How to open a news URL
The command { thunderbird 'news:news.answers'; } should show the Usenet group news.answers using the default Usenet news server but it does not; it has no effect.
All Replies (7)
The command { thunderbird 'news:news.answers'; }
I have no idea what you're talking about.
You'll need to create a news account for the news server of your choice. Then subscribe to the group(s) you're interested in.
I am talking about launching Thunderbird from the command line.
thunderbird -news news://server/group
see https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Command_Line_Options
That URL is wrong, news URL do not have the authority part. The semantic of this URL is to open the group in the default Usenet server. The command { thunderbird -news 'news:news.answers'; } opens Thunderbird but does not show the group.
The command line is handled the code in nsMailNewsCommandHandler.js; the expression (neckoURL.messageHeader) causes an invalid value exception, probably because it expects a message reference, not a group reference (represented by msgKey == -1 in nsMsgDatabase::GetMsgHdrForKey). It looks unimplemented.
Reported as bug 1096355
According to the examples in the applicable standards document RFC 3986 Section 1.1.2, "news:comp.infosystems.www.servers.unix" is a valid URL. Thus,
- thunderbird news:comp.infosystems.www.servers.unix
should work similar to
- thunderbird mailto:John.Doe@example.com
The command-line syntax is the internal syntax, but without the "-news" switch, you'd expect the URL passed as argument to be parsed.
Modified