═══ 1. Introduction ═══ LA Times for OS/2 Version : 3.2 Copyright (c) 1993-1994 by Steven Gutz An NNTP New Reader for OS/2 2.x with IBM TCP/IP 1.2.1 or later. ═══ 1.1. What is LA Times? ═══ LA Times is a multi-threaded 32-bit OS/2 application which can select and read NNTP network news. The program provides capabilities to receive and send news messages, as well as sending SMTP e-mail. Any news article can be saved via menu selection to disk or printed to a selected output device. LA Times requires OS/2 2.0 or later and IBM TCP/IP 1.2.1 or later. ═══ 1.2. What's new to this release? ═══ Now that IBM has released NR/2 as part of the basic TCP/IP package, the aim of LA Times has changed. In order to meet its goal, LA Times has been packed with more advanced features than both the previous version, and NR/2. Some of these new features are listed below: o Improved performance. LA Times article, subscription and group windows have been improved resulting in reduced demand on the network and much quicker response. o LA Times now offers optional toolbars for all windows. o Automatic encoding/decoding of binary articles, including multi-part articles. o Searching/Highlighting can now be performed on subjects from a user-specified list of keywords. o LA Times can optionally notify you of replies to any articles you post. o Support for "spoiler" messages has been added. o It is now possible to Mark and Unmark all subjects in a subscription group without having to open a subject window. o The subscription window now permits multiple selections for unsubscribing, and marking operations. o You can now arrange the subscription list any way you choose. o You can arrange subject window fields any way you choose, including the newly added date, line count, and message-id fields. o The default window placement for subject and article windows is now smarter o String searching all articles can now be performed o ROT13 support has been added. ═══ 1.3. Credits ═══ I would like to thank all of the people who helped beta test this release and made suggestions which made it better. William Chase John DeCarlo David Dunlap Chris Hawkinson Ken Hildabolt Colin Longman Tim McGinn Tim Moloney Nick Romero Gary Schrock Richard Stanton Phil Stimson David Tondreau Daniel Tran Alex Zoghlin You all have helped create a much better product. ═══ 1.4. Disclaimer ═══ Neither the LA Times product nor the author are in any way affiliated with the Los Angeles Times. Please do not credit or condemn the Los Angeles Times Newspaper for any features contained within this program. ═══ 1.5. Revision History ═══ Version 3.2 - 1994 April 4 o Corrected the April Fool's day bug in the shareware version. Program should now give a full 30 days for the demo period. Version 3.1 - 1994 March 1 o Posting is now more stable. Previous could crash without warning o The Cancel button in the Printing Options dialog no longer causes an article to be printed anyway. o EMail and Posting code has been optimized o The "In message xxx ???? writes:" string in posting and email windows now wraps to 78 characters. o UUEncoded posting have changed from 600 to 900 lines o UUEncode process should now be more stable o Temporary file from the UUENCODE process are now removed o When posting from the main window, the currently selected subscription group is now inserted into the "Group" field of the address dialog. Version 3.0 - 1994 March 1 o Third major release Version 2.2 - 1993 November 30 o Corrected problematic interaction with NNTP server o Impoved upgradability for registered users Version 2.1 - 1993 November 24 o Corrected hanging on reading of articles which no longer exist. o Fixed occassional hang of system queue o Remedied expiry problem which appeared on Nov 4 in shareware version o Corrected occassional "hang" when posting and emailing o Changed "posting" menus to indicate a new posting versus a follow-up Version 2.00 - 1993 November 4 o Second Release Version 1.20 - 1993 August 6 o Corrected problem of missing groups during subscription process. o Groups which the server does not support are now removed from the list of available groups. Version 1.10 - 1993 July 26 o Corrected connection problems during first-time execution of the program. o All server command are now terminated with a hard CR-LF rather than LF. o Pressing the "Next" button on last article no longer hangs the program. o LATimes no longer requires a server supporting the XHDR command. o The read article indicator has been changed from a "*" to a checkmark. o Main window update is now much quicker o A -l command line option has been added to provide a log-file to be used for bug reporting. o The main window size and position is now saved on exit. o The program will no longer display the connection message box. o Corrected other numerous minor bugs reported from 1.00 o When Posting/Followup messages, LA Times now prevents any user interaction. This prevents server confusion which cause the program to get out of sync. Version 1.00 - 1993 June 30 o Initial Release ═══ 1.6. Known Bugs ═══ o none If you encounter additional program errors or bugs, please contact the author. ═══ 1.7. Contacting the Author ═══ If you have questions, suggestions or bug reports, you can reach the author at any of the mail addresses below. The author can guarantee to answer mail from all registered users, and will make an effort to answer queries from non-registered users as well. Snail Mail Steven Gutz R.R.