are unread articles in the group.  It will
              instruct nn to jump directly to the specified group in  the  presentation  sequence
              without creating a new menu level.

       u      This  instructs  nn to present the unread articles in the group (if there are any).
              If you have already read the group (in the current invocation of nn), the u  answer
              will instruct nn to present the articles that were unread when you entered nn.

       a      This instruct nn to present all articles in the group.

       sword or =word
              This  instructs  nn  to  search  all  articles  in the groups, but only present the
              articles containing the word word in the subject.  Notice that case is ignored when
              searching for the word in the subject lines.

       nword  Same  as  the  s  form  except  that it searched for articles where the sender name
              matches word.

       eword  Same as the s form except that it Psearched for articles where either  the  subject
              or the sender name matches word.

       word = /regexp
              When  the  first  character  of  the word specified with the s, n, and e forms is a
              slash `/', the rest of the input is interpreted as a regular expression  to  search
              for.   Notice  that regular expression matching is case insensitive when case-fold-
              search is set (default).

       return The meaning of an empty answer depends on the context: if there are unread articles
              in  the  specified  group  the  unread  articles  will  be presented, otherwise all
              articles in the group will be included in the menu.

       If you specified the current group, and  the  menu  already  contains  all  the  available
       articles,  nn will directly prompt for a word to search for in the subject of all articles
       (the prompt will be an equal sign.)

       When the goto command creates a new menu level, nn will not perform auto kill or selection
       in the group.  You can use the + command in menu mode to perform the auto-selections.

       There are three commands in the goto family:

       G    {goto-group}
              This is the general goto command described above.

       B    {back-group}
              Backup  one  or  more groups.  You can hit this key one or more times to go back in
              the groups already presented (including those without new articles); when you  have
              found the group you are looking for, hit space to enter it.

       A    {advance-group}
              Advance one or more groups.  This command is similar to the B command, but operates
              in the opposite direction.

       N    {next-group}
              When used within an A or B command, it skips forward  to  the  next  group  in  the
              sequence with unread articles or which has previously been visited.

       P    {previous}
              When  used  within  an A or B command, it skips backwards to the preceding group in
              the sequence with unread articles or which has previously been visited.

       Once you have entered an A or Bcommand, you can freely mix the A, B, P, and N commands  to
       find  the  group  you  want, and you can also use the G command to be prompted for a group
       name.

       To show the use of the goto command some typical examples on its use are given below:

       Present the unread articles in the dk.general group
            G dk.general return u

       Jump directly to the gnu.emacs group and continue from there
            G gnu.emacs return j

       Include the last 10 READ articles in the current group menu
            G 10 return

       Find all articles in rec.music.misc on the subject Floyd
            G rec.music.misc return
            = floyd return

       Open the folder +nn
            G +nn return

       Split current article as a digest (in reading mode)
            G %

       Related variables: case-fold-search, default-save-file, folder-save-file

AUTOMATIC KILL AND SELECTION

       When there is a subject or an author which you are either  very  interested  in,  or  find
       completely  uninteresting, you can easily instruct nn to auto-select or auto-kill articles
       with specific subjects or from specific authors.  These instructions are stored in a  kill
       file, and the most common types of entries can be created using the following command:

       K    {kill-select}
              Create an entry in your personal kill file.  The contents of the entry is specified
              during a short dialog  that  is  described  in  details  below.   This  command  is
              available in both selection and reading mode.

       Entries  in  the  kill  file  may  apply  to  a  single  newsgroup  or  to all newsgroups.
       Furthermore, entries may be permanent or they may be expired a given number of days  after
       their entry.

       To increase performance, nn uses a compiled version of the kill file which is read in when
       nn is invoked.  The compiled kill file will automatically be updated if  the  normal  kill
       file has been modified.

       The following dialog is used to build the kill file entry:

       AUTO (k)ill or (s)elect (CR => Kill subject 30 days)
              If  you simply want nn to kill all articles with the subject of the current article
              (in reading mode) or a specific article (which nn  will  prompt  for  in  selection
              mode),  just hit return.  This will cause nn to create an entry in the kill file to
              kill the current (or specified) subject in the current group for  a  period  of  30
              days (which should be enough for the discussion to die out).
              You  can  control  the default kill period, or change it into a "select" period via
              the default-kill-select variable.
              If this "default behaviour" is not what you want, just answer either k or s to kill
              or  select  articles,  respectively,  which  will  bring  you on to the rest of the
              questions.

       AUTO SELECT on (s)ubject or (n)ame  (s)
              (The SELECT will be substituted with KILL depending on the previous answer).   Here
              you  specify  whether  you  want the kill or select to depend on the subject of the
              article (s or space), or on the name of the author (n).

       SELECT NAME:
              (Again SELECT may be substituted with KILL and SUBJECT may replace NAME).  You must
              now  enter  a name (or subject) to select (or kill).  In reading mode, you may just
              hit return (or %) to use  the  name  (or  subject)  of  the  current  article.   In
              selection  mode,  you  can use the name (or subject) from an article on the menu by
              answering with % followed by the corresponding article identifier.
              When the name or subject is taken from an article (the  current  or  one  from  the
              menu),  nn  will only select or kill articles where the name or subject matches the
              original name or subject exactly including case.
              If the first character typed at the prompt is a slash `/', the rest of the line  is
              used  as  a  regular  expression  which  is used to match the name or subject (case
              insensitive).
              Otherwise, nn will select or kill  articles  which  contain  the  specified  string
              anywhere in the name or subject (ignoring case).

       SELECT in (g)roup `dk.general' or in (a)ll groups  (g)
              You  must  now  specify  whether  the selection or kill should apply to the current
              group only (g or space) or to all groups (a).

       Lifetime of entry in days (p)ermanent  (30)
              You can now specify the  lifetime  of  the  entry,  either  by  entering  a  number
              specifying the number of days the entry should be active, or p to specify the entry
              as a permanent entry.  An empty reply is equivalent to 30 days.

       CONFIRM SELECT ....
              Finally, you will be asked to confirm the entry, and you should especially note the
              presence  or absence of the word exact which specify whether an exact match applies
              for the entry.

       Related variables: default-kill-select, kill.

THE FORMAT OF THE KILL FILE

       The kill file consists of one line for each entry.  Empty lines and lines starting with  a
       #  character  are ignored.  nn automatically places a # character in the first position of
       expired entries when it compiles the kill file.  You can then edit the kill file  manually
       from time to time to clean out these entries.

       Each line has the following format
            [expire time :] [group name] : flags : string [: string]...

       Permanent  entries  have  no  expire  time  (in which case the colon is omitted as well!).
       Otherwise, the expire time defines the time (as a time_t value) when the entry  should  be
       expired.

       The group name field can have three forms:

       news.group.name
              If  it  is  the  name of a single news group (e.g. comp.unix), the entry applies to
              that group only.

       /regular expression
              If it starts with a slash `/' followed by a regular expression  (e.g.  /^news\..*),
              the entry applies to all groups whose name are matched by the regular expression.

       empty  An empty group field will apply the entry to all groups.

       The  flags  field consists of a list of characters which identifies the type of entry, and
       the interpretation of each string field.  When used, the flag characters must be  used  in
       the order in which they are described below:

       ~    (optional)
              When this flag is present on any of the entries for a specific group, it causes all
              entires which are not auto-selected to be killed.  This is a simple way to say: I'm
              interested in this and that, but nothing else.

       +    or ! (optional)
              Specify  an  auto-select  +  or an auto-kill ! entry, respectively.  If neither are
              used, the article is neither selected nor killed which  is  useful  in  combination
              with the `~' flag.

       > (optional)
              When  used  with a subject (flag s), the kill entry only matches follow-ups to that
              subject (i.e. where the Subject: line starts with Re:).  For example, to  kill  all
              "Re:"'s in rec.humor use the following kill entry: rec.humor:!>s/:.

       < (optional)
              When  used  with a subject (flag s), the kill entry only matches base articles with
              that subject (i.e. where the Subject: line does not start with Re:).  For  example,
              to  kill  all  articles  asking for help (but not follow-ups) in the tex group, add
              this to your kill file:
                   comp.text.tex:!s</:^HELP

       n or s or a (mandatory)
              Specify whether the corresponding string applies to the name n or to the subject  s
              of an article.  If flag a is used, the corresponding string is ignored (but must be
              present), and the entry applies to articles with a non-empty References: line.

       / (optional)
              Specifies that the corresponding string is a regular expression which the sender or
              subject  is  matched against.  If not specified, a simple string match is performed
              using the given string.

       = (optional)
              Specifies  that  the  match  against  the  name  or  subject  is  case   sensitive.
              Furthermore, when regular expression matching is not used, the name or subject must
              be of the same length of the string to match.  Otherwise, the match  will  be  case
              insensitive, and a string may occur anywhere in the name or subject to match.

       | or & (mandatory if multiple strings)
              If more than one string is specified, the set of flags corresponding to each string
              must be separated by either an or operator `|' or an and  operator  `&'.   The  and
              operator  has  a  higher  precedence  than  the  or operator, e.g.  a complex match
              expression a|b&c|d will succeed if either of a, b&c, or d matches.

       The string field in the entry is the name, subject or  regular  expression  that  will  be
       matched  against the name or subject of each article in the group (or all groups).  Colons
       and backslashes must be escaped with a backslash in the string.

       Example 1:  Auto-select articles from `Tom Collins'  (exact)  on  subject  `News'  in  all
       groups:
           :+n=&s:Tom Collins:News

       Example 2:  Kill all articles which are neither from `Tom' or `Eve' in some.group.  Select
       only articles from Eve:
           some.group:~n:Tom
           some.group:+n:Eve

       The second example can also be written as a single entry with  an  or  operator  (in  this
       case, the select/kill attribute only applies to the succeeding strings):
           some.group:~n|+n:Tom:Eve

       To  remove  expired  entries, to "undo" a K command, and to make the more advanced entries
       with more than one string, you will have to edit the kill file manually.  To recompile the
       file,  you  can  use the :compile command.  When you invoke nn, it will also recompile the
       kill file if the compiled version is out of date.

SHELL ESCAPES

       The !  commands available in selection and reading mode are identical in  operation  (with
       one exception).  When you enter the shell escape command, you will be prompted for a shell
       command.  This command will be fed to the shell specified in the shell  variable  (default
       loaded  from  the SHELL environment variable or /bin/sh) after the following substitutions
       have been performed on the command:

       File name expansion
              The earlier described file name expansions will be performed on all arguments.

       $G     will be substituted with the name of the current news group.

       $L     will be substituted with the last component of the name of the current news group.

       $F     will be substituted with the name of  the  current  news  group  with  the  periods
              replaced by slashes.

       $N     will be substituted with the (local) article number (only defined in reading mode).

       $A     is  replaced by the full path name of the file containing the current article (only
              defined in reading mode).

       %      Same as $A.

       $(VAR) is replaced by the string value of the environment variable VAR.

       When the shell command is completed, you will be asked to hit any key to continue.  If you
       hit  the  !   key again, you will be prompted for a new shell command.  Any other key will
       redraw the screen and return you to the mode you came from.

       Related variables: shell, shell-restrictions.

MISCELLANEOUS COMMANDS

       Below are more useful commands which are available in both selection and reading modes.

       U    {unsub}
              Unsubscribe to the current group.  You will not see this group any more unless  you
              explicitly  request it.  If the variable unsubscribe-mark-read is set, all articles
              in the group will be marked read when you unsubscribe.
                If the variable keep-unsubscribed is not set, the  group  will  be  removed  from
              .newsrc.   If  you  are  not  subscribing  to  the  group,  you  will  be given the
              possibility to resubscribe to the group!  This may be used in connection with the G
              command to resubscribe a group.

       C    {cancel}
              Cancel  (delete) an article in the current group or folder.  Cancelling articles in
              a folder will cause the folder to be rewritten when it  is  closed.   In  selection
              mode,  you  will  be  prompted for the identifier of the article to cancel.  Normal
              users can only  cancel  their  own  articles.   See  also  the  section  on  folder
              maintenance.

       Y    {overview}
              Provide an overview of the groups with unread articles.

       "    {layout}
              Change  menu  layout  in  selection  mode.  The menu will be redrawn using the next
              layout (cycling through ..., 2, 3, 4, 0, 1, ...)

       Most of the commands in nn are bound to a key and can be activated by a single  keystroke.
       However, there are a few commands that cannot be bound to a key directly.

       As  shown  in  the  keystroke  command  descriptions,  all commands have a name, and it is
       possible to activate a command by name with the extended command key  (:).   Hitting  this
       key  will  prompt  you  for  the  name  of  a  command  (and parameters).  For example, an
       alternative to hitting the R key to reply to an article is to enter the  extended  command
       :reply  followed  by return.  The :post and :unshar commands described earlier can also be
       bound to a key.  The complete list of commands which can be bound to keys is  provided  in
       the section on Key Mappings below.

       The  following  extended  commands  cannot  be bound to a key, mainly because they require
       additional parameters on the prompt line, or because it should not be possible to activate
       them too easily.

       :admin Enter  administrative  mode.   This  is  identical  in operation to the nnadmin(1M)
              program.

       :bug   Prepare and send a bug report to the nn-bugs mailing address.

       :cd [ directory ]
              Change current working directory.  If the directory argument is  not  provided,  nn
              will prompt for it.

       :clear Clear the screen (without redraw).  This may be useful at the beginning of the init
              file (possibly guarded by "on program nn"), or in some macros.

       :compile
              Recompile the kill file.  This is not necessary under  normal  operation  since  nn
              automatically  compiles  the file on start-up if it has changed, but it can be used
              if you modify the kill file while nn is suspended.

       :coredump
              Abort with a core dump.  For debugging purposes only.

       :define macro
              Define macro number macro as described in the Macro Definition section  below.   If
              macro is omitted, the next free macro number will be chosen.

       :dump table
              Same as the :show command described below.

       :help [ subject ]
              Provide  online  help on the specified subject.  If you omit the subject, a list of
              the available topics will be given.

       :load [ file ]
              Load the specified file.  If the  file  argument  is  omitted,  the  init  file  is
              reloaded.  The sequence part (if present) is ignored.

