xrn news reader

[Wilson S. Ross]

I never had the patience to read news until I encountered the xrn windowing
interface. Here's what it looks like (with a scroll bar on each text section).
The following is all in a single window with highlighted buttons and settable
shades/colors for anything: fonts in each section, buttons, highlights around
buttons, borders, backgrounds. I just grabbed a friend's configuration. At
the beginning, the top section lists newsgroups with the # of unread articles;
when I select a group, the selection of buttons changes and I see the example 
below. When I post, reply or followup, an editing window pops up with
"abort" "send" "save" "include file" buttons at the bottom. I can copy and
paste with the mouse. Sufficient reason for using X-windows for me.

Bill Ross

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+  1576	Computer image of the HEART and the BRAIN?    gt3228c Yeh,Edwin R.    
+  1577	(none)                                        Manager                 
+  1578	BioBit No 20 ( Free-net session )             "Robert Harper  Finland"
+  1579	BIOSCI PROBLEM IN U.K.                        Dave Kristofferson 
+  1580	Example of using USENET (LONG message)        Dave Kristofferson      
   1581	Obituary: Dr. Julia Hardin                    William McIver Jr.      
   1582	VMS database submission form program          tony at wehi.edu.au        
   1583	trace analysis for DDT and lead arsenate      yaqui  


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Path: data.nas.nasa.gov!mustang!topgun!lll-winken!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!apple!bionet!GENBANK.BIO.NET!kristoff
From: kristoff at GENBANK.BIO.NET (Dave Kristofferson)
Newsgroups: bionet.general
Subject: Example of using USENET (LONG message)
Message-ID: <CMM.0.88.680995951.kristoff at genbank.bio.net>
Date: 31 Jul 91 21:32:31 GMT
Sender: kristoff at genbank.bio.net
Distribution: bionet
Lines: 652

Rob Harper's BIOBIT encouraged me to snip out the following section
from the GenBank On-line Service Manual because I think that it will
give a feel for using an actual USENET system.  "Freenet" mentioned by
Rob has a system of menus layered over their system which may be nice
for the first couple of times but would get onerous to anyone who uses
the system regularly.  Also the messages on-line there (at least when
I looked some time ago) would not be of much interest to biologists.

We chose to use the vnews software on GenBank a couple of years back
but would probably make a different recommendation today (possibly nn
______________________________________________________________________________         Article 1580 in bionet.general (Next group: comp.misc)
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