Contents
News Help Contents

Introducing News

What is News?

Getting Started with News

Step by Step

Invoke News

Configure News

Authorize Yourself to the News Server

Subscribe to Newsgroups

Read News

Post an Article

Mail a Message

Decode Articles

Encode a File

Mark Articles as Read

Filter Groups

Concepts and Features

Main Group-List Window

Newsgroup Article-List Window

Article View Window

Composition Window

Status Window

Overview of Usenet News

Usenet Etiquette ("Netiquette")

Encoding Concepts

Decoding Concepts

The NEWSRC file

Getting Technical Assistance

Click the mouse button on definitions or cross-references.  To learn more about Help, press F1.


Types of Windows
Types of Network News Windows

Main Group-List Window

Newsgroup Article-List Window

Article View Window

Composition Window

Status Window


Procedures
Network News Procedures

Invoking the News

Configuring the News

Authorizing Yourself to the News Server

Subscribing to Newsgroups

Reading News

Posting an Article

Mailing a Message

Decoding Articles

Marking Articles as Read

Filtering Groups


Main Group-List Window

The main window, initially in the upper-left corner of the screen, displays a list of newsgroups.  Double-clicking a newsgroup name causes News to display, in a group article-list window, a list of subjects of available articles in that newsgroup.

Clicking a newsgroup name selects that newsgroup and displays it in reverse video (light on dark).  Selecting a newsgroup is useful only for subscribing to it; see Subscribing to Newsgroups.  By default, subscribed groups appear in black; unsubscribed groups appear in blue. (See Configure Colors.)

The first character of each newsgroup line in the main window gives information about that newsgroup:

space	Indicates either that News has no information on the status of this group or that no new articles have appeared in this group since your last News session.

>	Indicates that this newsgroup has been selected as the result of the previous Find operation.

n	Indicates that new articles have appeared in this newsgroup since your last News session.

u	Indicates that there are unread articles in this newsgroup (though no new articles).

Additionally, an estimate of the number of articles in the group is shown before the group name.  If the number of articles in the group is undetermined because, for instance, you did not retrieve the group-list when you connected to your news server, a - (dash) is displayed instead of the number.

Related Topics

Network Menu Commands

Group Menu Commands

Utilities Menu Commands

Config Menu Commands

Window Menu Commands

Help Menu Commands


Network Menu Commands

Connect to Server

Starts a network connection between your workstation and your news server.  Use this command if you have the Connect at Startup option disabled under the Config Menu, or any time you are not connected to the server. This option is also available from the toolbar.

Disconnect from Server

Terminates the network connection to your news server without exiting News. This option is also available from the toolbar.

Reconnect to Server

Use this command to disconnect and then reconnect to your news server.  This can be useful to abort an otherwise uninterruptible communications process.

Mail Logout

Manually logs out of a network-based mail system (such as Microsoft Mail or Mail OnNet) without exiting News.  This can save both local and network resources if you are sure you will not be needing to send mail for a while.  If you are logged out of your mail system and wish to forward an article via mail, News will force another mail login if necessary.  This option is only available if your mail transport is MAPI.  See Configure Communications.

Reset Server Protocol

Resets News's awareness of the status of the session with the news server, aborting any outstanding requests.  This command is used to work around problems with News, your news server, or your network. This option is also available from the toolbar.

Quit without Saving

Terminates News without updating the NEWSRC file.  When you use this option, News will not save the activity in the current session, so whatever articles you have read or groups you have subscribed to are ignored; the status is the same as at the beginning of the session.

Exit

Terminates News and writes to the NEWSRC file a record of which articles you have seen and to which groups you have subscribed. This option is also available from the toolbar.


Group Menu Commands

Find

Searches the main window for a newsgroupname that contains a specified text string. The Find command opens a dialog box into which you type the string for which you want to search.  Choose OK to start the search, or Cancel if you decide not to search after all.

If News finds a newsgroup that contains the specified string, the main window scrolls so that the newsgroup name is visible.  The selected newsgroup name will be marked with a > character.  News informs you if no such newsgroup can be found.

This option is also available from the toolbar.

Find Next

Continues the search started by the previous Find or Find Next command.  The next newsgroup name containing the string, if any, is displayed.  If there has been no previous Find or Find Next, this command works as if you had chosen Find.  This option is also available from the toolbar.

Subscribe Selected Groups

Subscribes to the currently selected newsgroups.  See Subscribing to Newsgroups.

Unsubscribe Selected Groups

Unsubscribes from the currently selected newsgroups.  See Subscribing to Newsgroups.

Move Selected Groups to Top

Subscribes to the currently selected newsgroups, if they are not already subscribed, and moves them to the top of the newsgroup list.  See Subscribing to Newsgroups.

Deselect All

Clears all newsgroups in the main window so that no newsgroups are currently selected.


Utilities Menu Commands

New Article

Creates a Composition Window in which you can create a new article that is not a followup to an existing article. This option is also available from the toolbar.

Compose Mail

Allows you to send electronic mail directly from within News.  The type of mail system that News will use is determined by the setting of the Mail Transport option on the Configure Confirmations menu.  If News is configured to use SMTP, it creates a Composition Window in which you can create a new electronic mail. This option is also available from the toolbar.

Batch Send

Performs "send" operations on a group of open windows.  See Batch Submenu Commands.

Decode a File

Decodes the contents of an encoded file.  See Decoding. The file may contain multiple saved mail/news articles, spanning multiple logical encoded files.

Encode a File

Encodes a file and store the results in a file.  See Encode a File. To attach a binary file to a composition, choose Attach from the composition menu of a composition window.


Batch Submenu Commands

Send Posts

Sends all postings in open Composition windows.

Send Mails

Sends all electronic mail messages in open Composition windows.


Window Menu Commands

Cascade

Arranges all open News windows so that they overlap.

Close Submenu

Allows you to close all News windows or all those of a specific type (Article windows,Group windows, Status windows, or Composition windows).

Minimize Submenu

Allows you to minimize all News windows or all those of a specific type (Article windows,Group windows, Status windows,or Composition windows).

Save Window Positions

Saves the current position of the main window, the first opened Group windows, and first opened Article windows,The next time News runs, it will position newly created windows of the same type in the same place on your screen.


Config Menu Commands

Before you use News to read news, you must give it the information it needs to contact the news server, send electronic mail, and so on.  In addition, you can customize News's colors, fonts, and behavior.

All configuration information is written to the NEWS.INI file.

Related Topics

Configure Communications

Configure Personal Info

Configure Logging

Configure Smart Filer

Configure Confirmations

Configure Group List

Configure Article List

Configure Article

Configure Compositions

Configure Attachments

Configure Decoding

Configure Fonts

Configure Color

Save Configuration


Configure Communications

Opens a dialog box allowing you to select communications/networking options.

News is a Winsock based TCP/IP application.  You must have networking software loaded on your PC and a Winsock-compliant Dynamic Link Library (DLL) in your Windows or Windows System directory.  News makes all calls to Winsock through its generic network interface DLL called GWINSOCK.DLL. See Getting Started with News.

NNTP (News) Server

Fills in the Internet address of a news server.  Obtain this information from your system administrator.

TCP port

Fills in the TCP port designation of the news server program.  Typically this is nntp.  In the case of some misconfigured TCP/IP software, you may need to type the value 119, which is almost always the port number used by news servers.  Other values can be used only if your local news server is so configured.

Username & Password

Some NNTP news servers require you to provide an authorizing username and password before they will allow you full access to some or all newsgroups.  If you plan on connecting with such a server, you should type the appropriate username and password for the server you have selected.  News stores your password in encrypted form in NEWS.INI.  However, be aware that the NNTP AUTHINFO protocol used to authenticate you to the server is insecure, so your use of this option may be hazardous.  You should leave the name and password blank if the news server does not require authentication; if you specify a name and password, and the server does not require it, your connection will probably be refused.

Connect at startup

When this option is selected, News will connect to your news server as soon as News starts,  When this option is deselected, News will not connect at startup, and you will need to manually connect.

Save Password

When this option is selected, the password entered will be saved (encrypted) in the News configuration file.  If this option is deselected, News will not save your password.

SMTP (Mail) Server

Fills in the Internet address of an SMTP mail server if you plan on using TCP/IP mail from within News.

Mail Transport

Selects one of four options used to determine how News will send mail.  The options are

Disabled	Does not allow outbound mail.

Use MAPI	Sends mail via Microsoft's Mail Applications Protocol Interface (MAPI).  Use this option if you are using Microsoft Mail at your site.

Use SMTP	Sends mail via the Internet Simple Mail Transport Protocol (SMTP) interface.  News provides the ability to compose mail by using the same composition window as used when creating news postings.

Auto Select	News will attempt to locate MAPI and use it if available.  If MAPI is not available, News will default to SMTP.

MAPI Demand Logon

If you have the Demand Login option selected, News will force a MAPI login on demand (when mail is sent) instead of requiring a login instantly when News is started.

See Saving Configuration Information and Authorizing Yourself to the News Server.


Configure Personal Info

Opens a dialog box allowing you to specify personal information. This information is used to construct headers for articles and electronic mail messages that you write.

Your name

This is typically your full name.  This will be shown as part of the From: header in compositions.

Your email address

This is your e-mail address. This will be shown as part of the From: header in compositions.  For example, From: jdoe@xyz.com (John Doe).

Reply-to email address

Only enter a Reply-to address if it is different from your e-mail address.  You may do this, for example, if your official address is at work, but you would like people to reply to your personal e-mail address.  Note that you can change this at composition time by selecting Show reply-to Header in Configure Compositions.

Organization name

This is typically the name of your employer or educational institution.

See Saving Configuration Information.


Configure Group-List

Opens a dialog box allowing you to configure options related to the main group-list window.

Retrieve group list on connect?

When News connects to the news server, it can ask the server for a status list of all the news groups.  This operation can be time consuming if you have a slow connection.  However, it is useful to know how many new articles and groups there are.