       :local variable [ value ]
              Make  the  variable local to the current group.  Subsequent changes to the variable
              will only be effective until the current group is left.  If a value  is  specified,
              it  will  be  assigned  to  the local variable.  To assign a new value to a boolean
              variable, the values on and off must be used.

       :lock variable
              Lock the specified variable so it cannot be modified.

       :man   Call up the online manual.  The manual is presented as a  normal  folder  with  the
              program name in the `From' field and the section title in the `subject' field.  All
              the normal commands related to a folder works for the online manual as  well,  e.g.
              you can save and print sections of the manual.

       :map arguments
              This  is  the command used for binding commands to the keys.  It is fully described
              in the Key Mapping section below.

       :mkdir [ directory ]
              Create the directory (and the directories in its path).   It  will  prompt  for  at
              directory name if the argument is omitted.

       :motd  Show  the  message  of  the  day  (maintained by the news administrator in the file
              "motd" in the lib directory.  This file  is  automatically  displayed  on  start-up
              whenever it changes if the motd variable is set.

       :pwd   Print path name of current working directory on message line.

       :q     Has  no  effect  besides redrawing the screen if necessary.  If an extended command
              (one which is prefixed by a :) produces any  output  requiring  the  screen  to  be
              redrawn, the screen will not be redrawn immediately if the variable delay-redraw is
              set (useful on slow terminals).  Instead another : prompt is shown to allow you  to
              enter a new extended command immediately.  It is sufficient to hit return to redraw
              the screen, but it has been my experience that entering q return in this  situation
              happens quite often, so it was made a no-op.

       :q!    Quit nn without updating the .newsrc file.

       :Q     Quit nn.  This is equivalent to the normal Q command.

       :rmail Open  your  mailbox  (see  the  mail  variable)  as  a  folder to read the incoming
              messages.  This is not a full mail interface (depending on  the  nn  configuration,
              you  may  not be able to delete messages, add cc: on replies, etc), but it can give
              you a quick glance at new mail without leaving nn.

       :set variable [ value ]
              Set a boolean variable to true or assign the value to a string or integer variable.
              The :set command is described in details in the section on VARIABLES.

       :sh    Suspend nn, or if that is not possible, spawn an interactive shell.

       :show groups mode
              Show  the  total  number  or  the  number  of unread articles in the current group,
              depending on mode: all (list the number of unread articles in all groups  including
              groups which you have unsubscribed to), total (list the total number of articles in
              all existing groups), sequence (list unread groups in presentation sequence order),
              subscr  (list  all  subscribed groups), unsub (list unsubscribed groups only).  Any
              other mode results in a listing of the number of unread articles in all  subscribed
              groups  including  those  you  have  suppressed  with  the `!'  symbol in the group
              presentation sequence.  To get just the currently unread groups in the presentation
              sequence, use the `Y' {overview} command.

       :show kill
              Show the kill entries that applies to the current group and to all groups.

       :show rc [ group ]
              Show the .newsrc and select file entries for the current or the specified group.

       :show map [ mode ]
              Show the key bindings in the current or specified mode.

       :sort [ mode ]
              Reorder  the  articles  on  the menu according to mode or if omitted to the default
              sort-mode.  The following sorting modes are available:
              arrival: list articles by local article number which will be the same as the  order
              in which they arrived on the system (unless groups are merged),
              subject:  articles with identical subjects are grouped and ordered after age of the
              oldest article in the group,
              lexical: subjects in lexicographical order,
              age: articles ordered after posting date only,
              sender: articles ordered after sender's name.

       :toggle variable
              Toggle a boolean variable.

       :unread [ group ] [ articles ]
              Mark the current (or specified) group as  unread.   If  the  articles  argument  is
              omitted,  the  number  of unread articles in the group will be set to the number of
              unread articles when nn was invoked.  Otherwise, the argument specifies the  number
              of unread articles.

       :unset variable
              Set a boolean variable to false or clear an integer variable.

       :x     Quit nn and mark all articles in the current group as read!

       Related    variables:   backup,   bug-report-address,   delay-redraw,   keep-unsubscribed,
       unsubscribe-mark-read, mail, pager, sort-mode.

CATCH UP

       If you have not read news for some time, there are probably more news than  you  can  cope
       with.  Using the option -a0 nn will put you into catch-up mode.

       The first question you will get is whether to catch up interactively or automatically.  If
       you instruct nn to catch up automatically, it will simply mark all articles in all  groups
       as read, thus bringing you completely up-to-date.

       If  you  choose  the interactive mode, nn will locate all groups with unread articles, and
       for each group it will prompt you for an action to  take  on  the  group.   An  action  is
       selected using a single letter followed by return.  The following actions are available:

       y      Mark all articles as read in current group.

       n      Do not update group (this is the default action if you just hit return).

       r      Enter reading mode to read the group.

       U      Unsubscribe to the group.

       ?      Give a list of actions.

       q      Quit.   When you quit, nn will ask whether the rest of the groups should be updated
              unconditionally or whether they should remain unread.

VARIABLES AND OPTIONS

       It is possible to control the behaviour of nn through the setting (and unsetting)  of  the
       variables described below.  There are several ways of setting variables:
       - Through command line options when nn is invoked.
       - Through assignments on the command line when nn is invoked.
       - Through global set commands in the init file.
       - Through set or local commands executed from entry macros.
       - Through the :set extended command when you run nn.

       There are four types of variables:
       - Boolean variables
       - Integer variables
       - String variables
       - Key variables

       Boolean  variables  control  a  specific function in nn, e.g.  whether the current time is
       shown in the prompt line.  A boolean variable is set to true with the command
            set variable
       and it is set to false with either of the following (equivalent) commands:
            unset variable
            set novariable

       You can also toggle the value of a boolean variable using the command:
            toggle variable

       For example:
            set time
            unset time
            set notime
            toggle time

       Integer variables control an amount e.g. the size of the preview window,  or  the  maximum
       number of articles to read in each group.  They are set with the following command:
            set variable value
       In some cases, not setting an integer value has a special meaning, for example, not having
       a minimal preview window or reading all articles in the groups no matter  how  many  there
       are.  The special meaning can be re-established by the following command:
            unset variable
       For example:
            set window 7
            unset limit

       String  variables  may specify directory names, default values for prompts, etc.  They are
       set using the command
            set variable string
       Normally, the string value assigned to the variable value starts at  the  first  non-blank
       character  after  the  variable name and ends with the last non-blank character (excluding
       comments) on the line.  To include leading  or  trailing  blanks,  or  the  comment  start
       symbol, #, in the string they must be escaped using a backslash `\', e.g. to set included-
       mark to the string " # ", the following assignment can be used:
            set included-mark  \ \#\   # blank-#-blank
       To include a backslash in the string, it must be duplicated `\\'.  A backslash may also be
       used  to  include  the following special characters in the string: \a=alarm, \b=backspace,
       \e=escape, \f=form-feed, \n=new-line, \r=return, \t=tab.

       Key variables control the keys used to control special functions during user input such as
       line editing and completion.  They are set using the command
            set variable key-name

       A variable can be locked which makes further modification of the variable impossible:
            lock variable
       This  can  be used in the setup init file which is loaded unconditionally to enforce local
       conventions or restrictions.  For example, to fix the included-mark variable to the string
       ">", the following commands can be placed in the setup file:
            set included-mark >
            lock included-mark
       Some variables only make sense when set on the command line, since they are examined early
       in startup, before the init files are read.  The  syntax  for  setting  variables  on  the
       command line is:
            variable=value
       The  value  may  need to be quoted if it contains white space or special characters.  They
       can be intermixed with other options, and are examined prior to other argument parsing.

       The current variable settings can be shown with the :set command:

       :set (without arguments)
              This will give a listing of the variables which have been set in  either  the  init
              file or interactively.

       :set all
              This  will give a listing of all variables.  Modified variables will be marked with
              a `*' and local variables will be marked with a `>'.  A locked variable  is  marked
              with a `!'.

       :set /regexp
              This  will  give  a  listing  of all variables whose name matches the given regular
              expression.

       :set partial-name space
              The space (comp1-key) key will complete the variable name as usual, but as  a  side
              effect it will display the variable's current value in the message line.

       Variables  are global by default, but a local instantiation of the variable can be created
       using the :local command.  The local variable will overlay the global variable as long  as
       the current group is active, i.e. the global variable will be used again when you exit the
       current group.  The initial value of the local variable will be the  same  as  the  global
       variable, unless a new value is specified in the :local command:
            :local variable [ value ]

       The following variables are available:

       also-full-digest    (boolean, default false)
              When a digest is split, the digest itself is not normally included on the menu, and
              as such the initial administrative information is  not  available.   Setting  also-
              full-digest  will  cause  the  (unsplit)  digest to be included on the menu.  These
              articles are marked with a @ at the beginning of the subject.

       also-subgroups (boolean, default true)
              When set, a group name in  the  presentation  sequence  will  also  cause  all  the
              subgroups  of  the  group  to be included, for example, comp.unix will also include
              comp.unix.questions, etc.  When also-subgroups  is  not  set,  subgroups  are  only
              included if the group name is followed by a `.' in which case the main group is not
              included, i.e.  `comp.unix' is not included when `comp.unix.' is specified  in  the
              presentation  sequence, and vice-versa.  Following a group name by an asterisk `*',
              e.g. comp.unix*, will include the group as well as all subgroups  independently  of
              the setting of also-subgroups.

       append-signature-mail    (boolean, default false)
              When  false,  it  is  assumed that the .signature file is automatically appended to
              responses sent via E-mail.  If true, .signature will be appended to the letter (see
              query-signature).

       append-signature-post    (boolean, default false)
              When  false,  it  is  assumed that the .signature file is automatically appended to
              posted articles.  If  true,  .signature  will  explicitly  be  appended  to  posted
              articles (see query-signature).

       attributes symbols  (string, default ....)
              Each  element  in  this  string  represents  a  symbol used to represent an article
              attribute when displayed on the screen.  See the section on  Marking  Articles  and
              Attributes.

       auto-junk-seen (boolean, default true)
              When  set,  articles which have the seen attribute (,) will be marked read when the
              current group is left.  If not set, these articles will still be either  unread  or
              marked  seen  the  next  time  the group is entered (see also confirm-junk-seen and
              retain-seen-status).

       auto-preview-mode        (boolean, default false)
              Enables Auto Preview Mode.  In this mode, selecting an article on  the  menu  using
              its  article  id  (letter a-z) will enter preview mode on that article immediately.
              Furthermore, the `n' {next-article} command will preview the next  article  on  the
              menu  only  if  it  has the same subject as the current article; otherwise, it will
              return to the menu with the cursor  placed  on  the  next  article.   The  continue
              command  at  the  end  of  the  article and the `=' {goto-menu} returns to the menu
              immediately as usual.

       auto-read-mode-limit N   (integer, default 0)
              When operating in auto reading mode, nn will auto-select all unread articles in the
              group,  skip  the  article  selection  phase, and enter reading mode directly after
              entry to the group.
                Auto reading mode is disabled when auto-read-mode-limit is zero; it is  activated
              unconditionally if the value is negative, and conditionally if the value is greater
              than zero and the number of unread articles in the current group  does  not  exceed
              the given value.

       auto-select-closed mode  (integer, default 1)
              Normally,  selecting  a  closed  subject  (usually  in consolidated menu mode) will
              select (or deselect) all unread articles with the given subject (or all articles if
              they  are  all read).  This behaviour can be changed via the value of this variable
              as follows:
              0: select only the first article with the subject (shown on menu).
              1: select only the unread articles with the subject.
              2: select all available articles with the subject.

       auto-select-rw (boolean, default false)
              If set, a subject of an article read or posted is automatically used for subsequent
              auto-selecting  (if  not  already selected).  This is the most efficient way to see
              your own posts automatically.

       auto-select-subject (boolean, default false)
              When set, selecting an article from the  menu  using  the  article  id  (a-z),  all
              articles on the menu with the same subject will automatically be selected as well.

       backup    (boolean, default true)
              When  set,  a  copy  of the initial .newsrc and select files will save be the first
              time  they  are  changed.   nn  remembers  the  initial  contents  of  these  files
              internally, so the backup variable can be set any time if not set on start-up.

       backup-folder-path file  (string, default "BackupFolder~")
              When removing deleted articles from a folder, this variable defines the name of the
              file where a (temporary) copy of the original folder is saved.  If  the  file  name
              doesn't  contain  a  `/', the file will be located in the .nn directory.  Otherwise
              the file name is used directly as the relative or full  path  name  of  the  backup
              file.   If  possible,  the  old  folder  will be renamed to the backup folder name;
              otherwise the old folder is copied to the backup folder.

       backup-suffix suffix     (string, default ".bak")
              The suffix appended to file names to make the corresponding backup file  name  (see
              backup).

       bug-report-address address    (string, default mtpins@nndev.org)
              The mail address to which bug reports created with the :bug command are sent.

       case-fold-search         (boolean, default true)
              When set, string and regular expression matching will be case independent.  This is
              related to all commands matching on names or subjects, except  in  connection  with
              auto-kill  and  auto-select  where  the individual kill file entries specifies this
              property.

       charset charset     (string, default "us-ascii")
              The  character  set  in  use  on  your  terminal.  Legal  values  are   "us-ascii",
              "iso-8859-X",  where  X  is  a nonzero digit, and "unknown".  Setting this variable
              also sets the data-bits variable to the default bit width of the character  set  (7
              for "us-ascii" and "unknown", 8 for the "iso-8859-X" sets).
              The  value  of  this variable also determines whether nn allows 8-bit characters in
              the body of articles being posted and letters being mailed  (unless  the  value  is
              "unknown",  in  which  case  this  is  determined  by  the  value  of the data-bits
              variable).  If necessary, nn will add extra headers to the message  indicating  its
              the character set.

       check-group-access  (boolean, default false)
              When  set,  nn  will  perform  a  check on the readability of a group's readability
              before showing the menu for that group.  Normally, this is not necessary since  all
              users  traditionally  have  access  to all news groups.  Setting (and locking) this
              variable may be used to limit access to  a  news  group  via  the  permissions  and
              ownership of the group's spool directory (this will only work for non-NNTP sites).

       collapse-subject offset  (integer, default 25)
              When  set  (non-negative), subject lines which are too long to be presented in full
              on the menus will be "collapsed" by removing a sufficient number of characters from
              the  subject starting at the given offset in the subject.  This is useful in source
              groups where the "Part (01/10)" string sometimes disappears from  the  menu.   When
              not set (or negative), the subjects are truncated.

