INTRODUCTION TO NN
			  ------------------

			     RELEASE 6.4


nn is a menu based (point and shoot) netnews reader with a complete
set of features to satisfy both the expert and the novice user.  Since
its first release in Denmark in 1984 (!), in Europe in 1988, and the
global release in June 1989, it has replaced rn and other well-known
news readers at many sites.

Some of the key features of nn are:

 *  Menu-based article selection prior to reading the articles
    with the articles sorted according to subject & posting time!

    This significantly reduces the time spent on news reading.
    No keystorkes are wasted on articles you don't want to read, and
    only the articles selected on the menu will be read.

 *  Release 6.4 uses standard .newsrc, and can leave individual
    articles unread!

 *  Digests are automatically split and presented as ordinary articles!
    You can transparently save and respond to individual subarticles.

 *  Full folder support: read, save, and delete individual articles.

 *  Online help and manual.

 *  Built-in unshar and patch functions.

 *  Built-in uudecode function which will automatically unpack,
    concatenate, and decode multi-part postings.

 *  Easy remapping of keys with advanced macro definition features.

 *  Automatic kill & selection of articles based on subject or author.

 *  User specified presentation sequence of news groups based on the
    news group hierarchy.

 *  Whole classes of news groups can easily be unsubscribed
    permanently, e.g. talk.all and all.politics

 *  Related groups can be merged and presented as a single group, e.g.
    comp.emancs and all gnu.emacs groups.

 *  Blindingly fast 'search for subject'.  On my Texas S1500 system,
    nn uses less than 20 seconds to find all articles on a specific
    subject among 64000 articles in all groups!

 *  News collection and presentation is extremely fast, because nn
    uses its own database on top of the standard news system.

 *  In a distributed environment, the database can be shared among all
    hosts on the network.  Only one daemon is needed on the news server
    for all hosts.  This works in a heterogenous environment as well.

 *  NNTP is also supported (using a local database for speed).

Because of the database, nn starts almost equally fast (in a few
seconds), no matter whether you have 100 or 10000 unread articles!
The database takes up some disk space, but dramatically improves speed
and functionality.  The amount of disk space consumed is approx. 1Mb
per 10000 articles.


			     DISTRIBUTION
			     ------------

The package is posted as 22 separate shar archives on comp.sources.unix.
It is unpacked by applying /bin/sh to each archive in turn.
Everything is a little more than 1 Mbyte, including documentation.

It is also available via anonymous ftp from

	host: dkuug.dk (129.142.96.41)
	File: /pub/nn6.4.tar.Z (compressed tar)


			      COPYRIGHT
			      ---------

Copyright (c) 1989, 1990 by Kim Fabricius Storm.  All rights reserved.

Not derived from licensed software except as stated below.

Permission is granted to anyone to use, modify, and reuse this
software for any purpose on any computer system, and to redistribute
it freely, subject to the following restrictions:

1. The author is not responsible for the consequences of use of this
   software, no matter how awful, even if they arise from defects in it.

2. The origin of this software must not be misrepresented, either by
   explicit claim or by omission.

3. Altered versions must be plainly marked as such, and must not be
   misrepresented as being the original software.


The following code modules have been incorporated into nn, and the
above copyright notice does not apply to these modules; they include
their own copyright notices (or have none):

regexp.c:	Copyright (c) 1986 by University of Toronto.
	 	Written by Henry Spencer.

unshar.c:	No copyright notice.
		Written by K. Greer, S. Shafer, and M. Mauldin

decode.c:	Derived from a modified Berkeley original posted on
		USENET.

fullname.c:	Copyright (c) 1986 by Rick Adams.
		Derived from the Bnews distribution.

contrib/*:	Various copyright notices.
		The software available in the contrib/ directory was sent
		to me for inclusion in the nn distribution, because
		the authors think it might be useful to other nn users.
		I have included it *as is*.

inews/*:	NNTP 1.5 mini-inews.  Copyrights for NNTP applies.
		The software in the inews/ directory is a stand-alone
		version of the NNTP 1.5.7 mini-inews which has been
		slightly changed to ease configuration when used with nn.

Various pieces of code which may have their own copyright notices are
included in the contrib/ and inews/ directories.  This software has been
sent to me in the hope that it will be useful to somebody else.  I
have included it in this spirit, but I take no responsibilities for
this software, and I have no intentions to support it.


			     INSTALLATION
			     ------------

The following files are contained in the `doc' subdirectory:

The installation procedure is described in the file INSTALLATION.

You may also find useful information in the files PROBLEMS and NNTP.

The file NEWS-6.3 describes the major changes from release 6.1 to 6.3.

The file NEWS-6.4 describes the major changes from release 6.3 to 6.4.


		     BUG REPORTS and SUGGESTIONS
		     ---------------------------

Please send bug reports (and fixes) to the following address:
	[email protected]

You may also use nn-bugs for suggestions for improvements (missing
features in nn are considered to be bugs :-)

The easiest way to send a bug report is by using the :bug command in nn.


		      NN HAS ITS OWN NEWS GROUP
		      -------------------------

We have an unmoderated news group dedicated to nn: news.software.nn

The news.software.nn group is used for discussion on all subjects
related to the nn news reader.  This includes, but is not limited to,
questions, answers, ideas, hints, information from the development
group, patches, etc.

The news.software.nn group was created in January 1990 after an
official vote.  It may still be missing on parts of the net, so if you
don't get it please check your news feed, and help propagating the
news group to the entire net.


			   ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
			   ----------------

Since the development of nn is now on its fifth year, numerous persons
have contributed to nn with ideas and critisism, have helped me debug
the software by patiently using alpha and beta versions, have provided
bug fixes, small and big chunks of code, new configuration files, etc.

My warm thanks go to Rene Seindal and Wayne Davison for their many
contributions, to Lloyd W. Taylor for his efforts counting the
votes for news.software.nn, and to Paul D. Anderson for running the
release 6.3 patch server.

I also thank the following persons for their help and contributions:
Peter Andersen, Jonathan Bayer, Gardner Cohen, Bernie Cosell, P{r
Emanuelsson, Steven Grady, Miek Grenier, Scott Hankin, Kareth, Mike
Khaw, Edwin Kremer, Jean-Francois Lamy, Mark Moraes, A. E. Mossberg,
Mark Nagel, Rich Salz, Steve Simmons, Wietse Z. Venema, James A.
Woods, and Pim Zandbergen.

And of course I would like to thank the hundreds of other people who
have reported bugs, given suggestions, provided information, etc.
Forgive me for not listing all your names here, but I hope you
understand, and that you will continue to contribute your
valuable input to the continued developments.  Let us keep nn in the
lead!


Kim Fabricius Storm
Texas Instruments A/S, Denmark

Email: [email protected]
Snail: Marielundvej 46E, DK-2730 Herlev, Denmark
tel:   +45 42 91 7400      fax:   +45 42 91 8400