You control whether News requests this information from the server by choosing Yes, No, or Ask.  If you choose Ask, News will always prompt you whenever it connects to the server.

Use shift/control-selections

If this option is selected, you can select groups from the group-list.  Clicking one group will select that group and deselect all others.  Holding down the CONTROL key and clicking a group will select that group without deselecting any groups already selected. Holding down the SHIFT key and clicking will select all groups between the last group selected (the anchor) and the group you click.

If this option is not selected, you select groups simply by clicking them.  To deselect a group, click it again.  You can drag the mouse to select or deselect by clicking a group and dragging over other groups.

Show unsubsribed groups

If this option is selected, the group-list main window will show all newsgroups (subscribed and unsubscribed). If this option is not selected, only the subscribed groups will be shown; all unsubscribed groups will be hidden. This option can also be toggled from the toolbar.

See Saving Configuration Information.


Configure Article-List

Opens a dialog box allowing you to configure options related to group article-list windows.

Article list retrieval

News fetches header infomation on articles when you view a newsgroup.  Ask if more than determines how many article headers you are willing to have News automatically fetch from the server.  If the number of articles in a group exceeds this number, News will prompt you with a dialog box before proceeding. The Automatically retrieve latest unread option will retrieve all articles in the newsgroup, starting with the first unread article. The Fetch at least option determines the minimum number of articles News will retrieve when there are very few unread articles.

New window for each group

If this option is selected, News will attempt to create a new group window for each newsgroup selected from the main window.  If this option is not selected, News will reuse an existing group window to display newly requested newsgroups.

Use shift/control-selections

If this option is selected, you can select articles from the article-list. Clicking one article will select that article and deselect all others.  Holding down the CONTROL key and clicking an article will select that article without deselecting any articles already selected. Holding down the SHIFT key and clicking will select all groups between the last article selected (the anchor) and the article you click.

If this option is not selected, you select articles simply by clicking them.  To deselect an article, click it again.  You can drag the mouse to select or deselect by clicking an article and dragging over other articles.

Full 'from' name in article list

If this option is selected, News will display the name of each article's author instead of the author's e-mail address.  If News cannot find the author's Full Name, it will use the e-mail address out of the news article's From: field.  Note that this will only affect newly retrieved newsgroups, since the name is obtained during article-list retrieval.

Compute threads in article list

If this option is selected, News will request additional "references" data for each article in the displayed group.  You can then sort articles by threads. Note that this will only affect newly retrieved newsgroups, since the references are obtained during article-list retrieval.

Show full subject in threads

If this option is selected, News will show the full subect of each article in a thread when sorting the article-list by threads.  If not selected, the subject of each article in the thread after the first article will be replaced by the thread depth indicator.

Thread depth indicator

Enter the character that will be used to replace subjects in threads.  Common thread depth characters are » and >.  A common technique for obtaining a thread depth indicator is to run the Windows Character Map accessory, select the font you use for the article-list (See Configure Fonts), and copy the desired character into the clipboard; then you can simply paste this character into the Thread depth indicator field.

See Saving Configuration Information.


Configure Article

Opens a dialog box allowing you to configure options related to article view windows.

Wrap article text to

If this option is selected and a number is specified here, News will wrap article text during retrieval to this number of characters.  This is useful when retrieving articles written with very long lines or that have ended up all on one line with no line breaks (as sometimes happens with misconfigured postings).  Note that this will only affect newly retrieved articles, since the lines are wrapped during article retrieval.

Trim headers during article retrieval

If this option is selected, News will trim article headers during retrieval by ignoring any article headers not included in the following list: Newsgroups, From, Subject, Date, Reply-To, Distribution, Message-Id, Keywords, Summary.  This will clean up incoming articles by removing potentially confusing headers like Path, and X-headers. Note that this will only affect newly retrieved articles, since the headers are trimmed during article retrieval.

New window for each article

If this option is selected, News will attempt to create a new article window for each article selected from the group article-list window.  If this option is not selected, News will reuse an existing article window to display newly requested articles.

Scroll past headers after retrieval

If this option is selected, News will scroll the article view window past the headers upon completion of article retrieval.

Italicize quotes in article window

If this option is selected, News will italicize quoted text in the article view window.  Quoted text is any line beginning with the > character.  This is useful in distinguishing the reference text from the response but may not be very readable with your selected fonts.  See Configure Fonts.

See Saving Configuration Information.


Configure Compositions

Opens a dialog box allowing you to configure options related to compositions and composition windows.

Since From, Reply-To and Organization are not items you will change often, it is recommended that you disable showing these header fields.

Show from header

If this option is selected, the From: header field will be shown in the header fields of the composition window, allowing you to modify it at send time. If this header field is not shown, but you do have From: set in you Personal options (See Configure Personal Info), this header will still be sent.

Show organization header

If this option is selected, the Organization: header field will be shown in the header fields of the composition window, allowing you to modify it at send time. If this header field is not shown, but you do have an Organization:  set in you Personal options (See Configure Personal Info), this header will still be sent.

Show reply-to header

If this option is selected, the Reply-to: header field will be shown in the header fields of the composition window, allowing you to modify it at send time. If this header field is not shown, but you do have Reply-to: set in you Personal options (See Configure Personal Info), this header will still be sent.

Show keywords header

If this option is selected, the Keywords: header field will be shown in the header fields of the composition window.  If you would like to send a list of Keywords: with your articles, select this option.  If this header field is not shown, no Keywords: header will be sent (unless this is a reply to a message containing a Keywords: header, in which case the original Keywords: header will be sent).

Show summary header

If this option is selected, the Summary: header field will be shown in the header fields of the composition window.  If you would like to send Summary: information with your articles, select this option.  If this header field is not shown, no Summary: header will be sent.

Show distribution header

If this option is selected, the Distribution: header field will be shown in the header fields of the composition window.  If you would like to limit the distribution of your article, select this option.  If this header field is not shown, no Distribution: header will be sent (unless this is a reply to a message containing a Distribution: header, in which case the original Distribution: header will be sent).

Word wrap in composition body text

This option sets the default word-wrap setting for the body text of a composition.  Word-wrap can be toggled during composition from the Edit Menu.

Signature file

If Enable is selected and you enter the name of a valid text file, News will read the contents of the text file into each new composition window.  Note that News will always prepend the standard delimiter "-- " (two dashes and a space) on a line before your signature.

Says templates:

This option allows you to customize the introductory text that News adds to follow up and reply messages.  In the template, you may use the following variables:

%I	Represents the original article ID.

%d	Represents the original article date.

%n	Represents the original author's full name.

%a	Represents the original author's e-mail address.

%%	Represents a literal percent sign.

For example, a common Follow-up says template is

In article %i, %a (%n) says...

and a common Reply template is

In article %i, you say...

See Saving Configuration Information.


Configure Attachments

Opens a dialog box allowing you to configure options related to attachments.

Article Split Length

This option determines how large an individual posting is allowed to grow before it is split into a multipart posting.  Posting extremely large files as a single Usenet post will break some news sites, so it is considered good "netiquette" to break the post into multiple parts.  If you are posting with large attachments, it is recommended that you set this value to less than 64,000, however, you can disable article splitting by setting this option to None.

Start attachments in new article by default

This option sets the default for attachments, which you can then override in the Attach dialog.

Default Encoding Type

This option sets the default for attachments, which you can then override in the Attach dialog.

Custom Encoding Table

This option specifies a custom table of exactly 64 unique characters for use with the Custom Encoding Type.  See Custom Encoding Tables.

Subject Line Template For Multi-Part Send

The Subject Line Template allows you to customize a detailed subject line for a multipart send.  A text string can be entered and interspersed with the symbols %s, %f, %p or %t:

%s	Represents the original subject line.

%f	Represents the filename of an attachment (or the words "N attachments" where N is a number greater than 1).

%p	Represents the part number of a multipart message.

%0p	Represents the part number of a multipart message, prepended with zeros to match the length of the total number of parts.

%t	Represents the total number of parts transmitted.

%%	Represents a literal percent sign.

News defaults to the following Subject Template:

%s - %f [%0p/%t]

For the fifth part of a 12-part send with an original subject called "Testing " and an attached file called "aconfig.bmp," the following subject line would appear:Testing - aconfig.bmp [05/12].

For the first part of a 7-part send, with an original subject of "Hello", and four attachments, the folowing subject line would appear: Hello - 4 attachments [1/7].

See MIME Configuration and Saving Configuration Information.


Configure MIME
Configure MIME Section of Attachment Preferences

Opens a dialog box allowing you to configure options related to Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) in attachments.

Generate MIME headers

If this option is selected, MIME headers will be generated when sending compositions.

Enable MIME usage suggestions

If this option is selected, News will prompt you if you do something inappropriate with MIME.  For example, using Base64 encodings without MIME, and using non-Base64 encodings with MIME are not recommended, but you can do both if you like.

Default Content Type

This option allows you to specify the default MIME content type that will be used for an attachment if none can automatically be determined by the attachment file name extension.  For example, an attachment filename image.gif will automatically be recognized as type Image/GIF, but a file name foo.bar will not be recognized and will use the content you specify here.

MIME Boundary

This option specifies the text string to be used as the boundary multiple attachments in a single article.

See Save Configuration Information.


Custom Encoding Tables

To create your own encoding table, choose exactly 64 unique ASCII characters (no character can be used more than once).  Enter these in the Custom Encoding Table section of Configure Attachments.

When using custom encoding tables, a "table" line will be added, followed by two 32-character lines representing your custom table.  The standard "begin" and encoded data will follow.

Custom Encoding Tables are discouraged in the MIME standard and are only needed when an attachment fails to pass through a particular gateway when Base64, UU, or XX encoding is used.

Be warned that not all decoders support custom tables, so the further you deviate from common encoding standards, the less likely that the general population will be able to decode your attachments.


