Menus and Windows

The File Menu

  •  New Subscription File will create a new subscription file.
  •  Open Subscription File… will open an existing subscription file.
  •  Close Subscription File will close the current subscription file.
      Close Window will close the frontmost window.
  •  Save Subscription File will save your current subscription file.
  •  Save Subscription File As… will save your current subscription information in a new file.
  •  Save Composition will save the contents of a composition window in a file.
  •  Save Article As Text… will save the entire article in a text file, even if it was too long to display.
  •  Append Article to Text File will append the entire article to the specified text file, even if it was too long to display.
  •  Print… will print the selected article, or the topmost Help window.
  •  Sign On will authenticate you for posting by asking for your name and password. Sign Off will sign you off. You can always read whether you are signed on or not.
  •  Disconnect from Server will disconnect from the news server (newshost);    
      Connect to Server will make the connection again.

The Edit Menu

In addition to the traditional Macintosh Edit menu items (Undo, Cut, Copy, Paste, Clear and Select All), the InterNews  Edit menu offers:

• Show Clipboard will display the current contents of the clipboard.

[  •  Configure for your Site… presents a dialog that lets you designate default values for several program parameters that are appropriate for your particular site. You can only do this when there is no subscription file open. Use it if you are a site administrator, if you are going to configure a copy for several users, or if you are the only user at your site that you know of. (Most people never have to use this command.)
]  •  Set Network Configuration… presents a dialog that lets you designate the news and mail host addresses for your network.
  •  Preferences… presents a dialog that lets you set many different preferences so that you can customize the behavior of InterNews.

The Subscriptions Menu

  •  Clean Up Icon(s) will align the selected icons to a fixed, invisible grid. You can also clean up icons by dragging them with the option key held down.
  •  New Subscription will create a new subscription in the Subscriptions window.
  •  Open Selected Subscription(s) will open the selected icons in the Subscriptions window by creating a new reading window for each.
  •  Delete Subscription(s) will delete the selected subscription icons in the Subscriptions window. It is undoable.
  •  Create Newsgroup…  presents a window that you can use to create a newsgroup in the local 'dartmouth.alt' hierarchy.
  •  Check for New Newsgroups will ask the news host for any new newsgroups that may have been created since the last time you checked.
  •  Tune Up… brings your subscription file up to date in several ways: It checks for any new newsgroups that may have been missed, it removes newsgroups that are no longer in use, and it compacts the file by eliminating information about articles that have expired.
  •  Import .newsrc file… will convert a Unix™ .newsrc file into a subscription, remembering what you had read. You can move the file from Unix to your Macintosh using Dartmouth's Fetch  or other FTP client programs.
  •  Export .newsrc file… will convert all your subscriptions into one Unix™ .newsrc file (which includes information about what you have read); the file can then be moved to Unix™ using Fetch  or other FTP client programs.

The Reading Menu

  •  Sort Newsgroups Alphabetically will alphabetically sort the list of newsgroups in a subscription you have made.
  •  Sort Newsgroups by Most Unread will sort the list of newsgroups in a subscription according to the number of unread articles in each. The newsgroup  with the most unread articles will appear first.
  •  Sort Newsgroups by Least Unread will sort the list of newsgroups in a subscription according to the number of unread articles in each. The newsgroup  with the least unread articles will appear first.
  •  Refresh All Newsgroups will update any shown newsgroups which have had new articles added since the connection to the news host was made.
  •  Find… selects the next newsgroup or topic whose name contains a given string.
  •  Find Again does another Find, using the previous string.
  •  Add Newsgroup will present a list of all the newsgroups so that you can add one or more to the subscription.
  •  Remove Newsgroup will delete the selected newsgroup.
  •  Mark Newsgroup Read marks every article in the newsgroup as read; it’s undoable.  If you cancelled while getting a newsgroup, only the articles shown will be marked.
  •  Mark Newsgroup Read Up To Selection marks every article up to the selected topic as read; it’s undoable. If you cancelled while getting a newsgroup, only the articles shown will be marked.
  •  Show All Articles in this Newsgroup (when just unread ones are shown) will get and display all articles.
  •  Show Just Unread Articles in this Newsgroup (when all are shown) will get and display just the unread ones.
  •  Show/Hide Article Header will add/remove the header to/from the text of the article.
  •  Top of Article will scroll to the top of the first visible article.
  •  Jump to Next Article will scroll to the next article which is completely out of sight.
  •  Convert Article (Rot13) will decode and re-encode articles (usually jokes) which have been rot13-encoded (they look like gibberish).
  •  Cancel Article… will let you cancel the selected article if you were the one who posted it.