       columns col    (integer, default screen width)
              This variable contains the screen width i.e. character positions per line.

       comp1-key key  (key, default space)
              The  key  which  gives  the first/next completion, and the default value when nn is
              prompting for a string, e.g. a file name.

       comp2-key key  (key, default tab)
              The key which ends the current completion and gives the first  completion  for  the
              next component when nn is prompting for a string, e.g. a file name.

       compress       (boolean, default false)
              This  variable  controls  whether  text  compression  (see the compress command) is
              turned on or off when an article is shown.  The compression is  still  toggled  for
              the current article with the compress command key.

       confirm-append      (boolean, default false)
              When  set,  nn will ask for confirmation before appending an article to an existing
              file (see also confirm-create).

       confirm-auto-quit        (boolean, default false)
              When set, nn will ask for confirmation before quitting after having read  the  last
              group.   If  not  confirmed,  nn will recycle the presentation sequence looking for
              groups that were skipped with the `N' {next-group} command.  But it will  not  look
              for new articles arrived since the invocation of nn.

       confirm-create      (boolean, default true)
              When set, nn will ask for confirmation before creating a new file or directory when
              saving or unpacking an article (see also confirm-append).

       confirm-entry       (boolean, default false)
              When set, nn will ask for confirmation before  entering  a  group  with  more  than
              confirm-entry-limit  unread  articles  (on  the first menu level).  It is useful on
              slow terminals if you don't want to wait until nn has drawn the first  menu  to  be
              able to skip the group.
                Answering  no  to  the  "Enter?"  prompt  will cause nn to skip to the next group
              without marking the current group as read.  If you answer by hitting interrupt,  nn
              will ask the question "Mark as read?" which allows you to mark the current group as
              read before going to the next group.  If this second question is also  answered  by
              hitting interrupt, nn will quit immediately.

       confirm-entry-limit articles  (integer, default 0)
              Specifies  the  minimum number of unread articles in a group for which the confirm-
              entry functionality is activated.

       confirm-junk-seen        (boolean, default false)
              When set, nn will require confirmation before marking seen articles  as  read  when
              auto-junk-seen is set.

       confirm-messages         (boolean, default false)
              In  some  cases,  nn will sleep one second (or more) when it has shown a message to
              the user, e.g. in connection with macro debugging.  Setting  confirm-messages  will
              cause nn to wait for you to confirm all messages by hitting any key.  (It will show
              the symbol <> to indicate that it is awaiting confirmation.)

       consolidated-manual (boolean, default false)
              When set, the online manual will be presented with one menu line for  each  program
              in the nn package.

       consolidated-menu        (boolean, default false)
              When  set,  nn  will  automatically  close all multi-article subjects on entry to a
              group, so that each subject only occur once on the menu page.

       counter-delim-left  (string, default "[")
              The delimiter string output to  the  left  of  the  article  counter  in  a  closed
              subject's menu line.

       counter-delim-right (string, default "] ")
              The  delimiter  string  output  to  the  right  of  the article counter in a closed
              subject's menu line.

       counter-padding pad      (integer, default 5)
              On a consolidated menu, the subjects may not be very well aligned because the added
              [...]  counters have varying length.  To (partially) remedy this, all counters (and
              subjects without counters)  are  prefixed  by  up  to  pad  spaces  to  get  better
              alignment.   Increasing  it  further may yield practically perfect alignment at the
              cost of less space for the subject itself.

       cross-filter-seq         (boolean, default true)
              When set, cross posted articles will be presented in the first possible group, i.e.
              according  to the current presentation sequence (cross-post filtering on sequence).
              The article is automatically marked read in the other cross  posted  groups  unless
              you  unsubscribe  to the first group in which it was shown before reading the other
              groups.  Likewise, it is sufficient to leave the article unread in the first  group
              to keep it for later handling.
                If  not  set,  cross-postings  are  shown  in  the  first  group occurring on the
              Newsgroups: line which the user subscribes to (i.e. you let the poster decide which
              group is most appropriate to read his posting).

       cross-post          (boolean, default false)
              Normally,  nn will only show cross-posted articles in the first subscribed group on
              the Newsgroups: line.  When cross-post is set, nn will show  cross-posted  articles
              in all subscribed groups to which they are posted.

       cross-post-limit N        (integer, default 0)
              If  this  variable is set to a value other than 0, then any articles posted to more
              than N newsgroups are automatically skipped.  A value  of  5  is  pretty  good  for
              discarding ``spam'' articles.

       data-bits bits (integer, default 7)
              When  set  to  7,  nn  will  display  characters with the 8th bit set using a meta-
              notation M-7bit-char.  If set to 8, these  characters  are  sent  directly  to  the
              screen  (unless  monitor  is  set).  Setting  the  charset  variable also sets this
              variable to the default bit width of character set.
              It also controls whether keyboard input is 7 or 8 bits, and thus whether  key  maps
              contain 127 or 255 entries.  See the key mapping section for more details.
              If  the charset has value "unknown", the value of data-bits also determines whether
              nn allows 8-bit characters in the body of articles being posted and  letters  being
              mailed (this is normally determined directly by the charset variable).

       date      (boolean, default true)
              If set nn will show the article posting date when articles are read.

       debug mask     (integer, default 0)
              Look in the source if you are going to use this.

       decode-header-file file  (string, default "Decode.Headers")
              The  name of the file in which the header and initial text of articles decoded with
              the :decode command is saved.  Unless the file name starts with  a  `/',  the  file
              will be created in the same directory as the decoded files.  The information is not
              saved if this variable is not set.

       decode-skip-prefix N     (integer, default 2)
              When non-null, the :decode command will automatically skip up to  N  characters  at
              the  beginning  of  each  line  to  find  valid  uuencoded data.  This allows nn to
              automatically decode (multi-part) postings which are both uuencoded and packed with
              shar.

       default-distribution distr    (string, default "world")
              The  distribution  to use as the default suggestion when posting articles using the
              follow  and  post  commands  if  the  corresponding  follow-distribution  or  post-
              distribution variable contains the default option.

       default-kill-select [1]days   (number, default 30)
              Specifies the default action for the K {kill-select} command if the first prompt is
              answered by return.  It contains the number of days to  keep  the  kill  or  select
              entry  in  the  kill file (1-99 days).  If it has the value days+100 (e.g. 130), it
              denotes that the default action is to select rather than kill on  the  subject  for
              the specified period.

       default-save-file file   (string, default +$F)
              The  default  save file used when saving articles in news groups where no save file
              has been specified in the init file (either in  a  save-files  section  or  in  the
              presentation sequence).  It can also be specified using the abbreviation "+" as the
              file name when prompted for a file name even in groups with their own save file.

       delay-redraw        (boolean, default false)
              Normally, nn will redraw the screen after extended commands (:cmd) that  clear  the
              screen.   When  delay-redraw  is  set  nn  will prompt for another extended command
              instead of redrawing the screen (hit return to redraw).

       echo-prefix-key          (boolean, default true)
              When true, hitting a prefix key (see the section on key mapping below)  will  cause
              the  prefix  key  to  be echoed in the message line to indicate that another key is
              expected.

       edit-patch-command  (boolean, default true)
              When true, the :patch command will show the current patch-command and  give  you  a
              chance to edit it before applying it to the articles.

       edit-print-command  (boolean, default true)
              When  true,  the print command will show the current printer command and give you a
              chance to edit it before printing the articles.  Otherwise the  articles  are  just
              printed using the current printer command.

       edit-response-check (boolean, default true)
              When  editing  a  response  to an article, it normally does not have any meaning to
              send the initial file prepared by nn unaltered, since it is either  empty  or  only
              contains  included material.  When this variable is set, exiting the editor without
              having changed the file  will  automatically  abort  the  response  action  without
              confirmation.

       edit-unshar-command (boolean, default false)
              When  true, the :unshar command will show the current unshar-command and give you a
              chance to edit it before applying it to the articles.

       editor command (string, default not set)
              When set, it will override the current EDITOR  environment  variable  when  editing
              responses and new articles.

       embedded-header-escape string (string, default '~')
              When  saving an article to a file, header lines embedded in the body of the article
              are escaped using this string to make it  possible  for  nn  to  split  the  folder
              correctly afterwards.  Header lines are not escaped if this variable is not set.

       enter-last-read-mode mode     (integer, default 1)
              Normally,  nn  will remember which group is active when you quit, and offer to jump
              directly to this group when you start nn the next time.  This variable is  used  to
              control this behaviour.  The following mode values are recognized:
              0: Ignore the remembered group (r.g.).
              1: Enter r.g. if the group is unread (with user confirmation)
              2: Enter r.g. or first unread group after it in the sequence (w/conf).
              3: Enter r.g. if the group is unread (no confirmation)
              4: Enter r.g. or first unread group after it in the sequence (no conf).

       entry-report-limit articles   (integer, default 300)
              Normally, nn will just move the cursor to the upper left corner of the screen while
              it is reading articles from the database on entry to a  group.   For  large  groups
              this  may  take more than a fraction of a second, and nn can then report what it is
              doing.  If it must read more articles than the number specified by  this  variable,
              nn will report which group and how many articles it is reading.

       erase-key key  (key, default tty erase key)
              The  key  which  erases the last input character when nn is prompting for a string,
              e.g. a file name.

       expert         (boolean, default false)
              If set nn will use slightly shorter prompts (e.g. not tell you that ? will give you
              help),  and  be  a  bit less verbose in a few other cases (e.g. not remind you that
              posted articles are not available instantly).

       expired-message-delay pause   (integer, default 1)
              If a selected article is found to have  been  expired,  nn  will  normally  give  a
              message  about  this  and sleep for a number of seconds specified by this variable.
              Setting this variable to zero will still make nn give the message without  sleeping
              afterwards.  Setting it to -1 will cause the message not to be shown at all.

       flow-control   (boolean, default true)
              When  set,  nn  will  turn on xon/xoff flow-control before writing large amounts of
              text to the screen.  This should guard against  lossage  of  output,  but  in  some
              network  configurations it has had the opposite effect, losing several lines of the
              output.  This variable is always true on systems with CBREAK capabilities which can
              do single character reads without disabling flow control.

       flush-typeahead     (boolean, default false)
              When true, nn will flush typeahead prior to reading commands from the keyboard.  It
              will not flush typeahead while reading parameters for a command,  e.g.  file  names
              etc.

       folder directory    (string, default ~/News)
              The full pathname of the folder directory which will replace the + in folder names.
              It will be initialized from the FOLDER environment variable if it is not set in the
              init file.

       folder-format-check (boolean, default true)
              When saving an article with a full or partial header in an existing folder, nn will
              check the format of the folder to be able to  append  the  article  in  the  proper
              format.   If  this  variable  is  not  set, folders are assumed to be in the format
              specified via the mmdf-format and mail-format variables, and articles are saved  in
              that  format  without checking.  Otherwise, the *-format variables are only used to
              determine the format for new folders.

       folder-save-file file    (string, default not set)
              The default save file used when saving articles from a folder.

       follow-distribution words     (string, default see below)
              This variable controls how the Distribution: header is constructed for a  follow-up
              to  an  original article.  Its value is a list of words selected from the following
              list:
              [ [ always ] same ] [ ask ] [ default | distribution ]
              This is interpreted in two steps:
              - First the default distribution is determined.   If  same  is  specified  and  the
              original  article has a Distribution: header, that header is used.  Else if default
              is specified (or distribution is omitted), the  value  of  default-distribution  is
              used.   And finally, if only a distribution (any word) is specified that is used as
              the default.
              - Then if ask is  specified,  the  user  will  be  asked  to  confirm  the  default
              distribution  or  provide  another  distribution.  However, if always (and same) is
              specified, and the default was taken from the original article's distribution,  the
              original distribution is used without confirmation.
              The  default  value  of follow-distribution is always same default, i.e. use either
              the original distribution  or  the  default-distribution  without  confirmation  in
              either case.

       from-line-parsing strictness  (integer, default 2)
              Specifies  how strict nn must parse a "From " line in a folder to recognize it as a
              mail format message separator line.   The  following  strictness  values  determine
              whether a line starting with "From " will be recognized as a separator line:
                   0: Always.
                   1: Line must have at least 8 fields.
                   2: Line must contain a valid date and time (ctime style).

       fsort          (boolean, default true)
              When  set,  folders  are  sorted alphabetically according to the subject (and age).
              Otherwise, the articles in a folder will be presented in the sequence in which they
              were saved.

       guard-double-slash  (boolean, default false)
              Normally,  when  entering  a  file  name,  entering  two  slashes `//' in a row (or
              following a slash by a plus `/+') will cause  nn  to  erase  the  entire  line  and
              replace it with the `/' (or `+').  On some systems, two slashes are used in network
              file names, and on those systems guard-double-slash can be set; that will cause  nn
              to require three slashes in a row to clear the input.

       header-lines list   (string, no default)
              When set, it determines the list of header fields that are shown when an article is
              read instead of the normal one line header showing the author and subject.  See the
              full description in the section on Customized Article Headers below.

       help-key key   (key, default ?)
              The  key which ends the current completion and gives a list of possible completions
              for the next component when nn is prompting for a string, e.g. a file name.

       ignore-re      (boolean, default false)
              If set, articles with subjects already seen in  a  previous  invocation  of  nn  or
              another newsreader - and not auto-selected - are automatically killed.  A great way
              to read even less news!

       ignore-xon-xoff          (boolean, default false)
              Normally, nn will ignore ^S and ^Q in the input from the terminal (if they are  not
              handled  in  the tty driver).  Setting this variable will treat these characters as
              normal input.

       include-art-id      (boolean, default false)
              The first line in a response with included material normally reads  "...somebody...
              writes:"  without  a reference to the specific article from which the quotation was
              taken (this is found in the References: line).  When this variable is set, the line
              will  also  include the article id of the referenced article: "In ...article... ...
              writes:".

       include-full-header (boolean, default false)
              When set, the mail (M) command will always include the full header of the  original
              article.   If  it  is  not  set,  it  only  includes the header when the article is
              forwarded without being edited.

