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WORKING MAIL AND NEWS SOFTWARE
This article describes how to save mail and news from other software
in order to decode articles with UUDeview. The first section gives
general hints, further downwards are step-by-step instructions for
popular Unix and Windows software.
General: Saving Articles
As far as I know, any mail or news reading software allows to save one
or more articles to your local disk. So to decode files, all you have
to do is to save the encoded articles, and later run these files
through UUDeview.
Note: In the following text, I will use the word "article"
synonymous for both email messages and news articles. From the
decoder's standpoint, they're the same.
The advantage of UUDeview is that you do not have to worry about the
ordering of articles. It doesn't matter if you save part 7 before part
5, or if some parts of file B suddenly appear among file A's parts.
You must only make sure that you save all parts of a multipart
message.
Saving just a single article is never a problem, but there are usually
three methods for saving multiple articles for decoding. Your software
might not support all of them. They're listed here from "best" to
"worst":
Tagging (Selecting, Marking) and Saving
Some software allows you, usually while viewing an overview of
all articles (seeing only the article's subjects), to tag
(sometimes also called "select" or "mark") multiple articles.
In Windows, the policy is usually to hold down the CTRL key and
then clicking on the desired subjects. Then, all tagged
articles can be saved at once into a single file.
Sequential Saving into one File
This method involves visiting and saving each article
individually. You select "save article" for each article in
turn, but using the same filename again and again. The software
should then append each article to the existing file (some
software will ask you whether you want to append; choose
"yes"). Alas, a few programs will just overwrite the existing
file with the new article, causing the final file to hold only
the last article in the series. You should check the behaviour
of your software by saving two articles this way and then
looking at the resulting file. In that case, you're stuck with
the worst method:
Saving into multiple Files
The most inconvenient method works with any program: you select
each article separately, and save it into its own file, using
different filenames. You don't need to use sensible filenames,
a series of numbers (001.uu, 002.uu etc) is enough. Make sure
you use the same directory for all files. The problem with this
method is that it leaves plenty of room for mistakes (such as
overlooking an article, using the same file name twice etc),
and that you'll need to hand over lots of files to UUDeview
lateron.
Two minor matters to settle are the directory where to save articles,
and the file names to use. As for the directory, I suggest creating a
separate directory. This has the advantage that you can later, in
UUDeview, just select all files from that directory for decoding,
which is usually much simpler than picking out five files out of two
dozen. Also, after a successful decoding run, you can simply delete
the entire directory's contents without worrying what's within.
The matter of file names is equally simple: it doesn't matter. Just
use something you can remember. UUDeview does not evaluate the file
name or extension in any way. You might find an extension of "uu"
convenient.
Some software allows you to select whether you want to save articles
with or without header. If it does, always select with header. Many
features of UUDeview depend on the headers. Stripping them disables
part reordering and other smartness.
_________________________________________________________________
Step-by-Step Instructions
These are precise instructions how to save articles from a couple of
popular mail and news readers. Even if your favourite software is not
listed here, the basic handling is usually quite similar to one of
those presented here.
* Unix Software
+ The Mail reader "elm"
+ The Newsreader "nn"
+ The Newsreader "xrn"
* Windows Software
+ Eudora for Windows
+ Forte Free Agent
_________________________________________________________________
Unix Software
Saving Mails from elm
Go to each mail, and tag it by pressing 't' (a plus sign will appear
at the beginning of the current line, meaning the article is tagged).
After repeating this procedure for all desired articles, hit the 's'
("save") key. Elm will offer a mail folder to save the article to;
just overwrite it with a proper file name (which may include directory
names). You can cancel the save operation by giving an empty file
name. Otherwise, all tagged mails are saved at once to the given file
(if the file exists, they're appended).
Saving Articles from nn
You can save multiple articles from a single newsgroup at once. If you
want to save articles from different newsgroups, you'll have to repeat
this procedure for each of them.
You can tag a single article by pressing the letter displayed in the
first column (left of the author name), or multiple articles by a
sequence like 'f-o', which would tag all articles from 'f' to 'o'. You
can also skip pages forward and backward using the '>' and '<' keys to
tag article on different pages within a newsgroup. Then, press a
capital 'S' (using the shift key) to save the articles. It will then
ask you where to save the articles to ("Save on"), with the newsgroup
name being the default. Remove this name with the backspace key (don't
forget the leading plus sign) and enter a filename of your choice (may
include a directory name). After hitting return, all tagged articles
from this newsgroup are saved at once to the given file (if it exists,
the articles are appended).
Saving Articles from xrn
You can save multiple articles from a single newsgroup at once. If you
want to save articles from different newsgroups, you'll have to repeat
this procedure for each of them.
If you click on one subject, then hold down the shift key and click on
another subject, all articles inbetween are tagged (so to tag all
articles in the newsgroup, click on the first, browse the listbox to
its end, hold down shift, then click on the last article). By holding
down the CTRL key and then clicking on articles' subjects, you can tag
multiple individual articles. While operating the scrollbar, you'll
have to let go of the shift or CTRL key, but don't forget to press it
again before the next clicking.
After all articles have been selected, click on the 'Save' button in
the lower left corner of the screen, anter a filename, and XRN will
save all selected articles into that file. And you're done!
Windows Software
Saving Mails from Eudora
1. Open the mailbox (usually the incoming mailbox). You see the
collection of email subjects.
2. Tag the appropriate mails by holding down the CTRL key and
clicking on the subject lines.
3. Choose "Save As" from the "File" menu.
4. Browse to the appropriate directory and enter a filename of your
choice.
5. Unselect (uncheck if checked) the "Guess Paragraphs" option, and
Select (check if unchecked) the "Include Headers" option.
6. Click on OK to save all tagged emails to the given file.
Saving Articles from Free Agent
1. Choose the newsgroup you want to save articles from.
2. Tag the appropriate articles by holding down the CTRL key and
clicking on the subject lines in the subject window (usually in
the top right of the screen).
3. Choose "Save Articles As" from the "File" menu.
4. Browse to the appropriate directory and enter a filename of your
choice.
5. For the option "Header Fields to Include", select "All fields".
6. Select (check if unchecked) the "Append to existing File" option.
7. Click on OK to save all tagged articles to the given file.
_________________________________________________________________
Frank Pilhofer <fp@informatik.uni-frankfurt.de> Back to the Homepage
Last modified: Fri Apr 12 14:36:13 1996
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