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Aucbvax.5075 fa.unix-wizards utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!unix-wizards Tue Nov 10 04:49:28 1981

>From decvax!yale-comix!hawley@Berkeley Tue Nov 10 04:13:04 1981 Subject: speedier news perusal

The volume of news distributed is increasing, and is already a problem for some.

This letter is directed to a common complaint: "it takes too long for joe hacker to sift through the huge pile of news".

Need for screen-oriented "news": One part of the problem is that the "news" program (and "mail", for that matter) is basically "article-at-a-time", forcing the reader to drudge through the list of items in a linear order. It's pretty easy to improve on this; simply write a screen-oriented version of "news": the user views a set of one-line titles/headlines (pref. sorted by time and topic/newsgroup) and picks out articles worth reading, not unlike reading a paper. If screen editors on Unix were more "directory based", this problem would, in large measure, already be solved. The job of news viewing could be done from within the editor.

Improving selection of news items: Another harder part of the problem is in the criterion used to select items for perusal -- the "subscription" list. The user may want a more precise way of narrowing down the huge list of stories, something more key-based, a la: "show me all the news articles which contain these phrases: phrase1, phrase2...". This is just a big "grep" problem; however, it requires >very <HR> This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided: <P> 1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles. <BR> 2. The following notice remains appended to each copy: <P> <EM>The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright&copy 1981, 1996 <BR> Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.</EM> <P> <HR> Goto <A HREF="81.11.10_ucbvax.5076_fa.unix-wizards.html">NEXT</A> article in FA.unix-wizards Newsgroup <BR>Return to <A HREF="FA.unix-wizards-index.html">FA.unix-wizards index</A> <BR>Return to the <A HREF="../index.html">Usenet Oldnews Archive index</A> </HTML>

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This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided:

1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles.

2. The following notice remains appended to each copy:

The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.