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USENET is a collection of articles organized into newsgroups. These articles, collectively referred to as Usenet "news", are stored on central servers all over the world, creating a kind of global forum for discussion on thousands of different topics. There are currently articles from over 5000 newsgroups available.
The tin news reader enables you to subscribe to groups and post new articles directly.
accessing usenet news with tin
Login to your ITS computing account (see Unix: Access from Windows or Unix: Access from Macintosh OSX), type the tin command at the prompt:
% tin
You will then be placed at the Newsgroup Selection Level - seeing text similar to the following:
gamera% tin
rtin 1.2 PL2 [UNIX] (c) Copyright 1991-93 Iain Lea.
Connecting to newstand.syr.edu...
Reading news active file...
Subscribe to new group rec.mus...
newsgroup selection
The leftmost column lists the index number for each newsgroup. The next column indicates the number of new articles in each group. From this screen, choose the newsgroup you wish to read.
Use the keyboard arrow keys to move the cursor to the group you want to read and press Enter to read, or press u to unsubscribe from that group.
managing your newsgroup selections
By default, the first time that you access tin, you will be subscribed to approximately 26 of the most popular newsgroups. Because of the volume of newsgroups available, you may want to unsubscribe from those groups of little interest to you and organize the remaining groups for easy access. A Newsgroup's title provides clues to its contents. For example, as the name implies, rec.arts.sf.movies is a collection of articles defined as recreational, the arts, science fiction, and movies.
Once you decide which newsgroup(s) to eliminate, simply highlight the group's title and press u to unsubscribe. At a later date, you can always change your mind and retrieve unsubscribed gropus, by using the y)ank in/out menu option at the Newsgroups level. By pressing y at the beginning of a tin session, you will retrieve all unsubscribed newsgroups. If you choose to re-subscribe, simply highlight the newsgroup title and press s (subscribe). Before quitting tin, press y once again. All unsubscribed groups will be "yanked" out and will not appear the next time you log on.
Navigating through 5000 newsgroups is time-consuming. So, you might want to move your favorite newsgroups to the beginning of the newsgroup directory. To do this, highlight the newsgroup title, then press m (move). You will then be prompted to key an index number (1,2,3,etc). Now, the newgroups is indexed according to your preference.
useful newsgroup selection commands
| Enter - |
Open this newsgroup (Group Index Page will then be displayed) |
| number - |
Go to specified newsgroup (type in article number) |
| TAB - |
View next newsgroup with unread news |
| / - |
Search forward for Newsgroup (specify name pattern to search) |
| ? - |
Search backwards for Newsgroup (specify name pattern to search) |
| c - |
Mark all articles as read with confirmation |
| C - |
Mark all articles as read and go to next group with unread news |
| g - |
Go to (choose newsgroups by name) |
| m - |
Move location of current newsgroup (entering '1' will display a group at the top of the Newsgroup list, '2' second on list, etc. |
| N - |
Move to the next article |
| n - |
Move to the next threaded group of articles |
| q - |
Quit |
| r - |
Toggle display of all subscribed groups and subscribed groups with unread articles |
| s - |
Subscribe to current group |
| S - |
Subscribe to groups matching a specific pattern |
| y - |
Yank in (to display) all Newsgroups upon initial logon to tin; then, if desired, yank out (remove) all unsubscribed newsgroups |
group index level
The second level of tin is the Group Index Page. At this level, the title bar contains the name of the chosen newsgroup and will look like this:
The screen format (from left to right) displays: Selection Number, Unread, Responses, Subject, and Author. Many of the commands listed at the Newsgroup Selection level are repeated at the Group Index level.
The following additional commands are available at the Group Index level:
| ^K - |
Display kill/select menu. User option instructs tin to auto-select or auto-kill specific subjects or articles from specific authors. Thus, marked articles or authors will not be displayed. |
| a - |
Author forward search |
| A - |
Author backward search |
| l - |
List the author of each response in current thread and enter thread selection level |
| m - |
Mail/edit (Pico editor option); send article/specify email (Internet) address |
| o - |
Print; send article to the printer at Machinery Hall |
| q - |
Return to previous level |
| Q - |
Quit tin |
| s [filename] - |
Save article to a file [choose a filename]. Each time that you choose to save an article to a file, you will be prompted to choose a filename. If a filename is not entered, the article will be appended to the last filename entered. This file can be found in the News subdirectory of your account.
If you choose to save a file in your mail directory, key s (save) and at the => prompt, key mailbox. The file will be forwarded to your mail directory. If you choose to save a file in your home directory, key s (save) and at the prompt, key a path and filename:
/usr/users/juser/filename |
| t - |
Tag |
| w - |
Post |
At the Group Index level, press Enter to read a news article.
article page level
When reading an article you are in the Article Page Level. The prompt at the bottom of the screen looks like this:
--More-- (87%) [981/1125]
(87%) indicates the amount of the article that has been displayed. Below are some page level commands.
| Spacebar - |
Display the next page (default) |
| Enter - |
Display one more line |
| 0 (zero) - |
Read base article in this thread [number] Go to and read (choose number) response in this thread |
| < - |
Go to first article in the current thread |
| > - |
Go to last article in the current thread |
| f - |
Post a follow-up to the current article (copy of the article included) |
| F - |
Post a follow-up to the current article |
| h - |
Help |
| q - |
Back up one level |
| Q - |
Quit tin |
| r - |
Reply to the author of the article (the reply will not be posted to the Newsgroup) with a copy of the article included |
| R - |
Reply to the author of the current article |
posting original or follow-up articles
Once subscribed to a newsgroup, you may choose to participate by posting an article on an entirely new subject, or by responding to a current article. The news.announce.newusers newsgroup offers new users some helpful tips. You may want to check this out before posting your first article.
When you are ready to post an article, choose one of the following menu options at the Article Page level:
| f - |
Post a follow-up to the current article (a copy original article is included) |
| F - |
Post a follow-up (omits original article) |
| w - |
Post a new subject to the current group |
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