flnews_post_proc

Motivation

I participate in newsgroups in three different languages and occasionally contribute to them. Most news clients allow you to define an introductory line for follow-up messages, but this feature is typically limited to just one language. The same limitation applies to signatures that you add to posts.

Since the flnews news client calls a post-processing routine —when provided— it becomes easy to modify news posts right before they are sent to the server. This feature intrigued me, so I created a Ruby script that sets introductory lines and signatures based on the newsgroup to which I am posting.
What started as a small script has now evolved into a full-fledged application, with more features than originally planned.

Requirements

Linux
While this program is designed for Linux, there is no reason it should not work on Windows®. However, since the flnews newsreader is not available for Windows®, it would not be very practical to run this on that platform.

A recent Ruby interpreter
Until version 1.93, the program is developed for Ruby 3.3.8, earlier versions should also work. From version 1.93b onward, you must use Ruby 4.0 or higher (January 2026).

flnews news client

Functionality

For more details, refer to the help page included with the Ruby gem.

Technology

Developed in Ruby

License

WTFPL 2.0 or later. Accessing the linked webpage also establishes connections to Facebook, Google and Twitter. Either block these sites, or do not click here.

Documentation

The documentation can be found in the doc subdirectory of the expanded Ruby gem, available in several formats.

Additionally, I provide a version of the documentation in French.
J’ai aussi une version de la documentation en français.