#5 Pembroke, Ontario CANADA, K8A 6W6 Internet Mail gutzs@crl.aecl.ca CompuServe Mail 73121,231 ═══ 2. Registration ═══ Like all good shareware, LA Times for OS/2 is not free. To use this program you must pay for it, but the price for LA Times is reasonable. In addition to recognizing the effort that went into this program, your registration also insures that you are kept updated with the latest program revisions. So try LA Times for 30 days, and if you like it, then please register it. The price is $25US which includes postage to any destination in the known universe. To register, display the Registration Form and select "Services/Print..." from the menu. This will copy the registration form to your printer. Fill out the form and mail it along with a check or money order for $25US to the address indicated at bottom. Once registered you will receive the latest version of the program. As a registered user you are entitled to a free upgrade to the next release of LA Times. For this reason it is very important that you fill in one of the specified email addresses on the registration form (Please print neatly). This guarantees that you will be contacted when new versions are released. Upgrades are generally done by FTP download (free) or by mail by sending $5US to cover shipping costs. Volume discounts of LA Times are available as follows: 001-010 Units $25US 011-050 Units $22US 050-100 Units $18US >100 Units $15US Site License $2000US ═══ 3. Registration Form ═══ LA Times 3.00 Registration Form Send $25 (U.S. funds) with this completed form to Steven Gutz R.R. #5 Pembroke, Ontario CANADA K8A 6W6 Name ______________________________________________ Address ______________________________________________ ______________________________________________ Province/State ______________________________________________ Country ______________________________________________ Postal/Zip Code ______________________________________________ Internet Address (optional) _____________________________________ Compuserve ID (optional) _____________________________________ Where did you get LA Times? _______________________________________________ _______________________________________________ Your signature below acknowledges the following: USERS OF LATIMES MUST ACCEPT THIS DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY LA Times is supplied 'as is'. The author disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, including, without limitation, the warranties of merchantability and of fitness for any purpose. The author assumes no liability for damages, direct or consequential, which may result from the use of LA Times. In any case the maximum liability of the seller will be limited exclusively to product replacement or refund of the purchase price. Your signature _______________________________ Thank you for registering LA Times - I look forward to supporting you. Steven Gutz ═══ 4. Installation ═══ This section describes how to install LA Times on your system. Please select the version you are installing from the list below: o Registered version o Shareware version ═══ 4.1. Installing the Registered version ═══ LA Times ships with an installation program. Insert the disk containing LA Times and type INSTALL You will be prompted for a source drive\directory and a destination drive\directory. Enter the correct parameters and click the "OK" button to begin the installation. The "Cancel" button aborts the installation. After the installation, you will see an LA Times object on your desktop. You can move this to a more suitable location if you wish. If you are currently using LA Times 2.x, you should experience no difficulties if you install version 3.0 over your old version. The files are compatible between these 2 releases. ═══ 4.2. Installing the Shareware version ═══ If you are installing the shareware version of LA Times you will not receive the INSTALL program. To install this version, simply use an UNZIP program to decompress the LA TIMES archive to the desired directory. If you wish to make a desktop object, you must specify that the object run the LATLOAD.EXE program rather than LATIMES.EXE. There is a bug in WPS which causes the desktop to "hang" after the LATIMES.EXE program exits, and LATLOAD gets around this. This problem should be corrected in later releases of OS/2. ═══ 5. Starting LA Times ═══ To start LA Times from the command line simply enter LATIMES [-arg1, -arg2, ... -argn]. The program will then start by performing a connection to the default news server. If this is the first time LA Times has been executed, a dialog box entitled Select LA Times NNTP Server will be displayed. This dialog consists of a list box which will initially be empty. In the edit line at the top of list box, enter the address of the server you wish to connect to, then press the "Add" button, and the server will be added to the list. You can then connect to that server by pressing the "OK" button. For more information on the server dialog box see Setting up server connections ═══ 6. Command-line Parameters ═══ There are several command-line parameters recognized by LA Times. -s[optional server name] Permits you to add, remove or select news servers from the active server list. This option will let you change the default server to which LA Times connects on start up. You can specify the server on the command line be entrering a string such as "-sserver.here.com" or if you specify the -s option alone, you will be given the server dialog box to the desired selection or modification -l Enables debug data logging. The log file is used when reporting software bugs to the author. If you experience a crash, rerun LA Times with the -l option specified and attempt to reproduce the crash. If you can, send the created LATIMES.LOG file to the author along with a description of the problem. You should not use the option during normal use as it degrades performance slightly. -p Permits users of non-standard news servers to configure the TCP/IP port number used to connect to the server. By default LA TIMES uses port number 119. -x Permits you to specify the number off connections to attempt to your news server. In general more connections will give better performance, particularly during subscription updates; however, be aware that servers generally have a finite number of connections available, so if you use them all, other users may be unable to