  PLOR
  Davide Barbieri paci@prosa.it,
  version 0.3.3 ALPHA, 25 August 1998

  THIS IS FREE SOFTWARE. NO WARRANTY IS MADE FOR THIS SOFTWARE !!!ATTEN-
  TION!!!  PLOR IS AT A VERY ALPHA STAGE. THIS RELEASE IS INTENDED TO BE
  USED BY ALPHA TESTER, IN ORDER TO FIND BUGS AND SUGGESTS IMPROVEMENTS

  1.  What is PLOR?



  1.1.  What PLOR stand for?


  PLOR means Prosa Linux Offline Reader


  1.2.  What it does?


  As the name implies it is a news & mail off-line reader; in particular
  it reads qwk or soup packet generate by uqwk program (or some other
  similar packet programs).


  Now it is capable to read only soup packet with bugged reply
  capabilities.


  1.3.  Where I can find PLOR?


  The last version of PLOR can be found on:

  ftp://ftp.pluto.linux.it/pub/pluto/devel

  with name likes plor-???.tgz, where ??? stands for version number.

  There should be a (possibly updated) version also, on sunsite:

  ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/system/bbs/mail


  1.4.  How to compile plor and install

  unpack plor.tgz wherever you want:



       gzip -d plor.tgz
       tar -xvf plor.tar




  now you can remove plor.tar;


  1. `cd' to the directory containing the package's source code and type
     `./configure' to configure the package for your system.  If you're
     using `csh' on an old version of System V, you might need to type
     `sh ./configure' instead to prevent `csh' from trying to execute
     `configure' itself.

     Running `configure' takes awhile.  While running, it prints some
     messages telling which features it is checking for.

  2. Type `make' to compile the package.

  3. Type `make install' to install the programs and any data files and
     documentation.



  There should be no problem in compiling plor; if there are any email
  us, please!

  PLOR was compiled with -ansi -pedantic options of gcc; this should
  make PLOR some-what portable on other UNIX-like systems.


  1.5.  How to use plor


  Take your soup (or qwk) packet and uncompress it in the plor
  directory; simply call 'plor' and follow the online instructions.

  There won't be difficulties to use plor; if there are some, please let
  us know what kind of difficulties you found using plor.

  Plor support some options:


  o  -h shows a little help screen

  o  -p this option is called ``plain output''; it makes plor to
     produced a plain output, without formatting it, or without adding
     anything else than the message; the message could then be formatted
     with a pager like less; this could be useful for someone who decide
     to make a front-end for plor

  o  -c n select conference number n

  o  -m n select message number n

  o  -s select soup mode

  o  -q select qwk mode (not yet implemented)

  So if you want to see only the first message of the first conference
  in soup mode, and you want to have a plain output, because you like to
  have it formatted by less, use:



       plor -p -s -c 1 -m 1 | less





  1.6.  FreeBSD


  Yes. Even if PLOR is a Linux Offline Reader, it seems to run also on
  FreeBSD. Thanks to Tim Vanderhoek <\tthoek@freenet.hamilton.on.ca\ for
  the port.  Refer to him for any FreeBSD related problem with PLOR.




  2.  General Information



  2.1.  History


  Me and a friend of mine (zeno), were poor students of University of
  Padua (Italy). We love linux.

  PLOR, for us, were an experimental program, which could help us in
  learning C language; if it will work as an offline reader...  well,
  much better :-)

  Now PLOR, is developed by me, with help of other guys at ProSA srl, a
  company devoted to developing open-source software.


  2.2.  Why use plor


  Some of you could ask why plor exists.

  Well, let me stress that plor is an OFFLINE News & Mail READER.  This
  is useful for people using modem, or people which can use the computer
  only at home, where there is a Linux Box without an internet
  connection.

  There are a lot of programs for people who want to read mail and news
  offline, but none of this has all the features that I want. These are:


  o  the ability to use my real mailbox and my real .newsrc, so I can
     read news & mail both when I am at university (with a full internet
     connection), and when I am at home offline, without loosing track
     of what I have already read

  o  the ability to be used with a TCP/IP connection (PPP, SLIP, etc.)
     or with a terminal one (sz and rz are always 10% faster than a PPP
     connection)

  o  the ability to be run on my provider server, so when I connect I
     have only to download my `gzip -9' news & mail packet.

  Those abilities are achieved with uqwk and a uqwk reader.  uqwk
  already exists for Linux, but there's no good uqwk reader (I hate
  atp!). So I write plor.


  2.3.  Offline reading with PLOR - miniHOWTO


  I use:



       uqwk +m +n -r +L




  to download news & mail on my provider server (or on a machine at
  university); then I pack all the *.MSG file in a newsmail.zip file
  with `gzip -9'


  These file can be put on a floppy disk, if I am in console at
  university, or can be downloaded via my PPP connection, or also using
  minicom. This is versatile.

  When I have newsmail.zip at home, I simply unzip it, and use plor to
  read and post.

  When plor exits, it will create a REPLY.zip file, which I uploaded
  next time I connect (or go to university), and post my new mail
  messages and news posts with uqwk.

  For more information: man uqwk.


  2.4.  Authors

  Davide Barbieri paci@prosa.it



       via Aldo Moro 36,
       Campagnola di Brugine
       35020 Padova Italy





  Prosa Progettazione Sviluppo Aperto srl prosa@prosa.it



       via Degli Zabarella 3,
       Padova, 35121 Italy.
       Tel: 049660519
       Fax: 0498780504





  2.5.  Copyright

  Plor is FREE SOFTWARE.


  This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
  it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
  the Free Software Foundation; either version 1, or (at your option)
  any later version.

  This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
  WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
  MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
  General Public License for more details.

  You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
  along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
  Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.