       include-mark-blank-lines (boolean, default false)
              When set, the  included-mark  is  placed  on  blank  lines  in  included  articles.
              Otherwise,  blank  lines are left blank (to make it easy to delete whole paragraphs
              with `d}' in vi and `C-@ M-] C-W' in emacs).

       included-mark string     (string, default ">")
              This string is prefixed to all lines in the original article that are included in a
              reply  or  a  follow-up.   (Now  you  have the possibility to change it, but please
              don't.  Lines with a mixture of prefixes like
                 : orig-> <> } ] #- etc.
              are very difficult to comprehend.  Let's all use the  standard  folks!   (And  hack
              inews if it is the 50% rule that bothers you.)

       inews shell-command (string, default "INEWS_PATH -h")
              The  program  which  is  invoked by nn to deliver an article to the news transport.
              The program will be given a complete article  including  a  header  containing  the
              newsgroups to which the article is to be posted.  See also inews-pipe-input.  It is
              not used when cancelling an article!

       inews-pipe-input         (boolean, default true)
              When set, the  article  to  be  posted  will  be  piped  into  the  inews  program.
              Otherwise,  the  file  containing the article will be given as the first (and only)
              argument to the inews command.

       initial-newsrc-file file (string, default '.defaultnewsrc')
              Defines the name of a file which is used as the initial .newsrc file for new users.
              The  name  may  be  a  full  path name, or as the default a file name which will be
              looked for in a number of places: in the standard news lib directory (where it  can
              be  shared  with  other  news  readers), in nn's lib directory, and in the database
              directory.  Groups which are not present  in  the  initial  .newsrc  file  will  be
              automatically  unsubscribed  provided  new-group-action  is set to a value allowing
              unsubscribed groups to be omitted from .newsrc.

       keep-backup-folder  (boolean, default false)
              When set, the backup folder (see backup-folder-path) created when removing  deleted
              articles  from a folder is not removed.  Notice that a backup folder is not created
              if all articles are removed from a folder!

       keep-unsubscribed        (boolean, default true)
              When  set,  unsubscribed  groups  are  kept  in  .newsrc.   If  not  set,  nn  will
              automatically remove all unsubscribed from .newsrc if tidy-newsrc is set.  See also
              unsubscribe-mark-read.

       kill      (boolean, default true)
              If set, nn performs automatic kill and selection based on the kill file.

       kill-debug          (boolean, default false)
              When set, nn will display a trace of the auto-kill/select process  on  entry  to  a
              group.   It  is  automatically turned off if `q' is entered as the answer to a "hit
              any key" prompt during the debug output.

       kill-key key   (key, default tty kill key)
              The key which deletes the current line when nn is prompting for a  string,  e.g.  a
              file name.

       kill-reference-count N   (integer, default 0)
              When this variable is non-zero, all articles which have N or more references on the
              References: line (corresponding to the number of >>'s on the  menu  line)  will  be
              auto-killed  if  they are not auto-selected (or preserved) via an entry in the kill
              file.  It should probably not be used globally for all groups, but can be set on  a
              per-group via the entry macros.

       layout number  (integer, default 1)
              Set the menu layout.  The argument must be a number between 0 and 4.

       limit max-articles  (integer, default infinite)
              Limit  the maximum number of articles presented in each group to max-articles.  The
              default is to present all unread articles no matter how many  there  are.   Setting
              this  variable,  only  the most recent max-articles articles will be presented, but
              all the articles will still be marked as read.  This is useful  to  get  up-to-date
              quickly if you have not read news for a longer period.

       lines lin (integer, default screen height)
              This variable contains the screen height i.e. number of lines.

       long-menu      (boolean, default false)
              If set nn will not put an empty line after the header line and an empty line before
              the prompt line; this gives you two extra menu lines.

       macro-debug    (boolean, default false)
              If set nn will trace the execution of all macros.  Prior to the execution  of  each
              command  or operation in a macro, it will show the name of the command or the input
              string or key stroke at the bottom of the screen.

       mail file (string, default not set)
              file must be a full path name of a file.  If defined, nn will check for arrival  of
              new mail every minute or so by looking at the specified file.

       mail-alias-expander program   (string, default not set)
              When  set, aliases used in mail responses may be expanded by the specified program.
              The program will be given the completed response in a file as  its  only  argument,
              and the aliases should be expanded directly in this file (of course the program may
              use temporary files and other means to expand the aliases as long the the result is
              stored in the provided file).
              Notice: currently there are no alias expanders delivered with nn.
              Warning: Errors in the expansion process may lead to the response not being sent.

       mail-format    (boolean, default false)
              When  set,  nn  will  save articles in a format that is compatible with normal mail
              folders.  Unless folder-format-check is false, it  is  only  used  to  specify  the
              format  used when new folders are created.  This variable is ignored if mmdf-format
              is set.

       mail-header headers (string, default not set)
              The headers string specifies one or more extra header  lines  (separated  by  semi-
              colons  `;') which are added to the header of mail sent from nn using the reply and
              mail commands.  For example:
                   set mail-header Reply-To: storm@texas.dk;Organization: TI - DK
              To include a semicolon `;' in a header, precede it by a backslash  (which  must  be
              doubled because of the conventions for entering strings).

       mail-record file    (string, default not set)
              file  must be a full path name of a file.  If defined, all replies and mail will be
              saved in this file in standard mailbox format,  i.e.  you  can  use  you  favourite
              mailer (and nn) to look at the file.

       mail-script file    (string, default not set)
              When  set,  nn  will use the specified file instead of the standard aux script when
              executing the reply and mail commands.

       mailer shell-command     (string, default REC_MAIL)
              The program which is invoked by nn to deliver a message to the mail transport.  The
              program  will  be  given  a complete mail message including a header containing the
              recipient's address.  See also mailer-pipe-input.

       mailer-pipe-input        (boolean, default true)
              When set, the message to be sent will be piped into the mailer program.  Otherwise,
              the  file  containing the message will be given as the first (and only) argument to
              the mailer command.

       marked-by-next-group N   (integer, default 0)
              Specifies the amount of (unmarked) articles on the menu marked seen by the N {next-
              group}  command  in selection mode.  See marked-by-read-skip for possible values of
              N.

       marked-by-read-return N  (integer, default 0)
              Specifies the amount of (unmarked) articles on the menu marked seen by the Z {read-
              return}  command in selection mode.  See marked-by-read-skip for possible values of
              N.

       marked-by-read-skip N    (integer, default 4)
              Specifies the amount of (unmarked) articles on the menu marked seen by the X {read-
              skip} command in selection mode.  The following values of N are recognized:
                   0:  No articles are marked seen
                   1:  Current page is marked seen
                   2:  Previous pages are marked seen
                   3:  Previous and current pages are marked seen
                   4:  All pages are marked seen

       mark-overlap   (boolean, default false)
              When  set, nn will draw a line (using the underline capabilities of the terminal if
              possible) to indicate the end of the overlap (see the overlap variable).

       mark-overlap-shading     (boolean, default false)
              When set, nn will shade overlapping lines (see  the  overlap  variable)  using  the
              attributes defined by the shading-on and shading-off variables (of if not set, with
              the underline attribute).  This is typically  used  to  give  overlapping  lines  a
              different colour on terminals which have this capability.

       menu-spacing mode   (integer, default 0)
              When  mode is a non-zero number as described below, nn will add blank lines between
              the lines on the menu to increase readability  at  the  cost  of  presenting  fewer
              articles on each page.  The following values of mode are recognized:
              0: Don't add blank lines between menu lines.
              1: Add a blank line between articles with different subjects.
              2: Add a blank line between all articles.

       merge-report-rate rate   (integer, default 1)
              When  nn is invoked with the -m option (directly or via nngrap), a status report of
              the merging process is displayed and updated on the screen every rate seconds.  The
              report contains the time used so far and an estimate of the time needed to complete
              the merge.

       message-history N   (integer, default 15)
              Specifies the maximum number, N, of older messages which can be recalled  with  the
              ^P {message} command.

       min-window size     (integer, default 7)
              When the window variable is not set, nn will clear the screen to preview an article
              if there are less than size unused lines at the bottom of the menu screen.

       mmdf-format    (boolean, default false)
              When set, nn will save articles in  MMDF  format.   Unless  folder-format-check  is
              false, it is only used to specify the format used when new folders are created.

       monitor        (boolean, default false)
              When  set,  nn  will  show all characters in the received messages using a "cat -v"
              like format.  Otherwise, only the printable characters are shown (default).

       motd      (boolean, default true)
              When set, nn will display the message of the day on  start-up  if  it  has  changed
              since  it  was  last  shown.   The message is taken from the file "motd" in the lib
              directory.  It can also be shown (again) using the :motd command.

       multi-key-guard-time timeout  (integer, default 2)
              When reading a multi-key sequence from the keyboard, nn will expect the  characters
              constituting  the  multi-key  to arrive "quickly" after each other.  When a partial
              multi-key sequence is read, nn will wait (at least) timeout tenths of a second  for
              each  of the following characters to arrive to complete the multi-key sequence.  If
              the multi-key sequence is not completed  within  this  period,  nn  will  read  the
              partial  multi-key sequence as individual characters instead.  This way it is still
              possible to use for example the ESC key on a terminal with vt100 like  arrow  keys.
              When  nn  is used via an rlogin connection, you may have to increase the timeout to
              get reliable recognition of multi-keys.

       new-group-action action  (integer, default 3)
              This variable controls how new  groups  are  treated  by  nn.   It  is  an  integer
              variable, and the following values can be used.  Some of these actions (marked with
              an *) will only work when keep-unsubscribed is set, since the presence of  a  group
              in .newsrc is the only way to recognize it as an old group:
              0)   Ignore  groups  which  are  not  in  .newsrc.  This will obviously include new
              groups, and therefore you must explicitly add any new groups that  you  care  about
              (by  editing  the .newsrc file, or using the G menu command and then subscribing to
              the group).  When NNTP is being used, this setting prevents the  active.times  data
              from  being read from the server; this can be helpful when using a slow link, since
              the data can often be hundreds of KBytes long.
              1*)  Groups not in .newsrc are considered to  be  new,  and  are  inserted  at  the
              beginning of the .newsrc file.
              2*)  Groups not in .newsrc are considered to be new, and are appended to the end of
              the .newsrc file.
              3)  New groups are recognized via a time-stamp saved in the file  .nn/LAST  and  in
              the database, i.e. it is not dependent on the groups currently in .newsrc.  The new
              groups are automatically appended to .newsrc with  subscription.   Old  groups  not
              present in .newsrc will be considered to be unsubscribed.
              4)  As 3, but the user is asked to confirm that the new group should be appended to
              .newsrc.  If rejected, the group will not be  appended  to  .newsrc,  and  thus  be
              regarded as unsubscribed.
              5)   As 4, except that the information is stored in a format compatible with the rn
              news reader (.rnlast).  This needs to be tested!

       new-style-read-prompt    (boolean, default true)
              When set, the reading mode prompt line includes the group name and  the  number  of
              selected articles in the group.

       news-header headers (string, default not set)
              The  headers  string  specifies  one or more extra header lines (separated by semi-
              colons `;') which are added to the header of articles  posted  from  nn  using  the
              follow and post commands.  See mail-header for an example.

       news-record file    (string, default not set)
              Save  file  for  follow-ups and postings.  Same rules and format as the mail-record
              variable.

       news-script file    (string, default not set)
              When set, nn will use the specified file instead of the standard  aux  script  when
              executing the follow and post commands.

       newsrc file (string, default "~/.newsrc") Specifies the
              file  used by nn to register which groups and articles have been read.  The default
              setting corresponds to the .newsrc file used by other news readers.  Notice that nn
              release  6.4  onwards  does allow individual articles to be marked unread, and some
              articles marked unread, and thus  no  longer  messes  up  .newsrc  for  other  news
              readers!  Also see nntp-server.

       nn-directory directory   (string, default "~/.nn")
              It  only  makes  sense  to  set  this  variable  on  the  command  line,  e.g. "nn-
              directory=$HOME/.nn2" since it is looked at before the init file is read.  It  must
              be  set  to  a  full pathname.  Usually set when using multiple servers; see newsrc
              above and nntp-server below.

       nntp-cache-dir directory (string, default "~/.nn")
              When NNTP is used, nn needs to store articles temporarily on disk.   This  variable
              specifies  which  directory nn will use to hold these files.  The default value may
              be changed during configuration.  This variable can only be set in the init file.

       nntp-cache-size size     (integer, default 10, maximum 10)
              Specifies the number of temporary files in the nntp cache.  The default and maximum
              values may be changed during configuration.

       nntp-debug     (boolean, default false)
              When  set,  a trace of the nntp related traffic is displayed in the message line on
              the screen.

       nntp-server hostname or filename (string)
              It only makes sense  to  set  this  variable  on  the  command  line,  e.g.  "nntp-
              server=news.some.domain",  since  it  is looked at before the init file, If you use
              multiple servers, you probably want to set the nn-directory and newsrc variables on
              the  command  line  to  alternate  names  as well, since some of the data files are
              server dependent.

       old [max-articles]  (integer, default not set)
              When old is set, nn will present (or scan) all (or the last max-articles) unread as
              well as read articles.  While old is set, nn will never mark any unread articles as
              read.

       old-packname   (boolean, default false)
              When set, nn display names identically to nn-6.6.5 (and earlier).  Only set this if
              you  have a large number of entries in your killfile that no longer work due to the
              new behaviour.  Note that in the long run, this option will go away, so  it's  best
              to update your killfile rather than set this.

       orig-to-include-mask N   (integer, default 3)
              When  replying to an article, nn will include some of the header lines which may be
              used to construct a proper mail address for the poster  of  the  original  article.
              These  addresses  are  placed  on  Orig-To:  lines  in  the  reply  header and will
              automatically be removed before the letter is sent.  This variable specifies  which
              headers  from  the  article  are  included; its value N is the sum of the following
              values:
                   1: Reply-To:
                   2: From:
                   4: Path:

       overlap lines  (integer, default 2)
              Specifies the number of overlapping lines from one page to  the  next  when  paging
              through  an  article in reading mode.  The last line from the previous page will be
              underlined if the terminal has that capability.

       pager shell-command      (string, default $PAGER)
              This is the pager used by the :admin command (and nnadmin) when it executes certain
              commands, e.g. grepping in the Log file.

