* Pan - A GNOME Newsreader

This is Pan, a powerful and user-friendly Usenet newsreader for GTK.
The latest information and versions of Pan can always be found at
[[https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/pan][Pan website]].

** THE SALES PITCH

Pan is good for Reading News.

- Pan is the only Unix newsreader to score 100% on the Good
  Net-Keeping Seal of Approval newsreader evaluations.
- Pan has keyboard bindings for mouse-free newsreading.
- Basic newsreader features, such as reading and writing news,
  threading articles, and replying via email, are supported.
- Articles can be sorted by author, date, subject, or the number of
  unread children in the thread.
- Multiple connections are supported, so articles can be read while
  binaries are downloading.
- Articles can be filtered by regular expression matching, read/unread
  state, binary/text, etc.
- Works well as an offline reader.
- Articles can be queued until you want to go online, and can be
  re-edited at any point before they're posted.
- A flexible rules system allows you to delete, hide, download, or
  notify you of, etc. articles that match a subject, or are posted by
  a particular user, and so on.
- The same system can be used to define automatic actions on behalf of
  the user: auto-download, auto-cache, auto-delete etc.
- Groups can be filtered by regular expression matching
  subscribed/new/all, etc.

Pan is good at Binaries.

- Attached images can be shown inline.
- Pan can download and thread articles as quickly as bandwidth allows.
- uuencode, MIME, and yEnc attachments are all supported.
- A task manager lets you reorder, cancel, and resubmit download tasks.
- Multiple connections are supported, so many binaries can
  be downloaded simultaneously.
- Multipart articles are automatically grouped together.
- Non-binary, incomplete multipart, and saved messages can be filtered
  out of the article list.
- Files can be attached to a Usenet article and are
  automatically encrypted with yEnc, threaded and referenced by Pan.
- Articles can be encrypted or signed with a public or private PGP key
  for enhanced privacy and security.
- Connections can be encrypted with the TLS protocol.

** Release Notes

- You are advised to back up your $PAN_HOME directory (by default,
  =$HOME/.pan2=) before upgrading Pan.
- If you have previously been using a localhost server with stunnel and
  you now want to connect directly to a news server using the actual
  server address, do not create a new configuration entry for the
  server. Pan treats a new entry as a new server and does not preserve
  existing data on your subscribed groups, even though you are
  connecting to the very same server as before. Always edit the existing
  server configuration to preserve your subscriptions.
- Directories to search for SSL certificates can be defined with
  environment variables 'SSL_CERT_DIR' or 'SSL_DIR'.
- To use password storage provided by GNOME Keyring or libsecret, build
  Pan with support for that feature, and then enable it in Edit ->
  Preferences -> Miscellaneous -> 'Save passwords in password storage'.

** Requirements

Pan requires these libraries:

- [[http://developer.gnome.org/glib/][GLib]] 2.17.6 or higher
  (optionally GLib 2.26.0 or higher to support multiple Pan instances)
- [[http://www.gtk.org/][GTK]] 3.0.0 or higher
- [[http://spruce.sourceforge.net/gmime/][GMime]] 3.0.0 or higher (optionally with PGP cryptography support)

The following libraries add extra features but are optional:

- [[http://gtkspell.sourceforge.net][GtkSpell 3]] 2.0.16 or higher for spellchecker support
- [[http://www.abisource.com/projects/enchant/][Enchant]] 2.2.3 or higher for spellchecker support
- [[http://www.galago-project.org/news/index.php][libnotify]] 0.4.1 or higher for notifications
- [[https://developer.gnome.org/libsecret/][libsecret]] 0.16 or higher and [[https://developer.gnome.org/gcr/][gcr]] 3.20 or higher for password storage
- [[http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/dbus][D-Bus]] to support running multiple Pan instances
- [[http://www.gnu.org/software/gnutls/][GnuTLS]] 3.0.0 or higher for encrypted connections (TLS 1.x)
- [[https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Yelp/Tools][Yelp Tools]] for built-in user manual
  
The following libraries are experimental and not suitable for any use
other than testing. Use at your own risk:

- [[https://webkitgtk.org/][WebKitGTK]] 1.8.1 or higher for embedded HTML

Run the following command to get a list of all options that you can
enable or disable at configure (or autogen) time:

#+begin_src shell
  ./configure --help
#+end_src

* Installation

** With cmake

*** Standard build

Run the following command to setup Pan build with the default options:

#+BEGIN_SRC shell :results verbatim
  mkdir -p std-build
  cmake -B std-build
#+END_SRC

To setup options, you can run:
#+BEGIN_SRC shell :results verbatim
  cmake-gui -B std-build
#+END_SRC

Then build pan:
#+BEGIN_SRC shell :results verbatim
 cmake --build std-build -j 8
#+END_SRC

Optionally, run tests (even if they are few of them):
#+BEGIN_SRC shell :results verbatim
 ctest --test-dir build
#+END_SRC

*** Installation

To install pan:
#+BEGIN_SRC shell :results verbatim
  cmake --install build
#+END_SRC

Uninstall pan (see [[https://stackoverflow.com/questions/41471620/cmake-support-make-uninstall#44649542][Stack Overflow link]] for details):
#+BEGIN_SRC shell :results verbatim
 xargs rm < build/install_manifest.txt
#+END_SRC

*** Debug build

You can also create a debug build:

#+BEGIN_SRC shell :results verbatim
  mkdir -p debug-build
  cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug -B debug-build
  cmake --build debug-build -j 8
#+END_SRC


*** CC++ language server support

To get language server support (e.g. [[https://github.com/MaskRay/ccls][ccls]]), run:
#+BEGIN_SRC shell :results verbatim
  mkdir -p debug-build
  cmake -H. -B debug-build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug -DCMAKE_EXPORT_COMPILE_COMMANDS=YES
  ln -s debug-build/compile_commands.json .
#+END_SRC

#+RESULTS:
: -- platform: Linux-6.6.13-amd64
: -- Configuring done (0.2s)
: -- Generating done (0.1s)
: -- Build files have been written to: /home/domi/private/debian-dev/pan-stuff/pan-upstream/debug-build

** With Autotools

Run the following command to build Pan configured with the default options:

#+begin_src  shell
  ./configure && make
#+end_src

This will result in the executable =./pan/gui/pan=

When building Pan from the Git repository, run the following command
instead:

#+begin_src shell
./autogen.sh && make
#+end_src

You can find examples of =autogen= commands in [[file:.gitlab-ci.yml][gitlab ci file]].

Finally, run the following command as root to install Pan:

#+begin_src shell
make install
#+end_src

* Upgrading

Upgrading typically requires that you do the exact same procedure as when
installing Pan.

* How to report bugs

For details on how to report bugs, see [[http://pan.rebelbase.com/bugs/][Pan bug report page]].

* Help Wanted

Several areas are in need of work:

- Pan still contains a lot of GTK2 code which triggers a lot of
  warnings. I'd welcome patches there.
- The [[https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/pan/-/wikis/home][Wiki page]] on Gitlab is empty. Help is welcome there.

* Contact

** Mailing lists

To get in touch with Pan contributors and community members, subscribe
to one of the Pan mailing lists.

- [[http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/pan-announce][pan-announce]] :: This is a low-traffic list for announcements of new
  Pan releases.
- [[http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/pan-users][pan-users]] :: This is a high-traffic list for feature requests, user
  questions, bug reports, and most everything else.
- [[http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/pan-devel][pan-devel]] :: A developers' forum to discuss hacking on Pan's source
  code. New developers are welcome.

And a big thank-you goes to Savannah for hosting these lists.

** Newsgroups

Pan mailing lists can also be accessed through the Gmane email to news gateway:

- gmane.comp.gnome.apps.pan.announce
- gmane.comp.gnome.apps.pan.user
- gmane.comp.gnome.apps.pan.devel

* Links

- [[http://www.gtk.org/][GTK]]
- [[http://www.gnome.org/][GNOME]]
- [[http://www.gnu.org/][GNU]]
