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Pluckit 3, The Automatic News Picture Plucker
Copyright (c) 1997,
The NetWork, Ft. Worth Texas
Quick Start
To get started quickly, follow these steps. All of the functionality of Pluckit 3 will not be enabled, but this process will get you online and Plucking quickly!
1. Install Pluckit 3.
2. Dial-up (or otherwise connect to) your Internet service provider.
3. Start Pluckit 3 by running pluckit3.exe.
4. When arriving at the main screen, select "Setup".
5. Within Setup, add the name of your news server in the "News Servers" text box (i.e. news.myserver.com)
6. Create a topic. (i.e. Pictures of Motorcycles)
7. Refresh the groups list by pressing "refresh list". If your news server contains a very large number of groups, you may wish to filter out only the ones of interest to you. See the help section on filtering groups for more information.
8. Add groups that you wish to pluck from to the topic by selecting them from the master groups list and then pressing the right arrow button.
9. Close Setup by pressing the "OK" button.
10. When at the main screen, press "Start Plucking" and then "Viewers".
11. Sit back and enjoy the show!
News Servers
News Server addresses and other characteristics are created and changed within Setup.
News names may be entered in either dotted decimal notation ("200.134.567.8") or as text ("news.myserver.com").
Pluckit 3 allows an unlimited number of servers to be entered. Each server controls it's own set of topics and groups to be plucked.
Adding News Servers
News Servers are added within Setup.
They may be entered by typing the server name in the text box and then pressing Enter or they may be entered by pressing the "add" button.
News server names may be entered in either dotted decimal notation or as text.
You obtain the exact name of your news server from your internet service provider. If the name is not entered exactly, Pluckit will not be able to connect.
Removing News Servers
News Servers entries are removed within Setup.
Simply select the news server name you wish removed and then press the "Remove" button. That server, along with its topics will then be removed.
Changing Order
In Setup, the order of items in the newsgroup, topic, and topic group lists may be changed as desired by pressing the appropriate "Change Order" button.
Items in the list are reordered by simply dragging and dropping an entry (with the left mouse button) up or down to the desired position in the list.
Topics
Topics are used to gather together groups pertaining to a certain subject. Each topic has it's own download path.
For example, a topic named "Motorcycles" might contain groups such as alt.binaries.pictures.motorcycles.
A topic named "Famous People" might contain alt.binaries.pictures.celebrities, etc.
Topics are Plucked in the order that they are listed. If desired, that order can be changed by pressing the "Change Topic Order" button.
When pictures are plucked, they are downloaded into the folder specified by that particular topic's Download Path setting.
It is useful to have different download paths for each topic so that pictures from one topic do not become intermixed with pictures from another.
Download Path
The folder where downloaded files are placed. Each topic can have its own download path.
Refreshing the Groups List
Each news server has its own list of newsgroups. New groups are constantly being added to the "master list" available to your Internet service provider. The 1997 count is in excess of 30,000 groups. Not all news servers carry all available groups.
Most groups having pictures are found in the .alt groups, particularly the alt.binaries.
Before using a news server with Pluckit for the first time, the groups list must be "refreshed". That is, the list of available groups on your news server must be downloaded to your computer so that Pluckit will know what groups are available.
To refresh the groups list, go to Setup and press the "Refresh List" button.
Refreshing the list may take a long time if your server carries a large number of groups.
It is advisable to use groups refresh filters to prevent excessive consumption of disk and memory resources on your computer
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Groups Refresh Filters
Because of the enormous number of newsgroups available and the resultant consumption of computer resources required to store them, it is advisable to filter out the segments of newsgroups that are of no interest to you, and keep only those groups that are of interest. This is easily done with Pluckit's groups refresh filters.
The groups refresh filters are located under Setup/Other Settings.
Only newsgroup names that contain the groups refresh filter text will be added to the master groups list when it is refreshed. All other groups will be excluded.
For example, entering:
alt.binaries
Adds only groups containing alt.binaries to the groups list during refresh.
alt.binaries.pictures
Adds only groups containing alt.binaries.pictures to the groups list during refresh.
motorcycle
Adds only groups containing the word "motorcycle" to the groups list during refresh.
If there are no refresh filters then all groups on the news server will be added to the groups list (not a good idea if your server carries 30,000 groups).
Adding Groups to a Topic
After a topic is created, news groups pertaining to that topic are selected from the master groups list and added to the topic groups list for plucking.
This is done within Setup by various means.
Group names may be simply typed into the topic groups list.
Groups may be selected from the groups list and then added to the topic groups list by pressing the right-arrow button.
