Tutorial 6: The Group List
Move Up Move to Top Move to Top Move to Top
Contents: Button Commands Displayable Info Menus
Server Groups Options Batch Download Filters
FAQ Manager Summary
Group List Commands

The group list window looks like this. The button icons at the top have been explained in a previous tutorial. Other commands available here are:

  • Read Group - This button will open the group window for the active (selected) group.

  • Mark as Read - This will mark all articles in the selected groups as read. This may take a few moments since the group headers must be read from the disk cache for each group and saved afterwards.

  • Mark as Unread - Similar to the above, but all articles are marked as unread.

  • Update Count - The count of new articles from the server (since the group was last read) is updated for the selected groups. Due to the pecularities of the news protocol, this count is almost always an overstatement of the actual number of new articles.

  • Read Description - The group description for the selected groups is read from the news server. This will be stored with the group so you generally only need to do this once, and then only if you want to display the information.

  • Batch D/L Overview - The overview (header) information for the selected groups is fetched in batch mode. This includes only the header fields, not the actual article bodies.

  • Batch D/L Articles - The articles (including article bodies) from the selected groups (as well as the header information) are downloaded in batch mode. This may take a while for large groups or those with large posts! All of the articles fetched will be placed in the local disk cache, and the group may be read offline later on. Note that this is only one way to prepare for offline reading. Another is to select certain articles or threads in the group window and batch cache them from there.

    When using the batch download features, a window similar to this one appears to report on the status of the download. The indicated time remaining is only an estimate based on the transfer speeds so far and the amount yet to go, and may be inaccurate especially in the early part of the batch download. The cancel button may be used to abort the operation. If some articles have alreay been downloaded, these will be saved when the operation is aborted.

    Note that Batch D/L Filters can be used to limit the download to certain articles. For instance, you might wish to batch download only articles that are new since the last time, or only articles that are smaller than some particular size.

  • Add Group - Adds a new group; the name can be edited in the text box.

  • Sort - Sort the group list by the most recently defined criteria. For example, the last read date might have changed recently. The group list can be resorted by using this button.

  • Select All - Select all groups. This is useful to, for example, update the count of all subscribed groups.

  • Show Groups... - Show the list of groups available on the news server.

Displayable Data The article list can be set to display any desired information about a group. (See this tutorial for more information). The following data may be displayed:

Column Description
Status Icon Displays a small open () or closed () window icon for open or closed groups, or a broken group icon () if a group is opened that could not be found on the news server. A closed icon with a small letter N inside () means that new articles have been batch-downloaded to this group since it was last opened.
Group Name Depending on other configuration settings, this can be either the full name of the group (e.g, comp.sys.amiga.misc), or the abbreviated name (e.g. c.s.a.misc).
Last Read The date and time on which the group was last opened.
New The number of new articles on the server since the group was last opened. Due to the pecularities of the news protocol, this count is almost always an overstatement of the actual number of new articles. This number can be updated using the Update Count command, or by setting an automatic update interval in the configuration settings.
Group The number of articles in the group, locally, including both read and unread articles. This is updated when the headers are fetched from the server.
Read The number of articles in the group that have been read. This is updated every time you read an article that was previously unread.
Unread The number of unread articles in the group. This is updated every time you read an article that was previously unread.
Avail The total number of articles for this group available from the server. For some large groups, you may want to configure NewsRog to fetch a less than this number. Due to the pecularities of the news protocol, this number is usually an overstatement of the actual number of articles available from the server.
Description The group's description, as fetched from the server using the Read Description command. It may also be set to any desired value from within the group window's configuration section, which is useful for groups that don't have a description on the server. Setting only happens locally; nothing on the network or server is changed.
Server The server from which to fetch this group. Usually this is just the default server defined in the Servers Window .

Back to Top

Group List Menus In addition to the standard project related menus, the following group list specific menus are available:

  • Groups/Import .newsrc - This menu item will read a .newsrc file in the format saved by tin and some other newsreaders. All the subscribed groups found in the .newsrc file will be subscribed to in the group list. Only the group names are imported; the read article information cannot be imported to NewsRog.

  • Groups/All in Cache Dir - It is possible for the cache directory to contain cached information about groups that are not in the project. This can happen several ways; either projects can be deleted with the Keep OV Dir option selected, or the computer can be rebooted after adding groups but before the NewsRog project file is saved. In any case, this menu option will subscribe to all the groups found in the cache directory.

Back to Top
Server Group List The server group list window looks like this. Typing a pattern into the text box and pressing return or the Fetch button will fetch the groups on the server matching the given pattern. Note that this pattern is parsed on the server and is more restrictive than the normal AmigaOS patterns. Only a few features such as the "*" (asterisk) wildcard are supported.

The following commands are available in this window:

  • Fetch - Fetch the groups matching the given pattern from the server. Pressing return in the string gadget has the same effect.

  • Clear - Clears the current list of groups.

  • Search... - Opens up a search window. The titlebar gadget has the same effect

  • Sort - Sort the list of groups by name.

  • Subscribe - Subscribe to the currently selected (highlighted) groups. Dragging a set of groups sideways out of this list and into the main group list window has the same effect.

  • Load - Load a previously saved groups list.

  • Save - Save the current list of groups to a file for later loading. This file is ASCII and may be viewed with any text display program such as multiview.

  • Show New - Show new groups on the server since the last time this option was used.

  • Browse - Browse the group without subscribing to it. If the group has already been subscribed to, it will be read normally. Otherwise, it may be read once a trial basis, but no cache files or article state is saved to disk when the group window is closed.

  • Abort - Aborts the current transfer. Only available while the list is being transferred. In any case, the list will be updated periodically during the transfer.

Note that there may potentially tens of thousands of groups on the server. Fetching a pattern of "*" (asterisk) may download quite a few groups! It's generally much faster to specify a pattern matching the general area you are interested in, such as "*bicycles*" or "*amiga*". Back to Top
Group List Options There are a few options specific to the group list:

  • Full Names - If set, full group names (e.g. comp.sys.amiga.misc) are displayed instead of abbreviated names (e.g. c.s.a.misc).

  • Update on Start - If set, the count of new articles on the server will be updated any time the group list window is opened).

  • Update Interval - If set, the new article count is updated periodically at the given interval). Reading a group will reset the new article count to zero.

  • Server Groups Upd Interval - The update interval for the server groups list. This may be increased or decreased as desired for network connections of different speeds.

  • Server Groups Pattern - Only server groups matching this pattern will be listed in the server groups window. This provides an easy way to ignore groups in languages you cannot read, while still searching for wildcard matches in the list of server groups.

Back to Top

Batch Download Filters

Batch download filters use NewsRog selection filters to determine which articles will be downloaded during a batch article download. If any filters are present, then only articles which match those filters will be downloaded.

If a Group Pattern is given for a particular filter, then this filter will only be applied when downloading articles in a group which matches the group pattern. You might, for example, use comp.sys.* to make a filter apply to all groups in the comp.sys hierarchy.

Back to Top

Group FAQs Pressing the FAQ button () will open the FAQ Manager for the active group.

Back to Top

Summary By this point in the tutorial you should understand:

  • What all of the buttons in the group list window do.
  • What the different columns available for display mean.
  • How to import a .newsrc file from the tin newsreader.
  • How to subscribe to all groups in the cache directory.
  • What all the buttons in the server group window do.
  • How to save and load the server group list.
  • What the different group list options do.
Back to Top