OLMenu and sonr are menu-based front ends for uqwk, a "packet generator" installed on your service provider's shell account server. Uqwk packages e-mail and/or Usenet news in SOUP (Simple Offline Usenet Protocol) or QWK (BBS-style) packets that are downloaded and read by Offline Reader software on your computer.

Both programs are Unix shell scripts that install on the host (service provider's) machine. They can be installed either system-wide or in an individual shell account.

OLMenu automates packet generation and handling:

• Gather mail and news articles with uqwk, zip uqwk's output, and download a single file.
• Upload, unzip and send mail and news replies and posts from your Offline Reader.
• Create and maintain a configuration file with your preferences of packet filenames, file transfer protocols, and uqwk parameters (such as packet size, whether to process mail and/or news, etc.) that you'd otherwise have to enter as runtime parameters to uqwk.
• Supports SOUP, QWK and ZipNews packet formats; x-, y-, z-modem and ftp file transfers.

Sonr is a simpler version of OLMenu supporting only SOUP format, without saving a configuration file. A "quiet" version of sonr is ideal for use with screen reader software, or wherever menu displays are not required or desired. Sonr is included in the OLMenu package, and available separately.

There are several precompiled versions of uqwk 2.05 available if you can't compile the source code. I've had good results, but use with care. It's a good idea to run the command "uqwk -p" (or "./uqwk -p") after installing to check the operation and verify the configuration of uqwk. This will display uqwk's parameters without processing anything. Check with your service provider if you don't know which version of Unix runs on their system.

Kevin Martin's "How-to Hands-on" Offline Reader page is a very complete introduction to the world of Offline Readers. You'll find all the information you need to get started. There are also links to offline reader software, mailing lists, and Usenet newsgroups related to offline readers.