connect. The number of connections must be in the range 1-20. -c Displays the configuration notebook permitting you to make changes before the program connects to the news server. ═══ 7. Setting Up LA Times ═══ This section describes the initial set up sequence for LA Times. ═══ 7.1. Setting up server connections ═══ LA Times supports connections to multiple servers through the Select LA Times NNTP Server dialog. This window will be displayed automatically during the first execution of the program, or you can manually invoke it by specifying the -s command line argument when you start LA Times. This dialog contains a combination list box which has an edit window attached. If you have previously executed LA Times, the edit window will contain the currently selected default server. If the list contains more than one server entry, you can select another server as your default by choosing it from the list and pressing the "OK" button. If you would like to add an additional server to the list, enter the server's name in the edit window and press the Add button. This will add the server to the list. If you want to remove a server from your list, select the server from the list box and press the Remove button. ═══ 7.2. LA Times for Multiple Users ═══ LA Times has built-in support for more than one user, and setting up this configuration is easy. First install LATimes as normal, but place the LATimes program directory in the path statement of your CONFIG.SYS file. Then make a directory for each user, and have each them run the program from that working directory. You can also create a desktop object for each persons' version of the program, but make sure you specify the correct working directory. It is also a good idea to copy the LATIMES.MAC file from the LA Times directory to each users' working directory. This contains a list of frequently used strings for the LATIMES editors. ═══ 7.3. Frequently Used Editor Strings ═══ LA Times has support for automatic insertion of frequently used strings while in editor mode (editing email, postings or follow-ups). By default, LA Times includes a number of "smileys" and acronyms, but you can add your own to the list simply by editing the file LATIMES.MAC in your working directory. Each entry must be separated by a carriage return, and although LA Times sets no limits on the length or number of entries you may have, OS/2 menus do not permit scrolling, so you are limited to 20-30 entries for 1024x768 displays (less for VGA). ═══ 8. LA Times Basic Windows ═══ The main LA Times client window owns all other windows created by LA Times. It consists of a main menu, and optional toolbar and a client area where all other windows are displayed. o Main Toolbar The following is a list the basic windows provided by LA Times and a brief description of their operation. GROUP Contains a list of all available USENET news groups provided by the selected server. New subscriptions are select from this list. SUBSCRIPTION Contains a list of USENET news group subscriptions selected by the user, and an indication of the number of unread subjects in each group. SUBJECT Contains a list of USENET news group articles available for reading. LA Times can have a subject window open for each news group subscription. ARTICLE Displays a selected article for reading, saving and printing. LA Times supports up to 8 article windows at a time. EMAIL Similar to an article window, the EMAIL window contains a user's article response which can be edited and mailed using the SENDMAIL program in IBM TCP/IP. POSTING Similar to an article window, the POST window contains a user article which will be posted to USENET. This article can be a new creation or can be a reply to an existing article. ═══ 8.1. GROUP Window ═══ The GROUP window contains an up-to-date list of all USENET news groups supported by the selected NNTP server. You can select multiple news groups from this window for subscription. Select one of the following for more information: o Toolbar o Refresh o Subscribe o Search ═══ 8.2. SUBSCRIPTION Window ═══ The subscription windows contains a list of all USENET groups to which you are currently subscribed. You can double click on any group in the list to display its subject list. The subject window is divided into 3 fields as follows: Subscription Shows the news group names to which you have subscriptions Unread Displays the number of article which you have not read. Total Shows the total number of news articles available from LA Times. Note that if you have the "Show previously viewed subjects" configuration option disabled, then this field will have the same value as the "Unread" field. Select one of the following for more information: o Toolbar o Refresh o Unsubscribe o Read o Marking and Unmarking o Arranging ═══ 8.3. SUBJECT Window ═══ The subject window contains a list of subject headers for a selected group. You will see that there are several columns displayed. You can arrange, add or delete any fields you choose. Below is a brief fescription of each of the fields that is available: Keyword (*) This field is only visible if you have keyword searching enabled. It will contain an indicator character if the subject record contains any of the keywords you have previously specified, otherwise it will be blank. Check This field is blank for any article which has not been seen. If you have the "Show previously view subjects" option enabled, a check mark in this field will indicate that this subject has already been seen. If you have the "Show killed subjects" configuration option enabled, killed subjects will also be shown and marked with a "K" indicator in this field. This field is always visible. Author The author field contains the name or email address of the creator of this subject article. Lines This field displays the number of lines contained in the articles text, if is it available. Message-ID This field contains the USENET Message-ID for this