A single group may be dragged from the groups list and dropped into the topic groups list with the left mouse button.
Multiple groups may be selected and then dragged to the topic groups list with the right mouse button.
Topic Groups List
The list of groups associated with a certain topic. This list is found in Setup.
Removing Groups from a Topic
Groups are removed from topic groups list one at a time by pressing the "Remove" button.
Finding a Specific Group in the Groups List
The "Find" text box is located under the groups list in Setup.
Entering text there searches the groups list for the first occurrence of that text.
F3 finds the next occurrence of the item entered.
Pressing enter will add a selected group to the topic groups list.
Manually Adding a Newsgroup
A newsgroup name can be manually added to the master groups list by pressing the "Manually Add Newsgroup" button in Setup.
Other Settings
Pluckit Access Password
The Pluckit Access Password is used to restrict access to the Pluckit program itself.
If you wish to restrict access, enter a password under Setup/Other Settings. Thereafter, that password must be correctly entered before Pluckit will start.
To remove an existing password so that anyone can start Pluckit, simply erase the password.
Caution: the Pluckit password is encrypted and cannot be recovered if it is forgotten. The only recourse in such a situation is to uninstall and then re-install Pluckit.
News Server Authentication
Some Internet service providers require a separate authorization for access to their news server.
Authentication username and password are entered under Setup/Other Settings.
Use this feature only if your news server requires separate authentication.
Forced Exclusions
Exclusions are used to prevent Pluckit from downloading certain unwanted files.
Additions and deletions to the exclusions list are made from within Setup/Other Settings.
Pluckit consults the exclusions list every time it accesses an article. If the exclusions list contains any text that is also contained in the message header of the article currently being examined, then that message is ignored.
For example, if you wish to exclude all posts originating from the user "demented@braindead.net", simply add "demented@braindead.net" to the exclusions list.
Double clicking on a thumbnail image in the main viewer presents an option that can be used to copy and paste text automatically from the message header to the exclusions list- on the fly, even while Pluckit is plucking.
Exclusions should be added cautiously, as it is possible to exclude everything with a too-broad exclusion. For example, entering the word "subject" would cause Pluckit to ignore all articles. This is because all message headers contain the word "subject".
Forced Downloads
The effect of a forced downloads entry is to exclude all articles except those having the forced download text in the header.
Additions and deletions to the forced downloads list are made under Setup/Other Settings.
A typical use is to force Pluckit to obtain only the posts of a certain person.
All the other restrictions (file types, anti-crossposting, etc.) also work on forced downloads.
AutoPlucker
The AutoPlucker automatically dials in, plucks, and disconnects at predetermined times.
AutoPlucker settings are maintained in Setup/Other Settings/Auto-Plucker.
Start and stop times for any day of the week may be programmed.
Dial-Up Networking must be installed in Windows 95, and a working dial-up connection icon for your service provider must exist.
After clicking the "Armed" check box, Pluckit will come to life at the predetermined time, dial your Internet service provider, and begin plucking.
When the stop time arrives, Pluckit will automatically disconnect. This action will repeat for any day of the week that has a start time programmed.
Multiparts
Some picture attachments contain too much data for a single newsgroup message. Often such messages are split and posted as multiple parts which require reassembly into a single file before they are useable.
Pluckit 3 optionally downloads and stores individual parts of a multipart file and reconstructs the finished file when all parts have been found. If "allow multiparts" is checked in Setup/Other Settings, this process is automatic.
All of the attachments that comprise a multi-part file may not be present in a single news group. They may be located in other groups or may arrive days later. Pluckit stores parts until they all have been found, or the expiration date for the parts has passed.
You may specify how many days the parts should be stored before being automatically deleted. The expiration time for multiparts is controlled by entering a number after pressing the "Expiration" button.
Multiparts are reassembled when Pluckit changes groups or when the FMA button is pressed while in the main viewer.
Start Plucking From
Pluckit allows you to choose the starting point within a newsgroup where plucking begins.
It is sometimes desirable to begin Plucking from some place other than the beginning of the group or the last file plucked. For example, you may be interested in only the last 25% of articles posted to a group.
You have the option of beginning at the message number where Pluckit left off last session or selecting a starting point as a percentage of the group.
If "Last File Plucked" is selected and it is the first time Pluckit has visited a group, plucking will start at the beginning.
If "Position Within the Group" is selected, plucking begins at the point represented by the slider control. For example if you set the slider to 50%, Pluckit will start at the approximate middle of the group. The actual range of the slider is from 10% to 90%.
