Build: 32 bit Free Agent:

YesFree:  Yes (Free Agent only topics)

YesOrder:  Yes (How to order Agent)

NoMSMain:  No (Newsreader Contents Graphic)

NoCRight:  No (Microsoft's copyright page statement)

YesFreeTech:  Yes (Free Agent Tech Support info)

YesTechless:  Yes (No Technical Support for IA)

NoIALicense:  No (Internet Americal License Agreement)

NoAgentLicense:  No (Agent License Agreement)

NoMail:  No (Receive email topics)

NoFolders:  No (All aspects of folders)

NoAddBook:  No (Address Book topics)

NoSpelling:  No (Spell check topics)

NoSorting:  No (Sorting topics)

YesBit32:  Yes (Features only available in the 32bit version)

Forté Free AgentFullName:  Forté Free Agent (The long name of the program)

AgentName:  Agent (The short name of the program)

agentLcName:  agent (The short name of the program)


About Agent's Dictionaries

Agent's spell checker supports the following languages:

•	American English

•	International English

•	French

•	German

•	Italian

•	Spanish

To install a dictionary for another language:

1.	Download the desired language's dictionary file from our FTP site.  The dictionary files are located in ftp.forteinc.com/pub/dictionaries/.

2.	Unzip the dictionary file into your Agent directory.
(E.g., pkunzip german.zip c:\agent)

After restarting Agent, you can spell check messages in any of the installed languages.

To define a new language in Agent:

1.	From the Options menu, open the General Preferences Languages tab.

2.	Press the Add button to open the Add Language dialog box and enter the name for the new language in the Name field.  Then select the language on which the new language is based.  Agent will adopt all the properties of that language and use them for displaying fonts.

3.	When you press OK, the Add dialog box closes and the new language is added to the Languages list.

To define the language used for spell checking:

On the General Preferences Languages tab, select the language you want for spell checking from the Spell Checker list.

To spell check a message:

While composing the message, choose Spelling from the Message menu.

To set the default language displayed for all messages in all groups:

On the Language tab of the Default Properties for all Groups dialog box, pick the desired language from the Language drop-down list

To set the default language displayed for all messages in a particular group:

Select the group and then, on the Language tab of the Properties for Selected Groups dialog box, pick the desired language from the Language drop-down list

To override the default language for a particular message:

Highlight the message for which you want to override the default language, then open the Message Language dialog box by selecting Language from the Message menu.  Now, select the desired language from the Language drop-down list.

You can also add your own words to Agent's dictionaries.  The spell checker supports one custom dictionary for each language.

To remove words from your custom dictionary:

1.	Open the Spelling tab of the Posting Preferences dialog box (Options menu).

2.	In the Default Language drop-down list, choose the language associated with the custom dictionary.

3.	Select the word to delete in the Edit list.

4.	Press the Delete button.

See Also:

Compose Usenet Message window

Compose Email Message window

How to Post Usenet Messages

How to Send Email


About Message Sorting

Agent allows you to sort your messages by thread, subject, author, date, and size.  It remembers the last sort you used for each newsgroup and folder, so when you view that group or folder again, the messages will be displayed in the same order they were in the last time you viewed the group or folder.

How to sort your messages:

•	On the Group menu, click the "Sort by" flyout and choose the desired sort.  Tip: To sort several groups or folders at once, select all of them in the Groups pane before choosing the desired sort from the "Sort by" flyout.

•	Click on the label above the column you wish to sort by.  For example, to sort by author, click the Author button that appears directly above the author column.  Note: To sort by thread or size, click the leftmost column until Thread or Size appears in the column label.

By default, Agent displays the most recent messages on the bottom of the Message List pane when sorted by date and the smallest messages on the bottom when sorted by size.

To change the order of the date and size sorts:

1.	Choose General Preferences from the Options menu and click on the Message List tab.

2.	Check the "Date sorts descending" and/or the "Size sorts descending" box.  Note: You must resort the group or folder after checking or unchecking these boxes for the changes to take effect.


Sort

The ordering of messages in the Message List pane.


About Usenet Message Purging

In general, Agent automatically deletes, or "purges," old Usenet messages for you.

When does Agent purge messages:

There are three times when messages can be purged:

•	When retrieving new headers

Agent can purge a newsgroup's old messages whenever it retrieves new message headers for that group.  To turn this feature on, check the "When retrieving new headers" box on the When to Purge tab of the Default Properties for All Groups dialog box.

•	When closing Agent

Agent can purge old messages from all newsgroups whenever you exit the program.  To enable this option, check the "When closing Agent" box on the When to Purge tab of the Default Properties for All Groups dialog box.

•	On demand

You can manually purge old messages by selecting one of the options from the Purge Newsgroups flyout on the Group menu.  Or, to immediately delete a message without purging the other messages in the group, select the message and, from the Message menu, choose either Delete Message (to remove the entire message) or Delete Message Body (to remove the message's text while continuing to display its header in the Message List pane).  A message will appear asking you to confirm the delete action.  To turn off the delete confirmation message, see the Confirmations tab of the General Preferences dialog box.

Which messages does Agent purge:

Agent provides you many options when deciding which Usenet messages to automatically purge.  You can purge messages once you've read them or after a certain period of time.  You can even setup Agent to mirror your news server - so you'll only see messages that are available for retrieval.  To define which messages get purged, see the What to Purge tab of the Properties for Selected Groups dialog box.

How to prevent Agent from purging a message:

Occasionally you will come across a message that you don't want Agent to automatically purge.  To prevent Agent from deleting a message, regardless of the group's purge settings, highlight the message and choose Keep Message from the Message menu or press the Keep Message toolbar button [image].  The Keep Message icon, [image], will appear next to the message.  To remove the Keep Message icon, choose the Keep Message command again.

Note: When the Keep Message icon appears next to a message, you cannot manually delete the message or its body.  You must remove the Keep Message icon first.

See Also:

Compacting Agent's Database Files


Purge Messages Flyout
Purge Newsgroups Flyout

Subscribed Groups - Purges messages from all your subscribed groups.

Selected Groups - Purges messages from the current group or highlighted groups.

All Groups - Purges messages from all your groups.


Adding People to the Address Book

Addressing a message to a person or a group of people (a mailing list) is much easier when they are in your address book.

To add a person or group to the address book:

1.	Open the Address Book window.

2.	Choose New from the Address menu to open the New Address dialog box.

3.	Enter the person's name (e.g., Mark Happel) or the group's description (e.g., My Mailing List) in the Name box.

4.	When adding an individual, enter his or her email address in the Addresses box.  When creating a mailing list, enter each person's email address separated by commas.

5.	(Optional) Enter a description of the person or group in the Comments box.

6.	(Optional) Enter the name of the mailing list in the Field Text box.

7.	Press OK to save the new address book entry.

To add the author of an existing message to the address book:

1.	Select any message authored by the person for whom you wish to create an address book entry.

2.	Choose Add Author to Address Book from the Message menu.  This opens the New Address dialog box filled in with the name and address of the selected author.

3.	Press OK to save the new address book entry.

See Also:

How to Use the Address Book

How to Post Usenet Messages

How to Send Email


Compacting Agent's Database Files

So that Agent can work quickly and efficiently, it does not always ensure that its database files are as small as possible.  If disk space is at a premium, there are two ways that you can compact your databases to remove the wasted space that may accumulate.

To manually compact the database files:

Choose Compact Databases from the File menu.  Agent will scan the databases to determine how much disk space you will save.  After the scan is complete, you may choose to either proceed with the compaction or cancel without affecting any files.

To automatically compact the database files:

You define when Agent should automatically compact your databases with the When to Purge tab of the Default Properties for All Groups dialog box.  In general, you probably don't need to compact your databases automatically.  Compacting after you change your purge settings should be sufficient for most people.

See Also:

About Usenet Message Purging


Copying a URL to the Clipboard
Copying a WWW URL to the Clipboard

Many Internet messages contain addresses of World Wide Web (WWW) pages.  Although Agent doesn't directly support Web browsing, it makes it easy for you to copy these addresses, called URLs, to the Windows Clipboard for pasting into another program like Mosaic or Netscape.

To copy a WWW URL to the Clipboard:

While viewing a message with a URL, choose Copy WWW URL from the Edit menu or press Ctrl+U. Agent will scan the message starting at the cursor's current location, highlight the first URL it finds, and copy it to the Clipboard.  To search for another URL, simply press Ctrl+U again.  If Agent can't find the URL, you may need to customize the URLPattern setting in AGENT.INI.

To paste a WWW URL into MS Explorer:

Launch Microsoft Internet Explorer and choose Open from its File menu.  Click in the Address field and press Ctrl+V.

To paste a WWW URL into Mosaic:

Launch Mosaic and choose Open URL from its File menu.  Click in the URL field and press Ctrl+V.

To paste a WWW URL into Netscape:

Launch Netscape and choose Open Location from its File menu.  Click in the edit field and press Ctrl+V.


Filing Messages in Folders

With Agent's folders, you can organize and store your messages in any manner you like.

To create a folder:

1.	Choose New Folder from the Group menu.

2.	Enter a name for the folder (up to 255 characters) and press OK.

Folders appear in the Groups/Folders pane below the newsgroups.

To view folders:

•	Choose one of the "Folder" options from the Show flyout on the Group menu.

There are different ways to file messages in folders:  You can drag and drop them, or use the commands on the Message menu.

To drag and drop a message into a folder:

1.	View all three panes in your Browser window (i.e., make sure the Zoom Window option on the Navigate menu is unchecked).

2.	Highlight the message in the Message List pane.

3.	Click anywhere on the highlighted message and hold down the mouse button.

4.	While continuing to hold the mouse button down, move the mouse cursor over the folder in which you want the message filed.

5.	By default, Agent will move a message when you drag and drop it.  To copy the message instead, press and hold the Control key.

6.	Release the mouse button to drop the message into the destination folder.

To file a message into a folder using the menus:

1.	Highlight the message in the Message List pane.

2.	On the Message menu, click either the Copy to Folder or Move to Folder flyout.

3.	Select the desired folder from the flyout or choose All Folders to open a dialog box with a list of all the folders you've created.  Note: Use the Manage Folder Menus dialog box to display your most frequently used folders on the Copy/Move to Folder flyout menus.

To copy or move messages from the Outbox to a folder:

1.	Display the Outbox by choosing Open Outbox from the Window menu.

2.	Highlight the messages in the Outbox.

3.	If you want to drag and drop the messages into a folder, select Tile Vertically from the Window menu and make sure the Groups/Folders pane is visible.

4.	File the messages into a folder by either dragging and dropping them or choosing the desired folder from the Copy to Folder or Move to Folder flyout on the Message menu (see above for more details on these two steps).


Finding Addresses

Agent allows you to quickly find addresses in the address book by using the Edit | Find command.  This will bring up the Find Address dialog box.  Alternatively, you can find an address by simply typing the first few letters of a name.


Finding Filters

Agent allows you to search for filters by subject and author.

To find a filter:

1.	Make sure the focus is in the Usenet Filters window (Group | Usenet Filters).

2.	Choose Find from the Edit menu.

3.	Enter any part of the desired subject or author in the Find Filter dialog box.

4.	Press Find First to find the first message whose subject or author contains the text you entered.  Press Find Next to find the first message below the currently selected one with this text in the subject or author fields.

5.	If the found message isn't the one you were looking for, press F3 or choose Find Next from the Edit menu to search for the next message in this group that contains the text you entered.


Finding Groups

Agent allows you to search for groups by name and for messages by subject and author.

To find a group:

1.	Make sure the focus is in the Groups pane.  Note: You can do this by selecting any group in the Groups pane.

2.	Choose All Groups from the Show flyout on the Group menu.

3.	Choose Find from the Edit menu.

4.	Enter any part of the desired group's name in the Find dialog box.  For example, if you enter win into the Find dialog box, Agent will find, among others, alt.winsock, alt.sewing, and rec.crafts.winemaking.

5.	Press Find First to find the first group in the Groups pane with this text in its name.  Press Find Next to find the first group below the currently selected one with this text in its name.

6.	If the found group isn't the one you were looking for, press F3 or choose Find Next from the Edit menu to search for the next group with the text you entered.


Finding Messages

Agent allows you to search for messages by subject and author.

To find a message:

1.	Make sure the focus is in the Message List pane of the group you want to search.  Note: You can do this by selecting any message in desired group.

2.	Choose Find from the Edit menu to open the Find dialog box.

3.	Enter any part of the desired subject or name in the Find dialog box.

4.	Press Find First to find the first message whose subject or author contains the text you entered.  Press Find Next to find the first message below the currently selected one with this text in the subject or author fields.

5.	If the found message isn't the one you were looking for, press F3 or choose Find Next from the Edit menu to search for the next message in this group that contains the text you entered.


Import/Export Address File Format

Import and export address files are formatted according to the following criteria:

•	Import and export address files consist of a series of field definitions, one per line.  Each definition is of the form:

<field>:<value>

The <field> name must begin with the first character of the line.  A line may be no more than 1000 characters long, including the \r\n termination.  Multi-line field values may be represented by continuing the value on subsequent lines.  Each continuation line must begin with one or more whitespace characters (SP or TAB).  The initial whitespace is removed from the value during import.

•	The file may contain blank lines, which are ignored.

•	The first field for each address entry must be a Name field.  The value is the name of the address entry.  Fields other than Name prior to the first Name field  are ignored.

•	All fields appearing after a Name field are part of the entry named by that field, until the next Name field is scanned.

The additional fields that may be included are defined below.  Fields that are not in this list are ignored.

Book - The name of the address book in which this entry resides.  This field is optional on import.  Agent will have options that control the destination address book if this field is not specified.

Addresses - The entry's email address list field.

Comments - The entry's comments field.

Field-Text - The entry's Field Text field.


Importing Email Messages from Another Program

This topic explains the import procedures for messages that are in the standard UNIX format (RFC-822), such as from Eudora or Pegasus, and for messages that are in a non-UNIX format, such as from News Xpress.

Eudora or Pegasus

To help smooth the transition from your old email program, Agent allows you to import messages from a text file that is in the standard UNIX email message format (RFC-822).  To further facilitate this transition, you can download a utility from Forté's FTP site which exports messages from Eudora or Pegasus into the standard UNIX format.  These utilities can be found at <ftp.forteinc.com/pub/converters/>.  Note: If you use an email program other than the ones mentioned above, check our Web page to see if an export utility has been written for your program since this help file was produced.

To import messages from Eudora or Pegasus:

1.	Run the export utility from a DOS window with the following command line:

emailcvt <data directory> <filename> [<folder prefix>]

where <data directory> is your email program's database directory and <filename> is the name of the DOS file that contains the file Agent will read.  The argument <folder prefix> is optional.  If provided, it is appended to the beginning of the names of all Agent folders that are created in the import process.  For example, if the folder prefix was "Email" then email will be imported into folders called "Email.In", " Email.Out", etc.

2.	Choose Import Messages from the File menu.

3.	In the File Name box, enter the location of export file from step #1.

4.	(Optional) Check the "If a message contains an X-Folder field..." and "Automatically create folders" boxes.

5.	Press OK to begin the import.

News Xpress

You can import messages from News Xpress without having to use an export utility at all.  Simply do the following:

To import messages from News Xpress:

1.	Choose Import Messages from the File menu.

2.	In the File Name box, enter the directory in which you keep News Xpress and enter the folder number (e.g., folder??.mbx).

See Also:

Import File Format

Save Messages As dialog box


Making Sure Messages Were Sent Properly

When you first start using a new program, you probably want to make sure it's doing what you told it to do.  To make sure your messages have been successfully sent, choose Open Outbox from the Window menu.  By default, all the messages you send with Agent appear in this window (see the Posting tab of the Default Properties for All Groups dialog box for details).  The icons next to each message tell you the status of that message:

Icon	Meaning

The message was successfully sent.

A problem occurred sending this message.  Double-click on the message to make sure all the fields are filled in correctly and then press Send Now or Send Later to re-send the message.

The message is queued for uploading (you pressed the Send Later button after creating the message).  To send the message now, choose Post Usenet and Email Messages from the Online menu.

The message is in the process of being sent.


Marking Messages Read

New messages you retrieve are initially marked unread.  When you view a message's body, Agent then marks that message read.  Since you probably don't read all the Usenet messages whose headers you retrieve, Agent automatically marks the ones you don't care about as read.

To automatically mark old messages read when retrieving new messages:

By default, Agent automatically marks all Usenet messages read whenever you retrieve message headers.  This makes it easy for you to find the new messages because they will be the only ones which are unread.  To change this behavior, choose Properties from the Group menu and select the Marking Read tab.

To automatically mark messages read when skipping between groups:

When jumping from one group to another via a navigation command (Skip to Next Unread Group, for example), Agent can automatically mark as read all messages in the group you are skipping from.  To enable this behavior, check the "Skipping to next unread group marks all messages in current group read" box on the Navigation tab of the General Preferences dialog box.

To manually mark messages read:

Select the messages you want to mark read and choose Mark Read from the Message menu.  To mark all the messages in a group read, select the group and choose Mark Selected Read from the Group menu or Mark All Read from the Message menu (these two commands are equivalent).  To mark all the messages in all your groups read, choose Mark All Read from the Group menu.

To manually mark a message unread:

Select the messages you want to mark unread and choose Mark Unread from the Message menu.  To mark all the messages in a group unread, select the group and choose Mark All Unread from the Message menu.

See Also:

Watching and Ignoring Threads

Navigating in Agent


Printing Messages

Agent allows you to print one or more messages in a single group with one command.

To print messages:

1.	Define the page parameters (including margins, headers, and page breaks) using the Page Setup dialog box (File | Page Setup).

2.	Select the printer font you want to use with the Printer Font dialog box (Options | General Preferences | Fonts | Printer button).

3.	Select all the messages to print.  If you select a collapsed thread, Agent will print all messages in the thread.  Agent only prints messages whose bodies have been retrieved.

4.	Choose Print from the File menu.  Press OK on the Print dialog box to start printing the messages.

See Also:

Save Message As dialog box


ROT13 Encoding and Decoding

Some Internet messages contain text encoded with a scheme called ROT13.  ROT13 encoded text cannot be read without first decoding it.  For example, "Hello World" encoded with ROT13 looks like this:  Uryyb Jbeyq

To decode a ROT13 message:

Select the encoded text and choose Apply ROT13 from the Edit menu or press Ctrl+R.

To encode a ROT13 message:

Select the text to encode and choose Apply ROT13 from the Edit menu or press Ctrl+R.

Note: When you decode text in a message you have retrieved, the decoding only affects your display.  If you come back to this message later, you will again see the original, encoded text.  Encoding text in a message you're creating, on the other hand, affects the actual text.  If you then post the message, other people will see it with the text encoded.

See Also:

How to Post Usenet Messages

How to Send Email


  Using Filter Expressions

Filter expressions are word-based.  An expression is composed of words which are separated by spaces or punctuation.  A word is any contiguous sequence of letters, numbers, and/or dollar sign characters.

Comparing an expression to a message

When comparing an expression to a message, Agent ignores all punctuation and spaces, and compares complete words only.  Click for an example of matching phrases with different punctuation and spaces.

Single word expression

The simplest expression is a single word.  A single word matches a message if Agent finds the complete word in either the subject or author field.  The match is normally case-insensitive.   However, you can force an exact, case-sensitive match by capitalizing one or more letters in the word.  Click for an example.

Expression phrases

You can combine individual words to form phrases.  When matching a phrase, Agent ignores all spaces and punctuation in both the filter expression and the message being tested.  Click for an example.

Special words and punctuation

The words and, or, and not have special meanings in Agent.  When included in a filter expression without quotes (e.g., subject: apples or oranges), these words are treated as expression operators with the purpose of comparing information.  When quotes are used (e.g., subject: hide "and" seek), the special meaning is ignored and Agent treats the words like normal text.

Similarly, the punctuation and symbols & | ! = [ ] , ( ) : * have special meaning in Agent.  When enclosed in quotes, these characters are treated as whitespace.

Important!  Only use quotes when they are appropriate.  The only time you will find it necessary to use quotes is when you want words and punctuation with special meaning to be treated as normal text.  Click for an example of when quotes are appropriate.

Quotes used when pasting subject and author information

When you press the Paste Subject and Paste Author buttons on the Add Usenet dialog box (Message | Usenet Filters | Add Kill/Watch Filter), Agent automatically handles quotation marks, as follows:

•	The words and, or, and not

•	Specific punctuation and symbols

Boolean expressions

You can use the special words and, or and not to form boolean expressions.  For example, red rose or blue carnation matches all messages containing either the phrase red rose or the phrase blue carnation.  If you prefer, you can also use the special symbols &, |, and ! in place of and, or and not, respectively.  The operator precedence, highest to lowest, is: not, and, or.  You can use parentheses (...) to change the precedence.

Subject and author qualifiers

By default, Agent matches an expression against both the subject and the author fields.  You can restrict a match to a particular field by preceding the words to be matched with either subject: or author:.  (Note:  The : must appear immediately after the word, with no intervening spaces.  Otherwise, Agent treats the : as a normal punctuation character and ignores it.)  Click for an example.

The subject: and author: qualifiers apply only to the phrase up to the next boolean operator.  Click for an example.

Wildcard character

The * character, when appended to a word, creates a wildcard, which matches any word that begins with the specified characters.  Click for an example.

Rule:  A wildcard word must contain at least 3 characters.  For example, wi* is not a legal wildcard, but win* is.  This restriction allows Agent to test the filters more efficiently.

The * character, when alone, matches everything.

TIP:  Wildcard filters that consist of just * can be very useful if you want to watch certain messages and skip all others.  When you use the * expression, you'll usually want to set the filter's priority to the lowest possible value, so that the wildcard filter is tested last.

Important!  Don't use quotes when using the wildcard.  This will cause Agent to treat the * as normal text.  See Special words and punctuation below for more information.

Exact match operator

If you place the = sign operator in front of a word sequence, Agent will require an exact match of that word sequence.  When using the exact match operator, Agent still ignores all punctuation.  Agent also ignores any "re:"s that prefix the subject.  Click for an example.

Note:  It will almost never be necessary to require an exact match for an author field.  If you do define an exact match for an author's name, Agent always compares against the author's full address, even if you're only displaying the author's full name in the browser.  Click for an example.

Line count ranges

In addition to words and phrases, you can include line count ranges in your expressions.  A line count range is a pair of numbers in the form [<low>,<high>].  It tells Agent to match all messages with line counts in the range <low> to <high>.

See Also:

How to Create Kill and Watch Filters

Kill and Watch Filter Examples


Identical phrases with different punctuation and spacing

The following phrases are all identical:

Mark F. Sidell <mark.sidell@forteinc.com>

Mark F Sidell mark sidell forteinc com

Mark-F-Sidell-mark-sidell-forteinc-com


Case-sensitivity example

The word

windows

matches

windows

Windows

WINDOWS

but

WinDows

only matches

WinDows


Wildcard example

The word and wildcard

window*

matches any word that begins with window, including:

Windows

windowing


Expression phrases example

To match the following URL

http://www.forteinc.com/

you can use any of the expressions below:

http":"//www.forteinc.com/

http www forteinc com

http-www-forteinc-com


Pasted words "and", "or", and "not"

The words and, or, and not without quotes are treated as operators in filter expressions.  With quotes (i.e., "and", "or", "not"), these words are treated as normal text.  When you press the Paste Subject or Paste Author buttons on the Add Usenet dialog box, Agent automatically places quotes around these words when they are part of the subject or author information.


Pasted punctuation and symbols

The following punctuation and symbols are converted to a space:

& | ! = [ ] , ( ) * " : <tab> <space>

If there are more than one of these characters in a row, they'll all be converted to a single space.


Punctuation and symbols with special meaning

&	This symbol is equivalent to the word and.

|	This symbol is equivalent to the word or.

!	This punctuation is equivalent to the word not.

=	This symbol means an exact match, when preceding a word sequence (e.g., =apple pie).

[ ]	This punctuation is used to define a line range (e.g., [*,100] means 100 lines or less).

,	This punctuation is used within the square brackets (see above) to establish a line range.

( )	This punctuation is used to establish precedence of operators in compound expressions.

:	This punctuation is treated as a subject or author qualifier (i.e., subject:, author:).

*	This punctuation is treated as a wildcard.  When attached to words, it matches any additional characters attached to the word.  Alone, the wildcard matches anything.


Quoted words example

To match the phrase this and (that), you can use any of the following expressions:

this "and" that

"this and (that)"

this "and" "(" that ")"


Exact match example

For example:

subject: =apple

would match

apple or APPLE!!! or Re: apple or re: re: apple

But it would not match

red apple or apple pie or Orange

If you want to force Agent to do an exact match, but also to include re in the match, you can do something like the following:

subject: re and =apple

This filter will only match subjects which contain (exactly) apple and which also contain re.


Address comparison example

For an exact match of the address: "jdoe@acmeinc.com(John Doe)", you need to use:

author:= "jdoe@acmeinc.com (John Doe)"

instead of

author:= John Doe


Line range example

The range [10,20] matches all messages with at least 10 lines and no more than 20 lines.

A * in place of one of the numbers is a wildcard.  For example, [*,10] matches all messages with no more than 10 lines, and [15,*] matches all messages with at least 15 lines.


Subject and author qualifiers example

The expression author: tom gold tells Agent to search only the author field for the phrase tom gold.

You can combine subject and author-specific searches to form boolean expressions.  The following expression matches all messages for which the subject contains the word agent and the author contains the phrase tom gold.  In addition, the expression matches only those messages with at least 20 lines.

subject: agent and author: tom gold and [20,*]

Note:  The alternative qualifier from: may be used in place of author:.


Qualifiers range

The expression subject: agent and forteinc searches for agent in the subject only, but searches for forteinc in both the subject and author.  You can define a field-qualified boolean expression by enclosing it in parentheses (...).

For example, for the expression "subject: (agent and forteinc)", Agent searches for agent and forteinc in the subject only.


Watching and Ignoring Threads

As you probably already know, some newsgroups on the Internet are very active.  There can be several hundred new postings a day.  To help you cut through some of this noise, Agent provides you with two very powerful yet very simple features: Watching threads and Ignoring threads.

Watching Threads

When you're browsing though messages and come upon one that you know you'll be interested in responses to, select Watch Thread from the Message menu or press "W."  The Watch Thread icon, [image], will appear next to the message.  Agent automatically retrieves the bodies of all responses to watched threads when retrieving message headers.

Note: When you watch a thread with unretrieved messages, Agent automatically marks all the unretrieved messages in the thread for retrieval and, if the selected message is unretrieved, skips to the next unread message (outside of the current thread).  To retrieve the marked messages, select Get Marked Message Bodies from the Online menu (for details, see How to Use Agent as an Offline Newsreader).  To keep Agent from skipping to the next unread message, uncheck the "Watching an unread message skips to the next unread message" box on the Navigation tab of the General Preferences dialog box.

Ignoring Threads

The opposite of watching threads is ignoring threads.  When you run across a message that you know you won't be interested in responses to, select Ignore Thread from the Message menu or press "I."  The Ignore Thread icon, [image], will appear next to all the messages in the thread.  Agent automatically marks the message and any responses to it, even those retrieved in later sessions, read.  This can significantly reduce the number of new, unread messages presented to you each time you get new message headers.

Note:  After you ignore a thread, Agent automatically skips to the next unread message.  To turn this behavior off (keep the focus on the current message), uncheck the "Watching an unread message skips to the next unread message" box on the Navigation tab of the General Preferences dialog box.

Important!  Be sure to keep at least one header in a watched or ignored thread in order for this feature to work.  This ensures that the feature will work, no matter how you have set the purge properties (Properties | Purge, or Default Properties | Purge).

See Also:

Navigating in Agent

Marking Messages Read


Build: 32 bit Free Agent:

YesFree:  Yes (Free Agent only topics)

YesOrder:  Yes (How to order Agent)

NoMSMain:  No (Newsreader Contents Graphic)

NoCRight:  No (Microsoft's copyright page statement)

YesFreeTech:  Yes (Free Agent Tech Support info)

YesTechless:  Yes (No Technical Support for IA)

NoIALicense:  No (Internet Americal License Agreement)

NoAgentLicense:  No (Agent License Agreement)

NoMail:  No (Receive email topics)

NoFolders:  No (All aspects of folders)

NoAddBook:  No (Address Book topics)

NoSpelling:  No (Spell check topics)

NoSorting:  No (Sorting topics)

YesBit32:  Yes (Features only available in the 32bit version)

Forté Free AgentFullName:  Forté Free Agent (The long name of the program)

AgentName:  Agent (The short name of the program)

agentLcName:  agent (The short name of the program)


Microsoft Newsreader for Windows Registration dialog box
Forté Free Agent Registration dialog box

This dialog box is displayed the first time you run Agent.  You must enter the registration key you received via email into the entry box.  If you have not received your registration key within 24 hours of placing your order, please send email to order-question@forteinc.com.

Since registration keys can be very long, you will probably want to copy it from your email program and paste it into this dialog box.

To paste the registration key from a standard Windows email program:

1.	Highlight the registration key in the email message.  Be sure to highlight the entire key and nothing else in the message.

2.	Choose Copy from the Edit menu to copy the key to the Clipboard.

3.	Run Agent.

4.	In this dialog box, click in the entry box and press Ctrl+V to paste the key.


Microsoft Newsreader for Windows Registration dialog box
Forté Free Agent Registration dialog box

This dialog box is displayed the first time you run Agent.  Complete the dialog box as follows:

Your Name

Enter your name (e.g., Jane Doe).

Your Organization

This field is optional.  If you wish, enter the name of your organization.


Licensing Agreement dialog box

This dialog box displays Agent's licensing terms and conditions.  You must accept the terms and conditions in order to run the program.

Accept

Press this button to accept the terms of the agreement and run Agent.

Decline

Press this button if you do not accept the terms of the agreement.  Agent will not run if you press this button.


Newsreader Setup dialog box
Agent Setup dialog box

Fill in this dialog to provide Agent with the basic information needed to communicate with your news and mail servers.  If you don't want to post messages, you only need to supply the name of your news server.  You can enter the other information later in the Posting Preferences dialog box.

Use Information From Another Program

If you're already using one of the listed programs, Agent can get most of its basic setup information from the other program's configuration files.  Press this button to select the program you use.

News (NNTP) Server

Enter the name of your news (NNTP) server or its IP address.  If you don't know the name, ask your service provider or system administrator.

Email (SMTP) Server

Enter the name of your email (SMTP) server or its IP address.  If you don't know the name, ask your service provider or system administrator.

Email Address

Enter your email address.  When you send a message, this address appears in the "From" field.  For example: john.doe@forteinc.com

Full Name

(Optional) Enter your full name.  This name is included with your email address in messages that you send.  It is helpful to include your full name if your email address does not contain your name.  Also, some programs, such as Agent, can display an author's full name rather than his/her email address.

Exit Agent

Press this button if you don't have the basic information available.  The next time you run Agent, this dialog box will be displayed again.


Use Information From Another Program dialog box

Use this dialog box to select the program from which Agent will acquire its basic setup information.

Program

Select the program from which you wish to get the initialization information.

Copy program's list of newsgroups

Check this box if you want Agent to use the selected program's newsgroup list to fill in its own list.  If you have subscribed to newsgroups in the selected program, you will be subscribed to those groups in Agent as well.
Note: If the newsgroup list in the other program is out of date, either uncheck this box or choose Refresh Group List from the Online menu at a later time.


Use Information From dialog box

Use this dialog box to enter the location of the program from which Agent will acquire its basic setup information.

Enter the name of the directory...

Type in the other program's complete path, including drive.  For example, C:\TRUMPET.


View Empty Group dialog box

This dialog box is displayed when you double-click or press Enter on a newsgroup with no messages and your View Empty Group Action in the Retrieving tab of the Properties for Selected Groups dialog box is set to "Prompt for action."

Sample Message Headers

Press this button to retrieve up to the specified number of message headers.  Note: Changing the number here will also change the value on the Retrieving tab of the Group Properties dialog boxes.

Get All Message Headers

Press this button to retrieve all message headers in this group.

Subscribe to Group

Press this button to subscribe to the group.  You can retrieve message headers later by choosing Get New Message Headers in Subscribed Group from the Online menu.

See Also:

Online Menu Commands Explained


Window Layout dialog box
Window Layout dialog box (Options menu)

Use this dialog box to select the layout of the panes in the current window.  You can choose how the panes should be arranged and what the contents of each pane should be.

Layout of Panes

These buttons show all of the available pane layouts.  Click on a button to choose a layout.

Contents of Panes

For the layout you have selected above, these buttons show all of the ways that you can organize the Groups pane, Message List pane, and Message pane.  The box with black text represents the Groups pane.  Red text represents the Message List pane.  The Message pane has blue text.  Click on a button to choose an organization.

After you have chosen a layout and pressed OK, the window will update to reflect your selection.  If you desire, resize the panes by dragging the border between the panes.

TIP:  To show only one pane at a time, select Zoom Window from the Navigate menu or press Z.

If you would like to have a particular layout be the one used when you start Agent or open a new Browser window, choose Save As Default Window Layout from the Options menu.  This command saves the pane layout, pane sizing, and whether or not a pane is zoomed.


General Preferences dialog box, Colors tab
General Preferences dialog box (Options menu)

Colors Tab

Use this dialog box to define the colors of text in Agent.

Normal Lines

Choose the color for groups and read message headers.

Unread Messages

Choose the color for unread message headers.

Highlighted Unread Messages

Choose the color for unread message headers when they are selected.  This is usually the inverse of the Unread Messages color.

Normal Text

Choose the color for body text.

Quoted Text

Choose the color for response text within a message's body.


General Preferences dialog box, Confirmations tab
General Preferences dialog box (Options menu)

Confirmations Tab

Use this dialog box to define settings that affect how Agent works.  This tab controls the confirmation messages Agent displays.  These messages warn you when you are about to perform an irreversible action.

Delete Groups

Check this box and Agent will display a confirmation message when you manually delete a group.

Delete Messages or message bodies

Check this box and Agent will display a confirmation message when you manually delete a message or its body.

Delete Outbox messages

Check this box and Agent will display a confirmation message when you manually delete a message from the Outbox window.

Close message composition window

Check this box and Agent will display a confirmation message when you close a posting or email window without sending the message first.

Stop online tasks

Check this box and Agent will display a confirmation message when you cancel an online operation.

Close Program while online tasks are running

Check this box and Agent will display a confirmation message when you exit Agent while it is communicating with the news server.