subject. Number This field lists the message number for this article. This unique number is provided by your NNTP server and is used to identify this subject. message. Re: The Re: field contains a check mark if this article is a reply to some previous article. Articles without a check mark in this field typically indicate the start of a new news thread. This field may also contain the "happy face" character if you have the "Inform about replies to your postings" option enabled in the general configuration notebook page. This character indicates that this subject is a possible reply to a posting you recently sent. The "Re:" field is automatically displayed with the subject field. Subject The subject field contains the subject title of the article. You can change the sort order of the subject window, by using the sort configuration option. Select one of the following for more information: o Toolbar o Read o Posting o Search o Mark o UnMark o Kill o Uudecode o Searching Articles for Text ═══ 8.4. ARTICLE Window ═══ Article windows contain the text of an article you are currently reading. LA Times supports reading up to 8 articles simultaneously. Select one of the following for more information: o Toolbar o File o Edit o View o Search o Posting ═══ 8.5. EMAIL Window ═══ The EMAIL window is similar to the article window. It contains a reply message which can be sent via SMTP e-mail to the author of an article. This feature of LA Times requires the installation of the SENDMAIL program, which is part of IBM TCP/IP. Select one of the following for more information: o Toolbar o Edit o EMail o Search ═══ 8.6. POSTING Window ═══ The POSTING window is similar to the article window. It contains a reply message which can be sent to a USENET news groups. Select one of the following for more information: o Toolbar o Edit o Posting o Search ═══ 8.7. New News group Window ═══ If you have selected the "Notify of new news group creation" option in the general configuration notebook page, LA Times may display a dialog box on your OS/2 desktop to tell you that your server now has access to some new news groups. You can select any or all of the displayed groups and subscribe to them, or if you choose not to subscribe, simple leave the groups unselected and press the "OK" button. ═══ 9. LA Times Configuration ═══ LA Times uses a CUA compliant notebook control for all of its configuration. When you first start LA Times, this notebook will be the first window you see. The notebook contains several pages for configuration information. These are listed below: User Contains the configuration for the user. This includes such information as the your user name and email address, and your organization. General Contains the general configuration of LA Times features Fields Configures the subject fields to be displayed in subject windows Color Contains the color configuration for LA Times Fonts Contains the font configuration for LA Times Sorting Configures the sorting technique used for sorting subjects Toolbars Enables or disables individual toolbars Keywords Configures subject window keyword searching feature Signature Permits you to edit your optional signature file. Kill File Permits editing of the kill file. ═══ 9.1. User Configuration ═══ The user page of the configuration notebook contains the following fields: E-Mail Address Enter your full internet e-mail address, i.e. jonesr@server.mail.com. This string is inserted in the "From:" field of all articles and follow-ups you post to USENET. Full Name Enter your first and last name in this field. This will be included with all articles and follow-ups you post to USENET. Organization You can optionally enter an organization string in this field. ═══ 9.2. General Configuration ═══ The General configuration notebook page contains items which affect the general operation of LA Times. These are listed below: Inform about new group creation If selected, LA Times will tell you about any new USENET groups which have been created since the last use of the program Skip read articles with Next/Previous Article options If set, the program will skip articles which you have already seen when you are performing Next and Previous article operations. If unchecked the Next/Previous operations will go to the next or previous article regardless of the "seen" state of the article. Keep posting log file If checked, a log file (LTPOST.LOG) gets appended with a copy of every article or follow-up posted to USENET. Keep e-mail log file If checked, a log file (LTEMAIL.LOG) gets appended with a copy of every e-mail message issued by the program. CC: yourself for all e-mail sent If checked, a copy of any e-mail you send will also be sent to your specified e-mail address. Beep on new news If checked, the program will beep each time the auto-refresh feature detects new news messages. Show previously viewed subjects If selected, LA Times will display all of the previously viewed subjects in the subject list windows. Note that this will only applies to subjects viewed from the present time onward. If this button was selected and is now being unselected, any subjects which you have previously viewed will be permanently removed from the subject window. Show killed subjects If selected, LA Times will display all killed articles in subject list windows. Note that this will only apply to killed subjects from the present time onward. If this button was selected and is now being unselected, any subjects which you have previously killed will be permanently removed from the subject window. Show headers with articles If this option is checked, any articles you display will also have the associated article header information included. Ignore message spoilers Some articles contain special characters known as "spoilers". These are used when you wish to hide some information from the reader and give him the choice of viewing it. If this option is checked, you will automatically