Configure Decoding

Opens a dialog box allowing you to configure options related to decoding.

Block coding status window always on top

During decoding, a small block coding status window will be displayed.  If this option is selected, the status window will "float" above all other windows.  You can also select this option while a coding status window is open by selecting the Always on top option from the status window's Alt-space system menu.

Verbose decoding status windows

If this option is selected, one status window will be displayed for each binary decoded.  This window shows detailed status of the decoding progress for each file.  If not selected, there is only one thread status window and only a simple message identifying the start and completion of each binary thread decoded.  Verbose status windows are useful if you are attempting to determine a decoding problem, but you should generally disable them.

Execute decoded files

If this option is selected,decoded files will be executed on decode completion.  This option relies on your appropriate use of the Windows association lists, configured by the Associate option in the Windows File Manager.

Keep current article header visible

If this option is selected, as each article decode starts during decoding the selected articles, the group article-list will scroll if necessary to ensure that the article header is visible.  This option is disabled if the operation is a single-file decode.

Include open articles in decodes

If this option is selected, News will decode any already-retrieved open articles in addition to the articles selected for the current decode.  For example, if you have retrieved the first part of a 10-part encoded file in order to read its description, and decide you would like to decode this file, you can select all the article parts in the group article-list and initiate the decode.  The part 1 you have already retrieved will be decoded first, and then the other nine parts will be retrieved and decoded.  Note that this option is disabled if no article windows are open.

Use dumb decode

This option should only be used if all other attempts at decoding articles fail.  If this option is selected, News will not assemble out-of-order or split-up articles during decodes. When you are decoding a multipart article using Dumb Decode, the articles must be in strict order, with no mixing of separate logical files.  For more information on when Dumb Decode may be appropriate, see Decoding Concepts.

See Saving Configuration Information.


Configure Confirmations

Opens a dialog box allowing you to configure options related to confirmations.

Confirm batch send/close operations

If this option is selected, News will prompt for confirmation before executing batch operations such as closing all News windows and sending all open Mail windows.

Confirm disconnect

If this option is selected, News will prompt for confirmation upon selecting the Disconnect menu item.

Confirm save on exit

If this option is selected, News will prompt the user to save the NEWS.INI and NEWSRC files upon exit.  If this options is disabled, News will automatically save these files.

Confirm Use of Reply-To

If this option is selected, News will prompt you for confirmation any time you reply to a post that has a From: address different from its Reply-To: address.  A number of large sites on the Internet allow their people to send mail directly from computers inside their facility but they do not allow responses to come back through the same route.  Those sites typically will use the Reply-To: field of a mail message to identify a proper return address.  However, other sites have broken mail software; selecting this option allows you to verify addresses.  You usually will not know what is a proper address, so the typical procedure is to use the Reply-To: field (if it exists). If the e-mail bounces, try the From: field.

See Saving Configuration Information.


Append saved articles

Selecting Append saved articles affects what News does when you attempt to save the contents of an article to an existing file.  If this option is selected, News will append the article to the previous saved file.  Otherwise, it will ask you what to do.  See File Menu Commandsfile


Configure Logging

Opens a dialog box allowing you to specify whether all outgoing posts or mail messages should be logged to a local text file.  If you enable these options, you must also specify the filenames to which postings or electronic mail messages should be written. This is mailbox-compatible.

See Saving Configuration Information.


Configure Fonts

Activates a submenu that allows you to select the fonts used for the various window types.

News System

This is the font used for the initializing status (Connecting to news server...), all status bar text, and the header-entry fields of the composition window.  If you find that, with all the desired headers shown in the composition window, the headers take up too much screen space, try reducing the News System Font size.

Group/Article List

This option specifies the font used in the main group-list window and the group article-list window.

Article Text

This option specifies the font used in the article window.

Composition Text

This option specifies the font used in the composition window body text.

Status Text

This option specifies the font used in the decoding status window and the send status and block coding status windows.

Print Text

This option specifies the font used in printed articles.  This font and size will be used for the main article text of the printed article.  A slightly larger version of the same font will be used for any subject headings and page titles.


Configure Color

Activates a submenu that allows you to customize the foreground and background colors used by News in each of its windows.

Unsubscribed Group

This option specifies the text color used in the main group-list window for unsubscribed groups.

Subscribed Group

This option specifies the text color used in the main group-list window for subscribed groups.

Unseen Article

This option specifies the text color used in the group article-list window for unseen articles.

Seen Article

This option specifies the text color used in the group article-list window for seen articles.

List Background

This option specifies the background color used in the main group-list window and the group article-list window.

Article Background

This option specifies the background color used in the article window.

Article Text

This option specifies the text color used in the article window.

Status Background

This option specifies the background color used in the status window.

Status Text

This option specifies the text color used in the status window.

True Inverse Seletions

If this option is selected, selections in the main group-list window and the group article-list window will be true reverse video (that is, a selected line will show the text in the window background color and the selection bar background in the text color).  If this option is not selected, the text color for a selection will be preserved, and the selection bar background color will always be black. (Gray black would make the text unreadable.)

See Saving Configuration Information.


Configure Smart Filer

Opens a dialog box allowing you to configure options related to handling filenames and extensions.  This option is primarily for file names encountered during decoding, and it comes in handy when you are decoding files that were created on other operating systems (such as UNIX) that support very long filenames.

Max Name Length

This option specifies the maximum length of the portion of a filename before the extension.  In DOS or Windows 3.x (or when the FAT file system is being used), this should be 8.  With NTFS or HPFS, this number can be larger.

Maximum Extension Length

This option specifies the maximum length for the extension portion of a filename. In DOS or Windows 3.x (or when the FAT file system is being used), this should be 3.

Extension Conversion

Extension conversion allows extensions encountered during decoding to be renamed if they are not appropriate for Windows.  For example, you can specify that any time a JPEG file is encountered, the extension should be renamed JPG.  You can make unusual mappings like mapping ZIP to FOO if you so desire.

To add a new extension mapping, enter the Source Extension and the New Extension in the appropriate fields, and choose Add.  To remove an extension mapping, select the mapping in the list and choose Delete.

On Duplicate Name

This option allows you to specify how News will react if, during a decode, a duplicate filename is encountered.  You have the following options:

--	Prompt for a new filename.

--	Replace the extension with a number (for example, sound.wav becomes sound.001).

--	Preserve the extension and prepend a number to the name (for example, sound.wav becomes 1sound.wav).

--	Preserve the extension and append a number to the name (for example, sound.wav becomes sound1.wav).

On Name or Extension Too Long

This option allows you to specify how News will react if, during a decode, a file name or extension is encountered which is longer than the length limits you have specified.  You have the following options:

--	Prompt for a new filename.

--	Truncate at max name length (for example, avery-longname.wav becomes avery-lo.wav).

--	Condense (skip vowels, punctuation) (for example, avery-longname.wav becomes vrylngnm.wav).

The order of filename handling is as follows:  Extension Conversion occurs first, then Too-Long name, then Too-Long extension, then Duplicate Name.

See Saving Configuration Information.


Save Configuration

Immediately saves your News configuration information to the NEWS.INI file.  Normally, saving NEWS.INI is done only upon exit from the program.


Saving Configuration Information

When you exit News via the main window's Network/Exit menu command, you are given the option of saving the configuration options you have set during the session.  (The information is saved to NEWS.INI.)  If you have not changed any configuration options during the session, you can still save the settings.

If you change configuration options and want to save them immediately to guard against a possible system crash, use the Save Configuration menu command of the main window.


Help Menu Commands

Index

Starts the Help system with News's main Help index.

About

Displays a dialog box containing News credits.

Show Version

Displays a dialog box containing News version information.  Press ENTER to close this dialog box.


Group Article-List Window
Newsgroup Article-List Window

Group windows contain a list of subjects of articles in a given newsgroup.  Double-clicking the subject of an article causes that article to be retrieved into an article window.  See Using the Mouse in the Group Window.

Group windows initially appear in the upper-right area of the screen.  It is possible to have up to four group windows open at any one time.  See Config Menu Commands.

The first character of each subject line in a group window gives information about that article:

space	Indicates either that News has no information on the status of this article, or that this article was available in a previous News session and you chose not to view it.

>	Indicates that this article has been selected as the result of the previous Find operation.

s	Indicates that you have already seen this article.

n	Indicates that this article has appeared since your last News session.

The other fields in the window are the following:

Article Number:	A number used to help a user locate a particular article.  Never refer to this number when responding to an article since the number will most likely differ from server to server.

Article Date:	The date the article was posted to the server.

Author's Name:	The network e-mail address or name of person posting the article.

Article Size:	The number of lines in the article.

Article Title:	The title of the article.

Related Topics

Articles Menu Commands

Sort Menu Commands

Search Menu Commands


Articles Menu Commands

New Article

Creates a composition window for the purpose of composing a new article for the current newsgroup.  This option is also available from the toolbar.

Compose Mail

Creates a compositionwindow for the purpose of sending electronic mail.  This option is also available from the toolbar.

Update from Server

Updates the article display with any new articles that have arrived at the server.  This does not save any previous headers that may have been fetched.

Save Selected Articles

Saves all selected articles to a file.  You will be prompted for a filename, and you will be allowed to append to a file if you wish to do so.  This option is also available from the toolbar.

Decode Selected Articles

Decodes all selected articles.  See Decoding. This option is also available from the toolbar.

Select all Articles

Marks all articles in the newsgroup as selected.

Deselect all Articles

Marks all articles in the newsgroup as not selected.

Select Articles Containing String

Selectively marks articles in this newsgroup based on whether an article's title contains a certain string of characters.  You will be prompted for a search string.

Preferences

Opens the Configure Article-List dialog.

Catch-Up and Exit

Marks all articles in this newsgroup as read and closes this Group Article-List Window. This option is also available from the toolbar.

