Chapter 4

Using Collabra

About discussion groups and newsgroups

 Discussion groups are private online conversations within a company or organization, organized into topics of interest to the participants. Your company or organization uses discussion groups to collect, share, and provide easy access to internal company information.

 Newsgroups are public online conversations organized into a wide variety of topics. You can probably find a newsgroup on just about any subject you're interested in. The discussions aren't necessarily "news;" they can include participants' opinions as well as information. This enormous collection of Internet newsgroups is sometimes referred to as Usenet.

Tip Many Internet Service Providers automatically provide access to newsgroups on their news servers.

Getting started with discussion groups

 Before you can access discussion groups and newsgroups, you have to set up Netscape Communicator to work with your Internet Service Provider's news and discussion server.

Getting started (Windows)

1. From the Communicator menu, choose Collabra Discussions.
2. If this is the first time you are starting Collabra, follow the instructions in the Mail and Discussion Wizard to set up mail and discussion preferences. If you don't know what information to enter, ask your system administrator or Internet Service Provider.

Note You can change your Mail and Discussion preferences at any time. From the Message Center or a message list window, choose Preferences from the Edit menu.

Getting started (Macintosh)

1. From the Communicator menu, choose Collabra Discussions.
2. If this is the first time you are starting Collabra, enter the requested information for your mail server preferences. If you don't know what information to enter, ask your system administrator or Internet Service Provider.
3. Click OK.
4. Start Collabra again.

Note You can change your Mail and Discussion preferences at any time. From the Message Center or a message list window, choose Preferences from the Edit menu.

About the message center window

Note If you haven't yet subscribed to any discussion groups, the Message Center only lists your mail folders. See "Creating a personal list of discussion groups" for instructions on subscribing to discussion groups.

Creating a personal list of discussion groups

Choosing from a list of available groups

1. In the Message Center window, from the File menu, choose Subscribe to Discussion Groups.
2. If you have access to more than one discussion server, choose the server whose discussion groups you want to list.
3. If you think it's taking too long to display all the discussion groups, click Stop to stop the server from listing remaining discussion groups.



4. (Windows and Unix) To see the hierarchy of discussion groups in a specific folder, click the + sign to the left of the folder. (Macintosh) To see the hierarchy of discussion groups in a specific folder, click the triangle to the left of the folder.
5. To view the full hierarchy of discussion groups, click Expand All.
6. Select a discussion group that you want to add to your personal list.
7. Click Subscribe.

Alternatively, just click in the Subscribe column for a discussion group to subscribe to it.

8. Repeat steps 2 through 7 to add more discussion groups to your personal list.
9. Click OK when you are done.
10. In the Message Center window, click the + sign (Windows and Unix) or the triangle (Macintosh) to the left of the name of the discussion server to see the list of discussion groups you've subscribed to on that server.

Finding discussion groups

1. In the Message Center window, from the File menu, choose Subscribe to Discussion Groups.
2. Click Search for a Group. 
3. Type a keyword or topic you're interested in.
4. If you have access to more than one discussion server, choose the server whose discussion groups you want to search.
5. Click Search Now.
6. Select a discussion group that you want to add to your personal list.
7. Click Subscribe.

Alternatively, just click in the Subscribe column for a discussion group to subscribe to it.

8. Repeat steps 3 through 7 to add more discussion groups to your personal list.
9. Click OK when you are done.

Tip Deja News (http://www.dejanews.com) is a service that indexes and archives the largest collection of Internet newsgroups. You can use Deja News to search for messages about a specific topic across many different newsgroups.

Displaying your personal list of discussion groups

1. Click the Discussion Groups button in the component bar to open the Message Center window.
2. Click the + sign (Windows and Unix) or the triangle (Macintosh) to the left of the news server name to see the list of discussion groups you have subscribed to on that server.

Updating your discussion groups with any new messages

1. Click the Discussion Groups button in the component bar to open the Message Center window.
2. Click the + sign (Windows and Unix) or triangle (Macintosh) to the left of the name of a news or discussion server to update the messages in the discussion groups you have subscribed to on that server.

Identifying new and unread messages

Removing a discussion group from your personal list

1. Click the Discussion Groups button in the component bar to open the Message Center window.
2. Click the + sign (Windows and Unix) or triangle (Macintosh) to the left of the name of a news server to expand the list of discussion groups you have subscribed to on that server.
3. Select the discussion group you want to delete from your list.
4. (Windows and Unix) From the Edit menu, choose Delete Discussion Group. (Macintosh) Choose Clear from the Edit menu, or press Delete. This removes the discussion group from your personal list, but does not delete the discussion group from the server.

