ARCHIVED: Introduction to trn article-reading commands

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This is a brief introduction to some useful trn commands for reading Usenet articles. To find out what commands are available at most trn screens, press h or ?. For more extensive information about trn, at the Unix prompt enter:

  man trn

Subscribing to and selecting newsgroups

By default, when you start trn, you will enter either the Newsgroup Selector, or, if there are new newsgroups, the Add-Newsgroup Selector. The following commands are available from these screens:

`Enter`	In the Add-Newsgroup Selector, subscribes you to any selected newsgroups, then opens the Newsgroup Selector. In the Newsgroup Selector, opens the current newsgroup. If nothing is selected, it opens the newsgroup the cursor is over.
`a-z,0-9`	Selects the group next to the letter or number.
`Spacebar`	Jump to the next page of the selector. If you are on the last page of the selector, this will move to the next screen. If you are in the Add-Newsgroup Selector, you will be subscribed to any groups you have marked, then the Newsgroup Selector will open. If you are in the Newsgroup Selector, this will open the first newsgroup you have selected or the first in your list if none are.
`>`	Go to next page.
`<`	Go to previous page.
`c`	In the Newsgroup Selector, mark all articles as read in the currently selected newsgroup.
`$`	Go to last page.
`^`	Go to first page.
`n`	Move to the next item in the selector.
`p`	Move to the previous item in the selector.
`q`	In the Add-Newsgroup Selector, go to the Newsgroup Selector without subscribing to any selected groups. In the Newsgroup Selector, quit `trn`.

Reading articles

Once you enter a newsgroup, you will see a similar menu with a list of articles ordered by subject, including the names of those who have posted, the number of articles with the same subject, and the subject line. Each subject group is preceded by a letter; type this letter to mark the group for reading. To page through subsequent listings of subjects, press the Spacebar. Once you have seen all listings, press the Spacebar again. The marked articles are displayed in the order selected. Some of the options at the articles level include:

`Enter`	Start reading. This selects the current item if nothing is selected.
`a-z,0-9`	Selects the group next to the letter or number.
`Spacebar`	Jump to the next page of the selector. If you are on the last page of the selector, this will start reading. If nothing is selected, this will read all unread articles.
`#`	Read the current item only, temporarily ignoring all other selections.
`>`	Go to next page.
`<`	Go to previous page.
`c`	Mark all articles as read.
`$`	Go to last page.
`^`	Go to first page.
`n`	Move to the next item in the selector.
`p`	Move to the previous item in the selector.
`q`	Quit group and return to newsgroup level.

Once you have begun reading articles, you have these options:

`>`	Browse the next selected thread.
`<`	Browse the previous selected thread.
(down arrow)	Go to article's child.
(up arrow)	Go to article's parent.
(right arrow)	Go to article's next sibling.
(left arrow)	Go to article's previous sibling.
`s`	Save article to file.
`Ctrl-r`	Restart article.
`q`	Quit this newsgroup and prompt for next newsgroup.

As you read each article, watch the graphic in the upper right corner of the first screen. It shows you how this article relates to the others in the thread.