Because there may be gaps in the newsgroup, Pluckit may not be able to start plucking at precisely the point selected. If no valid article is found at the position selected, Pluckit will step forward automatically until a valid article number is found or the end of the group is reached.
File Types
By default, Pluckit downloads all file types. However, if desired, only certain types will be downloaded.
For example, to download only .avi's, and ignore all other types, click the "All Types" checkbox off and enter ".avi" to the file types list.
Anti-Crossposting
Crossposting is a technique whereby a single message can be sent to multiple newsgroups.
Very often, crossposted messages are commercial advertisements (or spam), and excessive crossposting is an indicator that the message may be spam.
Pluckit allows the user to select the level of crossposting deemed acceptable. Once set, every message is checked for crossposting and messages that exceed the threshold are not downloaded.
A setting of less than 10 will eliminate most spam.
History List
The history list contains a record of all the files that Pluckit has downloaded. This list is maintained so that Pluckit will not re-download a file that it has already processed.
Old entries in the history list are automatically removed after a certain number of days.
Selecting Setup/Other Settings/Expiration allows control over the expiration time.
If you want the history list to never automatically expire, then set the number of days to zero.
The history list can be completely purged by pressing the history list "Reset" button.
Viewers
Main Viewer
The main viewer is accessed by pressing the "Viewers" button on the main Pluckit screen.
The main viewer screen contains the main viewer and 9 thumbnail viewers. As pictures are plucked, they are displayed in the main viewer and also transferred to the thumbnail viewers for further consideration.
Double-clicking on any image displays it on the large viewer.
Thumbnails may be enlarged, deleted, and their associated message headers may be examined as desired. Single-clicking on a thumbnail image displays its message header and presents other file management options for that picture.
The image in the main viewer may be zoomed, deleted, lightened, darkened, or rotated by pressing the right mouse button. Invade may also be turned on and off.
Zooming is accomplished by pressing the appropriate zoom button at the bottom of the main viewer screen.
A file in the process of being downloaded may be cancelled by pressing the "Cancel Download" button.
If desired, the current group being plucked can be skipped by pressing the "SkipGroup" button.
Message Headers
Every news article has a message header. It contains information about the body of the message, the person posting the message, the origin and destination of the message and other information.
Single-clicking on a thumbnail in the main viewer displays that picture's message header along with buttons providing special features such as delete, move to pluckit holding area, and add selected text to exclusions list.
The picture can be deleted by pressing the "Delete" button.
Examining a message header can provide information that is very useful for spam prevention.
Any text in the header can be selected and added to the exclusions list by pressing the "Add to Exclusions List" button. The selected text will then be added to the exclusions list "on the fly" as if it were typed in.
A minimal amount of identifying text should be selected. The "From:" entry in the header usually contains the most important information relating to a spammer. However, any information contained in the header can be added to the exclusions list by this method.
Invade
Normally, pictures are automatically displayed as soon as they are plucked. Thus, the new picture "invades" the picture viewer, replacing the old one. Newly plucked pictures can be prevented from displaying over the existing picture by toggling invade off.
Invade is accessed by pressing the right mouse button when over the main viewer or the large viewer.
At the top of the main viewer are several indicators. Their functions are listed below:
Current Topic
The topic currently being plucked. Topics are plucked according to the order established in Setup.
Current Group
The group currently being plucked. Groups are plucked according to the order established in Setup.
Incoming File Name
The name of the file currently in the process of being downloaded. Unwanted incoming file downloads may be canceled prior to completion by pressing "Cancel Download" in the main viewer.
Group Progress
A progress indicator illustrating how far Pluckit has penetrated into a newsgroup. Progress is indicated as a percentage. Because many groups have gaps where messages are missing, the progress indicator may suddenly jump forward as it skips the missing messages.
Download Progress
A progress indicator illustrating how much of an incoming file has been downloaded. Progress is indicated as a percentage.
Articles Read
The number of articles examined by Pluckit in the current group.
Articles in Group
The number of article numbers in the current group. Because some groups have missing articles and gaps in the article number sequence, this number may not be exact.
Files Plucked
The number of files plucked since the "Start Plucking" button was pressed.
Last Event
A message indicating the last exclusion event that occurred. Exclusions can occur as a result of the action of the history list, exclusions list, forced downloads list, file types list, and crossposting limit.
The last event is displayed in the download progress box on the main viewer.
Large Viewer
The large viewer is accessible from the main viewer screen by double-clicking an image or pressing the "Large Viewer" button.
Pressing the right mouse button while over the displayed image permits rotating, lightening, darkening, printing, and control over new picture invasion.
