NewzTop Help Topics
The Moreover web feed company, whose Headlines by Moreover logo you see when NewzTop first starts or are waiting for a news retrieval, gathers links to news articles from over 1500 news sources on the internet. The NewzTop reads the list of headlines provided by Moreover, and makes them available in an easy to use desktop application that keeps you continuously updated with news items of interest.
Headlines appear in the center window. When you first install NewzTop, it must download an initial set of news categories and headlines. Until the initial download is complete, all you will see in the headline area is the Headlines by Moreover logo. The initial download may take a few minutes with a dial-up connection, and is a good time to get familiar with the program using the help file. The flashing indicator lights on the right hand side of the window mean that NewzTop is busy retrieving news and will turn off when news retrieval is complete.
Help may be accessed in several ways: Click the blue ? button on the far right bottom of the window, press the F1 key, select Help from the context menu (right mouse click), or clicking on a help button when you are in a dialog.
Double click with the left mouse button on a headline and your default internet browser will load with that article. If you prefer and are using Internet Explorer, you may drag and drop headlines onto the browser. This lets you have several articles active at the same time. To drag and drop articles, first start up Internet Explorer if it is not running already. Click on the headline in the NewzTop with the left mouse button and keep it held down. Move the mouse cursor over to the Internet Explorer window and release the mouse over either the browser main window or the address control.
The newspaper button on the far left side of the bar pulls drops down a tree which shows all news categories. You can select a top level news channel, or drill down to a specific category. When you double click on news category item in the news tree, only headlines from that item will appear in the headline area. When you double click on a top level news channel, you will see headlines from all categories in the news channel. To see other news items, select another category. See favorites or keywords to set up those sections. When you close the NewzTop, it will either start up in your last active category, or the default start-up category you define (see startup for more). To be notified with a pop up message when a news category is added or removed by the news source, check the "notify when categories change" check box on the Category page in the settings dialog.
The flashing lights are indicators to alert you of activity. The top light flashes when internet access is taking place. The bottom light flashes when new articles which match keywords are found. You may turn off the flashing temporarily by clicking on the light.
When the mouse cursor changes to a hand over an area, that means that if you click on it, your browser will navigate to a web page. The headline area, and the logos on the right of the main window and in the about box all may be clicked on to navigate with the browser.
If you want NewzTop to automatically, check the box in the Settings dialog General tab that reads "Start Newztop Automatically when I turn my computer on". This option will be chosen when NewzTop is installed. You may turn it off by unchecking the box. When NewzTop first starts, it waits 3 seconds before starting to retrieve news. If it starts automatically and you don't want to use it this time, click the Cancel button (the "x" at the upper right corner of the window).
The Headlines by Moreover logo is displayed whenever there isn't an active headline. This may happen when articles are retrieved and the NewzTop is waiting for the download to complete and it may happen when there are no articles for the selected news category or keyword. The tool tip for the headline window will read "No headlines for the selected category" when no articles were found and "Loading headlines for selected category" while the download is active.
Right click on the NewzTop. From the context menu (right mouse click), select "Settings". In the "NewzTop Settings" dialog that appears, activate the "Articles" tab to change how articles are filtered by date. You can view all articles, only today's articles or articles within a specified number of days.
Right click on the NewzTop. From the context menu (right mouse click), select "Settings". In the "NewzTop Settings" dialog that appears, activate the "Articles" tab to change how often new articles are checked for or the "Categories" tab to change how often the NewzTop checks for new news categories.
Right click on the NewzTop. From the context menu (right mouse click), select "Settings". In the "NewzTop Settings" dialog that appears, activate the "Headlines" tab. The controls in the dialog, allow you to change the headline font, colors and headline transition settings. The tab has a preview sample headline that allows you to see what the headline will look like after your changes take effect.
Headlines are refreshed whenever the news category is retrieved from Moreover. Initially, headlines for a news category are populated from saved headline list files. When a new list of headlines for a category is retrieved the headline list is updated. If an older headline is no longer in the list for that category, it will be removed. If there are headlines that you want to keep available, you can export the headline list to an HTML file for later viewing.
Right click on the NewzTop. From the context menu (right mouse click), select "Export Headlines to HTML". The directory will default to "My Documents". Enter a file name and press the "Save" button. Please note that article links may not be maintained indefinitely by Moreover. If the article is no longer accessible through the headline link, it may still be possible to locate it by following the right column source link.