Mark all messages read or unread

Check this box and Agent will display a confirmation message before marking all the messages in a group read or unread.

Mark all messages in All groups read or unread

Check this box and Agent will display a confirmation message before marking all the messages in all groups read or unread.

Launch executable binary attachments

Check this box and Agent will display a confirmation message before running an executable (*.exe file) detached from a message.

Send Queued messages when closing application

Check this box and Agent will give you the option of transmitting all Usenet messages (those for which you pressed the Send Later button) to the Internet when you exit the program.  When unchecked, your queued messages are not automatically sent.

Default action in confirmation dialogs is YES

Check this box to make "Yes" the default button on all confirmation dialog boxes.  The default button is the one activated when you press the Enter key.


General Preferences dialog box, Dial-Up tab
General Preferences dialog box (Options menu)

Dial-Up Tab

Use this dialog box to define the settings for automatically dialing a specified Dial-Up Networking (DUN) connection.

Open dial-up connection before going online

Check this box to have Agent automatically dial the specified connection each time Agent goes online.

Prompt before connecting

Check this box to have Agent display the Connect To dialog box before trying to connect with the specified connection.  A possible reason for using this option is to require a password to be entered manually before connecting (for greater security), rather than having Agent supply it automatically.

If another connection is already open, use it instead

Check this box to have Agent use an open connection to your server, if you already have one, whenever attempting a connection.

Connection

From the list, highlight the name of the connection to be used.  The list contains all the connections currently defined by the DUN.

Properties

Press this button to open the standard DUN connection properties dialog box, where you can edit the properties of the selected connection.  (Not available in WinNT)

New connection...

Press this button to open the standard DUN wizard dialog box, where you can create a new DUN connection entry.  (Not available in WinNT)

User Name/Password

Enter the username and password to be used for the connection.  If you want Agent to prompt for a password each time you connect, leave the password blank and check the Prompt before connecting box above.

•	Windows 95 - A separate username and password are stored for each connection in the DUN database.  Changing the entries here changes the DUN entries.

•	Windows NT - There is no facility for accessing the DUN username and password.  For this reason, Agent stores a single name and password for use by all connections.

Close dial-up connection after going offline

Check this option to have Agent behave as follows, depending on how you have set up Dial-Up Networking.

•	Case 1 - If Agent is configured to open a DUN connection when it goes online, then Agent will close the connection automatically.

•	Case 2 - If no DUN connection is open before you run Agent, but the DUN system automatically opens a connection in response to Agent's request to go online, then Agent will close the connection automatically.

•	Case 3 - If you open a DUN connection before you run Agent, then Agent will not close the connection, even if you have configured to automatically close connections.

Note: This option works even if you have not selected the option to have Agent automatically open a dial-up connection.

Prompt before disconnecting

Check this option to have Agent prompt you before closing the connection.

Title of Connection Status Window

Use this option if you are running a non-English version of Windows 95.  When the Windows 95 DUN dialer completes a connection, it displays a window in the middle of the screen showing the connection status.  When Agent is configured to open a DUN connection automatically, after the connection has been established, Agent searches for the DUN window and minimizes it.  By default, Agent searches for a window title beginning with "Connected to."  If you are running a non-English version of Windows 95, you can enter the window's correct title here.


Connect To dialog box

Use this dialog box to define the username and password which the user must enter manually before dialing-up a connection.

Connection

From the list, highlight the name of the connection to be used.  The list contains all the connections currently defined by the Dial-Up Networking (DUN).

User Name/Password

Enter the username and password to be used for the connection.

Save Password

Check this box to have Agent save the password for subsequent connections.  Agent will automatically enter your password for you, eliminating the need to reenter it each time a new connection is attempted.

Phone Number

Enter the phone number used to dial-up a connection.  If you leave this entry blank, Agent will use the default phone number stored in the DUN database for this connection.

Yes

Press this button to start dialing.

No

Press this button to cancel the dial-up connection, but still go online.  Note: If you have the Control Panel Internet Auto Dial option enabled, DUN will probably then display its own Connect To dialog box.

Cancel

Press this button to cancel the dial-up connection and not go online.


General Preferences dialog box, Display tab
General Preferences dialog box (Options menu)

Display Tab

Use this dialog box to define settings that affect how Agent works.  This tab controls how Agent's Browser window appears and behaves.

Show Toolbar

Check this box to display the Agent toolbar directly below the menubar.

Show Status Bar

Check this box to display the Agent status bar at the bottom of the window.

Tab Spacing

Enter the length of tab stops, in characters.

Quoted Text

Enter the characters that commonly appear in follow-up messages signifying that text on the same line is quoted from the original message. Agent displays this text in the color defined by the Quoted Text setting on this dialog box's Colors tab.

Scroll Margins

Enter the number of rows you want to remain visible above or below the highlighted row when scrolling up or down in the Message List pane and Message panes.


General Preferences dialog box, Fonts tab
General Preferences dialog box (Options menu)

Fonts Tab

Use this dialog box to select the fonts you want Agent to use when displaying and printing browsers and messages.

Browser

Press this button to change the font for the Groups pane as well as for the Outbox window.  Fonts for the Message List and Message panes are defined below.

Fonts for the Language

In the rest of the dialog box, you may select which fonts to use for each language that you have defined.  Use this combobox to select the language you may want to modify.

Variable-Pitch Body

Press this button to change the font to be used when displaying message bodies in a variable-pitch font.

Fixed-Pitch Body

Press this button to change the font to be used when displaying message bodies in a fixed-pitch font.

Message List

Press this button to change the font used in the Message List pane.

Use the variable pitch body font

Check this box if you want the font that was selected for the Variable-Pitch Body setting to be used in the Message List pane.

Message List Subject

Press this button to change the font of the message subjects in the Message List pane.

Use the bold version of the message list font

Check this box if you want the message subjects to be displayed in the bold version of the Message List font.

Printer

Press this button to change the font used when printing.

Use the variable-pitch body font for Headers

When this option is checked, Agent uses the variable-pitch body font for the body pane header and for the Subject field on the message composition window.  Otherwise, it uses the default system font.

Note:  You only need to check this box if you've selected a font that does not use the default Windows character set (e.g., a Cyrillic font for Russian), and you want the text in the different character set to be displayed correctly on the body pane header and/or subject edit field.


Browser Font dialog box

Use this dialog box to change the font for all the browser except the Message List pane.

Note: Message subjects are displayed in the font controlled by the Fonts tab on the General Preferences dialog box.

Font

Type or select a font name.

Font Style

Select a style. To use the default type style for a given font, select Regular.

Size

Type or select a size.

Sample

Shows a sample of the font as it will appear in the window.

Script

If the font you select has more than one international character sets associated with it, pick the one that you want to use.  For example, the True Type font, Courier New has Western, Greek, Turkish, Cyrillic, and Central European character sets available.

See Also:

Message Text Display Options


Variable-Pitch Body Font dialog box

Use this dialog box to change the variable pitch font in which the message bodies are normally displayed.

Font

Type or select a font name.

Font Style

Select a style. To use the default type style for a given font, select Regular.

Size

Type or select a size.

Sample

Shows a sample of the font as it will appear in the window.

Script

If the font you select has more than one international character sets associated with it, pick the one that you want to use.  For example, the True Type font, Courier New has Western, Greek, Turkish, Cyrillic, and Central European character sets available.

See Also:

Message Text Display Options

Fixed-Pitch Body Font dialog box


Fixed-Pitch Body Font dialog box

Use this dialog box to change the fixed pitch font that message bodies are displayed in when you choose Fixed Pitch Font from the Message menu.

Font

Type or select a font name.

Font Style

Select a style. To use the default type style for a given font, select Regular.

Size

Type or select a size.

Sample

Shows a sample of the font as it will appear in the window.

Script

If the font you select has more than one international character sets associated with it, pick the one that you want to use.  For example, the True Type font, Courier New has Western, Greek, Turkish, Cyrillic, and Central European character sets available.

See Also:

Message Text Display Options

Variable-Pitch Body Font dialog box


Message List Font dialog box

Use this dialog box to change the font of the message headers in the Message List pane.

Note: The other items in the Message List pane (e.g., number of lines and author) use the font controlled by the Fonts tab on the General Preferences dialog box.

Font

Type or select a font name.

Font Style

Select a style. To use the default type style for a given font, select Regular.

Size

Type or select a size.

Sample

Shows a sample of the font as it will appear in the window.

Script

If the font you select has more than one international character sets associated with it, pick the one that you want to use.  For example, the True Type font, Courier New has Western, Greek, Turkish, Cyrillic, and Central European character sets available.

See Also:

Message Text Display Options


Message Subject Font dialog box
Message List Subject Font dialog box

Use this dialog box to change the font of the message subjects in the Message List pane.

Note: The other items in the Message List pane (e.g., number of lines and author) use the font controlled by the Fonts tab on the General Preferences dialog box.

Font

Type or select a font name.

Font Style

Select a style. To use the default type style for a given font, select Regular.

Size

Type or select a size.

Sample

Shows a sample of the font as it will appear in the window.

Script

If the font you select has more than one international character sets associated with it, pick the one that you want to use.  For example, the True Type font, Courier New has Western, Greek, Turkish, Cyrillic, and Central European character sets available.

See Also:

Message Text Display Options


Printer Font dialog box

Use this dialog box to change the font used when printing messages.

Font

Type or select a font name.

Font Style

Select a style. To use the default type style for a given font, select Regular.

Size

Type or select a size.

Sample

Shows a sample of the font as it will appear in the window.

Script

If the font you select has more than one international character sets associated with it, pick the one that you want to use.  For example, the True Type font, Courier New has Western, Greek, Turkish, Cyrillic, and Central European character sets available.


General Preferences dialog box, Languages tab
General Preferences dialog box (Options menu)

Languages Tab

Use this dialog box to define languages used in Agent.  You can define any number of languages (up to 255).  For each language, you can specify what fonts to use to display and print messages (Options | General Preferences | Fonts tab).  You can also specify a spell-checker for each language.  Each group has a particular language associated with it.  Thus, when you select a group, the message list and body panes use that group's language's fonts.

Languages

This field shows all defined languages.

Add

Press this button to add a new language to the Languages list.

Rename

Press this button to rename the selected language.

Delete

Press this button to delete the selected language.  Because this action cannot be undone, Agent confirms the action before deleting the selected language.

See Also:

Default Properties for All Groups Language tab

Properties for Selected Groups Language tab


Add dialog box, Languages tab
Add Language dialog box

Use this dialog box to add a language to the Languages list on the Languages tab of the General Preferences dialog box.

Name

Enter the name you want to see in the Languages list.

Based on

Select the name of the language on which the language being added is based.  Agent will adopt all the properties of that language and use them for displaying fonts.


Rename dialog box, Languages tab
Rename Language dialog box

Use this dialog box to rename the selected language on the Languages tab of the General Preferences dialog box.

Old Name

This is the name of the currently selected language.

New Name

Enter the new name you wish to give to the selected language.


General Preferences dialog box, Message List tab
General Preferences dialog box (Options menu)

Message List Tab

Use this dialog box to define settings that affect how Agent works.  This tab controls how messages are formatted.

Enable threading by subject

Check this box to have Agent include messages with the same subject under the same thread, even if the follow-up message doesn't contain a valid reference to the original.  People frequently mispost responses and this helps match follow-ups with the message to which they are responses.

Start a New thread...

Check this box to create a new thread when a follow-up Usenet message's subject is different than the main message's subject.  When unchecked, Agent attaches follow-up messages to the original even when the subject of the thread changes.

Show threads initially Collapsed

Check this box to initially hide all responses in the Message List pane.

Automatically expand threads containing new messages

Check this box to have Agent automatically expand a thread when skipping to an unread message within a thread.  Agent expands the thread only if you had previously retrieved and read the first message in the thread.

Follow-Up Indentation

Enter the amount of space, in characters, that follow-up messages should be indented from their parent in the Message List pane.

Maximum Follow-Up Level

Enter maximum number of response levels (responses to responses) that you want displayed in the Message List pane.  Any responses deeper than this appear at the most indented level.


General Preferences dialog box, Navigation tab
General Preferences dialog box (Options menu)

Navigation Tab

Use this dialog box to define settings that affect how Agent works.  This tab controls how Agent behaves when you are navigating within a Browser window.

Skipping to the next unread message...

Check this box and Agent will keep your focus in the same pane when you skip between messages in different groups.

Marking or ignoring...

Check this box and Agent will automatically skip to the next unread message after you mark a Usenet message for retrieval or select a thread to be ignored.

Watching an Unread message...

Check this box and Agent will automatically skip to the next unread message after you select Watch Thread (or press W) when an unread Usenet message is highlighted.

Skipping to the next unread Group...

Check this box to have Agent automatically mark all the messages in the current group "read" when you choose Skip to Next Unread Group.

Double-clicking a message launches its binary attachment

Check this box and double-clicking on any message containing an attachment you've saved will run the program associated with the attachment's file type.  For more information, see How to Configure a GIF or JPG Viewer to Work with Agent.

Single-Key Read views next unread message body

Checking this box enables you to view the next unread body by simply pressing the Space bar, while the Groups pane or Message List pane has the focus.  (This has the same effect as using the View Next Unread Body command.)

When unchecked, the behavior is as follows, depending on the current focus:

•	If the focus is in the Message pane, pressing Space bar causes Agent to skip to the next unread message in a thread.

•	If the focus is in the Message List pane or Groups, pressing the Space bar causes Agent to skip to the next unread message.

Automatically mark messages read

These three options control when Agent will automatically mark messages read.  Select the desired behavior, as described below:

•	Whenever the message body is visible in the Message pane - When this option is selected in three-pane mode, Agent marks a message read whenever the body appears in the Message pane, no matter which pane has the focus.

•	Only when the Message pane is selected - When this option is selected, Agent will only mark a message read when the focus is on the Message pane.  This reduces the risk of accidentally marking a message read when just browsing in the Message List pane.

•	Never - When this option is selected, Agent will not automatically mark messages read when you are navigating in the panes.  In this case, you can manually mark messages read by highlighting the messages and selecting Mark Read from the Message menu.

See Also:

Navigating in Agent

Watching and Ignoring Threads


General Preferences dialog box, Online tab
General Preferences dialog box (Options menu)

Online Tab

Use this dialog box to define settings that affect how Agent works.  This tab controls Agent's behavior while online.

Use Offline Defaults

Press this button if you want to use Agent as an offline newsreader.  This button optimally configures the remaining controls in this dialog box for offline use.  For more information, see How to Use Agent as an Offline Newsreader.

Use Online Defaults

Press this button if you want to use Agent as an online newsreader. This button optimally configures the remaining controls in this dialog box for online use.  For more information, see How to Use Agent as an Online Newsreader.

Times to retry after server refuses connection

Enter the number of times Agent should attempt to reconnect to the news server when it refuses a connection.  This normally happens when the news server is busy.

Pause between retries

Enter the number of seconds between each reconnection attempt.

Unload winsock (hang up) between retries

Check this box to have Agent hang up the modem between reconnection attempts.

Go offline automatically after...

Enter the number of seconds of inactivity that Agent waits before automatically disconnecting from your news server.  If you uncheck this box, Agent will not disconnect from your news server until you close the program or uncheck Online from the Online menu.

If you intend to read Usenet messages online, you might want Agent to go offline after a few minutes of inactivity.  This gives you time to read messages, but doesn't leave Agent online too long.  If you intend to read messages offline, you probably want Agent to go offline immediately (0 seconds of inactivity).

Send keep-alive messages every...

When this box is checked, Agent sends a command to your news server periodically in order to maintain the connection to the server.  This option is useful if your computer is connected to the server via a dial-up channel that automatically disconnects after a period of inactivity.

Enter the frequency of keep-alive messages sent from Agent to your news server.  Uncheck this box and Agent won't send any keep-alive messages.

Enable priority message retrieval

When this box is checked, Agent opens a second channel to the news server when you attempt to retrieve the body of a message while Agent is already busy performing other online operations.  This makes it possible for you to begin reading new messages in one group while retrieving headers in another.

Load winsock on program startup (and leave it loaded when offline)

Check this box to have Agent load winsock on program startup and leave it loaded until you close Agent.  Uncheck this box and Agent waits to load winsock until Agent goes online and unloads it when it goes offline.

TIP:  Always check this box if you are using Dial-Up Networking (DUN) or Remote Access Service (RAS).  They use a different method to detect when to open or close your dial-up connection, which does not rely on having applications load and unload winsock.

Viewing Unretrieved Messages When Offline

Select the action you want Agent to perform when you are offline and attempt to view a Usenet message for which you do not have the body.  This setting affects double-clicking and pressing Enter on messages, as well as the View Next Unread Message and View Next Unread Message in Thread actions on the Navigate menu.

See Also:

Online Menu Commands Explained


General Preferences dialog box, System tab
General Preferences dialog box (Options menu)

System Tab

Use this dialog box to define settings that affect how Agent works.  This tab defines information that is required to use Agent.

News Server

Enter the name of your news (NNTP) server or its IP address.  If you don't know the name, ask your service provider or system administrator.

Email Server

Enter the name of your email (SMTP) server or its IP address.  If you don't know the name, ask your service provider or system administrator.


General Preferences dialog box, User tab
General Preferences dialog box (Options menu)

User Tab

Use this dialog box to define settings that affect how Agent works.  This tab defines information about you.

Email Address

Enter your email address.  When you send a message, this address appears in the "From" field.  For example: lance.boehm@forteinc.com.

Full Name

(Optional) Enter your full name.  This name is included with your email address in messages that you send.  It is helpful to include your full name if your email address does not contain your name.  Also, some programs, such as Agent, can display an author's full name rather than his/her email address.

Organization

(Optional) Enter the name of the organization to which you belong.  This name is sent in the "Organization" field of Usenet messages you post.  It is not included in your email messages.

Reply To

(Optional) Enter an email address here if you want people to send replies to an address that is different than your Email Address listed above.  For example, you may use your business address as your Email Address, but would prefer that replies be sent to a personal email address.

Note: Changing the Email Address, Full Name, Organization, or Reply To value here also changes the corresponding field on the Posting tab of the Default Properties for All Groups dialog box.

Server requires authorization login

Check this box if your news server requires a special user name and/or password to login.  When checked, Agent will automatically fill in your user name when requested by the news server.

User Name

Enter the user name required by your news server for logging in.

Remember password between sessions

Check this box if your news server requires a special password to login and you want Agent to automatically enter that password for you.

Password

Enter the password required by your news server for logging in.  For security, your password appears as asterisks (*) and is stored in an encrypted format in AGENT.INI.

Note: You must take Agent offline and then back online for changes to the user name or password to take effect.


Posting Preferences dialog box, Attachments tab
Posting Preferences dialog box (Options menu)

Attachments Tab

Use this dialog box to define settings that affect how Agent works.  This tab controls how binary attachments sent by you are formatted.  For more information on sending attachments, see How to Send a Binary Attachment.

Send attachment as Multiple messages

Select this option to split long attachments into multiple messages.  The size of each attachment is dictated by the number you enter into the Lines per Messages box.

Send attachment as a Single message

Select this option to include the entire attachment in one message, no matter how long the attachment is.

Send text as Preface message

Select this option to send an additional message ahead of the attachment message(s).  This is useful because it allows people to read a description of the attachment before downloading it.

Send text in First message

Select this option to include the description of the attachment in the attachment's first message.

Do not send any text

When this option is selected, Agent will only send the attachment.  Any other text or description you enter into the Compose window will be ignored.


Posting Preferences dialog box, General tab
Posting Preferences dialog box (Options menu)

General Tab

Use this dialog box to define settings that affect how Agent works.  This tab controls how messages that you send are formatted.

Line length

Enter the maximum number of characters that can appear on a single line.  Agent automatically word wraps any lines longer than this.

Save sent messages in outbox

Check this box to save a copy of all messages that you send.  Choose Open Outbox from the Window menu to view your saved messages.

Validate email address

When checked, Agent validates all email address fields (To:, Cc:, etc.) before sending messages.  Uncheck this box if you need to enter non-standard addresses.  Note: Agent does not verify that the email address exists.  It simply checks the format to make sure it is a valid Internet email address.

Require that local addresses be in Address Book

Local addresses are handy for corresponding with people in your own domain.  However, Agent cannot necessarily distinguish between a local address and the name of an address book entry.  You can use this option to eliminate this ambiguity.

Check this box to have Agent warn you when any address without the domain part is not in the address book.  You have the option of correcting the address, if you entered it incorrectly, or telling Agent to assume that it is a local address and transmits it unchanged.

If you uncheck this box, Agent assumes that any address without the @domain, which is not in the address book, is a local address.

TIP:  Most of the time, you will probably want to leave this option checked.  If you ever want to force Agent to assume that an address is a local address, you can simply append an @ to it (e.g., barbara@).  This tells Agent that the address is definitely a local address.

Include original text in follow-ups and replies

Check this box to include a copy of the original text in follow-up Usenet messages and email replies.

Quote original text in forwarded email

Check this box to insert the quote prefix (defined below) in front of each line of a message's text when forwarding it via email.

Prefix for quoted lines

For follow-up and reply messages, enter the character(s) that signify that the text on the same line is quoted from the original message.  (For more information, see Paste as Quote.)

Follow-Up Usenet Msg

Enter the text to appear just above quoted lines when following-up to a Usenet message with another Usenet message.

Reply to Usenet Msg

Enter the text to appear just above quoted lines when replying to a Usenet message with an email message.

Forward Usenet Msg

Enter the text to appear just above quoted lines when forwarding a Usenet message to someone via email.

For more information, see Composing an Introduction String.


Local address

A local address is an email address without the "@domain" part.  Most email servers accept local addresses, and add the local domain automatically.  People can use local addresses when corresponding with other people within the same domain.

Local address:	barbara

Full address:	barbara@acme.com

or

Local address:	john.doe

Full address:	john.doe@marvelinc.com


 Default Properties for All Groups dialog box (Group menu)

Attachments Tab

Use this dialog box to define your default group settings.  This tab defines the directory where Agent saves binary attachments.

Binary Attachments Directory

Enter the directory where you want Agent to save binary attachments.

See Also:

How to Retrieve a Binary Attachment

How to Configure a GIF or JPG Viewer to Work with Agent


Default Properties for All Groups dialog box, Attachments tab
Default Properties for All Groups dialog box (Group menu)

Attachments Tab

Use this dialog box to define your default group settings.  This tab defines the directory where Agent saves binary attachments.

Binary Attachments Directory

Enter the directory where you want Agent to save binary attachments.

Use message subject for filename

Check this box to use the message's subject as the filename when saving a binary attachment.  When unchecked, Agent uses the filename from the message's uuencoded header instead.

Filename conversions

Select the filename conversion method you want Agent to use when saving a binary attachment.  Note:  Changing this setting here also changes the corresponding setting in the Properties for Selected Groups dialog box.

•	Retain original filename, if possible - Use the original filename from the message, to the extent allowed by the destination file system.  Various file systems disallow certain characters and limit the maximum filename length, in which case Agent makes the necessary adjustments.

•	Convert to DOS 8.3 filename when saving to a DOS volume - If the destination file system is a FAT volume (i.e., as DOS disk), convert the filename to the traditional 8.3 format.  Note: Windows 95 and Windows NT are capable of storing long filenames on FAT volumes.  When this option is selected, Agent uses the traditional format even if the file system is capable of storing long names.  This option is useful if you intend to copy the files to other systems where long filenames are not supported.

•	Always convert to DOS 8.3 filename - Always convert to the traditional 8.3 FAT filename format, even on file systems that support long filenames (e.g., Windows NT's NTFS), FAT with long filename support (e.g., Windows 95), and HPFS (e.g., OS/2).

See Also:

How to Retrieve a Binary Attachment

How to Configure a GIF or JPG Viewer to Work with Agent


Default Properties for All Groups dialog box, Language tab
Default Properties for All Groups dialog box (Group menu)

Languages Tab

Use this dialog box to define the default language to be used for all groups.

Language

Select the default language to be used for all groups.

See Also:

General Preferences dialog box Languages tab

Properties for Selected Groups dialog box Language tab


Default Properties for All Groups dialog box, Marking Read tab
Default Properties for All Groups dialog box (Group menu)

Marking Read Tab

Use this dialog box to define your default group settings.  This tab controls when Agent marks Usenet messages read.

Usually, you'll want to mark all existing messages read each time you retrieve new messages so that only the new ones are left unread.

When retrieving new message headers

Check the option that accomplishes how you want messages marked read when you retrieve new message headers.

•	Do not mark any existing messages read - prevents Agent from marking any existing messages read.

•	Mark all existing messages read - marks all existing Usenet messages read each time you retrieve new message headers for this group.

•	Mark only messages without bodies read - marks read only messages without bodies.

When retrieving marked message bodies

Check the option to accomplishes how you want existing messages marked read when you retrieve marked message bodies for this group.  All the new messages Agent retrieves will be marked unread so that you can easily find them.

•	Do not mark any existing messages read - prevents Agent from marking any existing messages read when retrieving marked message bodies for this group.

•	Mark all existing messages read - marks all existing Usenet messages read each time you retrieve new message bodies for this group.

•	Mark only messages without bodies read - marks only messages without bodies read for this group.

See Also:

Marking Messages Read


Default Properties for All Groups dialog box, Posting tab
Default Properties for All Groups dialog box (Group menu)

Posting Tab

Use this dialog box to define your default group settings.  This tab controls how postings are handled.  Note: All of these settings can be overridden for a particular message.  See the Compose Usenet Message window and the Compose Email Message window for details.

Copy follow-up messages to author via email

When checked, Agent will send a copy of follow-up messages you post to the author of the message to which you are responding.  You can easily override this behavior for individual follow-ups by removing the author's name from the Email To field on the Compose Usenet Message window.

Signature

Select a default signature for all your postings and email.  Note: Changing this setting here also changes the Default Signature defined in the Signatures dialog box.

Fields

This list contains all the Usenet message fields (and some email ones as well) for which you can set default values.  See Message Fields for a description of each field.  Setting a default value for these fields saves you time when creating messages because you don't have to reenter the common information each time.  Note: The global defaults for the From, Organization, and Reply-To fields also appear on the User tab of the General Preferences dialog box.  Changing these fields here also changes them in that dialog box (and vice versa).

To change a particular field's default value:

1.	Highlight the desired field

2.	Check the "Override default value for field" box

3.	Enter the new value in the "Value for <Field>" control.

Value for <Field>

Enter the default value for the field selected in the Fields list.

See Also:

Compose Usenet Message window

Compose Email Message window

How to Post Usenet Messages

How to Send Email


Default Properties for All Groups dialog box, Retrieving tab
Default Properties for All Groups dialog box (Group menu)

Retrieving Tab

Use this dialog box to define your default group settings.  This tab controls how and what Agent retrieves from the news server.

Retrieve bodies for all new messages

Check this box to have Agent automatically retrieve the bodies for all new Usenet messages at the same time it retrieves the headers.  This option is handy if you know you'll always want to read all of the messages in a particular group.  Of course, it takes a lot longer to retrieve the bodies, so you probably don't want to select this option for all groups.

Do not retrieve messages longer than...

Check this box and enter a value to limit the size of bodies that are automatically retrieved by the option above.  For example, you may want to read most of the messages in a particular group, but not necessarily download the group's FAQ every time it is posted.  If you know the FAQ is usually over 200 lines long, limit the maximum size to 200 lines.

Limit number of headers retrieved per session to...

Check this box and enter a value to limit the number of headers retrieved each time you retrieve new headers for the group.  For example, if you limit the number to 100 headers, Agent will retrieve no more than the 100 most-recent messages.  This option is handy if you want to catch up with a busy group, and know you can't possibly read all the messages posted since you last checked.  Note: This setting only affects the Get New Headers in Subscribed Groups and the Get New Headers in Selected Groups commands.  For more information on these commands, see Online Menu Commands Explained.

View Empty Group Action

Select the action you want Agent to take when you double-click or press Enter on an empty newsgroup.

Server Creates messages out of order

When this box is checked, Agent always records any gaps in the list of messages that it has retrieved, so that it can check for new messages in the gaps the next time it retrieves new headers.

When this box is unchecked, Agent records the range of retrieved messages from the lowest message retrieved, through the highest, ignoring gaps.  Since most news servers don't add messages out of order (with the exception of Demon's), you can probably leave this unchecked.

TIP:  Unchecking this box will generally improve performance.

See Also:

Sample Headers from Selected Groups

Online Menu Commands Explained


View Empty Group actions

The possible actions are:

•	Do Nothing - Agent will take no action.

•	Get All headers - Agent will get all the headers for the empty group.

•	Get sample of headers - Agent will retrieve a sampling of headers for the empty group.  If you select this option, you can specify the maximum number of headers to sample.

•	Prompt for action - Agent will prompt you before taking any action.


Default Properties for All Groups dialog box, When to Purge tab
Default Properties for All Groups dialog box (Group menu)

When to Purge Tab

Use this dialog box to define your default group settings.  This tab controls when Agent automatically purges (deletes) Usenet messages.  To control which messages Agent purges, see the What to Purge tab of the Default Properties for All Groups dialog box.  For more information on purging in general, see About Usenet Message Purging.

Purge - When retrieving new headers

When checked, Agent purges messages from a newsgroup when it retrieves new headers for that group.

Purge - When closing Agent

When checked, messages from all newsgroups are purged when you exit Agent.

Compact - After manual purges

When checked, selecting a Purge Messages option from the Group menu also compacts your databases.  Note: A database is compacted only when the percent of disk space saved is greater than the value entered in the "Compact only if wasted space at least..." field below.

Compact - When closing Agent

When checked, Agent will compact all your databases when it closes.  Note: A database is compacted only when the percent of disk space saved is greater than the value entered in the "Compact only if wasted space at least..." field below.

Compact only if wasted space at least...

Before compacting a database, Agent checks to see how much disk space would be saved by the compact operation.  This setting allows you to bypass the potentially time-consuming operation if only a small amount of disk space would be saved.  Enter the minimum amount of disk space savings, as a percentage of the total size of the database, that will cause Agent to perform an automatic compaction after either a manual purge and/or an automatic purge during exit.

When closing Agent, prompt for confirmation...

When checked, Agent asks for confirmation before purging and/or compacting databases when you close the program.  When unchecked, the Agent will purge and/or compact the databases without asking first.  Note: To purge or compact databases on exit, be sure to check the appropriate box above.

See Also:

Compacting Agent's Database Files


Default Properties for All Groups dialog box, What to Purge tab
Default Properties for All Groups dialog box (Group menu)

What to Purge Tab

Use this dialog box to define your default group settings.  This tab controls which Usenet messages Agent automatically purges (deletes).  To control when Agent purges messages, see the When to Purge tab of the Default Properties for All Groups dialog box.  For more information on purging in general, see About Usenet Message Purging.

Configure Agent's Hard Disk Usage

The buttons in this box help you define the purging options below. Agent maintains a database of messages for each group and these buttons provide presets for common purging configurations.  After pressing one of these buttons, check the other values in the dialog box and change them to meet your specific requirements.

Purge Read Messages Without Bodies

This control defines when Agent purges messages you did not retrieve but marked read (i.e., you only retrieved the message's header).  Usually, these are messages that you are not interested in reading.  For more information on each option in the list, click On every purge, When the message is older than, and When the message is no longer available.

Purge Read Messages With Bodies

This control defines when Agent purges messages you have retrieved and read.  For more information on each option in the list, click On every purge; On every purge, delete body only; When the message is older than; and Never.

Purge Unread Messages Without Bodies

This control defines when Agent purges messages you have not retrieved or marked read (i.e., you only retrieved the message's header).  Usually, you haven't yet decided if you want to read these messages.  For more information on each option in the list, click On every purge, When the message is older than, and When the message is no longer available.

Purge Unread Messages With Bodies

This control defines when Agent purges messages you have retrieved but not yet read.  For more information on each option in the list, click On every purge; On every purge, delete body only; When the message is older than; and Never.

Always get complete list of available messages from server

When checked, Agent retrieves a complete list of available messages whenever it gets new headers.  This option is useful (but not required) when you have selected the "When the message is no longer available" option in one of the controls above.  It does, however, increase the time required to get new headers.  For a group containing 500 messages, it increases the download time for each group by about five seconds for a 14.4 kbps modem connection.

When unchecked, Agent purges messages with numbers lower than the range of available messages reported by the news server.  Since there are often gaps in the available range of messages, this setting may cause Agent to keep messages that are no longer available.

See Also:

Marking Messages Read

Compacting Agent's Database Files


 Properties for Selected Groups dialog box (Group menu)

Attachments Tab

Use this dialog box to define settings for the selected newsgroup.  TIP:  If you highlight several groups before opening this dialog box, you will be changing the settings for all the selected groups at once.

This tab defines the directory where Agent saves binary attachments.

Override default settings

Check this box to use the settings defined on this tab instead of those defined in the Default Properties for All Groups dialog box.

Binary Attachments Directory

Enter the directory where you want Agent to save binary attachments decoded from this group.

See Also:

How to Retrieve a Binary Attachment

How to Configure a GIF or JPG Viewer to Work with Agent


Properties for Selected Groups dialog box, Attachments tab
Properties for Selected Groups dialog box (Group menu)

Attachments Tab

Use this dialog box to define settings for the selected newsgroup.  TIP:  If you highlight several groups before opening this dialog box, you will be changing the settings for all the selected groups at once.

This tab defines the directory where Agent saves binary attachments.

Override default settings

Check this box to use the settings defined on this tab instead of those defined in the Default Properties for All Groups dialog box.

Binary Attachments Directory

Enter the directory where you want Agent to save binary attachments decoded from this group.

Use message subject for filename

Check this box to use the message's subject as the filename when saving binary attachments.  When unchecked, Agent uses the filename stored in the message's uuencoded header instead.

Filename conversions

Select the filename conversion method you want Agent to use when saving a binary attachment.  Note: Changing this setting here also changes the corresponding setting in the Default Properties for All Groups dialog box.

•	Retain original filename, if possible - Use the original filename from the message, to the extent allowed by the destination file system.  Various file systems disallow certain characters and limit the maximum filename length, in which case Agent makes the necessary adjustments.

•	Convert to DOS 8.3 filename when saving to a DOS volume - If the destination file system is a FAT volume (i.e., as DOS disk), convert the filename to the traditional 8.3 format.  Note: Windows 95 and Windows NT are capable of storing long filenames on FAT volumes.  When this option is selected, Agent uses the traditional format even if the file system is capable of storing long names.  This option is useful if you intend to copy the files to other systems where long filenames are not supported.

