Discuss on Athena (AC-32) Discuss on Athena (AC-32)Discuss uses the metaphor of a conference with many on-going meetings. As you might expect, a "meeting" in Discuss is a discussion group with a specific focus (such as a particular course, interesting quotes, harassment, where to find free food, Athena development, or any other topic of interest to a particular set of people). In Discuss, the form the discussion takes is not verbal conversations but written messages, known as "transactions". Transactions are similar to email messages; in fact, in some cases you actually send transactions to the meeting via email, although usually you enter transactions using options of a Discuss interface.
To participate in a meeting, either as a silent bystander (someone who just reads the transactions) or an active contributor (someone who enters new transactions), you first need to "attend" the meeting. Meetings differ according to what kind of participation they allow: in a public meeting, anyone can read the transactions and enter transactions of their own; in a private meeting, only a specific set of users is allowed to read or enter transactions; in read-only meetings, anyone can read the transactions, but only a specific subset of users (usually just a moderator or some automatic process that forwards mail messages) can enter transactions.
To find out what public and read-only meetings are available for you to attend, you can read the transactions of the meetings New_meetings and Athena_meetings; these meetings have as transactions announcements of most available public meetings.
There are three interfaces to the Discuss program:
If you are a beginning user, you may prefer the X-based browser.
The following sections describe each of these interfaces, and also list some of the interesting public meetings you can attend via Discuss. No matter which browser you decide to use, you should skim the section on the command-line form of Discuss -- that section introduces all the features of Discuss, including some mentioned only in passing in the sections on xdsc and Emacs Discuss.
Note that most of the commands in Discuss have a long, descriptive name, and at least one abbreviation. For instance, add_meeting, add_mtg, and am do the same thing. The same is true of meeting names. For example, you can refer to the Everybody meeting as eve. In this document, when a new command or meeting is introduced, the long name will be mentioned first, and the shortest name will be used in examples.
discussDiscuss uses a file in your home directory called .meetings to keep track of the meetings you attend and related information. The first time you use Discuss, this file does not exist and Discuss asks you whether it should create it:
athena% discuss discuss: No such file or directoryIf you are using Discuss for the first time, or if you have only used the experimental version of Discuss, you need to run the dsc_setup command from the shell.
Run dsc_setup now? (y or n) y
Running dsc_setup...
Creating .meetings file:
done.
discuss:
From now on, when you type discuss, you go straight to the discuss:
prompt:
athena% discuss Discuss version 1.6. Type '?' for a list of commands. discuss:You are now in the Discuss program, ready to give it a command. Discuss gives every new user two meetings to attend. These are New_meetings and Everybody. New_meetings is for announcements of new meetings, and Everybody is for announcements or discussions of general interest.
discuss: lsm Flags Meeting ----- ------- c New_meetings, new_meetings c Everybody, eveThe transactions in the New_meetings meeting are the announcements of some of the public meetings that have been created -- in other words, New_meetings lists many public meetings you can join. (The second name in the meetings list is an abbreviation; every Discuss meeting has at least two valid names.) Since you are automatically attending the New_meetings meeting, you can just goto (go, g) it:
discuss: g new_meetings New_Meetings meeting: 455 new, 455 last.Now you can list (ls) all of the transactions in the meeting. In this case, with over 400 transactions, there are far too many to print on one screen. (See the section on Specifying Transactions to see how to list a range of transactions.) For now, you can list them all and press Ctrl-C to interrupt the flow if you see something interesting.
discuss: ls
[0001]* (2) 10/29/86 21:54 wesommer Reason for this meeting
[0034] (9) 04/10/87 23:54 rlk Athena_Flames meeting
[0045] (10) 04/11/87 04:24 spook Athena_Meetings meeting
.
.
.
[0453] (8) 08/12/92 10:20 carla Help_Desk_Info meeting
[0454] (8) 08/13/92 03:28 tom External Outages meeting
[0455] (8) 08/13/92 10:09 pjb Fall_Readiness_92 meeting
The columns (left to right) tell you the transaction number, the length of that
transaction (in lines), the date and time it was entered, the username of the
person who entered it, and the title or subject of the transaction. The
asterisk indicates the current transaction; if a command requires a
transaction specifier and you omit it, it will use the current transaction as
default.To read a transaction, use the print (pr, p) command. (Despite its name, this command simply displays the transaction on your screen; it does not send it to a printer.) For example:
discuss: p 301
[0301] qjb@ATHENA.MIT.EDU New_Meetings 02/28/91 22:22 (8 lines)
Subject: Bogus_Thoughts meeting
Meeting Name: Bogus_Thoughts
Host: charon.MIT.EDU
Pathname: /usr/spool/discuss/bogus
Participation: Public
When you think of something that is so stupid it's funny, this
is the place to mention it.