Exit

Closes this Group Article-List Window. This option is also available from the toolbar.


Sort Menu Commands

Sort by Date

Sorts all article headers by date.

Sort by Subject

Sorts all article headers by subject.  The letters "Re:" in front of subjects are ignored so that responses will be sorted near the original subject.

Sort by Lines

Use this command to find out who writes the longest or shortest articles in a given newsgroup.

Sort by Threads

Organizes articles so they are displayed as a base article followed by each response articles.  Each response is indented in such a way as to show which article a person was reading when the response was made.  This option is only available if Threading was enabled when the group article-list was retrieved.  See Configure Article-List.

Sort by Article Number

Sorts articles based on their article number.  This is the order the articles were received by the local server.

Sort by Author

Sorts articles based on the e-mail address or name of the article author.


Search Menu Commands

Find

Searches the article subjects in this Group Article-List Window for an article whose subject line contains a specified text string.  The Find command brings up a dialog box into which you enter the string for which you want to search.

If News finds an article whose subject contains the specified string, the window scrolls so that the subject line is visible.  The selected article subject will be marked with a > character.  News informs you if no such article can be found.

This option is also available from the toolbar.

Find Next

Continues the search started by the previous Find or Find Next command.  The next article containing the previously set subject string is displayed if it can be found.  If there has been no previous Find or Find Next, this command works as if you had selected Find.  This option is also available from the toolbar.


Article Window

An article window displays the text of an article.  The article can optionally be positioned in the scrollable window at the beginning of the article text, with the article header scrolled out of sight.  (See Configure Article).

Related Topics

File Menu Commands

Edit Menu Commands

View Menu Commands

Search Menu Commands

Respond Menu Commands


File Menu Commands

Save

Saves the article in this Article Window to a file.  The filename from the most recent Save As is used.  If no Save As has been done in this session, Save acts just like Save As.

Save As

Brings up a dialog box asking the user for a filename to which the current article should be saved.  The dialog box also contains a check box labeled "Append to this file."  If this box is selected, News will write the article to the end of the specified file.  Otherwise, News will overwrite the file with the article.

Print

Prints the article in this Article Window.

Print Setup

Opens the Windows printer setup dialog.

Decode Article

Decodes the contents of the displayed article and stores it in a disk file.  This is useful if someone sends a binary picture or executable as an attachment to a news posting.  See Decoding.

Preferences

Opens the Configure Article dialog.

Exit

Closes this window.


Article Edit Menu Commands
Edit Menu Commands

Once article retrieval is complete, text can be selected by dragging the mouse.  A quick method for copying selected text to the clipboard is to simply press the right mouse button.

Copy

Copies the selected text to the clipboard.

Deselect All

Clears the current selection.

Select All

Selects all text in an article.


Article Search Menu Commands

Find

Searches the article text in this Article View Window for the specified text string.  The Find command brings up a dialog box into which you enter the string for which you want to search.  If the text string is found, the window scrolls so that the text is visible.

This option is also available from the toolbar.

Find Next

Continues the search started by the previous Find or Find Next command.  The next text containing the previously set search string is displayed if it can be found.  If there has been no previous Find or Find Next, this command works as if you had chosen Find.  This option is also available from the toolbar.


View Menu Commands

The Next/Prev options are only available if the current article's original parent group article-list window is still open.  If you have closed the parent window, or have done an Update From Server operation in the parent window since you opened the article, the Next/Prev options will be disabled for the article.

Next Article

Causes News to fetch and display the next article in this newsgroup. News informs you if there is no next article.

Next Unseen

Causes News to fetch and display the next unseen article in this newsgroup.  News informs you if there is no next unseen article.

Next with same Subject

Causes News to search the subsequent articles in this newsgroup for an article with the same subject as the current article.  (Leading "Re:" notations are ignored.)  If a matching article is found, it is retrieved and displayed in the current Article Window.  Otherwise, News informs you that there are no more articles with that subject.

Previous Article

Causes News to fetch and display the previous article in this newsgroup.  News informs you if there is no previous article.

ROT13

Redisplays the text of the article by using ROT13.


Respond Menu Commands

Followup Article

Creates a Composition Window with the Newsgroups and Subject headers and text to compose an article that responds to the article in the current Article Window.  Additionally, the Cc field will be prefilled with the original author's address, if Prefill Cc Address is enabled.  See Configure Composition and Posting an Article.

Followup Mail

Creates a Composition Window with the To and Subject headers and text to compose an electronic mail message to the author of the current article.  See Mailing a Message.

Forward Article

Creates a Composition Window with the text of the current article copied. See Mailing a Message.


Composition Window

The composition window allows you to compose and then send an article or electronic mail message to the network.  See Posting an Article. or Mailing a Message.

The composition window is divided into two areas:

Header fields

Body text edit area

Related Topics

Composition Menu Commands

Edit Menu Commands


Composition Menu Commands

Send

If your message is a news composition, this command sends your completed article in the current Composition Window to the news server for propagation throughout the network.  If your message is a mail composition, this command sends an electronic mail message to the network SMTP server for propagation throughout the network.

Attach

Allows you to attach one or more files to the posting.  See Attaching Files to a Composition.

Read File

Reads a text file directly into the body text window, at the current text location.  If the cursor is not in the body text edit window, the file contents will be appended to the body text.  If some body text is selected, the text will be replaced by the file contents.

Preferences

There are two categories of preferences related to the composition window.  See Configure Composition and Configure Attachments.

Cancel

Closes the current window, losing the composition.  You will be warned and asked to confirm the close.


Edit Menu Commands

All edit commands except Word Wrap affect whichever composition control is currently active (for example, if the cursor is in the Subject field, the edit options will affect the text in the Subject field).  Word Wrap only applies to the main body text.

Undo

Reverses the effects of the most recent change to the current window.

Cut

Deletes the selected text and saves it in the clipboard.

Copy

Copies the selected text into the clipboard.

Paste

Retrieves the text most recently copied or cut to the clipboard into the current window.  The text is inserted at the current cursor position.

Clear

Deselects all text in the current window.

Select All

Selects all text in the current window.  Generally used just prior to a Copy operation to save the contents of the window to the clipboard.

ROT13

Encrypts the selected text by using ROT13.

Word Wrap

Toggles word-wrap in the body-text window.


Composition Header Fields

You can select which header fields will be displayed in the composition window. The Subject:, To:, Newsgroups:, Cc: , and Attachments: fields are always shown.  All other headers can be hidden.  Note that some headers (From:, Organization:, and Reply-To:) will still be sent even if hidden.  See Configure Composition.

To:

This field is displayed only for mail compositions.  This is the e-mail address of the recipient.  For multiple recipients, separate the addresses with commas.  Choose Browse to open the Mail Address Manager.

NewsGroups:

This field is displayed only for News compositions.  This is the name of the newsgroup to which the article is posted.  To cross-post to multiple newsgroups, separate the group names with commas.

Subject:

You must fill in this field before sending your message.  If this is a followup or reply, this field defaults to the original message subject, with the addition of "Re:" in front.

From:

This field defaults to your e-mail address and name in parentheses.  See Configure Personal Info.

Organization:

This field defaults to your organization.  See Configure Personal Info.

Reply-To:

This optional field defaults to your Reply-To address. See Configure Personal Info.  If this field is empty, or the address is identical to your e-mail address, the Reply-To header will not be sent.

Cc:

This field provides a list of e-mail addresses, similar to the To: field.  Each address listed here will receive a "carbon copy" of the composition.  If this is a News composition, the Cc: option is available to send the composition simultaneously via SMTP mail. (Note that this is not available for MAPI mail.)

Keywords:

In the Keywords: field, type few well-selected keywords identifying the message to help readers determine if the message is of interest to them.

Summary:

This field provides a brief summary of your message.  This is most frequently used in a followup message, and again is used as an aid in determining if the message is interesting to the reader. This is available for News messages only.

Distribution:

This field provides a list of newsgroups similar to the Newsgroups: field.  This is used to limit the distribution area of your News posting.  Your message will only be propagated to news servers that accept the listed newsgroup.  This field is available for News messages only.  An example is nj,ny.

Attachments:

This field provides a list containing the filenames of the attachments to this composition.  To add an attachment to the list, either choose Attach from the Composition Menu Commands, or place the cursor in the Attachments listbox and press INSERT.  To remove an attachment, select the filename in the listbox and press DELETE.  To modify attributes of an attachment, double-click the filename in the listbox.  See Attaching Files To a Composition.

Note for advanced users

You may include additional headers (such as, Expires: or X-MyHeader:) by including these at the top of the body text of your article.  These headers must be placed before any nonheader body text.  News will recognize any header described in RFC-822, RFC-1036, or any header like X-Custom:.  News will include these headers in the header block of your article. (All lines before the first blank line of your article are considered headers.)


Mail Address Manager

The Mail Address Manager allows you to maintain a list of commonly used e-mail addresses, as well as easily select recipients from the list.  To select one or more recipients, double-click each address, then choose Ok.  To add an address to the list, type an address in the edit area and choose Add.  To delete one or more addresses from the list, select the address(es) in the list and choose Delete.


Attaching Files to a Composition

File Name

Enter the name of the file to be attached.  You can choose Browse to open the Windows browse dialog.

Encoding Type

Choose the type of encoding for the file.  If you select Make Default, this will become the default encoding type for all attachments.

Content Type

Choose the content type for the attachment.  Note that if News recognizes the type of the file (by its extension), it will automatically set the content type (for example, trees.gif is of type Image/GIF).  If you select Make Default, this will become the default content type for all file attachments that are not automatically recognized by News.

Start this attachment in new article

If this option is selected, News will initiate the specified attachment in a new article. Before posting the attachment, News will complete the send in progress, then initiate a new send (using the same headers as the first send) and start the attachment.