•	Always convert to DOS 8.3 filename - Always convert to the traditional 8.3 FAT filename format, even on file systems that support long filenames (e.g., Windows NT's NTFS), FAT with long filename support (e.g., Windows 95), and HPFS (e.g., OS/2).

See Also:

How to Retrieve a Binary Attachment

How to Configure a GIF or JPG Viewer to Work with Agent


Properties for Selected Groups dialog box, Language tab
Properties for Selected Groups dialog box (Group menu)

Languages Tab

Use this dialog box to define the default language to be used for the selected group.

Language

Select the default language to be used for the selected group.

See Also:

General Preferences dialog box Languages tab

Default Properties for All Groups Language tab


Properties for Selected Groups dialog box, Marking Read tab
Properties for Selected Groups dialog box (Group menu)

Marking Read Tab

Use this dialog box to define settings for the selected group.  TIP:  If you highlight several groups before opening this dialog box, you will be changing the settings for all the selected groups at once.

This tab controls when Agent marks Usenet messages read.  Usually, you'll want to mark all existing messages read each time you retrieve new messages so that only the new ones are left unread.

Override default settings

Check this box to use the settings defined on this tab instead of those defined in the Default Properties for All Groups dialog box.

When retrieving new message headers

Check the option that accomplishes how you want existing messages marked read when you retrieve new message headers.

•	Do not mark any existing messages read - prevents Agent from marking any existing messages read.

•	Mark all existing messages read - marks all existing Usenet messages read each time you retrieve new message headers for this group.

•	Mark only messages without bodies read - marks read only messages without bodies.

When retrieving marked message bodies

Check the option that accomplishes how you want existing messages marked read when you retrieve marked message bodies for this group.  All the new messages Agent retrieves will be marked unread so that you can easily find them.

•	Do not mark any existing messages read - prevents Agent from marking any existing messages read when retrieving marked message bodies for this group.

•	Mark all existing messages read - marks all existing Usenet messages read each time you retrieve new message bodies for this group.

•	Mark only messages without bodies read - marks only messages without bodies read for this group.

See Also:

Marking Messages Read


Properties for Selected Groups dialog box, Posting tab
Properties for Selected Groups dialog box (Group menu)

Posting Tab

Use this dialog box to define settings for the selected group.

TIP:  If you highlight several groups before opening this dialog box, you will be changing the settings for all the selected groups at once.

This tab controls how postings to this group and email replies from this group are handled.  Note: All of these settings can be overridden for a particular message.  See the Compose Usenet Message window and the Compose Email Message window for details.

Override default settings

Check this box to use the settings defined on this tab instead of those defined in the Default Properties for All Groups dialog box.  Note: Checking this box only overrides the "Copy follow-up messages to author via email," and "Signature,".  Each field in the "Fields" list must be overridden independently (see below for details).

Copy follow-up messages to author via email

When checked, Agent will send a copy of follow-up messages you post to the author of the message to which you are responding.  You can easily override this behavior for individual follow-ups by removing the author's name from the Email To field on the Compose Usenet Message window.

Signature

Select a signature to use for posting to this group or email replies from this group.

Fields

This list contains all the Usenet message fields (and some email ones as well) for which you can set default values.  See Message Fields for a description of each field.  Setting a default value for these fields saves you time when creating messages because you don't have to reenter the common information each time.  You can even default the Newsgroups field to automatically cross-post messages to several groups.

To change a particular field's default value:

1.	Highlight the desired field

2.	Check the "Override default value for field" box

3.	Enter the new value in the "Value for <Field>" control.

Override default value for field

Check this box to use the default field value defined on this tab instead of the one defined in the Default Properties for All Groups dialog box.

Value for <Field>

Enter the default value for the field selected in the Fields list.  You must check the "Override default value for field" box before you can enter a value here.

See Also:

Compose Usenet Message window

Compose Email Message window

How to Post Usenet Messages

How to Send Email


Properties for Selected Groups dialog box, Retrieving tab
Properties for Selected Groups dialog box (Group menu)

Retrieving Tab

Use this dialog box to define settings for the selected newsgroup.  TIP:  If you highlight several groups before opening this dialog box, you will be changing the settings for all the selected groups at once.

This tab controls how and what Agent retrieves from the news server.  Note:  The options View Empty Group Action and Maximum headers to sample apply to all groups.

Override default settings

Check this box to use the settings defined on this tab instead of those defined in the Default Properties for All Groups dialog box.

Retrieve bodies for all new messages

Check this box to have Agent automatically retrieve the bodies for all new Usenet messages at the same time it retrieves the headers.  This option is handy if you know you'll always want to read all of the messages in a particular group.  Of course, it takes a lot longer to retrieve the bodies, so you probably don't want to select this option for all groups.

Do not retrieve messages longer than...

Check this box and enter a value to limit the size of bodies that are automatically retrieved by the option above.  For example, you may want to read most of the messages in a particular group, but not necessarily download the group's FAQ every time it is posted.  If you know the FAQ is usually over 200 lines long, limit the maximum size to 200 lines.

Limit number of headers retrieved per session to...

Check this box and enter a value to limit the number of headers retrieved each time you retrieve new headers for the group.  For example, if you limit the number to 100 headers, Agent will retrieve no more than the 100 most-recent messages.  This option is handy if you want to catch up with a busy group, and know you can't possibly read all the messages posted since you last checked.  Note: This setting only affects the Get New Headers in Subscribed Groups and the Get New Headers in Selected Groups commands.  For more information on these commands, see Online Menu Commands Explained.

View Empty Group Action

Select the action you want Agent to take when you double-click or press Enter on an empty newsgroup.

Server Creates messages out of order

When this box is checked, Agent always records any gaps in the list of messages that it has retrieved, so that it can check for new messages in the gaps the next time it retrieves new headers.

When this box is unchecked, Agent records the range of retrieved messages from the lowest message retrieved, through the highest, ignoring gaps.  Since most news servers don't add messages out of order (with the exception of Demon's), you can probably leave this unchecked.

TIP:  Unchecking this box will generally improve performance.

See Also:

Sample Headers from Selected Groups

Online Menu Commands Explained


Sample Headers from Selected Groups
Sample Headers from Selected Groups (Online menu)

This dialog box allows you to sample  the most recent message headers for a selected group.

Retrieve the most recent messages, up to the specified number

Select this option if you want Agent to retrieve up to the specified number of most recent message headers.

Maximum number of messages to retrieve

If you selected the previous option, enter the number of headers you want Agent to sample for the selected group.  The default number is 50.

Retrieve All messages posted more recently than the specified date

Select this option if you want Agent to retrieve all message headers that were posted since a specified date.  This date is determined by the number of days to be retrieved, specified in the following entry field.

Number of days to retrieve

If you selected the previous option, enter the number of days of most recent message headers you want Agent to retrieve.  Changing this entry automatically changes the specified date from which all message headers will be retrieved.


Properties for Selected Groups dialog box, What to Purge tab
Properties for Selected Groups dialog box (Group menu)

What to Purge Tab

Use this dialog box to define settings for the selected group.  TIP:  If you highlight several groups before opening this dialog box, you will be changing the settings for all the selected groups at once.

This tab controls which Usenet messages Agent automatically purges (deletes).  To control when Agent purges messages, see the When to Purge tab of the Properties for Selected Groups dialog box.  For more information on purging in general, see About Usenet Message Purging.

Override default settings

Check this box to use the settings defined on this tab instead of those defined in the Default Properties for All Groups dialog box.

Configure Agent's Hard Disk Usage

The buttons in this box help you define the purging options below. Agent maintains a database of messages for each group and these buttons provide presets for common purging configurations.  After pressing one of these buttons, check the other values in the dialog box and change them to meet your specific requirements.

Purge Read Messages Without Bodies

This control defines when Agent purges messages you did not retrieve but marked read (i.e., you only retrieved the message's header).  Usually, these are messages that you are not interested in reading.  For more information on each option in the list, click On every purge, When the message is older than, and When the message is no longer available.

Purge Read Messages With Bodies

This control defines when Agent purges messages you have retrieved and read.  For more information on each option in the list, click On every purge; On every purge, delete body only; When the message is older than; and Never.

Purge Unread Messages Without Bodies

This control defines when Agent purges messages you have not retrieved or marked read (i.e., you only retrieved the message's header).  Usually, you haven't yet decided if you want to read these messages.  For more information on each option in the list, click On every purge, When the message is older than, and When the message is no longer available.

Purge Unread Messages With Bodies

This control defines when Agent purges messages you have retrieved but not yet read.  For more information on each option in the list, click On every purge; On every purge, delete body only; When the message is older than; and Never.

Always get complete list of available messages from server

When checked, Agent retrieves a complete list of available messages whenever it gets new headers.  This option is useful (but not required) when you have selected the "When the message is no longer available" option in one of the controls above.  It does, however, increase the time required to get new headers.  For a group containing 500 messages, it increases the download time by about five seconds for a 14.4 kbps modem connection.

When unchecked, Agent purges messages with numbers lower than the range of available messages reported by the news server.  Since there are often gaps in the available range of messages, this setting may cause Agent to keep messages that are no longer available.

See Also:

Marking Messages Read

Compacting Agent's Database Files


On every purge

Select this option to purge this type of message every time Agent purges any messages from the newsgroup.  This option reduces the amount of clutter in the Message List pane, but prevents you from reading messages that you may have overlooked in previous sessions.


When the message is no longer available
When the message is older than

Select this option to purge this type of Usenet message when it is older than the specified number of days.


When the message is no longer available

Select this option to purge this type of message when it is purged from the news server's list of messages.  This setting makes the list of messages displayed by Agent a mirror image of those available from the server.


On every purge, delete body only

Select this option to purge the body of this type of message every time Agent purges any messages from the newsgroup.  Purging only bodies saves hard disk space while still allowing you to maintain a complete list of messages.


Never

Select this option to prevent messages of this type from being purged.  As an alternative to this option, you may want to consider keeping the important messages (highlight the message and choose Keep Message from the Message menu).


Properties for Selected Groups dialog box, When to Purge tab
Properties for Selected Groups dialog box (Group menu)

When to Purge Tab

This tab controls when Agent automatically purges (deletes) Usenet messages.  To control which messages Agent purges, see the What to Purge tab of the Properties for Selected Groups dialog box.  For more information on purging in general, see About Usenet Message Purging.

Note: These controls affect when all groups are purged, not just the selected one.

Purge - When retrieving new headers

When checked, Agent purges messages from a newsgroup when it retrieves new headers for that group.

Purge - When closing Agent

When checked, messages from all newsgroups are purged when you exit Agent.

Compact - After manual purges

When checked, selecting a Purge Messages option from the Group menu also compacts your databases.  Note: A database is compacted only when the percent of disk space saved is greater than the value entered in the "Compact only if wasted space at least..." field below.

Compact - When closing Agent

When checked, Agent will compact all your databases when it closes.  Note: A database is compacted only when the percent of disk space saved is greater than the value entered in the "Compact only if wasted space at least..." field below.

Compact only if wasted space at least...

Before compacting a database, Agent checks to see how much disk space would be saved by the compact operation.  This setting allows you to bypass the potentially time-consuming operation if only a small amount of disk space would be saved.  Enter the minimum amount of disk space savings, as a percentage of the total size of the database, that will cause Agent to perform an automatic compaction after either a manual purge and/or an automatic purge during exit.

When closing Agent, prompt for confirmation...

When checked, Agent asks for confirmation before purging and/or compacting databases when you close the program.  When unchecked, the Agent will purge and/or compact the databases without asking first.  Note: To purge or compact databases on exit, be sure to check the appropriate box above.

See Also:

Compacting Agent's Database Files


Find dialog box
Find dialog box (Edit menu)

Use this dialog box to find a group or message.

Find What

Enter the text to search for.

Find First

Press this button to find the first occurrence of the text you entered above.

Find Next

Press this button to find the next occurrence of the text you entered above.

See Also:

Finding Groups

Finding Messages


Page Setup dialog box
Page Setup dialog box (File menu)

Use this dialog box to control the format of messages printed with Agent.

Margins

Enter the left, right, top, and bottom margins in inches.

All fields

Select this option to print all of the header information along with the message bodies.

Selected fields

Select this option to print some of the header information along with the message bodies.  In the associated text box, enter the names of the fields, separated by commas, you want printed with the message bodies.  You can list any field names, including non-standard fields.  Note: Agent prints a field only if it appears in the message.  If you want Agent to print the field even if it doesn't appear in the message, precede the field name with an exclamation point (e.g., !Keywords).

No fields (Body only)

Select this option to print only the message bodies.

None

Select this option to print messages one directly after the other.

Between messages

Select this option to insert a page break between each message being printed.

Between threads

Select this option to print all the messages in the same thread one after the other and to insert a page break between messages of different threads.

See Also:

Printing Messages


Server Authorization Password dialog box

Use this dialog box to enter the password required to login to your news server.

Password

Enter the password required by your news server.

Remember password between sessions

Check this box if you want Agent to automatically enter that password for you each time you login to the news server.


Refresh Groups List dialog box
Refresh Groups List dialog box (Online menu)

Use this dialog box to update your group list and define what Agent should do with groups it no longer finds on the news server.

The refresh operation retrieves a complete list of all newsgroups available form the server.  It then adds any new groups to Agent's list of groups, and optionally deletes any groups that are no longer available.
TIP:  If you only want to retrieve new groups added since the last time you updated your group list, choose Get New Groups from the Online menu.

Note: Since this operation retrieves a complete list of groups, it can take several minutes to complete.

Keep all extinct groups

Select this option to maintain groups even if they no longer exist on the server.

Delete extinct groups that are empty

Select this option to maintain groups that no longer exist on the server if the group contains messages.

Delete all extinct groups

Select this option to delete any group which no longer exists on the server.

See Also:

Online Menu Commands Explained


Signatures dialog box
Signatures dialog box (Options menu)

Use this dialog box to define the signatures you wish to use in messages you send.

Names

This is a list of the signatures you have defined.  To edit a signature, select it in this list and enter the new text in the controls below.

Add

Press this button to create a new signature.

Rename

Press this button to rename the signature highlighted in the Names list.

Delete

Press this button to delete the signature highlighted in the Names list.  If you accidentally delete a signature, press the Cancel button to close the dialog box and cancel all of your changes.

Default Signature

Select the signature you wish to use by default.  Select [None] if you don't want to have a default signature.  When you post a message, Agent automatically uses your default signature.  You can choose a different signature to be the default for each newsgroup (see the Posting tab of the Properties for Selected Groups dialog box) or override the signature used for a specific message (see the Compose Usenet Message window).  Note: Changing this setting here also changes the signature set on the Posting tab of the Default Properties for All Groups dialog box.

Text

Enter the text of the signature highlighted in the Names list. If you want a blank line or other separator to appear between the rest of the message and the signature, you need to include it here.  To insert a TAB in the text, press Ctrl+TAB.

TIP:  A common convention on the Internet is to begin your signature with a line containing two dashes.  For example:

--
Dave Chin
Forte, Inc.

Use existing file

If you want to share a signature file with another program, enter the name of the file that contains the signature.  When you have entered a valid file name, the dialog will display the contents of the file in the Text field.  Any changes you make to the signature in this dialog box will be saved to the file, so changes here also affect any other program that is using the same file.

TIP: The name of the signature file for the Eudora email program is SIGNATUR.PCE, and it is stored in the directory where you installed Eudora.

Browse

Press this button to browse for a signature file.

See Also:

How to Post Usenet Messages

How to Send Email


Signatures

A signature is one or more lines of text that Agent automatically places at the bottom of messages you send.  You can define as many signatures as you wish.  When you create a new message, you can select which signature to use with that message.  For example, you can define a "personal" signature and a different "business" signature.


Add Signature dialog box
Add Signature dialog box (Signatures dialog box, Options menu)

Use this dialog box to enter the name of a new signature.

Name

Enter the name of the new signature


Rename Signature dialog box
Rename Signature dialog box (Signatures dialog box, Options menu)

Use this dialog box to change the name of a signature.

New Name

Enter a new name for the signature.


Select Signature File dialog box
Select Signature File dialog box (Signatures dialog box, Options menu)

Use this dialog box to find a signature file on your hard disk.

File Name

Enter the name of the signature file, or select a file from the list.

Directories

Select the directory where you want to select the file from.

List of File Types

Select the type of files you want to display in the files list.

Drives

Select the drive where you want to select the file from.


Save Messages As dialog box
Save Messages As dialog box (File menu)

Use this dialog box to save one or more messages to a text file.  Note: Agent only saves messages whose bodies have been retrieved.

Select all the messages you want to save before choosing this menu option.  If you select a collapsed thread, Agent will save all messages in the thread.

File Name

Enter the name of the file you want to save to, or select a file from the list of files.

Directories

Select the directory where you want to save the file.

List of File Types

Select the type of files you want to display in the list of files.

Drives

Select the drive where you want to save the file.

Append to Existing File

Check this box if you want to append the messages to an existing file.  If you uncheck this option and save the messages to an existing file, Agent will erase the current contents of the file.

UNIX message file

Select this option and Agent will save the messages in the standard UNIX message format.  In this format, messages begin with a "From <user>@<domain> <date>" line.  This options also causes Agent to add a ">" before any body line that begins with "From<space>" and contains an "@" character anywhere in the line.

Precede each message with...

Select this option and Agent will add the specified text to the beginning of each message it saves.  You can include the codes \n, \t, \f, and \\ in the specified text to represent newlines, tabs, formfeeds, and backslashes, respectively.

No separator between messages

Select this option if you do not want Agent to include any additional text between the saved messages.

All fields

Select this option to save all of the header information along with the message bodies.

Selected fields

Select this option to save some of the header information along with the message bodies.  In the associated text box, enter the names of the fields, separated by commas, you want saved with the message bodies.  You can list any field names, including non-standard fields.  Note: Agent writes a field only if it appears in the message. If you want Agent to write the field even if it doesn't appear in the message, precede the field name with an exclamation point (e.g., !Keywords).

No fields (Body only)

Select this option to save only the message bodies.

See Also:

Printing Messages


Manually Decode Binary Attachment dialog box
Manually Decode Binary Attachment dialog box (File menu)

Use this dialog box to manually decode an attachment when Agent can't automatically find all the messages composing the attachment.  For more information on retrieving attachments, see How to Retrieve a Binary Attachment.

Messages

This is a list of all the messages you selected before opening the dialog box.  If this list does not contain all the messages in the attachment, press Cancel and select the remaining messages by holding down the Control key and clicking on them.  If the messages are out of order, press the Up and Down buttons to get them in order.

Up / Down

Press these buttons to move the highlighted message up or down in the list.  Before launching or saving an attachment, you must make sure that the messages are in the correct order.

Launch

Press this button to view the attachment.  Agent first saves the attachment (see below for more information) and then passes it to the application associated with the attachment's file type.  For more information, see How to Configure a GIF or JPG Viewer to Work with Agent.

Save

Press this button to save the attachment as a file.  Agent saves the attachment in the directory specified in the Attachments tab of the Properties for Selected Groups dialog box.

If you are offline and have not yet retrieved the attachment's messages, Agent will immediately go online to download and decode the attachment after you press Launch or Save.


Save Attachment File dialog box
Save Attachment File dialog box (View Binary Attachment dialog box, File menu)

This dlg is obsolete.

Use this dialog box to save an attachment as a file.

File Name

Enter the name of the file.

Directories

Select the directory where you want to save the file.

List of File Types

Select the type of file you want to save the attachment as.

Drives

Select the drive where you want to save the file.


Attach Binary File dialog box
Attach Binary File dialog box (Compose window)

Use this dialog box to attach a binary file to a message.  Agent will automatically uuencode the file for you.  Note: If you want to insert a text file into the message, choose Insert Text File from the File menu instead.

File Name

Enter the name of the file to attach, or select a file from the list.

Directories

Select the directory where you want to select the file from.

List of File Types

Select the type of files you want to display in the files list.

Drives

Select the drive where you want to select the file from.

See Also:

How to Post Usenet Messages

How to Send Email


Insert Text File dialog box
Insert Text File dialog box (File menu)

Use this dialog box to insert a text file into a message.

File Name

Enter the name of the file to insert, or select a file from the list.

Directories

Select the directory where you want to select the file from.

List of File Types

Select the type of files you want to display in the files list.

Drives

Select the drive where you want to select the file from.

See Also:

How to Post Usenet Messages

How to Send Email


Compose Usenet Message window
Compose Usenet Message window (Post menu)

Use this window to create a message to post in a newsgroup.  For more information, see How to Post Usenet Messages.

Newsgroups

Enter the name of the newsgroup you wish to post to.  To post the same message on multiple groups (cross-post), enter the names of all the groups separated by commas (e.g., alt.usenet.offline-reader,alt.winsock).

Subject

Enter a brief phrase describing the message.

Email To

(Optional) Enter the email addresses of people you wish to send copies of your posting to.  If you are posting a follow-up message and want to email a copy of your posting to the original message's author, select his/her email address from the drop-down list.

To send an email to more than one person, enter all the email addresses separated by commas (e.g., john.doe@forteinc.com,jane.doe@forteinc.com).

Note: If you usually copy the original message's author when posting follow-ups, check the "Copy follow-up messages to author via email" box on the Posting tab of the Default Properties for All Groups dialog box to initialize this field accordingly.

Attachment

(Optional) Enter the name of the file to attach to the message or press the Attachment button to browse for the file.  For more information, see How to Send a Binary Attachment.

All Fields

Press this button to hide the list of message fields which appear under Fields (see below).  Press this button again to show the extra fields.

Fields

This is a list of all the fields that apply to the message.  See Message Fields for a description of each field.  To change a particular field's value, highlight the field and enter the value in the "Value for <Field>" control below.  If a field has "Default" next to it, it's using the default value defined on the Posting tab of the Properties for Selected Groups dialog box.

Value for <Field>

The desired value for the field selected above.  If you change a field's value and later decide to revert back to its default value, check the Use Default box to the right of this control.

Use Default

Check this box if you wish to use the default value that has been defined for any of the Fields above.  The default values are defined on the Posting tab of the Default Properties for All Groups dialog box.  Checking this box can be helpful if you change the value for a field and later decide that you want to revert back to its default value.

Signature

Select the signature to place at the bottom of this message.  Choose "[None]" if you don't want a signature added to the message.  You can view, modify, or create signatures with the Signatures dialog box.  You can also define a different default signature for each group with the Posting tab of the Properties for Selected Groups dialog box.

Note: Agent does not display your signature in this window.  It will add the signature to the message when transmitting it to the Internet.

Send Now

Press this button to immediately transmit your message to the Internet.  This button appears dim when the Newsgroups field is blank.

Send Later

Press this button if you use Agent offline and you have other messages you want to send.  This button appears dim when the Newsgroups field is blank.

Once you have composed all your messages, select Post Usenet and Email Messages from the Online menu to transmit them to the Internet.  Note: Agent does not make a copy of the attached file prior to sending it.  If you press Send Later, make sure that the file stays around until you transmit the message.

Save

Press this button to save your message without sending it.  The message will appear in your Outbox.  To view your Outbox, choose Open Outbox from the Window menu.  You can double-click the message in the Outbox to edit and/or send it.

See Also:

How to Send Email

Making Sure Messages Were Sent Properly

Message Text Display Options

ROT13 Encoding and Decoding


Compose Email Message window
Compose Email Message window (Post menu)

Use this window to create an email.  For more information, see How to Send Email.

To

Enter the recipient's email address.  To send the same email to more than one person, enter all the email addresses separated by commas (e.g., john.doe@forteinc.com,jane.doe@forteinc.com).

Subject

Enter a brief phrase describing the message.

Cc

Enter the email addresses (separated by commas) of people to receive a copy of the message.  If this field already has any address(es) in it, you will notice that the Use Default box is checked.  (See below.)

Use Default

Check this box if you wish to use the default value for the Cc field defined on the Posting tab of the Default Properties for All Groups dialog box.  Checking this box can be helpful if you have change the value for a field and later decide that you want to revert back to its default value.

Attachment

(Optional) Enter the name of the file to attach to the email or press the Attachment button to browse for the file.  For more information, see How to Send a Binary Attachment.

All Fields

Press this button to hide the list of message fields which appear under Fields (see below).  Press this button again to show the extra fields.

Fields

This is a list of all the fields that apply to the message.  See Message Fields for a description of each field.  To change a particular field's value, highlight the field and enter the value in the "Value for <Field>" control below.  If a field has "Default" next to it, it's using the default value for that field.  (See Use Default below.)

Value for <Field>

Enter the desired value for the field selected above.

Use Default

Check this box if you wish to use the default value that has been defined for any of the Fields above.  The default values are defined on the Posting tab of the Default Properties for All Groups dialog box.  Checking this box can be helpful if you change the value for a field and later decide that you want to revert back to its default value.

Signature

Select the signature to place at the bottom of this message.  Choose "[None]" if you don't want a signature added to the message.  You can view, modify, or create signatures with the Signatures dialog box.

Note: Agent does not display your signature in this window.  It will add the signature to the message when transmitting it to the Internet.

Send Now

Press this button to immediately transmit your message to the Internet.  This button appears dim when the To field is blank.

Send Later

Press this button if you use Agent offline and you have other messages you want to send.  This button appears dim when the To field is blank.

Once you have composed all your messages, select Post Usenet and Email Messages from the Online menu to transmit them to the Internet.  Note: Agent does not make a copy of the attached file prior to sending it.  If you press Send Later, make sure that the file stays around until you transmit the message.

Save

Press this button to save your email without sending it.  The message will appear in your Outbox.  To view your Outbox, choose Open Outbox from the Window menu.  You can double-click the message in the Outbox to edit and/or send it.

See Also:

How to Post Usenet Messages

Making Sure Messages Were Sent Properly

Message Text Display Options

ROT13 Encoding and Decoding


Message Language dialog box
Message Language dialog box (Message menu)

Use this dialog box to change the language for a message in the Message List pane or to override the default language for a message in the Composition window.

Language

Select the language you wish to use for the current message.

See Also:

General Preferences dialog box Languages tab

Default Properties for All Groups dialog box Language tab

Properties for Selected Groups dialog box Language tab


Spelling dialog box (Message menu)

Use this dialog box to check the spelling of your message before sending it.

To spell check the entire message:

•	Make sure no text is highlighted in the message's body before starting the spell check.  Note: Agent only checks the body of the message for spelling errors.

To spell check only a portion of the message:

•	Highlight the desired text before starting the spell check.

Not in Dictionary / Repeated Word

This control shows the misspelled or repeated word.  The word will also be highlighted in the Compose window.  TIP: If you want to edit the word, click this box to copy it to the Change To box.

Change To

Enter the word's correct spelling or pick the correct spelling from the Suggestions list.  If you want to remove the word from the message, delete the text from this box and press the Delete button (which appears in place of the Change button when you delete all the text here).

Suggestions

This is a list of possible replacement words.  If the list is empty, press the Suggest button.  To have Agent automatically make suggestions, press the Options button and check the Always Suggest box.

Ignore

Press this button to leave the found word as-is and continue checking the message.  If you don't want Agent to flag this word again, press either the Ignore All or Add buttons (see below for a description).

Ignore All

Press this button to leave the found word and any other occurrences of it as-is.  Agent will not stop on this word again until you close the program and restart it or you press the Reset Ignore All button on the Spell Checking Options dialog box.  Note: Press Options to open the Spell Checking Options dialog box.

Start

Press this button to continue the spell check after editing the message.  Note: This button appears only after you edit the message.

Change / Delete

Press this button to replace the found word with the one in the Change To box.  Note: This button is labeled "Delete" when the Change To box is empty.

Change All / Delete All

Press this button to replace all occurrences of the found word with the word in the Change To box.  Note: This button is labeled Delete All when the Change To box is empty.

Add

Press this button to add the found word to your custom dictionary.  For more information about your custom dictionary, see About Agent's Dictionaries.

Suggest

Press this button to fill the Suggestions box with a list of possible replacement words.  To have Agent automatically make suggestions, press the Options button and check the Always Suggest box.  TIP: If you edit the Change To text, you can press this button to spell check the new word.

Options

Press this button to open the Spell Checking Options dialog box.  This dialog box allows you change the language dictionary, edit your custom dictionary, and modify other settings that affect how the spell checker behaves.


Spell Checking Options dialog box (Spelling dialog box, Message menu)

Use this dialog box to define various settings that affect how the Agent spell checker behaves.  Except where noted, changing a setting on this dialog box also changes it on the Spelling tab of the Posting Preferences dialog box.

Language

Select the language dictionary to use while spell checking this message.  Note: Changing this setting only affects the current message.  To specify a default language for all messages, pick the desired language from the Default Language list on the Spelling tab of the Posting Preferences dialog box (Options menu).  For more information, see About Agent's Dictionaries.

Always Suggest

Check this box to have the spell checker automatically suggest possible replacements words.

Check for repeated words

When checked, the spell checker will stop when it finds the same word twice in a row.

Words in UPPERCASE

Check this box to have the spell checker ignore words composed of all uppercase letters.

Words with numbers

Check this box to have the spell checker ignore words containing numbers.

Quoted lines

Check this box to have the spell checker ignore words which appear on lines beginning with a quote character (as defined by the Quoted Text setting on the General Preference dialog box's Display tab).

Reset Ignore All

When you press the Ignore All button during a spelling check, Agent adds the selected word to a temporary Ignore All dictionary so that it won't flag the word again.  Normally, this dictionary is cleared when you close Agent.  Press this button to immediately clear the Ignore All dictionary.

Custom Dictionary for...

The controls in this group allow you to add and remove words from your custom dictionary.  For more information, see About Agent's Dictionaries.

To add a word to your custom dictionary:

1.	Enter the word into the Edit box.

2.	Press the Add button.

To remove a word from your custom dictionary:

1.	Select the word from the list.

2.	Press the Delete button.

To remove all the words from your custom dictionary:

•	Press the Clear button.


Posting Preferences dialog box (Options menu)

Spelling Tab

Use this dialog box to define various settings that affect how the Agent spell checker behaves.

Settings for Language

Select the language whose settings you want to change.  The remaining fields in this dialog box display the settings for the selected language.

Always Suggest

Check this box to have the spell checker automatically suggest possible replacements words.

Check for Repeated words

When checked, the spell checker will stop when it finds the same word twice in a row.

Words in UPPERCASE

Check this box to have the spell checker ignore words composed of all uppercase letters.

Words with Numbers and punctuation

Check this box to have the spell checker ignore words containing numbers.

Quoted lines

Check this box to have the spell checker ignore words which appear on lines beginning with a quote character (as defined by the Quoted Text setting on the General Preferences dialog box's Display tab).

Reset Ignore All

When you press the Ignore All button during a spelling check, Agent adds the selected word to a temporary Ignore All dictionary so that it won't flag the word again.  Normally, this dictionary is cleared when you close Agent.  Press this button to immediately clear the Ignore All dictionary.

Custom Dictionary for...

The controls in this group allow you to add and remove words from your custom dictionary.  For more information, see About Agent's Dictionaries.

To add a word to your custom dictionary:

1.	Enter the word into the Edit box.

2.	Press the Add button.

To remove a word from your custom dictionary:

1.	Select the word from the list.

2.	Press the Delete button.

To remove all the words from your custom dictionary:

1.	Press the Clear button.


New Folder dialog box (Group menu)

Use this dialog box to create a new folder.

Folder Name

Enter the name for the new folder.  The name can be up to 255 characters.

See Also:

Filing Messages in Folders


New Folder dialog box

Use this dialog box to create a folder for incoming email.  All your incoming mail will be saved in this folder.

Folder Name

Enter a name for the folder (up to 255 characters) where incoming mail will be saved.

See Also:

Filing Messages in Folders


Select Folder for Inbound Mail dialog box

Use this dialog box to select the folder in which you want incoming mail saved.

Folder

Select a folder for your incoming mail.

New Folder

Press this button to create a new folder for your incoming mail.

See Also:

Filing Messages in Folders

Filing tab of the Inbound Mail dialog box


Rename Folder dialog box (Group menu)

Use this dialog box to change an existing folder's name.

Old Name

This is the folder's original name.

New Name

Enter a new name for the folder.

See Also:

Filing Messages in Folders


Copy/Move Message to Folder dialog box (All Folders command, Message menu)

Use these dialog boxes to file a message into a folder that doesn't appear on your Copy/Move to Folder flyout menus.

Select all the messages you want to file before opening this dialog box.  If you select a collapsed thread, Agent will file all the messages in the thread.

Folders

Select the folder in which you want the messages filed.

Manage Menu

Press this button to open the Manage Folder Menus dialog box.

See Also:

Filing Messages in Folders


Manage Folder Menus dialog box (Options menu)

Use this dialog box to pick which folders appear on your Copy to Folder and Move to Folder flyout menus (Message menu).

Folders

This is a list of all the folders that are not on your Copy/Move to Folder flyout menus.

Add

Press this button to include the folder highlighted in the Folders list on your Copy/Move to Folder flyout menus.  This folder will be inserted above the one selected in the Menu list.

Delete

Press this button to remove the folder highlighted in the Menu list from your Copy/Move to Folder flyout menus.

Menu

This is a list of the folders that appear on your Copy/Move to Folder flyout menus.  You can have no more than 9 folders on your flyout menus.

See Also:

Filing Messages in Folders


Inbound Email dialog box (Options menu)

System Profile Tab

This dialog box contains settings Agent uses when receiving email.  Use this tab to specify the name of your mail server and other information required to receive mail.  If you don't have all the information required to complete this dialog box, check with your service provider or system administrator.

Receive email with POP

Select this radio button if your incoming email is stored on a POP3 mail server.

POP Server

Enter the name of your POP3 mail server or its IP address.  E.g., mail.mycompany.com.

Account

Enter your account name for the POP Server above.  This is the name you use to log onto the mail server in order to receive messages.  E.g., GBrown.

Note: In some other email packages (Eudora, for instance), you enter the POP Server and POP Account together, separated by the "@" character.  E.g., GBrown@mail.mycompany.com.  In Agent, you enter these settings separately.

Remember password between sessions

Check this box and type your password into the box below to have Agent automatically enter your password when checking for new mail.  When this box is unchecked, Agent will prompt you for your password the first time it checks for new mail in each session.

Password

Enter your email account's password if you want Agent to automatically log onto your mail server when checking for new mail.  For security, your password appears as asterisks (*) and is stored in an encrypted format in AGENT.INI.

Receive email with SMTP

Select this radio button if your incoming email is stored on an SMTP mail server.  If you receive from an SMTP server, Agent continually checks for new mail whenever you are online.