--[0301]--
^L
While you are attending the New_Meetings meeting, you can use the
add_meeting (add_mtg, am) command to add a meeting to your
.meetings file (this enables you to attend the meeting). The
add_meeting command uses the information in the Host and Pathname fields
to find the meeting; you don't need to worry about this. So, to add a meeting,
use the number of the transaction in New_Meetings:
discuss: am 301 Transaction [0301] Meeting Bogus_Thoughts (bogus) added.If you know the host and the meeting name, but don't want to search for the meeting announcement, you can use the add_meeting command with a full pathname of the meeting, separating the host and the pathname with a colon. The pathname is almost always /usr/spool/discuss/short-meeting-name. For example, you could have added the bogus meeting added above this way:
discuss: am charon:/usr/spool/discuss/bogus Meeting Bogus_Thoughts (bogus) added.Your list of meetings will now look like this:
discuss: lsm Flags Meeting ----- ------- c New_meetings, new_meetings c Everybody, eve c Bogus_Thoughts, bogusThe c in the Flags column (for ``changed'') indicates that the meeting has new transactions that you have not read.
There are other meetings like New_Meetings that contain announcements of new meetings, most notably Athena_Meetings.
In summary, attending a meeting (i.e., adding a meeting to your .meetings file) requires the following steps:
discuss: lsm Flags Meeting ----- ------- New_meetings, new_meetings c Everybody, eve c Bogus_Thoughts, bogus discuss: ckm Flags Meeting ----- ------- c Everybody, eve c Bogus_Thoughts, bogusIf there are no changed meetings, check_meetings will return:
discuss: ckm discuss (check_meetings): No changed meetingsAs you accumulate meetings, you'll find ckm very useful, although it tends to be slower than lsm.
After you've checked your meetings with ckm, you can use the next_meeting (nm) command to advance to each changed meeting. This command is a variation of the goto command; it goes to the first listed changed meeting.
To refer to single transactions, you can just use the number of the transaction. For example, to display the first transaction in the current meeting, type:
discuss: p 1You can also specify a transaction relative to the current transaction, relative to other transactions on the same theme (i.e., transactions in the same "chain"), or relative to the meeting as a whole. These specifications include:
------------------------------------------------------------- Specifier(s) Matches ------------------------------------------------------------- current or . the current transaction prev or p the previous transaction in the meeting next or n the next transaction in the meeting first or f the first transaction of the meeting last or l the last transaction of the meeting nref the next transaction in the current chain lref the last transaction in the current chain fref the first transaction in the current chain pref the previous transaction in the current chain -------------------------------------------------------------(A chain is an original transaction plus all the transactions that are replies to that transaction.)
To specify a range of transactions, separate the specifiers by a comma or colon (but don't include any spaces after the comma or colon). For example, to print all the transactions from the current one to the end, type either of the following:
discuss: p current,last discuss: p .,lYou can use simple arithmetic with the + and - symbols. For example, to list the last 20 transactions in the current meeting, type:
discuss: ls last-19,lastYou can also use some Discuss commands (e.g., list and print) to affect several transactions at once, not just individual transactions. Some pre-defined specifications you can use include:
------------------------------------------------------- Specifier Matches ------------------------------------------------------- all all transactions in the current meeting new all unseen transactions in current meeting aref all transactions in the current chain -------------------------------------------------------For example, to get a list of the new transactions in a meeting, you could do the following:
discuss: g eve Everybody meeting: 2 new, 4689 last. discuss: ls new [4688]* (9) 08/31/92 11:47 vanharen Re: hurricane relief? [4689] (5) 08/31/92 17:48 rjbarbal Re: postering, absence of(The goto and list commands are covered in the section on Reading Transactions.)
To read all the transactions in a chain, use print aref. One of the transactions in the chain must be your current transaction for references to aref to work.
