...News Readers (3 of 4) -- .newsrc: Control group presentation

     Typing "nn newsgroup" for every newsgroup can get awfully tiring
after awhile.  When you use nn, your host system looks in a file called
.newsrc.  This is basically a list of every newsgroup on the host system
along with notations on which groups and articles you have read (all
maintained by the computer).  You can also use this file to create a
"reading list" that brings up each newsgroup to which you want to
"subscribe."  To try it out, type

                nn

without any newsgroup name, and hit enter.
     Unfortunately, you will start out with a .newsrc file that has you
"subscribed" to every single newsgroup on your host system!  To delete a
newsgroup from your reading list, type a capital U while its menu is on
the screen.  The computer will ask you if you're sure you want to
"unsubscribe."  If you then hit a Y, you'll be unsubscribed and put in
the next group.
     With many host systems carrying 4,000 or more newsgroups, this will
take you forever.
     Fortunately, there are a couple of easier ways to do this.  Both
involve calling up your .newsrc file in a word or text processor.  In a
.newsrc file, each newsgroup takes up one line, consisting of the group's
name, an exclamation point or a colon and a range of numbers. Newsgroups
with a colon are ones to which you are subscribed; those followed by an
exclamation point are "un-subscribed."  To start with a clean slate,
then, you have to change all those colons to exclamation points.
     If you know how to use  emacs  or vi, call up the .newsrc file (you
might want to make a copy of .newsrc first, just in case), and use the
search-and-replace function to make the change.
    If you're not comfortable with these text processor, you can
 download  the .newsrc file, make the changes on your own computer and
then  upload  the revised file.  Before you download the file, however,
you should do a couple of things.  One is to type

                cp .newsrc temprc

and hit enter.  You will actually download this temprc file (note the
name does not start with a period -- some computers, such as those using
MS-DOS, do not allow file names starting with periods).  After you
download the file, open it in your favorite word processor and use its
search-and-replace function to change the exclamation points to colons.
Be careful not to change anything else!  Save the document in ASCII or
text format.  Dial back into your host system.  At the  command line ,
type

                cp temprc temprc1

and hit enter.  This new file will serve as your backup .newsrc file just
in case something goes wrong.  Upload  the temprc file from your
computer. This will overwrite the Unix system's old temprc file.  Now type

                cp temprc .newsrc

and hit enter.  You now have a clean slate to start creating a reading
list.

   Also see  Kill files  for a way to exclude messages from a group.