Wayne Davison <trn@clari.net>

Well, you could ftp the latest version of trn, uncompress and de-tar the
HINTS.TRN file... or I could just insert most of it here (the sections
not otherwise discussed in more depth elsewhere in this FAQ).

======================================================================
Certain environment variables, like RNINIT, must be set in your shell
(how else does trn know to look there for the rest?).  Others, like
REPLYTO may be useful in other programs, so you could consider putting
that in your shell startup file too. But most of them are specific, like
MAILHEADER, so you might as well set them in the init file with the -E
option.  That's why most of them look like -EMAILHEADER=xx rather than
MAILHEADER=xx -- to remind you.

Helpful hints:
  o Two new and useful flags are the -p and -G flags.  -p means automatically
    select any thread that you have posted a message to.  This makes it very
    easy to track replies to your insightful comments :-) (to automatically
    select other threads, try the 'T' command).  -G tells the 'g' command
    to use a loose match algorithm on groups it can't find.  So if you type
    "g news.softwre.raeders.genrl", it will assume that you meant to type
    news.software.readers and take you there.  It is usually easier to type
    "/reader" than using a 'g' command, but use -G too.

  o The 'X' command in the selector (kinda like catchup/yes) can be made the
    default action on the last page of selections by using the command-line
    option:  -XX.  This lets you browse all the pages, making selections as
    you go, and then mark everything that was not selected as read when you
    press space at the last page.

  o If you like to select a little, read a little, and then select a little
    more, try using the command-line option:  -XDD.  This makes the 'D'
    command the default on all pages of the selector.  Thus you can select
    the things you want to read on the current page, press space, and you
    will read the selected articles immediately (if there were any).  All
    other articles on the current page will be marked as read.

  o To use mush to send all R)eplies:
	-EMAILPOSTER="mush -h %h"

  o To use elm to send all R)eplies:
	-EMAILHEADER="\\000"
	-EMAILPOSTER="elm -i %h -s '%'s' %t"

  o To tailor the time field:
	A good example is -ELOCALTIMEFMT="%A, %B %e %Y, %r %Z" which becomes:
	Date: Saturday, June 12 1993, 08:15:32 PM PDT.  (The default is
	"%a %b %e %X %Z %Y", which is like the date(1) command).  See the
	strftime(3C) man page for more details on other % characters.

  o To tailor the "In article <blahblahblah>, joe@user (Joe User)" line:
	person's name only: %)f
	person's address only: %>f
	For example: -EATTRIBUTION='According to %)f <%>f>:'

  o If you want replies to your postings to go to a machine other than the
    machine you're posting from, set the REPLYTO environment variable.  For
    example, you might set this if you were trn's author:
	-EREPLYTO="trn@clari.net (Wayne Davison)"

  o You might like to redefine the 'u' keys in the following way:  'u' visits
    the "Set unread?" prompt (except in the thread selector), 'U' goes
    directly to the already-read article selector, and Ctrl-U unsubscribes
    from the group (even while in the thread selector).  Put the following
    3 macros in your .rnmac file to accomplish this (or change TRNMACROS to
    .trnmac and put them there):

	u	%(%m=[aefnp]?U:u)
	U	%(%m=[aefnp]?U+:U)
	^U	%(%m=t?+u:u)

  o If you like to be able to move forward/backward by article number more
    often than you need to search by subject, redefine ^N and ^P to be _N
    and _P by putting these lines into your macro file:

	^P	%(%m=[aep]?_P:^P)
	^N	%(%m=[aep]?_N:^N)

  o If you like the way that 'q' worked in the thread selector in trn 1.x,
    put the following macro in your macro file:

	q	%(%m=t?+:q)

  o If you would like the 'f' command to always answer yes to the "Are you
    starting an unrelated topic?" question, put this line into your macro
    file:

	f	%(%m=[ap]?fy^m:f)

  o If you want to be able to save your shar headers in a file as they are
    extracted and you have access to "unshar" (a program that can extract
    shar files while saving the headers in UNSHAR.HDR), twiddle the external
    extract command to send the entire article:

	-EEXSAVER="%e <%A"

    and then point the UNSHAR variable at unshar instead of /bin/sh:

	-EUNSHAR="unshar -s"

    Note that this assumes that any other commands you execute with
    "e dir|command" can also handle the entire article as input
    (uuencoded and shipped files are not affected).

If you're curious, trn's author has the following .trninit file:
======================================================================
-XX -B -N -f -x11ms "-F> " -pp -G -u +e -mu
-hunrecognized
-ELOCALTIMEFMT="%A, %B %e %Y, %r %Z"
-ESELECTCHARS="abdefgijlmorstuvwxyz1234567890BCFGHIKVW"
-EKILLLOCAL="%p/Kill/%C"
-EKILLGLOBAL="%p/Kill/Global"
-EMAILPOSTER="elm -i %h -s '%'s' %t"
-EFORWARDPOSTER="elm -i %h -s '%'[subject]' %q"
-EATTRIBUTION="According to %)f <%>f>:"
======================================================================

and the following .trnmac file:
======================================================================
u	%(%m=[aenp]?U:u)
U	%(%m=[aenp]?U+:U)
^U	%(%m=t?+u:u)
o	%(%m=[nf]?O:o)
O	%(%m=[nf]?o:O)
~T	s ~/Mail/trn
~M	| /bin/mail davison
^[^[	^[
======================================================================


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