Load winsock on startup

Check this box if you want to connect to your service provider immediately upon loading Agent.  This option allows Agent to receive new mail whenever it is running and online, even if you are using another Internet program.

When the box is unchecked, Agent will receive email only when it is online doing something else, such as communicating with your news server or sending messages.

See Also:

How to Receive Email


Session

Each time you load Agent, you begin a new session.  The session ends when you close Agent.


Inbound Email dialog box (Options menu)

Checking for Mail Tab

This dialog box contains settings Agent uses when receiving email.  Use this tab to define how often Agent checks for new mail and what it does when it finds some.

Automatically check for email every...

Check this box if you want Agent to periodically check for new mail.  Enter the frequency of these automatic checks in the associated entry field.  Note: Agent must be loaded in order to check for new mail.  If you receive mail from an SMTP server, this option is dim because Agent checks for new mail continually while online.

Check only when online

Select this option and Agent will check for new mail only if you are already online with your service provider.

Unload winsock (hang up) between checks

Select this option to have Agent hang up your modem after checking for new mail.

Leave winsock loaded between checks

Select this option to have Agent remain online after checking for new mail.

Leave messages on server

Check this box to prevent Agent from removing messages from your mail server after retrieving them.  Normally, Agent deletes messages from the server as they are retrieved.  This option is useful when you retrieve messages from the same email account with more than one computer.
Note: Once a message has been retrieved and left on the server, Agent will not retrieve the message again.  If you subsequently uncheck this box, Agent will delete all the old messages from the server the next time you check for new email.

Skip messages longer than...

Check this box to keep Agent from downloading long email messages.  In the associated entry field, enter the maximum size of messages Agent is allowed to retrieve.  When Agent encounters a message larger than the maximum size, it retrieves the first few lines of the message (see "Maximum lines to sample" below) and leaves the entire message on the server.  Thereafter, as long as this setting is in effect, Agent will leave the message on the server and not retrieve it again.  To force Agent to retrieve the message in full, uncheck this box and it will be retrieved the next time you check for new mail.

Maximum lines to sample

Enter the number of lines to retrieve from messages larger than the maximum message size specified above.

Display message box

Check this box to have Agent pop up a message when new mail is retrieved.

Play sound

Check this box to have Agent beep or, if you have a sound card installed or the PC Speaker driver loaded, play a WAV file when new mail is retrieved.

WAV file

Enter the location of the WAV file to play when new mail is retrieved.  If you leave this field blank but check the Play Sound box, Agent will play the Email Receive sound defined in the Sound module of your Windows Control Panel.

Browse

Press this button to search for a WAV file to play when new mail is retrieved.

See Also:

Filing Messages in Folders


Inbound Email dialog box (Options menu)

Filing Tab

This dialog box contains settings Agent uses when receiving email.  Use this tab to define the folders in which Agent will automatically file new email messages.

Filters

This is a list of rules you define that controls where Agent files new mail.  When a new message is received, Agent checks all the filters in this list, starting at the top, and files the message in the folder specified by the first filter it matches.  The last filter in the list is always "[All other messages]."  This is a catch-all for messages that do not match any of the other filters.

Add

Press this button to create a new filter.

Edit

Press this button to edit the highlighted filter.

Delete

Press this button to remove the highlighted filter.  Note: You cannot delete the "[All other messages]" filter.

Up

Press this button to move the highlighted filter up one position in the Filters list.

Down

Press this button to move the highlighted filter down one position in the Filters list.

See Also:

Filing Messages in Folders


 Inbound Email dialog box (Options menu)

Attachments Tab

This dialog box contains settings Agent uses when receiving email.  Use this tab to define the directory where Agent saves binary attachments received in mail messages.

Automatically decode binary attachments

Check this box to have Agent automatically save binary attachments it detects in new email.  When this box is unchecked, you can decode binary attachments with the Decode Binary Attachments command on the File menu.

Directory

Enter the directory where you want Agent to save binary attachments decoded from mail messages.

See Also:

How to Retrieve a Binary Attachment

How to Configure a GIF or JPG Viewer to Work with Agent


Add/Edit Email Filter dialog box (Inbound Mail dialog box, Options menu)

Use this dialog box to define filter criteria for automatically routing new, incoming email messages into folders.  You manage these filters with the Filing tab of the Inbound Email dialog box.

Field to Search

Select the field Agent will examine to determine if the new message matches this filter.  For more information on these fields, see Message Fields.

Search For

Enter the text Agent will look for in the field specified above.  If Agent finds this text in the specified field, it will file the message in the folder selected below.

Case sensitive

Check this box if you want this filter to apply only when the message has the same combination of uppercase and lowercase letters that appear in the Search For text above.

Exact match

Check this box if you want this filter to apply only when the message completely matches the Search For text.  For example, when this box is checked, a message with "We all love Agent" would not match Search For text of "Agent".

Put in Folder

Select the folder in which messages that match this filter will be filed.

New Folder

Press this button to create a new folder.

See Also:

Filing Messages in Folders


Edit Email Filter dialog box (Inbound Mail dialog box, Options menu)

Use this dialog box to choose the folder where all new email messages which do not match any other filter criteria will be filed.

Put all messages...

Select the folder where you want new email messages filed by default.

New Folder

Press this button to create a new folder.

See Also:

Filing Messages in Folders


Import Messages dialog box (File menu)

Use this dialog box to import messages from another program into Agent.  For more information, see Importing Email Messages from Another Program.

File Name

Enter the name of the text file to import.

Directories

Select the directory where the import file is located.

List of File Types

Select the type of files you want to display in the list of files.

Drives

Select the drive where the import file is located.

File according to inbound message filters

Select this option and Agent will use the email filters defined in the Filing tab of the Inbound Email dialog box to determine the folders in which to file the imported messages.  This option is dim if you have not yet opened the Inbound Email dialog box (Options menu) and designated a default inbound folder.

Put all messages in folder

Select this option and Agent will file all imported messages in the folder selected in the list on the right.

If a message contains an X-Folder field...

Check this box and Agent will file imported messages in the folders specified by the messages' X-Folder field, overriding the other settings on this dialog box.

Automatically create folders

Check this box and Agent will create the folders specified by the messages' X-Folder fields as needed.  When this box is unchecked, imported messages with an X-Folder field specifying a folder that doesn't exist are filed according to the radio buttons above.

See Also:

Import Message File Format

Save Messages As dialog box


Import Addresses dialog box (File menu)

Use this dialog box to import addresses from another address book into the Agent address book.

Look in

Select the location of the import file.

File Name

Enter the name of the text file to import.

Files of Type

Select the type of files you want to import from the list.

Replace existing entries that match new names

Check this box to have Agent automatically replace existing names in the address book with matching names in the import file.

See Also:

Import/Export Address File Format

How to Use the Address Book


Export Addresses dialog box (File menu)

Use this dialog box to export addresses from an Agent address book to a file.

Save in

Select the location in which to save the export file.

File Name

Enter the name of the text file to export.

Save as type

Select the types of files you want to save as an export file.

See Also:

Import/Export Address File Format

How to Use the Address Book


Check Addresses dialog box

Use this dialog box to check the validity of an address that has been entered.  This dialog box may be seen in the following situations: when composing a message, when saving a message, and when creating a new address book entry.

Problem Description

This field describes the problem with the address (i.e., Not a valid email address, Not in address book, Matches more than one entry, or Not a valid email address).

<text of the bad address>

This is the text in the address that Agent has determined is invalid.

Change To

Enter a replacement for the address in question.

Suggestions

If the name entered is ambiguous, this list of all matching address book entries appears.  Double-clicking any of these names is the same as pressing the Change button (below).

Change

Press this button to change the address to the text in the "Change To" field, above.  Note: If you change an entry, Agent revalidates it and displays a message if the new entry is also invalid, giving you the option of accepting the new entry or canceling the change.

Leave As Is

Press this button to leave the address unchanged.

Convert to Local Address:

If you have just entered a local address and your server is set up to handle local addresses, press this button and the "@" character is appended to the name, forcing Agent to treat it as a local address.

Delete

Press this button to delete the address portion of the address book entry.  This does not delete the entry.

Cancel <Operation>

Press this button to have Agent cancel the operation that caused the dialog box to appear (checking, sending, or saving).

See Also:

How to Use the Address Book


Local addresses

Addresses that do not require a domain suffix (e.g., forteinc.com), because they are in the same domain (that is, they have the same service provider, which is set up to handle local addresses).

For example, Ginny might use the following addresses:

Local:  ginnyb

Full Internet:  ginnyb@forteinc.com


Find Address dialog box (Edit Menu when Address Book is open)

Use this dialog box to find addresses in the Agent address book.

Find What

Enter the text to search for.

Look in Names/Addresses/Comments

Check the boxes for the areas of the address book in which to search.  Note: You can check one, two, or all three boxes.

Find First

Press this button to find the first occurrence of the text you entered above.

Find Next

Press this button to find the next occurrence of the text you entered above.

See Also:

Finding Addresses

How to Use the Address Book


New Address dialog box

Use this dialog box to add new names and addresses to the Agent address book.  You can also use this dialog box to create mailing lists.

Name

Enter the name to add to the address book.  If you are creating a mailing list, enter a name for the mailing list, such as "Agent Beta Testers, U.S.".

Addresses

Enter the address associated with the name entered above.  If you are creating a mailing list, enter the addresses for each person on the list, separated by commas (e.g., john.doe@forte.com,amy.doe@forte.com).

Comments

(Optional) Enter a description of the person or group being added.

Field Text

(Optional) Enter the mailing list name that members of this list will see when they receive a message sent to members of that list.  When blank, everyone on the mailing list sees the email addresses of everyone else on the list.  When filled in, recipients see only this text.  For example, you might enter "Multiple recipients of list <multilists@forteinc.com>".  That is what the recipients will see in the To: field on the message they receive.  Note: The Field Text value should be a valid email address, since it will appear in the message in a header field that is normally expected to contain a valid address.  Some email systems may reject your message if it contains a field with an invalid email address.

TIP:  You may want to use the address to which recipients of your list should send replies.  For example:

My mailing list <reply-here@my.company.com>

See Also:

How to Use the Address Book

Adding People to the Address Book

How to Create a Group Mailing List


Pick Address dialog box

Open this dialog box to select a name defined in the Agent address book and insert it into the "To:", "Cc:", or "Bcc:" fields on the message composition window (Usenet or email).

Names

The list of names defined in the address book.

TIP: You can type the first few letters of a name to rapidly skip to that name.

To

Press this button to insert the highlighted name(s) into the "To:" field on the composition window.

Cc

Press this button to insert the highlighted name(s) into the "Cc:" field on the composition window.

Bcc

Press this button to insert the highlighted name(s) into the "Bcc:" field on the composition window.

Find

Press this button to open the Find Address dialog box used to quickly search the address book for a desired name.

Edit

Press this button to open the address book, where you can edit the address for the selected entry in the Pick Address dialog box.  When the address book opens, the currently highlighted entry in the Pick Address window is highlighted in the address book.

Comments

The description for the highlighted name defined in the New Address dialog box.  This information is read-only.  To change it, you can press the Edit button to jump to the address book window.

Expand addresses

This option applies to Usenet and email messages you are sending.  Check this box to cause Agent to insert the actual email address(es) for an address book entry, rather than the name of the entry.  For example, if you select the name amya from the address book, it will be inserted into the composition window in its expanded format, amya@forteinc.com.

See Also:

How to Use the Address Book

Finding Addresses


Rename Address dialog box (Address menu)

Use this dialog box to change the currently highlighted name in the Agent address book.

Old Name

The current address book name is displayed.

New Name

Enter the name with which you want to replace the "old name" in the address book.

See Also:

How to Use the Address Book


Paste As Quote command
Paste as Quote command (Edit menu)

When text is pasted in the composition window using the Paste as Quote command, each line of the pasted text is prepended by the quoted text character string (defined on the General tab of the Posting Preferences dialog box).  For example:

> Ask not what your country can do for you.

> Ask what you can do for your country.

By using this command, you can avoid cumbersome text editing when you want a block of inserted text to appear as if it were quoted text.

This command can be useful when composing replies and forwarding text if you want to quote only portions of the text, not all of the text from the original message.


Address Book window
Address Book Window (Window menu)

Use this window to view and modify Agent's address book.  For more information, see Adding People to the Address Book.

Names

This is a list of all the entries in your address book.  Highlight a name in the list and you will see the email addresses or comments associated with an entry.

TIP: You can quickly find a name in this list by typing the first few letters of the name.  For example, typing "ji" will skip over "Jeanne" and select "Jim."

Addresses

This is a list of all addresses associated with the highlighted name.  Individuals should have only one address in this box (if you have multiple addresses for a single person, you should create multiple address book entries).  Mailing lists (groups of people to whom you commonly send the same message) should include the email address of everyone on the list, each on a separate line, or with addresses separated by commas.

Comments

(Optional) Enter notes about the selected address book entry.

Field Text

(Optional) Enter the mailing list name that members of this list will see when they receive a message sent to members of that list.  When blank, everyone on the mailing list sees the email addresses of everyone else on the list.  When filled in, recipients see only this text.  For example, you might enter "Multiple recipients of list <multilists@forteinc.com>".  That is what the recipients will see in the To: field on the message they receive.  Note: The Field Text value should be a valid email address, since it will appear in the message in a header field that is normally expected to contain a valid address.  Some email systems may reject your message if it contains a field with an invalid email address.

TIP:  You may want to use the address to which recipients of your list should send replies.  For example:

My mailing list <reply-here@my.company.com>

See Also:

Adding People to the Address Book

How to Use the Address Book

How to Post Usenet Messages

How to Send Email

Confirm Edits

Confirm Deletes

Expand Addresses


Add Usenet Filter dialog box

Open this dialog box to add a new kill or watch filter.  The default settings which appear in most of the fields are specified on the Filter tab of the Default Group Properties dialog box.

Search For

Enter the filter criteria on which you want Agent to search.  If a message header is selected in the Message List pane, Agent automatically inserts the selected message's subject or author into this field.

Paste Subject

If a message header is selected in the Message List pane, you may press this button to paste the selected message's subject into the Search For field.

Paste Author

If a message header is selected in the Message List pane, you may press this button to paste the selected message's author into the Search For field.  You can choose three different formats for the author's information; either the name of the author, the author's email address, or the entire field, which includes both the author's name and email address.

Kill Action

If you are creating a Kill filter, select the Kill action that you want Agent to perform.

Watch Action

If you are creating a Watch filter, select the Watch action that you want Agent to perform.

Scope

Select Global if you want the filter to apply to all groups, or select Group: <newsgroup> if you want the filter to apply only to the current group.

Priority

Enter the priority for this filter, between 0 (lowest) and 1000 (highest).  If a message matches more than one filter, the filter with the highest priority will be applied.

Expire this filter in

Check this box if you want this filter to be automatically deleted after the number of days specified.

Disable filter

Check this box to temporarily disable the filter.

Apply filters to group immediately

Check this box to apply all filters to the selected group when you add a new filter for that group.

See Also:

How to Create Kill and Watch Filters

Kill and Watch Filter Examples

Using Filter Expressions


Kill and Watch filters

These two types of filters make up a filtering mechanism that Agent uses each time you retrieve new headers.  Kill filters tell Agent to filter out messages with unwanted subjects or authors, and Watch filters tell Agent to keep track of messages with subjects or authors that interest you.

Filters for a specified group can be viewed and modified on the Usenet Filters window (Group | Usenet Filters).


Kill actions

There are three possible Kill actions:

•	Skip - Agent will not retrieve the header at all.

•	Mark Read - Agent will retrieve the header, but mark it read.

•	Ignore - Agent will retrieve the header, but mark its thread Ignore [image].


Watch actions

There are four possible Watch actions:

•	Retrieve body immediately - Agent will retrieve the message body immediately [image].

•	Mark for later retrieval - Agent will mark the message for later retrieval [image].

•	Watch - Agent will watch the entire thread.   This action also retrieves the body.

•	Keep - Agent will cause the message to be marked keep [image], when this box is checked.


Usenet Filters window

This window contains the list of all kill and watch filters that apply to the current group.  For each filter listed, you will see the following information (starting from left to right):

•	Status (the [image] icon indicates a disabled filter, and the [image] icon indicates a global filter)

•	Priority (the higher-priority filters are processed first)

•	Αction (kill actions are red and watch actions are green)

•	Search expression (message subject or author filter criteria)

Double-clicking any item on the list opens the Edit Usenet Filter dialog box.


Edit Usenet Filter dialog box

Open this dialog box to edit the highlighted kill or watch filter in the Usenet Filters window.  This dialog box is almost identical to the Add Usenet Filter dialog box.

Search For

Enter the subject or author information on which you want Agent to filter.

Kill Action

If you are editing a Kill filter, select the Kill action that you want Agent to perform.

Watch Action

If you are editing a Watch filter, select the Watch action that you want Agent to perform.

Scope

Select Global if you want the filter to apply to all groups, or select Group: <newsgroup> if you want the filter to apply only to the current group.

Priority

Enter a new priority value for the action selected above by entering a value between 0 (lowest) and 1000 (highest).  The higher-priority values are tested first.

Expire this filter in

Check this box if you want to limit the number of days that this filter will be used, and enter the number of days that you want to use the filter.

Disable filter

Check this box to temporarily disable the filter.

See Also:

How to Create Kill and Watch Filters

Kill and Watch Filter Examples

Using Filter Expressions


Properties for Selected Groups dialog box (Group menu)

Filters Tab

Use this dialog box to define the initial settings that will appear in the Add Usenet Filters dialog box for the selected group(s).

TIP:  If you highlight several groups before opening this dialog box, you will be changing the settings for all the selected groups at once.

Disable filtering for this group

Check this box to disable filtering for the selected group(s).

Override default settings

Check this box to use the settings defined on this tab instead of those defined on the Filters tab of the Default Properties for All Groups dialog box.

Kill Action

Select the default Kill action for the selected group's filters.

Watch Action

Select the default Watch action for the selected group's filters.

Scope

Select Global if you want the filter to apply to all groups, or select Group: <newsgroup> if you want the filter to apply only to the current group.  This will be the initial setting that appears when adding a Usenet filter for the selected group(s).

Search For

Select whether you want Agent to search on the subject or author information, when evaluating filter criteria.

Kill Priority/Watch Priority

Enter the values for the selected Kill and Watch actions above.  This can be any value between 0 and 1000.  Filters with higher priorities are applied first.

Expire this filter in

Check this box if you want to limit the number of days that this filter will be used, and enter the number of days that the filter will be valid.

See Also:

How to Create Kill and Watch Filters

Kill and Watch Filter Examples

Using Filter Expressions


Default Properties dialog box (Group menu)

Filters Tab

Use this dialog box to define your default group settings.  This tab controls the default settings which appear in the Add Usenet Filters dialog box.

Disable filtering for all groups

Check this box to disable filtering for all groups.

Kill Action

Select the default Kill action for your filters.

Watch Action

Select the default Watch action for your filters.

Scope

Select Global if you want the filter to apply to all groups, or select Group: <newsgroup> if you want the filter to apply only to the current group.

Search For

Select whether you want Agent to search on the subject or author information, when evaluating filter criteria.

Kill Priority/Watch Priority

Enter default priorities for kill and watch filters.  This can be any value between 0 (lowest) and 1000 (highest).

Expire this filter in

Check this box if you want the filter to be automatically deleted after the number of days specified.

See Also:

How to Create Kill and Watch Filters

Kill and Watch Filter Examples

Using Filter Expressions


Find Filter dialog box (Edit menu)

Open this dialog box to find a filter in the Usenet Filters window.

Find What

Enter the text to search for.

Find First

Press this button to find the first occurrence of the text you entered above.

Find Next

Press this button to find the next occurrence of the text you entered above.

See Also:

Finding Filters


Select View dialog box (Filter menu)

Use this dialog box to select which filters will appear in the filter list.  Any combination of actions and scope may be selected.  You cannot select a view that is empty (i.e., at least one Action and one Scope below must always be selected).

Kill Actions

Check the box(es) for the Kill actions that you want to appear in the Usenet Filters window.

Watch Actions

Check the box(es) for the Watch actions that you want to appear in the Usenet Filters window.

Scope

Select which filters you want to view in the Usenet Filters window.  Select Global if you want to view only those filters which apply to all groups.  Select All group-specific filters if you want to view all non-global filters.  If you want to view all filters for all groups, select both Global and All Groups.  Select Group if you want to view only filters which apply to the current group.

See Also:

How to Create Kill and Watch Filters

Kill and Watch Filter Examples

Using Filter Expressions


Build: 32 bit Free Agent:

YesFree:  Yes (Free Agent only topics)

YesOrder:  Yes (How to order Agent)

NoMSMain:  No (Newsreader Contents Graphic)

NoCRight:  No (Microsoft's copyright page statement)

YesFreeTech:  Yes (Free Agent Tech Support info)

YesTechless:  Yes (No Technical Support for IA)

NoIALicense:  No (Internet Americal License Agreement)

NoAgentLicense:  No (Agent License Agreement)

NoMail:  No (Receive email topics)

NoFolders:  No (All aspects of folders)

NoAddBook:  No (Address Book topics)

NoSpelling:  No (Spell check topics)

NoSorting:  No (Sorting topics)

YesBit32:  Yes (Features only available in the 32bit version)

Forté Free AgentFullName:  Forté Free Agent (The long name of the program)

AgentName:  Agent (The short name of the program)

agentLcName:  agent (The short name of the program)


Frequently Asked Questions

This topic answers some of the most common questions users have about Agent.

Can I run multiple copies of Agent

How to configure Agent for multiple users

Agent forgets settings or loses all its data

Pressing (M)ark or (I)gnore causes Agent to jump around

Errors reported by the news server

Errors reported by Winsock

Pressing any buttons while offline causes Agent to hang

Headers/Messages are marked as read after performing an online task

How to re-send a failed message

Agent failed to decode a binary file

Expand Threads doesn't always work

How to restore a deleted group

What is the Log window


Agent failed to decode a binary file

Agent finds the sections of a binary file by searching for messages with identical subject lines, except for the "[n/m]" or "n of m" part.  If it finds all the parts, it uses the [n/m] to figure out how to sort them.  In most cases, this method works quite well, because most users who post binaries use automated tools (like Agent) that conform to this convention.  But, when some users post binaries, they assign a different subject line to each message.  When this happens, Agent cannot find all the sections automatically.

The message "Unable to locate any sections" means you selected the [0/m] message, which technically isn't part of the binary, and Agent was not able to find messages [1/m] through [m/m].

The message "Only able to locate x of m sections" means that you selected one of the [n/m] sections, but Agent couldn't find all of the other m sections.

The message "No binary attachment found" means the binary may have been posted using an encoding scheme other than uuencoding. In this case, retrieve the messages as normal message bodies, then export the file to text using the Save Message As command from the File menu. The file can then be decoded using one of the widely available decoding programs such as Wincode or UDEC.

See Also:

How to Retrieve a Binary Attachment


Agent forgets settings or loses all its data

Agent expects to find its setting and data files in the directory in which it runs.  If it can't find them, it assumes it is being run for the first time and displays the license screen. It will also "forget" any preferences, properties, and subscribed groups you have saved.

To correct this problem, select (single click) the Agent icon on your Program Manager desktop.  On the Program Manager menu, select Properties from the File menu.  You will be presented with the Program Item Properties dialog box.  Make sure the Working Directory is set to the directory where Agent stored its data files (usually the same directory where Agent is installed).

If you run Agent from a program that doesn't allow you to specify the working directory, you can pass this information to Agent on its command line.  For example, the command to run Agent may look like this:

c:\agent\agent.exe c:\agent


Can I run multiple copies of Agent?

Agent will allow multiple instances of itself to run, provided each instance is using a different directory.  If you try an instance of Agent on a directory that is already in use, it switches the focus to the already-running instance and exits.

Running multiple instances of Agent is useful if, for example, you wish to have two separate configurations of Agent, one for email and one for Usenet, each in its own startup directory.


Errors reported by the news server

This topic will help you track down errors reported by your news server and detected by Agent.

441 400 Bad file number Writing history file - Throttling

441 400 loadav [innwatch.load] 305 gt 300

441 Can't send connect request to server, No such File or Directory

These errors all mean that the news server has an internal problem unrelated to anything you are doing.  Contact your service provider to have it fixed.  When this happens, Agent saves the message you were trying to post in its Outbox  (Window | Open Outbox), so that you can try to send it again later, after your news server is working properly.

441 Can't generate Message-ID Error 0

The error is generated internally by the server if either the server is unable to obtain the current date and time (from itself), or if it is unable to find out its own host name.  All of this happens after Agent has posted the message to the server.  We recommend that you contact your service provider and tell them about the error, since it indicates a problem with their server.

441 Posted in the Future

This error means the date/time on the message, as sent by Agent, is more than 24 hours later than the current date/time on the news server.  You should double-check your PC's date and time.

480 Authentication required for command error trying to post

This error means that your news server requires you to provide authentication before you can post.  You need to check with your service provider to find out exactly what is required.  In most cases, you need to supply the server a user name and password.  Once you get this information from your provider, you can enter it on the User tab of the General Preferences dialog box.

500 Command not Recognized

Your news server is not configured to handle a command issued by Agent (usually the XOVER or the XHDR commands for retrieving information about messages). Agent requires that the server accept one of these commands.  You will need to contact your service provider and see if they can provide a server that honors these commands.

500 Error trying to connect to server

This error  means that Agent is attempting to log you into your news server, but your server doesn't actually require a login.  Go to the User tab of the General Preferences dialog box and uncheck the "Server requires authorization login" box.

502 Authentication Error

Check to see if your news server really requires authentication.  If it doesn't or if you are not sure, open the General Preferences dialog box (Options menu), go to the User tab, and uncheck the "Server requires authorization login" option.  If you know that your server does require authentication, double-check your User Name and Password on this dialog box.

502 You are not in my access file

502 You only have permission to transfer

502 You have no permission to talk

These all indicate that you are not properly set up as an authorized user of the news server.  You will have to contact your service provider or news administrator to get this corrected.

550 Addressee unknown

Usually, this means you tried to send an email to someone whose email address was unknown to the email server, and the server refused to try to forward the mail to another server.


Errors reported by Winsock

This topic will help you track down errors reported by your Winsock driver and detected by Agent.

10055 WSAENOBUFS

There is not enough memory available for WINSOCK.DLL to create any buffers for Agent.  The problem is with low memory (memory below 640k), not overall memory.  Try to free up more conventional memory.

10060 WSAETIMEOUT

This may be a case where Agent loads the WINSOCK.DLL, but the winsock driver fails to load.  Try loading the driver prior to Agent.  If this works, then make sure the winsock driver is in the DOS path.  You may also need to free more conventional memory.

10061 Connection refused by server

This error means that the server is either too busy to accept more connections, or possibly has been taken down for maintenance.

11004 Host Name not Found

This error means that the Winsock driver was unable to find the host name for your news (NNTP) or mail (SMTP) server.  Double-check the name of these servers in the System tab of the General Preferences dialog box.  Usually, they will be something like "news.company.com" and "mail.company.com", where "company.com" is your provider's domain name.  As a workaround, try entering the numeric (IP) address for the servers.

11004 No Data of Requested type

An error occurred during initialization of the Winsock driver. Check your Winsock driver setup.


Expand Threads doesn't always work

There are two options on the Message List tab of the General Preferences dialog box (Options menu) that determine whether threads are displayed in expanded or collapsed form:

•	Show threads initially Collapsed
When checked, all threads will be shown collapsed when you first open a newsgroup. When unchecked, they will all be shown expanded.

•	Automatically expand threads containing new messages
When checked, threads will be expanded when you jump into them with the Skip to/View Next Unread Message commands.  Note: They are expanded only if you've already retrieved and read the first message in the thread.


Log Window
Log Window (Window menu)

Agent's Log window is for debugging problems with Agent, Winsock, and your servers.  Under normal circumstances, you should never have to open it.


Headers/Messages are marked as read after performing an online task

By default, Agent automatically marks unwanted messages read whenever you retrieve message headers or bodies.  This makes it easy for you to find the new messages because they will be the only ones that are unread.  To change this behavior, uncheck the appropriate box on the Marking Read tab of the Default Properties for All Groups dialog box.


How to re-send a failed message

By default, whenever you post a Usenet message or send an email, Agent saves it in the Outbox. This means that if the post fails for any reason, the message is still there and you can try to post it again. To do this, select the Post Usenet and Email Messages from the Online menu.

See Also:

Making Sure Messages Were Sent Properly


How to restore a deleted group

Select Refresh Groups List from the Online menu.  This will rebuild your groups list without affecting the unread counters for your remaining groups.  You won't lose any information by performing this action.

See Also:

Delete Group Command


Pressing any buttons while offline causes Agent to hang

Agent is designed to make online and offline newsreading as convenient as possible.  When configured for offline use it will automatically connect to your service provider when it needs to go online and disconnect as soon as it is through.  To make this process as efficient as possible, you should have only one copy of the file WINSOCK.DLL on your drive.  Also, it's best to keep all of the Winsock files (e.g., WINSOCK.DLL, TCPMAN.EXE, etc.) in the same directory, and to make sure that this directory is in the PATH= statement of your AUTOEXEC.BAT file.


Pressing (M)ark or (I)gnore causes Agent to jump around

Agent automatically skips to the next unread message when you mark a message for retrieval or ignore a thread.  If you don't like this behavior, you can disable it from the Navigation tab of the General Preferences dialog box by unchecking the "Marking or ignoring a message skips to the next unread message" box.


Build: 32 bit Free Agent:

YesFree:  Yes (Free Agent only topics)

YesOrder:  Yes (How to order Agent)

NoMSMain:  No (Newsreader Contents Graphic)

NoCRight:  No (Microsoft's copyright page statement)

YesFreeTech:  Yes (Free Agent Tech Support info)

YesTechless:  Yes (No Technical Support for IA)

NoIALicense:  No (Internet Americal License Agreement)

NoAgentLicense:  No (Agent License Agreement)

NoMail:  No (Receive email topics)

NoFolders:  No (All aspects of folders)

NoAddBook:  No (Address Book topics)

NoSpelling:  No (Spell check topics)

NoSorting:  No (Sorting topics)

YesBit32:  Yes (Features only available in the 32bit version)

Forté Free AgentFullName:  Forté Free Agent (The long name of the program)

AgentName:  Agent (The short name of the program)

agentLcName:  agent (The short name of the program)


How to Use Agent

Before you start using Agent, please take a quick look at Getting Started.

Once you're up and running, check out the topics below for more help using Agent.

Offline/Online Use

How to Use Agent as an Offline Newsreader

How to Use Agent as an Online Newsreader

Online Menu Commands Explained

Usenet and Email Messages

How to Get All the Message Bodies in a Newsgroup

How to Send Email

How to Post Usenet Messages

Making Sure Messages Were Sent Properly

Navigation and Display

Navigating in Agent

Watching and Ignoring Threads

Marking Messages Read

Message Text Display Options

Finding Data

Finding Groups

Finding Messages

Printing Messages

Printing Messages

Copying URLs

Copying a WWW URL to the Clipboard

Binary Attachments

How to Send a Binary Attachment

How to Retrieve a Binary Attachment

How to Configure a GIF or JPG Viewer to Work with Agent

ROT13

ROT13 Encoding and Decoding

Purging and Compacting

About Usenet Message Purging

Compacting Agent's Database Files

FAQs

Frequently Asked Questions


How to Create a Group Mailing List

Agent allows you to combine multiple addresses to create a group mailing list.  Group mailing lists are helpful when you regularly mail information to a group of people (e.g., newsletters, meeting information, etc.).  This topic explains the basic procedure for creating a group mailing list.

To create a group mailing list:

1.	Select Open Address Book from the Windows menu to open the Address Book window.

2.	Select New from the Address menu, or press the New Address button [image] to bring up the New Address dialog box.

3.	In the Name field, enter the name of the mailing list (e.g., Surf Club Members).

4.	In the Name field, enter the addresses of the recipients on the group mailing list, separated by commas (e.g., jdoe@hang10.com, freddy@wavecity.com, msmith@surfsup.com).

5.	In the Field Text field, enter the name of the mailing list (e.g., "Surf Club Members <multilists@acme.com>").  That is what the recipients wil see in the To: field on the message they receive.

Note:  Thie Field Text value should be a valid email address, since it will appear in the message in a header field that is normally expected to conctain a valid address.  Some email systems may reject your message if it contains a field with an invalid email address.

TIP:  You may want to use the address to which recipients of your list should send replies.  For example:

My mailing list <reply-here@my.company.com>

6.	Press OK to close the New Address dialog box.  The new group mailing list is now listed in the address book.

See Also:

How to Use the Address Book


How to Get All the Message Bodies in a Newsgroup

Agent provides you with two ways to retrieve the bodies of all the messages in a newsgroup:

To always retrieve all the bodies in a particular group:

1.	Select the group(s) for which you want to retrieve bodies.

2.	Choose Properties for Selected Groups from the Group menu.

3.	Select the Retrieving tab on the Properties for Selected Groups dialog box.

4.	Make sure the "Override default settings" box is checked.

5.	Check the "Retrieve bodies for all new messages" box.

To retrieve all the bodies in a group on an ad-hoc basis:

1.	Select any message in the Message List pane of the group for which you want to retrieve bodies.

2.	Choose Select All from the Edit menu or press Ctrl+A.

3.	If you are online, choose Get Selected Message Bodies from the Online menu.  If you are offline, choose Mark for Retrieval from the Message menu.  You can later retrieve the marked messages by selecting Get Marked Message Bodies from the Online menu.

See Also:

How to Use Agent as an Offline Newsreader

How to Use Agent as an Online Newsreader

Online Menu Commands Explained


How to Post Usenet Messages

Reading newsgroups wouldn't be much fun if you couldn't contribute as well.  Fortunately, posting messages with Agent is just as easy as reading them.

1.	Select the group you wish to post to.

A group is selected when it is highlighted in the Groups pane or when you are viewing messages for it in the Message List pane.

2.	(Optional) Select the message you are responding to.

If your message is a follow up to another posting, select that message first so that your posting is properly formatted.

3.	Open a new Posting window.

From the Post menu, choose New Usenet Message or Follow Up Usenet Message, depending on the type of posting you want.

