site/wiki/source/tin.md

title: tin (Usenet client) category: software author: - ant todo: - describe the common entry prefixes on: - groups - threads - articles - arrange the principal keys in the way most convenient to the learner: - with grouping by relative function - with ordering by decreasing importance. - abridge that list, leaving out the less important ones?

tin is a text-mode threading NNTP and spool-based Usenet client for a variety of platforms.

Local connection

tin is installed on tilde.club and preconfigured to access the local spool of the news.tilde.club server by default. You need only run tin without arguments:

$ tin

There is also a local NNTP server on the tilde.club premises, to which you can connect via:

$ tin -r [-g localhost[:119]]

You can forward this port over SSH to your own machine and point your local tin (as well as any newsreader) to it.

Remote connection

Server configuration

To connect tin to a remote news server over NNTP, a little bit of setup is required. By default, most of your tin configuration is located in the .tin directory in your home. In order to register a remote server, add a line to the newsrctable file in that directory, with the following whitespace-separated fields:

1. server address with an optional port after a colon, which is needed only for non-standard ports,

2. path to the newsrc file for that server, for internal use by tin to store an index of downloaded articles. for each newsgroup.

3. optionally---but highly recommended---a short alias for the server, to facilitate invocation of tin.

For example, here are a few lines from my newsrctable:

news.tilde.club             ~/.tin/newsrc.club     tc
news.eternal-september.org  ~/.tin/newsrc.e-s      es
fidonews.mine.nu            ~/.tin/newsrc.mine.nu  fi
news.gmane.io               ~/.tin/newsrc.gmane    gm
*                           ~/.tin/newsrc.local

Now you can connect to any of the registered servers via rtin -g. For example, to read the tilde.club server configured above, enter:

$ rtin -g tc

But you will not be able to post yet, if the server requires authorisation, as most servers do:

Authorisation

tin reads your credentials for each server from the file .newsauth, by default located in your home directory. It also has a table structure similar to .newsrc, with one line per server, but this time the fields are:

1. server address,
2. password,
3. username.

For example, my line for tilde.club server (with a dummy password, however) is:

news.tilde.club  ant  H1dd3nPa$$w0rd

Some servers (Eternal September is one of them) require that the client authorise immediately upon connect, or they will not show you all newsgroups, if any. To cause tin to authorise immediately, pass the -A option, e.g:

rtin -Ag es

If you are among the unlucky fellows who are guilty of using a password with space or (I tremble to say) tab characters, you will need to enclose it in double quotes ("). Make sure your .newsauth is not readable by other users:

$ chmod 600 ~/.newsauth

Specifying the NNTPS protocol

By default, rtin connects over the unencrypted NNTP protocol. These days, however, most servers support the more secure NNTPS. To cause tin to use it, it should be invoked with the -T option. So, the final invocation for Eternal September, with the necessary initial authorisation and the recommended encrypted connection, is:

$ rtin -ATg es

Simplifying the invocation

If remembering to supply -T and -A for servers that require them annoys you, consider storing the complete invocation in an alias in your shell's initialisation script (~/.shrc for sh, ~/.bashrc for Bash), e.g.:

alias news_es='rtin -ATg es'

