• Newsgrouper - a web interface to Usenet (text only)

    From Colin Macleod@21:1/5 to All on Thu Feb 15 22:01:55 2024
    I've set up a simple web interface to usenet, at https://cmacleod.me.uk/newsgrouper .
    It's still in a rough state, which I hope to improve over the next few weeks, but I'm
    mentioning it now since it may be of interest to people who have so far been accessing
    usenet via Google Groups. You can read as a guest but you need to register to be able
    to post. Only text-based groups are supported, no binaries. This is a free, hobby
    project, and the service is guaranteed to be worth every penny you paid for it :-)
    --
    Colin Macleod.

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  • From Adam H. Kerman@21:1/5 to Colin Macleod on Fri Feb 16 01:28:22 2024
    Colin Macleod <user7@cmacleod.me.uk.invalid> wrote:

    I've set up a simple web interface to usenet, at https://cmacleod.me.uk/newsgrouper .
    It's still in a rough state, which I hope to improve over the next few weeks, but I'm
    mentioning it now since it may be of interest to people who have so far been accessing
    usenet via Google Groups. You can read as a guest but you need to register to be able
    to post. Only text-based groups are supported, no binaries. This is a free, hobby
    project, and the service is guaranteed to be worth every penny you paid for it :-)

    Can the line length be set to 76 characters by default? Can paragraphs
    be reformatted in followup?

    I'm not spotting any non-ASCII whitespace, so that's good.

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  • From Computer Nerd Kev@21:1/5 to Colin Macleod on Fri Feb 16 11:26:16 2024
    Colin Macleod <user7@cmacleod.me.uk.invalid> wrote:
    I've set up a simple web interface to usenet, at https://cmacleod.me.uk/newsgrouper .

    That link is redirecting to some sort of "noVNC" server control
    panel webpage.

    It's still in a rough state, which I hope to improve over the next few weeks, but I'm
    mentioning it now since it may be of interest to people who have so far been accessing
    usenet via Google Groups. You can read as a guest but you need to register to be able
    to post. Only text-based groups are supported, no binaries. This is a free, hobby
    project, and the service is guaranteed to be worth every penny you paid for it :-)

    Are you planning to have infinite retention, or will articles
    expire from it after a time?

    --
    __ __
    #_ < |\| |< _# | Note: I won't see posts made from Google Groups |

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  • From Colin Macleod@21:1/5 to All on Fri Feb 16 08:12:47 2024
    "Adam H. Kerman" <ahk@chinet.com> posted:

    Can the line length be set to 76 characters by default? Can paragraphs
    be reformatted in followup?

    Sorry, there's no such functionality so far, maybe later.
    --
    Colin Macleod.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Colin Macleod@21:1/5 to All on Fri Feb 16 08:11:02 2024
    kyonshi <gmkeros@gmail.com> posted:

    I tried with the Guest login, but it doesn't seem like it lets me show
    any groups so far.

    Hi, You need to use the Find function at the bottom of the Groups screen
    to search for the groups you want to see. You can search for a pattern
    like comp.lang.* to see that whole hierarchy.
    --
    Colin Macleod.

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  • From Colin Macleod@21:1/5 to All on Fri Feb 16 08:58:57 2024
    Computer Nerd Kev <not@telling.you.invalid> posted:

    Colin Macleod <user7@cmacleod.me.uk.invalid> wrote:
    I've set up a simple web interface to usenet, at https://cmacleod.me.uk/newsgrouper .

    That link is redirecting to some sort of "noVNC" server control
    panel webpage.

    Hi, yes it uses noVNC to display the UI. This requires a browser
    compatible with noVNC, but these days most are. It's not really
    usable on mobile devices yet, I hope to improve this. The architecture
    can be summarised as nntp/Tcl/Redis/Tcl/Tk/Xvnc/Cloudflare/noVNC.


    Are you planning to have infinite retention, or will articles
    expire from it after a time?