       patch-command shell-command   (string, default "patch -p0")
              This is the command which is invoked by the :patch command.

       post-distribution words  (string, default see below)
              This  variable controls how the Distribution: header is constructed when posting an
              original article.  Its value is a list of words selected from the following list:
              [ ask ] [ default | distribution ]
              This is interpreted in two steps:
              - First the default distribution  is  determined.   If  default  is  specified  (or
              distribution  is  omitted),  the value of default-distribution is used.  Otherwise,
              the specified distribution (any word) is used as the default.
              - Then if ask is  specified,  the  user  will  be  asked  to  confirm  the  default
              distribution or provide another distribution.
              The  default  value  of  post-distribution  is  ask  default, i.e. use the default-
              distribution with confirmation from the user.

       preview-continuation cond     (integer, default 12)
              This  variable  determines  on  what  terms  the  following   article   should   be
              automatically  shown  when  previewing  an article, and the next-article command is
              used, or continue is used at the end of the article.  The following values  can  be
              used:
              0 - never show the next article (return to the menu).
              1 - always show the next article (use 'q' to return to the menu).
              2  -  show the next article if it has the same subject as the current article, else
              return to the menu.
              The value should be the sum of two values: one for the action after using  continue
              on  the  last  page of the article, and one for the action performed when the next-
              article command is used multiplied by 10.

       preview-mark-read        (boolean, default true)
              When set, previewing an article will mark the article as read.

       previous-also-read  (boolean, default true)
              When set, going back to the previously read group with P  {previous}  will  include
              articles  read  in  the  current  invocation  of  nn even if there are still unread
              articles in the group.

       print-header-lines fields     (string, default "FDGS")
              Specifies the list of header fields that are output when an article is printed  via
              the  :print  command  and  print-header-type  is  1  (short  header).   The  fields
              specification is described in the section on Customized Article Headers below.

       print-header-type N (integer, default 1)
              Specifies what kind of header is printed by the :print  command,  corresponding  to
              the  three  save-* commands: 0 prints only the article body (no header), 1 prints a
              short header, and 2 prints the full article header.

       printer shell-command    (string, default is system dep.)
              This is the default value for the print command.  It should include an option which
              prevents  the  spooler  from  echoing  a job-id or similar to the terminal to avoid
              problems with screen handling (e.g. lp -s on System V).

       query-signature          (boolean, default ...)
              Will cause nn to require confirmation before appending the .signature file to  out-
              going mail or news if the corresponding append-sig-... variable is set.

       quick-count    (boolean, default true)
              When  set,  calculating  the total number of unread articles at start-up is done by
              simple subtracting the first  unread  article  number  from  the  total  number  of
              articles in each group.  This is very fast, and fairly accurate but it may be a bit
              too large.  If not set, each line in .newsrc will be  interpreted  to  count  every
              unread  article, thus giving a very accurate number.  This variable is also used by
              nncheck.

       quick-save     (boolean, default false)
              When set, nn will not prompt for a file name when an article is  saved  (unless  it
              belongs  to  a  folder).   Instead  it uses the save file specified for the current
              group in the init file or the default save file.

       re-layout N         (integer, default 0)
              Normally on the menu, nn will prefix the subject a number of `>'s corresponding  to
              the  number  of  references on the References: line.  The re-layout variable may be
              set to use a different prefix on the subjects:
                   0:  One `>' per reference is shown (default).
                   1:  A single `>' is shown if the Subject contains Re:.
                   2:  The number of references is shown as `n>'
                   3:  A single Re: is shown.
                   4:  If any references use layout 0, else layout 1.

       re-layout-read N    (integer, default -1)
              When the header-lines variable is not set, or contains the "*" field  specifier,  a
              line  similar to the menu line will be used as the header of the article in reading
              mode, including the sender's name and the article's subject.  When this variable is
              negative,  the  subject  on  this header line will be prefixed according to the re-
              layout variable.  Otherwise, it will define the format of the "Re:"  prefix  to  be
              used instead of the re-layout used on the menu.

       read-return-next-page    (boolean, default false)
              When set, the Z {read-return} command will return to the next menu page rather than
              the current menu page.

       record file    (string, no default)
              Setting this pseudo variable will set both  the  mail-record  and  the  news-record
              variables to the specified pathname.

       repeat         (boolean, default false)
              When set, nn will not eliminate duplicated subject lines on menus (I cannot imagine
              why anyone should want that, but....)

       repeat-group-query  (boolean, default false)
              When set, invoking nn with the -g option will always repeat the query for  a  group
              to enter until you quit explicitly.  (Same as setting the -r option permanently).

       report-cost         (boolean, default true)
              This variable is ignored unless nn is running with accounting enabled (see nnacct).
              When set, nn will report the cost of the current session and the total on exit.

       response-check-pause pause    (integer, default 2)
              Specifies the number of seconds to wait after posting an article to see whether the
              action  *might*  have failed.  Some commands run in the background and may thus not
              have completed during this period, so even when nn says "Article  posted",  it  may
              still fail (in which case you are informed via mail).

       response-default-answer action     (string, default "send")
              The  default action to be taken when hitting return to the "response action" prompt
              (abort, edit, send, view, write).  If it is unset, no default action is defined.

       retain-seen-status  (boolean, default false)
              Normally, seen articles will just be unread the next  time  the  group  is  entered
              (unless  they  were  marked read by auto-junk-seen).  If retain-seen-status is set,
              the seen attribute on the articles will survive to  the  next  time  the  group  is
              entered.   (This  is  not  recommended  because  it may result in very large select
              files).

       retry-on-error times     (integer, default 0)
              When set, nn will try the specified number of  times  to  open  an  article  before
              reporting  that the article does not exist any more.  This may be necessary in some
              network environments.

       save-closed-mode mode    (integer, default 13)
              When saving an article in selection mode (i.e. by selecting it from the  menu),  nn
              will  simply save the specified article if the article's subject is open.  When the
              selected menu entry is a closed subject, the save-closed-mode  variable  determines
              how many articles among the closed articles should be saved:
              0: save root article (the one on the menu) only
              1: save selected articles within subject
              2: save unread (excl selected) articles within subject
              3: save selected+unread articles within subject
              4: save all articles within subject
              If  `10'  is  added  to  the  above  values,  nn will not save the selected subject
              immediately; instead it will ask which articles to save using the  above  value  as
              the default answer.

       save-counter format (string, default "%d")
              This  is  the  printf-format  which  nn  uses to create substitution string for the
              trailing * in save file names.  You can set this to more  complex  formats  if  you
              like, but be sure that it will produce different strings for different numbers.  An
              alternative format which seems to be popular is ".%02d" .

       save-counter-offset N    (integer, default 0)
              Normally, file names created with the  part.*  form  will  substitute  the  *  with
              successive  numbers  starting  from  one.   Setting  this variable will cause these
              numbers to start from N+1.

       save-header-lines fields (string, default "FDNS")
              Specifies the list of header fields that are saved when an article is saved via the
              O  {save-short}  command.   The fields specification is described in the section on
              Customized Article Headers below.

       save-report    (boolean, default true)
              When set, a message reporting the number of lines written is shown after saving  an
              article.  Since messages are shown for a few seconds, this may slow down the saving
              of many articles (e.g. using the S* command).

       scroll-clear-page        (boolean, default true)
              Determines whether nn clears the screen before showing each new page of an article.

       scroll-last-lines N      (integer, default 0)
              Normally, nn will show each new page of an article from the top of the screen (with
              proper  marking of the overlap).  When this variable is set to a negative value, nn
              will scroll the text of the new pages from the bottom of the screen instead.  If it
              is set to a positive value, nn will show pages from the top as usual, but switch to
              scrolling when there are less than the  specified  number  of  lines  left  in  the
              article.

       select-leave-next        (boolean, default false)
              When  set,  you  will  be  asked  whether  to  select  articles with the leave-next
              attribute on entry to a group with left over articles.

       select-on-sender         (boolean, default false)
              Specifies whether the find (=) command in article selection mode will match on  the
              subject or the sender.

       shading-on code...  (control string, default not set)
              Specifies  the  escape  code  to  be sent to the terminal to cause "shading" of the
              following output to the screen.  This is used if the mark-overlap-shading  is  set,
              and by the `+' attribute in the header-lines variable.

       shading-off code... (control string, default not set)
              Specifies  the  escape  code  to  be  sent  to the terminal to turn off the shading
              defined by shading-on.  Shading will typically be done by changing  the  foreground
              colour to change, e.g.
                   on term ti924-colour
                        set shading-on  ^[ [ 3 2 m
                        set shading-off ^[ [ 3 7 m
                        set mark-overlap-shading
                        unset mark-overlap
                   end

       shell program  (string, default $SHELL)
              The shell program used to execute shell escapes.

       shell-restrictions  (boolean, default false)
              When  set (in the init file), nn will not allow the user to invoke the shell in any
              way, including saving on pipes.  It also prevents the user  from  changing  certain
              variables containing commands.

       show-purpose-mode N      (integer, default 1)
              Normally, nn will show the purpose of a group the first time it is read, provided a
              purpose is known.  Setting this variable, this behaviour can be changed as follows:
                   0:  Never show the purpose.
                   1:  Show the purpose for new groups only.
                   2:  Show the purpose for all groups.
              When NNTP is being used, a setting of 0 prevents the newsgroups purpose  data  from
              being  read  from the server; this can be helpful when using a slow link, since the
              data can often be hundreds of KBytes long.

       sign-type      (string, default pgp)
              What program nn will use to sign messages via the Sign command.  Only pgp  and  gpg
              are currently valid.

       silent         (boolean, default false)
              When  set,  nn  won't  print the logo or "No News" if there are no unread articles.
              Only useful to set in the init file or with the -Q option.

       slow-mode      (boolean, default false)
              When set, nn will cut down on the screen output to give better response time at low
              speed.  Normally, nn will use standout mode (if possible) to mark selected articles
              on the menu, but when slow-mode is set, nn will just put an asterisk  `*'  next  to
              the  article  identifier  on selected articles.  Also when slow-mode is set nn will
              avoid redrawing the screen in the following cases:  After a goto-group  command  an
              empty  menu  is  shown  (hit  space  to make it appear), and after responding to an
              article, only the prompt line is shown (use ^L to redraw  the  screen).   To  avoid
              redrawing  the  screen  after an extended command, set the delay-redraw variable as
              well.

       slow-speed speed    (integer, default 1200)
              If the terminal is running at this baud rate or lower, the on slow (see the section
              on  init  files)  condition  will be true, and the on fast will be false (and vice-
              versa).

       sort      (boolean, default true)
              When set, nn will sort articles according to the current sort-mode on  entry  to  a
              group.   Otherwise,  articles will be presented in order of arrival.  If not set on
              entry to a menu for merged groups, the  articles  from  each  group  will  be  kept
              together  on  the  menu.  If sort is unset while merged groups are presented on the
              menu, the articles will be reordered by local article number (which  may  not  keep
              articles from the same group together).

       sort-mode mode (integer, default 1)
              The  default sort algorithm used to sort the articles on entry to a news group.  It
              is a numeric value corresponding  to  one  of  the  sorting  methods  described  in
              connection with the :sort command:
                   0 - arrival (ordered by article number)
                   1 - subject (subjects ordered after age of first article)
                   2 - lexical (subjects in lexicographical order)
                   3 - age (articles ordered after posting date only)
                   4 - sender (articles ordered after sender's name)

       spell-checker shell-command   (string, default not set)
              When  set,  responses can be checked for spelling mistakes via the (i)spell action.
              The command to perform the spelling is given the file containing the  full  article
              including  header  as  its  only  argument.   If the spell checker can fix spelling
              mistakes, it must apply the changes directly to this file.

       split          (boolean, default true)
              When set, digests will automatically and silently be split into sub-articles  which
              are  then  handled  transparently  as  normal  articles.   Otherwise,  digests  are
              presented as one article (which you can split on demand with the G command).

       stop lines     (integer, default not set)
              When stop is set, nn will only show the first lines lines of the  of  each  article
              before prompting you to continue.  This is useful on slow terminals and modem lines
              to be able to see the first few lines of longer articles  (and  skipping  the  rest
              with the n command).

       subject-match-limit length    (integer, default 256)
              Subjects  will  be  considered  identical  if  their first length characters match.
              Setting this uncritically to a low value may cause unexpected results!

       subject-match-offset offset   (integer, default 0)
              When set to a positive number, that many characters at the beginning of the subject
              will be ignored when comparing subjects for ordering and equality purposes.

       subject-match-parts (boolean, default false)
              When  set,  two  subjects  will be considered equal if they are identical up to the
              first (differing) digit.  Together with the subject-match-offset variable, this can
              be used in source groups where the subject often has a format like:
                   vXXXXXX: Name of the package (Part 01/04)
              Setting  subject-match-offset  to  8  and  subject-match-parts to true will make nn
              consider all four parts of the  package  having  the  same  subject  (and  thus  be
              selectable with `*').
              Notice  that  changing  the  subject-match-...  variables manually will not have an
              immediate effect.   To  reorder  the  menu,  an  explicit  :sort  command  must  be
              performed.   These variables are mainly intended to be set using the :local command
              in on entry macros for source and binary groups (entry macros are evaluated  before
              the menu is collected and sorted).

       subject-match-minimum characters   (integer, default 4)
              When set to a positive number, that many characters at the beginning of the subject
              must match before the  subject-match-parts  option  comes  into  affect.   This  is
              important,  because  the  part  matching  causes the rest of the line to be ignored
              after the first digit pair is discovered.  This  begins  after  any  subject-match-
              offset has been applied.

       suggest-default-save     (boolean, default true)
              When set, nn will present the default-save-file when prompting for a save file name
              in a group without a specific save file, or folder-save-file  when  saving  from  a
              folder.  When not set, no file name is presented, and to use the default save file,
              a single + must be specified.

       tidy-newsrc         (boolean, default false)
              When set, nn will automatically remove lines from .newsrc  which  represent  groups
              not  found  in  the  active file or unsubscribed groups if keep-unsubscribed is not
              set.

       time      (boolean, default true)
              When set, nn will show the current time in the prompt  line.   This  is  useful  on
              systems without a sysline (1) utility.

       trace-folder-packing     (boolean, default true)
              When  set, a trace of the retained and deleted messages is printed when a folder is
              rewritten.

