| 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 | |
| qs101@cl.cam.ac.uk fraser@europarc.xerox.com | |
| Tel: +44 223 334411 Tel: +44 223 341521 | |
| Fax: +44 223 334679 Fax: +44 223 341510 | |
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