    I don't actually store most articles, I just pull them on-demand
    (from eternal-september.org) and cache them locally. So in theory you
    could go back as far as E-S does (8 years I think), but right now I'm
    only pulling the last 500 articles in each group.

    --
    Colin Macleod.

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  • From Adam H. Kerman@21:1/5 to Colin Macleod on Fri Feb 16 13:54:02 2024
    Colin Macleod <user7@cmacleod.me.uk.invalid> wrote:
    "Adam H. Kerman" <ahk@chinet.com> posted:

    Can the line length be set to 76 characters by default? Can paragraphs
    be reformatted in followup?

    Sorry, there's no such functionality so far, maybe later.

    What about MIME headers for the character set declaration? If you aren't
    adding any, then the assumption should be non-ASCII aren't part of the
    body of the article. I don't add MIME headers myself unless I should be
    making the character set declaration.

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  • From Michael =?ISO-8859-1?Q?B=E4uerle?=@21:1/5 to Colin Macleod on Fri Feb 16 16:08:22 2024
    Colin Macleod wrote:

    I've set up a simple web interface to usenet, [...]

    Just a minor detail: Your article contains this header field:
    |
    | User-Agent: Newsgrouper 0.3

    According to RFC 5536 it has the following syntax: <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc5536#section-3.2.13>
    |
    | 3.2.13. User-Agent
    |
    | [...]
    | user-agent = "User-Agent:" SP 1*product [CFWS] CRLF
    | product = [CFWS] token [ [CFWS] "/" product-version ]
    | product-version = [CFWS] token

    A conformant parser should detect "0.3" as second <product>
    (instead of <product-version> for "Newsgrouper").

    You should consider this syntax:
    |
    | User-Agent: Newsgrouper/0.3

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  • From Colin Macleod@21:1/5 to michael.baeuerle@stz-e.de on Fri Feb 16 16:42:04 2024
    Michael Bäuerle <michael.baeuerle@stz-e.de> wrote in news:AABlz3pmxyIAAAad.A3.flnews@WStation5.stz-e.de:

    Colin Macleod wrote:

    I've set up a simple web interface to usenet, [...]

    Just a minor detail: Your article contains this header field:
    |
    | User-Agent: Newsgrouper 0.3

    According to RFC 5536 it has the following syntax: <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc5536#section-3.2.13>
    |
    | 3.2.13. User-Agent
    |
    | [...]
    | user-agent = "User-Agent:" SP 1*product [CFWS] CRLF
    | product = [CFWS] token [ [CFWS] "/" product-version ]
    | product-version = [CFWS] token

    A conformant parser should detect "0.3" as second <product>
    (instead of <product-version> for "Newsgrouper").

    You should consider this syntax:
    |
    | User-Agent: Newsgrouper/0.3


    Ok, thanks for that :-)

    --
    Colin Macleod.

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  • From Computer Nerd Kev@21:1/5 to Colin Macleod on Sat Feb 17 07:44:14 2024
    Colin Macleod <user7@cmacleod.me.uk.invalid> wrote:
    Computer Nerd Kev <not@telling.you.invalid> posted:
    Colin Macleod <user7@cmacleod.me.uk.invalid> wrote:
    I've set up a simple web interface to usenet, at https://cmacleod.me.uk/newsgrouper .

    That link is redirecting to some sort of "noVNC" server control
    panel webpage.

    Hi, yes it uses noVNC to display the UI. This requires a browser
    compatible with noVNC, but these days most are.

    Oh right, yes I was using a browser without Javascript support so
    noVNC was just a mess of unhidden error messages and functionless
    buttons. Probably for the best because I can't spare the internet
    data for running VNC connections (which are impossibly laggy when
    I have tried them via my rural mobile broadband home internet
    anyway).

    It's not really
    usable on mobile devices yet, I hope to improve this. The architecture
    can be summarised as nntp/Tcl/Redis/Tcl/Tk/Xvnc/Cloudflare/noVNC.