These are the basic transaction specifiers. There are other options available. For more information, type:
discuss: help specifiers
To read transactions, you must be attending the desired meeting. Use the goto command to attend a meeting:
discuss: g eve Everybody meeting: 2 new, 4689 last.To view the currently selected transaction, type print. To view a specific transaction, type a command of the form:
print transaction_specifierIf you are in a meeting that has new transactions, the current transaction is the last one you read.
discuss: p 1
[0001] srz@ATHENA.MIT.EDU Everybody 11/11/86 20:14 (3 lines)
Subject: Reason for this meeting
This meeting is the everybody meeting, whose purpose is to allow
people to play with discuss and generate interesting discussion.
Feel free to put random things in here.
--[0001]-- (nref = [4681])
^L
discuss: p 425
[0425] amgreene@ATHENA.MIT.EDU Everybody 07/16/89 13:46 (9 lines)
Subject: Theeyyyy're Baaaaacckkkk!!!
From: <jrock@ATHENA.MIT.EDU>
To: amgreene@ATHENA.MIT.EDU
Subject: Theeyyyy're Baaaaacckkkk!!!
Date: Sun, 16 Jul 89 13:08:20 EDT
Remember the conversation we had yesterday about the Smoots?
Well, sometime in the past 24 hours, they reappeared!
Year marks ('88-'92) and all!!
Wicked-awesome!
--[0425]-- (nref = [0427])
^L
Rather than use explicit transaction numbers, you can also specify transactions
relative to the current transaction:
discuss: p next
[0426] amgreene@ATHENA.MIT.EDU Everybody 07/16/89 15:06 (22 nes)
Subject: Announcing quiet.sty
(I'd like to get maximum exposure on this; please start using it
if you use LaTeX and let me know what you think...)
...
--[0426]--
^L
discuss: p prev
[0425] amgreene@ATHENA.MIT.EDU Everybody 07/16/89 13:46 (9 lines)
Subject: Theeyyyy're Baaaaacckkkk!!!
From: <jrock@ATHENA.MIT.EDU>
To: amgreene@ATHENA.MIT.EDU
Subject: Theeyyyy're Baaaaacckkkk!!!
...
--[0425]-- (nref = [0427])
^L
So, you could continue to type next until you finish reading all the new
transactions.As you may have noticed in the example above, transaction 425 shows (nref = [0427]) at the end. The nref stands for "Next REFerence". that is, the next reference in a chain of transactions. When someone replies to a transaction, Discuss remembers the links in the chain (actually, the list of transactions with the same subject). Often, the transactions in a chain are sequential, but this is not necessarily true. So, using the specifiers nref and pref (for "Previous REFerence"), you can read through a chain:
discuss: p 4413 [4413] honor@ATHENA.MIT.EDU Everybody 07/19/92 19:57 (6 lines) Subject: elevators and combos during the school year, there was talk about how slow the student center elevators are. i think they're even slower now. has anybody else noticed this? ... --[4413]-- (nref = [4417]) ^L discuss: p nref [4417] epeisach@ATHENA.MIT.EDU Everybody 07/20/92 23:28 (3 lines) Subject: Re: elevators and combos The student center elevators are faster by my recolition. Probably because it is no longer convenient to press both elevator buttons on the third floor. --[4417]-- (pref = [4413], nref = [4420]) ^L discuss:To read all the transactions in the meeting you are attending, type print new, or use combinations of print, p next, and p prev. To read transactions in a same-subject chain, use the specifiers pref and nref.
When you get to the end of a meeting, you can go to the next changed meeting with the command next_meeting (nm).
As read_new takes you to each meeting or transaction, it asks for confirmation. Press the spacebar to go to the next meeting or next transaction; press q to quit and return to the discuss: prompt:
discuss: rn Checking meetings... Flags Meeting ----- ------- c New_meetings, new_meetings c Everybody, eve Hit space to go to next meeting: <space> New_Meetings meeting: 457 new, 457 last. Hit space for next transaction: <space> [0001] wesommer@ATHENA.MIT.EDU New_Meetings 10/29/86 21:54 (2 lines) Subject: Reason for this meeting This meeting is intended to provide a central place to announce new meetings for discuss in the Athena realm. --[0001]-- ^L Hit space for next transaction:Thus, to read all the new transactions in all the changed meetings, type rn and keep pressing the space bar until you're done.
