TIN

Overview of Tin

TIN offers the user an opportunity to work with three distinct views of Usenet:

listings of available newsgroups
listings of postings to a particular newsgroup, and
individual postings.

Each of these 'views' has a different set of menu options that correspond to the available actions.

Listing of Available Newsgroups

Usually you will use this view to select which of your subscribed newsgroups you would like to read. Another common use is to subscribe to or unsubscribe from a newsgroup, or view the postings to a newsgroup without actually subscribing.

To view the list of all available newsgroups use the 'y' command to "yank-in" all available newsgroups. (To return to the list of groups to which you are subscribed press 'y' again. (*)

Additional menu options are displayed on the screen.

Listing of Newsgroup Postings

When viewing a list of individual postings to a newsgroup, there are several options that are particularly valuable..

Next unread - the TAB key will allow you to jump past postings which you have already read to the next 'unread' posting. This is especially handy when there have been twenty-three postings on a particular subject/thread and you have already read fourteen. If you have selected this particular thread, the TAB key will take you directly to the next unread posting (in this example #15).

Catch-up - when viewing the list of postings to a list you can use the 'c' or 'C' commands to mark all the articles as read and either return to the previous (group selection) menu or the next unread group ('C'). These commands are handy if there are a number of postings that you don't wish to read now and don't wish to see at a later time.

Toggle all / unread - Messages that you have viewed, or which you have marked as 'read' will not show up the next time you check for postings in this newsgroup. To go back to a message you have already read use the 'r' command to toggle between all messages and (only) unread messages.

Several of the commands available in the message view are also available in this view... Use the 'h'elp command to review the full list of commands available.

Message View

When viewing an individual posting you can:

initiate a posting on a new subject
reply to a previous post
follow-up with mail to the author of the current posting
save - The current message (or thread) to a file(s) in your home directory. (Tin saves files in a subdirectory called /News).
mail - Tin will mail a copy of the current message to any valid Internet mail address. You will be asked to enter a mail address.

See Also:

Yanking in Newsgroups.
How To Post To A Newsgroup?
Why are some groups not available?