news - System news bulletins
news [ options ] [ -t item ] [ items… ]
News displays and manages system news bulletins (not to be confused with USENET news). These bulletins are created by the system administrator reporting important news about the system.
Without arguments, news displays any items that are new since the user’s last session. New items are considered new for the entire session. In other words, each time news is invoked, the same new items are shown until the user logs out.
An interactive mode (-i option) allows users and the administrator to browse all news items. The administrator can also create, delete, and edit items interactively.
News recognizes a number of command line options discussed below. News item arguments given in the command line can be the item’s index number, its corresponding file name, or the subject that references the item. (When referencing an item by subject, enclose it within quotes if it contains spaces).
All items. Causes news to consider all items new (unseen).
Disable cancel keys. During the display of news items in non-interactive mode, cancel keys have no effect. This also forces a —More— prompt at the end of each item causing the user to acknowledge it before continuing.
Interactive mode. Various commands can be entered interactively. Type ? for a list of commands.
News item list. This lists all items, showing their index numbers, file names, dates, and subjects.
Reports only a count of the number of news items that exist.
Touches (updates) a news item, making it the newest item. This is useful for resurrecting an old item and making it new news.
While in interactive mode, only the super user can delete, edit, or add news items.
Editing a news item does not make it new.
News should be invoked whenever a user signs on. This is not done automatically by the login program, as in older versions of ProLine. See csh(C) for details on the cshrc script where an entry for news -c makes good sense.