       trusted-escape-codes codes    (string, default none)
              When set to a list of one or more characters,  nn  will  trust  and  output  escape
              characters  in  an  article if it is followed by one of the characters in the list.
              For example, to switch to or from  kanji  mode,  control  codes  like  "esc $"  and
              "esc ( J"  may  be  present  in  the text.  To allow these codes, use the following
              command:
                   set trusted-escape-codes ($
              You can also set it to all to pass all escape codes through to the screen.   Notice
              that  nn  thinks  all characters (including esc) output to the screen as occupy one
              column.

       unshar-command shell-command  (string, default "/bin/sh")
              This is the command which is invoked by the unshar command.

       unshar-header-file file  (string, default "Unshar.Headers")
              The name of the file in which the header and initial text of articles unpacked with
              the  :unshar  command  is  saved.  Unless the file name starts with a `/', the file
              will be created in the same directory as the unpacked files.   The  information  is
              not  saved  if  this variable is not set.  Setting it to "Unshar.Result" will cause
              the headers and the results from the unpacking process to be merged in a meaningful
              way (unless mmdf-format is set).

       unsubscribe-mark-read    (boolean, default true)
              When  set,  unsubscribing  to  a group will automatically mark all current articles
              read; this is recommended to keep the size  of  .newsrc  down.   Otherwise,  unread
              articles  in  the  unsubscribe groups are kept in .newsrc.  If keep-unsubscribed is
              false, this variable has no effect.

       update-frequency         (integer, default 1)
              Specifies how many changes need to be done to the .newsrc or  select  files  before
              they  are  written  back to disk.  The default setting causes .newsrc to be updated
              every time a group has been read.

       use-editor-line          (boolean, default true)
              Most editors accept arguments of the form:
                   editor [-arguments] +n filename
              where editor is the name of the editor, and n is the line number to put the  cursor
              upon  entering  the file.  If use-editor-line is false, it will not add the "+n" to
              the arguments.

       use-path-in-from         (boolean, default false)
              When mail-format is set, saved articles will be preceded by a  specially  formatted
              "From " line:
                   From origin date
              Normally, the origin will be the name of the news group where the article appeared,
              but if use-path-in-from is set, the contents of the "Path:" header will be used  as
              the origin.

       use-selections      (boolean, default true)
              When  set,  nn  uses the selections and other article attributes saved last time nn
              was used.  If not set, nn ignores the select file.

       visible-bell   (boolean, default true)
              When set, nn will flash the screen instead of "ringing the  bell"  if  the  visible
              bell (flash) capability is defined in the termcap/terminfo database.

       window size    (integer, default not set)
              When  set,  nn  will  reserve  the last size lines of the menu screen for a preview
              window.  If not set, nn will clear the screen to preview an article  if  there  are
              less  than  min-window lines at the bottom of the screen.  As a side effect, it can
              also be used to reduce the  size  of  the  menus,  which  may  be  useful  on  slow
              terminals.

       word-key key   (key, default ^W)
              The  key  which  erases the last input component or word when nn is prompting for a
              string, e.g. the last name in a path name.

       wrap-header-margin size  (integer, default 6)
              When set (non-negative), the customized header  fields  specified  in  header-lines
              will  be  split  across  several lines if they don't fit on one line.  When size is
              greater than zero, lines will be split at the first space  occurring  in  the  last
              size  columns  of  the  line.   If not set (or negative), long header lines will be
              truncated if they don't fit on a single line.

CUSTOMIZED ARTICLE HEADER PRESENTATION

       Normally, nn will just print a (high-lighted) single line header  containing  the  author,
       subject, and date (optional) of the article when it is read.

       By  setting  the  header-lines  variable  as described below, it is possible to get a more
       informative multi line header with optional high-lighting and underlining.

       The header-lines variable is set to a list of header line identifiers, and the  customized
       headers will then contain exactly these header lines in the specified order.

       The same specifications are also used by the :print and save-short commands via the print-
       header-lines and save-header-lines variables.

       The following header line identifiers are recognized in  the  header-lines,  print-header-
       lines, and save-header-lines variables:

               A    Approved:
               a    Spool-File:(path of spool file containing the article)
               B    Distribution:
               C    Control:
               D    Date:
               d    Date-Received:
               F    From:
               f    Sender:
               G    Newsgroup:(current group)
               g    Newsgroup:(current group if cross-posted or merged)
               I    Message-Id:
               K    Keywords:
               L    Lines:
               N    Newsgroups:
               n    Newsgroups:   (but only if cross posted)
               O    Organization:
               P    Path:
               R    Reply-To:
               S    Subject:
               v    Save-File:(the default save file for this article)
               W    Followup-To:
               X    References:
               x    Back-References:
               Y    Summary:

       The 'G' and 'g' fields will include the local article number if it is known, e.g.
            Newsgroup: news.software.nn/754

       The  following  special  symbols  are recognized in the header-lines variable (and ignored
       otherwise):

       Preceding the identifier with an equal sign "=" or an underscore "_" will cause the header
       field contents to be high-lighted or underlined.

       A  plus  sign  "+" will use the shading attribute defined by shading-on and shading-off to
       high-light the field contents.  If no shading attribute is defined it will  underline  the
       field instead.

       Including  an  asterisk  "*" in the list will produce the standard one line header at that
       point.

       Example:  The following  setting  of  the  header-lines  variable  will  show  the  author
       (underlined),  organization,  posting  date,  and subject (high-lighted) when articles are
       read:
            set header-lines _FOD=S

COMMAND LINE OPTIONS

       Some of the command line options have already been  described,  but  below  we  provide  a
       complete list of the effect of each option by showing the equivalent set, unset, or toggle
       command.

       Besides the options described below, you can set any of nn's  variables  directly  on  the
       command line via an argument of the following format:
            variable=value
       To  set or unset a boolean variable, the value can be specified as on or off (t and f will
       also work).

       Notice that the init files are read before the options are parsed (unless you use  the  -I
       option).   Therefore,  the  options which are related to boolean variables set in the init
       file will toggle the value set there, rather than the default  value.   Consequently,  the
       meaning of the options are also user-defined.

       The  explanations  below  describe  the  effect  related  to  the  default  setting of the
       variables, with the `reverse' effect in square brackets.

       -aN  {set limit N}
              Limit the maximum number of articles presented in each group to N.  This is  useful
              to get up-to-date quickly if you have not read news for a longer period.

       -a0    Mark  all  unread  articles  as read.  See the full explanation at the beginning of
              this manual.

       -B   {toggle backup}
              Do not [do] backup the rc file.

       -d   {toggle split}
              Do not [do] split digests into separate articles.

       -f   {toggle fsort}
              Do not [do] sort folders according to the subject (present the articles in a folder
              in the sequence in which they were saved).

       -g     Prompt for the name of a news group or folder to be entered

       -i   {toggle case-fold-search}
              Normally searches with -n and -s are case independent.  Using this option, the case
              becomes significant.

       -I     Do not read the init file.  This must be the first option!!  The global setup  file
              is still read.

       -Ifile-list
              Specifies  an  alternate  list  of  init files to be loaded instead of the standard
              global and private init files.  The list is a comma-separated list of  file  names.
              Names which does not contain a `/' are looked for in the ~/.nn directory.  An empty
              element in the list is interpreted as the global init file.  The list of init files
              must  not  be  separated  from  the  -I  option by blanks, and it must be the first
              option.  Example:  The default behaviour corresponds to using  -I,init  (first  the
              global file, then the file ~/.nn/init).  The global setup file is still read as the
              first init file independently of the -I option used.

       -k   {toggle kill}
              Do not [do] perform automatic kill and selection of articles.

       -lN  {set stop N}
              Stop after printing the first N lines of each article.   This  is  useful  on  slow
              terminals.

       -L[f]     {set layout f}
              Select  alternative  menu  layout  f  (0  to 4).  If f is omitted, menu layout 3 is
              selected.

       -m   {no corresponding variable}
              Merge all articles into one `meta group' instead of showing them  one  group  at  a
              time.  When -m is used, no articles will be marked as read.

       -nWORD Collect  only  articles which contain the string WORD in the sender's name (case is
              ignored).  If WORD starts with a slash `/', the rest of the argument is used  as  a
              regular expression instead of a fixed string.

       -N   {no corresponding variable}
              Disable updating of the rc file.  This includes not recording that groups have been
              read or unsubscribed to (although nn will think so until you quit).

       -q   {toggle sort}
              Do not [do] sort the  articles  (q  means  quick,  but  it  isn't  any  quicker  in
              practice!)

       -Q   {toggle silent}
              Quiet mode - don't [do] print the logo or "No News" messages.

       -r   {toggle repeat-group-query}
              Make -g repeat query for a group to enter.

       -sWORD Collect  only  articles  which  contain  the  string WORD in their subject (case is
              ignored).  If WORD starts with a slash `/', the rest of the argument is used  as  a
              regular expression instead of a fixed string.

       -S   {toggle repeat}
              Do not [do] eliminate duplicated subject lines on menus.

       -T   {toggle time}
              Do not [do] show the current time in the prompt line.

       -w[N]     {set window N}
              Reserve  N  lines  of  the  menu screen for a preview window.  If N is omitted, the
              preview window is set to 5 lines.

       -W   {toggle confirm-messages}
              [Don't] Wait for confirmation on all messages.

       -x[N]     {set old N}
              Present (or scan) all (or the last N) unread as well as read articles.   This  will
              never mark unread articles as read.

       -X   {no corresponding variable}
              Read/scan  unsubscribed  groups  also.   Most  useful  when  looking for a specific
              subject in all groups, e.g.
                 nn -mxX -sSubject all

MACRO DEFINITIONS

       Practically any combination of commands and key strokes can be defined as  a  macro  which
       can be bound to a single key in menu and/or reading mode.

       The  macro  definition must specify a sequence of commands and key strokes as if they were
       typed directly from the keyboard.  For example, a  string  specifying  a  file  name  must
       follow  a  save  command.   This  manual does not give a complete specification of all the
       input required by the various commands; it is recommended to execute the  desired  command
       sequence  from  the  keyboard prior to defining the macro to get the exact requirements of
       each command.

       Although it is possible  to  define  temporary  macros  interactively  using  the  :define
       command, macro definitions are normally placed in the init file.  Macros are numbered from
       0 to 100, i.e. it is possible to define a total of 101 different macros  (implicit  macros
       defined with the map command uses internal numbers from 101 to 200).

       To  define  macro  number  M,  the  following  construction  is  used (the line breaks are
       mandatory):
            define M
                 body
            end

       The body consists of a sequence of tokens separated by white space (blanks  or  newlines).
       However, certain tokens continue to the end of the current line.

       The following tokens may occur in the macro body:

       Comments
              Empty lines and text following a # character (preceded by white space) is ignored.

       Command Names
              Any  command  name  listed  in  the  key mapping section can be included in a macro
              causing that command to be invoked when the macro is executed.

       Extended Commands
              All the extended commands  which  can  be  executed  through  the  command  command
              (normally bound to the : key) can also be executed in a macro.  An extended command
              starts with a colon (:) and continues to the end of the current line.  Example:
                   :show groups total

       Key Strokes
              A key stroke (which is normally mapped into a  command  depending  on  the  current
              mode)  is specified as a key name enclosed in single quotes.  Examples (A-key, left
              arrow key, RETURN key):
                   'A'  'left'  '^M'

       Shell Commands
              External commands can be invoked as part of a macro execution.  There are two forms
              of  shell  command invocations available depending on whether a command may produce
              output or require user input, or it is guaranteed  to  complete  without  input  or
              output  to  the  terminal.   The difference is that in the latter case, nn does not
              prepare the terminal to be used by another program.  When  the  command  completes,
              the  screen  is  not redrawn automatically; you should use the redraw command to do
              that.  The tho forms are:
                   :!echo this command uses the terminal
                   :!!echo this command does not > /tmp/file

       Strings
              Input to commands prompting for a string, e.g. a file name, can be specified  in  a
              macro as a double quoted string.  Example (save without prompting for a file name):
                   save-short "+$G"

       Conditionals
              Conditionals  may  occur  anywhere  in a macro; a conditional is evaluated when the
              macro is executed, and if the condition is false the rest of the  current  line  is
              ignored.  The following conditionals are available:
                   ?menu     True in menu mode
                   ?show     True in reading mode
                   ?folder   True when looking at a folder
                   ?group    True when looking at a news group
                   ?yes Query user, true if answer is yes
                   ?no  Query user, true if answer is no
              Example (stop macro execution if user rejects to continue):
                   prompt "continue? " ?no break
              In  addition  to  these  conditionals,  it is possible to test the current value of
              boolean and integer variables using the following form:
                   ?variable=value
              This conditional will be true (1) if the variable  is  an  integer  variable  whose
              current  value  is  the one specified, or (2) if the variable is a boolean variable
              which is either on or off.  Examples:
                   ?layout=3 :set layout 1
                   ?monitor=on  break
                   ?sort=off :sort age

       break  Terminate macro execution completely.  This includes nested macros.  Example  (stop
              if looking at a folder):
                   ?folder break

       return Terminate  execution of current macro.  If the current macro is called from another
              macro, execution of that macro continues immediately.

       input  Query the user for a key stroke or a string, for  example  a  file  name.   Example
              (prompt the user for a file name in the usual way):
                   save-short input

       yes    Confirm  unconditionally  if a command requires confirmation.  It is ignored if the
              command does not require confirmation.  Example (confirm creation of new files):
                   save-short "+$G" yes

       no     Terminate execution of current macro if a command requires confirmation;  otherwise
              ignore   it.   If  neither  yes  nor  no  is  specified  when  a  command  requires
              confirmation, the user must answer the question as usual - if the user confirms the
              action  execution  continues normally; otherwise the execution of the current macro
              is terminated.  Example (do not create new files):
                   save-short "+$L/misc" no

       prompt string
              Print the string in the prompt line (highlighted).  The string must be enclosed  in
              double quotes.  Example:
                   prompt "Enter recipient name"
              When  the  macro  terminates,  the original prompt shown on entry to the macro will
              automatically be redrawn.  If this is not desirable (e.g.  if the macro  goes  from
              selection  to reading mode), the redrawing of the prompt can be disabled by using a
              prompt command with an empty string ("").  Example:
                   prompt "Enter reading mode?" # old prompt is saved
                   ?no return # and old prompt is restored
                   read-skip       # changes the prompt
                   prompt "" # so forget old prompt

       echo string
              Display the string in the prompt line for a short period.  Example:
                   ?show echo "Cannot be used in reading mode" break

       puts string-to-end-of-line
              The rest of the line is output directly to the terminal without interpretation.

       macro M
              Invoke macro number M.  The maximum macro nesting level is five (also catches macro
              loops).