If you don't want to read all the new transactions straight through, there are other options available. At the Hit space for next transaction: prompt, use one of these responses:
------------------------------------------------ Option Action ------------------------------------------------ Space or n show next transaction c catch up on transactions in meeting p show previous transaction ^R review current transaction q quit from read_new r reply to current transaction t enter a new transaction ? show this list ------------------------------------------------From the Hit space to go to next meeting: prompt, you have these options:
----------------------------------------- Option Action ----------------------------------------- Space or n go to next meeting p show previous transaction ^R review current transaction q quit from read_new r reply to current transaction t enter a new transaction ? show this list -----------------------------------------Note that these commands are not valid when you're in the middle of a message.
discuss: rp 609 Subject: Re: testing Enter transaction; end with ^D or '.' on a line by itself. This is a reply. ^D Transaction [0610] entered in the Test_Meeting meeting.Note that ^D refers to Ctrl-D, not caret (shift-6) D. The links between your reply and its reference are automatically set, and Re: is added to the subject line.
discuss: p 609 [0609] belville@ATHENA.MIT.EDU Test_Meeting 08/21/89 11:30 (1 line) Subject: Re: testing foo ^L --[0609]-- (pref = [0606], nref = [0610]) discuss: nref [0610] belville@ATHENA.MIT.EDU Test_Meeting 08/21/89 11:44 (1 line) Subject: Re: testing This is a reply. ^L --[0610]-- (pref = [0609])
discuss: t Subject: New ideas Enter transaction; end with ^D or '.' on a line by itself. I need some. . Transaction [0611] entered in the Test_Meeting meeting.
discuss: d 611Notice that Discuss does not tell you anything about the procedure, but you can see that it did work:
discuss: p 611 discuss (print): No transactions selectedIf you delete a transaction by mistake, the same people who were allowed to delete it are allowed to restore it. Use the retrieve (rt) command.
discuss: rt 611Transaction numbers are unique. When you delete a transaction, the next transaction entered takes the next transaction number, skipping the seemingly deleted transaction's number. This explains why you may find gaps in the numbering sequence, and how it is possible to retreive a transaction even after many new transactions have been entered. The deleted transactions can be retrieved any time until a system administrator cleans up the meeting.
discuss: t -ed emacs Subject: fooThis tells Discuss to start up an Emacs window. Type your message, editing and saving like any Emacs file (using the filename provided by Discuss -- don't worry about what it means), exit Emacs, and your transaction will be entered.
If you consistently want to use Emacs (or some other editor), you can set the environment variable DISCUSS_EDITOR by placing an appropriate line (e.g., setenv DISCUSS_EDITOR emacs) in your .environment file.
The "chairman" (or "chairmen") of a meeting are allowed to change the access control list.
The possible access modes are:
---------------------------------------------------------------
Mode Access
---------------------------------------------------------------
a "answer": user can respond to transactions in the meeting
c "chairman": user is a chairman, and can edit the access
control list for the meeting (does not automatically
imply any other access privilege)
d "delete": user may delete or retrieve from deletion any
transaction in the meeting entered by any user
o "owner": user may delete or retrieve from deletion any
transaction in the meeting entered by that user
r "read": user may read or list any transaction in the
meeting
s "status": user may find out summary information about
the meeting (e.g., list the access control list, find
the number of transactions, etc.)
w "write": user may add new transactions to the meeting
(other than a reply)
---------------------------------------------------------------
To find out who has what kind of access for a meeting, use the list_acl
(la) command (refer to the table above for the meanings of the
letters):
discuss: g eve Everybody meeting: 4 new, 4685 last. discuss: la acdrosw srz@ATHENA.MIT.EDU arosw * discuss: g test Test_Meeting meeting: 0 new, 632 last. (You are a chairman.) discuss: la acdrosw *For the Everybody meeting, user srz has chairman (c), delete (d), answer (a), read (r), owner (o), status (s), and write (w) access. Everybody (denoted by *) has answer, read, owner, status, and write access. In the Test_Meeting meeting, everybody has all access modes including chairman privileges. (Note that when we went to test, we were informed of the chairman privileges.)
Most public meetings have an access control list similar to that of the Everybody meeting (i.e., one or more people have full acdorsw access, and everyone else has arosw access). In contrast, a private meeting typically has a list consisting of only individual usernames with associated access permissions: if you go to a private meeting that you can access and type la, you get this list, with no access for *. (If you don't have access to a private meeting, you can't even go to it.)
If you are the chairman of a meeting and would like to set access for a user or all users, use the set_acl (sa) command with the desired access modes and username. To give everyone access to the meeting (except chairman and delete), type:
discuss: sa arosw *
discuss: la
...
a orsw *
Notice that Discuss does not tell you that it has successfully completed the
set_acl request. To give someone else full privileges, type:
discuss: sa acdorsw joeuser
discuss: la
acdorsw joeuser@ATHENA.MIT.EDU
...
