Version 1.1
Last Revised: June 9, 1994

Brought To You By:

John P. Mah
Toilets 'R Us Software
201 Riviera Dr
Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada
P7B 6H8

Internet E-Mail: jpmah@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca

What Is ToadNews?

ToadNews provides Macintosh users running a UUCP package (such as Dave Platt's UUPC 3.0) with the ability to be leaf-node Usenet sites. A Usenet leaf-node usually does not relay news other nodes, with the exception of the node that feeds it news (called the newsfeed).

ToadNews itself takes newsbatches sent from the newsfeed and then unbatches and puts the news into the appropriate directory for perusal by your favourite newsreader or text-editor.

Some other features of ToadNews include:

• An unbatcher that can manually unbatch newsbatches (via the File menu or by drag & dropping newsbatches onto the ToadNews program icon). The unbatcher can also be configured to look in a user-configurable folder for new newsbatches and automatically unbatch news.

• Can handle both compressed & uncompressed newsbatches from newsfeeds running both B-News and C-News software. ToadNews will automatically determine which type of newsbatch it is dealing with and perform the necessary operations to extract the Usenet news. ToadNews  currently supports these newsbatch formats: “#! rnews”, “#! cunbatch”, SOUP and raw compressed.

• Integrates well with variety of Macintosh-based news transports (including UUPC and MacSlurp) and newsreaders (ie: rnMac and TheNews). In addition, users without UUCP or MacTCP connections can use uqwk on their Unix accounts to create SOUP batches and download them to their Mac, and then process them withToadNews afterwards.

• Decompression of newsbatches compressed with compress is supported provided that ToadNews can allocate enough memory to perform the decompression. Users can choose to use an external decompressor to uncompress newsbatches compressed using compression formats other than compress.

• Flexible cross-posted articles handling. The user can configure ToadNews to save hard drive space by using aliases instead of duplicating articles, or can choose to ignore cross-posted articles.

• News articles are saved in Macintosh text-editor readable format, with all Usenet header information intact. 

• A newsgroup expirer which removes old Usenet news from your hard drive. The expirer can be configured to run automatically at user-configurable times, and/or after the free space on your hard drive falls below a certain percentage of its total disk space.

• Flexible expiry support. Each newsgroup can be configured to have a different expire period (in days), independent of other newsgroups.

• An newsgroup list editor, which allows the user to control the inflow and expiration of news. In addition, this window also presents important information regarding newsgroups.

• A log window that allows the user to configure what kinds of messages are logged. Typically, the log will report on processing status, statistics about incoming newsbatches, error and warning messages, and debugging information. Additionally, the user has the option of logging all messages to a text file.

• ToadNews can also be configured to automatically add new newsgroups (that it hasn't seen before) to the list of active newsgroups on your machine. This is a quick way to build an active newsgroups list.

• Support for scheduling the unbatching and expiring of news. The user can also specify when to quit ToadNews when all processing has finished.

• Support for System 7. Since ToadNews runs under System 7 only, it understands basic AppleEvents (Open Application, Open Document, Print Document?, and Quit Application), drag & drop files, balloon help, and aliases. Also included are custom AppleEvents which allow ToadNews to be AppleScript-able.

• Can run smoothly in the background under System 7. ToadNews will run in the background and quietly unbatch & expire news in the background.

• Cheap software. At the Shareware cost of $25, you get a useable, useful piece of UNIX/Macintosh interconnectivity. It's even cheaper than $25 if you choose to exercise the other purchasing options available.

Who Needs ToadNews?

For a start, it's great for the rest of us that:

• … don't want to get involved with icky DOS or UNIX newsreaders. After all, didn't we get Macs for their great UI's and ease of use?

• … have to make long distance calls to read news -- you can use UUCP (or another news transport like MacSlurp) to automatically download the news to your Mac (saving on-line time charges and energy by avoiding UNIX account limits, dial-up lines and command lines), and read your news on YOUR Mac at YOUR leisure.

• … are on tight financial budgets. Together the cost of ToadNews and any additional packages needed (a newsreader and/or transport) costs MUCH LESS than comparable commercial packages. Plus, you get the added bonus of a no-obligation trial period.

Who Doesn't Need ToadNews?

• People who expect a full-scale newsfeed. ToadNews was designed for personal use only -- there exists full-featured software in the market which can handle heavier workloads, but at a higher cost. ToadNews excels at smaller newsfeeds who need to carry a select subset of the total number of Usenet newsgroups.

• People who need to relay news to other UUCP nodes. Currently ToadNews does not support the batching and relay of received news to other machines.