       I  use  the following macro to quickly save all the selected files in a file whose name is
       entered as usual.  It also works in reading mode (saving just the current article).
            define 1
                 :unset save-report
                 save-short input yes
                 ?menu '+'
                 :set save-report
            end

KEY MAPPINGS

       The descriptions of the keys and commands provided in this manual reflects the default key
       mappings  in  nn.   However,  you  can easily change these mappings to match your personal
       demands, and it is also  possible  to  remap  keys  depending  on  the  terminal  in  use.
       Permanent  remapping  of  keys must be done through the init file, while temporary changes
       (for the duration of the current invocation of nn) can be made with the :map command.

       The binding and mapping of keys are controlled by four tables:

       The multikey definition table
              This table is used for mapping multicharacter key sequences into single characters.
              By  default  the table contains the mappings for the four cursor keys, and there is
              room for 10 user-defined multikeys.  The fourteen multikeys are  named:  up,  down,
              right, left (the four arrow keys), and #0 through #9 for the user-defined keys.
              Multikey  #i  (where  i  is  a  digit  or  an  arrow key name) is defined using the
              following command:
                   map #i key-sequence
              where the sequence is a list of 7-bit character  names  (see  below)  separated  by
              spaces.   For  example,  if the HOME key sends the sequence ESC [ H, you can define
              multikey #0 to be the home key using the command:
                   map #0 ^[ [ H

       The input key mapping table
              All characters that are read from the keyboard will be  mapped  through  the  input
              mapping  table.   Consequently, you can globally remap one key to produce any other
              key value.  By default all keys are mapped into themselves.
              An entry in the input key mapping table to map input-key into new-key is made  with
              the command
                   map key input-key new-key
              For example, to make your ESC key function as interrupt you can use the command
                   map key ^[ ^G

       The selection mode key binding table
              This  table  defines  for each key which command should be invoked when that key is
              pressed in selection mode, i.e. when the article menu is  shown.   The  command  to
              bind a key to a command in selection mode is:
                   map menu key command
              For  example, to have the HOME key defined as multikey #0 above bound to the select
              command, the following command is used:
                   map menu #0 select
              To remap a key to select a specific article on the menu (which the `a' through  `z'
              keys  do  by  default), the command must be specified as `article N' where N is the
              entry number on the menu counted from zero (i.e. a=0, b=1, ...,  z=25,  0=26,  ...,
              9=35).   For  example,  to  map `J' to select article `j', the following command is
              used:
                   map menu J article 9

       The reading mode key binding table
              This table defines for each key which command should be invoked when  that  key  is
              pressed  in reading mode, i.e. when the article text is shown.  The command to bind
              a key to a command in reading mode is:
                   map show key command

       In addition to the direct mappings described above, the following variations  of  the  map
       command are available:

       User defined keymaps
              Additional keymaps can be defined using the command
                   make map newmap
              This will create a new keymap which can initialized using normal map commands, e.g.
                   map newmap key command
              To activate a user-defined keymap, it must be bound to a prefix key:
                   map base-map prefix-key prefix newmap
              When  used,  the  prefix  key  itself  does  not activate a command, but instead it
              require another key to be entered and then execute the command bound to that key in
              the keymap which is bound to the prefix key.
                For  example,  to  let  the  key  sequence "^X i" execute macro number 10 in both
              modes, the following commands can be used:
                   make map ctl-x
                   map ctl-x i macro 10
                   map both ^X prefix ctl-x

       Mapping keys in both modes
              Using the pseudo-keymap `both', it is possible to map a key to a  command  in  both
              selection  and  reading  mode  at  once.  For example, to map the home key to macro
              number 5 in both modes, the following command can be used:
                   map both #0 macro 5

       Aliasing
              A key can also be mapped directly to the command currently bound  to  another  key.
              Later  remapping of the other key will not change the mapping of the `aliased' key.
              This is done using the following command:
                   map keymap new-key as old-key

       Binding macros to keys
              A previously defined macro can be bound to a key using the command:
                   map keymap key macro macro-number

       Implicit macro definitions
              An implicit macro can also be defined directly in connection with the map command:
                   map keymap key (
                   body...
                   )

       Keys and character names are specified using the following notation:

       C      A single printable character represents the key or character itself.

       ^C     This notation represents a control key or character.  DEL is written as ^?

       125, 0175, 0x7D
              Characters and keys can be specified by their ordinal value in decimal, octal,  and
              hexadecimal notation.

       up, down, right, left
              These names represent the cursor keys.

       #0  through  #9
              These symbols represent the ten user-defined multikeys.

       If the variable data-bits is 7, key maps can specify binding of all keys in the range 0x00
       to 0x7F, and the 8th bit will be stripped in all keyboard input.  If  the  variable  data-
       bits  is 8, the 8th bit is not cleared, and key maps are extended to allow binding of keys
       in the range 0xA0 to 0xFE (corresponding to the national characters  defined  by  the  ISO
       8859  character  sets).   Binding commands to these keys can be done either by using their
       numeric value, or directly specifying the 8 bit character in the map command, e.g.
            map menu 0xC8 macro 72
--

STANDARD KEY BINDINGS

       Below  is  a list of all the commands that can be bound to keys, either in selection mode,
       in reading mode, or both.  For each command the default command key bindings in both modes
       are  shown.   If  the  key  is  not  bound  in  one of the modes, but it can be bound, the
       corresponding part will just be empty.  If the command cannot  be  bound  in  one  of  the
       modes, that mode will contain the word nix.

               Function             Selection mode   Reading mode
               advance-article      nix              a
               advance-group        A                A
               article N            a-z0-9           nix
               back-article         nix              b
               back-group           B                B
               cancel               C                C
               command              :                :
               compress             nix              c
               continue             space            space
               continue-no-mark     return           nix
               decode
               find                 =                /
               find-next            nix              .
               follow               F                fF
               full-digest          nix              H
               goto-group           G                G
               goto-menu            nix              = Z
               help                 ?                ?
               junk-articles        J                nix
               kill-select          K                K
               layout               "                nix
               leave-article        nix              l
               leave-next           L                L
               line+1               ,  down          return
               line-1               /                nix
               line=@               nix              g
               macro M
               mail                 M                m M
               message              ^P               ^P
               next-article         nix              n
               next-group           N                N
               next-subject         nix              k
               nil
               overview             Y                Y
               page+1               >                nix
               page+1/2             nix              d
               page-1               <                delete  backspace
               page-1/2             nix              u
               page=0               nix              h
               page=1               ^                ^
               page=$               $                $
               patch
               post
               preview              %                %
               previous             P                p
               print                                 P
               quit                 Q                Q
               read-return          Z                nix
               read-skip            X                X
               redraw               ^L ^R            ^L ^R
               reply                R                r R
               rot13                nix              D
               save-full            S                s S
               save-short           O                o O
               save-header          E                e E
               save-body            W                w W
               select               .                nix
               select-auto          +                nix
               select-invert        @                nix
               select-range         -                nix
               select-subject       *                *
               shell                !                !
               skip-lines           nix              tab
               unselect-all         ~                nix
               unshar
               unsub                U                U
               version              V                V

       See  the  descriptions  of  the  default  bindings for a description of the commands.  The
       pseudo command nil is used to unbind a key.

THE INIT FILES

       The init files are used to customize nn's behaviour to local conventions and  restrictions
       and to satisfy each user's personal taste.
       Normally,  nn  reads  up to three init files on start-up if they exist (all init files are
       optional):

       $LIB/setup
              A system-wide file located in the library directory.  This file  is  always  loaded
              before  any  other  init  file  (even  when the -I option is specified).  It cannot
              contain a group presentation sequence.

       $LIB/init
              Another system-wide (global) init file located in the library directory.  This file
              may be ignored via the -I option.

       ~/.nn/init
              The  private  init  file located in the user's .nn directory.  It is read after the
              global init file to allow the user to change the default setup.

       The init file is parsed one line at a time.  If a line ends  with  a  backslash  `\',  the
       backslash is ignored, and the following line is appended to the current line.

       The init file may contain the following types of commands (and data):

       Comments
              Empty  lines  and  lines  with  a  # character as the first non-blank character are
              ignored.  Except where # has another meaning defined by the  command  syntax  (e.g.
              multi-keys are named #n), trailing comments on input lines are ignored.

       Variable settings
              You can set (or unset) all the variables described earlier to change nn's behaviour
              permanently.  The set and unset commands you can use in the init file have  exactly
              the  same format as the :set and :unset commands described earlier (except that the
              : prefix is omitted.)
              Variables can also be locked via the lock command; this is typically  done  in  the
              setup file to enforce local policies.

       Key mappings
              You can use all the versions of the map command in the init file.

       Macro Definitions
              You  can  define  sequences  of  commands  and  key  strokes using the define...end
              construction, which can then be bound to single keys with the map command.

       Load terminal specific files
              You can load a terminal specific file using the
                   load file
              The character @ in the file will be replaced by the terminal type  defined  in  the
              TERM  environment  variable.  nn silently ignores the load command if the file does
              not exist (so you don't have to have a specific init file for terminals which  does
              not  require  remapping).  If the file is not specified by an absolute pathname, it
              must reside in your ~/.nn directory.  Examples:
                   # load local customizations
                   load /usr/lib/nninit
                   # load personal terminal specific customizations
                   load init.@

       Switch to loading a different init file
              You can skip the rest of the current init file and start loading a  different  init
              file with the following command:
                   chain file
              If this occur in the private or global init file, the chained init file may contain
              a sequence part which will replace the  private  or  global  presentation  sequence
              respectively.

       Stop loading current init file
              You can skip the rest of the current init file with the following command:
                   stop

       Give error messages and/or terminate
              If  an  error  is  detected in the init file, the following commands can be used to
              print an error message and/or terminate execution:
              error fatal error message...
                   Print the message and terminate execution.
              echo warning message...
                   Print the message and continue.
              exit [ status ]
                   Terminate nn with the specified exit status or 0 if omitted.

       Change working directory of nn
              You can use the cd command to change the working directory whenever you  enter  nn.
              Example:
                   # Use folder directory as working directory inside nn
                   cd ~/News

       Command groups
              The  init  file  can  contain  groups  of commands which are executed under special
              conditions.  The command groups are described in  the  section  on  command  groups
              below.

       One or more save-files sections
              A save-files section is used to assign default save files to specific groups:
                   save-files
                     group-name (pattern) file-name
                     ...
                   end
              The  group  name (patterns) and save file names are specified in the same way as in
              the presentation sequence (see below).  Example:
                   save-files
                     news*  +news/$L
                     comp.sources*  /u/src/$L/
                   end

       The news group presentation sequence
              The last part of the init file may specify the sequence in which you want the  news
              groups  to  be presented.  This part starts with the command sequence and continues
              to the end of the init file.

       Both init files may contain a presentation sequence.  In this case, the global sequence is
       appended to the private sequence.

COMMAND GROUPS

       Command  groups  may only occur in the init file, and they provide a way to have series of
       commands executed at certain points during news reading.

       In release 6.4 onwards, these possibilities are still rather rudimentary, and a mixture of
       normal init file syntax and macro syntax is used depending on whether the command group is
       only executed on start-up or several times during the nn session.

       A command group begins with the word on and ends with the word end.  The following command
       groups  are  conditionally  executed  during the parsing of the init file if the specified
       condition is true.  They may also have an optional else part  which  is  executed  if  the
       condition is false:
            on condition
                 commands
            [ else
                 commands ]
            end

       The  following  conditional  command groups may be used in the init file to be executed at
       start-up:

       on [ test ]
              The commands (init file syntax) in the group are executed  only  if  the  specified
              test  is  true.   A  shell is spawned to execute the command "[ test ]", so all the
              options of the test(1) command is available.   For  example,  to  unset  the  flow-
              control variable if the tty is a pseudo-tty, the following conditional can be used:
                   on [ -n "`tty | grep ttyp`" ]
                        unset flow-control
                   end

       on !shell command
              The  command  group  is  executed  if  the  given shell command exits with 0 status
              (success).  Care should be taken that the command does not produce any output, e.g.
              by  redirecting  its  output  to  /dev/null.   For  example, to prevent people from
              reading news if load is above a specific level, the following conditional might  be
              placed in the global setup file.
                   on !load-above 5
                        error load is too high, try again later.
                   end

       on `shell command` string...
              The command group is executed if the first output line from executing the specified
              shell command is listed among the specified string values.  The shell  command  can
              be  omitted on subsequent occurrences of this conditional, in which case the output
              from the last shell command is used.  For example, the following conditional can be
              used to switch to an init file which has a limited sequence for news reading during
              working hours, evenings, and nights:
                   on `date +%H` 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
                        chain init.work
                   end
                   on `` 17 18 19 20 21
                        chain init.evening
                   else
                        chain init.night
                   end

       on `` string...
              This is equivalent to the previous form except that instead of  executing  a  shell
              command, the output from the previous

       on $variable [ value ]
              If  no  value  strings  are  specified,  the command group is executed if the given
              variable is defined in the environment.  Otherwise, the command group  is  executed
              only  if  the  value  of the variable occur in the value list.  For example, if you
              want nn to look for mail in whatever $MAIL is set to - if it is set - you  can  use
              the following code:
                   on $MAIL
                        set mail $(MAIL)
                   end

       on slow
              The  commands  (init  file  syntax)  in  the group are executed only if the current
              terminal output speed is less than or equal to the baud rate set in the  slow-speed
              variable.   This  can  be used to optimize the user-interface for slow terminals by
              setting suitable variables:
                   on slow
                        set confirm-entry
                        set slow-mode
                        set delay-redraw
                        unset visible-bell
                        set compress
                        unset header-lines
                        set stop 5
                        set window 10
                   end

       on fast
              Same as on slow except that the commands are only executed  when  the  terminal  is
              running at a speed above the slow-speed value.

       on term term-type...
              The  commands  are  executed if one of the term-type names is identical to value of
              the TERM environment variable.

       on host host-name...
              The commands are executed if the local host's name occur in the host-name list.

       on program program-name...
              The commands are executed if the current program (nn, nncheck, etc) in the program-
              name list.

