NAME

tass, rtass − Visual threaded Usenet news reader

SYNOPSIS

tass [-b] [-u] [-f newsrc-file] [newsgroups]
rtass [-b] [-u] [-f newsrc-file] [newsgroups]

DESCRIPTION

Tass is a full screen threaded Usenet newsreader.  Tass has three newsreading levels: the newsgroup selection page, the group index page and the article viewer.  Use the ’h’ (help) command to view a list of the commands available at a particular level. 

On startup Tass will show a list of the newsgroups found in $HOME/.newsrc.  An arrow will point to the first newsgroup.  Move the arrow by either using the terminal arrow keys or ’j’ and ’k’.  Control-D will page down, control-U will page up.  Enter a newsgroup by pressing RETURN. 

The TAB key may be used to advance to the next newsgroup with unread articles and enter it.  TAB from the newsgroup index page will progress through unread articles.  After having read all of the new articles in a group, TAB will then advance to the next newsgroup with unread articles. 

rtass will attempt to connect to the NNTP port on the machine named in the environment variable NNTPSERVER or contained in the file /etc/nntpserver.  rtass will index somewhat slower because the articles must be retrieved via the NNTP protocol. 

Refer to the Tass help screens for further commands. 

TASS INDEX FILES

In order to keep track of threads, Tass maintains an index for each group.  If Tass is made setuid to news, the indexes will be stored in the news spool directory (typically /usr/spool/news).  If Tass is not setuid, it will store index files in the user’s home directory, in a subdirectory called .tindx. 

Entering a group the first time tends to be slow because the index file must be built from scratch.  Subsequent readings of a group will cause Tass to incrementally update the index file, adding or removing entries as new articles come in or as news expires. 

Tass may be run in update mode (the -u option) to update a series of groups at one time.  tass -u is usually run from cron. 

Do not make rtass setuid news since news will be obtained via NNTP and not from /usr/spool/news. 

SIGNATURES

Tass will recognize a signature in either $HOME/.signature or $HOME/.Sig.  If .signature exists, then the signature will be pulled into the editor for Tass mail commands.  A signature in .signature will not be pulled into the editor for posting commands since the inews program will append the signature itself. 

A signature in .Sig will be pulled into the editor for both posting and mailing commands. 

OPTIONS

Tass recognizes the following options:

-b Turns on the TASS_BACKWARDS option (see below). 

-f file Use the indicated file in place of $HOME/.newsrc. 

-u Run Tass in update mode.  Tass will make indexes current for every group in its .newsrc. 
 
A good way to keep Tass index files current is to run tass -u from cron:
 

20 6 ∗ ∗ ∗/usr/local/bin/tass -u -f /usr/lib/news/tass_groups

 
This would update the index files for those groups appearing in /usr/lib/news/tass_groups.  To index all of the groups on the system, run tass -u with -f indicating the active file:
 

20 6 ∗ ∗ ∗/usr/local/bin/tass -u -f /usr/lib/news/active

KEY BINDINGS

For those users with too much rn in their history, tass supports an environment variable TASS_BACKWARDS, which if set will switch the following pairs of keys:
 

space and tab
n and N
p and P

 
Invoking tass with -b has the same effect as setting TASS_BACKWARDS.

AUTHOR

Rich Skrenta
skrenta@blekko.commodore.com or skrenta@blekko.uucp.

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