Usenet Explorer

How is one to learn this program? Trial and error? The documentation is HORRID. There are so many options and the properties screen is so cluttered its hard to know what does what. Why not make the properties window bigger and add tooltips or something?

I am looking to purchase NewsPro, but I need some help here.

Here are some questions I have:

1. How do I know how much I have DLed from a particular server? How do I know when I am over?

2. What does the clock looking thing mean? Download exceeded? Where is the icon key?

3. What is msg-id direct? What difference does it make if it is on or off?

4. No clue how to use Watch/Auto tab. the buttons under Watch filters dont seem to do anything no matter what I do

Thanks!

1) In the Workspace window click the Servers tab. You'll see the amount downloaded next to each server. You can also choose to exclude headers from that counter, good for use on servers with free header retrieval.

2) The clock shows up when you receive an error from a server that matches the wildmat pattern you enter in to Properties > General under "Exceeding download limit". The default is usually sufficient, but each server can have a different message. For example if the default entry of "download*limit" works on Newsfeeds servers because their error reads something like "Too much downloaded, limit is..." When NewsPro gets a match it will suspend that server for the amount of time you specified in the box next to the wildmat entry area. When a server is suspended for this reason it will show the clock icon.

3) Message-ID Direct will allow retrieval of articles from servers that don't have headers for that article. For example my ISP and a free server I use don't have great completion, but they are free. Since I have other servers with so much better completion, and I expect that these free servers wouldn't receive any headers not already on my other servers, I enable Message-ID Direct and I also enable Suppress Get Headers. Since the servers have a higher priority, when NewsPro tries to retrieve articles I am downloading it will try to obtain the article from the free servers first, even though if you view the properties for that article you won't see either of these servers listed. If the server doesn't have the article then NewsPro moves on to another server. Basically it saves time on header downloads from servers that don't really need to have headers.

4) I haven't used the Watch filters so I can't give much help here, but there should be information on the main webpage that describes it (along with your other questions). For the Auto section you can define a value for "Get Headers every..." then turn on "Get hdrs" for each group you want to do this for. This will cause NewsPro to automatically get new headers for the groups you specified at the interval you defined.

read selected topics on the homepage http://www.usenetopia.com including what is new.

there is no need to remember all options, when you need something specific you can look for it among options or search/ask on the forum.

the amount downloaded from particular server is shown to the right of the server name in the workspace window, the 'servers' (second) pane. it is called 'bandwidth counter', in the context menu you can see some related options like 'reset bandwidth counter', also look at the tasks menu.

the clock means that the server exceeded download limit, or more exactly the server returned an error message that matched boolean wildmat and the 'suspend server for x min' is not zero.

message-id direct means that a server will be used even if you download something and the headers are not listed on the server (not among headers downloaded from the server). e.g. for newsfeeds you can download headers from specialized servers and use general servers only for downloading bodies (then you need to check 'supress get headers' for them too).

i'm planning to improve documentation (towards better detalization problably some kind of context help) at later stage after certain development targets have been met. it seems using the program for some time and not only documentation which matters, e.g. message-id direct is described on the home page and you still asked (maybe context help would be useful).

it seems me and lunatik answered at the same time.

as to watch filters - check selected topics (automation and watch - step by step guide). don't forget to enable things in the common settings area, it is like the main switch, so you can enable/disable everything without changing options for specific newsgroups.

Thanks for the replies. This program is damn powerful. A bit complicated, but powerful. I will check out your suggestions and will keep playing with it.

alex wrote:it seems me and lunatik answered at the same time.

No, I beat you fair and square! I always win!