4.	Fill in the Posting window's fields.

If you selected a newsgroup (and message) before opening the Posting window, most of the fields will be filled in for you.  When posting a follow-up message, you might want to send a copy of your response via email to the original message's author.  To do this, simply select the author's email address from the Email To list.  If you want to override the default signature, press the All Fields button and select the desired signature in the Signature list.  For more information filling in this window, see the Compose Usenet Message window topic.  If you want to paste text from a previous message so that it appears as quoted text, you can use the Paste As Quote command.

5.	(Optional) Attach a file.

If you want to attach a file to the new message, enter the file name next to the Attachment button or press the Attachment button to browse for the file.  For more information on attaching files, see How to Send a Binary Attachment.

6.	Send the message.

If you use Agent online, press Send Now to immediately transmit your message to the Internet.

If you use Agent offline and you have other messages you want to compose, press Send Later.  Once you have composed all your messages, select Post Usenet and Email Messages from the Online menu to transmit them to the Internet.

Note: Agent does not make copies of attached files prior to sending them.  If you attach a file and press Send Later, make sure that the file stays around until you transmit the message.

See Also:

Making Sure Messages Were Sent Properly

How to Send Email

Message Fields

About Agent's Dictionaries.

ROT13 Encoding and Decoding


How to Receive Email

Receiving email with Agent is simple and straightforward.  You can check for new mail with the click of your mouse or you can have Agent periodically check for you.

If you receive your email from an SMTP server, Agent continually checks for new mail whenever you are online.  If you receive your email from a POP server, however, you must explicitly tell Agent to check for new mail.

To check for new mail:

•	If you receive mail from a POP server, choose Check for New Email from the Online menu.

•	If you receive mail from an SMTP server, choose Online from the Online menu.  Whenever you are online, Agent will receive new email from your SMTP server.

To have Agent periodically check for new mail from your POP server:

1.	Choose Inbound Email from the Options menu and click on the Checking for Mail tab.

2.	Check the "Automatically check for email every" box.

TIP:  A quick way to tell if you have received mail is to minimize the Agent window.  When you have new mail the Agent program icon will appear as follows:

See Also:

System Profile tab of the Inbound Email dialog box

Filing Messages in Folders


How to Re-send a Message You Created

Messages you send can be saved in the Outbox or a folder (see Posting tab of the Default Properties for All Groups dialog box for details).  The process of re-sending a message you created is slightly different based on where the message is located.

To re-send a message from a folder:

1.	Highlight the message in the Message List pane.

2.	Choose New Copy of Message from the Post menu.

3.	(Optional) Change the message as required (e.g., change the recipient).

4.	Press either Send Now or Send Later to transmit the message to the Internet.

To re-send a message from the Outbox:

1.	Highlight the message in the Outbox.

2.	Choose Open from the Message menu.

3.	(Optional) Change the message as required (e.g., change the recipient).

4.	Press either Send Now or Send Later to transmit the message to the Internet.

See Also:

Compose Usenet Message window

Making Sure Messages Were Sent Properly


How to Send an Attachment
How to Send a Binary Attachment

Attaching files to messages is quick and easy with Agent.  Since the Internet only supports text messages, Agent automatically translates all non-text attachments to a standard text-based format.  Follow the steps below to attach a file to a message:

1.	Create a new message.

Select one of the options on the Post menu to create the message.  Click here for more help sending Usenet messages and email.

2.	Attach the desired file.

Press the Attachment button to browse for the file, or type the file's name directly into the Attachment box.  You can control your attachment options with the Attachments tab on the Posting Preferences dialog box.

3.	Add a text message (optional).

You can include a message along with the attachment.  The message appears before the attachment. If you include a message, Agent also includes your signature.

4.	Send the message.

If you use Agent online, press Send Now to immediately transmit your message to the Internet.

If you use Agent offline and you have other messages you want to send, press Send Later.  Once you have composed all your messages, select Post Usenet and Email Messages from the Online menu to transmit them to the Internet.

Note: Agent does not make a copy of the attached file prior to sending it.  If you press Send Later, make sure that the file stays around until you transmit it.

See Also:

Making Sure Messages Were Sent Properly


How to Send Email

With Agent, sending email to people is a snap and sending email replies to messages is even easier.

1.	(Optional) Select the message you are responding to or forwarding.

If you're replying to or forwarding a posting, select that message first so that your email is properly formatted.

2.	Open a new Posting window.

From the Post menu, choose New Email Message, Reply via Email, or Forward via Email depending on the type of email you want to send.

3.	Fill in the Posting window's fields.

If you selected Reply via Email, the required fields should be filled in for you.  Otherwise, fill in at least the To and Subject fields.  Press the All Fields button to send "carbon copies" to other people, select a different signature, or define other information associated with the message.  For more information filling in this window, see the Compose Email Message window topic. If you want to paste text from a previous message so that it appears as quoted text, you can use the Paste As Quote command.

4.	(Optional) Attach a file.

If you want to attach a file to the email, enter the file name next to the Attachment button or press the Attachment button to browse for the file.  For more information on attaching files, see How to Send a Binary Attachment.

5.	Send the email.

If you use Agent online, press Send Now to immediately transmit your message to the Internet.

If you use Agent offline and you have other messages you want to send, press Send Later.  Once you have composed all your messages, select Post Usenet and Email Messages from the Online menu to transmit them to the Internet.
Send Later Note: Agent does not make copies of attached files prior to sending them.  If you attach a file and press Send Later, make sure that the file stays around until you transmit the message.

See Also:

Making Sure Messages Were Sent Properly

How to Post Usenet Messages

Message Fields

About Agent's Dictionaries.

ROT13 Encoding and Decoding


How to Use Agent as an Offline Newsreader

If you pay an hourly rate for your Internet connection, an offline newsreader can save you lots of money by minimizing the time you are connected to your service provider.  To use Agent as an offline reader, follow the steps below:

1.	Make sure you are configured for offline operation.

Choose General Preferences from the Options menu and select the Online tab.  Press the Use Offline Defaults button and Agent will automatically configure itself for offline use.

2.	Get headers for new messages.

To retrieve the headers of all the new messages in all your subscribed groups, choose Get New Headers in Subscribed Groups from the Online menu.  If you only want the new headers in a particular group, select that group and choose Get New Headers in Selected Groups from the Online menu.

Agent will now go online and retrieve the new headers.  As soon as it is done, it will go offline so that you are no longer incurring connect charges.

All the message headers Agent retrieved will be colored red (assuming you're using Agent's default color scheme - see the General Preferences dialog box, Colors Tab).  This signifies that the message is new, or "unread."

3.	Mark messages for retrieval.

Browse through the message headers just retrieved and look for ones that interest you.  When you find one, highlight it and do any one of the following:

•	Click the Mark for Retrieval toolbar icon

•	Choose Mark for Retrieval from the Message menu

•	Press the M or Enter key

•	Double-click on the message

Repeat the above step for each message whose body you wish to retrieve.

4.	Get marked message bodies.

Once you've marked all the interesting messages in all your groups, choose Get Marked Message Bodies from the Online menu.

Agent will now go online to retrieve the full text of all your marked messages and go offline as soon as it's done.

5.	Read the retrieved messages.

Any messages you did not mark in the previous step will automatically have been marked read when you retrieved marked message bodies in the previous step (see Marking Messages Read for details).  You can now use the options on the Navigate menu to quickly find and read the messages you just retrieved.

See Also:

Navigating in Agent

How to Use Agent as an Online Newsreader

About Usenet Message Purging

Online Menu Commands Explained

Watching and Ignoring Threads

Properties for Selected Groups dialog box, Retrieving tab


How to Use Agent as an Online Newsreader

If you don't pay an hourly rate for your Internet connection, you probably want to remain connected to your service provider while using Agent.  To use Agent as an online reader, follow the steps below:

1.	Make sure you are configured for online operation.

Choose General Preferences from the Options menu and select the Online tab.  Press the Use Online Defaults button and Agent will automatically configure itself to stay online.

2.	Get headers for new messages.

To retrieve the headers of all the new messages in all your subscribed groups, choose Get New Headers in Subscribed Groups from the Online menu.  If you only want the new headers in a particular group, select that group and choose Get New Headers in Selected Groups from the Online menu.

Agent will now go online if you're not currently connected.  It will remain online until you manually go offline (by exiting the program or deselecting Online from the Online menu) or until it detects an extended period of inactivity.

All the message headers Agent retrieved will be colored red (assuming you're using Agent's default color scheme - see the General Preferences dialog box, Colors Tab).  This signifies that the message is new, or "unread" (see Marking Messages Read for more information).

3.	Read messages.

To read a message, select it and choose View Selected Message from the Navigate menu.  You can also read a message by simply double-clicking on it or highlighting it and pressing Enter.  To read the next unread message, use the View Next Unread Message (Ctrl+N) or View Next Unread Message in Thread (Ctrl+T) commands on the Navigate menu.  These commands jump to the next unread message and retrieve its body at the same time.

See Also:

Navigating in Agent

How to Use Agent as an Offline Newsreader

About Usenet Message Purging

Online Menu Commands Explained

Watching and Ignoring Threads

Properties for Selected Groups dialog box, Retrieving tab


How to Use the Address Book

Agent allows you to customize an address book to contain your most frequently used addresses for people and groups.  Using the address book, you can efficiently address messages you send.  Select from the topics below to better understand how to use the address book:

To open the Address book:

Select Open Address Book  from the Window menu.

To add a person or group mailing list to the address book:

Select New from the Address menu and complete the dialog box.  (The address book must be open.)  Press the Help button for a description of each field.

For more information, see the topic Adding People to the Address Book.

To edit an address book entry in the address book:

1.	From the Address Book Window, select the entry in the Names list.

2.	Modify the entry's Addresses, Comments, or Field Text.

3.	Choose Save from the Address menu or click the Save Address icon on the tool bar.

Note: To abandon your changes, choose Reset from the Address menu.

To change an address book entry's name:

1.	Select the entry in the Names list.

2.	Choose Rename from the Address menu, or click the Rename icon on the tool bar.

To delete an address book entry:

1.	Select the entry in the Names list.

2.	Choose Delete from the Address menu, or click the Delete Address icon on the tool bar.

To find an address:

You have different options, depending on what you are doing.

•	To quickly find an address in the address book, select Find from the Edit menu and the Find Address dialog box will appear.  If you need help using this dialog box, press the Help button.

•	When you are composing a message, press the Pick Address button [image] in the composition window.  This opens the Pick Address dialog box, which lists all the addresses defined in the address book.  Select an address from the list and it is immediately inserted into the To, Cc, or Bcc fields.

To start a new message:

1.	From the address book, select the person or group to whom you wish to send the new message.

2.	Choose To, Cc, or Bcc from the Address menu to open a new Compose Email Message window, or click the To, Cc, or Bcc icon from the tool bar.


How to Create Kill and Watch Filters

Kill and watch filters consist of:

•	A filter expression.

•	Seven possible filter actions:  three kill actions and four watch actions.

•	A priority between 0 (lowest) and 1000 (highest).  Filters are evaluated in priority order.  If more than one filter matches a message, the highest priority filter's action is performed.

•	An optional expiration date, expressed in the number of days the filter should be kept.  Agent automatically deletes expired filters.  This helps you keep the number of filters from getting out of hand.

•	An enabled/disabled flag.  This allows you to temporarily disable a filter without deleting it altogether.  You can also use the Group Properties dialogs to temporarily disable all filters for selected groups.

How to create kill and watch filters

There are two general procedures for creating filters.  You can determine the one that best applies to what you are trying to accomplish.  Once you have reviewed the ways to create filters, take a look at some examples that better illustrate specific uses.

To create a filter based on a message:

1.	Select a message header in the desired group.

2.	Select Usenet Filters from the Message menu.

3.	Select Add Kill Filter or Add Watch Filter, depending on which type of filter you want to create, and the Add Usenet Filter dialog box will appear.

4.	Complete the settings in the Add Usenet Filter dialog box.  The Search For expression is already filled in, based on the currently selected message.  For a description of these settings, see the online help for that dialog box.

To create a filter from scratch:

If the filter is going to be for a specific group, make sure the group is highlighted.

1.	Select Usenet Filters from the Group menu to open the Usenet Filters window.

2.	From the Filter menu, select Add Kill Filter or Add Watch Filter, depending on which type of filter you want to create, and the Add Usenet Filter dialog box will appear.

3.	Complete the settings in the Add Usenet Filter dialog box, as in the previous procedure.  However, in this procedure, the Search For field is blank, requiring the user to enter a filter expression that uses the valid syntax required.

If the filter defaulted to the wrong group, then do the following:

a.	From the Filter menu, choose Select View to open the Select View dialog box.

b.	Check the Group <x> box (whatever group is showing).  Then press OK.

c.	Close the Usenet Filters window, and repeat steps 1-3 above.

See Also:

Kill And Watch Filter Examples

Using Filter Expressions


Filter Expressions

A rule defining a word or phrase, or a boolean combination of words or phrases (i.e., expressions that use 'and', 'or', and 'not' operators).  The filter expression can stipulate whether a given phrase must appear in the message subject, author field, or both.  In addition, the expression can specify an acceptable range of line numbers.  Wildcards can be used to match words that begin with a particular sequence of characters.


How to Retrieve a Binary Attachment

Many newsgroups are devoted to the distribution of binary files, typically pictures and sounds.  These binary files are posted as text attachments to one or more messages.  Agent makes quick work of translating the text attachments into their binary equivalent.

To retrieve an attachment:

1.	Select any message in the attachment.  In most cases, Agent will be able to find all the messages which compose the attachment.  If it can't, usually because the attachment was not posted in one of the standard ways (see How Agent finds all the parts of an attachment), follow the steps under "To manually decode a binary attachment" below.

If you select messages from more than one attachment, Agent will retrieve all the attachments that have any messages selected.

2.	Retrieve and/or view the attachment.  Choose either Decode Binary Attachments or Launch Binary Attachments from the File menu.  Agent saves all attachments in the directory entered in the Attachments tab of the Properties for Selected Groups dialog box.

If you are configured for online use (see the Online tab of the General Preferences dialog box for details), Agent will immediately begin downloading and decoding the attachment.  Also, if you selected the Launch option, once the file has been saved, Agent will run the Windows application associated with the attachment's file type (see below).

If you are configured for offline use, Agent will mark all parts of the attachment for retrieval.  The next time you select Get Marked Message Bodies from the Online menu, Agent will download and decode the selected attachments (but not automatically launch them).

Occasionally, you may find multi-part attachments whose subject lines do not match standard convention (e.g., they don't include the typical [1/2], [2/2] notation).  To decode such files, you must tell Agent about all of the attachments components.

To manually decode a binary attachment:

1.	Select all the messages that contain the attachment by clicking on one message and then, with the Control key pressed, clicking on the remaining messages.

2.	Choose Manually Decode Binary Attachment from the File menu.

3.	Make sure the messages are in order.  If they are not, use the Up and Down buttons in the Manually Decode Binary Attachment dialog box to order them.

4.	Launch or save the attachment by pressing the corresponding button.  If you are offline and have not yet retrieved the attachment's messages, Agent will immediately go online to download and decode the attachment.

Once an attachment is retrieved, the Binary Message icon [image] appears next to all the messages in the attachment.  To view the attachment, simply double-click or press Enter on any one of its messages.  This causes Agent to launch the application associated with the attachment's file type.  The file type is determined by the attachment's filename extension.  For example, "foo.gif" is a GIF file.  For more information, see How to Configure a GIF or JPG Viewer to Work with Agent.

After you have viewed an attachment, you may decide that you want to remove it from your hard drive.  Although you can obviously do this in another program such as File Manager, Agent makes it easy for you to remove attached files.

To delete a binary attachment:

1.	Select any message in the attachment.

2.	Choose Delete Selected Binary Attachments from the File menu.


How Agent finds all the parts of an attachment

Agent finds the sections of a binary attachment by searching the current group for messages with identical subjects, except for the "[n/m]" or "n of m" part.  In most cases, this works quite well because people generally use automated tools (like Agent) to post attachments.  Unfortunately, some people assign different subjects to each message (e.g., "foo.jpg [8/8] -- last one!!").  When this happens, you can still save the attachment by selecting all of its sections and choosing Manually Save Binary Attachment from the File menu.


How to configure a GIF or JPG viewer to work with Agent

The Internet contains a wide variety of graphic images which are usually stored in GIF or JPG formatted files.  Although Agent doesn't display these images directly, you can view them from Agent if you have a GIF or JPG viewing program.  To configure your system for viewing graphics from Agent:

1.	Run File Manager.

From Program Manager, double-click the File Manager icon.

2.	Open the Associate dialog box.

Choose Associate from File Manager's File menu.

3.	Create an association.

In the Associate dialog box, enter GIF or JPG into the Files with Extension box.  Enter the full path of your graphics viewer into the Associate With box or press Browse to search for the viewer on your hard drive.

See Also:

How to Retrieve a Binary Attachment


How to configure Agent for multiple users

Agent stores its settings and data files in the working directory specified by its Program Manager icon.  This allows you to easily share a single copy of the program's executable files (i.e., agent.exe and agent.hlp) among several users.

To setup Agent for multiple users:

1.	Create a directory for the program files (e.g., c:\agent).

2.	Create a personal directory for each user (e.g., c:\agent\his and c:\agent\hers).

3.	Create a Program Manager icon for each user with the Command Line pointing to the program itself (e.g., c:\agent\agent.exe) and the Working Directory pointing to the user's personal directory (e.g., c:\agent\his and c:\agent\hers).


Build: 32 bit Free Agent:

YesFree:  Yes (Free Agent only topics)

YesOrder:  Yes (How to order Agent)

NoMSMain:  No (Newsreader Contents Graphic)

NoCRight:  No (Microsoft's copyright page statement)

YesFreeTech:  Yes (Free Agent Tech Support info)

YesTechless:  Yes (No Technical Support for IA)

NoIALicense:  No (Internet Americal License Agreement)

NoAgentLicense:  No (Agent License Agreement)

NoMail:  No (Receive email topics)

NoFolders:  No (All aspects of folders)

NoAddBook:  No (Address Book topics)

NoSpelling:  No (Spell check topics)

NoSorting:  No (Sorting topics)

YesBit32:  Yes (Features only available in the 32bit version)

Forté Free AgentFullName:  Forté Free Agent (The long name of the program)

AgentName:  Agent (The short name of the program)

agentLcName:  agent (The short name of the program)


AGENT.INI

The AGENT.INI file is where you will find most of Agent's settings.  You can edit this file with any text editor, as AGENT.INI is a standard Windows INI file.

The default name is AGENT.INI and the default location is the directory C:\AGENT.  However, you can change the name and location of your Agent directory, if you wish.

Below are the major categories under which Agent's settings are classified.  Click on the section name below to jump directly to that section.

[Article]

[Attachment]

[Browser]

[Colors]

[Confirm]

[Debugging]

[Directories]

[FolderMenu]

[Groups]

[Languages]

[Language <x>]

[Message]

[Online]

[Print]

[Profile]

[Purging]

[Servers]

[TimeZone]

[Timing]

[View]

;=====================================================================

[Profile]

FullName="<full name>"

;This setting is the full name as you want it to appear in your

;messages.  You may leave this blank.

EMailAddress="<email address>"

;This setting is your email address.

Organization="<organization name>"

;This setting is the name of your organization.

;You may leave this blank.

DoAuthorization=0

;When non-zero, Agent will perform authorization login to the news

;server.

SavePassword=1

;When non-zero, Agent will save the authorization password between

;sessions.

UserName="<username>"

;This setting is the news server authorization username.

Password="<password>"

;This setting is the news server authorization password (encrypted).

IsLicensed=1

;When non-zero, you have accepted the license agreement.

IsRegistered=1

;When non-zero, you registered Free Agent.

Build="<build>"

;This setting is the exact version and build you are running.

;=====================================================================

[Servers]

NewsServer="<news server name>"

;This setting is the name or IP address of your NNTP news server.

MailServer="<mail server name>"

;This setting is the name or IP address of your SMTP email server.

NNTPPort=119

;This setting controls the winsock port to use for connecting to the

;NNTP news server.  When this value is the standard news server port

;number (119), Agent first asks the winsock driver for the port number

;to use.  If that call (getservbyname) fails, Agent then tries to use

;this port number.  When this value is *not* the standard news server

;port number, Agent uses it instead of the asking the winsock driver for

;the port number to use.

SMTPPort=25

;This setting controls the winsock port to use for connecting to the

;SMTP email server.  When this value is the standard email server port

;number (25), Agent first asks the winsock driver for the port number

;to use.  If that call (getservbyname) fails, Agent then tries to use

;this port number.  When this value is *not* the standard email server

;port number, Agent uses it instead of the asking the winsock driver for

;the port number to use.

;=====================================================================

[Groups]

LastUpdate=<date and time>

;This setting shows most recent date and time at which the program

;retrieved a list of new Usenet groups, in GMT.  When the program

;retrieves a list of new groups, it asks for all groups created after

;this date.  Setting this to blank forces the program to retrieve a

;list of all groups.

RefreshMode=1

;This setting is the number associated with the last option selected in

;the Refresh Group List dialog box.

DemonDolt=1

;This setting controls the 'Server creates messages out of order'

;option on the Group Properties Retrieving tab.  When non-zero, this

;setting is enabled and Agent will do XHDR, instead of LISTGROUP.  When

;this setting is zero, Agent will do LISTGROUP.

;=====================================================================

[Online]

AutoDisconnect=1

;When non-zero, Agent will disconnect from news server after

;<NoActivityTimeout> seconds of inactivity.  When zero, Agent

;will never disconnect.

NoActivityTimeout=300

;This setting controls the period of no activity after which the

;program should disconnect from the NNTP server (seconds).

MailAutoDisconnect=1

;When non-zero, Agent will disconnect from the POP email server after

;<MailNoActivityTimeout> seconds of inactivity.  When zero, Agent will

;never disconnect.

MailNoActivityTimeout=5

;This setting controls the period of no SMTP activity after which Agent

;should disconnect from the SMTP server (seconds).

SendKeepAliveMsgs=1

;When non-zero, Agent will send "keep alive" messages to the news

;server.  This keeps the dial-up connection alive.

KeepAlivePeriod=60

;This setting controls how often to send a keep alive message during

;periods of inactivity (seconds).

XHdrOnly=1

;When non-zero, Agent will use XHDR commands to request message header

;information from the news server, rather than XOVER.  Some servers do

;not support the newer XOVER command, which is faster than XHDR.  Agent

;will automatically detect whether the server recognizes XOVER and

;falls back to XHDR if it doesn't.  But, you can also use this option

;to force it to always use XHDR.

EnablePriorityTask=1

;When non-zero, Agent will enable priority tasks for retrieving message

;bodies.  This allows the program to open two channels to the news

;server, with one reserved as a priority channel for retrieving

;messages.

AutoView=0

;This setting tells Agent what to do when you double-click a message

;without a body.  The options are:

;	0	Retrieve the message's body

;	1	Mark the message for later retrieval

;	2	Retrieve the body if online, mark for retrieval if offline

;	3	Do nothing

RetryGetHostName=0

;When non-zero, Agent will retry connecting to the host PC, until Agent

;times out.  When zero, Agent will report an error after the first

;attempt.

RetryConnectAttempts=0

;This setting controls how many times to retry connecting to the server

;after getting any of the following errors:

;	-	Connection refused (winsock error 10061)

;	-	Operation timed out (winsock error 10060)

;	-	400 Service not available

;When zero, report an error after the first attempt.

RetryConnectPause=30

;This setting controls how long to wait between connection attempts

;when retrying (seconds).

RetryConnectCloseWinsock=0

;When non-zero, Agent will close winsock after each connection failure

;and reload it before retrying.  If you are using a winsock dialer,

;this causes the dialer to hang up the modem between connection attempts.

UseGetHostName=0

;When non-zero, Agent will use the function gethostname()to obtain the

;name of the host PC itself, for use when logging into SMTP servers.

;When zero, Agent will use the winsock function WSAAsyncGetHostByAddr()

;to obtain the name of the host PC.  This option can be used as a

;workaround for winsock drivers that do not support

;WSAAsyncGetHostByAddr().

EnableMsgIdRetrieval=1

;When non-zero, if Agent fails to retrieve a Usenet message body by

;message number, it will attempt to retrieve it by message ID.  Some

;news servers are slow in responding to message ID requests, so you can

;set this option to zero to disable message ID retrieval.

ErrorTimeout=300

;This setting controls the amount of time Agent waits after displaying

;the online error dialog box before going offline automatically

;(seconds).  Agent does not cancel any online tasks until you confirm

;that you want to do so on the dialog.  If you choose to resume

;processing, Agent will go online again.  This parameter applies only

;if auto-disconnect is enabled (AutoDisconnect=1).

LoadWinsockOnStartup32=0

;When non-zero, Agent will automatically load winsock when starting

;your PC.

RasOpen=0

;When non-zero, Agent will automatically establish a Remote Access

;Server (RAS) dial-up connection before going online.

;

RasOpenPrompt=1

;When non-zero, Agent will prompt before establishing a Remote Access

;Server (RAS)dial-up connection.

RasConnection="<RAS connection name>"

;This setting is the name of the Remote Access Server (RAS) dial-up

;connection to use.

RasClose=1

;When non-zero, Agent will automatically close the Remote Access Server

;(RAS) dial-up connection after going offline.

RasClosePrompt=1

;When non-zero, Agent will prompt before closing the Remote Access

;Server (RAS)dial-up connection.

RasUserName="<RAS username>"

;This setting is the username to be used for Dial-Up Networking

;(DUN)login (Windows NT only).

RasPassword="<RAS password>"

;This setting is the password to be used for Dial-Up Networking (DUN)

;login (Windows NT only).

RasConnectedTitle="Connected to"

;This setting is the title of the "Connected to..." window that Dial-

;Up Networking(DUN) displays after a connection has been established.

;The window is always displayed in the middle of the screen; so, after

;establishing a dial-up connection, Agent searches for the window and

;automatically minimizes it to get it out of the way.

;=====================================================================

[View]

AutoOpenMode=1

;When non-zero, Agent will automatically maintain positioning in

;subsidiary browsers when the highlight in a browser changes.

ShowToolBar=1

;When non-zero, Agent will display the toolbar at the top of the

;screen.

ShowStatusBar=1

;When non-zero, Agent will display the status bar at the bottom of the

;screen.

StatusBarFont=MS Sans Serif, 80, 0, 0, 0,0,0

;This setting controls the font used for text in the status bar.

;<fontname>, <points*10>, <bold>, <italic>, <red>,<green>,<blue>

InitialView=1

;This setting controls what displays in the initial view for the

;Groups pane.  The options are:

;	0	All Groups

;	1	Subscribed Groups

;	2	New Groups

MainWindowPosition="0 1 -1 -1 -4 -4 86 57 875 677"

;This setting controls initial screen position of the program's main

;window.

BrowserPosition="3 3 94 347 -4 -23 15 18 663 348"

;This setting controls the initial screen position of the browser.

ProgressStyle=0

;This setting controls the format of the graphical online task

;progress indicator in Agent's Status Bar.  The options are:

;	0	Display the progress indicator in its own box on the Status Bar.

;	1	Display the progress indicator in its own box, and include text

;	showing the percentage of the task completed so far.

;	2	Display, in its own box, text showing the percentage of the task

;	completed so far without a graphical progress indicator.

;	3	Display the graphical progress indicator over the text describing

;	the current task.

;	4	Do not display the progress indicator.

ProgressDelay=1000

;This setting controls how long to wait when the percent complete

;changes from a zero to a non-zero value, before updating the online

;task progress indicator display (milliseconds).  Once the delay

;threshold has been exceeded, Agent updates the display continuously.

;This delay causes Agent to not display the progress indicator for

;extremely short operations, such as downloading short message bodies.

GroupPropTab=0

;This setting shows the tab last displayed in the Properties for

;Selected Groups dialog box (Group menu).  The next time you open this

;dialog box, Agent will display this tab.

DefGroupProp=0

;This setting shows the tab last displayed in the Default Properties

;for All Groups dialog box (Group menu).  The next time you open this

;dialog box, Agent will display this tab.

PrefsTab=0

;This setting shows the tab last displayed in the Preferences dialog

;box (Options menu).  The next time you open this dialog box, Agent

;will display this tab.

InboundTab=0

;This setting shows the tab last displayed in the Inbound Email dialog

;box (Options menu).  The next time you open this dialog box, Agent

;will display this tab.

Win95=0

;When running under Windows NT, Agent normally turns off all of its

;Windows 95 features.  But, if you set value to 1, Agent will pretend

;that it really is running under Windows 95.  This allows you to turn

;on the Windows 95 features if you are running the beta version of the

;Windows 95 shell for Windows NT.

;=====================================================================

[Browser]

NormalFont=Arial, 80, 0,0, 0,0,0

;This setting controls the font for normal items.

;<fontname>, <points*10>, <bold>, <italic>, <red>,<green>,<blue>

BoldFont=MS Sans Serif, 80, 1,0, 0,0,0

;This setting controls the font for special items (e.g., first message

;in thread).

;<fontname>, <points*10>, <bold>, <italic>, <red>,<green>,<blue>

ScrollMargin=2

;This setting controls the minimum number of lines to maintain above

;and below the highlighted item when scrolling with the cursor keys.

;This keeps the highlight from getting pinned at either the top or

;bottom screen rows.

FollowUpIndent=4

;This setting controls the amount to indent follow-up messages in the

;Message List pane (characters).

MaxNestLevel=6

;This setting controls the maximum indentation level for response

;messages in the message list browser.  The maximum level is 15.

CollapseThreads=1

;When non-zero, Agent will initially collapse threads in the Message

;List pane.

ExpandNewThread=1

;When non-zero, positioning on a new message automatically expands the

;thread if the message is a follow-up and if the first message in the

;thread has been retrieved.

SubjectThreading=1

;When non-zero, Agent will use subjects to combine messages into

;threads, in addition to message references.

ArticleListColumns=<n>,<n>,<n>

;This setting offsets the left edges of the columns in the Message

;List pane (units of 10x the average character width).

;The edge of the left-most column is always 0, so is not included here.

OutBoxColumns=87,432,697

;This setting offsets the left edges of the columns in the Outbox

;browser (units of 10x the average character width).

;The edge of the left-most column is always 0, so is not included here.

NewSubjectStartsNewThread=1

;When non-zero, a follow-up message that contains a different subject

;than its referenced message starts a new thread.  When zero, Agent

;will include the follow-up in its referenced message's thread.

ViewLaunchesBinary=1

;When non-zero, if a message has been saved as a binary attachment,

;double-clicking or pressing Enter on the message launches the

;attachment.

NextStaysInPane=1

;When non-zero, Agent will keep the focus in the same pane when

;skipping between messages in different groups or folders.

MarkSkipsToNextUnread=1

;When non-zero, marking a message causes Agent to skip to the next

;unread message.

WatchSkipsToNextUnread=1

;When non-zero, watching an unread message causes Agent to skip to the

;next unread message.

SkipGroupMarksRead=1

;When non-zero, skipping to the next unread group causes Agent to mark

;all messages in the current group read.

RightButtonSelects=1

;When non-zero, clicking a group, or message header with the

;right mouse button selects the item and displays a context sensitive

;menu.

ShowUnreadOnly=0

;This option is to be implemented in a future version.

ShowBodiesOnly=0

;This option is to be implemented in a future version.

ScrollLock=0

;When non-zero, you can press the scroll lock key, allowing you to

;navigate in the browser, using the arrow keys.  You can use this

;feature to edit text in the browser.

AuthorModeZoomed=0

;This option is to be implemented in a future version.

AuthorModeUnZoomed=0

;This option is to be implemented in a future version.

MarkReadMode=1

;This setting controls when Agent marks messages read.  The options

;are:

;	0	Whenever the message body is visible in the Message pane

;	1	Only when the Message pane is selected

;	2	Never mark read

SingleKeyViewsBody=1

;This setting controls the Single Key Read option on the Navigation

;tab of the General Preferences dialog box.  When non-zero, the

;speedkey (Space) is enabled.  The effect of this speedkey (when the

;Groups or Message List panes have the focus) is the same as View Next

;Unread Body command.

;=====================================================================

[Article]

VariableFont=MS Sans Serif, 100, 0,0, 0,0,0

;This setting controls the variable-pitch font for the message body

;viewer.

;<fontname>, <points*10>, <bold>, <italic>, <red>,<green>,<blue>

FixedFont=Courier, 100, 0,0, 0,0,0

;This setting controls the fixed-pitch font for the message body

;viewer.

;<fontname>, <points*10>, <bold>, <italic>, <red>,<green>,<blue>.

UseFixedFont=1

;When non-zero, Agent will use the fixed-pitch font for messages.

WordWrap=1

;When non-zero, Agent will word wrap messages.

ShowHeader=1

;When non-zero, Agent will show all header fields in messages.

QuotedTextMarkers=>:|}

;This setting controls the characters that mark a quoted line of text

;in a message.  If a line begins with any of these characters, it is

;assumed to be quoted.

URLPattern=[a-zA-Z]+:/[^ \t\r\n>)\]"']*[a-zA-Z0-9/]

;This setting is the regular expression defining the pattern for URLs.

TabSpacing=3

;This setting controls the tab spacing for messages.

SaveArticleFields=2

;This setting controls which header fields to save when writing a

;message to a text file.  The options are:

;	0	No fields

;	1	Selected header fields

;	2	All fields

SaveArticleAppend=1

;When non-zero, if the file to which a message being saved already

;exists, Agent will append to it.  When zero, Agent will overwrite the

;file after prompting for verification.

PageDownMode=0

;This setting controls the behavior of the Page Down key in the Message

;pane.  When non-zero, you cannot page down if the last line of the

;message is visible.  When zero, you can page down if the last line of

;the message is visible.

NewsBaseFields="<fields>"

NewsAllFields="<fields>"

;These settings control which header fields are displayed at the top of

;the message body.  The News* params control Usenet messages, and the

;Mail* params control email messages.  The *Base* params control the

;fields that are displayed when option Show Header Fields is off, and

;the *All* params control the fields that are displayed when the option

;is on.  Each param may contain a list of comma-separated field names.

;The fields are displayed in the order listed.  If a field name is

;preceded with a !, then the field is always displayed.  Otherwise, the

;field is displayed only if it is actually contained in the message.

;If a *Base* param is empty, then no fields are displayed when Show

;Header Fields is off.  If an *All* param is empty, then all fields are

;displayed when Show Header Fields is on.

SaveArticleFormat=0

;This setting controls formatting of the text file when saving

;messages.  The options are:

;	0	UNIX message file format

;	1	Include a separator line before each message

;	2	No separators before messages

SaveArticleSeparator="========\n"

;This setting controls the separator to be used when the setting

;SaveArticleFormat=1.

