Managing newsgroups and newsgroup articles
Newsgroups lets you manage newsgroups. You can sort articles, tag them for future reference, or mark them as read or unread. You can set the amount of time that an article is saved before it expires. You can lock articles to prevent them from expiring. You can print articles in HTML, PostScript, or text. You can set viewing options in a newsgroup, so that when you open a newsgroup, you view only unread articles, cached articles, or locked articles. You can also customize the appearance of the articles in newsgroups by changing header styles, attachment styles, font, and display colors.
Sorting
Sorting articles arranges the articles in the newsgroup according to a specified category. You can also use subcategory sorting. For example, you can set the first sort level to sort the articles chronologically. You can set the second sort level to sort by sender. If there is more than one article posted on the same date, these are sorted alphabetically by sender. If you set the third sort level to sort by subject, then if there are several articles posted by the same sender on the same date, these are further sorted alphabetically by subject. Sorting using threading displays the original article followed by each response article. Each response article following the original is indented.
Tagging and marking
You can tag newsgroups and articles with a check mark if you want to refer to them later. When scanning through lists of newsgroups on the server or articles in the newsgroup, you can tag the articles that interest you. You can apply Newsgroups commands to all the tagged news groups or articles.
You can mark articles that you have read, or not read. By default, articles in the Newsgroup window that you have not read appear with a green dot. When you read an article, the dot becomes red. You can manually place a red (read) or green (unread) dot beside articles.
Expiry options
You can set the number of days an article remains in a newsgroup once you have downloaded it from the server. Newsgroups deletes the article when the specified number of days passes. You can set different expiry dates for the header of articles. For example, you can set article bodies to expire after five days, and article headers to expire after 10 days. The body, or main text is deleted after five days, but the header still appears. Articles in newsgroups that you access using Newsgroups are archived. If an article expires, you can retrieve it as long as the header of the article remains in the article list.
Locking
Locking an article prevents it from expiring. A locked article is cached. You can retrieve it until you unlock it; once you unlock it, it is no longer cached and will expire according to the expiry dates you have set.