news question

[Matthew J. Wicks]

>>From info-iris-request at vmb.brl.mil  Fri Apr 26 10:40:42 1991
>>Date: Fri, 26 Apr 91 10:47:57 -0400
>>From: "Karen D. Lee" <syskdlx at gsusgi1.gsu.edu>
>>Subject: news question
>>
>>Do any one out there have an example C or bourne shell program that makes 
>>news look more like mail.  Currently, news just stroll across a page.  I would
>>like to see it look similar to mail or just sorted by date and last viewed.
>>
>>Oh Well:  (Looking for good constructive answers)
>>
>>Thanks.
>>
>>K.L. (syskdlx at gsusgi1.gsu.edu)

I attempted to send this directly to Karen, but the mail bounced...


At Fermi lab we have written a script called Info which does some of what
you want. We use it in place of news (or atleast that is the long term
plan.) When called with no arguments it displays a list of time sorted
articles along with a 1 line header describing the article contents.
When called with an argument (i.e. an article name) it displays the article
using a PAGER.

Intended enhancements include:

	Having an option that displays the headers of articles that are
	new since last invocation of Info. (equivalent to news -n)

	A way of specifying when the article should be expired and thus provide
	a cron job that will automatically remove expired articles.

If this sounds interesting to you, I can send you both the current script
as well as the new version once the enhancements are made.

Matt Wicks
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
wicks at fnal.fnal.gov
708-840-8083