trn, version 5.0
Copyright (c) 2023-2025, Richard Thomson
Based on trn, version 4.0-test77
Copyright (c) 1995, Wayne Davison
Based on rn, Version 4.4
Copyright (c) 1985, Larry Wall
Copyright (c) 1991, Stan Barber
You may copy trn in whole or in part as long as you don't try to make money off it, or pretend that you wrote it.
See the file INSTALL for installation instructions. Failure to do so
may void your warranty. :-)
This is a version of trn-4.0-test77 with patches by acli to display UTF-8 reasonably correctly. However, the original “character set” conversions are currently disabled. Bugs that have nothing to do with UTF-8 support are also being worked on. (As acli says, "yes, I’ve tried tin and nn, and no, tin is not easier and nn is not better").
Posting is half-working, with Content-Transfer-Encoding declared as 8bit. A more proper fix is the next step.
Further along, the original conversions need to be put back in, but in a way that wouldn’t corrupt UTF-8.
Use the github project page to file
bug reports. Use the version command from the newsgroup selection level of trn to be
reminded of this URL and see some configuration information to
send along with your bug report.
Trn is threaded rn -- a newsreader that uses an article's references to order the discussions in a very natural, reply-ordered sequence called threads. Having the replies associated with their parent articles not only makes following the discussion easier, but also makes it easy to back- track and (re-)read a specific discussion from the beginning. Trn also has a visual representation of the current thread in the upper right corner of the header, which will give you a feel for how the discussion is going and how the current article is related to the last one you read.
In addition, a thread selector makes it easy to browse through a large
group looking for interesting articles. You can even browse through the
articles you've already read and select the one(s) you wish to read again.
Other nice features include the extract commands for the source and binary
groups, thread-oriented kill directives, a better newgroup finding strategy,
and lots more. See the change log for a list of the things that are new to
trn from previous versions (either view the file changelog
or type h (help) from inside trn and select the "What's New?" entry).
To make trn work faster it uses an auxiliary news database with overview files, which are maintained by INN. Trn supports local news groups and news accessed remotely via NNTP. If you opt for remote access you will probably want to make the adjunct database available too. You can do this in a variety of way, but I recommend that you send the database from the server to the client via NNTP.
This version supports the XOVER command (to send overview files), the XTHREAD command (to send thread files), and the XINDEX command (though trn doesn't support using it). The alternative is to either mount the disk containing your database via NFS, or build it locally. See the mthreads package for details on how to do this.
Note that trn is based on rn, and so it does a great job of pretending to be rn for those people that simply don't like to change their newsreading habits. It is possible to install trn as both rn and trn linked together and have it act as both newsreaders, thus saving you the hassle of maint- aining two separate newsreaders. A Configuration option allows you to decide if you want trn to check its name on startup.
Trn uses CMake to generate build scripts, CTest to run tests and vcpkg to obtain dependencies.
After cloning the repository from github, initialize and update submodules to get vcpkg:
git clone https://github.com/LegalizeAdulthood/trn.git
cd trn
git submodule init
git submodule update --depth 1
CMake presets
are provided to simplify the process of running CMake and CTest. CMake presets are
defined according to a JSON schema.
Presets can be used to define configure, build, test and packaging steps. A workflow
preset can group configure, build, test and packaging steps together.
You can create your own presets to configure trn options in the file CMakeUserPresets.json.
Trn is distributed with a default preset for configure, build, test and workflow in
the file CMakePresets.json.
Configure CMake to generate build scripts:
cmake --preset default
When trn is configured, vcpkg will download dependency source packages into the vcpkg directory. Dependency source packages and build outputs are cached in the vcpkg directory, so even if you remove your entire build tree, vcpkg will still have the results.
Note: the default preset creates the build directory as a peer to the source directory,
so look in the parent directory of your source directory for the generated build scripts,
such as IDE projects for Visual Studio.
Build the code using CMake:
cmake --build --preset default
Run the tests using CMake:
ctest --preset default
CMake presets can provide a workflow that will execute the configure, build and tests steps with a single command:
cmake --workflow --preset default
Trn welcomes contributions and doesn't impose any restrictions or burdens on contributors!
Please submit contributions as git pull requests on the github project page.
The author uses Visual Studio 2022 Community Edition with ReSharper for C++ as his primary development environment.
Building and testing are automated with github actions.
Trn as initially written didn't have any automated tests. As changes are made, best efforts are taken to add new automated tests for bugs found and fixed and features added.
Please try to add new tests for any bugs fixed or features added. The legacy code that is trn 4 doesn't necessarily make such things easy, but consult the existing body of tests for ideas on how you can add tests for your changes.