Keywords are a news searching tool. You can search article headlines and text for specific keywords. Articles which contain the keywords appear under the "Keywords" node in the "My News Categories" branch of the news tree. The keyword indicator status light flashes when new articles are found that match your keywords. To view them select from "Keyword Matches" in the news tree.
Right click on the NewzTop. From the context menu (right mouse click), select "Settings". In the "NewzTop Settings" dialog that appears, activate the "Keywords" tab. Using the "Add" and "Remove" buttons or by double clicking on the keywords list, enter those keywords want to appear in the "Keywords" node of the news category tree. The check boxes in the dialog allow you to fine tune how you want keyword matching to occur. You may search for matches in the article text or in the headlines only and you may specify for whole or partial keyword matches.
Favorites are news categories that you configure to appear in the "Favorite Categories" node, in the news tree, under the "My News Categories" branch. Favorites are convenient way of grouping together commonly accessed news categories. Instead of selecting news categories separately in their respective channel branches, they may be added to the Favorites and more conveniently accessed. The news categories selected as favorites still appear in their respective news channels as well
Right click on the NewzTop. From the context menu (right mouse click), select "Settings". In the "NewzTop Settings" dialog that appears, activate the "Favorites" tab. Using the "Add" and "Remove" buttons or by double clicking on the news category tree and favorites list, select those news categories that you want to appear in the "Favorites" node of the news category tree.
Yes you can. There are two ways to do this. Any node in the news tree can be selected. If you select a top level news channel node such as "General", headlines from all categories in the channel will be displayed. The other way is to organize your Favorites list using the settings dialog. Categories from any news channel can be added to the Favorites list. To view all categories in the Favorites list at the same time, select "Favorite Categories" in the news tree. If you like, you can view your Favorites and Keyword matches together by selecting "My News Categories" in the news tree.
Right click on the NewzTop. From the context menu (right mouse click), select "Settings". In the "NewzTop Settings" dialog that appears, activate the "Startup" tab. You may either specify a news category or start with the news category that was active the when you last time used the program. To specify the startup news category, click the "Specify News Category" radio button. The startup news category may then be specified from among from any of the available news categories by double clicking on the category that you want, or by highlighting the news category and clicking the "Select->" button. If you want to start with the last active news category, simply click the "Use Active Category from last session" radio button.
The NewzTop is for designed for accessing news articles from internet web pages. However if a connection to the internet is not available, headlines which have already been retrieved may be viewed. Clicking on the headline and opening the article web page in your browser is disabled while working offline.
The NewzTop attempts to connect to the internet whenever content is needed. To stop it from connecting to the internet, either select "Work Offline" from the context menu (right mouse click) or click the "Work Offline" button in the NewzTop Internet Connection dialog. When you want to start retrieving headlines using your internet connection again, select "Work Online" from the context menu.
Both Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator are supported. However, the NewzTop uses a library which is distributed with Internet Explorer. If you have never installed Internet Explorer on your system and encounter an error message that the WinInet DLL is missing, you may need install it. The installation is available by downloading WintDist.zip from a link at the the product home page. It contains a setup program named Wintdist.exe. Run Wintdist.exe only if you have not installed Internet Explorer and you get an error message that the WinInet DLL is missing.
The NewzTop is designed to use a minimal amount of screen space, so that it may be kept running continuously without interfering with other programs. When a headline of interest appears, simply click on it and your internet browser will be launched with the web page of the article. The NewzTop can be aligned either at the top or bottom of the screen. The position can be changed through either the context menu (right mouse click) or in the "Settings" dialog's "Appearance" tab.
You need an Internet account with an Internet Service Provider. The NewzTop will work with cable, DSL or LAN internet connections. Your system must have at least version 4.71 of the common controls library installed. Typically you will have all the necessary requirements if IE 5.0 or later is installed. If you encounter errors that your system is missing necessary files, the recommended way to upgrade your system is to install a later version of Internet Explorer. You can still use either Netscape or Internet Explorer as your browser. If you do not wish to have IE installed, depending on your system, you may be able to just install the WinInet DLL. The installation for the WinInet DLL is available by downloading WintDist.zip from a link at the the product home page. WintDist.zip contains Wintdist.exe, the redistributable install for WinInet.
Yes. If you want to know more about the NewzTop, have further questions or need to download a support file, visit the product home page at newsticker.asynchrony-projects.com.
Mark Wickman, Mark Wickman Software Development
Dennis Howard, UtopiaCode Software, LLC