or use an the wrapper script below, which will determine whether -T and -A are needed and supply them to tin for you:

``` #! /bin/sh # tinr--launch the tin(1) newsreader # with a specified newsserver alias, # automatically providing the options # -A (authorisation) and -T (NNTP over TLS) # if they are required, # to save the user remembering # the respective properties of each server. # Invoke as: # # $ tinr [params] # supplying a server alias # and optionally whatever parameters # you want to pass to tin. # -A is provided if the server is present in .newsauth, # and -T--if newsrctable in its fourth field # specifies any second alias for the server. # # # #Written by: Anton Shepelev # #and released into the void under The Unlicense: # # #SPDX-License-Identifier: Unlicense #URL:

help()
{ sed -ne ' 1d

prefix-juggling to keep the script compatible

after conversion of tabs to spaces,

as Markdown processors will often do:

	s/^#\([	 ]\+\)/PREF/
	t cont; q
:cont
	s/^PREF#//
	p
' $0 \
| fmt -74 -p "PREF"\
| sed -e 's/^PREF//'
exit 1

}

help_ref="See tinr -h for instructions." while getopts h opt; do case $opt in h) help; exit 0;; ?) [ ${OPTARG-x}=x ] && echo $help_ref && exit 1; esac done shift $(($OPTIND - 1))

if [ $# -lt 1 ]; then echo 1>&2
A server alias is not specified. $help_ref exit 1 fi alias=$1

nrct=${TIN_HOMEDIR:-"$HOME"}/.tin/newsrctable naut=${TIN_HOMEDIR:-"$HOME"}/.newsauth

get_serv()
{ [ ! -r $nrct ] && return 1

script=$(
awk -e '
	/^[^#]/{ if( $3=="'${alias}'" )
	{	print $1
		if( $4 )
			print("T")
		exit
	}}' \
	< $nrct
)

awk failed, exiting:

if [ $? -gt 0 ]; then exit   1; fi

no server entry was found:

if [ ! -n "$script" ]; then return 1; fi

a server entry was found:

while read s o; do
	server=$s
	  opts=$o
done <<EOF

$(echo $script) EOF return 0 }

if [ -r $naut ] && get_serv; then

the server is found by the alias,

let's see whether it has an auth entry:

if awk -e '$1=="'$server'"{exit 1}' $naut; then :
else opts=${opts}A
fi

fi

Swallow the alias:

shift

The final invocation:

rtin -${opts}g $alias "$@"

</details>
The script above will add `-A`
if the server is present in your `.newsauth`
and `-T` if a secondary alias is assigned to it
in the fourth column of `newsrctable`.
Invoke it with the primary alias of the desired server,
optionally followed by
whatever arguments you may want to pass to *tin*, e.g.:

$ tinr es # connect to Eternal September $ tinr tc -o # submit all postponed articles

## Interface overview

*tin* works at four nested levels
with (more or less :-)
uniform navigation
within and between them:

--
Level      Operates on     Symbol
------     ------------    -------
selection  newsgroups      S

group      threads         G

thread     articles        T

article    single article  A
-

*tin* starts at the topmost level (selection).

Whereas
the selection, group, and article levels
are linked with fixed up/down transitions,
the thread level is the odd one out,
for it comes between the group and article levels
only upon explicit invocation
from either of them
by the `l` key.
Furthermore,
if the article level was entered from the thread level
the *level-up* command (`q`)
goes back to the thread level
instead of the group level.

The levels share many common keys
for navigation and operations,
often borrowed from
[The Vi editor](vi.html) interface.
The most important keys are:

----   ------ --------------------
Key    Level   Action
----   ------  --------------------
H      SGTA    toggle on-screen help,
               useful for learning

h      SGTA    list available commands

j/k    SGT     next/prev. group/thread/article

j/k    A       next/prev. line in text

[0-9]+ SGR     highlight by number

Return SGT     level-down (into highlighted element)

q	   SGTA    level-up, or *q*uit

l      GA      open thread view, mem. as *l*ist of articles

/      SGTA    search forward

?      SGTA    search backwards

y      S       toggle display of all/subscribed groups

s/u    S       subscribe/unsubscribe to/from selected group

r      SG      switch between read/all

TAB    SGTA    to next unread article from anywhere

p/n    GA      prev/next

P/N    A       prev/next unread

w      G       make a new post

f      A       follow-up (reply)

c/C    SGTA    mark group (SG) or thread (TA) as read
			   and move to the next unread (C) one

K      GTA     mark current thread (G) or article (TA)
               as read and move to the next unread one

z      SGA     mark group/base article/article unread

Z      TA      mark thread unread

Y      S       load new posts from the server (if any)

M      SGTA    open the menu
-

For a complete UI reference and settings,
see the
[tin(1)](http://www.tin.org/bin/man.cgi?section=1&topic=tin)
manpage.