If a recipient isn't found, "All" seems like a sensible default. Are
you saying the failure to find a recipient is a bug? Feel free to
play with it and offer up a patch if you have one.

I like the Synchronet "You touch it, you own it" model :)

I thought NNTP didn't have a to: field?

In the early 1990s when I first started using Usenet, IIRC just about every
(if not all) messages ported over to my BBS were "To: All" and responses
from the BBS side, while showing a To: receipient locally, were posted to usenet as if "To: All."

Now, most of the messages that come across the Usenet gates have a
receipient listed. Very few replies still come across as "To: All."

Not sure if that answers you question or not. ;)


* SLMR 2.1a * Thesaurus: prehistoric reptile with a great vocabulary.
---
■ Synchronet ■ CAPCITY2 * capcity2.synchro.net * Telnet/SSH:2022/Rlogin/HTTP
* Origin: Vertrauen - [vert/cvs/bbs].synchro.net (1:103/705)

Re: NNTP and To: field
By: Carlos Navarro to Digital Man on Thu Nov 13 2025 06:08 pm

12 Nov 2025 23:21, you wrote to me:

I just wrote and executed a quick test and the msg header reply_id property does appear to be a string, as expected:

var msgbase = new MsgBase("test");
if(!msgbase.open())
exit();
var hdr = msgbase.get_msg_header(27);
print(typeof hdr.reply_id);

when run, prints 'string'.

Ok, in that script nothing happens to hdr after loading from the MSGbase. But in nntpservice.js, before being passed to function getReferenceTo, it is processed by function parse_news_header (in newsutil.js). It seems hdr.reply_id is then an array of string (typeof "object"). I think it happens here:

hdr.reply_id = data.match(/<[^\<]*>$/);

Thank you!

Looks like a bug introduced in https://gitlab.synchro.net/main/sbbs/-/commit/9bf86ab10c206945417c45d98f09

I'll fix that right up and appreciate your testing and detailed feedback!
--
digital man (rob)

Steven Wright quote #10:
The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
Norco, CA WX: 59.8°F, 90.0% humidity, 0 mph WNW wind, 0.09 inches rain/24hrs --- SBBSecho 3.31-Linux
* Origin: Vertrauen - [vert/cvs/bbs].synchro.net (1:103/705)

09 Nov 2025 08:54, you wrote to me:

Interesting! Could you share how to do that in TB?

Here is a message posted with Thunderbird with the "X-Comment-To"
field filled in.

This is the only way I could do it with TB, and while it's not super friendly (you'll forget to do it sometimes, probably), it works:

Settings > Config Editor

- Search for 'mail.compose.other.header', edit it and put
"X-Comment-To" without quotes.

When you write/reply to a message, in the header there it says
"Followup-To >>", hit the ">>" drop down menu, and "X-Comment-To"
will be an option to select now. Then, fill it in with who you're
writing the message to (yes, manually).

Thank you.

This can still be useful even if the "To: All" issue has been fixed in SBBS's NNTP server. You can use it this to change the default recipient to another one (or to set one when posting a new message), just like when you write "to: some one" in the first line of the message text in JamNNTPd.

Carlos

--- GoldED+/W32-MSVC 1.1.5-b20180707
* Origin: cyberiada (2:341/234.1)

Hey Carlos!

On Tue, Oct 19 2025 10:21:04 -0600, you wrote:

When you write/reply to a message, in the header there it says
"Followup-To >>", hit the ">>" drop down menu, and "X-Comment-
To" will be an option to select now. Then, fill it in with who
you're writing the message to (yes, manually).

Thank you.

Of course!

This can still be useful even if the "To: All" issue has been fixed> in SBBS's NNTP server. You can use it this to change the default
recipient to another one (or to set one when posting a new message),
just like when you write "to: some one" in the first line of the
message text in JamNNTPd.

I am also keeping the config editor mod in place, for this very reason. However, it's now much easier to reply and not have to worry about filling in the name you're replying to manually every time. Now, you only have to do it if you're forcing it to someone else, or as you said, want to direct a /new/ message to someone besides "All".

Thanks for catching this, and an amazing, informative description! I had asked DM about this a while back, but I couldn't describe it nearly as well, or find where in the code it was causing it not to work, like you did. So I left it alone and went with what I was doing with TB, because I would have made a fool of myself trying to report it while just getting at stuff. ;)

Regards,
Nick

... Sarcasm, because beating people up is illegal.
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