SaveArticleFieldList="To,Subject,From,Date,Cc,Bcc"

;This setting shows a comma-separated list of fields to be included in

;saved messages when SaveArticleFields=1.  Agent includes a field only

;if it is actually defined in the message.

;=====================================================================

[Attachment]

PartitionMode=1

;This setting controls how attachment messages are partitioned.

;When non-zero, do not partition (send as a single message). When zero,

;partition into messages (AttachmentPartitionSize controls size)

PartitionLines=10000

;When attachment messages are partitioned, this setting controls the

;maximum number of lines of data to send per message.  Each line

;contains 45 bytes of data, and consists of 63 characters.

TextMode=0

;This setting controls if and how text is sent with attachments.  The

;options are:

;	0	Send text as separate preface message

;	1	Include text at beginning of first partition message

;	2	Send no text

FileMode=644

;This setting controls the UNIX file mode for attachment files.  This

;is a string.  It is the mode that is included at the top of the

;uuencoded file.

NameConversionMode=0

;This setting controls how attachment filenames are converted.  The

;options are:

;	0	No conversion unless required

;	1	Convert when writing to a FAT volume, even if volume supports

;	filenames

;	2	Always convert to 8.3 name

SubjectPattern="[(\[ ][0-9]+ */ *[0-9]+[)\] ]|[(\[ ] [0-9]+ *of

;*[0-9]+[)\] ]|[(\[ ] [0-9]+ */ *[0-9]+$|[(\[] [0-9]+ *of *[0-9]+$|"

;This is the regular expression that controls how Agent searches for

;message headers containing multi-part attachments.

;=====================================================================

[Purging]

;The parameters in this section can be modified within Agent from the

;What to Purge tab on the Default Group Properties dialog box and the

;When to Purge tab on the Default Group Properties dialog box.

PurgeByNumber=1

;This setting controls how Agent's purge operation determines

;whether a message is no longer available.

;When non-zero, Agent will download headers and purge based on those.

;When zero, Agent will purge based on message range reported by the

;server.

PurgeOnNewHeaders=1

;When non-zero, Agent will purge messages when getting new headers.

PurgeOnExit=1

;When non-zero, Agent will purge messages when exiting Agent.

CompressOnPurge=0

;When non-zero, if Purge Messages is selected from the Group menu,

;Agent will compact the databases being purged.  Note: A database is

;compacted only when the percent of disk space saved is greater than

;the value of the CompressPercent parameter.

CompressOnExit=0

;When non-zero, Agent will compact all databases when Agent closes.

;Note: A database is compacted only when the percent of disk space

;saved is greater than the value entered in the "Compact only if wasted

;space at least..." field below.

CompressPercent=20

;Before compacting a database, Agent will check to see how much disk

;space would be saved by the compact operation.  This setting allows

;you to bypass the operation if only a small amount of disk space

;would be saved.  Enter the minimum amount of disk space savings, as a

;percentage of the total size of the database, that will cause Agent

;to perform an automatic compaction after either a manual purge

;and/or an automatic purge during exit.

ConfirmPurgeOnExit=1

;When non-zero, Agent will require confirmation before purging and/or

;compacting databases when program is closed.

;When zero, Agent will purge and/or compact the databases without

;asking first.  Note: To purge or compact databases on exit, be sure

;to enable PurgeOnExit and/or CompressOnExit.

AlwaysPurgeUnavailable=1

;When non-zero, if one of the "When the message is no longer available"

;purge options is selected, Agent will purge messages that are no

;longer available during get new headers, even if the "Purge when

;retrieving new headers" setting is disabled (zero).  This setting

;can't be set within Agent.

;=====================================================================

[Message]

UseFixedFont=1

;When non-zero, Agent will use the fixed-pitch font for outgoing

;messages.

WordWrap=1

;When non-zero, Agent will word wrap outgoing messages in the display

;window.

IncludeOriginalText=1

;When non-zero, Agent will automatically include the text of the

;original message when creating a follow-up message or email reply.

QuotePrefix="> "

;This setting is the string used to quote text from the original

;message when creating a follow-up message or email reply.

FollowupString="%from% wrote:\n"

;This setting is the string used to generate the first line(s) of a

;follow-up message.  This value should be defined directly from Agent.

;For more information, see Composing an Introduction String.

;If the string is blank, no first line is generated.

;

;The text enclosed in %...% are the names of fields from the original

;message.  Two %% represent a single % literal.

;

;In addition to the standard message fields, the program supports these

;special fields:

;	%Full-Name%	Full name of author

;

;You may also use the following escape sequences:

;	\n	newline

;	\t	tab

;	\\	the backslash character itself

ForwardString="In %newsgroups%, %from% wrote:\n"

;This setting is the string used to generate the first line(s) of a

;forwarded Usenet message.  If the string is blank, no first line is

;generated.  Uses the same formatting commands as FollowupString.

MailReplyString="On %date%, you wrote:\n"

;This setting is the string used to generate the first line(s) of an

;email reply.  If the string is blank, no first line is generated.

;The string uses the same formatting commands as FollowupString.

MailReplyMailString="On %date%, you wrote:\n"

;This setting is the introduction string for email replies to email

;messages.  If the string is blank, no first line is generated.  The

;string uses the same formatting commands as FollowupString.

ForwardString="On %date%, %from% wrote:\n"

;This setting is the introduction string for forwarded email messages.

;If the string is blank, no first line is generated.  The string uses

;the same formatting commands as FollowupString.

LineLength=70

;This setting controls the maximum line length for outgoing messages.

;Agent will word-wraps longer lines.

;Setting this to zero disables word-wrap in outgoing messages.

SaveSentMessages=1

;When non-zero, Agent will save messages that have been successfully

;posted in the outbox.

SendTagLine=0

;When non-zero, include the Free Agent advertisement tag line at the

;bottom of messages.

GMTDates=1

;When non-zero, Agent will post all messages and emails in GMT format

;rather than your local timezone.

CurrentGroupOnly=1

;This setting controls which newsgroups are included by default for

;follow-up posts.  Note: If the referenced message includes a

;Followup-To field, Agent will always list the groups from that field,

;independent of this option.

;When non-zero, if the referenced message does not contain a

;Followup-To field, and this option is non-zero, Agent will include

;just the name of the group that was selected when the follow-up

;message was created.  When zero, Agent will include all groups listed

;in the referenced message's Newsgroups field.

ValidateAddresses=1

;When non-zero, Agent will try to validate all email address fields

;(To:, Cc:, Bcc:, From:, Reply-to:, and Sender:) in messages that you

;send.  When non-zero, non-standard addresses may be entered.

ShowAllFields=0

;When non-zero, Agent will allow editing of the Control and Approved

;message fields.

GenerateID=1

;When non-zero, Agent will generate Message IDs when posting messages.

;=====================================================================

[Directories]

Attachments="C:\agent\, *.txt, 0"

;This setting shows the last directory selected in the Attach Binary

;File dialog box.  The third parameter is the listbox index of the

;file-type filter (e.g.,"*.TXT") that was last selected in the dialog

;box.

Files="C:\agent\, *.txt, 1"

;This setting shows the last directory selected in the Save Messages As

;and the Import Messages dialog boxes.  The third parameter is the

;listbox index of the file-type filter (e.g., "*.TXT") that was last

;selected in the dialog box.

Signatures="C:\agent\, *.txt, 1"

;This setting shows the last directory selected in the Select Signature

;File dialog box.  The third parameter is the listbox index of the

;file-type filter (e.g.,"*.TXT") that was last selected in that dialog

;box.

Home=<directory>

;This setting shows the directory where Agent's database files, custom

;dictionaries, and address book are stored.  If this parameter's value

;is blank (the default), Agent looks for these files in the directory

;containing AGENT.INI.  Note: Changing this setting does not move your

;files.  Use File Manager to move all the files (*.IDX, *.DAT,

;CUST*.TLX, and *.AAB) to the new location and then restart Agent for

;this change to take effect.

Shared=<directory>

;This setting shows the directory where Agent's help file and master

;dictionaries are stored.

;=====================================================================

[Colors]

BrowserNormalColor=0,0,0

;This setting controls the color for normal messages.

;<red>,<green>,<blue>

BrowserUnreadColor=128,0,0

;This setting controls the color for unread messages.

;<red>,<green>,<blue>

BrowserSelectedUnreadColor=255,255,0

;This setting controls the color for unread messages that are selected

;(highlighted).  Normally, this should be the inverse of the Control

;Panel's highlight color.

;<red>,<green>,<blue>

ArticleNormalColor=0,0,0

;This setting controls the color for normal text in messages.

ArticleQuotedColor=0,0,255

;This setting controls the color for quoted text in messages.

;A line is quoted if it begins with one of the QuotedTextMarkers.

;=====================================================================

[Confirm]

DeleteGroup=1

;When non-zero, Agent will confirm group deletions.

StopTasks=1

;When non-zero, Agent will confirm actions that would cancel active

;online tasks.

DeleteArticle=1

;When non-zero, Agent will confirm message deletions.

DeleteOpenMessage=1

;When non-zero, Agent will confirm closing the message composition

;window if you have modified the message.

DeleteOutboxMessage=1

;When non-zero, Agent will confirm message deletions in the outbox.

CloseWithTasks=1

;When non-zero, Agent will confirm program close when tasks are

;running.

DefaultAction=0

;This setting controls the default button in confirmation dialog boxes.

;When zero, the default is No; when non-zero, the default is Yes.

MarkAllRead=1

;When non-zero, Agent will confirm the Mark All Messages Unread and

;Mark All Messages Read commands.

LaunchEXE=1

;When non-zero, Agent will confirm the launching of executable

;attachments.

SendOnClose=1

;When non-zero, Agent will confirm sending queued messages when you

;exit Agent.  You can set this action to "1" by selecting

;Preferences from the Options menu and checking the Send queued

;messages option on the Confirmations tab.

MarkAllGroupsRead=1

;When non-zero, Agent will confirm marking all messages from all groups

;read.  You can set this action to "1" by selecting Preferences from

;the Options menu and selecting Mark all messages in & All groups read

;or unread on the Confirmations tab.

;=====================================================================

[TimeZone]

AssumeLocal=1

;When non-zero, Agent assumes local time if a downloaded message does

;not specify a timezone in its Date field.

;When zero, Agent assumes Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).

;=====================================================================

[Print]

LeftMargin=75

TopMargin=75

RightMargin=75

BottomMargin=75

;These settings control the margins for printing (1/100 inch

;increments).

Fields=1

;This setting controls the header fields Agent will include in printed

;messages.  The options are:

;	0	No fields

;	1	Subject, author, and date only

;	2	All fields

PageBreaks=0

;This setting controls where to put page breaks.

;	0	None

;	1	Between messages

;	2	Between threads

Font=Times New Roman, 100, 0,0, 0,0,0

;The printer font.

;=====================================================================

[Timing]

GetHostByNameTimeout=30

;This setting controls the timeout period for looking up the host's

;name (seconds).

ConnectTimeout=10

;This setting controls the timeout period for connecting to the host

;(seconds).

ResponseTimeout=120

;This setting controls the timeout period for waiting for a response

;from the host (seconds).

SendTimeout=60

;This setting controls the timeout period for sending a command to the

;server (seconds).  This is the maximum time the program will wait

;during a blocked transmission, not the total time allowed to send a

;message.

PostTimeout=60

;This setting controls the timeout period for posting a message or

;email message (seconds).  This is the maximum time the program will

;wait during a blocked transmission, not the total time allowed to send

;a message.

SplashTime=5

;This setting controls the minimum time to display the splash screen.

PostResponseTimeout=360

;This setting controls how long Agent will wait for an

;acknowledgment from the server after posting a message or email

;message (seconds).

;=====================================================================

[Debugging]

ShowUID=0

;When non-zero, Agent will show the group UIDS in the Groups

;pane.  This number is the base filename for each group's IDX and DAT

;files.

VerboseLog=0

;When non-zero, Agent will include extra information in the log window,

;including a script of Agent's conversation with the news server, and

;task state machine transitions.

FileLog=0

;When non-zero, Agent will write log output to AGENT.LOG.  The contents

;of this file are erased at the start of each Agent session.

TraceLog=0

;When non-zero, Agent will send log output to the Windows debugging

;console, so that it appears in programs like DBWIN.

TraceHelp=0

;When non-zero, Agent will send a debugging statement to the Windows

;debugging console each time Agent sends a request for online help.

ShowArticleDetail=0

;When non-zero, Agent will show some detailed information about

;messages at the bottom of the Message pane.  In particular, this shows

;the message's number as reported by the news server.

ShowMemUsage=0

;When non-zero, Agent will show the total number of allocated blocks in

;the status bar.  This option is used to check for memory leaks.

EnableTrace=0

;When non-zero, Agent will enable debugging trace statements to be sent

;to the Windows debugging port.

WinsockLog=0

;When non-zero, all winsock calls are written to AGENT.LOG.

EnableMenu=0

;When non-zero, Agent will display the debugging menu options.  You can

;also toggle the display of debug options by pressing Ctrl+Shift+D in

;Agent.

ShowBuild=0

;When non-zero, Agent will display the build number in the title bar

;and About dialog box.

ShowInternalFields=0

;When non-zero, Agent will display internal fields in the Body pane.

MemSafetyLevel=3

;This setting controls the level of Agent's memory tests and

;validations.  Below are the possible settings:

;	2	(fast) Parameters are fully validated, leading and trailing

;	guards are set and tested, and free blocks are filled.  This

;	setting creates minimum runtime impact and catches most common

;	runtime errors.

;	3	(slower)  In addition to the above checks, this setting fills all

;	newly allocated blocks with the in-use pattern.  This level is

;	slower than 2, but generally is only a factor of 2 or 3 slower

;	than the non-debug heap manager.

;	4	(slowest)  The entire memory pool associated with a call is

;	validated on each entry point to the heap manager.  This setting

;	can be very slow, but it is effective at pin-pointing memory

;	overwrites.

MemCheckFrequency=10

;If MemSafetyLevel=3, this setting controls how often the program

;checks for overwrites.  The default 10 checks every tenth time a heap-

;related function is called.

MemDeferFreeing=1

;When non-zero, freed locations are filled with the free fill value.

;However, instead of returning these allocations to the free pool for

;reuse, the manager adds them to the queue of defer-freed allocations.

;Defer=freed allocations remain in the queue until you free them or

;until the queue fills up and the oldest allocations in the queue are

;freed up automatically.  This option uses more memory, but helps to

;detect reuse of already freed allocations.

MemDeferQueueLength=1000

;This setting controls how many freed allocations to queue before

;actually freeing the oldest ones for reuse.

MemDeferSizeThreshold=4096

;When MemDeferredFreeing is enabled (non-zero), allocations larger than

;the threshold are freed immediately, to prevent consuming too much

;memory.

;=====================================================================

[Languages]

enu=English (American),0,custenu.tlx,mainenu.tlx,mainenu.clx

eng=English (International),0,custeng.tlx,maineng.tlx,maineng.clx

frn=French,1,custfrn.tlx,mainfrn.tlx,mainfrn.clx

ger=German,0,custger.tlx,mainger.tlx,mainger.clx

spa=Spanish,0,custspa.tlx,mainspa.tlx,mainspa.clx

itn=Italian,0,custitn.tlx,mainitn.tlx,mainitn.clx

;These settings allow you to customize the way text appears in the

;panes.

Name=English

;This setting controls the names applied to languages added to the

;Languages list.

UID=<unique ID number>

;This setting identifies the unique ID.

;=====================================================================

[Language <x>]

;Warning!  Do not modify this section manually, particularly the UID

;value.

Name=%s

;This setting controls the name of the currently selected language.

UID=<unique ID number>

;This setting is the unique ID that Agent uses to identify

;the language being used.  Caution.  Changing this setting may cause

;the language functions not to work properly.

ListUseVariable=0

;When non-zero, Agent will use the font selected for message

;bodies using a variable-pitch font.

SubjectUseList=0

;When non-zero, Agent will use the bold version of the font

;selected for the Message List for the message subject.

List=MS Sans Serif, 80, 0, 0, 0, 0

;This setting controls the font used in the Message List pane.

Subject=MS Sans Serif, 80, 1, 0, 0, 0

;This setting controls the type of font used for subjects in the

;Message List pane.

Variable=MS Sans Serif, 100, 0, 0, 0, 0

;This setting controls the variable-pitch font used in message bodies.

Fixed=Fixedsys, 100, 0, 0, 0, 0

;This setting controls the fixed-pitch font used in message bodies.

Printer=Times Roman, 100, 0, 0, 0, 0

;This setting controls printer font used for printing browsers and

;messages.

;=====================================================================

[FolderMenu]

Menu1=<folder name>

...

MenuN=<folder name>

;This setting shows a list of the folders that appear on the Copy/Move

;to Folder flyouts.  The names of the options (Menu1, etc.) don't

;matter.  Agent simply uses the first nine items from the list to

;populate the flyouts.


€Build: 32 bit Free Agent:

YesFree:  Yes (Free Agent only topics)

YesOrder:  Yes (How to order Agent)

NoMSMain:  No (Newsreader Contents Graphic)

NoCRight:  No (Microsoft's copyright page statement)

YesFreeTech:  Yes (Free Agent Tech Support info)

YesTechless:  Yes (No Technical Support for IA)

NoIALicense:  No (Internet Americal License Agreement)

NoAgentLicense:  No (Agent License Agreement)

NoMail:  No (Receive email topics)

NoFolders:  No (All aspects of folders)

NoAddBook:  No (Address Book topics)

NoSpelling:  No (Spell check topics)

NoSorting:  No (Sorting topics)

YesBit32:  Yes (Features only available in the 32bit version)

Forté Free AgentFullName:  Forté Free Agent (The long name of the program)

AgentName:  Agent (The short name of the program)

agentLcName:  agent (The short name of the program)


Release Notes

This topic describes the features most recently added to Free Agent.

Version 1.21

This version fixes an additional problem related to Y2K compliance.

Version 1.2

This version fixes the following problems related to Y2K:

1.	When displaying dates, the year was not padded for two-digit years less than 10.  This happened if you had the date format configured in your Windows control panel to display two-digit years. For years 2000-2009, the software failed to pad with the leading zero, and displayed the year portion of the date as 0 - 9 (e.g., 11/12/9, instead of 11/12/09 or 3/8/0, instead of 3/8/00.   This problem was cosmetic only, however, as messages would be displayed and purged correctly.

2.	Handling of certain two-digit years in a message's Date: field was incorrect.  If the Date: field in a message received by the software had a two-digit year, the software did not correctly interpret the year for values between 00 and 69. The software assumed the century was 1900, and subsequently incorrectly interpreted the date because it could not handle dates prior to 1970.  In addition, the software assigned the wrong time.  Messages affected by this problem were displayed and purged incorrectly. Note, however, that the vast majority of messages used four-digit dates, and were not affected.  Free Agent now correctly interprets the year value. Free Agent assumes that any year in the range 00-69 is in the 21st century, and any year in the range 70-99 is in the 20th century.

3.	When getting newsgroups (e.g. Get New Groups, Refresh Groups List...), Agent did not format the year correctly for years between 2000 and 2009.

Version 1.11

BUGS FIXED

·	There were two problems encountered when refreshing your Groups list:

1.	16-bit Free Agent could not handle more than 32,000 total groups.

2.	Agent would GPF if your news server closed the connection while Agent was upgrading the groups list after retrieving the list of groups.

·	Agent was re-retrieving message headers for some news "farms" (news services with mulitple news servers), most notably Zippo.

ENHANCEMENT

The installation has been completely redone to be a Wizard style install.

Version 1.1

Terminology

We've made a minor yet pervasive change to our terminology.  We've replaced the word "article" with "message" throughout the program.

Significant Interface Changes

Two Preferences dialog boxes -  The Preferences dialog box in previous versions has now been split into two dialog boxes: General Preferences and Posting Preferences.

·	The General Preferences dialog has a new Languages tab, which you can use to add, rename, and delete languages.

·	The General Preferences dialog has a new Fonts tab, where you specify all fonts for the program.  This tab replaces the now-extinct Options | Fonts menu options.  This dialog has buttons for changing all of the program's fonts.  Beside each button is information about the current selection for that font.

-	The Browser button at the top controls all browsers except the message list browser.

-	The remaining buttons control the fonts for the highlighted language.  You can now tell Free Agent to automatically use the Variable-Pitch Body font for the Message List, and to use a bold version of the Message List font for the Subject.  This helps reduce the number of fonts you have to specify.

Message sampling - How you sample messages has changed significantly.  Below are the major changes:

Empty Group Sample Size and View Empty Group Action are no longer group properties.  You can still set them on the Group Properties dialog, but they now apply to all groups.  If you configure Free Agent to prompt for action when viewing an empty group, you may now specify the sample count from the prompt dialog.

Note:  changing the value in the prompt dialog will also change the setting on the Group Properties dialog.

Sample Headers from Selected Groups (Online menu) will bring up a new dialog.  From it, you can choose to sample the <n> most recent messages, or messages from the last <n> days.  Free Agent will remember the last values you used.  In the past, many people would decrement the highest message retrieved number for a group, and get new headers to re-retrieve messages that had been deleted or purged.  This dialog provides a more convenient way to do the same thing.  Note that the sample count on this dialog is independent of the count on the empty group dialog, so changing this value won't affect the empty group sample size.

Group Properties dialog - This dialog box now has a Language tab, where you specify which language to use for that group.

With the new Language Menu option on the Message menu, you can use this option to override the default language setting for selected messages.

In the composition window, the language which is used when composing a message is determined by the language setting for the group from which the message is composed, in the same way that other settings, such as the field values and signature, are determined.  You can also use Message | Language to override the setting for a message.

The language-specified fonts control the fonts that are used in the following places:

- The message list

- The message body pane

- The message body pane header.  This uses the variable-pitch body

  font, sized to as close to the same size as the other header fonts as

  possible.

- The composition Text window.

- The composition Subject window.

- Printing

Main Features and Enhancements

Languages - You can now define multiple languages (up to 255).  For each language, you can specify what fonts to use for the message list and message body panes and what spell-checker to use when composing messages.  Each group has a particular language associated with it.  Thus, when you select a group, the message list and message body panes use the fonts for that group's language.

This is useful for reading messages in groups where posts are normally made using a different character set than the one you are using.  For example, if you had a Cyrillic font you could define a Russian language in Free Agent that used that font.  Then, for any Russian groups you wanted to follow, you could define Russian as the default language for those groups.  All the messages in those groups would display and print in your Russian font.  Free Agent would also use the Russian font in the composition window when you were posting to one of these groups.

For each language, you can specify what fonts to use to display and print messages.  When you first run this version of Free Agent, it automatically creates a default "English" language, which will retain your current font settings.

Each group has a particular language associated with it.  Thus, when you select a group, the message list and body panes use that group's language's fonts.

Navigation and Marking Messages Read - In previous versions of Free Agent, messages were automatically marked read whenever the message body was displayed in the body pane.  Many of our users complained that they accidentally marked messages read while scrolling through the list pane.  We have added a Preference setting that allows you to choose when Free Agent should automatically mark messages read.  Specifically, the following options have been added to the Navigation tab of the General Preferences dialog box:

Automatically mark articles read:

( ) Whenever the message body is visible in the Message pane

(x) Only when the Message pane is selected

( ) Never

PLEASE NOTE:  We have chosen the second option, "Only when the Message pane is selected", as the default in order to avoid inadvertently marking articles read when you happen to select them in the Message List pane.  If you prefer the old behavior, select the first option.

In order to make room for these options on the Navigation tab of the General Preferences dialog box, we created a new tab on the General Preferences dialog and moved some options to it.  This new tab is called the Message List tab and contains the options having to do with the formatting of the Message List pane.

We added new Navigation menu options to Skip to or View the next unread message body.  You can use these commands to jump to the next unread message for which a body has been retrieved, skipping over other unread messages that have not been retrieved.  The keyboard accelerators for these features are B and Ctrl+B, respectively.

We have added options in the Marking Read tab of the Group Properties dialog box for marking only messages without bodies read when retrieving new headers or marked message bodies.  For example, you can now configure Free Agent to mark all message headers read, but leave unread message bodies alone when you retrieve new headers.

If Free Agent is configured to mark all messages read when you jump to a new group, and if Free Agent is configured to automatically skip to the next unread message when you Watch, Ignore, or Mark for Retrieval, Free Agent will now mark all messages read in the old group when it skips to the new group.

Added a new menu option, Navigate | Single-Key Read, which has the SPACE key as its accelerator.  This option pages down through the current message.  When it reaches the end of the message, it jumps to the next unread message.   You can control which message it jumps to with a new option on the Navigation tab of the General Preferences dialog box, "Single-Key Read views next unread message body."  When this option is checked, Free Agent views the next unread message with a body (as if you pressed Ctrl+B).  When this option is unchecked and the focus is in the Message List pane, Free Agent will skip to the next unread message (as if you pressed N).   Typically, you would check the option if you read messages offline, and uncheck it if you read online.

Changed Free Agent so that if "Skipping to next unread message jumps to the first unread message in next group" is unchecked and you are at the end of a group, the Single-Key command will put you back in the Group pane without jumpting to the next group with an unread message.

Keyboard Accelerators and Command Names

The Save Binary function has been renamed Decode Binary.  Its new accelerator is Ctrl+D (used to be Ctrl+B).

The accelerator for Launch Binary (used to be Ctrl+Shift+B) is now Ctrl+L.

To be consistent with other attachment commands, the command "Manually Save Binary Attachment" is now "Manually Decode Binary Attachment."  This did not involve any accelerator changes.

The new navigation features, Skip to and View Next Unread with Body, now uses B and Ctrl+B as the keyboard accelerators.  (See above.)

The accelerator Ctrl+M has been added for posting new email messages.

Formerly undocumented accelerators (G - go to Group pane, A - go to Article pane, and B - go to Body pane) have been changed to 1,2,3.

Added Ctrl+H and H as keyboard accelerators to toggle "Show All Header Fields."

Winsock

The AGENT.INI parameter [Online]UnloadWinsock has been replaced by two new AGENT.INI parameters [Online]LoadWinsockOnStartup16 and [Online]LoadWinsockOnStartup32.

There is a new checkbox for this option on the Online tab of the General Preferences dialog box.

·	When this option is checked, Free Agent loads Winsock immediately on program startup and unloads it on program exit.

·	When this option is unchecked, Free Agent loads Winsock when it goes online and unloads it when it goes offline.

In some cases, Winsock will report that your own computer's name is blank.  If this happens, Free Agent now uses "unknown" instead of the blank name in the SMTP HELO command.  Using a blank name caused the email server to report Error 501.

The X-Attachment field is now visible when displaying all header fields for an email message.  This field contains the name of any attached file.

Email

On the composition window for email messages, the Cc is now in its own edit control field.  This makes it easier to Cc your email messages.

"Re:" is no longer prepended to the subjects of forwarded email messages.

Added the "Organization" field to the list of fields you can set in email messages.

Free Agent no longer includes the Newsgroups: field in email replies to Usenet messages, unless the same reply is also posted as a Usenet follow-up message.

Free Agent now accepts email addresses without the "@domain" part.  Addresses with just the @ are also acceptable.  Free Agent does not try to determine the actual domain for the address.  Rather, it sends the address as is to the mail server, and lets it deal with it.  Most mail servers automatically assume the server's local domain if no domain is supplied.

Fixed a problem which prevented Free Agent from accepting some less common formats for email addresses.

Fixed a problem that could result in "error 550: User Unknown" when sending an email message.  This occurred if you had your field defaults set to always CC: yourself, and then you overrode that for an individual email by blanking the CC: field in the outgoing post.

Fixed a problem that was allowing email recipients to see who was BCCed on the email.  Free Agent now omits the Bcc field from the message when it is sent.

Fixed error that could cause "503 need RCPT posting email" error message.

Composition Window

Eliminated the overlap of the "Fields" listbox and the "Value for" field.  (The overlap only occurred with certain configurations.)

Removed the 60K size restriction in the composition and message window.

Fixed a bug that could make Free Agent hang while word-wrapping very long message that contained no hard carriage returns.

Added an end-of-message marker in composition window.

Fixed a bug in the function that calculates the space consumed by tabs, which is used to determine when to wrap lines in messages being formatted for transmission.  Also fixed a problem that caused text to be wrapped incorrectly when displaying messages.

Fixed a GPF that could occur if you entered a very long field value in the "Value for:" edit control on the composition window.

Fixed a problem in the composition window which could cause text to be garbled or disappear after pasting text that came from a UNIX machine (UNIX machines use a single \n character as a line terminator instead of \r\n pairs).

Fixed a problem which could make new text wrap incorrectly in the composition window if you included one of your quote characters (i.e. >) in the newly typed text.

Miscellaneous Features

Free Agent now keeps track of ranges of retrieved messages instead of only the highest message retrieved.  This fixes the problem (experienced by many Demon users) where Free Agent was not retrieving all messages due to non-sequential message IDs on the news server.

Free Agent now has a new option which allows you to control whether or not Agent keeps track of gaps in the range of retrieved messages.  See the Retrieving tab of the Default Group Properties dialog box.  The option is Server Creates messages out of order.

·	When this option is checked, Free Agent always records any gaps in the list of messages that it has retrieved so that it can check for new messages in the gaps the next time it retrieves new headers.

·	When this option is not checked, Free Agent records the range of retrieved messages from the lowest message retrieved through the highest, ignoring gaps.  Since most news servers don't add messages out of order (Demon's server being an exception), you can probably leave this unchecked.  Unchecking it will generally improve performance.

Demon's LISTGROUP command (which Free Agent uses) returns a list of all message numbers in the range of numbers reported by the GROUP command, even if some of those messages are unavailable.  Since the LISTGROUP report is useless for filtering the set of messages to be retrieved, Agent will now do XHDR instead.  XHDR is slower because it retrieves about twice as much text, but it reports the correct information about which messages are available.  Agent will do XHDR if "Server creates messages out of order" is checked.

When you sample <n> messages, Agent will now record the range for the retrieved messages as if all messages prior to the <n> you tried to sample have already been retrieved.

Free Agent can now handle tabs in message fields.  Previously, if a message field contained a tab, Agent would garble the message header information in the Message List pane.

Free Agent now builds a fresh copy of RANGES.DAT whenever you do Online | Refresh Groups or Online | Get New Groups (and there are new groups).  Previously, Free Agent simply updated the existing copy of the file.  Building a fresh copy compacts the file and fixes any damaged data from the old file.

Free Agent now creates message headers with "Message-ID" instead of "Message-Id" because the latter was not recognized by some programs.

Free Agent now updates the DAT and IDX files more frequently so that data is less likely to be lost in the event of a power failure or PC crash.

Added a new checkbox at the bottom of the Fonts tab on the General Preferences dialog box.  When this option is checked, Free Agent uses the variable-pitch body font for the Message pane header and for the Subject field on the composition window.  Otherwise, it uses the default system font.  Note:  you only need to check this option if you have selected a font that does not use the default Window character set and you want text in the different character set to be displayed correctly on the Message pane header and in the subject edit field.

You can now use the F3 key to Find Next in the message composition window.

Added a Confirmations option that controls whether Free Agent should prompt for confirmation before marking all messages in ALL groups read.  Previously, the confirmation option for selected groups also controlled the ALL groups command.

If you have queued messages when you close Free Agent, a Yes/No/Cancel message box will be displayed.  Select Yes if you want Free Agent to send the messages.  Select No to close Free Agent without sending the messages.  Select Cancel if you don't want to close Free Agent or send the messages.  This feature is enabled by the "Send Queued messages when closing application" checkbox on the Confirmations tab of the General Preferences dialog box and by the AGENT.INI parameter [Confirm]SendOnClose=1.

Added a progress indicator when downloading message bodies.  Among other things, you can now tell how much progress you're making on each part of a binary download.  It is currently controlled by two INI options:

[View]

ProgressStyle=0

ProgressDelay=1000

When opening any of the tabbed dialogs (e.g., General Preferences, Properties for Selected Group), Free Agent now automatically selects the tab you were viewing the last time you had the dialog open.

Added support for "poster" in the Followup-To field.  When posting a Usenet article, if you wish to have follow-up messages sent to you via email, set the Followup-To field to "poster".  If you follow up to a message with "poster" in the Followup-To field, Free Agent now creates an email message composition window rather than a news message composition window.

The menus have been changed to follow the new MS guidelines for using menu ellipses.

Modified the right mouse button behavior to work like Windows 95, which also allows you to select items from the context menus with either the right or left buttons.  To revert to the old behavior, edit the following line in AGENT.INI:

[Browser]

RightButtonSelects=0

Added protection against automatically launching executable binary attachments.  For details, see the Confirmations tab of the General Preferences dialog box.

You can now choose which fields appear at the top of message bodies.  See AGENT.INI for details.

Added a Table of Contents to the AGENT.INI help topic.

When Free Agent is configured to thread by subject, it no longer groups all messages with a blank subject in a single thread.  Messages with blank subjects are now left in separate threads.

When you delete messages, the confirmation dialog now includes the number of messages you are about to delete, to help you avoid mistakenly deleting the wrong messages.

Free Agent will now update the AGENT.INI file with new parameters.  There is a new AGENT.INI option, [Profile]Build, which identifies the version and build most recently run.  Each time Free Agent starts, it checks this parameter.  If the parameter does not match Free Agent's current version and build, Free Agent writes any missing parameters to the file, assigning default values to the new parameters.

On the Attachments tab of the Posting Preferences dialog box, the default value for the Lines per Message field has been increased from 900 to 10,000.

Free Agent now generates its own message IDs when posting messages.  You can disable this feature (if Free Agent's message IDs disagree with your news server) with the following INI option:

[Message]

GenerateId=0

Added a Cancel button to the "Skip to Next Unread Group" message box.

You can now selectively specify the header fields to use when printing.

Enhanced the behavior when replying to a Usenet message which has the "Reply-To:" field set to "poster".  Free Agent now pops up a dialog which gives you the choice of (1) replying to the poster via email, (2) posting a Usenet message AND CCing the poster via email, or (3) just posting a Usenet message.

Free Agent now supports the "In-Reply-To:" field (which identifies the specific message to which the reply pertains).

Free Agent now recognizes "UTC" when parsing the date/times of messages.

Free Agent now displays a warning message if you attempt to use "Save As" on a header with no body text.

