The meetings you currently attend are listed in your .meetings file. To list the meetings in this file enter the ``list_meetings'' command:
discuss: list_meetings Flags Meeting ----- ------- c New_Meetings, new_meetings c Everybody, eve discuss:
The ``c'' flag means that the meeting has changed so that it contains
new unread transactions. To attend the New_Meetings meeting,
simply ``goto'' it. You may use any of the names listed to attend a
meeting.
Note the underscore character in the name
new_meetings. You should see something like this:
discuss: goto new_meetings New_Meetings meeting; 433 new, 433 last. discuss:
Apparently over 400 transactions have been entered in this meeting, none of which have you read yet. The transactions in New_Meetings can be used to add the meetings you wish to ``attend'' to your personal list of meetings. Perhaps the best way to find meetings that interest you is to read through all of the transactions in New_Meetings. We start by listing the first hundred transactions:
discuss: list first,first+100 [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 [0052] (8) 04/12/87 02:35 rfrench Stories meeting [0060] (13) 04/22/87 12:29 tony laser-lovers meeting [0070] (11) 05/01/87 17:06 geer x-conversion-meeting meeting [0071] (9) 05/14/87 17:11 tony MDQS_development meeting [0073] (6) 05/17/87 03:05 rfrench GNU_C meeting [0076] (6) 05/17/87 03:07 rfrench Printers meeting [0080] (9) 05/20/87 21:20 tytso Quotes_Misquotes_and_Out_of_Con... [0081] (9) 05/21/87 02:02 rfrench Bug_GNU_Emacs meeting [0093] (11) 06/05/87 13:35 ambar MIT_Clearing_House meeting [0094] (35) 06/07/87 00:21 tytso RISKS Forum meeting [0101] (8) 06/29/87 16:20 wesommer SMS meeting discuss:
The different columns in the listing show the number of each specified ``transaction'' in the meeting (with a ``*'' next to the ``current'' one), the length in lines, the date and time of entry of the transaction, the user who entered the transaction, and the title given to it. Note that some numbers are unused in the sequence; these transactions have been deleted, probably by the user who put them there. They are therefore invisible to you, unless retrieved by the writers of the transactions at a later time.
Transactions are selected by strings called ``transaction specifiers''. Usually a transaction specifier is just a transaction number, but it can also be a range or a keyword. We could have entered ``list 1:101'' to get the preceding list. To specify the first ten messages you can type ``1,10'' or ``1:10''. Keywords (``current'', ``all'', ``last'', ``first'', ``next'', ``prev'', etc.) can be used to refer to individual transactions or a range of transactions. Expressions (``last-10'', ``current+2'') allow transaction specifiers to be combined, and also demonstrate that discuss can do simple arithmetic. Other transaction specifiers have to do with chaining (``lref'', ``fref'', ``pref'', ``nref'', etc.), which is discussed below. And still others can make using DISCUSS a lot easier, like ``new'', which are the transactions at the end of a meeting that you have not seen. The discuss command interface milks transaction specifiers for all it can get, and you should too. For more information type ``help spec'' in discuss.
As mentioned above, looking through all of New_Meetings is
one of the best ways to find those meetings which interest you. To learn
more about a meeting listed in New_Meetings, ``print'' the
corresponding transaction. (This transaction is usually the same as the
first transaction in the announced meeting). For instance, if
Quotes_Misquotes_and_Out_of_Con... has you wondering, you
would do the following:
discuss: print 80 [0080] tytso@ATHENA.MIT.EDU New_Meetings 05/20/87 21:20 (9 lines) Subject: Quotes_Misquotes_and_Out_of_Context_Quotes meeting Meeting Name: Quotes_Misquotes_and_Out_of_Context_Quotes Host: BLOOM-BEACON.MIT.EDU Pathname: /usr/spool/discuss/quotes Participation: Public This is the reincarnation of the "quotes" discuss meeting, moved to Bloom-Beacon, that creater of fine quality news and other sundry information. Please put quotes in here and leave .plan files forOTHER slanders and libels......
-[0080]-
^ L
discuss:
The ``host'' and ``pathname'' fields are for the ``add_meeting'' routine to use to tell DISCUSS where to find the meeting. The ``participation'' field has no effect on the access control; it simply states whether the announcer considers the meeting to be public or private in nature.
The ^ L at the end of the transaction marks the end of the message. If you are reading a range of transactions, the ^ L signals the ``print'' command (which uses more by default) to stop and wait for you to press the space bar before going on to the next transaction. If a transaction takes up more space than can fit on a single screen, ``print'' will put up the first screen and wait for you to press the spacebar before going on to the next screen.
If you want to read the transactions in quotes, you need to add the meeting to your personal list of meetings with the command ``add_meeting'':
discuss: add_meeting Transaction [0080] Meeting quotes (quotes) added. discuss:
With no arguments, ``add_meeting'' looks at the current transaction for a meeting announcement, and adds that meeting to your private list of meetings. If you had not printed the meeting announcement first, then you would receive an error since ``add_meeting'' would not know what meeting you wanted to attend.
In addition to adding a meeting after printing a meeting announcement in New_Meetings, the ``add_meeting'' command can take two types of arguments to allow for more ways of adding meetings. Entering ``add_meeting 80'' would also cause quotes to be added by causing the command to check transaction 80. Another way this meeting can be added is by specifying the full host and pathname fields with ``add_meeting bloom-beacon.mit.edu:/usr/spool/discuss/quotes''; note the colon separating the host and pathname. This last method is useful if you do not know where the meeting is announced.
Now ``list_meetings'' (or ``lsm'' for short) will show your new addition:
discuss: lsm Flags Meeting ----- ------- c New_meetings, new_meetings c Everybody, eve c quotes, quotes discuss: