From: paul@eunet.co.at (Paul Gillingwater)
Newsgroups: alt.internet.services,news.software.readers
Subject: EEP 1.4 posted in alt.sources
Date: 10 Jan 1993 22:55:06 +0100
Organization: EUnet EDV Dienstleistungs GmbH A-1010 Wien Austria
NNTP-Posting-Host: hp4at.eunet.co.at
Summary: EEP is a .newsrc editor for use with rn/trn

Here is part of the README:

	EEP (Easy Editor Program for .newsrc)

	(c) 1990-1993 Paul Gillingwater <paul@actrix.co.at>     


This is EEP version 1.4, an experimental .newsrc editor program.

It is intended to work with news readers such as ``rn'' and ``trn'', 
that create a .newsrc file in the $HOME directory of each user, in 
order to track what messages have been read by them.  A major design
objective is that it should be easy to use, even by someone who is
not familiar with other UNIX editors.  There is however a distinct
bias towards vi in some of the commands, although this is redeemed
somewhat by use of curses, which means that up and down arrows may
be used on many systems.  Another redeeming feature is the on-line
help, activated with the ``?'' key.

Note that EEP is _NOT_ intended to be called from within ``rn'' or ``trn''
by shelling out, since it will modify the .newsrc which is presently
on disk -- and which the newsreader may have open.

The major change to this version is compatibility with Waffle, for
both MS-DOS and UNIX versions.  Because the news group selection
mechanism in Waffle is a little awkward, eep might make this
easier for new users. [Waffle hacks not yet working!!!!]

Eep was written by Paul Gillingwater <paul@actrix.co.at>.
It was written for Actrix Information Exchange, a Public
Access UNIX BBS in Wellington, New Zealand.

This entire work is Copyrighted (C) 1991 by Paul Gillingwater, as
the sole original author (apart from where otherwise explicitly
acknowledged).  The source code provided is available for anyone to
use in any way, EXCEPT that you may not sell it or pretend that you
wrote it.  I would be happy if people wish to incorporate part or
all of this in some other product, as long as you acknowledge me as
original author of these parts.  If this code is to be incorporated 
into a commercial product, I request that you contact me with regard 
to licensing.

You may contact me care of:
	Actrix Information Exchange
	PO Box 11-410
	Wellington
	NEW ZEALAND

**** WARNING:  This program will modify your .newsrc file.  Please
ensure you have a safe copy of this file to prevent an unfortunate 
accident.

Revision History
================
Version 1.0  ``Warts'n'All'' version released on limited (NZ only)
distribution.  Made available via anon. FTP or UUCP from Actrix.
Sent to various people to test porting to other platforms, and
implemented on Actrix BBS since it might be useful for new users.  
Released: July 20, 1991

Version 1.1  This version records the order in which newsgroups are
found in the .newsrc file, and will maintain that order for display
and output purposes.  In addition, any newsgroups which don't yet
have any entry in the newsgroups file or newslocal will be sorted so
they appear first -- this will help find new newsgroups quickly (but
it's not a full solution).  

Version 1.2  A small but important change.  It seems that ``rn'' will
check your .newsrc for newsgroup names not present, then will try to
present you with a large list of so-called "New" newsgroups.  It
seems the only way to stop this is to leave all the unsubscribed
newsgroups in the .newsrc.  This seems somehow inelegant, but
necessary.

Version 1.3  After a long hiatus, several important bug fixes 
contributed by various net.people.  Credits follow:

Dean Roth <sysop@mixcom.com>
Paul Close <pdc@sgi.com>
Arjan de Vet <devet@win.tue.nl>

As well as bug fixes, some additional functionality:
 o Newsgroups may be indexed by number (':' command)
 o MS-DOS version developed using PDCurses
 o Compatible with the Waffle system (MS-DOS and UNIX)

Version 1.4  The list of newsgroups now has a top and bottom,
and commands to get there.  Newsgroups may be deleted from
the .newsrc with the 'd' command.

------------------------------------------------------------
News Descriptions
=================
A major benefit of Eep is that it is intended to provide a mechanism
for selecting news groups based on more than just their name.  By
using lists provided by Gene Spafford, a brief description of each
newsgroup is presented on screen, allowing novices to make decisions
on what to read more easily.  Although both ``rn'' and ``trn'' offer
the L command to list news groups, this is unwieldy if you want to
search for specific key words in newsgroup names or descriptions.
Furthermore, Eep eliminates the necessity to actually type in the
name of a newsgroup when subscribing to it.  Simply point and play!

Eep tries to be user friendly in moving around the .newsrc file.
Experienced UNIX users will wish to use Emacs or vi to edit their
.newsrc for themselves.  Eep is intended for novice users, and is
a good addition to UNIX based BBS systems.

Other features of Eep include the ability to subscribe or unsubscribe 
to a newsgroup, delete newsgroups, and catch up on messages.  

Eep will read a list of newsgroups and descriptions from two files.
One of these, "/usr/lib/news/newsgroups", must be present.  The
other one, "/usr/lib/news/newslocal", may or may not be present as
desired.

The NEWSGROUPS file contains one line per news group.  The first
``word'' (in the UNIX sense) on the line is the newsgroup name,
separated from its description by a space or tab.  The NEWSLOCAL
file is similar in structure, and is intended to contain groups
which are purely local to your system, as well as the top level
names of all of your hierarchies, plus other names as you desire for
descriptive purposes.  

e.g.  few articles are posted in comp.unix, but it makes a great
place to hold the description for all the directories under it.

Installation
------------

This first release assumes that all news files are stored on one
file system, and that the paths to the files may be safely hard
coded.  Please edit the eep.h file to change where those paths may
be on your system.

The /usr/lib/news/newsgroups file is created by manually editing the
messages which are posted in news.announce.newusers on a regular
basis by the net.god, Gene Spafford.  You may embed comments in the
file by starting the line with a ``#''.  The /usr/lib/news/newslocal
file contains your own local newsgroups (ones not covered by Gene's
postings), or ones specific to your country.  It is also used to
keep descriptions of top level hierarchies (which will be used in a
future version of this software).

The format of the newsgroups and newslocal files is very simple:

news.group.name description all on one line

The first space or tab is the separator.

Edit the makefile to set your preferences for compiler, then
run ``make''.  I have tried to make the code relatively
portable.  Please send me context diffs for any changes you'd like
to suggest (or bugs, of which there are still a few).

Oh, and for those who are wondering: "Why call it EEP?".  Well, may
I refer you to Sol Libes' excellent book, ``Life With UNIX''.  There
is a reference in there to an aspect of UniForum conferences in New
Zealand, and the types of jokes found there.  Then consider that one
can start a command by prefixing it with the name of the shell to
execute, e.g.:
	sh eep

<baaaah!>
-- 
Paul Gillingwater
Home system: paul@actrix.co.at (Waffle)
Newsgroups: alt.internet.services