Zooming is controlled by the "Zoom In", "Zoom Out", and "Zoom Reset" buttons.
The "Select Folder" button chooses the folder that the large viewer operates in.
Note that unless invade is turned off, pictures currently being plucked will appear on the large viewer.
Pictures in the display queue may be perused one at a time with the "First", "Last", "Next", and "Prior" buttons.
The "Slide Show" button enables the slide show feature.
The "Send to PHA" button moves a displayed picture from its current directory into the Pluckit Holding Area (PHA).
Display Queue
The display queue contains a list of the files plucked since the "Start Plucking" button was pressed. If a folder is selected with the "Select Folder" button, then the display queue contains the graphics files in that folder as well as any incoming files.
Slide Show
The slide show automatically displays pictures from a selected directory, one after another.
A folder containing graphic files must be selected before the slide show feature will operate.
The number of seconds that a single picture appears before moving on to the next is controlled by the delay setting.
By pressing the "Delete" button, a picture may be deleted "on the fly" while being presented by the slide show. This is a very good way of removing unwanted files from a directory.
A picture (or pictures if in the gallery) may be paused for as long as desired by pressing the "Pause" button.
The slide show will repeat over and over if the "Loop" button is pressed.
Newly plucked pictures will be added to the slide show as they are acquired.
When in the large viewer, the "First", "Last", "Prior", and "Next" buttons also function while the slide show is operating, but may cause a reordering of the sequence of pictures.
Gallery
The gallery is a display capable of displaying up to 12 thumbnail pictures. It is accessible from the main Pluckit screen.
Pictures must already be in the display queue or a folder containing graphic files must have been selected by pressing the "Select Folder" button before the gallery can display pictures.
The "Select Folder" button selects the folder that the gallery operates in.
Pictures currently being plucked are not added to the gallery. Only pictures that exist in the display queue when the gallery is started are displayed.
The gallery view of the display queue may be moved forward or backward by pressing the "Forward" and "Reverse" buttons respectively.
The "Slide Show" button enables the slide show feature.
Double-clicking on a gallery picture causes it to be displayed in the large viewer.
Dotted Decimal Notation
An alternate method of identifying Internet locations. Some news servers provide their IP address in dotted decimal notation such as "104.166.40.102" rather than providing a domain name as text (i.e. "news.myserver.com"). Pluckit accepts either method.
Spam
In this context, a common term used by Internet enthusiasts. Obviously not referring to the commercial meat product.
At the minimum, spam may be defined as an unwanted message. Usually spam is characterized as a single message posted many times, in many different newsgroups.
Pluckit has the ability to detect and prevent the download of most spam. In particular, the forced exclusions and crossposting limits are very useful. Additionally, Pluckit has automatic internal methods for detecting and avoiding certain types of spam.
Cancel Download
The current file being downloaded may be cancelled by pressing the "Cancel Download" button which is located on the main viewer.
It may take several seconds for the news server to acknowledge the cancel request and respond.
Skip Group
While Plucking, the current group in the topic can be skipped by pressing the "Skip Group" button.
Pluckit will then resume plucking with the next group in the current topic.
Thumbnail Management
The most recent 9 downloaded images are displayed as thumbnails in the main viewer.
Clicking on a thumbnail brings up the file header and thumbnail management screen. From this screen, the thumbnail that was clicked can be deleted, viewed in the large viewer or moved to the Pluckit holding area.
Additionally, text from the file header can be automatically added to the exclusions list.
Examining the message header can provide useful information. For example, spammers can be identified, usually by distinctive text in the "From:" line in the header.
To add header text to the exclusions list, select the text of interest and then press the "Add Text to Exclusions List". That text will automatically be added to the list, and exclusion of headers containing that text will begin immediately.
The Pluckit Holding Area
The Pluckit holding area is a folder named "pluckit_holding_area". It is located in the Pluckit folder.
Its purpose is to provide a standard place to store pictures that are out of context with the topic of the group, or need to be further examined.
Pictures are placed in the Pluckit holding area by pressing the "Send Picture to Holding Area" button on the Thumbnail Management or the Large Viewer screen . They will remain there until manually deleted or moved.
This is a particularly useful tool when used in conjunction with the Slide Show. An entire directory of pictures can be examined for a certain subject while the Slide Show runs. Pictures meeting the criteria can then be moved to the holding area when they appear in the show.
General Information
What Pluckit Does
Pluckit automatically searches newsgroups, looking for and downloading binary attachments.
It is designed to immediately go to work, without the delays associated with downloading article lists from the news server. This means that Pluckit can produce pictures within seconds.