Composition Body Text Area

Type text directly into the body text area.  If Word Wrap is enabled (see Configure Composition), text will be wrapped as it is typed, and there will be no horizontal scroll bar.  If Word Wrap is disabled, there will be a horizontal scroll bar.  Keep in mind that many people reading your text will only have room to display 80 characters or so on their screen, so either use Word Wrap or break your lines frequently.

You may read a file directly into this text area by selecting Read File from the Composition Menu.


Getting Started with News

News Depends on Winsock

Before installing News, make sure your FTP software is correctly installed.  You should have exactly one WINSOCK.DLL file that can be found in the directories listed for your PATH environment variable in AUTOEXEC.BAT.  This file should be provided with your software.

Information You Will Need

--	The name or IP address of your news server.

--	A username and password if required by your news server.  Contact your network service provider, if necessary.  See Authorizing Yourself to the News Server.

--	If you plan to send mail by using SMTP, the name or IP address of your SMTP mail server.

DLL Locations for Windows 3.x 16-Bit Version

Place WVTB.DLL and GWINSOCK.DLL in the same directory as NEWS.EXE.

Move (do not copy) CT13DV2.DLL into your \WINDOWS\SYSTEM directory.

GWINSOCK.DLL

The GWINSOCK.DLL file is News's interface to Winsock.  Some Winsock stacks (for example, Trumpet Winsock) may exhibit poor performance in conjunction with News's GWINSOCK.DLL.  News provides an alternate DLL GENASYNC.DLL, which may improve performance in such cases.  To install the alternate DLL, modify the NEWS.INI file. To do this, in the [Communications] section, modify "GenSockDLL=gwinsock.dll" to read "GenSockDLL=genasync.dll".

Environment Variables

If you are running Windows 3.x, you will need to set the TZ environment variable.

You may also set the NEWS environment variable.  See Invoking News.

Filling in Communications Information

Start News.You will be prompted for your NNTP News Server address and some other information.  The only required field is the NNTP Server name. You only need to fill in the username and password fields if your news server requires them.  Additionally, if you plan to use mail, select MAPI if you use the Microsoft Mail system or some other MAPI-compatible mail system; otherwise select SMTP and enter the address of your mail server.  See Configure Communications.

Filling in Personal Information

Next, you will be prompted for your personal information, such as name, e-mail address, and organization name.  This information is used to identify you when you post an article or send a mail message.  See Configure Personal Info.

Note that this information can be changed later from the Configure Menu in the main window.


Posting an Article

You can post an article either as a followup to a previous article or as a new article.  Note that it is often preferable to respond to an article via an electronic mail message rather than by another article; see Usenet Etiquette and Mailing a Message.

An article contains headers followed by the text of the article.  Each article is directed to one or more newsgroups by a Newsgroups: line in the header.  If you want to send an article to more than one newsgroup, type the names of the newsgroups in the Newsgroups: header field, separated by commas.

If you are running Windows 3.x, News needs to know your time zone so it can generate valid dates.  See Setting the TZ Environment Variable.

Followup Articles

A followup article has the same Subject: line as the article that inspired it.  (The notation "Re:" is added.)  This makes it easier for other Usenet News users browsing the newsgroup to follow the discussion.  Also, a followup article typically selectively quotes the earlier article, again to make the discussion easier to follow.

To compose a followup article, choose Followup Article from the Respond menu or toolbar of an article window. News creates a composition window.  The headers of the article in this window are filled in with information taken from your Personal Info configuration and from the header of the referenced article. The full text of the referenced article is also included in the posting window, with each line preceded by a > character to indicate that another article is being quoted.  You should delete irrelevant quoted lines in your followup article.  Some news servers will reject postings that contain more quoted text than new text.

You may optionally send a copy to the original author of the posting via an electronic mail message by typing the author's return address in the Cc: header field.  You can configure the composition window to prefill the Cc: address during followup.  See Configure Compose.

New Articles

To compose a brand new article, select the New Article option from the Articles menu or toolbar of a group window, or select New Article from the Utilities menu or toolbar of the the main window.  News creates a composition window for your new article.  The Newsgroup: header field should contain the name of the newsgroup to which you wish to post.  If you wish to cross-post to multiple newsgroups, separate the names of the newsgroups by commas.  Other information in the header fields is based on your Personal Info configuration.  You must type a subject for the new article.

Sending the Article

When you have completed composing your article, you can send it to the network or cancel it.  See Composition Menu Commands.  If the article is posted successfully, the composition window will close.


Mailing a Message

If News is configured to use the  SMTP mail transport protocol, creating an electronic mail message is nearly identical to creating a news article.  If News is configured to use MAPI, then instead of opening a composition window, News opens the available MAPI interface (such as Mail OnNet).

You can use News to send an electronic mail message either as a personal reply to the author of an article or as an independent message.

A message contains headers followed by the text of the message.  A message is directed to one or more recipients by filling in the To: header field.  Multiple recipient addresses are separated with commas.  To use the mail address manager, choose the Browse button next to the To: field (See Mail Address Manager.)

If News is configured to use SMTP mail and you are running Windows 3.x, News needs to know your time zone so it can generate valid dates.  See Setting the TZ Environment Variable.

Reply Messages

A reply message has the same Subject: line as the article that inspired it.  (The notation "Re:" is added.)  Also, a reply message typically selectively quotes the article that inspired it, to give some context to the recipient.

To compose a reply message, choose Compose Mail from the Respond menu or toolbar of an article window. If using SMTP, News creates a composition window. If configured to use MAPI, News opens the MAPI interface such as Mail OnNet.  Initial header fields are filled in with information taken from your Personal Info configuration and from the header of the referenced article.  The full text of the referenced article is also included in this window, with each line preceded by a > character to indicate that an article is being quoted.  You should delete irrelevant quoted lines.  Some news servers will reject postings that contain more quoted text than new text.

New Messages

To compose a brand new message (one that does not refer to an article), choose Compose Mail from the Options menu or toolbar in the main window or from the Articles menu or toolbar in any Group Article-List window.  If configured to use SMTP, News creates a composition window for your new article. If configured to use MAPI, News opens the MAPI interface (such as Microsoft Mail or Mail OnNet) editor. (You may be prompted to log in before proceeding.)  Initial header fields are filled in based on your your Personal Info configuration.

You must type an appropriate subject for the new article in the Subject: field and also a recipient in the To: field.

Forwarding an Article

To forward an article via mail, choose Forward Article from the Respond menu or toolbar in an article window.  See Respond Menu Commands. If using SMTP, News creates a composition window. If using MAPI, News opens the MAPI interface (such as Microsoft Mail or Mail OnNet). Initial header fields are filled in with information taken from your News configuration (see Configure Personal Info) and from the header of the referenced article.  The full text of the forwarded article is also included in this window, preceded by the line --Forwarded--.  You may include any introductory text by editing the article before sending it.

You must type a recipient in the To: field.

Sending the Message

When you have completed composing your message, you can send it to the network or cancel it.  (If using SMTP, see Composition Menu Commands.)  If the message is sent successfully, the composition or MAPI edit window will close.


Subscribing to Newsgroups

What is Subscribing?

Subscribing to a newsgroup means telling a news reader that you are interested in tracking, selecting, and viewing articles in that group.  Most news readers support the concept of subscribing to newsgroups as a means of simplifying the way that you interact with the news reader.  There are probably several thousand newsgroups in which you are not interested; if you are not subscribed to these newgroups, a news reader need not bother prompting you with information on these groups.

News also supports the concept of subscribing to a newsgroup, but primarily as a means of providing compatibility with other news readers.  News's windowed, point-and-click interface makes it easy to distinguish between newsgroups in which you are interested and newsgroups in which you are not interested.  You can always access any newsgroup simply by scrolling to its name in the main window and clicking it.  If you prefer, you show only the groups to which you subscribe (hiding unsubscribed groups) by disabling Show Unsubscribed in Configure Group-List or from the toolbar.

Subscribing to New Newsgroups

When News starts up, it can check the news server to see if any new groups have been created since your last session.  (See Configuring News.)  If News checks and finds that new newsgroups do exist, it displays their names in a scrollable list in a dialog box. Select the groups to which you want to subscribe by selecting a newsgroup category (such as comp, or sci) then double-clicking the names of the desired newsgroups.  When you have finished making your selections, choose the OK button.  Alternatively, you can choose the Cancel button, and News will ignore the new newsgroups altogether.

Subscribing to Existing Newsgroups

Newsgroups to which you are subscribed are displayed in the subscribed color at the top of the main window.  Following these groups are all of the unsubscribed group names, in the unsubscribed color and sorted alphabetically. (See Configure Color.)

You subscribe and unsubscribe to newsgroups by selecting them in the main window and using Group Menu Commands.  Select groups by clicking their names.  A selected group appears in reverse video (black background). (See Configure Color).  The menu options Subscribe selected groups, Unsubscribe selected groups, and Move selected groups to Top operate on all currently selected newsgroups.

Subscribing to a newsgroup moves its name to the bottom of the list of subscribed groups in the top portion of the main window.  Unsubscribing to a newsgroup causes it to be moved to its proper alphabetical place in the unsubscribed portion of the main window.

You can hide the unsubscribed groups from the main view window by toggling the Show Unsubscribed option in the Group-List Options.


Marking Articles as Read

Normally, News keeps track of which articles you have read.  (See Group Window.)  Sometimes you may want News to think that you have read articles when you have not.  You may have read the articles with another newsreader or with a different copy of News, or you may have been on vacation and want to ignore the articles that accumulated in a newsgroup while you were away.

To toggle the read status of a single article in a group, point the mouse cursor at the article subject and click the middle or right mouse button.  You can also hold the SHIFT key down and use the left mouse button, or drag the mouse while holding down the middle or right mouse button.

To mark all articles from the beginning of the newsgroup up to an article as read, use the right mouse button and double-click an article in the Group Window.

You can also select desired articles by clicking them and then choosing Mark Selected Articles As Read from the Articles menu of the Group Window.