To delete someone's access, use the delete_acl (da) command with
the username:
discuss: da joeuser discuss:To prevent someone from attending the meeting, use set_acl null joeuser, rather than using delete_acl, or joeuser will default to the modes for *.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Command Action
-----------------------------------------------------------
delete, dl, d delete a transaction
list, ls list transactions
-long_subjects (-lsj)
next show next transaction
nref show next reference
pref show previous reference
prev show previous transation
print, pr, p show a transaction
read_new, rn show new transactions in
changed meetings
reply, rp reply to a transaction
-editor editor_name
-meeting meeting_name
-no_editor
-subject
retrieve, rt retrieve a deleted
transaction
talk, t enter a new transaction
-editor (-ed) editor_name
-meeting (-mtg) meeting_name
-no_editor (-ned)
write, w write a transaction into
filename a file
-----------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------- Command Action ----------------------------------------------------------- delete_acl, da remove principal from ACL list_acl, la list ACL set_acl, sa add principal to ACL -----------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Command Action
-----------------------------------------------------------------
add_meeting, add_mtg, am add a meeting to list of those
meeting_name to be searched
announce_meeting, ann_mtg, anm announce a meeting's existence
-public
-private
meeting-to-announce
meeting-to-announce-in
check_meetings, ckm check for changed meetings
meeting_name(s)
-no_list (-nls)
delete_meeting, del_mtg, dm delete meeting from list of
meeting_name those to be searched
goto, go, g go to specified meeting
meeting_name
list_meetings, lsm list meetings
meeting_names
-brief
next_meeting, nm go to next changed meeting
-ls
read_new, rn print new transactions in
changed meetings
-----------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Command Action
-----------------------------------------------------------------
help show help file on topic
topic-name
access help on access control lists
specifiers, spec help on specifying transactions
list_requests, lr, ? list available commands
quit, exit, q quit
set set options
seen transaction_specifier
status, st, . show status information
switch_off, swf switch off flags
switch_on, swn switch on flags
-----------------------------------------------------------------
To start xdsc, select the X Discuss Reader option from the Discuss submenu of the Communication menu of the Dash menubar, or simply type:
athena% xdsc &This pops up the xdsc interface. If you attend a lot of Discuss meetings, it may take a while for xdsc to gather information about all your meetings and pop up its window, but it does appear eventually. The window is divided into five areas:
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Command Action
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Down Moves the current meeting to the next one with unread
transactions.
Up Moves the current meeting to the previous one with
unread transactions.
update Queries Discuss for an updated meeting list. The new
list reflects any transactions which may have come in
since the last update, as well as any changes you may
have made to the list of meetings attended.
configure Pops up a menu with two entries: add meeting and delete
meeting, which are used to modify the list of meetings
you attend. Selecting one of these items pops up a
dialog box with fields to fill in. If the current
transaction is the announcement of a new meeting, the
fields are already filled in, and you can confirm the
action by pressing the Add or Delete button at the
bottom of the dialog box.
mode Pops up a menu with two entries that affect what gets
displayed in the upper window: transactions (display a
list of transactions in the current meeting) and
meetings (display a list of meetings attended).
HELP Displays a help window, briefly explaining what the
buttons currently on the screen do. To get rid of the
help window, click on the dismiss button at the bottom.
QUIT Exits the application.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
If this is the first time you have used Discuss in any form, only the two
default meetings are listed, New_meetings and Everybody.To add a new meeting, first double-click on the line for New_meetings in the upper text pane. Then move through meeting announcements with the next and prev commands. When you come to the announcement for a meeting that you would like to attend, select add meeting from the configure menu and click on the Add button at the bottom of the dialog box. (You need to click on update before these new meetings will appear in your list of meetings.)
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Command Action
-------------------------------------------------------------------
show Pops up menu for specifying which transactions are
listed (available in transactions mode only): unread
lists all unread transactions; all lists all
transactions (this can take a while!); back ten adds
the ten immediately previous transactions at the
beginning of the list (usually used for searching
backwards for a recent transaction).
-------------------------------------------------------------------
The lower text pane contains the text of the current transaction. The lower
command area contains commands that operate on the current transaction:
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Command Action
-------------------------------------------------------------------
next Moves to next transaction in current meeting.
prev Moves to previous transaction in current meeting.