Free Agent now allows you to select text in read-only windows (i.e., in the message body pane) with the keyboard.  Previously, you could only use the mouse to select text.  To select text with the keyboard, turn off Scroll Lock on your keyboard.

Added end-of-message marker in the message body pane.

You can now use the F3 key to Find Next in the message composition window.

The Reply-To field may now contain more than one email address.

Free Agent now always asks for confirmation if you attempt to delete a message and any text is selected in the message body.  This is to help users keep from accidentally deleting a message when they intended to delete a text selection.

The Print dialog now allows you to select the range of pages to be printed.

Miscellaneous Bug Fixes

Fixed a bug where Free Agent asked if you wanted to discard changes in a message after the message had already been changed.

Fixed a GPF which could occur when closing Free Agent.

Fixed a bug that caused browsers to sometimes fail to redraw correctly when you resized a window.

Fixed a bug that could cause Free Agent to delete the wrong message if new messages were received while the "Are you sure?" confirmation dialog box was displayed.

Fixed a bug that caused Free Agent to GPF when doing certain Find operations.

Fixed a bug that caused Free Agent to incorrectly decode certain binary attachments.  This bug only affected binaries that were decoded from messages whose bodies were already retrieved, or from email messages.

Fixed a bug which caused Free Agent to fail to remember the directory last used in the Save Messages As dialog.

Fixed a problem in which Free Agent was stopping all online tasks even if you answered "No" to the "Stop all online tasks?" prompt.

Fixed a problem which caused a "435 Duplicate" error when posting multi-part Usenet messages.

Fixed some problems in controlling the scroll lock light.  Now Free Agent maintains its internal state and its own scroll indicator, but does not enable/disable the keyboard scroll lock light.

Bullet-proofed against date/time calculation errors.

Fixed a GPF that occurred when trying to repaint an empty Body pane (after an operation such as resizing, scrolling, pressing a key, clicking in empty window).

Fixed a problem that prevented a right-mouse click from changing the window focus.  This occurred when you had two Newsgroup windows open and switched between them by clicking with the right-mouse button.

Fixed a problem that could lead to an "out of memory" error when deleting messages.  This generally occurred if you pressed Delete in an empty message list.

Fixed a problem that could cause Free Agent to hang or GPF if it read a message header which contained a References field with contained the message's own message id.  (We found another newsreader that incorrectly generated messages with this problem.)

Fixed a problem that was causing Free Agent to access the hard drive every second or so.  This problem only occurred if you were not running a disk cache program, such as SmartDrive.

Fixed a problem which could cause a GPF @ 0001:4F93 or cause Free Agent to hang when merging in new headers.  These cases were due to messages that had a Reference: field that contained references to themselves.

Fixed a problem that could cause the body pane to reset to the top when you pressed a key that changed the state of the message (i.e. Keep, Ignore).

Fixed GPF @ 0014:F9C7 which occurred if the data and/or shared directories specified in AGENT.INI no longer existed.

Fixed bug which could cause Free Agent to hang on some servers when it tried to retrieve a message that was no longer available.

Fixed a bug which made it impossible to resize the browser panes after a browser window had been minimized and then restored.

Fixed a bug that could cause the percent-saved value calculated by the compaction operation to be incorrect.

Pressing Page Up while on the first page now causes Free Agent to scroll up to the first line of the page.

Double-spaced text no longer appears single-spaced when scrolling forward.

Fixed a bug that would cause the From field to get mangled if the field contained a syntax error and you either fixed the error or chose to leave it unchanged.

When importing messages from Unix-format files, Free Agent ignored messages for which the From line contained a timezone field.  Free Agent now recognizes these messages.

When you delete messages, the confirmation prompt includes the number of message to be deleted.  This count used to include messages that were marked "keep" and would not actually be deleted.  Now, the count excludes kept messages.


Release Notes

Version 1.0e

These Release Notes contain a detailed description of the new features and bug fixes in Agent 99e.  If you are upgrading from an earlier version of Agent to Agent 99e, you will notice several things that have changed from previous versions.  In particular, PLEASE NOTE some significant changes in the menus and dialog box tabs.

Enhancements

•	You can now create filters to Kill and Watch Usenet messages based on the author and subject fields.

•	You can now define multiple languages (up to 255).  For each language, you can specify what fonts to use for the message list and message body panes and what spell-checker to use when composing messages.

Each group has a particular language associated with it.  Thus, when you select a group, the message list and message body panes use the fonts for that group's language.

•	Agent now keeps track of ranges of retrieved messages instead of only the highest message retrieved.  This fixes the problem (experienced by many Demon users) where Agent was not retrieving all messages due to non-sequential message IDs on the news server.

•	Agent now has a new option which allows you to control whether or not Agent keeps track of gaps in the range of retrieved messages.  See the Retrieving tab of the Default Group Properties dialog box.  The option is Server Creates messages out of order.

−	When this option is checked, Agent always records any gaps in the list of messages that it has retrieved so that it can check for new messages in the gaps the next time it retrieves new headers.

−	When this option is not checked, Agent records the range of retrieved messages from the lowest message retrieved through the highest, ignoring gaps.  Since most news servers don't add messages out of order (Demon's server being an exception), you can probably leave this unchecked.  Unchecking it will generally improve performance.

•	Agent now creates message headers with "Message-ID" instead of "Message-Id" because the latter was not recognized by some programs.

•	Agent now updates the DAT and IDX files more frequently so that data is less likely to be lost in the event of a power failure or PC crash.

•	You can now use the F3 key to Find Next in the message composition window.

•	Added a Confirmations option that controls whether Agent should prompt for confirmation before marking all messages in ALL groups read.  Previously, the confirmation option for selected groups also controlled the ALL groups command.

•	The Print dialog now allows you to select the range of pages to be printed.

•	Single-Key Read is a new option on the Navigate menu.  The SPACE key is the accelerator for this option.  This option pages down through the current message.  When it reaches the end of the message, it jumps to the next unread message.

You can control which message it jumps to with a new option on the General Preferences | Navigation dialog, "Single-Key Read views next unread message body."  When this option is checked, Agent views the next unread message with a body (as if you pressed Ctrl+B).  If this option is not checked and the focus is in the message body pane, then SPACE will skip to the next unread message in the thread.  If this option is not checked and the focus is in the message list pane, SPACE will skip to the next unread message.  Typically, you would check the option if you read messages offline, and uncheck it if you read online.

Significant Interface Changes

•	The Preferences dialog box in the previous versions has now been split into two dialog boxes: General Preferences and Posting Preferences.

•	Message sampling has changed significantly.  Below are the major changes:

Empty Group Sample Size and View Empty Group Action are no longer group properties.  You can still set them on the Group Properties dialog, but they now apply to all groups.  If you configure Agent to prompt for action when viewing an empty group, you may now specify the sample count from the prompt dialog.

Note:  changing the value in the prompt dialog will also change the setting on the Group Properties dialog.

Sample Headers from Selected Groups (Online menu) will bring up a new dialog.  From it, you can choose to sample the <n> most recent messages, or messages from the last <n> days.  Agent will remember the last values you used.  In the past, many people would decrement the highest message retrieved number for a group, and get new headers to re-retrieve messages that had been deleted or purged.  This dialog provides a more convenient way to do the same thing.  Note that the sample count on this dialog is independent of the count on the empty group dialog, so changing this value won't affect the empty group sample size.

Miscellaneous Fixes

•	Fixed a GPF which could occur when closing Agent.

•	Fixed a bug that caused browsers to sometimes fail to redraw correctly when you resized a window.

•	Fixed a bug that could cause Agent to delete the wrong message if new messages were received while the "Are you sure?" confirmation dialog box was displayed.

•	Fixed a bug that caused Agent to GPF when doing certain Find operations.

•	Fixed a bug that caused Agent to incorrectly decode certain binary attachments.  This bug only affected binaries that were decoded from messages whose bodies were already retrieved, or from email messages.

•	Fixed a bug that would cause the From field to get mangled if the field contained a syntax error and you either fixed the error or chose to leave it unchanged.

•	When importing messages from Unix-format files, Agent ignored messages for which the From line contained a timezone field.  Agent now recognizes these messages.

•	When you delete messages, the confirmation prompt includes the number of messages to be deleted.  This count used to include messages that were marked "keep" and would not actually be deleted.  Now, the count excludes kept messages.

•	The "you have new email" status bar message is now cleared when you  mark read or delete unread mail messages.  Previously, the status bar was cleared only when you viewed an unread mail message.

•	Fixed a bug which caused the Save Messages As command to overwrite an existing file even after you told it not to.

•	The Reply-To field may now contain more than one email address.

•	Agent now always asks for confirmation if you attempt to delete a message and any text is selected in the message body.  This is to help users keep from accidentally deleting a message when they intended to delete a text selection.

•	Agent now displays a warning message if you use the expand addresses option to insert an address book entry into a message, when the entry has a Field Text value.

•	Fixed a bug which caused Agent to fail to remember the directory last used in the Save Messages As dialog.


Release Notes

Version 1.0d

The Release Notes contain a detailed description of the new features and bug fixes in Agent 99d.  If you are upgrading from an earlier version of Agent to Agent 99d, you will notice several things that have changed from previous versions.  In particular, PLEASE NOTE that we have changed the behavior of some of Agent's navigation features, based on feedback from many Agent users.

In previous versions of Agent, messages were automatically marked read whenever the message body was displayed in the body pane.  Many of our users complained that they accidentally marked messages read while scrolling through the list pane.  We have added a Preference setting that allows you to choose when Agent should automatically mark messages read (described in the Release Notes).  ** In particular, we have changed the default behavior so that Agent now only marks a message read when it is displayed in the body pane AND the body pane has the focus.** If you prefer the old behavior, you can change this setting on the Navigation tab of the Preferences dialog box.

We have also changed the keyboard accelerators that were used to Save/Launch Binary Attachments (described in the Release Notes).  We know that this is confusing for our power-keyboard-users, but when we added the new "Skip To/View Next Unread Message with Body" feature, we decided that B and Ctrl-B were the obvious choices for keyboard accelerators.  The Save Binary function has been renamed Decode Binary.  Its new accelerator is Ctrl-D (it used to be Ctrl-B).  The accelerator for Launch Binary (it used to be Ctrl-Shift-B) is now Ctrl-L.

  32-Bit Agent - We now have a 32-bit version of Agent.

We've added built-in support for dial-up networking, allowing Agent to automatically establish a dial-up connection when Agent goes online and hang up the connection when it goes offline.  Agent's DUN support is configured by the new Dial-Up tab of the Preferences dialog box.  This tab is present in 32-bit Agent only, and appears only if DUN has been installed on the computer.

When using Windows 95 or NT Dial-up Networking, Agent assumes that you are connected if ANY connection is active (even if it's not the one Agent is configured to use).  This is controlled by an AGENT.INI option, and appears on the Preferences dialog box's Dial-Up tab as the checkbox "If another connection is already open, use it instead."

The AGENT.INI option is:

[Online]

RasUseAny=1

You can now run multiple instances of 32-bit Agent simultaneously provided each instance is using a different data directory.

Email Enhancements and Bug Fixes - The following changes have been made.

•	The menu option Reply to All on the Post menu has been added for sending replies to Cc addresses.  This option is enabled only if a single email message is selected.  In the reply message created, the fields are initialized as follows:

To:  The author of the original message

Cc:  All addressees in the original message's To and Cc fields

Bcc: All addressees in the original message's Bcc field

Agent omits your own email address from the fields.

• 	On the composition window for email messages, the Cc is now in its own edit control field.  This makes it easier to Cc your email messages.

•	"Re:" is no longer prepended to the subjects of forwarded email messages.

•	Source routing addresses are now handled correctly in outgoing posts.

Navigation and Marking Messages Read

•	We added new Navigation menu options to Skip to or View the next unread message body.  You can use these commands to jump to the next unread message for which a body has been retrieved, skipping over other unread messages that have not been retrieved.  The keyboard accelerators for these features are B and Ctrl-B, respectively.

•	We have changed the criteria that Agent uses when automatically marking an article as "read".  The following options have been added to the Navigation tab of the Preferences dialog box:

Automatically mark articles read:

( ) Whenever the message body is visible in the Message pane

(x) Only when the Message pane is selected

( ) Never

We have chosen the second option, "Only when the Message pane is selected", as the default in order to avoid inadvertently marking articles read when you happen to select them in the Message List pane.

You can change it back to the old behavior by selecting the first option.

In order to make room for these options on the Navigation tab of the Preferences dialog box, we created a new tab on the Preferences dialog and moved some options to it.  This new tab is called Message List and contains the options having to do with the formatting of the Message List pane.

•	Added options in the Marking Read tab of the Group Properties dialog box for marking only messages without bodies read when retrieving new headers or marked message bodies.  For example, you can now configure Agent to mark all message headers read, but leave unread message bodies alone when you retrieve new headers.

•	If Agent is configured to mark all messages read when you jump to a new group, and if Agent is configured to automatically skip to the next unread message when you Watch, Ignore, or Mark for Retrieval, Agent will now mark all messages read in the old group when it skips to the new group.

Keyboard Accelerators

•	The accelerators used for the Save Binary and Launch Binary functions have been changed.

−	The Save Binary function has been renamed Decode Binary.  Its new accelerator is Ctrl-D (used to be Ctrl-B).

−	The accelerator for Launch Binary (used to be Ctrl-Shift-B) is now Ctrl-L.

−	To be consistent with other attachment commands, the command "Manually Save Binary Attachment" is now "Manually Decode Binary Attachment."  This did not involve any accelerator changes.

•	The new navigation features, Skip to and View Next Unread with Body, now uses B and Ctrl-B as the keyboard accelerators.

•	The accelerator for the new Reply to All feature is Shift+R.

•	The accelerator Ctrl+M has been added for posting new email messages.

•	Formerly undocumented accelerators (G - go to Group pane, A - go to Article pane and B - go to Body pane) have been changed to 1,2,3.

Winsock Related Changes

•	The AGENT.INI parameter [Online]UnloadWinsock has been replaced by two new AGENT.INI parameters [Online]LoadWinsockOnStartup16 and [Online]LoadWinsockOnStartup32.

•	There is a new checkbox for this option on the Online tab of the Preferences dialog box.

−	When this option is checked, Agent loads Winsock immediately on program startup and unloads it on program exit.

−	When this option is unchecked, Agent loads Winsock when it goes online and unloads it when it goes offline.  When using 32-bit Agent with the Windows 95 winsock, you'll want to leave this option enabled.

•	In some cases, winsock will report that your own computer's name is blank.  If this happens, Agent now uses "unknown" instead of the blank name in the SMTP HELO command.  Using a blank name caused the email server to report Error 501.

Miscellaneous - The following are some general changes that have been made.

•	When Agent is configured to thread by subject, it no longer groups all messages with a blank subject in a single thread.  Messages with blank subjects are now left in separate threads.

•	When you delete messages, the confirmation dialog now includes the number of messages you are about to delete, to help you avoid mistakenly deleting the wrong messages.

•	Fixed a bug which made it impossible to resize the browser panes after a browser window had been minimized and then restored.

•	Fixed a bug that could cause the percent-saved value calculated by the compaction operation to be incorrect.

•	Agent no longer includes the Newsgroups: field in email replies to Usenet messages, unless the same reply is also posted as a Usenet follow-up message.

•	If you have queued messages when you close Agent, a Yes/No/Cancel message box will be displayed.  Select Yes if you want Agent to send the messages.  Select No to close Agent without sending the messages.  Select Cancel if you don't want to close Agent or send the messages.  This feature is enabled by the "Send Queued messages when closing application" checkbox on the Confirmations tab of the Preferences dialog box and by the AGENT.INI parameter [Confirm]SendOnClose=1.

•	Agent will now update the AGENT.INI file with new parameters.  There is a new AGENT.INI option, [Profile]Build, which identifies the version and build most recently run.  Each time Agent starts, it checks this parameter.  If the parameter does not match Agent's current version and build, Agent writes any missing parameters to the file, assigning default values to the new parameters.

•	On the Attachments tab of the Preferences dialog box, the default value for the Lines per Message field has been increased from 900 to 10,000.

•	Pressing Page Up while on the first page now causes Agent to scroll up to the first line of the page.

•	Double-spaced text no longer appears single-spaced when scrolling forward.

Version 1.0c

You can now copy or move items from the Outbox to a folder.

Added a Table of Contents to the AGENT.INI help topic.

Agent now generates its own message IDs when posting messages.  This was done so that sent messages, when copied from the outbox to a folder, will thread correctly with replies to the sent messages.  You can disable this feature (if Agent's message IDs disagree with your news server) with the following INI option:

[Message]

GenerateId=0

You can now cancel a sent Usenet message that has been placed in a folder if you allow Agent to generate message ids (the new default).  This will allow you to cancel a message without first retrieving it from the news server.  If Agent does not generate the message id for the message, you must retrieve it from the news server before you can cancel it.

Added a Cancel button to the "Skip to Next Unread Group" message box.

After spell-checking a selected area of text, Agent no longer asks you if you want to start at the beginning of the message and spell check the entire message.

You can now selectively specify the header fields to use when printing.

Changed the way the progress bar works.  Hopefully, there's a setting to make everyone happy.  It is currently controlled by two INI options.  Click here for details.

Agent now accepts email messages of the form @x:foo@bar  (they're called "source routing addresses"), either with or without the enclosing <...>, and will pass the @x routing info to the mail server.  The full syntax of the routing (@x:) portion of the address is:

@<domain> [,@<domain>]*:

(This means that the routing info consists of one or more @<domain> components, separated by commas, with the whole thing followed by a colon).

Enhanced the behavior when replying to a Usenet message which has the "Reply-To:" field set to "poster".  Agent now pops up a dialog which gives you the choice of (1) replying to the poster via email, (2) posting a Usenet message AND CCing the poster via email, or (3) just posting a Usenet message.

Agent now accepts email addresses without the "@domain" part.  Addresses with just the @ are also acceptable.  Agent does not try to determine the actual domain for the address.  Rather, it sends the address as is to the mail server, and lets it deal with it.  Most mail servers automatically assume the server's local domain if no domain is supplied.

Agent now supports the "In-Reply-To:" field (which identifies the specific message to which the reply pertains).

The build number now includes a "32" or "16" to indicate whether you are using the 32-bit or 16-bit version of Agent.

Under Preferences->Posting, Agent was limiting the length of the "Reply to Email" and "Forwarded Email" introduction strings to the number of characters that fit on the screen.  This limit has been removed.

Agent now recognizes "UTC" when parsing the date/times of messages.

Agent now displays a warning message if you attempt to use "Save As" on a header with no body text.

When renaming a folder, the "new name" field automatically defaults to the old name to make it easier to edit.

Added end-of-message marker in the message body pane.

Agent now allows you to select text in read-only windows (i.e., in the message body pane) with the keyboard.  Previously, you could only use the mouse to select text.  To select text with the keyboard, turn off Scroll Lock on your keyboard.

Agent no longer spell-checks words that look like email addresses, domain names, URLs, etc.   Normally, this means that Agent will not try to spellcheck the introduction line, unless an email address contains a proper name.

Various bug-fixes and enhancements in the composition window, including:

•	Removed the 60K size restriction in composition and message window.

•	Fixed a bug that could make Agent hang while word-wrapping very long message that contained no hard carriage returns.

•	Some performance improvements

•	Added end-of-message marker in composition window

•	Fixed a bug in the function that calculates the space consumed by tabs, which is used to determine when to wrap lines in messages being formatted for transmission.  Also fixed problem that caused text to be wrapped incorrectly when displaying messages.

•	Fixed a GPF that could occur if you entered a very long field value in the "Value for:" edit control on the composition window.

Agent now remembers an message's original newsgroup.  This allows Agent to use the correct Group Properties, Introduction Strings, etc. when you reply to a message from a folder.  For messages created outside the context of a group (original email messages and Usenet messages created when no group is selected), Agent sets the field to blank, which will cause it to use the default group properties for the message.

Added the Post->New Copy of Message command.  This will allow you to resend a message that has been copied to a folder.

Explorer-style file dialogs in Windows 95.

Support for long filenames.

When opening any of the tabbed dialogs (e.g., Preferences, Properties for Selected Group), Agent now automatically selects the tab you were viewing the last time you had the dialog open.

Added new controls to the Attachments tab of the Properties for Selected Group and Default Properties for All Groups dialog boxes (Group menu).  When saving a binary attachment, you now have the option of using the name of the message as the attachment's filename.

Agent now uses the operating system's own timezone setting rather than storing an Agent-specific timezone.  The timezone setting controls no longer appear on the Preferences dialog.

Eliminated the hourglass when Agent does the merge/purge step after retrieving new headers.

Added the "Newsgroups:" header field on CCed copies of Usenet posts (so that when you get a copy of the email you get an indication in the header fields of what group it was associated with).

Fixed a problem in the composition window which could cause text to be garbled or disappear after pasting text that came from a UNIX machine (UNIX machines use a single \n character as a line terminator instead of \r\n pairs).

Fixed a problem which could prevent you from copying or moving a message into a folder because Agent would think you had already copied/moved it.  Agent now does a better job of checking for duplicates, and also lets you override the warning and copy the messages anyway.

Fixed a problem which prevented Agent from accepting some less common format for email addresses.

Fixed a problem in which Agent was stopping all online tasks even if you answered "No" to the "Stop all online tasks?" prompt.

Fixed a problem which caused a "435 Duplicate" error when posting multi-part Usenet messages.

Fixed a problem in which the 'Newsgroup:' header field was not being initialized correctly when displaying messages in a folder.

The X-Attachment field is now visible when displaying all header fields for an email message.  This field contains the name of any attached file.

Fixed an intermittent printer problem which could cause a generic "Error encountered during print" message running under Windows 95.

Fixed some problems in controlling the scroll lock light.  Now Agent maintains its internal state and its own scroll indicator, but does not enable/disable the keyboard scroll lock light.

Bullet-proofed against date/time calculation errors.

Fixed a GPF that occurred when trying to repaint an empty Body pane (after an operation such as resizing, scrolling, pressing a key, clicking in empty window).

Fixed a problem that prevented a right-mouse click from changing the window focus.  This occurred when you had two Newsgroup windows open and switched between them by clicking with the right-mouse button.

Fixed a problem that could lead to an "out of memory" error when deleting messages.  This generally occurred if you pressed Delete in an empty message list.

Fixed a GPF that could occur if you defined a folder before you got groups for the first time and then got new or refreshed the group list.

Fixed a GPF that could occur when you dragged and dropped a message with a long subject field.

Fixed two problems that could cause Agent to "unlock" messages when upgrading to Agent 99a or 99b from early version of Free Agent.

Fixed a problem in the French spell-checker.  It didn't deal with words that contained apostrophes.

Fixed a problem in which active retrieval tasks could be disrupted if you changed the sort in a group that had any messages queued for retrieval.  This resulted in Agent not retrieving all marked message bodies.

Fixed a problem that could result in "error 550: User Unknown" when sending an email message.  This occurred if you had your field defaults set to always CC: yourself, and then you overrode that for an individual email by blanking the CC: field in the outgoing post.

Fixed a problem that was allowing email recipients to see who was BCCed on the email.  Agent now omits the Bcc field from the message when it is sent.

Fixed a problem that caused an Ignored thread to be marked "unread" if it was moved to a folder.

Fixed a problem that could cause Agent to hang or GPF if it read a message header which contained a References field with contained the message's own message id.  (We found another newsreader that incorrectly generated messages with this problem.)

Fixed a problem which could make new text wrap incorrectly in the composition with if you included one of your quote characters (i.e. >) in the newly typed text.

Fixed a problem that caused the checkmark next to "Online->Debug log to Agent Log" not to be displayed.

Fixed a problem that was making the Tooltip help appear as a separate window on the Windows 95 taskbar.

Fixed a problem that was causing Agent to access the hard drive every second or so.  This problem only occurred if you were not running a disk cache program, such as SmartDrive.

Fixed a problem which could cause a GPF @ 0001:4F93 or cause Agent to hang when merging in new headers.  These cases were due to messages that had a Reference: field that contained references to themselves.

Fixed error that could cause "503 need RCPT posting email" error message.

Fixed a problem that could cause the body pane to reset to the top when you  pressed a key that changed the state of the message (i.e. Keep, Ignore).

Fixed problem in spell-checker that could cause it to jump over a misspelled word (after deleting a previous word).

The menus have been changed to follow the new MS guidelines for using menu ellipses.

Version 1.0b

Fixed a problem that would cause messages to be deleted when canceling a Move to Folder operation.

Fixed GPF @ 0014:F9C7 which occurred if the data and/or shared directories specified in AGENT.INI no longer existed.

Fixed a Skip to Next Unread problem when viewing a sorted group.  If you changed the sort for a group, but Agent hadn't actually re-sorted the group (it was part of a multiple selection), and you performed a skip to next unread that jumped into that group, Agent jumped to the first unread message in the old sort and then re-sorted.  The result is that you ended up in a random location in the message list.

Fixed a bug which causes the Watch and Ignore flags to not propagate correctly if you selected Watch or Ignore while the Message list was sorted by anything other than Thread.

Version 1.0a

Due to email's tight integration, we've made a minor yet pervasive change to our terminology.  We've replaced the word "Article" with "Message."

User-defined folders have been added.  Folders appear in the Group pane (which is now called the Groups/Folder pane) along with newsgroups.  The commands for adding, removing, and showing folders appear on the Group menu.  You can drag and drop messages into folders or use the Copy/Move to Folder options on the Message menu.  To have a folder appear on your Copy/Move to Folder flyouts, choose Manage Folder Menus from the Options menu.

You can now sort messages.  To sort the messages in a group or folder, choose the desired sort from the Group menu or simply click on the column label corresponding to the type of sort you want (e.g., click "Author" in the Message List pane to sort by author).  Note:  To sort by thread when viewing one of the other sorts, click on the "Status" column.  You can change order (ascending or descending) of the date, size, and author sorts with the Display tab of the Preferences dialog box (you must resort the Message List pane for these changes to take effect).

Added a progress indicator when downloading message bodies.  Among other things, you can now tell how much progress you're making on each part of a binary download.

Added support for "poster" in the follow-up field.   Here's how it works:

•	When posting a Usenet article, if you wish to have follow-up messages sent to you via email, set the Followup-To field to "poster".

•	If you followup to a message with "poster" in the Followup-To field, Agent now creates an email message composition window rather than a news message composition window.

Modified the right mouse button behavior to work like Windows 95, which also allows you to select items from the context menus with either the right or left buttons.  To revert to the old behavior, edit the following line in AGENT.INI:
[Browser]
RightButtonSelects=0

Added protection against automatically launching executable binary attachments.  For details, see the Confirmations tab of the Preferences dialog box.

You can now choose which fields appear at the top of message bodies.  See AGENT.INI for details.

Added Ctrl+H as a keyboard accelerator to toggle "Show All Header Fields."

Added the "Organization" field to the list of fields you can set in email messages.

Fixed bug which could cause Agent to hang on some servers when it tried to retrieve an message that was no longer available.


Build: 32 bit Free Agent:

YesFree:  Yes (Free Agent only topics)

YesOrder:  Yes (How to order Agent)

NoMSMain:  No (Newsreader Contents Graphic)

NoCRight:  No (Microsoft's copyright page statement)

YesFreeTech:  Yes (Free Agent Tech Support info)

YesTechless:  Yes (No Technical Support for IA)

NoIALicense:  No (Internet Americal License Agreement)

NoAgentLicense:  No (Agent License Agreement)

NoMail:  No (Receive email topics)

NoFolders:  No (All aspects of folders)

NoAddBook:  No (Address Book topics)

NoSpelling:  No (Spell check topics)

NoSorting:  No (Sorting topics)

YesBit32:  Yes (Features only available in the 32bit version)

Forté Free AgentFullName:  Forté Free Agent (The long name of the program)

AgentName:  Agent (The short name of the program)

agentLcName:  agent (The short name of the program)


Contents
Forté Free Agent Contents  -  Version 1.21

Forté Free Agent (hereafter referred to as "Agent") is a powerful and easy-to-use Usenet newsgroup reader.  It allows you to browse newsgroups both online and offline.  Before you start using Agent, please take a quick look at Getting Started.

For more information about using Agent, see How to Use Agent.

NOTE!  For full email support, a spell checker, sorting, customizable toolbars, and the ability to manage views, as well as numerous other advanced newsreading features, try Forté's inexpensive commercial version of Agent.  Take a look at all of the Agent Features you're currently missing by not upgrading to Agent.  To purchase your own copy of commercial Agent, see Ordering Agent.

If you have any comments, questions, or problems with Agent, see How to Receive Technical Support.

Agent's main window is divided into three panes, as shown below.  To familiarize yourself with the window and its contents, move the mouse over the picture.  When the cursor becomes a hand [image], click the mouse for pop-up help.

Copyrights

Credits

License Agreement


Binary Attachment Icon

This icon tells you that the message contains a binary attachment that has already been decoded.  Double-click the message to view the attachment.


Collapse Thread Icon

Click this icon to hide the message's responses.


Expand Thread Icon

Click this icon to show the message's responses.


Folder Icon

This icon represents a place where you can store messages.


Follow Up Message

A follow up message is a response to another posting.  Follow ups generally have the same subject as the original and appear indented below it.


Response Message
Follow Up Messages

These messages are responses to the one above them.  Since follow ups have the same subject as their parent, only the author is shown.


Groups

These are the Usenet newsgroups.  To retrieve message headers in a group, select the group and choose Get New Message Headers in Selected Groups from the Online menu.


Groups/Folders pane
Groups pane

This is where a list of newsgroups is displayed.  In this pane you can view all newsgroups, subscribed newsgroups, or only new newsgroups.  To change what is displayed in this pane, choose the appropriate option from the Group menu.

TIP: You can also change what is displayed by clicking the header text on the top of this pane.


Ignore Thread Icon

When this icon appears next to a Usenet message, Agent will not retrieve new responses to it.  To switch between ignoring and not ignoring a thread, select Ignore Thread from the Message menu.


Keep Message Icon

This icon tells you that Agent will not automatically delete (purge) the message.  To prevent a Usenet message from being automatically purged, select Keep Message from the Message menu.  To undo the Keep status, select Keep Message again.


Mark for Retrieval Icon

This icon tells you that the body of the associated Usenet message will be retrieved the next time you select Retrieve Marked Messages from the Online menu.

When this icon appears next to a group, one or more messages in the group are marked for retrieval.

To mark or unmark a message, select Mark for Retrieval from the Message menu.


Message Body

The actual text of a message.  The other components of a message, such as its subject, author, etc., are called the message's "header."


Message Body Icon

This icon tells you that the body of the message has been retrieved.


Message Body Not Available Icon

This icon tells you that the message has been deleted from your news server and is no longer available for retrieval.


Message Header

A brief description of a message.  A message's header contains key information about the message, such as its author and subject, but does not include the text, or "body," of the message itself.


Message List pane

This is where the messages in the selected group are displayed.  To view messages in another group, select it in the Groups pane.

TIP: You can change the sort of the Message List by clicking the column headings.


Message pane

This is where a message's text is displayed.  To view a different message's body, select the message in the Message List pane.


Message with Attachment

This message contains a binary attachment.  To decode an attachment, choose Launch Binary Attachments from the File menu.


New Group Icon

This icon appears next to new groups.  To get the list of groups that have been added to your news server since the last time you retrieved groups, select Get New Groups from the Online menu.


Number of Lines

This is the number of lines in the message.


Number of Responses

This is the number of responses to the message.  To view the responses, click the Expand Thread icon [image].


Unread Message

When a message header is displayed in this color it means that you have not yet viewed the message's body.


Read Message

When a message header is displayed in this color it means that you have already viewed the message's body.


Retrieval Icon

This icon tells you that the body of the message is currently being retrieved.


Status Bar

This area displays information about Agent such as the online status (online or offline), the current task, and the number of queued tasks.


Subscribed Group Icon

This icon appears next to subscribed groups.  To switch between subscribing and unsubscribing to a group, select Subscribe from the Group menu.  To view only your subscribed groups, select Subscribed Groups from the Show flyout on Group menu.


Thread

A thread is a series of related messages grouped together.  For example, when people post responses to a question, the question and all responses together are called a thread.


Toolbar

The toolbar contains buttons which give you fast access to the most common actions in Agent.

To see what a particular toolbar button does, move the mouse cursor over the button in Agent and a ToolTip box will appear with the button's name.


Unread Counter

This number shows you how many messages in the associated group  you have not yet read.


Watch Thread Icon

This icon tells you that Agent will automatically retrieve the bodies of new responses to this Usenet message when retrieving new message headers.  To switch between watching and not watching a thread, select Watch Thread from the Message menu.


Zoom Button

Press this button to maximize the Groups, Message List, or Message pane.  To restore the window back to showing all three panes, press the button that looks like this [image].


Getting Started

Getting up and running with Agent is simple.  Just follow the steps below and you'll be reading messages in no time.

1.	Set your online preferences.

Choose General Preferences from the Options menu and select the Online tab.  If you wish to stay online with your service provider while using Agent, press the Use Online Defaults button.  If you wish to minimize your time online, press the Use Offline Defaults button.

2.	Get a list of groups.

If you did not copy the list of newsgroups from another program or retrieve a complete list when you first started Agent, select Refresh Group List from the Online menu.  Since there are several thousand groups, this may take a while.  Once the groups are retrieved, Agent will display them in the Groups pane.

3.	Subscribe to groups.

Scan through the list of groups for ones you want to follow regularly.  To find a particular group, choose Find from the Edit menu.

When you find a group that may be of interest, double-click it and the View Empty Group dialog box will appear.

•	If you want to get a feel for the group before subscribing, press the Sample Message Headers button.

•	If you know you're interested in the group, press the Subscribe to Group button.

If you decide later that you're interested in a group, you can subscribe to it by selecting Subscribe from the Group menu.  A newspaper [image] appears next to each subscribed group.

To unsubscribe from the group, choose the Subscribe menu option again.

4.	View only subscribed groups.

From the Group menu, choose Subscribed Groups from the Show flyout menu.  Now your Groups pane is filtered to show only the groups you're interested in.  To view all groups again, select All Groups from the Show flyout on the Group menu.

5.	Retrieve message headers in your subscribed groups.

Choose Get New Headers in Subscribed Groups from the Online menu to download all the message headers in all your subscribed groups.

There may be several hundred new messages for each group so this operation may take a while.  But, since Agent retrieves messages in the background, you can use your computer for other tasks while Agent is working.