To "catch up," or mark all articles in the group as read, choose the Catch Up and Exit option from the Articles menu of the Group Window.


Authorizing Yourself to the News Server

Some Usenet news servers require you to present a username and password in order to gain access to certain features.  For instance, you may need a username and password to be able to post to any newsgroup or to be able to read certain newsgroups.  The process of providing a username and password, and the subsequent checking done by the server, is called "authorizing."

News supports the AUTHINFO NNTP command for authorization.  You can provide a username and password; see Configure Communications.  Note that you should only enter a username and password if your news server requires it.  If the news server does not require it, entering a username and/or password may cause your connection to be refused.

If you have saved a username as part of your News configuration, when News connects to the news server, it attempts to authorize you with the news server.  If you have saved a password as well, News provides the username and password to the news server without prompting you.  If you have saved a username but have left the password field empty (or disabled Save Password in Configure Communications), News brings up the Configure Communications dialog box to allow you to enter your password before completing authorization.

If you choose to save your news server password, News encrypts it before recording it in the NEWS.INI file.  However, given the availability of News source code, a determined attacker with access to your configuration file could decrypt your password without too much effort.  Therefore, for the best security, force News to always prompt you for the password by never saving the password, as previously described.


Configuring News

Before you use News to read news, you must give it the information it needs to contact the news server, send electronic mail, and so on.  In addition, you can configure News with personal preferences, such as the colors and fonts it uses, how many article titles should be automatically fetched at once, and so on.

All configuration commands are accessible from the Config menu of the main window.  See Config Menu Commands.

By default, configuration information is written to the file NEWS.INI in the current directory.  You may wish to examine this file with a text editor.  See Invoking News.


Invoking News

News is typically invoked by double-clicking an icon in Program Manager; however, News can be invoked via the Run command in the File menu or by any other mechanism that can be used to start a Windows program.

When News starts, it looks for two files:  NEWS.INI, which contains configuration and customization information, and NEWSRC. By default, News looks in the current directory for these files.  However, there are ways of specifying alternate locations for these files.

News Command Line

You can pass command-line arguments to News to tell it where to locate your NEWS.INI and NEWSRC files.  The format of the command line is

NEWS  IniFile  NewsrcFile

--or--

NEWS  Path

In the first case, News will take IniFile to be the filename--including path specification--of the initialization file.  If IniFile is just a directory name, News will look for the file named NEWS.INI in that directory.  Similarly, News takes the second argument, NewsrcFile, as a filename for the news history file.  If NewsrcFile is just a directory name, News will look for the file named NEWSRC in that directory.

If, as in the second case, News is run with one argument, News will use that argument as a directory name for both the NEWS.INI and NEWSRC files.

(Actually, this is a simplified description of how News searches for these files.  For a complete description, you can read the source code file ininews.c.)

NEWS Environment Variable

Alternatively, you can set an environment variable to tell News where to look for the NEWS.INI and NEWSRC files.  Set the environment variable NEWS to the directory in which both the NEWS.INI and NEWSRC files can be found.  For instance,

SET NEWS=F:\FRED

The News environment variable must be set before Windows starts up.  Every DOS shell within Windows maintains its own separate copy of the environment.  Windows only looks at the environment that existed at startup.

On a PC LAN, an administrator can add code in the login script to set the NEWS environment variable to the unique location of a user's NEWS.INI file (on a network drive).  If you use multiple news servers, you can have multiple icons from within Windows, each set with command-line arguments.

Summary of News's Search for NEWS.INI and NEWSRC

News uses the following search mechanism to find the NEWS.INI file:

1.	Command line  (for example, n:\news\news.exe u:\news.ini u:\newsrc)

2.	NEWS environment variable

3.	Application startup directory

4.	Windows directory

5.	Windows System directory

6.	DOS search path


Using the Mouse in the Group Window

From the Newsgroup window, clicking the mouse anywhere on the window while a network operation is in progress will update the information on the screen with the current downloaded information.  Once all the article header information has been downloaded and the Newsgroup window is fully populated, the mouse operations are the following:

Left Button	Mark/Unmark an article for further consideration

Drag Left Button	Mark/Unmark multiple articles

Double-Click Left Button	Select article for viewing

Middle Button	Toggle the read/unread state of an article

Drag Middle Button	Toggle read/unread state of multiple articles

Shift + Left Button	Same as Mouse Middle

Right Button	Reserved for future popup article menu

Double-Click Right Button	Mark all articles above this one as "seen."


Setting the TZ Environment Variable

If you are running the 16-bit version of News under Windows 3.x, however, you must set the TZ environment variable.  This variable should be set in DOS, before running Windows.

Use the following syntax to set the TZ environment variable:

set TZ=tzn[+ | -]hh[:mm[:ss] ][dzn]

The tzn must be a three-letter time-zone name, such as PST, followed by an optionally signed number, + -hh, giving the difference in hours between Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) and local time. To specify the exact local time, the hours can be followed by minutes (:mm); seconds (:ss); and a three-letter daylight-saving-time zone (dzn) such as PDT. Separate hours, minutes, and seconds with colons. If daylight-saving time is never in effect, as is the case in certain states and localities, set TZ without a value for dzn.


Encoding a File

When encoding a file, News sends the raw encoded data to a file.  News will not generate any MIME headers or any news/mail headers.  If you intend to send this encoded data over the network, select Attach from the composition menu of a composition window.

Name of File to Be Encoded

Enter the file name of a file to encode.  Select Browse to open the Windows file browser.

Encoding Type

Choose the type of encoding for the file.  If you select Make Default, this will become the default encoding type for all attachments.

Custom Encoding Table

If you selected Custom for the Encoding Type, this must be a valid Custom Encoding Table.  See

Custom Encoding Tables.

Ok

When you choose Ok, News will prompt you for a name for the file that will contain the encoded data.

See Encoding Concepts.


Decoding

See Decoding Concepts.

Destination Path

Enter the destination path for the decoded files.

Browse

You can choose Browse to open a Drive/Directory navigator.

Smart Filer

Choose Smart Filer to Configure the Smart Filer.

Ok

If you are using the Utilities menu Decode a File option, when you choose Ok you will be prompted for the filename of the file to decode.  If you are decoding an article or selected articles, when you choose Ok, the decode process will begin.

Other Options

For information on the other decoding options, see Configure Decoding.


Decoding Concepts

Large binaries files are often divided into multipart files when encoded and posted.  These large blocks of text that constitute an encoded file may be presented out of order to News by a news server and with blocks of other encoded files mixed in.  News determines threads of blocks as they are received and decoded, caches blocks that are out of sequence, and then pieces together the fragmented files.  Theoretically, for example, you can select all files in an alt.binaries newsgroup article-list window and choose Decode Selected Articles from the Articles Menu; News will determine which articles contain encoded material.  In cases where not all blocks of an encoded file are found in the selection, News will store as much of the decoded file as possible.

In non-MIME postings, there are no real standards for listing the filename, part number, and total number of parts for each encoded block.  However, most encoders attempt to place this information on the subject line of each block and/or on some informational header in the body text.  News attempts to determine encoded-block threads by examining the Subject line of each post, as well as non-data lines within the body text.  Information found in Info Headers takes precedence over subject-line content.

MIME supports standard 3-to-4 encodings and wraps articles in a very precise protocol describing content types and multiple-part tracking information.  Filename and part number information are not required in the subject line for MIME attachments.  But, MIME is still new and there are many news readers and posters in use that predate the MIME standard; therefore News uses, but does not depend on, MIME headers.

See Decoder and Subject Lines.

See Decoder and Info Headers.

There are cases in which the encoded blocks of a file are posted with unrelated subjects, and without MIME or any useful information headers.  News has no indication that the articles go together.  The following example Subject headers will, assuming no recognizable information headers are contained in the articles, start two decoding threads: one for an identifier "test.exe," and one for an identifier "second":

Test.exe [1/2]

second part

In such cases, the Dumb Decode option is available from Configure Decoding, which deactivates the decoding threading algorithms.  Dumb decode requires that the encoded blocks be in strict sequential order because it starts decoding when it sees a "begin" and stops decoding when it sees an "end."  Note that this will not work with Base64 encodings (See Encoding Concepts.)  When News cannot recognize that encoded articles go together, you can make sure the articles are listed in order, select them all, and then use Dumb Decode to decode them.


Decoder and Subject Lines

If no recognizable Info Headers are contained in the article body text of an encoded block, News relies on the subject-line content.

The News decoder understands the following commonly used subject-line styles:

filename.ext 1/2 comment

filename.ext (1/2) comment

filename.ext [1/2] comment

filename.ext 1 of 2 comment

filename.ext part 1 of 2 comment

For subject lines beginning with the comment or free text, the filename is harder to guess.  In these cases, News chooses an identifier that it will seek in other subject lines. (It prefers a word containing a period (filename.ext); but if there is no two-part name, it uses the first word).  For example:

This is part 1/2 of filename.ext	(filename = "filename.ext")

Another encoded file: filename.ext (1/2)	(filename = "filename.ext")

Testing encoded files (1/2)	(filename = "testing")

This is not an infallible method but it works most of the time.  Subject styles known to be incorrectly handled are

filename.ext 3.4 (1/2)	(filename with version number)

filename.ext 001	(sequence without numbered parts)

filename.ext1	(part number appended to filename)


Decoder and Info Headers

Application-specific info headers that the News decoder understands are

part=n

file=abc.def

pfile=xyz.abc

Archive-name: fileident/part0n

section N of uuencode 5.10 of file abcd.efg   by R.E.M.

section n/N   file abcd.efg   [ Wincode v2.x ]

[ Section: n/N  File: abcd.efg  Encoder: Wincode v1.x ]

section n/N abcd.efg  [EnUU 2.1]

abcd.efg    section  n/N   UUXFER ver 2.0 by David M. Read

POST V2.0.0 abcd.efg (Part n/N)

Also, News currently supports a limited subset of the MIME standard headers:

name=abcd.efg

number=n

total=N

Content-Transfer-Encoding:

boundary=


Encoding Concepts

When Internet mail and news is sent through the collection of machines that constitute the Usenet, uncontrolled binary data in a file could confuse a number of network gateways.  For this reason, all binary files transmitted must be converted (encoded) into a subset of the ASCII language that can be safely passed through the variety of devices on the Usenet.  The most common style of encoding is 3-to-4 encoding where three 8-bit bytes are spread into four 6-bit bytes (each with the two high-order bits set to zero).  A 6-bit byte conveniently can be mapped to a 64-character subset of ASCII.  Common encodings are UU and XX, which are identical except for their choice of ASCII mappings (UU is all uppercase).  Users sometimes create their own encoding tables (list of 64 characters to use).  In each of these, the encoded file begins with the word "begin" and ends with the word, '"end." Base64 is a newer 3-to-4 encoding scheme used in the MIME standard. It has some advantages over UU and XX encoding because it does not use "begin" and "end."