be shown and text hidden by a spoiler. If unchecked, LA Times will notify you of the spoiler and give you the option of viewing the remainder of the text. Inform about replies to your postings" If checked, you will be notified of the number of replies to messages that you have posted. AutoRefresh You can set the time in minutes for a refresh of the news lists to occur. If non-zero, the program will query the server for new information after the specified time period has lapsed. Setting the refresh time to zero will disable the auto refresh feature. ═══ 9.3. Sort Configuration ═══ The sorting configuration notebook page permits you to the set the method used to sort and display subject headers. There are currently four options as follows: Ascending Number Subjects are sorted by ascending article number Descending Number Subjects are sorted by descending article number Author Subjects are sorted alphabetically by author name Subject Subjects are sorted alphabetically by subject ═══ 9.4. Signature Configuration ═══ This configuration notebook page will permit you to edit your signature. The signature gets appended to all e-mail, and articles you issue with LA Times. The signature is completely optional. If you choose not to use a signature then leave this page blank. ═══ 9.5. Kill File Configuration ═══ This notebook page will permit you to remove entries from your kill file. You can select the "kill" entry you wish to remove and by pressing the button you can re-enable reception of messages previously killed by the selected entry. ═══ 9.6. Color Configuration ═══ This notebook page permits you to drag foreground and background color selections from the system color palette to color chips shown in this window. Each of the basic windows can have its background and text colors changed. To change the foreground color, you must drag the color selection while holding down the key, as specified in the OS/2 user documentation. The colors selected will not take effect until the next time a window is created. For the group and subscription windows, this will be the next time you run the program. Note: Depending on your display hardware, some colors in some windows will be displayed incorrectly. You may have to select different colors. (This problem seems to be caused by certain graphical controls in OS/2). ═══ 9.7. Font Configuration ═══ This notebook page permits you to edit the font for each of the basic windows. You can select the basic window for the font change using the radio buttons shown at the left. The rectangle at the right will show you the font which is currently selected. By default all fonts are initially set to 10 point proportional system font. ═══ 9.8. Subject Field Configuration ═══ This notebook page permits you to change the order and content of the subject window in LA Times. On this page you will see two list boxes. The left list box shows the fields that are currently available for addition to the subject window. If you double click on any of these field names, they will be transferred to the right list box at its currently highlighted position. The right list box displays the order of the fields which will be shown in a subject window. If you double-click on any of the field names, those fields will be transferred back to the left list box and removed from all subject windows. ═══ 9.9. Subject Window Keyword Searching ═══ This notebook page supports the subject window keyword searching abilities of LA Times. It contains a checkbox to enable or disable keyword searching and an editable list of strings that you wish to search for. Keywords can be single words or strings of words and should be placed one string per line. There is no limit on the number of keyword strings you may have in this list. (See caution below) Once keyword searching is enabled, the "Keyword" or "*" field will automatically be added to all subject windows. If this field contains a "Keyword" character this indicates that this subject entry contains one or more of your specified keywords. Note: All subject fields are searched during a keyword search, so your keyword list may include user names or e-mail addresses as well as subject text CAUTION: Enabling keyword searching reduces the performance of Subject Windows. The more keywords your list contains, the longer it will take to search. Using the power of OS/2, searching is performed on a separate thread of execution, so you may see a delay in the appearance of the keyword indicator characters after a subject window has been displayed. ═══ 9.10. Toolbar Configuration ═══ This notebook page enables or disables toolbars for all windows in LA Times. You can individually select or deselect the display of toolbars for each window, by setting the radio buttons on this screen as desired. ═══ 10. Appendicies ═══ This section list all the miscellaneous information not described anywhere else in this document. ═══ 10.1. Appendix A - Server connection errors ═══ This appendix will describe the errors you may encounter while trying to connect to an NNTP news server. Server Undefined This error occurs when the server name is incorrect. Check that you have specified the name correctly in the server configuration dialog. Re-run the program with the "-s" command line option. Network Socket Unavailable This error occurs when there is no network socket available for use. If this error occurs, try rebooting since the problem is probably a hung TCP/IP process. Server Connection Timed Out This error occurs when the connection to the specified server could not be made. Check the address/server name specified in the server configuration dialog. Re-run the program with the "-s" command line option. This error can also occur if the server returns an incorrect response during the connection. If this error persists, please contact the author. ═══ 10.2. Appendix B - Directory Structure and Files ═══ Below is the directory structure used by