Downloading News and Mail for Offline Reading

Even on Panix, which doesn't charge for time spent online, there are reasons to prefer reading one's news and mail on one's home computer. For one, some of us have only one phone line, and when reading news online, we can't receive phone calls. For another, many of us pay NYNEX in "message units" and pay for all phone calls by the minute. A telling reason -- if you're also downloading files, you can quickly download your news in a compressed packet, and read it while your other files download in the background. (This last assumes your home computer can multitask.)

This file describes compressing one's news and mail into a "packet" (a file containing several other files), downloading it, and reading it on one's home PC.

Before using uqwk, you should set some environmental variables. This basically just means adding some lines to a file. By doing this once, you never have to tell uqwk this information again.

The name of the file varies. If you're using the menus, it'll be named .zshrc. For other shells, you can find the file name by checking its documentation. You will have to vary the syntax accordingly.

Edit this file (if it doesn't exist, make one). In the menus, you'd choose "Edit a File" from the menus. From a shell, use your favorite editor.

Now add these lines (they don't need to be indented):

     UQ_BBS_NAME="PANIX"
     UQ_BBS_CITY="New York, NY"
     UQ_BBS_PHONE="+1 212 741 4444"
     UQ_BBS_SYSOP="Alexis Rosen"
     UQ_BBS_ID="0,PANIX"
     UQ_MAIL_FILE="$HOME/.mailspool/[your user ID]"
     UA_MAIL_DIR="$HOME/.mailspool"
     export UQ_BBS_NAME UQ_BBS_CITY UQ_BBS_PHONE
     export UQ_BBS_SYSOP UQ_BBS_ID UQ_MAIL_FILE

Obviously, change [your user ID] to your own Panix id.

Most of this stuff doesn't matter when using uqwk on a Unix machine, but it expects to find it. The important lines are UQ_MAIL_FILE and UQ_MAIL_DIR, which are needed to find your mailbox.

The syntax will vary depending on login shells.

Now type source .zshrc (or whatever the file is called) and you're ready to actually use uqwk.

• uqwk is supplied free, and is available to everone on Panix. It isn't (yet) on the menu system, though, so if you're using the Panix Shell you need to escape to a Unix shell prompt (a command line) to use uqwk. Just press the ! key.

• Now you're a a Unix shell prompt. Don't be scared! To make a uqwk packet, type this command line:

  uqwk +m +n +L

  This runs uqwk, and tells it to read your mail (+m) and collect all articles in the newsgroups you subscribe to (+n), using a SOUP type packet. (SOUP means Simple Offline Usenet Packet.) If you're afraid it'll destroy your mail, you can save copies on Panix by adding +r to the line (which means "read-only").

• After a list of all your subscribed newsgroups scrolls off the screen, the Unix shell prompt will come back. To get a list of files in your directory, type ls and press Enter. A list of all your files will show up, including files called:

  AREAS 00000001.MSG 00000002.MSG . . .

  The numbers for the .MSG files will run up to the number of newsgroups you subscribe to.

• Now you need to turn this into a packet for downloading. I'm going to assume you use ZIP/PKZIP as your compressor. At the prompt type this:

  zip -m panix.zip AREAS *MSG

  ...which tells Panix to run a zip program, making a file called "panix.zip" containing AREAS and all the *.MSG files, then delete the original files.

  Now you can go back to the Panix menu system by typing exit and pressing Enter.

• Use the menu or the command line program sz to download the SOUP packet, and you're there.

  Sending replies works exactly like the above, except that you have to point uqwk to the reply file. It looks like this:

  uqwk -Rnameofreplyfile

  where "nameofreplyfile" should be replaced by the real name of the file. I call my reply files panix.zip. uqwk will automatically unzip the reply file and send all your replies. You can combine replying with gathering news and mail, all in one operation. uqwk will send your replies before getting new messages.

Once you're confident that you know what commands to type, you can save yourself some time by creating what's called a "shell script" to do them automatically. A shell script at its simplest is just a list of Unix shell commands to run. I have a script called "my" (stands for "make yarn packet") that has these lines:

cp .news .news.old
uqwk -N.news +m +n -B0
zip -m9 panix.zip *MSG AREAS

To get actual instructions on how to use uqwk (including what those strange things are in my script above), while you're at a Unix shell prompt, type man uqwk.
If you want to download the instructions, from the shell prompt type mantext uqwk > uqwkhelp which creates a file called uqwkhelp, which you can then download. (One of those sits on my hard drive right now.)

You will need to obtain and install a SOUP format reader. Many are reviewed in the alt.usenet.offline-reader FAQ. I personally use Yarn/2, a free OS/2 reader by Chin Huang. There is also a DOS version of Yarn, and many other free or cheap readers for DOS, Windows, OS/2, Mac, Amiga, and Unix that I know of.

The bulletin-board user will probably be familiar with a packet format called QWK, used similarly to read email offline. Noticing the name of uqwk, you might wonder if QWK packets can be made from a system like Panix. Yes, but please don't.

The problem with QWK is that it was designed for Fidonet mail, not for Usenet and Internet mail. Using QWK, without elaborate workarounds, will screw up Usenet/Internet messages, shortening subject lines and breaking threads. SOUP is just as easy to use, the readers cost little or nothing, and you won't be irritating thousands of people with each posting.

If you have more questions, post them in panix.questions. I hope this has been useful. If you have suggestions for improving this help file, please mail them to carlf@panix.com.

Many thanks to 
Carl Fink       carlf@panix.com      madscientist@genie.com
Assistant Sysop, GEnie's First and Fourth Science Fiction RoundTables 
Date: Mon, 04 Sep 1995 20:28:37 -0400

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