Status Windows

There are two types of status windows in News:

Block Status Window

This is a small status window that is displayed during encoding, sending news, sending SMTP mail, and decoding.  This window shows you the byte and line count and activity status of the current operation (such as how much has been sent, how much has been encoded, how much has been decoded).  This window can be configured to stay "Always on top" in Configure Decoding, or by choosing Always on top from the status window's Alt-space system menu.

Decoding Status Window

This is a window created during decoding operations to show the running status of decoding.  If you select Verbose Status Windows, one Decoding Status Window will be displayed for each binary decoded.  This window shows detailed status of the decoding progress for the associated binary file (such as part sequencing).  When Verbose Status Windows is not selected, only one Decoding Status Window opens, and only a simple message is shown to identify the start and completion of each binary decoded.

Note that you can close all open nonbusy status windows from the main windows Window Menu.


Toolbars

Toolbars are included in the main group-list window, group article-list windows, and article view windows.  The toolbar provides an alternate method for selecting options that are otherwise available from the window menu.

If you find it difficult to ascertain the functionality of a toolbar button from its picture, you can see a text description of the button by placing the mouse cursor over the button and then pressing and holding the left mouse button.  While you hold down the mouse button, a text description appears in the status bar at the bottom of the window.  When you are finished reading the message, you can either release the mouse button to invoke the toolbar button or move the mouse cursor away from the button and release.


Reading News

To read news, choose an interesting newsgroup from the main group-list window and double-click it.  A group article-list window  opens.  If there are more articles in this group than you have specified as your maximum-retrieve threshold (See Configure Article-List), then you will be prompted for the number of article headers you wish to retrieve.

The article-list for your selected newsgroup is retrieved and you will see a list of article lines.  For each article, you see the article number, the author, date, and subject.  Choose an article with an interesting subject and double-click it. An article view window opens.

The article is retrieved and you can read the article.  If it appears to contain encoded data that you are interested in, you can decode it by choosing Decode from the Article File menu or from the toolbar.  You can save the contents of the article by choosing Save or Save As from the Article File menu or from the toolbar.  To reply to the author of the message by mail, choose Compose Mail from the Respond menu or toolbar.  To post a followup to the newsgroup, choose Followup from the Respond menu or toolbar. To forward the article to an e-mail address, choose Forward from the Respond menu or toolbar.

Now return to the group-list. To compose a new article, choose New Article from the Articles menu or toolbar.  If you see a group of articles that appear to be a multipart encoded message (for example, with subjects like fun.zip 1/2 and fun.zip 2/2), select both articles (for selection options, see Configure Article-List) and choose Decode Selected Articles from the Articles menu or toolbar.  See Decoding.


Group Filter
Group Filters

A group filter allows you to use simple expressions to specify which groups you wish to retrieve from the server.  Note that this does not speed up the group retrieval process because News must still retrieve each group from your news server and then compare the group with your filter.  You might use a group filter, for example, to prevent offensive, or undesirable groups from being shown to you, or simply to reduce the size of your group-list by filtering out irrelevant or unwanted articles.

You can install a group filter by modifying the NEWS.INI file, as follows:

In the [Group List] section:

EnableGroupFilter=1

GroupFilter=exp|exp|exp

If EnableGroupFilter=0, group filtering is disabled, and all news server groups will be retrieved. This is equivalent to setting GroupFilter=*

A GroupFilter expression is as follows:

'*' matches any string of characters

'fun*' matches words beginning with 'fun'

'*ing' matches words ending in 'ing'

'*windows*' matches words containing 'windows'

'!' at the beginning of the expression negates it

Negated expressions should appear before nonnegated expressions.

Multiple expressions are separated by '|' (vertical bar character). Expressions are matched from left to right, so more specific expressions should be listed in the GroupFilter before more general expressions.

News compares each group during group-list retrieval with the expressions in the GroupFilter.  Only groups that match the filter will be added to your group-list.

Example group filters:

GroupFilter=comp.*|sci.*

Matches only groups in the comp and sci categories.

GroupFilter=!alt.tv*|!alt.stupidity|alt.*

Matches all groups in the alt category except the alt.tv groups and alt.stupidity.

GroupFilter=!*sports*|!alt.fan.*|*

Ignores any groups containing the word "sports," and groups in the alt.fan category.  Note that if you did not include the trailing general '*' expression, this filter would match no groups; it would filter all  groups and leave you with an empty group-list.


Usenet News

The Usenet News, or Netnews, system is a kind of distributed bulletin board system run on thousands of computers worldwide.  Users of Usenet News exchange views and information by writing articles, which are then transmitted automatically among the computers in the network.  Once posted, an article can by read by others days, hours, or even minutes later, depending upon their computer's type of network link to Usenet.

Articles are organized by topic area into newsgroups, of which there are currently over 10,000.


Overview of WinVN
Overview of News

News is a Microsoft Windows and Windows NT-based news reader.  Like other news readers, it can be used to select, view, and write Usenet News  articles.  News can also be used to send (but not receive) electronic mail messages.

News offers a more visual approach to Usenet News than traditional text-based news readers by allowing you to easily navigate among newsgroups and articles via its point-and-click interface.

In normal operation, News displays three types of windows:  the main group-list window, which displays a list of all newsgroups; one or more group article-list windows, each of which displays a list of the articles in a newsgroup; and one or more article windows, each of which displays an article.  Double-clicking a newsgroup or article name causes that item to be displayed in a separate window.

When you want to write an article, News opens a composition window for that purpose.  See Posting an Article.  Similarly, when you want to write an electronic mail message, News either opens a MAPI-aware editor session or opens a composition window to accept your text.  See Mailing a Message.

News offers a very flexible, customizable news-reading environment.  See Config Menu Commands.


# About_the_author$ History of WinVNK Authors


$ List of Contributors# list_of_contributorsK Authors


Usenet Etiquette
Usenet Etiquette ("Netiquette")

The ease of posting Usenet News articles causes many inappropriate articles to be sent to the network.  An article can be inappropriate if:

--	It is devoid of useful information or ideas.

--	It is sent to inappropriate newsgroup(s).

--	It is really intended for a particular individual rather than the entire Usenet community.

--	It contains rude or insulting remarks.

Please compose your articles thoughtfully.  Consider sending an electronic mail message rather than posting an article, if appropriate.

Be aware of the fact that many sites must pay long-distance telephone charges to receive your article.  Also be aware of the fact that some of the popular newsgroups have tens of thousands of readers.  Ten thousand people each reading your article for 20 seconds spend a total of 55 hours reading your article.

At the end of most articles there is usually a small blurb called a signature or sig.  This usually comes from a file in the sender's login directory and is appended automatically to the message by the news reader.  Some people get carried away with their signature and place complex ASCII drawings or cute sayings at the bottom of their messages.  These signatures bother most people, and it is considered poor netiquette to have signatures larger than about four lines.  You can create a signature file of your own by using any Windows Editor and then attaching it to News by using the option Config Signature File on the Config menu.  Please remember to save your signature file as plain ASCII text since vendor-dependent binary files (such as Microsoft Word files) are not portable across the entire Internet community.

Many new users wish to test their ability to post before they actually say anything of any interest to anyone.  Do not post test messages to an active newsgroup.  This will interrupt many people and is considered poor netiquette.  There are usually a number of test newsgroups (they usually have the word "TEST" in their name) that can be used to verify that posting from your host will be successful.  Some test newsgroups (like ALT.TEST) have automatic email responding software.  A post to those groups will cause electronic mail from all over the world to be sent back to you as your post gets forwarded from site to site.

The Newsgroups: field in a composition window is not limited to just one group.  If a note makes sense to more than one area, you can cross-post it to other newsgroups by separating the newsgroups with a comma in the Newsgroups field.  It is considered poor netiquette to cross-post to more than three or four newsgroups.

When posting new articles to News, please remember that News runs on many different hosts and operating systems.  In fact, since News is one of the very few News readers for Microsoft Windows, the majority of posts from the Usenet are viewed by people running non-DOS/Windows operating systems.  Inserting graphics or non-ASCII text (such as different fonts, underlining, color changes, and such) in an article will appear unintelligible to almost everyone else. You can use News to send binary attachments along with your post, but exercise judgment and do not flood the Usenet with massive binary attachments.

When responding to articles, use the Follow-up Article option instead of the New Post option.  This will maintain a reference link between your message and the article you were reading at the time of your posting.  People reading your message from other thread-based news readers, like News, will be able to understand how your message fits into the rest of the conversation. News will automatically display the text of the article you were reading (including a unique Message ID that can be used to locate the original posting) and insert it at the beginning of your post.  Intersperse your comments between the quoted text and delete any large quoted sections that do not pertain to your response.  You can always find the original text by clicking the unique Message ID.  Also, use Message IDs when referring to other articles, and never refer to another article by its article number.  Article numbers are never the same from system to system, so only people reading news on your own local system will know to which article you are referring.