Next in chain Moves to the next transaction in the same chain.
Prev in chain Moves to the previous transaction in the same chain.
goto Pops up a menu with options for moving to specific
transactions: number gives a dialog box prompting
for a specific transaction number to go to; first
moves to the beginning of the current meeting; end
moves to the end of the current meeting.
enter Pops up a menu with options to enter a transaction
in the current meeting: reply adds the new
transaction to the current chain; new transaction.
enters the transaction as a new item. Either option
pops up a dialog box where you enter your subject
and text (for replies, the subject line is filled in
by default; for new transactions, the subject line
is blank). You can use standard Emacs commands to
edit your transaction. When you are done, press the
Send button to enter the transaction into the
meeting. Press Abort to cancel the transaction.
write Writes the current transaction to a file. A dialog
box asks you to enter a filename. Press the Write
button to write the transaction to this file.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
If a button triggers a menu, the menu appears and remains visible. Pressing the first letter of a menu entry has the same effect as choosing that menu entry with the mouse. Any key that does not match a menu entry closes the menu without any action.
When a simple popup dialog box appears, pressing Return takes the default action. You can close a dialog box by pressing Esc. For complex dialog boxes (those with more than one text field), Return moves between the text fields and C-Return makes it do its default action.
You can use the arrow keys to move the text caret up and down in the upper text window. Pressing Return then reads the meeting or transaction that the caret is on.
To read the marked transaction or meeting, press Return.
Finally, the space bar "does the right thing". If you are reading a transaction, the space bar scrolls one page down. If you are at the end of a transaction, it moves to the next transaction; if you are at the end of a meeting, it moves to the next changed meeting. If there are no further transactions to read, it does nothing. The delete (backspace) key moves in a similar way, but backwards.
Because Emacs cannot perform an initial setup of your Discuss files, you need to have run the regular discuss command or the X-based xdsc command at least once before the Emacs version of Discuss will work for you (this is once ever, not once each session). Once you have run Discuss successfully in one of these other ways, you can start Discuss in an existing Emacs window by typing:
M-x discuss(NOTE: Emacs Discuss may not work properly on Sun workstations: beware!) This command creates an Emacs buffer called *meetings* which lists all the meetings to which you subscribe, and checks to see which ones have changed. This listing looks something like this:
Flags Meeting name ----- ------------ New_Meetings, new_meetings, newmtgs c Everybody, eve c Bogus_Thoughts, bogusThe c in the Flags column designates a changed meeting.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Command Action
------------------------------------------------------------------
n or Space move cursor to next meeting with unread transactions
p or Delete move cursor to previous meeting with unread
transactions
down-arrow go to next line
up-arrow go to previous line
l list meetings
g go to meeting listed on line
s print number of new messages in meeting
a add meeting
d delete meeting
c mark a meeting as read (catch up)
q quit Discuss mode
------------------------------------------------------------------
The n, p, Space, and Delete commands do not
actually "go" to the next or previous meeting, rather, they move the cursor to
the next or previous line in the meeting list. You then press g to go
to that meeting and read the transactions.The a command prompts you for the hostname of the desired meeting, then for the pathname (e.g., bloom-picayune, then /usr/spool/discuss/quotes).
The d command marks the meeting on that line for deletion after asking you for confirmation.
The c command marks all the transactions in that meeting as read.
When you press g to go to a meeting, an Emacs buffer named after the name of the meeting is created, and the first unread transaction is displayed. If there are no unread transactions, the last transaction is displayed.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Command Action
--------------------------------------------------------------
Space scroll to next screen of this transaction
Delete scroll to previous screen of this transaction
n move to next transaction
p move to previous transaction
= list unread transactions
M-n move to next transaction in chain
M-p move to previous transaction in chain
> move to last transaction in meeting
< move to first transaction in meeting
g goto transaction
d delete transaction (and move forwards)
C-d delete transaction (and move backwards)
R retrieve transaction (undelete transaction)
q quit meeting
r reply to this transaction
f forward this transaction via mail
t enter a new transaction ("talk")
c catch up, marking the rest of the transactions read
a add meeting (to ~/.meetings file)
--------------------------------------------------------------
The q (quit) command returns you to the *meetings* buffer. If you have
not read all the new transactions in that meeting, you return to the same
meeting in the *meetings* buffer. If you have read all the new transactions,
you return to the next changed meeting line.The g (goto) command asks you for the number of the transaction you want to see.