LA Times and the typical contents of each directory: latimes\ laimes.exe latimes.inf latimes.hlp latimes.kil latimes.mac latimes.key nntpsvr.dat \nntpsvr 0.msg 1.msg . . . n.msg \log ltpost.log ltemail.log \bin The main directory will contain a file caller "nntpsvr".dat where "nntpsvr" is typically the first 8 characters of your NNTP server's Internet name. In addition to this there will be a sub directory of the same name. You will have an nntpsvr.dat and matching directory for each news server that you connect to. Each "nntpsvr" directory contains a .MSG file for each subscription you have from that server. These files are readable text, but editing them can cause some serious side-effects. If you accidentally remove one or more of these files, LA Times will rebuild it; however, the program will loose track of which messages you have read or not read. The "log" directory contains files which are produced by LA Times for data logging purposes. If you have the program configured to save a copy of your outgoing postings and e-mail, LTPOST.LOG and LTEMAIL.LOG will contain copies of that information. These files can be removed anytime and should be examined periodically, since they will grow without bound each time you send information across the network. The "bin" directory is the location where any received binary files are stored. From here you can copy or move the files to other locations on your system. ═══ 10.3. Appendix C - Kill file format ═══ The kill file, LATIMES.KIL, is a standard text file containing all of the information on killed articles. This file may be edited using any editor. The format of all lines is as follows: ■■ The "■" character can be entered by holding the key and typing "254" from the numeric keypad. This is a single character "A" for killed author or "S" for killed subject. Contains the range or scope of the kill. "A" for all news groups or a news group name for a specific group. Text pattern that if matched causes a kill. This can be a message subject or an author name. ═══ Selecting groups for subscription ═══ You can use the mouse click to select or deselect news groups. Multiple groups selections are also possible. Then by choosing the "Subscribe" menu option, you can subscribe to the groups you have selected. Once selected, the new subscriptions will appear in the subscription window, and LA Times will begin loading information about the new subscriptions. ═══ Searching the Group Window ═══ LA Times provides for searching of the USENET group list. When the search option is selected, a search string dialog will be displayed. Enter the string you wish to search for, then press OK. If the search string is found, the matching item will be displayed. Note: search strings can be a substring. ═══ Refreshing the Available Groups ═══ LA Times has provision to re-create the list of available news groups from your NNTP server. Selecting the Refresh option will delete your server .GRP file and force the server to re transmit the list. ═══ Refreshing the Subscription Window ═══ You can refresh the subscription window anytime by selecting this option. It will query the NNTP server for up-to-date information regarding unread articles in this group. ═══ Unsubscribing to USENET groups ═══ This menu options will remove the currently selected subscriptions from your subscription window. You can choose one or more subscription groups and then select the unsubscribe operation to remove all selected groups from your subscription list. CAUTION: If you wish to resume viewing this group at a later time you will have to re subscribe. ═══ Reading USENET groups ═══ If you select this option, a subject window will be displayed for the currently selected group. ═══ Subcription Marking and Unmarking ═══ Occasionally you may want to mark or unmark all subjects without having to open a subject window and perform a marking operation. LA Times permits you to perform a "Mark All" or "Unmark All" subjects for a subscription group directly from the subscription windows. To do this simply select the desired group(s) and then choose the desired marking operation. ═══ Arranging subscriptions ═══ If you have a preference for subscription order, you can arrange your subscriptions within the subscription window by selecting the arrange operations. These options will take the currently select group and move it up or down one line within the subscription window. Because LA Times uses the multi-threading capabilities of OS/2, the order of your list is not necessarily the order that your subscriptions are updated. LA Times updates more than one group at a time so groups with fewer subjects may be displayed before groups with many subjects. Although this may be a bit confusing at first, it insures the absolute quickest performance possible. Note: This operation does not currently support multiple selections. If you have selected more than one subscription group, only the first highlighted group will be moved. The other will remain selected but will not be moved. ═══ Reading articles ═══ This option will create an article window for the currently selected subject header. It has the same effect as double-clicking on a subject header. ═══ Posting from the Subject Window ═══ If you select the posting option, you can post a new message to USENET. By default the news groups field of the new posting will contain the group you are reading, and the subject field will contain the subject from the currently selected item. ═══ Searching the Subject Window ═══ You can search for strings within the subject window by using this option. You are prompted for a search string, and a case insensitive search of each message entry is performed. Note that all fields of each entry are searched. ═══ Marking Subject Entries ═══ The marking options permit you to mark article(s) as "seen" - i.e. place a check mark beside them. There are 3 basic marking functions as listed below: Mark Current