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Notesfile Reference Manual
2.7.3 Searching for Authors.
The ‘‘a’’ command searches backwards for notes or responses written by a specific author. Notesfiles
prompts for the author’s name. The ‘‘A’’ command continues the search backwards. The author name may be preceded by an optional ‘system!’. Abort the search by hitting the RUBOUT (or DELETE) key.
The entire name need not be specified when searching for articles by a particular author. Author searching
uses substring searching. Searching for the author ‘‘john’’ will yield articles written by a local user ‘‘john’’, a
remote user ‘‘somewhere!johnston’’, and any articles from the ‘‘uiucjohnny’’ machine. Author searching is case
sensitive.
2.7.4 Stacking Notesfiles.
Sometimes it is useful to be able to glance at another notesfile while reading notes. Using ‘‘n’’, the user
can save (stack) his current place and peruse another notesfile.
When on the index page or while reading notes/responses, type ‘‘n’’ (‘‘nest’’) to read another notesfile.
Notesfiles prompts for the notesfile to read. If the notesfile exists, the place is marked in the old notesfile and the
new one’s index is displayed.
Type any of the standard keys to leave the nested notesfile. Both ‘‘q’’ and ‘‘Q’’ leave the nested notesfile
and return to the previously stacked notesfile. Control-d (‘‘signoff’’) causes the notesfile program to exit regardless
of the depth of nesting.
Sequencing is turned off in the new notesfile regardless of its state in the old notesfile. The depth of the
stack of notesfiles is limited only by the amount of memory available to the user.
2.7.5 Accessing Archives.
As notesfiles grow, it becomes impractical to keep every discussion. In some cases, the old discussions are
deleted; other cases require these old discussions to be saved somewhere. Each active notesfile can have an archive
notesfile. An archive notesfile contains the old discussions from the active notesfile.
The archive of an active notesfile is accessed by explicitly naming the
(/usr/spool/oldnotes/micronotes for example) or through the ‘‘N’’ command from the active notesfile.
notesfile
2.7.6 Policy Note.
A notesfile director can write an optional policy note to describe the purpose of a notesfile. Read the policy
note by typing ‘‘p’’ (‘‘policy’’) from the index page.
2.8 The Sequencer.
Most users prefer to scan notesfiles and see only those notes written since their last reading. The notesfile
‘‘sequencer’’ provides this capability. It is activated by the ‘‘-s’’ option (‘‘sequencer’’) on the command line.
When the sequencer is activated, the notesfile system automatically remembers the last time the user read notes in
each notesfile. Subsequent entries to the notesfile can use the ‘‘last time’’ information to show only new notes and
responses. If there is nothing new in a notesfile, the sequencer proceeds to the next notesfile specified in the command line.
The normal sequencer does not give the user a chance to read the notesfile if there are no new notes or
responses; sometimes it is desirable to be able to do so. Use the ‘‘-x’’ option to enable the sequencer and enter the
notesfile even if there are no new notes.