Browsing discussions

Displaying messages in a discussion group

1. Click the Discussion Groups button in the component bar to open the Message Center window.
2. Click the + sign (Windows and Unix) or the triangle (Macintosh) to the left of the name of a news server to see the list of discussion groups you have subscribed to on that server.
3. Double-click an entry in your discussion group list to display the discussion group's messages in a message list window.

About the message list window

You work with discussion messages in just the same way you work with email messages. See the following topics in Chapter 3, "Using Messenger," for more information:

• See "Arranging your message list columns" for information on arranging discussion columns
• See "Resizing the message area" for information on resizing the message area
• See "Sorting your messages" for information on sorting messages
• See "Searching for a message" for information on searching for discussion group messages
• See "Printing a message" for information on printing messages

Reading a message

1. To read a message, click the message header in the message list window. Alternatively, to open the message in a separate window, double-click the message header.
2. To read the next unread message, click Next in the toolbar. If you don't see the message contents, click the triangle at the bottom of the message list to display the message contents.

Tip Pressing the spacebar scrolls the current message, one screenful at a time. If you are at the end of the current message, pressing the spacebar takes you to the next unread message.

Viewing your messages by subject

1. To switch to a subject-threaded view, click the small horizontal bars at the top left corner of the message list window.
2. To reorder your messages using another column heading, click another column title.

 
For example, to order your messages by date, click the Date column.

Browsing message threads

1. Click Next to read the next response, or hold down the Next button and choose Next Unread Thread to go to the next unread message thread.
2. To read the previous response, from the Go menu, choose Previous Message or Previous Unread Message.

Watching a thread

Tip You can also use this procedure in Messenger.

1. Select a message that's in a thread you want to watch.
2. From the Message menu, choose Watch Thread.
3. (Windows and Macintosh) To view only new messages in watched threads, from the View menu, choose Messages, and then choose "Watched threads with new."  (Unix) To view only new messages in watched threads, from the View menu, choose Messages, then choose "View Watched Threads with New Messages."

Copying discussion group messages to another folder

Note If you're connected to an IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) server, you can only copy discussion group messages to local mail folders.

1. From the message list window, select the message you want to copy. Click a message header to select it. To select additional messages, hold down the Shift key to select adjacent messages. To select nonadjacent messages, hold down the Ctrl key (Windows and Unix) or the Command key (Macintosh).
2. (Windows and Macintosh) Click the File button. (Unix) From the Message menu, choose File Message.
3. Choose the name of the folder you want to copy the message to.

Replying to a message

1. In the Message Center, double-click a discussion group to see its messages in a message list window.
2. Select the message you want to reply to.
3. Click Reply and choose the reply option you want.
4. In the composition window, check the address area to make sure that the message is addressed the way you want. Collabra automatically addresses your reply to the discussion groups listed in the Newsgroups header of the original message.
5. Type your reply in the message composition window. See "About the message composition window" in Chapter 3, "Using Messenger," for more information.
6. To check your spelling, choose Spelling from the Tools menu in the message composition window (optional).
7. Click Send.

Forwarding a message

1. In the Message Center, double-click a discussion group to see its messages in a message list window.
2. Select the message you want to forward.
3. Click Forward.
4. Type the address of the person, mailing list, or discussion group that you want to send the message to.
5. Click the message area and type any remarks you want to include with the forwarded message.
6. Click Send.

Posting a new message

1. In the Message Center, double-click a discussion group to see its messages in a message list window.
2. Click New Msg.
3. In the composition window, check the address area to make sure that the message is addressed the way you want. Collabra automatically addresses the new message to the discussion group you are reading.
4. Type the subject of the message.
5. Press Tab.
6. Type the text of the message. See Chapter 5, "Using Composer," for information on the text formatting and other options you can use in the message composition window.
7. To check your spelling, click Spelling in the message composition window.
8. Click Send.

Creating a new discussion group

 To create a new discussion group:

• From the File menu, choose New Discussion Group.

Note The New Discussion Group command is only available if you are connected to a Netscape Collabra server or another news server that supports proposed news server extensions. If the New Discussion Group command is not available, contact your system administrator for information about creating new discussion groups.

Creating a new Usenet newsgroup