On Sat, 9 Sep 2023 22:33:45 +0100, Sn!pe wrote:
candycanearter07 <no@thanks.net> wrote:
<snips>
I'm on Linux, but thanks. I'll check out slrn.
Pan is often the GUI choice for Linux users.
As windows user that has used XNews, slrn, Gravity (by GRC), and Pan for Windows, I'll add that all of these clients are excellent, but each has
their own weaknesses. I was affected by the bugs for Pan for Windows that result in the various panes being turned black and becoming unusable.
XNews would be my perfect newsreader, but it's so dated now, and can't
handle more modern usages well, such as double-byte character sets
(unicode, utf8). Also, no modern tls. (yes, I'm aware of stunnel
approaches, but I'm also lazy)
slrn I think of more as an "online" reader. It's ability to hold onto downloaded bodies and show them intelligently in a "show full threads with
new messages" sort of way is... doable but awkward. I acutally kind of
like that it's a console-only client, but for my normal usage it's just slightly clunky. It's also 'almost' perfect, and I still use it regularly
when I get bored and read usenet over ssh from work (or other places I
probably shouldn't). Also no modern tls.
Gravity by GRC has been updated *just enough* to be viable, but it departs
from the truly excellent scorefile approach shared by xnews/slrn/pan. It's perfectly usable, but its overall philosophy is really "one reader, one
news server". It lacks the same *easy* mutlti-server/identity flexibility
of the other clients.
Each of these clients have their own "approach". I like all of them, and
have used each extensively.
Ultimately, recently, I have landed on Pan for Linux, but using WSL2
(windows subsystem for Linux) under Windows 11, which lets me use Pan for
linux on a windows machine. It does not suffer from the same bugs that the
2019 build of Pan for Windows does. And I am happiest with this, for now!
Pan is an excellent gui, supports modern TLS, handles multi-identity, multi-server, and handles unicode just fine. It also tries to add a GUI in front of the score file, but I prefer to edit that manually, and it
supports it fantastically. I'd move to Pan for Windows again if an updated build fixed the bugs for me, to avoid the cost of virtualization, but
honestly WSL2 is good enough that I'm ok with the tradeoffs for now
(haven't yet figured out how to make links clickable... gnome link
handlers aren't integerated with my windows browser, but I don't care that much, the clipboard is seamless so I can just copy/paste).
I wish more effort was put into maintaining modern windows *text based* newsreaders these days. I'm not a binaries fellow. But for now this is
working for me.
Lafe
ps - sorry, what was meant to be a quick follow up turned into a minor
essay.
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