       The following on command groups are really macros which may be executed during nn's normal
       processing, and as such they cannot have an else part.

       on entry [ group list ]
              These commands (macro format!) are executed every time nn enters a news group.   If
              a  group  list  is not specified, the commands are associated with all groups which
              don't have its own entry macro specified in the  group  sequence.   Otherwise,  the
              entry  macro  will  be  associated  with the groups in the list.  The group list is
              specified using the meta-notations described in the presentation sequence section.
              All `:' commands at the beginning of the  command  group  are  executed  before  nn
              collects  the  articles  in  the group, so it is possible to set or unset variables
              like cross-post and auto-read-mode-limit before any articles are collected and  the
              menu is (not) shown.
                The  non-`:'  commands,  and  `:' commands that follows a command of another type
              will be executed immediately after the first menu page is presented.  The execution
              of a `:' command can be postponed by using a double `::' as the command prefix.
                   on entry comp.sources* alt.sources
                        :set cross-post on   # set before collection
                        :local auto-read-mode-limit -1   # set before showing menu
                        ::unset cross-post   # set after collection
                   end

       on start-up
              These  `:'  commands (macro format!) are executed on start-up just before nn enters
              the first news group.  However, postponed commands (i.e. non-`:' commands) will not
              be executed until the first group is shown (it works like an entry macro).

GROUP PRESENTATION SEQUENCE

       News groups are normally presented in the sequence defined in the system-wide init file in
       nn's library directory.

       You can personalize the presentation sequence by specifying an alternative sequence in the
       private  init  file.   The  sequence  in  the  private init file is used before the global
       presentation sequence, and need only describe the deviations from the default presentation
       sequence.

       The presentation sequence must start with the word
            sequence
       followed  by  a  list  of the news group names in the order you want them to be presented.
       The group names must be separated by white space.  The sequence list must be the last part
       of  the init file (the parsing of commands from the init file stops when the word sequence
       is encountered).

       You may use a full group name like "comp.unix.questions", or just the name of a main group
       or    subgroup,    e.g.    "comp"   or   "comp.unix".    However,   if   "comp"   precedes
       "comp.unix.questions" in the list, this subgroup will be placed in the  normal  alphabetic
       sequence during the collection of all the "comp" groups.

       Groups  which  are  not  explicitly  mentioned in any of the sequence files will be placed
       after the mentioned groups, unless `!!' is used and it has not been disabled (as described
       below).

       Each  group  name  may be followed by a file or folder name (must start with either of `/'
       `~' or `+') which will specify the default save file for that group (and  its  subgroups).
       A single `+' following the group name is an abbreviation for the last save file name used.
       For example, the following two sequences are equivalent:
            group1 +file group2 +file group3 +file
            group1 +file group2 + group3 +

       When an article is saved, the default save name will be used as the  initial  contents  of
       the  file name prompt for further editing.  It therefore does not need to be be a complete
       file name (unless you use the quick save mode).

       Each group name may also be associated with a so-called entry action.  This  is  basically
       an (unnamed) macro which is invoked on entry to the group (following the same rules as the
       `on entry' command group related to :set and :unset commands).

       The entry action begins with a left parenthesis `(' and ends with a right parenthesis  `)'
       on an otherwise empty line:
            comp.sources. +src/$L/ (
                 :set cross-post
            )
       The last entry action can be repeated by specifying an empty set of parenthesis, e.g.
            comp.unix. +unix ()
       The  entry  action of a preceding group in the sequence can be associated with the current
       group(s) by specifying the name of the group in the parentheses instead of  the  commands,
       e.g.
            comp.unix. +unix (comp.sources.unix)
       A  macro can also be associated with the entry action by specifying its number in the same
       way as the group name above, e.g.
            rec.music. +music (30)
       Notice that it is the current definition of the macro which is associated with the  group,
       so if the macro is later redefined with the `:define' command, it will not have any effect
       on the entry action.

       Group names can be specified using the following notations:

       group.name
              Append the group (if it exists)  to  the  presentation  sequence  list.   If  also-
              subgroups  is set (default), all subscribed subgroups of the group will be included
              as well (if there are any).  Examples: "comp", "comp.unix",  "comp.unix.questions".
              If  the  group  does  not exits (e.g.  "comp"), the subgroups will be included even
              when also-subgroups is not set, i.e. "comp" is equivalent to "comp.".

       group.name.
              Append the subgroups of the specified group  to  the  presentation  sequence.   The
              group itself (if it exists) is not included.  Examples: "comp.", "comp.unix.".

       .group.name
              Append  the  groups  whose  name  ends  with  the  specified  name to the sequence.
              Example: ".test".

       group.name*
              Append the group and its subgroups to the presentation  sequence  list  (even  when
              also-subgroups is not set).  Example: "comp.unix*".

       The  following  meta  notation  can  be  used  in  a sequence file.  The group.name can be
       specified using any of the forms described above:

       ! groups
              Completely ignore the group or groups specified unless  they  are  already  in  the
              presentation sequence (i.e. has been explicitly mentioned earlier in the sequence).

       !:code groups
              Ignore  a  selection  of  groups based on the given code letter (see below), unless
              they are already included in the sequence.  Notice that these forms  only  excludes
              groups  from  the  presentation  sequence,  i.e.  they do not include the remaining
              groups at this point; that must be done explicitly elsewhere.

       !:U groups
              Ignore unsubscribed  groups,  i.e.  if  they  are  neither  new,  nor  present  and
              subscribed in .newsrc.  This is useful to ignore a whole hierarchy except for a few
              groups which are explicitly mentioned in .newsrc and still see new groups  as  they
              are created.

       !:X groups
              Ignore  unsubscribed  and  new  groups,  i.e. if they are not currently present and
              subscribed in .newsrc.  This is useful to ignore a whole hierarchy except for a few
              groups  which are explicitly mentioned in .newsrc.  New groups in the hierarchy are
              ignored unless `NEW' occurs earlier in the sequence.

       !:O groups
              Ignore old groups, i.e. unless they are new.  This is  useful  to  ignore  a  whole
              hierarchy  but  still  see  new groups which are created in the hierarchy (it might
              become interesting some day).  Individual groups  can  still  be  included  in  the
              sequence if they are specified before the `!:O' entry.

       !:N groups
              Ignore new groups in the hierarchy.

       !!     Stop  building  the presentation sequence.  This eliminates all groups that are not
              already in the presentation sequence.

       NEW    This is a pseudo group name which matches all new  groups;  you  could  place  this
              symbol  early in your presentation sequence to see new groups `out of sequence' (to
              attract your attention to them).

       RC     This is a pseudo group name which matches all groups occurring in the .newsrc file.
              It  will cause the groups in .newsrc to be appended to the presentation sequence in
              the sequence in which they are listed in .newsrc.

       RC:number
              Similar to the RC entry, but limited to the first number lines of the .newsrc file.
              Example: RC:10 (use 10 lines of .newsrc).

       RC:string
              Similar  to  the RC entry, but limited to the lines up to (and including) the first
              line (i.e. group) starting with the given string.  For example:  RC:alt.sources

       < group.name
              Place the group (and its subgroups) at the beginning of the presentation  sequence.
              Notice  that each `<' entry will place the group(s) at the beginning of the current
              sequence, i.e. < A < B < C will generate the sequence C B A.

       > group.name
              Place the group (and its subgroups) after all other groups that  are  and  will  be
              entered into the presentation sequence.

       @      Disable  the  `!!'  command.   This  can  be  included in the personal presentation
              sequence if the global sequence file contains a !! entry (see example 1 below).

       % .... %
              Starts and ends a region of the sequence where it is  possible  to  include  groups
              which  has  been  eliminated  earlier.  This may be useful to alter the sequence of
              some groups, e.g. to place comp.sources.bugs after all  other  source  groups,  the
              following sequence can be used:
              ! comp.sources.bugs comp.sources* % comp.sources.bugs %

       Example  1:  In a company where ordinary users only should read the local news groups, and
       ignore the rest (including new news  groups  which  are  otherwise  always  subscribed  to
       initially), can use the following global presentation sequence:
            general
            follow
            ! local.test
            local
            !!
       The  "expert"  users  in  the  company  must  put the @ command somewhere in their private
       sequence to avoid losing news groups which they have not  explicitly  mentioned  in  their
       init file.

       Example 2: This is the global sequence for systems with heavy news addicts who setup their
       own sequences anyway.
            # all must read the general news first
            < general
            # test is test, and junk is junk,
            # so it is placed at the very end
            > test
            > .test
            > junk
            # this is the standard sequence which everybody may
            # change to their own liking
            local     # our local groups
            dk   # the Danish groups
            eunet.general # to present it before eunet.followup
            eunet     # the other European groups
            comp # the serious groups
            news # news on news
            sci  # other serious groups
            rec  # not really that important (don't quote me)
            misc # well, it must be somewhere
            # the groups that are not listed above goes here
       Notice the use of comments in the sequence where they are allowed at the end of  non-empty
       lines as well.

       Example  3:  My  own  presentation  sequence  (in the init file) simply lists my favourite
       groups and the corresponding default save files:
          sequence
            !:U alt*  # ignore unsubscribed alt groups
            news.software.nn +nn
            comp.sys.ti* +ti/$L
            NEW  # show new groups here
            news*
            rec.music.synth +synth/
            comp.emacs*,gnu.emacs +emacs/misc
            comp.risks +risks
            eunet.sources +src/unix/
            comp.sources* +src/$L/
       The presentation sequence is not used when nn is called with one or more news group  names
       on  the  command  line;  it  is thus possible to read ignored groups (on explicit request)
       without changing the init file.  (Of course, you can  also  use  the  G  command  to  read
       ignored groups).

MERGING NEWS GROUPS

       The third example above contains the following line:
            comp.emacs*,gnu.emacs +emacs/misc
       This  is  the  syntax  used  to merge groups.  When two or more groups are merged, all new
       articles in these groups are presented together as if  they  were  one  group.   To  merge
       groups,  their  names  must  be  listed  together in the sequence, and only separated by a
       single  comma.   To  merge  the  groups  resulting  from  a  single  group  pattern  (e.g.
       comp.emacs*), the group pattern must be followed by a comma and a blank (e.g. comp.emacs*,
       ...).

       Merged groups are presented as the first group in the "list", and the word  "MERGED"  will
       be  shown after the group name.  The Y {overview} command will still show merged groups as
       individual groups, but they will be annotated with the symbol `&'  on  the  first  of  the
       groups, and a `+' on the rest of the groups.

       In  the current version, the concept of the current group in connection with merged groups
       is a bit fuzzy.  This should only be noticeable with the G command, which  will  take  the
       most recently used group among the merged groups as the current group.  So things like G =
       ... may not always work as expected.

ENVIRONMENT

       The following environment variables are used by nn:

       EDITOR.  The editor invoked when editing replies,  follow-ups,  and  composing  mail.   nn
       knows  about  the  following editors: vi, ded, GNU emacs, and micro-emacs, and will try to
       position the cursor on the first line following the header,  i.e.  after  the  blank  line
       which  must  not be deleted!  If an article has been included, the cursor is placed on the
       first line of the included text (to allow you to delete sections easily).

       LOGNAME.  This is taken as the login name of the current user.  It is used by nn to return
       failed  mail.   If  it  is  not  defined, nn will use the value of USER, or if that is not
       defined either, nn will use the call `who am i' to get this information.  If all  attempts
       fail, the failed mail is dropped in the bit bucket.

       PAGER.  This is used as the initial value of the pager variable.

       SHELL.  This is the shell which is spawned if the system cannot suspend nn, and it will be
       used to execute the shell escapes.

       TERM.  The terminal type.

NOTES

       When NNTP is being used over a slow link (as with the ppp protocol and a modem), it may be
       desirable  to  suppress  the  retrieval of the information about new newsgroups, and their
       purpose, since they can be hundreds of KBytes in size.  To do this,  the  new-group-action
       and  show-purpose-mode  variables  should  be  set  to  0  in  your  init  file.   See the
       descriptions of those variables for more info.

       Unfortunately, the list of active newsgroups  is  still  fetched,  since  nn  uses  it  to
       determine  which  groups  to  check for new articles.  Even this could be avoided, but the
       cost would be checking for new articles  in  every  group,  which  might  well  be  slower
       overall, although startup would be faster.

FILES

       ~/.newsrc         The record of read articles.
       ~/.nn/select      The record of selected and seen articles.
       ~/.nn/init        Personal configuration and presentation sequence.
       ~/.nn/kill        The automatic kills and selections.
       ~/.nn/KILL.COMP   The compiled kill file.
       ~/.nn/LAST        The time stamp of the last new news group we have seen.
       ~/.nn/NEXTG       Active group last time nn was quit.
       ~/.nn/.param      Parameter file for the aux script
       $lib/setup        System-wide setup - always read first.
       $lib/init         System-wide setup and presentation sequence.
       $lib/aux          The response edit and send script.
       $lib/routes       Mapping rules for mail addresses (on non-domain systems).
       $db/*             The news data base.
       /etc/termcap      Terminal data base [BSD].
       /usr/lib/terminfo/*Terminal data base [SysV].
       /usr/local/lib/nntp_serverName  of  remote  nntp  server,  if  not  changed by setting the
       environment variable NNTPSERVER or the nntp-server variable on the command line.
       The name $lib and $db are the directories used for the auxiliary files and the  news  data
       base  respectively.   Their  name and location is defined at compile time.  Common choices
       are   /usr/local/lib/nn   or   /usr/lib/news/nn   for   $lib    and    /usr/spool/nn    or
       /usr/spool/news/.nn for $db.

SEE ALSO

       Other netnews documentation.
       RFC 1341, MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions)
       nncheck(1), nngoback(1), nngrab(1), nngrep(1), nnpost(1), nntidy(1)
       nnusage(1M), nnspew(8)

ORIGINAL AUTHOR

       Kim F. Storm, Texas Instruments A/S, Denmark

CURRENT MAINTAINER

       Michael T Pins mtpins@nndev.org

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