Documentation for the slrn newsreader

"Official" documents of the slrn newsreader

This page allows you to view the documentation associated with the release version slrn 1.0.3. It is presented here for the most part as plain text and HTML.

Reference documentation

The two documents considered here are seminal reference documents for slrn. The slrn reference manual gives a detailed explanation of every configuration option in slrn and it is highly recommended reading:

1. slrn Reference Manual This is the HTML version of the slrn reference manual which gives a detailed explanation of every configuration option in slrn and it is highly recommended reading. Also available in plain text format.
2. The intrinsic function reference manual This is the HTML version of a manual that contains a complete list of the intrinsic functions slrn offers for use in S-Lang. If you want to extend slrn using this powerful macro language, you will find this very useful. Also available in plain text.

Guides for users

The three documents included here very useful for those starting out with slrn as well as more experienced users.

1. slrn FAQs Certain questions come up again and again - this document answers some of them. It is highly recommended reading before emailing questions or posting to Usenet. This is the HTML version also available in plain text format.
2. FIRST_STEPS This document shows the "first steps" required after installing slrn and guides you through the configuration until you can successfully use it for the first time. This is the HTML version also available in plain text format.
3. score.txt This text document is a brief guide on scoring with slrn which contains an example score file which you might find helpful as a starting point. Also available as html.

Information on slrnpull

slrnpull is a small "companion" program that comes with slrn. slrnpull pulls a small newsfeed from an NNTP server from which slrn will subsequently read. Below are several of the documents from the tarball that discuss slrnpull.

1. README A general discussion on slrnpull, why it was created and how it works.
2. SETUP This file indicates how to setup slrnpull for pulling groups from a news server.
3. README.offline Describes how you can use slrn and slrnpull for "true offline reading", i.e. getting only the article headers first and selecting the article bodies you want to download.
4. Score This is a sample score file that can be used by slrnpull to kill articles before they are downloaded.
5. slrnpull.conf This file is a sample configuration file for slrnpull. Such a file must exist in the slrnpull spool directory.

Documentation for slrnpull is found in the doc/slrnpull/ directory of the slrn tarball.

The Remaining Documentation

Below is a listing of some of the more useful documentation that comes with the slrn tarball. This documentation comes in plain text format.

1. changes.txt Changelog entries for slrn from the beginning to the release of 1.0.3.
2. README.multiuser Please read these notes if you want to set up slrn for multiple users.
3. README.macros This document helps you to get started using the S-Lang macro language to extend slrn. It also contains a complete reference of the "hooks" slrn offers.
4. README.SSL Explains how to compile slrn with support for SSL and how to use it with secure servers afterwards.
5. INSTALL.unix A short explanation of how to build and install slrn from sourcecode on Unix-like systems. This includes a full reference of available configure options.
6. INSTALL.w32 Some brief notes about how to install / compile slrn on Windows. Please note that they expect that you have some understanding about how both slrn and Windows work.
7. INSTALL.os2 This file gives instructions about how to set up slrn on OS/2 and provides general information about the OS/2 port.
8. INSTALL.vms Describes the steps necessary to build slrn on VMS.
9. README.GroupLens Some notes about the optional GroupLens support in slrn. Please note that this is likely to be removed from slrn in a future version.