Re: More ideas for faces

Tim Chown (T.J.Chown@ecs.southampton.ac.uk)
Wed, 1 May 91 9:52:36 BST

Mike Bolotski writes:
>
> >>>>> On Mon, 29 Apr 91 17:12:32 -0700, Shannon D. Appel <appel@soda.berkeley.edu> said:
>
> SA> I. Remote Face Protocol
>
> SA> Ability to grab a face from a remote machine, much like finger. It would
> SA> be useful because your database would not have to constantly balloon. if
> SA> you have limited diskspace.
>
> We're working on it here at the AI Lab, albeit slowly, given other time
> constraints. The main problem is the NEWS support; all other formats
> are easily supported by a server.

Can't the nntp protocol for remote news gathering be extended to add
a call to fetch a face as well as fetching articles/active lists/etc?
I have been looking at such an idea for an X-based news browser that
I am developing here. It would need a command GET FACE or something
similar, to be added in addition to the current nntp commands like
LIST NEWSGROUPS, LIST, LISTGROUP, etc. The problem is pushing for
such a command to be made an nntp standard. I only have experience
of nntp via rn and nn news reader packages; I don't know who should
be contacted to get such an addition to the protocol - it wouldn't
matter if progs like rn, nn, etc didn't initially use the faces
facility, but it would be there if enabled.

Tim