These perl scripts add several useful URL protocols and/or extensions

thereof to chimera.



news.pl		Allows reading of

                news in several modes:

		   news://server/		List groups

		   news://server/group		List articles in group

		   news://server/group/number	Read Article by number

		   news://server/messageID	Read Article by message ID



		Articles are formatted with URLs converted to links,

		including mailto and news URLs where possible.



		The last two can also have

		news posting or mail reply

		forms created by appending:

			?post			To follow up

			?post+include		To follow up and quote

			?mail			To reply via email

			?mail+include		To reply via email



		These forms call postto.pl and mailto.pl to do the

		actual distribution.



postto.pl

mailto.pl	These are nearly identical, save that mailto uses sendmail

		while postto connects directly to the NNTP server.



		When called with a GET command (usually anywhere but a form),

		these scripts return an HTML form to post a new thread to a

		newsgroup or mail a letter to an address.  The URLs are:

			postto:news.group

			mailto:person@some.where



		(Note that the latter can instead launch your favorite

		 mail program if you set the MAIL_CLIENT environment

		 variable ... the author uses "xterm -e pine")



		When called with a POST command (as in the forms generated

		by news.pl), the URL is:

			postto://server

			mailto://server

		(Though in fact the server is disregarded by mailto)

		The scripts expect four fields from the forms, HEAD, BODY,

		SIG and SIGN.  The first three are text fields, and the

		fourth is a toggle indicating whether or not to append the

		SIG text to the message.



		Failed POST requests are stored in dead.letter or dead.article

		as appropriate.



finger.pl	Just here for giggles.  The URL is:

			finger:person@some.where



show.pl		Debugging tool.  Useful to see if the request you are

		sending is what you think it is.





The following lines need to be added to your protocol file (or to your

personal ~/.chimera_protocol):



news    /usr/lib/X11/chimera/nntp.pl

mailto  /usr/lib/X11/chimera/mailto.pl

postto  /usr/lib/X11/chimera/postto.pl

finger  /usr/lib/X11/chimera/finger.pl

show    /usr/lib/X11/chimera/show.pl



(or wherever you put them)



They all assume perl is in /usr/bin.  Sendmail is assumed to be in /usr/lib.





			PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE



	 correct the default nntp server in news.pl and postto.pl



It won't accept calls from off campus anyway, so don't waste our bandwidth













			 Variables Available to Customize

		     the news.pl, mailto.pl and postto.pl set

                    ==========================================







MAIL_CLIENT	Preferred mailto:address client (I use xterm -e pine)

USER		Login Name

NAME		Full Name

HOME		Home Directory

HOSTNAME	Name of current machine

NNTPSERVER	Default NNTP Server

QUOTECHAR	Leading Character(s) to indicate quoted text

NEWSORG		Organization

ORGANIZATION	Organization, if NEWSORG unset

SIGNATURE	Location of .signature file, or text of signature

REPLYTO		Address to direct replies to





The following allow customization of the headers and attribution text a la

trn:



NEWSHEADER	Format of Header on News Articles

ATTRIB		Leading line for quotations in news

MAILHEADER	Format of Header on Mail replies

YOUSAID		Leading line for quotations in Mail



The above four can contain the following special characters, which are

translated as follows (matches trn header definitions):



%C	Current Newsgoup (in dot form)

%n	Newsgroups list of current article 

%s	Subject of Article, stripped of all Re:'s

%R	Reference list including current article

%o	Organization Name

%N	Full Name

%L	Login

%H	Current machine's full name

%f	Reply-To or From line of current article

%i	Message-ID of current article, <>'s guaranteed









Enjoy!



Michael Kellen

<kellen@physics.montana.edu>