    I see, I never considered that it might be implemented that way, I
    was expecting some fairly bare-bones HTML. But I just assume
    anything Usenet-related to be old-fashioned. I'm old-fashioned too,
    so I'll stick to Narkive and the "Rocksolid" web gateways, which I
    mainly use for viewing very old threads. Google Groups too, because
    it can just about still be browsed in web browsers without
    Javascript, but I assume you needed JS to log in and post so it
    might not be a problem for GG refugees.

    Are you planning to have infinite retention, or will articles
    expire from it after a time?

    I don't actually store most articles, I just pull them on-demand
    (from eternal-september.org) and cache them locally. So in theory you
    could go back as far as E-S does (8 years I think), but right now I'm
    only pulling the last 500 articles in each group.

    Ah right. If you do eventually provide the whole 8 years then maybe
    put a limit on the age of posts that can be replied to? One great
    advantage of Google pulling the plug on their gateway is that we
    can be spared the eternal rebirth of decades-old threads by GG
    users who are mysteriously incapable of reading dates.

    --
    __ __
    #_ < |\| |< _# | Note: I won't see posts made from Google Groups |

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  • From Colin Macleod@21:1/5 to All on Thu Apr 18 21:17:19 2024
    not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) posted:

    It's not really
    usable on mobile devices yet, I hope to improve this. The architecture
    can be summarised as nntp/Tcl/Redis/Tcl/Tk/Xvnc/Cloudflare/noVNC.

    I see, I never considered that it might be implemented that way, I
    was expecting some fairly bare-bones HTML.

    I have now reimplemented Newsgrouper in "fairly bare-bones HTML",
    partly because I couldn't get the noVNC-based version to be properly
    usable on mobile devices. There are still many desirable features
    that I have not implemented yet, but hope to get to eventually.
    One aspect that may be of interest is that it supports the full set of newsgroups available on eternal-september.org, not just a pre-selected
    subset as rslight does. It can be found at https://cmacleod.me.uk/ng

    --
    Colin Macleod.

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  • From Computer Nerd Kev@21:1/5 to Colin Macleod on Fri Apr 19 08:55:23 2024
    Colin Macleod <user7@cmacleod.me.uk.invalid> wrote:
    not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) posted:

    It's not really
    usable on mobile devices yet, I hope to improve this. The architecture
    can be summarised as nntp/Tcl/Redis/Tcl/Tk/Xvnc/Cloudflare/noVNC.

    I see, I never considered that it might be implemented that way, I
    was expecting some fairly bare-bones HTML.

    I have now reimplemented Newsgrouper in "fairly bare-bones HTML",
    partly because I couldn't get the noVNC-based version to be properly
    usable on mobile devices. There are still many desirable features
    that I have not implemented yet, but hope to get to eventually.
    One aspect that may be of interest is that it supports the full set of newsgroups available on eternal-september.org, not just a pre-selected
    subset as rslight does. It can be found at https://cmacleod.me.uk/ng

    Nice, it works well now in Firefox. Sorting latest threads on the
    bottom might confuse GG users who would be used to having them on
    the top though. Links and Dillo don't seem to be compatible with
    it, though GG was barely usable with them too. The "formaction"
    parameters in the <input> tags aren't being recognised - why not
    use ordinary links there? - but even manually going to: https://cmacleod.me.uk/news/guest
    And pressing "Continue" doesn't log in for some reason, even though
    cookies are enabled.

    Perhaps an option to render posts in fixed-width font (inside
    <pre></pre>) would be nice for alt.ascii-art etc.

    Anyway great work, it's nice to see more alternatives.

    This is a similar thing that was posted to a newsgroup recently,
    though it has obviously been around for a while:
    http://put.hk/

    It has its own problems, though it sort-of works in lightweight web
    browsers.

    --
    __ __
    #_ < |\| |< _#

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  • From Colin Macleod@21:1/5 to All on Fri Apr 19 05:55:28 2024
    not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) posted:

    Perhaps an option to render posts in fixed-width font (inside
    <pre></pre>) would be nice for alt.ascii-art etc.

    Clicking "View Source" at the bottom of a post will show it in
    a fixed-width font, including all the headers.