Try to keep your text in a generic format.  Many (if not most) of the people reading Usenet do so from 80-column terminals or from workstations with 80-column terminal windows.  Try to keep your lines of text to less than 80 characters for optimal readability.  If people quote part of your article in a followup, each line gets indented a few characters and gets preceded by a > character.  Thus, standard lines of 75 characters or less are best for later readability.   Also, News allows you to change your viewing font to any font your workstation supports.  Be careful when using proportional fonts since they allow you to place more characters per line than fixed-widthfonts.

Most news readers on the Usenet are running on multi-user hosts with system administrators and operating systems that validate logons.  Unfortunately, News runs under MS-DOS, which is a single-user operating system that does not use logons.  (News also runs under Windows/NT, which does validate logons.)  Please take special care in configuring your Personal Info and ensure that your name and mailing address are valid.  Since most MS-DOS machines cannot receive Internet mail, do not specify your MS-DOS host as your mail address.

See Posting an Article and Mailing a Message.


The NEWSRC File

In order to keep track of your viewing history, News records information about newsgroups in a file named NEWSRC.  This file contains a list of all newsgroups.  For each newsgroup, News records whether it is subscribed and which articles have been seen.

Many UNIX-based news readers record this information in a file named .newsrc.  News uses a similar file format to provide compatibility with these programs.  One extension had to be made to the file format to provide features not found in ordinary UNIX news readers.  News NEWSRC files contain in each line a field of the form

sbiggest_art_number

where  biggest_art_number  is the number of the most recent article to appear on the news server.  News uses this information at the beginning of a session to tell you which articles have appeared on the server since your last session.  News does not require this field to be present, so you can transport your UNIX-style .newsrc file to your PC as the filename NEWSRC and News should be able to use it without modification.  Transporting a News NEWSRC back to UNIX would require a simple script to remove the s fields.

See Group Menu  Commands.and Invoking News.


Bulletin board system
Bulletin board system (BBS)

An electronic system in which users participate in discussions by leaving public messages for each other.  Most BBSs are run on personal computers and are accessible only by dial-up modem. Many have additional features, such as online games and a file repository.

Usenet News is not a BBS in the usual sense of the word, but it provides the messaging features of a BBS on a much grander scale than found on any existing BBS.


Usenet

A loosely organized network of over 200,000 computers worldwide.  These computers are linked in a number of ways, including by modem and TCP/IP.  The best known service provided by Usenet is Usenet News.


NNTP

Network News Transport Protocol.  This is the network protocol used by News and most other news readers to carry Usenet News information.  There is also a program named wNNTP that implements the NNTP protocol and runs on many news servers.  (The program NNTP has been replaced by the program INN at many sites.)  NNTP is defined in RFC-977.


SMTP

Simple Mail Transfer Protocol.  This is the network protocol used for the exchange of electronic mail messages on the Internet.  SMTP is defined in RFC-821.


MAPI

Microsoft Mail Application Programming Interface.  Allows communication between News and MAPI-compliant mail programs, such as Mail OnNet and Microsoft Mail.


ROT13

ROT13 is a very simple encryption mechanism for text.  Imagine the 26 characters of the alphabet on a wheel.  To ROT13 encrypt one character, simply rotate the wheel 13 positions from the original character  position.  To decrypt, turn the wheel another 13 positions.  The purpose of ROT13 is not really encryption, but rather to shield the casual reader from potentially offensive material, or from what people call "spoilers" (for example, giving away the end of a movie).


XOVER

XOVER is an  extension to NNTP that dramatically increases performance during article header transfer.  If XOVER is available, News will automatically enable threading.


RFC

Request For Comment.  This is the common forum for presenting proposals for standards and protocols to the Internet community.  RFCs of interest to news/mail enthusiasts include 821 (SMTP), 822 (Mail Messages), 977 (NNTP), 1036 (Usenet Messages), 1341 (MIME).


Article

A message written by a Usenet News user and posted to the network.  Articles are similar to electronic mail messages, but are not private.  They are intended to be seen by potentially hundreds of thousands of people.  Also called "postings".


Newsgroup

A collection of articles on a given topic.  When you write an article, you specify to which group or groups it should be sent.

Each newsgroup has a hierarchical name that suggests the topic of that group.  Names consist of several words separated by periods.  The first word in the newsgroup name states the general category covered by that group, the second states a subcategory of that general category, and so on.

For instance, the newsgroups sci.chem and sci.math are scientifically oriented groups that are dedicated to chemistry and mathematics, respectively. The soc.culture.indian group is sociologically oriented group devoted to the culture of India.


News reader
News Readers

Computer programs through which you interact with the Usenet News system.  News readers allow you to select and read articles written by others, and to write and post articles of your own.

A number of news readers have been written over the years, many of them for computers running the UNIX operating system.  The best-known news readers are probably rn, nn, tin, and xrn.


Posting

The act of sending an article to the Usenet network, to be seen by potentially hundreds of thousands of individuals.  Also, a synonym for "article".


Header

A series of lines at the beginning of an article or electronic mail message that contain such information as the article's or message's author, its subject, its date and time of transmission, and so on.  The header is separated from the actual text of the article or message by a blank line.


Electronic mail message

A message sent privately to one or more explicitly named individuals.  Electronic mail is not provided by Usenet News per se; electronic mail messages are not the same as news articles.  However, many news readers provide the capability of sending (but usually not receiving) electronic mail because it is often desirable to respond privately to an article.


News server

A computer that runs special software to exchange news articles with other computers in the Usenet network and makes these articles available to local users.  News readers require access to a news server, but they do not require you to have an account on a news server.


Definition

A type of hypertext link in Microsoft Help.  A definition is a (usually) brief description of a term.  Definitions appear when you press and hold the mouse button on a term that appears in Help as green text marked with a dotted underline.

Some definitions contain hypertext links because they are also available as cross-references.  It is usually possible to reference a definition as a cross-reference via the Help Search button.


Cross Reference

A type of hypertext link in Microsoft Help.  A cross-reference is a topic that appears in the Help window when you click on a term that appears in Help as green solid underlined text.


Subscribing (concept)

Subscribing to a newsgroup is the act of marking that group as one in which you are interested and which you would like to track.  The term "Subscribing" is misleading, because you are not actually notifying anyone of your interest in the group; it is a purely local and personal distinction that a particular newsgroup is one that you are interested in.

Newsgroups to which you do not subscribe all called "unsubscribed."  News allows you to hide unsubscribed newsgroups so that they are not listed in the main group-list window.  You can make your newsgroup list more manageable by subscribing to the groups you are interested in and hiding the unsubscribed groups.  See Configure Group-List.


Signature

A short piece of text appended to a posting or mail message typically describing the author and his or her interests and affiliation.  It is considered bad form for the signature to be more than four lines.


NEWS.INI

News saves its configuration information in a file named NEWS.INI.  By default, News searches for this file in the current directory when it is launched.  However, its location can be specified in other ways. You may wish to examine this file with a text editor. See Invoking News.


Followup

An article that is posted to the network in response to another, earlier article.  When you are creating a followup article, it is better to use News's Followup menu command than to create a new article with the same title.  The reason is that News inserts a References: header line in the article, which is used by some news readers to gather together related articles.


MIME

Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions. This is an international standard for the exchange of text and binary files in Internet messages.  It is presented in Internet Standard RFC-1341 by Nathaniel Borenstein and Ned Freed, June 1992.


FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions.  A FAQ is typically text on one subject organized as a list of common questions related to the subject and the anwers.  FAQs on many subjects are frequently posted to the newsgroup news.answers.  The News FAQ can be found at the same location as the News files.


 TZ Environment Variable

If you are running Windows 3.x, the TZ environment variable must be set  for your messages to be timestamped correctly.  See Setting the TZ Environment Variable.


Article Number

For each article in a group article-list window, an article number is shown.  This is the number used by your news server to track the article.  This number is local to your news server only.  This number is not a meaningful identifier outside of your news server.  If you need a globally (Internet-wide) unique identifer for an article, use its message ID.


Message ID

Every news and mail message sent over the internet has an absolutely unique message identifier.  The identifier is contained inside angle brackets and typically looks something like <uniquenum@full.domain.host> such as <91028938183.bba3@titan.ksc.nasa.gov>.


 Threads

A way of organizing and displaying the sequence of articles that make up a conversation.  The News protocol and many news readers have built-in support for this mode of operation. News has direct support for threading if you have the Compute Threads option enabled from Config Article-List.  You can also use "poor man's threading" by moving to the next article on the same subject with the Find Next Article Same Subject menu command.  There is also hypertext support for accessing news reference headers.  You can click a news reference header, and News will fetch that article and display it for you.


Winsock

Winsock is the Microsoft Windows TCP/IP sockets programming interface. The Windows Sockets Specification is intended to provide a single API to which application developers can program and multiple network software vendors can conform.  News requires a Winsock DLL, which is supplied with the network software.


GWINSOCK.DLL

GWINSOCK.DLL is News's interface to Winsock.  This interface was developed to allow News to also work with DLLs that predate the Winsock specification (such as the WSOCKETS.DLL used in Microsoft Lanmanager 2.1a and DEC Pathworks 4.1) and also to allow experimentation with other nonsockets-based networking transports.


Technical assistance

Users in the U.S. and Canada, and worldwide resellers  Contact FTP Software®:

Telephone:	(800) 382-4387

(508) 685-3600

E-mail:	support@ftp.com

Fax:	(508) 794-4484

 or

Users outside of the U.S. and Canada  Contact your local reseller.

Tip

For FREE online technical services, see:

World Wide Web:	http://www.ftp.com

Anonymous Ftp Server:	ftp.ftp.com

Bulletin Board System:	(508) 684-6240 ( settings  8,N,1)

CompuServe:	GO FTPSOFT (PCVENJ Section 8)