Pluckit stores downloaded pictures in directories specified by the user.
It is configurable to ignore certain types of articles or articles that contain files already downloaded.
Binary Attachments
Pictures, graphics, fonts, movie files, or other non-text files attached to a news message. The format of a binary attachment makes it unreadable by humans until it is decoded.
Newsgroups
Sometimes referred to as "Usenet", the newsgroups are topics containing messages contributed by Internet users around the globe.
Most Internet Service Providers provide access to the newsgroups as a part of their service. However, not all groups are carried by all providers.
These messages can be replied to, thus creating "threads" of conversation that may continue for years. Additionally, files may be attached to messages. These files can contain pictures, fonts, executable programs or other material.
Most of the graphics and picture attachments are to be found in the alt groups. Pluckit searches these groups and automatically downloads pictures it finds, without user intervention.
Troubleshooting
Most of the problems related to operating Pluckit arise from inconsistencies in news server or message posting software.
Specifically, news servers do not all obey the same command syntax nor return the same result codes as a result of a request from the user. There are hundreds of different message posting programs in use. Some of these programs do not provide intelligible information about message or file attachment contents.
Unfortunately, there is no hard and fast set of rules governing the mechanisms of news servers or message posting software. The recommendations for server and software design most widely used are contained in the documents named rfc822, rfc977, and rfc1036. Pluckit was designed in general accordance with the specifications contained in these documents.
Additionally, there is wide variation in the speed of news servers, and the quality of connection to those servers.
Pluckit is a dynamic program. This means that it functions by actively requesting information from the news server, analyzing that information, and then deciding whether to continue with another request or further process the information it has.
In contrast, virtually all news reader programs are static. They download lists of article headers and then depend on the user to decide what to do with that list. With static programs, inconsistencies in server action or replies cause little difficulty since it is the intellect of the user making decisions and not the intellect of the program. If things don't work out right, the user simply chooses another action or repeats the last one.
Pluckit on the other hand is in full control of making decisions about what to request, what to download, what to ignore, what is a sensible reply from the server and what is not. Thereby, it will attempt to decipher any bizarre or unexpected data coming from the news server, but like any machine or software construction, it has its limits. A small number of servers operate in a fashion that causes Pluckit difficulty.
Common problems are listed below.
Stalls:
May result from a variety of causes, the most common being a dropped connection to the news server. In many cases, Pluckit is capable of recovering if the connection is restored. Solution: Wait at least 2 minutes to see if any activity is taking place. If not, reconnecting to the service may be required.
Some news servers do not return result codes in accordance with the above mentioned rfc's. This may cause Pluckit to wait indefinitely for an anticipated reply from the server. Solution: Press the "Stop" button, wait 30 seconds and then press the "Start Plucking" button.
Occasionally, Windows 95 may not indicate that the hard drive is low on available space, yet Pluckit will be unable to save downloads. Pluckit will appear to operate normally, but no new files will be found in the download directory. Solution: clear space on the hard drive.
Pluckit will not download an attachment that is known to be present in the newsgroup:
This may be the unexpected effect of an exclusion or file-type specification in Setup. Interaction between these features can become very complex, and the results may not be discernable ahead of time. Solution: Use the minimum number of download restrictions possible.
Multiparts not having a standard Subject line i.e. "Subject: A file... filename.ext (2/3)" will not be processed by Pluckit. This is caused by the software that posted the message not adhering to the rfc's. (Note that this relates to multiparts only, most nonstandard singleparts present no such problem for Pluckit) Solution: None, aside from discouraging the use of such message posting software.
Pluckit Holding Area
Sometimes, a worthwhile picture may appear in the main viewer, but it is out of context with the topic being plucked.
Rather than having to remember the name of that picture and then extract it from the topic directory later, Pluckit has an automatic feature that moves the picture file to a special holding area.
This holding area is a folder named "pluckit_holding_area" located within the Pluckit folder.
To activate this feature, click on the thumbnail of interest in the main viewer. When the header information appears, click on "Move to Pluckit Holding Area". The file will then be transferred to that directory for later examination or processing.
Force Multipart Assembly (FMA)
Pluckit normally assembles multiparts between group changes. However, multiparts can be assembled anytime by pressing the "FMA" button while in the main viewer.
Any multiparts that have all parts present will be assembled and displayed.
Refresh Method
Most news servers respond to a request for a list of groups in the same way. However, a few servers require a different kind of request.
In order to accommodate this difference, an alternate refresh method can be selected.
If the groups list does not refresh properly (i.e. fragmented group names, duplicate groups, or no groups at all) select the alternate refresh method.