    --
    Colin Macleod.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Dave Royal@21:1/5 to Colin Macleod on Fri Apr 19 08:11:14 2024
    Colin Macleod <user7@cmacleod.me.uk.invalid> Wrote in message:
    I have now reimplemented Newsgrouper in "fairly bare-bones HTML",
    partly because I couldn't get the noVNC-based version to be properly
    usable on mobile devices. There are still many desirable features
    that I have not implemented yet, but hope to get to eventually.
    One aspect that may be of interest is that it supports the full set of newsgroups available on eternal-september.org, not just a pre-selected
    subset as rslight does. It can be found at https://cmacleod.me.uk/ng

    I works well here in Firefox on an Android tablet. I was surprised
    to see it used tables! But I could restyle that to fit a small
    display - eg to get time/date on a single line on the thread
    list.

    My main problem with it is that it's difficult to see where you
    are in a long thread. I think it needs a 'thread view' page
    similar to the one in this newsreader >https://www.cjoint.com/data/NDtglDXVqTA_Screenshot-20240419-070858-NewsGroup.jpg>
    That's an app not a webpage but it could be a webpage, from which
    you could open individual posts or (as in this app) a subthread
    of unread posts.

    Another way would be to open the thread with the read posts
    'rolled up'. ISTR GG did that. Are you avoiding javascript?


    One problem with showing the subthreads as vertical lines, as you
    have, is that when there are many levels it takes up too much
    space on a small screen. You could cram them together more and
    colour them to make them easier to follow when scrolling, or have
    alternate thick/thin/dotted lines or something.

    When I built my own Android newsreader I tried vertical lines
    first but abandoned that in favour of numbering the levels so
    that each indent was only one character and each subject was
    preceded by a level number. To find a reply to a post which is
    off the bottom of the screen I scrolled down until to find the
    same level number, rather than trying to follow the vertical
    lines. I thought it worked well: email me (see sig) if you want a
    screenshot and I'll find one.
    --
    Remove numerics from my email address.

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  • From Colin Macleod@21:1/5 to All on Fri Apr 19 08:32:10 2024
    Dave Royal <dave@dave123royal.com> posted:

    Another way would be to open the thread with the read posts
    'rolled up'. ISTR GG did that. Are you avoiding javascript?

    Thanks for the feedback, that's a few things for me to think about.
    Yes, I have avoided javascript so far.

    --
    Colin Macleod.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Dave Royal@21:1/5 to Colin Macleod on Fri Apr 19 14:10:03 2024
    On Fri, 19 Apr 2024 08:32:10 +0000, Colin Macleod wrote:

    Dave Royal <dave@dave123royal.com> posted:

    Another way would be to open the thread with the read posts
    'rolled up'. ISTR GG did that. Are you avoiding javascript?

    Thanks for the feedback, that's a few things for me to think about.
    Yes, I have avoided javascript so far.

    The other feature which would require a bit of javascript is rolling-up
    quoted text, with a button to reveal it. That would enormously reduce
    scrolling and make responses more visible.

    Using tables and 100% of the display width is easy, but on really small screens, tends to have unreadably-small fonts. On Android I usually
    restyle such sites to make the important stuff - eg the post text -
    viewable with a minimum of zooming at the expense of, say, date/times and
    email addresses.

    You could produce stylesheets yourself for small screens, or invite people
    to contribute them. Either way may I suggest you liberally add IDs and
    classes to your fields?

    There is a site - https://mudcat.org - which was written in 1998 using
    tables and lacks any CSS. As a result my sylesheets have lines like this:

    body > table:nth-child(2) > tbody > tr > td:nth-child(1) > table {font- size...

    So much easier if that was <td class="thread-subject"> or whatever.

    Anyway, a promising start. Usable on Firefox on a 4½ iPhone - which,
    unlike on Android, I cannot restyle.
    --
    (Remove any numerics from my email address.)