Marks the currently selected subject header(s) as "seen". It also marks these articles in all other groups to which you currently subscribe. You can select multiple subjects for marking by holding the CTRL key and clicking the left mouse button. Mark Thread Marks all items in the same subject as the currently highlighted item. Mark All Marks all articles in the current group. Note: The Mark Current operation supports multiple selections and will mark all highlighted subject entries ad "seen". ═══ Unmarking Subject Entries ═══ The unmarking options permit you to unmark article(s) that have been previously marked. There are 3 basic unmarking functions as listed below: Unmark Current Unmarks the currently selected subject header(s). This operation will also unmark the selected subject(s) in all other groups to which you subscribe. You can select multiple subjects for marking by holding the CTRL key and clicking the left mouse button. Unmark Thread Unmarks all items in the same subject as the currently highlighted item. Unmark All Unmarks all articles in the current group. Note: The Unmark Current operation supports multiple selections and will mark all highlighted subject entries as "unread". ═══ Killing Author and Subject Entries ═══ The LA Times kill feature will give you the ability to ignore selected subjects and authors. The article kill can span the current news group or all news groups to which you subscribe. ═══ Receiving UUENCODED binary information ═══ LA Times supports automatic UUDECODing of binary data sent via USENET news. This information is typically in the form of single or multi-part news articles containing character-coded binary information. To UUDECODE binary information, you must select the subjects making up the binary in the correct order. For multi-part articles this requires that you select part 1 then hold the key while selecting part 2, part 3, etc. It is very important that you select multi-part articles in the correct order or the binary file will be constructed in the wrong order and will fail as a result. Note: Typically multi-part uuencoded articles also include a "Part 0" message describing the resulting binary file. You do not need to select this file for correct operation. Once you have the desired subject(s) selected, choose the "Uudecode" operation to create the binary file. Once you do this you will see a minimized window in your LA Times client window area to indicate that the UUDECODE operation is taking place. You can double-click on the icon to display the window. In this UUDECODE window you will see the article numbers of all articles you selected to download. A highlight bar indicates which article is currently being processed. There is also a "Cancel" button in this window which will terminate the UUDECODing operation. When the UUDECODE operation is complete, the UUDECODE window will disappear and you will have the binary placed in the "\bin" sub directory of you main LA Times directory. From here you can move the binary to any location you choose. Note: You can perform many binary file downloads at a time. There is no need to wait until one transfer operation is complete before starting another - even in another news group. Be aware, though, that each download does require both network and CPU time so you can degrade the overall performance of LA Times if you perform more than 4 or 5 downloads simultaneously. If you are trying to read open a subject or article window while download you may notice brief pauses in operation. This is due to the fact that the program must wait for a server connection to become free before continuing. CAUTION: The only limitation on UUDECODing binaries is that all of the source articles for a given binary must reside in the same news group. ═══ Searching Articles for Text ═══ LA Times offers powerful capabilities for searching articles for text strings, permitting you to quickly scan all of the articles in a given group for a string of up to 255 characters. This string can include and characters in the OS/2 character set including special symbols and numerics. When you invoke the article search feature, you will be prompted with a dialog box, requesting that you enter a string of text. You can also set the searching limits by selecting to search entire articles, just the headers or just the article text body. Finally you have the option to make your search case sensitive. Once you have the search parameters set as desired, press the "Search" button to begin the search. The search can be cancelled at any time by pressing the cancel button. The search results are displayed in the bottom window in the form of message number/subjects of articles which include the search string. You can double-click on any of these to display the associated article. ═══ File options ═══ Using the file menu, you can save the article to a file, or append it to an existing file. Additionally, you can print an article to a selected printer in your system. ═══ Edit options ═══ Using the edit menu, you copy, cut or paste article information. ═══ View options ═══ The view menu option give you the capability to do the following: o Copy/Cut/Paste information using the OS/2 Clipboard o ROT13 selected text or the entire article o Display article header information o Go to the next article o Go to the previous article. o Go to the next article with the same subject o Go to the previous article with the same subject o Go to the next article in the current thread o Go to the previous article in the current thread The last 2 items in the list use the threading provisions within NNTP news. Each news message has a message ID field and if an article references some previous article(s), it will also have a "references" field. LA Times can use these field to traverse a string or "Thread" of messages. This technique is known as message threading, and LA Times is currently the only PM-based news reader which supports