Does anyone know the finer points  of "read  unseen?"
From my experience, once you have read an Item, r unseen will not show you
subsequent Responses.  Correct me if I'm wrong.
Also, it w   Also, it would be helpful if it could be modified to "r unseen
Item xx." That way you wouldn't have to read a whole Conference on which you're
only interested in a few out of many Items, such as agora. How do you people
who keep up with so many conferences on a timely basis do it?  Do you use some
kind of programmable shell? Thanks-

15 responses total.

I'm not quite sure what you're asking.  However, if you don't specify
item #s, READ defaults to "new", meaning only items or responses you haven't
read yet.  You can also specify READ 1 3 5 13-15 NEW or something like that,
to read only new responses to those items.  I haven't used READ UNSEEN, so
I'm not sure how that's different - the help text says it gives you old items
you haven't read yet.

BTW, Bill, glad to have you back again!  Can't quite say "it's been quiet
with you gone" or anything like that, but it's good to have you back on.

If you just type "read" (or "r"), what else would you need?

We keep up with so many conferences by spending umpteen percent of
our lives here. 

If I want to follow only a few items in a large, active conference,
I make liberal use of the "forget" command.  If you type   forget
at the "Respond or pass" prompt, Picospan will not show you the item
again, even if there are new responses.  You can override this by
specifying the item number explicitly in the read command -- "read 20"
will show you item 20 even if item 20 is forgotten.

"Forget" also works at the "Ok:" prompt for items you've read at least
once.  So "forget 10" forgets item 10.  You can also specify item
ranges, as in "forget 50-69".

Although Picospan will not let you forget an item that it thinks you've
never read, a way around this is to use the "fix" command.  When "fix"
an item, Picospan marks it as up-to-date, that is, it considers that
you've read every response.  Typing "fix" by itself makes every item in
the conference up-to-date.  You can also specify an item number or
range, as in "fix 10" or "fix 2-13".  So to forget item 150, even if
you've never read it, type "fix 150;forget 150".

Another key to keeping up with an active conference is the "browse"
command, which shows you the titles of items.  "Browse" by itself
shows you every item, or you can give a modifier: "browse brandnew"
displays items you've never seen; "browse newresponse" shows items
you've read but which have new responses; "browse new" does both;
"browse new 1-50" shows items numbered 1-50 that have new responses,
etc.

So when I go into a conference where there are likely to be a lot of
new items that I want to forget, what I usually do is something like:

  Ok: browse brandnew              (displays headers of brandnew items)
  Ok: fix 209-230; forget 209-230  (forgets items 209 to 230, assuming
                                    they were brandnew and their titles
                                    seemed uninteresting.)
  Ok: read                         (shows me new stuff in items I haven't
                                    forgotten)

Re the concept of "unseen":  As I understand it, an item is considered
"unseen" if Picospan thinks you've *never* looked at it.  So #0 is
correct, "read unseen" will not show you new responses in items you've
already read.  I think "read brandnew" does the same thing.

Thanks folks.  The read new & read nn new are  what  I was looking for.
One tip to add: new can be abbreviated by n just as read is by r, so you 
can just type r27n and get everything on Item 27 you haven't seen before.

Opps- I did a fix & forget on all the items I don't want to bother with on
one conference, and I don't even see them on "browse."  Should I want to
thoroughly peruse old items on that conf, can I "unforget?"
or "unforget all?"

I believe "unforget all" will work.

This response has been erased.

Recently, in the debate raging over the election, someone advised someone 
elso to read "only" response 9.  I tried a couple variations of read 28 only 9,
etc. and wasn't able to make it work.  Is there a read only (response), &
what's its format?

Heh..the previous response on my screen, Item 1, #430, answers this
question. Now, if you can just figure out how to get there......

This response has been erased.

Thanks PoCo.  I kinda suspected it might be at Respond or Pass, but not
strongly enough to try it.

More detail about resp #12 - if I jsut want to see a single
response, I type (using the previous example)   read 28 noresp
  
which displays #0 (the beginning-th entry) and none of the
responses, 1-n (or for unix-types, 1-$). You will find yourself
at the Rspond er Ps prompt. Then type  only 9  (although I 
ususally just type   9   nad interrupt after that if i wish).
  

Thanks again, folks.  I woke up at some ungodly hour this morning and 
couldn't get back to sleep, so I ran through the entire Info conf (took c.
1 hr) using r new.  That completes being read-up on almost all the conf's
I watch, and keeping up is a breeze.

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