From: dfilip@colornet.com
Newsgroups: comp.os.coherent
Subject: Re: News
Keywords: news 
Date: 15 Nov 92 17:44:21 GMT
Distribution: world
Summary: Want a simple news system ?
Organization: ColorNet Information Systems

Michael Schack writes:
>system@micromed.com (Duane Davis) writes:
>> Can anyone recomend a news system that'll install under Coherent 4.0
>> without me pulling my hair out trying to get it working?
>
>I`m definitely interested, too! I have nn but can't install it
>correctly. BTW: Does a manual which explains all steps of
>installing a newssystem (+elm) excist? By now I`m running
>a dos program for this  :( . It`s called waffle.

Since a number of people have been asking for an easy to install news system,
I have a fairly simple new system that is VERY easy to install (if you
take defaults, less than 10 minutes !).

The reason that I have not offered this before is that it is still fairly
simple, and is evolving. It started from some code that Rick Adams (not
of Usenet fame, but an OS-9 hacker on Delphi) wrote, that I have converted
to Unix, and have been making enhancements to. Before you read any further,
let me tell you some of the things it dosn't do :

	o currently does not handle compressed batches (although will
	  accept batched news)

	o currently does not handle control messages (processes them
	  as normal messages)

	o currently does not work with 'other' news readers (i.e., nn)

	o currently does not handle moderated newsgroups

The newsreader is fairly basic (about a half dozen commands or so) and
does not know about 'threads'.

With that said, it does do the job of basic reading and posting news,
and has been working without a hitch for the last year or so
with periodic enhancements I have made (compiles cleanly under Unix System III,
Xenix/286, Xenix/386, and Coherent 4.0 without ANY modifications). Of the
above "currently does not ..." the first two (compressed batches and
control messages) are currently under development (a few weeks away ?),
the third ('other' news readers) is next for development, and the last
(moderated newsgroups) is 'sometime in the future ...' (I currently don't
read any moderated newsgroups myself :-).

(BTW - the control messages will use a message database based on sdbm, so
you won't have to deal with the ever-expanding and somewhat slow sequential
file used by wnews).

And it does have news-rely capabilities (I feed a Xenix/386 site uncompressed
batches nightly).

If you are interested in a simple news system for Coherent which is still
evolving, please let me know. If you are interested in why anyone would want
to use anything other than the full-featured Cnews, please use Cnews, and
have fun building it ! :-)

The reason why I even started this project is that over a year ago I got
a Xenix/286 system to learn *nix. I had previously used a Radio Shack
Color Computer III running OS-9 Level II which had some simple netnews
software written for it. I tried building Cnews under Xenix/286, and got
tons of errors. I tried building Cnews under Coherent 3.2, and got tons
of errors. I figured that rather than trying to learn *nix by fixing someone
else's code that I didn't understand, I would port code that I already
fully understood to the new environment. Hence, ColorNet News was born.

Regards,

Dave.

--
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=   David E. Filip                UUCP   : dfilip@colornet.com              =
=   ColorNet Information Systems  CIS    : 76430,3111                       =
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=     Standards are wonderful 'cause there are so many to choose from !     =
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