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Retro Guy@21:1/5 to Colin Macleod on Fri Apr 19 15:33:47 2024
    Colin Macleod wrote:

    not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) posted:

    It's not really
    usable on mobile devices yet, I hope to improve this. The architecture
    can be summarised as nntp/Tcl/Redis/Tcl/Tk/Xvnc/Cloudflare/noVNC.

    I see, I never considered that it might be implemented that way, I
    was expecting some fairly bare-bones HTML.

    I have now reimplemented Newsgrouper in "fairly bare-bones HTML",
    partly because I couldn't get the noVNC-based version to be properly
    usable on mobile devices. There are still many desirable features
    that I have not implemented yet, but hope to get to eventually.

    It's looking nice! Glad to see you avoiding javascript when possible.

    One aspect that may be of interest is that it supports the full set of newsgroups available on eternal-september.org, not just a pre-selected
    subset as rslight does. It can be found at https://cmacleod.me.uk/ng

    It's good to note that there is a difference in intent between rslight and newsreaders (whether web based or not). RSLight is meant to act like a forum, and seems to work well for users not really familiar with the structure of Usenet. Newsgrouper is
    good to give the Usenet "feel" to the site for those familiar with the structure.

    Just my opinion. I think there is room for both styles, and I'm glad to see your project coming together :)

    --
    Retro Guy

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  • From rek2 hispagatos@21:1/5 to All on Mon Apr 22 18:41:23 2024

    Anyway, a promising start. Usable on Firefox on a 4½ iPhone - which,
    unlike on Android, I cannot restyle.

    Nice!, btw where are you grabing newsgroups from? I notice
    is missing the ones we carry hispagatos.* and alt.2600.madrid
    even do most people I peer with if not all do carry them

    Thanks!
    Happy Hacking
    ReK2
    --
    - {gemini,https}://{,rek2.}hispagatos.org - mastodon: @rek2@hispagatos.space
    - [https|gemini]://2600.Madrid - https://hispagatos.space/@rek2
    - https://keyoxide.org/A31C7CE19D9C58084EA42BA26C0B0D11E9303EC5

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  • From Michael Uplawski@21:1/5 to All on Mon Apr 22 22:59:26 2024
    Colin Macleod hat geschrieben:

    I have now reimplemented Newsgrouper in "fairly bare-bones HTML",

    This is the feature I like best.

    And the only addition that I would qualify as an improvement, right now, is MIME support. For those of us who need strange letters in their content.
    This can be a challenge as big as you want it to be, but examples exist. Browsers do awesome things nowadays. ;)

    Cheerio.
    --
    F*k AI!

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  • From Colin Macleod@21:1/5 to All on Mon Apr 22 20:47:55 2024
    rek2 hispagatos <rek2@hispagatos.org.invalid> posted:

    Nice!, btw where are you grabing newsgroups from? I notice
    is missing the ones we carry hispagatos.* and alt.2600.madrid
    even do most people I peer with if not all do carry them

    Thanks. I'm pulling headers and articles on-demand from
    eternal-september.org and then caching them on my server.
    So the groups available are those carried by E-S.

    --
    Colin Macleod.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From rek2 hispagatos@21:1/5 to Colin Macleod on Tue Apr 23 00:31:16 2024
    On 2024-04-22, Colin Macleod <user7@cmacleod.me.uk.invalid> wrote:
    rek2 hispagatos <rek2@hispagatos.org.invalid> posted:

    Nice!, btw where are you grabing newsgroups from? I notice
    is missing the ones we carry hispagatos.* and alt.2600.madrid
    even do most people I peer with if not all do carry them

    Thanks. I'm pulling headers and articles on-demand from eternal-september.org and then caching them on my server.
    So the groups available are those carried by E-S.

    cool, yeah I am almost sure E-T do carry them, also peering with them.

    Happy Hacking
    ReK2

    --
    - {gemini,https}://{,rek2.}hispagatos.org - mastodon: @rek2@hispagatos.space
    - [https|gemini]://2600.Madrid - https://hispagatos.space/@rek2
    - https://keyoxide.org/A31C7CE19D9C58084EA42BA26C0B0D11E9303EC5

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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