Copyright: News Decoder Help
Citation: Copyright © 1997 Starfish Software.


About News Decoder

Use News Decoder to download and extract files from Internet newsgroups. News Decoder acts as a file decoder, and is designed to ease the often difficult and lengthy process required to extract binary files from newsgroups.

There are more than 10,000 newsgroups, or discussion groups, on Usenet. Newsgroups feature comments posted on different subjects from individual users, and frequently include encoded attachments. News Decoder lets you download and decode these encoded files.

News Decoder handles multi-part files and makes it easy to retrieve a group of files. Supported formats are Uuencode and Mime Base 64 (note, however, that News Decoder does not recognize the relatively rare format known as Mime Quoted Printables).

For help on getting started with News Decoder, see Using News Decoder.


Using News Decoder

Use News Decoder to download and decode files from newsgroups.

Click a topic in the list to see step-by-step procedures for using News Decoder:

Adding a News server

Adding a Newsgroup

Downloading and decoding files


Adding a News server

1.	Click [image] to open the News Decoder dialog box.

2.	Click New Server (the first toolbar button).

3.	Enter the hostname or IP address of your news server in the New Server dialog. This entry may be “news” or another location specified by your Internet service provider.

The server appears in the Servers and Groups list on the left side of the window.


Adding a Newsgroup

1.	Click a server folder in the Servers and Groups list.

2.	Click New Newsgroup (the second toolbar button), and enter the name of a newsgroup that has files you want to download.

Or, you can click Browse to display all newsgroups available on your server (typically 5,000 to 15,000).  Select a newsgroup from the list, or type a searchable word or partial word. For example, if you type “comp” in the search field, you can view a number of newsgroups that can provide information on computers. Click the newsgroup you want to add, and click OK.

3.	Set the options you want for this newsgroup:

Specify whether you want to retrieve all articles or only new articles in the New Newsgroup dialog. If you click Retrieve Only New Articles, News Decoder will download only the articles that you have not yet viewed each time you use it.

Choose the maximum number of articles that you want News Decoder to retrieve (the default is 300). The larger the number, the longer the download process will take.

Select the target directory into which you want to download the binary files. Enter a directory path in the field, or click Browse to select a directory on your system.

4.	Click OK to add the newsgroup. The file list will be downloaded.


Downloading and decoding files

1.	Click a newsgroup in the Servers and Groups list. The files will appear in the Files list on the right side of the News Decoder dialog box.

2.	Select one or more files to download; use Ctrl+click to select multiple files. Files that are identified as Incomplete can’t be downloaded (you can display or hide incomplete files by clicking the Show Incomplete Files button).

3.	Click the Download Selected button in the toolbar.

Files are automatically decoded after downloading.

Note:	If you see an error message when you try to connect, press Retrieve Articles (the fifth toolbar button). News Decoder will then attempt to reconnect to the newsgroup server.


News Decoder hints and tips

A file labeled Incomplete is one that consists of more than one part, and not all parts are available. Incomplete files can’t be downloaded. Normally, incomplete files are not displayed, but you can have them displayed by clicking the Show Incomplete Files button.

The Parts column in the Files list shows the number of parts to the file, such as 4, provided the file is complete. When you download the multi-part file, all parts are downloaded.


News Decoder

Use News Decoder to download and decode files from newsgroups.

The News Decoder window

Toolbar

Contains buttons that give you single-click access to most functions. Hold the mouse pointer over a button for a moment to see its label. See Tools and Commands.

Servers and Groups

Contains a list of all servers and newsgroups you have added. Use New Server to add a server to the list. Click a server and use New Newsgroup to add a newsgroup.  See Using News Decoder.

Files

Contains a list of files available for downloading in the currently selected newsgroup. Files labeled Incomplete cannot be downloaded (you can hide them from view by clicking the Show Incomplete Files button).


Newsgroup Options dialog box

This dialog box opens when you select a newsgroup and click the Newsgroup Options button, or when you click the New Newsgroup button.

The Newsgroup Options dialog box

Newsgroup

(This option is available only when you are adding a newsgroup.)  Enter the name of a newsgroup that has files you want to download, or click Browse to find a newsgroup. In the Browse dialog box, you can type a searchable word or partial word. For example, if you type “comp” in the search field, you can view newsgroups with information on computers. If you do not type a search term, you will see all newsgroups available on your server (typically 5,000 to 15,000). Be sure to select a single newsgroup from the list. If the list of newsgroups has not finished downloading, you will see a message that you must wait.

Article Retrieval

Choose whether you want to Retrieve Only New Articles or Retrieve All Articles. If you choose Only New Articles, News Decoder will download only the articles that you have not viewed in a previous session. You can also choose the maximum number of articles that you want News Decoder to retrieve (the default is 300). The larger the number, the longer the download process will take.

Target Directory

Select the target directory where you want downloaded files stored. Enter a directory path in the field, or click Browse to select a directory on your system.

Note:	If you see an error message when you try to connect, press Retrieve Articles (the fifth toolbar button). News Decoder will then attempt to reconnect to the news server.


Tools and Commands

The tools are listed here in the order they appear on the toolbar.

New Server—Adds a news server. You can have more than one news server.

New Newsgroup—Opens the Newsgroup Options dialog box, so you can add a newsgroup for the server you select and specify its properties.

Get New Groups—Retrieves the available newsgroups on the selected server.

Newsgroup Options—Opens the Newsgroup Options dialog box for the currently selected news group, so you can change its properties.

Retrieve Articles—Retrieves articles for the selected news group.

Show Incomplete Files—Turns on or off display of incomplete files. Incomplete files do not contain all the original parts and therefore can’t be downloaded.

Download All—Downloads all files in the currently selected group.

Download Selected—Downloads the files you have selected. Use Ctrl+click to select multiple files.

Stop—Interrupts the current download activity.

Note:	In addition, you can select Launch All or Launch Selected from the Download menu to open a file or execute a program after it is downloaded.