NAME

       slrn - An easy to use NNTP / spool based newsreader.

SYNOPSIS

       slrn   [-aCdknmw]   [-C-]  [-Dname]  [-f newsrc-file]  [-i config-file]  [-k0]  [--create]
       [--debug file]  [--help]  [--inews]  [--kill-log  file]  [--nntp  [-h server]   [-p port]]
       [--show-config] [--spool] [--version]

DESCRIPTION

       slrn is an easy to use but powerful NNTP / spool based newsreader.

       It  is  highly customizable, supports scoring, free key bindings and can be extended using
       the embedded S-Lang interpreter.

       To use slrn, you either need to set the NNTPSERVER environment variable to the server  you
       want  to read news from or specify a server on the command line.  A newsrc file is needed,
       too.  In case you do not yet have one, you  can  create  it  using  ``slrn  -f  ~/.jnewsrc
       --create''.

       Inside slrn, online help is available via the '?' key.

OPTIONS

       The  following options can be used when calling slrn from the command line.  They override
       both environment variables and settings in private and global configuration files.

       -a     Read active file when checking for new news.

       -C     Use colors without checking if the terminal supports it.

       -C-    Don't use colors, even if the terminal supports it.

       -d     Get group descriptions (taglines) from the news server.  Please note that this  may
              cause  a  download of several hundred kilobytes and thus can take a long time.  The
              output is saved to a local file, so you only need to do  this  once.   May  not  be
              specified in combination with --create.

       -Dname Add  name to the list of predefined preprocessing tokens, which can be used in your
              slrnrc file to have conditionally interpreted lines.  See the slrn reference manual
              for details.

       -f newsrc-file
              Use  file  as  the  newsrc  file for this session.  This is permanently set via the
              server configuration command.

       -h host[:port]
              Connect to  the  NNTP  server  on  host,  overriding  the  $NNTPSERVER  environment
              variable.   If  no  port  is given, the default NNTP port (119) will be used.  This
              option is only accepted after --nntp or when NNTP is the default mode.

       -i config-file
              Read file as the initialization (slrnrc) file.  The default is to use  .slrnrc  (or
              slrn.rc on VMS, OS/2 and Windows) in your home directory.

       -k     Don't read the score file.

       -k0    Read  the score file, but inhibit expensive scoring. A scoring rule is expensive if
              it contains header lines that are not included  in  the  server's  overview  files.
              This makes applying them slow.

       -m     Force mouse support (without checking if it works on the current terminal).

       -n     Do not check for new groups (usually resulting in a faster startup).

       -p N   Use port N to connect to the NNTP server.

       -w     Wait  for  a  key  before  switching to full screen mode, allowing the user to read
              startup messages.

       --create
              Read the active file (the list of all groups) from the news  server  to  create  an
              initial newsrc file.

       --debug file
              Write debugging output to file.

       --help Show help for command line switches.

       --inews
              Use an external inews program to post articles.

       --kill-log file
              Keep a log of all articles that were killed by the scorefile in file.

       --nntp Use  builtin  NNTP  support for reading and posting (an external program is used to
              post if slrn was compiled with --enable-force-inews).

       --pull Spool outgoing articles locally for slrnpull to send.

       --show-config
              Print detailed information about slrn configuration.

       --spool
              Read directly from spool.

       --version
              Print version and some compile time settings.

ENVIRONMENT

       slrn uses the following list of environment variables.  Note: environment variables can be
       overridden by configuration files or command line switches.

       COLORTERM
              If  this  variable  is set, slrn will assume that your terminal supports ANSI color
              sequences.  It also enables a workaround for a problem  with  the  mouse  reporting
              when running slrn inside of an rxvt.

       DISPLAY
              If set, slrn assumes that X11 is running.

       EDITOR See $SLRN_EDITOR.

       HOME   See $SLRNHOME.

       HOSTNAME
              If no hostname is given, the value of this environment variable is used.

       LOGNAME
              See $USER.

       NAME   Set it to your realname, if slrn can't determine it otherwise.

       NNTPSERVER
              You  can use this variable to tell slrn which NNTP server to connect to.  It can be
              overridden by the command line option -h.

       ORGANIZATION
              The name of your organization.

       PRINTER
              On unix systems, slrn pipes the current article to ``lpr -P $PRINTER'' to print it.

       PWD    This variable is only used on unix systems that don't support getcwd(3).  In  these
              cases, it should be set to the current directory at the time slrn is invoked.  This
              is usually done by the shell and nothing the user has to worry about.

       REPLYTO
              The value of this variable is used as the default if you do not set replyto in your
              slrnrc file.

       SLANG_EDITOR
              See $SLRN_EDITOR.

       SLRNHELP
              You can set this variable to a file slrn should read its online help from.  This is
              only needed when the default key bindings have been changed and you want  the  help
              function  to  reflect this.  If unset, slrn looks for help.txt in the configuration
              directory.

       SLRNHOME
              When interpreting filenames as relative to your  home  directory,  slrn  uses  this
              variable  to find out what your home directory is.  If $SLRNHOME is unset, $HOME is
              used instead.

       SLRN_EDITOR
              The editor to start  for  editing  articles.   If  this  variable  is  unset,  slrn
              subsequently looks at $SLANG_EDITOR, $EDITOR and $VISUAL.

       SLRN_SLANG_DIR
              If  set, slrn will search for slang macros here. If not set slrn will search in the
              default path, which is defined at compile time (usually share_dir/slang).

       TMP    Indicates the directory in which slrn should save temporary files.

       TMPDIR See $TMP.

       USER   Your username, if slrn can't get it from the system by other means.

       VISUAL See $SLRN_EDITOR.

FILES

       $HOME/.slrnrc
              User-specific configuration file.

       config_dir/slrn.rc
              System-wide configuration file. config_dir is set at compile  time  (/usr/local/etc
              by default).

       $HOME/.jnewsrc
              default newsrc file for slrn.

       $HOME/.jnewsrc.dsc
              Per user newsgroups descriptions.

       share_dir/newsgroups.dsc
              Global    newsgroup    descriptions.    share_dir    is   set   at   compile   time
              (/usr/local/share/slrn by default).

SEE ALSO

       The documentation that comes  with  slrn,  especially  FIRST_STEPS,  manual.txt,  FAQ  and
       score.txt.   If  you  consider  writing  S-Lang  macros,  also  look  at README.macros and
       slrnfuns.txt.

       Recent versions of the slrn manual and the FAQ as well as additional information can  also
       be found on slrn's official home page: http://slrn.sourceforge.net/

       Questions  about  slrn that are not covered by existing documentation may be posted to the
       newsgroup news.software.readers where they will be answered by knowledgeable users or  the
       author  of  the  program.   In  addition, announcements of new versions of slrn are posted
       there.

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

AUTHOR

       John E. Davis <jed@jedsoft.org>