| NEWSLIST |
| ======== |
| A program to assist HTTP browsing of newsgroups |
| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ |
| |
| WWW browsers such as NCSA Mosaic allow the user to read newsgroup |
| articles by specifying the group name in a URL eg 'news:comp.answers'. |
| |
| To browse through many groups, though, (and there are several thousand |
| of them) you really need a page or pages containing links to all the |
| groups. There are some good ones out there, for example, |
| |
| http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/DataSources/News/Groups/Overview.html |
| |
| is the standard one at CERN, but it only shows the groups available there, |
| which may be rather different from those available on your machine. |
| |
| Newslist is a program which creates a hierarchy of pages for you based |
| on the groups available from YOUR server. It is written in python - a |
| splendid interpreted object-oriented language which I suggest you get |
| right now from the directory /pub/python at ftp.cwi.nl, if you haven't |
| already got it. |
| |
| You should be able to see some sample output by looking at: |
| http://pelican.cl.cam.ac.uk/newspage/root.html |
| |
| Descriptions of newsgroups can be added from a file with one group |
| per line. eg: |
| |
| alt.foo Articles about foo |
| comp.bar Programming in 'bar' and related languages |
| |
| A suitable list detailing most groups can be found at ftp.uu.net in |
| /uunet-info/newsgroups.gz. |
| |
| Make sure you read the information at the beginning of the program source and |
| configure the variables before running. |
| |
| In addition to python, you need: |
| |
| An NNTP-based news feed. |
| A directory in which to put the pages. |
| |
| The programming is not very beautiful, but it works! It comes with no |
| warranty, express or implied, but with the hope that some others may |
| find it useful. |
| |
| Comments, improvements & suggestions welcomed. |
| Quentin Stafford-Fraser |
| |
| ---------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Quentin Stafford-Fraser |
| http://pelican.cl.cam.ac.uk/people/qs101/me.html |
| |
| Cambridge University Computer Lab Rank Xerox Cambridge EuroPARC |
| [email protected] [email protected] |
| Tel: +44 223 334411 Tel: +44 223 341521 |
| Fax: +44 223 334679 Fax: +44 223 341510 |
| ---------------------------------------------------------------------- |