The Compose Menu

  •  New Composition will open a blank window for composing an article or a mail message.
  •  Open Composition… will open a saved composition.
  •  Forward Article will open a Compose window with the entire text of the article you were just reading so that you can forward it to another person via electronic mail
  •  Convert Selection (Rot13) will encode or decode the currently selected text using  the 'Rotate 13' method.
  •  Insert Text File… will insert the contents of a text file into a composition.
  •  Quote Selected Text will reformat the text currently selected in a Compose window to indicate that you are quoting the text of another article.
  •  Save Window Position and Size will store the current position and size of the Compose window. InterNews  will initialize all other composing window to that position and size.

The Windows Menu

  •  Send to Back will send the frontmost window to the back.
  •  The name of your subscription file appears next. Choosing this item will bring the subscription window to the front, opening it if it has been closed.
  •  The names of your subscriptions appears next, one item for each. Choosing one of these will open that subscription and bring its reading window to the front.
  •  The names of any open composing windows appear next, one item for each. Choosing one of these will bring the associated window to the front.
  • Open windows are marked with a diamond.

The Subscription Window

The Subscription window shows the existing subscriptions as icons. Subscription icons can be manipulated as in the Finder, and can be created, opened, and deleted using the Subscriptions menu.

Reading Windows

A reading window shows the contents of a subscription:

  •  It can be re-sized or zoomed; the articles in the bottom pane will adjust their size.  The text will wrap so no horizontal scrolling is needed.
  •  The double horizontal lines are split bars which determine the sizes of the panes; drag them up and down to change sizes.

The top pane of a reading window shows all the newsgroups in the subscription:

  •  An unread bullet (black means some articles unread), the number of unread articles, and the total number of articles in the newsgroup are shown in a user subscription. The numbers are estimates. In the special subscriptions that InterNews  creates for you automatically, these numbers are displayed only while a newsgroup is being shown.
  •  Click the bullet at the left to mark that newsgroup as read (it goes white) or unread (it goes black); this is undoable.
  •  Click a newsgroup to select it; right-arrow will select the next one, left-arrow will select the previous one.
  •  Double-click a newsgroup to show all the topics in that newsgroup in the middle pane; the Return or Enter key will show the selected newsgroup. You can hold the option key down to show just 50 articles at a time.
  •  Drag a newsgroup to change its position, or to move it to another subscription.  Hold down the option key to drag a copy to another subscription.

The middle pane of a reading window (if not blank) shows all the topics in the selected newsgroup:

  •  An unread bullet (black means some articles are unread), the number of unread articles, and the total number of articles in the topic are shown.
  •  Click the bullet at the left to mark that topic as read (it goes white) or unread (it goes black); this is undoable.
  •  Click a topic to select it; down-arrow will select the next one, up-arrow will select the previous one.  Hold down the Option key to mark the previously-selected topic as read.
  •  Double-click a topic to show all the articles in that topic in the pane below; the Return or Enter keys will show the selected topic.
  •  Command-Space will show the next topic in the pane below.  Hold down the option key to mark the previously-selected topic as read.
  •  A topic is marked as read when you click its bullet, or when all its articles have been read.

The bottom pane of a reading window (if not blank) shows all the articles in the selected topic, in date and time order:

  •  The article number, the subject of the article, and the sender appear in a header line.
  •  Click and hold on the article number to pop up the full article header.
  •  Click the bullet at the left to mark that article as read (it goes white) or unread (it goes black); this is undoable.
  •  Click on an article to select it for printing or saving. It will be framed with a black rectangle. If there is only one article in a topic, it is selected for you automatically.
  •  Both the Page Down key and the space bar will both scroll a page down; the Page Up key will scroll a page up. The Home and End keys will scroll to the beginning and end of the topic, respectively.
  •  An article is marked as read when you click its bullet, or when all of it has been shown (use the Reading category of the Preferences dialog for alternative ways to determine when an article has been read); this is undoable.

The Authentication Dialog Window

When you post an article, mail a message, or cancel an article from InterNews, you may see the Authentication dialog. This dialog asks for your user name and password to be checked by the configured authentication host. These should be the same user name and password that you use for electronic mail.

InterNews will only present this dialog once per session if you are authenticated. You can set a preference to have InterNews remember your user name and password in your subscription file. If you do, be careful not to share that file with anyone else. They will be able to send articles and mail using your name. The purpose of authentication is to ensure as much as possible that the author of every message sent from InterNews holds a valid electronic mail account at your site so that responses will be directed back to the correct person.

AppleEvents

InterNews  supports the four basic required AppleEvents:

• You can open InterNews  from another application that can send AppleEvents.

• You can quit InterNews  from another application that can send AppleEvents.

• You can open subscription files and composition files from the Finder and from other applications that can send AppleEvents. When you open a composition file this way, InterNews  will ask you for a subscription file before showing you the Compostion window.

• You can print composition files from the Finder or other applications. Subscription files cannot be printed.