Both the r (reply) and t (talk) commands start up a *discuss-unprocessed* buffer in which you can compose a message. The r command splits your Emacs window into two buffers so you can see the message to which you are replying as well as the message you are composing. It automatically inserts the subject line as Re: <subject of previous message>. The t command gives you a fresh composition buffer and lets you insert your own subject line. Use regular Emacs editing commands to compose your message. When you are done, both r and t have the same commands to close:
----------------------------------------------------- Command Action ----------------------------------------------------- C-c C-c discuss-send (enter the transaction) C-c C-] discuss-abort-edit (exit without entering) -----------------------------------------------------In transaction mode, the a command only works on new meeting announcements. It does not prompt you for the hostname and pathname, as in meetings mode.
-------------------------------------------------------------- Step Command -------------------------------------------------------------- Start Emacs discuss and check meetings: M-x discuss Go to first meeting line with new transactions: n Go to that meeting: g Read the whole transaction: Space Go to next transaction (repeat until done): n Go back to list of meetings: q Go to next meeting (repeat until done): g --------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Long name, short name Transaction Number * and Description **
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
New_Meetings, new_meetings - Announcements of new meetings
Athena_Meetings, amtgs 45 Announcements of Athena-specific meetings
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Athena_Flames, aflames 34 Flames generally related to Athena
Athena_MSGS, msgs 105 Messages of general interest
Athena Software Suggestions, A51 Archive of software-suggestions@athena list
suggest
Forwarded from the 411 Archive of bboard@lcs.mit.edu mailing list
mit.bboard newsgroup, (like Athena_MSGS but broader audience)
mit.bboard
Bogus_Thoughts, bogus 243 What it sounds like
Bummers, bum 210 What it sounds like
Central_America, ca 163 Nightly update archives of .plan files
Cheery_Thoughts, ping 329 What it sounds like
Cliff_Stoll_Wannabes, cswb 390 Discussion of security and privacy on Athena
Compact_Disc 148 cd's for sale and other cd-related discussion
Depressing_Thoughts,coatrack 166 What it sounds like
Discuss_development, discuss 106 Includes archive of bug-discuss mailing list
Emacs_Hackers, emackers 295 Discussion of complex Emacs hacks
Everybody, eve - Discussions of general interest
Flaming_Thoughts, napalm 236 What it sounds like
Free_Food, munch 325 Announcements and tracking of free food
Freshman_Housing_Committee, 222 Archive of fhc@athena mailing list
fhc
Hillel, hillel 128 Discussions relating to the Jewish community
Institute_Journalism_Review, 220 Discussion of campus publications
ijr
InterFaith_Relationships, 299 What it sounds like
interfaith
Law, law 242 Discussions of law and law-related subjects
Locker Announcements,lockers A54 Announces non-Athena-maintained lockers
Military_Actions, war 289 Discussion of (potential) military actions
Musical_Notes, music 244 Musical humor
Obituaries, obits 315 Obituaries for people of note
pipe_dreams, organ 257 Wouldn't it be nice if....
postscript_hacks, pshack 113 Discussions of postscript ideas, hacks, news
Professors_Quote_Board, pqb 143 Records of sayings of MIT professors
Punsters, puns 131 Fed with horrible/bad/sometimes good puns
quotes, quotes 80 Records of amusing quotes of friends/enemies
Redhead_Maintenance,redheads 112 Discussions of redheads
RISKS Forum, risks 94 Fed with RISKS Forum mailing list
Scary_Thoughts, err 181 What it sounds like
Science Fiction & Fantasy, 256 What it sounds like
sff
Star Trek - The Next 279 Discussion about the TV show and Star
Generation, sttng Trek in general
Stories, stories 52 Archive of stories@athena mailing list
Survival_Discussion, survive 194 Discussion of various survival aspects
Techinfo 230 Discussion of the TechInfo on-line
information system
Test_Meeting, test 179 For testing Discuss
Theology, god 393 What it sounds like
Virus_Discussion_List, virus 182 Archive of VIRUS-L mailing list
Xdsc_Suggestions, xdsc 285 Suggestions and bug reports about xdsc
Zephyr_Comments, zcmts 119 Archive of zephyr-comments@athena mail list
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* Transaction number is number in New_Meetings; a number preceded by "A"
is number in Athena_Meet
** Often the first transaction of a meeting gives more information.
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