it. ═══ Insert options ═══ The insert option is unique to LA Times. It permits you to insert special or frequently used strings into your articles. By adding items to the LATIMES.MAC file, you can add items to this list. This menu is useful for inserting items such as acronyms or smileys :-) into you articles. In addition to the strings you specify in LATIMES.MAC, there are also a number of fixed insertion you can make. These include, your name, email address and organization. You can also insert a spoiler character or page break. You can add or change items in the list by using a text editor to edit the LATIMES.MAC file. Insert on item per line. Note: OS/2 does not permit scrollable menus so the number of strings your list contains is limited by the height of your screen. ═══ Posting from the Article Window ═══ If you select the posting option, you can post a follow-up article or email follow-up to the author of the article you are reading. ═══ Edit options ═══ Using the edit menu, you copy, cut or paste email information. ═══ EMail options ═══ Using the email option you can enter or modify the address information for the e-mail, and you can send the current message to the address you have specified. If you have previously created a signature file, this will automatically be appended to the end of the EMail message. ═══ Searching for Text ═══ You can search for strings within the edit window by using this option. You are prompted for a search string, and a case insensitive search of the edit window is performed. The "Find Next" option will reposition you to the next matching search string in the window. ═══ Edit options ═══ Using the edit menu, you copy, cut or paste posting article information. ═══ Posting options ═══ There are several posting option available. A description of these is shown below: Posting Info... This option will display a dialog box permitting editing and entry of posting information, including the new group(s) and subject of the posting or follow-up. Send Posting This selection posts your article to the server using the NNTP news protocol. Send post as e-mail This option permits you to post your article to a news server which supports posting via email. You must specify the news group and e-mail address which is typically in the form: "comp-os-os2-apps@my.server.com". This option is useful for servers which do not support direct posting, but do support email. Send binary file This option displays a files dialog in which you can select a binary file to post. Once selected, you are placed back into the posting window to create a "Part 0" article to describe the binary you are sending. LA Times automatically UUENCODEs and breaks the binary up into multiple parts as required and posts each with the subject you specified plus a "(Part x of n)" designation. Currently, you cannot post binaries using the e-mail process described above. ═══ New groups available ═══ This dialog will display a list containing all new news groups which have been created since LA Times last checked. You can select any groups in this list for subscriptions. Pressing the OK button without any selections will permit you to ignore the new groups. ═══ Printing Options ═══ This dialog will display a list of available printers on your system (network printers are also shown). You can select one of these printers to have your output sent to a specific device. The job properties button will let you configure the output device in a specific way. ═══ Main Toolbar ═══ The main toolbar has the following operations: Open the configuration notebook Toggle display of the server group window Toggle display of the subscription window Create a new article for posting Display context sensitive help ═══ Group Toolbar ═══ The group toolbar has the following operations: Refresh the server group file and window Subscribe to all selected groups Set the search text and find the first instance Search for next matching string Display context sensitive help ═══ Subscription Toolbar ═══ The subscription toolbar has the following operations: Refresh the subscription window Open and read the subject window for this subscription group Unsubscribe to the selected groups Mark all subjects for the selected groups Unmark all subjects for the selected groups Arrange selected group up one line in the list Arrange selected group down one line in the list Display context sensitive help ═══ Subject Toolbar ═══ The subject toolbar has the following operations: Open and read the article associated with the selected subject Create a new article for posting Set the search text and find the first instance Search for next matching string Mark the selected subjects Mark all articles with the same subject Mark all subjects Unmark the selected subjects Unmark all articles with the same subject Unmark all subjects for the selected groups Start UUDECODE to produce a binary file from the selected subjects Display context sensitive help ═══ Article Toolbar ═══ The article toolbar has the following operations: Save the article to disk Append the article to an existing file Print the article Cut selected text Copy selected text Paste text from the clipboard Display article address information Step to next article Step to next article with the same subject Step to previous article Step to previous article with the same subject Create a follow-up article for posting Create follow-up e-mail message Display context sensitive help ═══ Posting Toolbar ═══ The posting toolbar has the following operations: Cut selected text Copy selected text Paste text from the clipboard Display posting address information Post the new article to the news server Post a binary file Display context sensitive help ═══ E-Mail Toolbar ═══ The e-mail toolbar has the following operations: Cut selected text Copy selected text Paste text from the clipboard Display e-mail address information Send the e-mail message Display context sensitive help