6.	Browse the message headers.

Once the message headers are retrieved, browse them to see which ones interest you.  If you're using the online defaults, simply double-click or press Enter on a message to retrieve it (see How to Use Agent as an Online Newsreader for more information).  If you're using the offline defaults, mark all the messages in which you're interested.  To mark a message, select it and press "M" or choose Mark for Retrieval from the Message menu.  When a message is marked, the download arrow [image] appears next to it.

7.	Retrieve marked messages.

If you're using the offline defaults, you marked several messages in the previous step.  To retrieve the full text of all marked messages, select Get Marked Message Bodies from the Online menu.  See How to Use Agent as an Offline Newsreader for more information.

TIP: Clicking the right mouse button in a window displays a Context menu, a context-sensitive list of common operations.  Simply select an option from the list to quickly perform that action.

See Also:

How to Use Agent


Agent Features

Forté's commercial newsreader, Agent 1.7 includes all the following features:

Spell Checker

100,000+ word dictionary with language specific dictionaries available.  Custom dictionary for adding your own words.

Folders

Store messages in user-defined folders.

Kill Lists

Automatically ignore messages based on the subject, author, or message length.

Watch Lists

Automatically retrieve messages based on the subject, author, or message length.

Sorting

Display messages in various orders.  E.g., By author or date.

Filtering

Show only a subset of the messages.  E.g., Show only unread messages.

Launch URL's

Automatically run your WWW browser or FTP program when you find an interesting URL (e.g., <http://www.forteinc.com/>) in a message.

Read/Write newsrc Files

Support the use of multiple newsreaders (e.g., one at home and another one at work).  Keeps track of which messages have been read by both programs.

Enhanced Cross-Post Management

Reading a cross-posted message in one group marks it read in all other groups.

Customizable Toolbars

Choose which commands appear on Agent's toolbars and what size you want the toolbar buttons to be.

Manage Views

Tell Agent which types of messages you want to appear in the Message List pane (e.g., all messages, or only unread messages).

International Character Support

Display characters from various languages in messages using the standard MIME format.

MAPI Support

Integrate Agent email with the corporate email system.

Receive Email

Receive email from POP and SMTP mail servers.

Support for MIME Attachments

Encode and decode attachments using the email standard MIME format.

Address Book

Keep track of people's email addresses and various other information.

Support for Microsoft Intellimouse

You can scroll in Agent's panes and browsers using the Intellimouse ball.

For more information on Agent's features, see Forté's home page at <http://www.forteinc.com>.  To purchase your own copy of Agent, see Ordering Agent.


MIME format

MIME stands for Multi-purpose Internet Mail Extensions.  It is a specification used on the Internet and Usenet, which allows users:

•	to interchange text in languages with different character sets

•	to send and receive messages among different computer systems that use Internet mail standards

MIME format is the format for encoding attachments that conforms to this widely used standard for message transferral.  When you specify the MIME format in your Agent settings, Agent formats the message body and each attachment into individual sections, each separated by a special boundary line.  If, however, a MIME message consists of a single attachment and if the body is empty, Agent collapses the attachment into a single part message, thus providing for smoother launching at the receiving end.


Ordering Agent

Forté offers Agent 1.7, our commercial news and mail reader product and is available in both 16-bit and 32-bit versions.  Agent includes all the features of Free Agent plus a multilingual spelling checker, email functionality, address book, folders, kill and watch filters, sorting, customizable toolbars, and the ability to manage views.  Also, there is free technical support via email for the first 90 days after your purchase of Agent 1.7.  Note:  Forté does not provide telephone support to individual customers.

You can purchase Agent 1.7 in any of the following ways:

1.	Through the World Wide Web.  This is the fastest and easiest way to get Agent.  Forté's ordering page is on a secure Netscape Commerce Server, ensuring that your confidential information remains confidential.  For details on ordering Agent through the Web, please see our home page at www.forteinc.com.

2.	If you don't have convenient Web access, the next best way to order Agent is by fax or mail.  Simply print out and complete the Agent Order Form and either fax it to Forté's Agent Order Desk in Carlsbad, California at 619.431.6497 or mail it to:
Agent 1.7
c/o Forté
2141 Palomar Airport Road
Suite 200
Carlsbad, CA 92009

3.	Company Purchase Orders.  For information on purchasing Agent for your company, send an email message to agent-info@forteinc.com.  Please note that the minimum order quantity for Purchase Orders is 10 units.

Visit our World Wide Web site at www.forteinc.com for more details.


How to Receive Technical Support

Forté does not provide direct technical support to Forté Free Agent users.  You can, however, receive help with the program from other users by posting your question in one of the following newsgroups:

•	alt.usenet.offline-reader.forte-agent

•	comp.os.ms-windows.apps.winsock.news

Information about the latest Agent release and answers to the most frequently asked questions can be found on Forté's Web site at http://www.forteinc.com.

Note: If you find a bug in the program, you can still contact Forté via email at:

agent-bugs@forteinc.com

See Also:

Frequently Asked Questions


How to Receive Technical Support

Agent users are entitled to technical support via email for 90 days after the release of Agent 1.7.  If you're having a problem using Agent, you can send us an email by choosing Support Question from the Post menu.  This option will start a properly addressed and formatted message for your question.  If, for some reason, you cannot post messages from Agent, send your question to agent-support@forteinc.com.  Be sure to include your serial number in the email if you do not send it from Agent.  The serial number can be found on the About Agent screen accessible from the Help menu.

If you have a site-based version of Agent, the Support Question menu option is not present.  Please contact your system administrator if you are having problems.

Information about the latest Agent release and answers to the most frequently asked questions can be found on our Web site at http://www.forteinc.com.  For those without convenient Web access, we have prepared a downloadable file containing the text (in HTML format) of our web pages.  You can find this file on our FTP site at ftp.forteinc.com/pub/support.zip.

You can also receive support through various newsgroups:

•	alt.usenet.offline-reader.forte-agent

•	comp.os.ms-windows.apps.winsock.news

See Also:

Frequently Asked Questions


Copyrights

Free Agent and Agent are trademarks and Forté is a registered trademark of Forté Advanced Management Software Inc.  Copyright © Forté 1999.

Eudora™ is a trademark of the University of Illinois Board of Trustees, licensed to QUALCOMM Inc.

Microsoft is a registered trademark and Explorer, MS-DOS, and Windows are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation.

Mosaic is a trademark of the University of Illinois.

Netscape is a trademark of Netscape Communications Corporation.

Pegasus is a trademark of David Harris, all rights reserved.

PKZIP is a trademark of PKWARE Inc.

UDEC is a trademark of Peter Liebel, all rights reserved.

Wincode is a trademark of Snappy, Inc.


Credits

To see Agent's illustrious Development and Support team, take a look at Forté's web site.  The URL is:

http://www.forteinc.com/agent/team.htm


License Agreement
 FORTE Software License Agreement

1.	License.  FORTE Advanced Management Software Inc. ("FORTE"), subject to the conditions contained herein, grants you a non-exclusive license to use this proprietary software product Free Agent ("Software") free of charge.

2.	Restrictions.  This License allows the Licensee to exercise the rights granted herein and must be retained by Licensee.  Licensee may not rent, lease or otherwise transfer any part of the Software or its accompanying documentation.  Licensee may make a limited number of copies of the Software specified by the number of licensed Users as well as a reasonable number of back-up copies.  The Software contains FORTE's copyrighted material, trade secrets and other proprietary material.  Licensee must reproduce the FORTE copyright notice and any other proprietary notices found on the original Software on all copies of the Software. Licensee shall not, without prior written permission from FORTE, nor permit anyone else, to decompile, reverse engineer, disassemble or otherwise reduce the Software to a human perceivable form, or to rent, lease, modify, network, distribute, loan, or create derivative works based upon the Software or its documentation in whole or in part. Any and all information obtained during such unlawful reverse engineering and/or decompiling activities, including but not limited to, the organization, logic, algorithms and processes of the Software, shall be deemed to be confidential and proprietary information of FORTE. Licensee shall not make copies of any documentation accompanying the Software without prior written permission of FORTE.

If Licensee receives the first copy of the Software electronically, and a second copy on media, the second copy may be used for backup and archive purposes only. This License does not grant Licensee any right to receive enhancements or updates to the Software or accompanying documentation.  Enhancements and updates, if available, may be obtained by Licensee at FORTE's then-current standard pricing, terms, and conditions. Title, ownership rights, and intellectual property rights to content accessed through the Software is the property of the applicable content owner and may be protected by applicable copyright or other law. This License gives Licensee no rights to such content. FORTE may furnish the Software and On-Line Help to Licensee electronically or on media in machine-readable

object code form.

3.	Technical Support.  Technical Support is not provided by FORTE for the product.  Technical Support may be provided by the Service Provider distributing the product at Service Provider's option.  FORTE may, at its discretion, provide updates to the Software. Upgrades to the Software and its documentation, if any, are not included and may be sold separately.

4.	Limited Warranty of Diskettes.  If FORTE provides the Software on diskettes, it will warrant the Software diskettes to be free from defects in materials and workmanship under normal use for a period of ninety (90) days from the date of purchase. FORTE's entire liability and Licensee's exclusive remedy will be limited to replacement of the defective diskettes upon return to the place of purchase within the warranty period. FORTE will not be responsible for replacement of any diskette damaged by accident, abuse or misapplication.  ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES ON THE SOFTWARE DISKETTES INCLUDING THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE LIMITED IN DURATION TO NINETY (90) DAYS FROM THE DATE OF PURCHASE.

5.	Disclaimer of Warranty.  Licensee acknowledges and agrees that the use of the Software and all accompanying documentation is at Licensee's sole risk. The Software and documentation are provided "AS IS" and without warranty of any kind. TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED UNDER APPLICABLE LAWS, THE STATED WARRANTIES ARE IN LIEU OF ALL OTHER WARRANTIES, WRITTEN OR ORAL, STATUTORY, EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION THERETO, THE WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY, THE WARRANTY OF FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE,  AND NONINFRINGEMENT. FORTE DOES NOT WARRANT THAT THE FUNCTIONS CONTAINED IN THE SOFTWARE WILL MEET LICENSEE'S REQUIREMENTS, OR THAT THE OPERATION OF THE SOFTWARE WILL BE FREE OF ERRORS. FORTE SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OF ANY NATURE OR FOR ANY REASON, OR FOR COMMERCIAL LOSSES OF ANY CAUSE, WHETHER OR NOT FORTE HAS RECEIVED NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OR CERTAINTY OF SUCH DAMAGES OR LOSSES. CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES INCLUDE ANY LOSS OF INFORMATION, DAMAGE TO COMPUTER OR MONITOR, LOSS OF PROFITS, BUSINESS INTERRUPTIONS AND ANY OTHER MONETARY LOSS.

6.	Limitation of Liability.  TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED UNDER APPLICABLE LAWS, UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES, INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE, SHALL FORTE AND ITS DIRECTORS, OFFICERS, EMPLOYEES, OR AGENTS BE LIABLE FOR ANY INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING DAMAGES FOR LOSS OF BUSINESS PROFITS, BUSINESS INTERRUPTION, LOSS OF BUSINESS INFORMATION AND THE LIKE) ARISING OUT OF THE USE OF OR INABILITY TO USE THE SOFTWARE OR ITS DOCUMENTATION, EVEN IF FORTE OR ITS AUTHORIZED REPRESENTATIVE HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. In no event shall FORTE's total liability to Licensee for all damages, losses, and causes of action (whether in contract, tort, including negligence, or otherwise) exceed the amount paid by Licensee for the Software and its documentation.

7.	No Waiver or Assignment.  This License may not be assigned, sublicensed or otherwise transferred by the Licensee, by operation of law or otherwise, without FORTE's prior written consent.

8.	U.S. Government Restricted Rights: The Software and its documentation are provided with RESTRICTED RIGHTS. Use, duplication, or disclosure by the Government is subject to restriction as set forth in subparagraph (c)(1)(ii) of the Rights in Technical Data and Computer Software clause at DFARS 252.227-7013 or subparagraphs (c)(1) and (2) of the Commercial Computer Software - Restricted Rights at 48 CFR 52.227-19, as  applicable. Contractor/ manufacturer is FORTE, 2141 Palomar Airport Road, Suite 200, Carlsbad, California 92009.

9.	Export Controls.  Licensee may not download or export the Software or its technology except in full compliance with all United States regulations and laws.  The Software or technology may not be downloaded or exported to a national or resident from Cuba, Haiti, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Syria, Yugoslavia, or any other country subject to a United States embargo.

10.	Termination.  This agreement may be terminated immediately by either party in the event of default by the other party. If this Agreement is terminated, Licensee will immediately discontinue use of the Software and shall return all copies of the Software and its documentation to FORTE within fourteen (14) days. Licensee may also terminate this Agreement at any time by destroying all copies of the Software and its documentation.

11.	General.  This Agreement represents the only statement of the terms relative to this license between the parties and supersedes any previous agreements or representations. This Agreement may only be amended in writing, and must be executed by both parties. FORTE IS NOT BOUND BY ANY PROVISION OF ANY PURCHASE ORDER, RECEIPT, ACCEPTANCE, CONFIRMATION, CORRESPONDENCE, OR OTHERWISE UNLESS FORTE SPECIFICALLY AGREES TO THE PROVISION IN WRITING. If any section of this Agreement is held to be unenforceable for any reason, the section shall be reformed only to the extent necessary to make it enforceable. This Agreement shall be governed by United States and California law.


Common Internet Acronyms

AFAIK	As far as I know
<BG>	Big Grin
<g>	Grin
BRB	Be right back
BTW	By the way
CP	Copy protection
FUBAR	Fouled up beyond all recognition (or repair)
FWIW	For what it's worth
FYI	For your information
GD&WVVF	Grinning, ducking, and walking very, very fast
GR&D	Grinning, running, and ducking
IAE	In any event
IANAL	I am not a Lawyer
IMHO	In my humble opinion
IMO	In my opinion
IOW	In other words
LOL	Laughed out loud
LZ	Loser!
OIC	Oh, I see
OTOH	On the other hand
PITA	Pain in the A$$
PMJI	Pardon my jumping in
PMFJI	Pardon me for jumping in
ROFL	Rolling on floor, laughing
ROTFL	Rolling on the floor laughing
ROTFLMAO	Rolling on the floor laughing my a$$ off
RSN	Real soon now
RTFM	Read the f@%# manual (or message)
SNAFU	Situation normal, all fouled up
TIA	Thanks in advance
TPTB	The powers that be
TTFN	Ta ta for now


Composing an Introduction String

When you reply to a message, it's common practice on the Internet to include some of the text from the original message in the reply.  It is also common practice to precede the original text with a line such as "Jessye Lynn Sidell wrote:"  You define this introduction string on the General tab of the Posting Preferences dialog box.

The following table describes the different fields you can include in introduction strings.  When you include a field in an introduction string, Agent automatically replaces that field with its value from the original message.  To include a field in a string, enclose it within percent signs (e.g., %from%). To include the percent sign in the string, enter two of them next to each other (e.g., %%).

Field	Description

Date	The date the message was sent.

Reply-To	Where the author wanted replies sent.

From	The email address of the person who posted the message.  Note: When you use %from%, Agent includes the entire email address of the person who posted the message.

Sender	The sender of the message.  Note: This may be a different person than the one in the From field if the sender wasn't the one who actually posted the message.

Full-Name	The full name of the author, extracted from the From field.

Subject	The brief description of the message.

Message-Id	The message's unique message ID.

Newsgroups	The newsgroup to which this message was posted.  If the message was posted to more than one group, the current group is used.

Followup-To	The newsgroups where the sender of the message wants follow-up messages posted.

Expires	The date the message is scheduled to expire.

References	For follow-up messages, the message IDs of the messages to which this message refers.

Organization	The author's organization.

Keywords	Optional keywords included by the author to help categorize the message.

Summary	A summary description of the message.

Lines	The number of lines in the message.

You may also use the following to represent special characters:

Character	Description

\n	The newline character.

\t	A tab.

\\	The backslash character itself.


Message Fields

The following table describes the various fields available to you when composing messages.

Field	Description

Bcc	A list of email addresses (separated by commas) of people to receive a copy of the message without the primary recipients (the ones listed in the To and Cc fields) knowledge.  If you enter a value for this field when posting a message, it will cause Agent to also post an email message to the specified recipients.

Cc	A list of email addresses (separated by commas) of people to receive a copy of the message.  If you enter a value for this field when posting a message, it will cause Agent to also post an email message to the specified recipients.

Distribution	(Usenet messages only) This field is used to alter the distribution scope of the message.  It is a comma separated list similar to the "Newsgroups" field.  User subscriptions are still controlled by "Newsgroups", but the message is sent to all systems subscribing to the newsgroups on the "Distribution" line in addition to the "Newsgroups" field.  For the message to be transmitted, the receiving site must normally receive one of the specified newsgroups AND must receive one of the specified distributions.  Thus, a message concerning a car for sale in New Jersey might have headers including:

Newsgroups: rec.auto,misc.forsale

Distribution: nj,ny

so that it would only go to persons subscribing to rec.auto or misc. for sale within New Jersey or New York.  The intent of this header is to restrict the distribution of a newsgroup further, not to increase it.  A local newsgroup, such as nj.crazy-eddie, will probably not be propagated by hosts outside New Jersey that do not show such a newsgroup as valid.  A follow-up message should default to the same "Distribution" line as the original message, but the user can change it to a more limited one, or escalate the distribution if it was originally restricted and a more widely distributed reply is appropriate.

Expires	(Usenet messages only) The date you want the message to expire.

Followup-To	(Usenet messages only) The newsgroups where you want follow-up messages posted.   Note: You can set this field to "poster" to force users to post email replies to you.

From	The email address and optional full name of the person who posted the message or sent the email.

Keywords	Optional keywords to help categorize the message or email message.

Organization	(Usenet messages only) Your organization, company, school, etc.

Reply-To	The email address where you want replies sent.  If you normally want replies sent to your From email address, you can leave this field blank.

Sender	The name of the entity responsible for submitting the message or email message to the network.  Normally, this field is blank, to indicate that the From field also names the submitting entity.  For example, if Rennie Mitchell is visiting George Mitchell and wishes to use his computer to post an email message, George would temporarily set his Sender field to his own email address and set the From field to Rennie's email address.  This indicates that the messages are being submitted by George on Rennie's behalf.

Summary	(Usenet messages only) An optional summary description of the message.

See Also:

Compose Usenet Message window

Compose Email Message window

How to Post Usenet Messages

How to Send Email


Kill and Watch Filter Examples

This topic illustrates the basic elements used to create filters.  All the examples are based on this scenario:

George is a "sky sports" enthusiast subscribed to the group alt.aviation.methods and has just discovered an interesting header, How does a Blimp Fly.  He thinks the following:

1.	Question:	'I want to learn more about blimps.  Can I create a Blimp filter?'

Answer:	Yes.  You can do this with a simple watch filter.

2.	Question:	Will subject: Blimp catch all instances of blimp?'

Answer:	Good question!  Blimp (initial capital letter) will not catch all instances, because filtering is case sensitive.  To filter on all instances of a subject, the filter expression needs to be in all lower case letters.  Click to see how to edit the filter from Blimp to blimp.

3.	Question:	'What about plurals, say if blimps is in the message header?'

Answer:	Another excellent question.  To catch all singular and plural instances, edit the existing filter rule using the wildcard *.

4.	Question:	'I think some messages are too long!  Can I filter on messages that are 100 lines or less?

Answer:	Easily, using the line range filter and the 'and' operator.

5.	Question:	Can I filter out any messages by that obnoxious author Fester!?

Answer:	No problem.  To do this, you will use an author qualifier and the not operator.

6.	Question:	'What if I want to know about airships, too?'

Answer:	Fine.  You can use parentheses to modify precedence and the or operator to do this.

7.	Question:	'Is there an easy way to reduce the clutter in this group?

Answer:	There's a great way to do this.  Just create a kill filter with a lower priority.'

You can continue to add to your filter rule to do any number of things.  For information about valid expressions in filter rules, see Using Filter Expressions.

See Also:

How to Create Kill and Watch Filters


Simple watch filter

1.	Highlight the message header How Does a Blimp Fly?.

2.	Select Usenet Filters -> Add Watch Filter from the Message menu.

3.	Complete the following settings in the Add Usenet Filter dialog box:

Search For:	subject: Blimp

Watch Action:	Retrieve Body immediately

Scope:	Group


Editing the filter to catch all upper or lower case instances

Make sure alt.aviation.methods is highlighted, then:

1.	Select Usenet Filters  from the Group menu to open the Usenet Filters window.

2.	Highlight the filter rule you want to edit and select Edit from the Filter menu.

3.	On the Edit Usenet Filter dialog box, edit the filter rule to say subject: blimp.

Removing all capital letters (i.e., changing the "B" to lowercase) tells Agent to filter on all instances of the word, whether they contain capital or lowercase letters.


Wildcard example

Edit the rule to say subject: blimp*.  The star is a wildcard that tells Agent to evaluate any character appended to blimp.


Line range filter and 'and' operator

Edit the filter rule to say subject: blimp* and [*,100].

This tells Agent to retrieve only messages about blimps that are 100 lines or less,


Author qualifier and 'not' operator

Edit the filter again to say subject: blimp* and not author: fester and [*,100].


Parentheses for precedence and the 'or' operator

Edit the filter rule to say subject: (blimp* or airship*) and not author: fester and [*,100].


Wildcard example

Create a new kill filter with the following settings:

Search For:	subject: *  (All headers will be evaluated.)

Kill Action:	Skip

Scope:	Group: alt.aviation.methods

Priority:	100  (Make this value lower than the watch filter.  That way, Agent first retrieves the messages about blimps because the watch filter has a higher priority, then this kill filter tells Agent to skip everything else.)


MENU COMMANDS (Jumps from Contents Graphic)


Online Menu Commands Explained

The Online menu contains the commands which cause Agent to interact with the Internet.  This topic describes these actions in detail and provides links to related Help topics.

Get New Headers in Subscribed Groups

Retrieves all the message headers that have been posted to your subscribed groups since the last time you checked for new messages.  By default, Agent marks a group's existing messages read before it retrieves new headers for that group.  To change this behavior for all your groups, uncheck the "New message headers" box on the Marking Read tab of the Default Properties for All Groups dialog box.

Get New Headers in Selected Groups

Retrieves all the message headers that have been posted to the selected groups since the last time you checked for new messages.  By default, Agent marks a group's existing messages read before it retrieves new headers for that group.  To change this behavior for a particular group, select that group and uncheck the "New message headers" box on the Marking Read tab of the Properties for Selected Groups dialog box.

See Also:

How to Get All the Message Bodies in a Newsgroup

Marking Messages Read

Retrieving tab of the Default Properties for All Groups dialog box

Get Marked Message Bodies

Retrieves the bodies of all the messages you marked for retrieval.  Messages from all groups with marked messages are retrieved with this command (not just ones from the selected group).  Also, by default, messages that were not marked for retrieval are made read when Agent retrieves marked message bodies for that group. To change this behavior, uncheck the "Marked message bodies" box on the Marking Read tab of the Default Properties for All Groups dialog box.

See Also:

How to Use Agent as an Offline Newsreader

Get Selected Message Bodies

Retrieves the full text of the selected message(s).  You can also retrieve a message's body by double-clicking on the message or by highlighting it and pressing Enter.  Note: Even if you are configured for offline use (see the Online tab of the General Preferences dialog box for details), selecting this menu command causes Agent to go online and retrieve the selected messages.

See Also:

How to Use Agent as an Online Newsreader

Sample Headers from Selected Groups

Retrieves up to the defined maximum number of message headers from the most recently posted messages in the selected groups.  This command is useful when you are looking at new groups and don't want to get stuck retrieving hundreds of headers for a group in which you may not be interested.

If, after sampling some of the headers, you decide that you are interested in the group, choose Get All Headers in Selected Groups to retrieve the remaining messages.

See Also:

View Empty Group dialog box

Get All Headers in Selected Groups

Retrieves message headers for every message in the selected groups.  In general, you should use one of the Get New Headers commands to retrieve messages because they retrieve only the messages you haven't seen.  This command is useful, however, after you've sampled some headers from a group and want to retrieve the remaining ones.  You can also use this command to retrieve messages that you manually deleted or that were automatically purged.

See Also:

About Usenet Message Purging

Catch Up With Selected Groups

Retrieves the highest message number for the selected groups without retrieving any message headers.  The next time you get new headers for the groups, Agent will only retrieve messages posted after you did the catch up.

Note: Some other newsreaders employ a slightly different implementation of catch up.  When you "catch up" in those programs, they do not retrieve the highest message number.  Instead, they simply mark read the messages you previously retrieved.  You can achieve the same behavior in Agent with the Mark Selected Groups Read command on the Group menu.

See Also:

Marking Messages Read

Post Usenet and Email Messages

Transfers any queued messages to the Internet.

See Also:

How to Post Usenet Messages

How to Send Email

Making Sure Messages Were Sent Properly

Get New Groups

Retrieves all the newsgroups which were added to your news server since that last time you updated your group list.  The new groups Agent retrieves will have the New Group icon, [image], next to them until the next time you get new groups.  To view just the new groups, choose Show Only New Groups from the Group menu.  Note: On rare occasions, a group may be added to your news server in such a way that Get New Groups will not retrieve it.  For this reason, you may want to periodically use the Refresh Groups List action instead.

Refresh Groups List

Retrieves a complete list of groups from the news server.  Use this command when you want to recover a group you previously deleted or when you want to purge groups that are no longer available on the news server.

See Also:

Refresh Groups List dialog box

Stop All Tasks

Causes Agent to immediately abort the current and any pending online tasks.

Online

Toggles Agent's Online status.  When this menu option is checked (the toolbar button appears illuminated), Agent is online and selecting it will take Agent offline.  When this menu option does not have a check mark next to it (the toolbar button appears as above), Agent is offline and selecting it will cause Agent to connect to your service provider.  You can also press the toolbar button to toggle Agent's online status.


Import Message File Format

Agent can import messages from a text file in the standard UNIX message format (RFC-822).  If you were using Eudora or Pegasus for email, Forté provides converters for exporting messages from these programs into the standard UNIX format.  For more information, see Importing Email Messages from Another Program.

As a convenience to those not using Eudora or Pegasus, the following describes in some detail the standard UNIX message format Agent can import:

•	Each message must be preceded by a line of the form:

From <user>@<domain> <dow> <mon> <day> <hour>:<minute>:<second> <year>

Where:

<user>@<domain> is the email address of the sender of the message.  Agent actually ignores this address, so it can be any address.  For example, "???@???" is acceptable.

The rest of the line is the date of the message.  Agent requires that the date be in a legal format, but it ignores the date unless the message itself contains no Date: field.  The elements of the date are:

<dow> is one of: Sun, Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri, Sat (Agent ignores this).

<mon> is one of: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Nov, Dec.

<day> is the day of the month.

<hour>:<minute>:<second> is the time of day in 24-hour time, for example 16:21:53.

<year> is the year.

Example From line:

From ???@??? Fri Sep 8 13:21:43 1995

•	The message's header fields must follow immediately after the From line.  Each header field line must begin with the name of the field, without any preceding whitespace, followed by a colon and a space, followed by the value of the field.  For example:

To: mark.sidell@forteinc.com

A field value may be continued on subsequent lines.  Each continuation line must begin with at least one space character.  For example:

To: mark.sidell@forteinc.com,

   jon.berke@forteinc.com

•	The header fields must be followed by a single blank line, followed by the body of the message.  The blank line should contain no space characters.

•	If any line in the body is in the same format as the From line described above, it must be quoted with some other character, so that Agent does not think it is the beginning of the next message.  To quote the line, all that is required is that the word "From" not appear at the very beginning of the line.  By convention, these lines are quoted with '>'.  For example:

>From robin.mitchell Fri Sep 8 13:21:43 1995

Here's an example message:

From mark.sidell@forteinc.com Fri Sep 8 13:21:43 1995

From: mark.sidell@forteinc.com

To: jon.berke@forteinc.com

Subject: Import file formats

Date: 21 Aug 1995 19:47:12 GMT

Jon, here is an example of a quoted From line.  The following line looks just like a From line that begins a message, so I have quoted it.

>From robin.mitchell Fri Sep 8 13:21:43 1995

That's all for now!


Message Text Display Options

The following settings control the appearance of message text:

Normal Font

The standard font used to display message text is defined in the Variable-Pitch Body Font dialog box.

Fixed Pitch Font

You can also display message text in a fixed-pitch font. Many people on the Internet have fancy ASCII-graphic signatures.  These signatures will look like a jumble of lines and letters unless they are displayed in a fixed-pitch font.  To display messages you've retrieved in a fixed-pitch font, choose Fixed Pitch from the Message menu.  To display messages you're composing in a fixed-pitch font, choose Fixed Pitch from the Compose window's Message menu.  To return to the standard, variable-pitch font, select the Fixed Pitch menu option again.  You define which fixed-pitch font you want Agent to use in the Fixed-Pitch Body Font dialog box.

Word Wrap Lines

Occasionally you will see messages with very long lines that don't fit on your screen.  When this happens, simply select Word Wrap from the Message menu and Agent will break these lines at the end of the window.

Messages you send are automatically word wrapped at the length defined in the General tab of the Posting Preferences dialog box.  If your Compose window is narrower than this value, select Word Wrap from the Message menu and Agent will wrap your lines when they reach the end of the window.  Note: This wrapping is for your display only.  When the message is sent, each line is wrapped at the value defined in the General tab of the Posting Preferences dialog box.

Display Header Fields

Messages can have many fields associated with them, only a few of which are important (e.g., Subject and Author).  Since you generally don't care about the remaining fields, Agent hides them from you.  To see these remaining fields, select Show All Header Fields from the Message menu.  For a description of what these fields represent, see Message Fields.

See Also:

Compose Usenet Message window

Compose Email Message window


Navigating in Agent

Agent provides you with a rich set of tools for moving between newsgroups and messages.  Most of these tools can be accessed from the Navigate menu, the toolbar, and the keyboard.  Although you probably won't use all the available options, this topic will make you familiar with them so that you can choose which navigation techniques best suit you.

Moving between panes

As you probably already know, Agent is composed of three panes: the Groups pane, the Message List pane, and the Message pane.  You can view all three panes at the same time, or, to maximize the information you see on-screen, Zoom the Browser window to expand the current pane to fill Agent's window.

To Zoom a Browser window:

•	Select Zoom Window from the Navigate menu.

•	Press "Z".

•	Click the Maximize icon [image] in the pane you wish to expand.

To view all three panes at the same time (turn Zoom off):

•	Select Zoom Window from the Navigate menu.

•	Press "Z".

•	Click the Restore icon [image].

You can easily move the focus between the panes with both the mouse and the keyboard.

To move between panes with the mouse:

•	When viewing all three panes, simply click on the desired pane.

•	When zoomed in on a pane, click the tab for the pane you wish to view:

To move between panes with the keyboard:

•	Press the Tab key to move from the Groups pane to the Message List pane to the Message pane.

•	Press Shift+Tab or Escape to move in the reverse order.

•	Press the "1", "2", or "3" keys to move from pane to pane.  Pressing "1" places the focus in the Groups pane, "2" places the focus in the Message List pane, and "3" places the focus in the Message pane.

Moving between messages

Moving between messages is probably the single most common action you perform in Agent.  That's why Agent provides you so many different ways to do this.

To move to the previous or next message:

•	From the Message List pane, you can use the up and down arrow keys to move between messages.

•	From the Message pane, choose Up to Previous Message (or press "U") or Down to Next Message (or press "D") from the Navigate menu.  Note: These commands also work in the Message List pane.

To move to the next unread message:

•	Press "N" or the Skip to Next Unread Message toolbar icon [image] to skip to the next unread message, regardless of whether or not you have already retrieved its body.

•	Press "B" to skip to the next unread message with a body.  "B" simply skips to the message and selects it.

Note about Skipping to Next Unread:  By default, if the next unread message is in a different group, pressing "N" or "B" causes Agent to open that group and select the first unread message.  If you would prefer Agent to move you to the Groups pane instead (so that you can more easily tell when you're done with a group), uncheck the "Skipping to next unread message jumps to first unread message in next group" box on the Navigation tab of the General Preferences dialog box.

•	Press "T" or the Skip to Next Unread Message in Thread toolbar icon [image] to skip to the next unread message in the current thread.  This action is handy because when you reach the last follow-up message, Agent stops navigating, telling you that the thread is over.

•	Press "S" or the Skip to Next Unread Group toolbar icon [image] to skip to the first unread message in the next group.  By default, this action marks all the unread messages in the current group as read before skipping to the next one.  This is a convenient way to tell Agent that you have read all the interesting messages in the current group.  You can disable this behavior by unchecking the "Skipping to next unread group marks all messages in current group read" box on the Navigation tab of the General Preferences dialog box.

•	Press Ctrl+B to skip to the next unread message with a body and display its body text.

Navigating and retrieving Usenet messages at the same time

Since you need to retrieve a Usenet message's body before you can read it, Agent allows you to skip to an unread message and retrieve it (or mark it for retrieval) in one step.  Note: Whether Agent retrieves the message or marks it for later retrieval is controlled by the Viewing Unretrieved Messages When Offline radio buttons on the Online tab of the General Preferences dialog box.

To retrieve the next unread message:

•	Press Ctrl+N or the View Next Unread Message toolbar icon [image] to skip to the next unread message and retrieve it (or mark it for retrieval).  Note: The action is controlled by the same preference settings affecting "N" (see above).

•	Press Ctrl+T or the View Next Unread Message in Thread toolbar icon [image] to skip to the next unread message in the current thread and retrieve it (or mark it for retrieval).

When configured for offline use (see the Online tab of the General Preferences dialog box for details), you generally mark all the desired messages for retrieval and then retrieve marked message bodies.  By default, Agent skips to the next unread message (performs the "N" action) when you mark a message for retrieval.  You can turn this behavior off by unchecking the "Marking or ignoring a message skips to the next unread message" box on the Navigation tab of the General Preferences dialog box.

Using a single key to view the next unread message body

On the Navigation tab of the General Preferences dialog box, you can check the Single Key Read views next unread message body option.  This allows you to view the next unread body by simply pressing the Space bar, while the Groups pane or Message List pane has the focus (exactly like using the View Next Unread Message Body command).

Expanding and collapsing threads

Agent displays follow-up messages indented under the original message.  To save screen real-estate, these threads are initially shown collapsed, so only the top-most message is visible.  When a thread is collapsed, the Expand Thread icon [image] appears next to it.

To expand a thread:

•	Click the Expand Thread icon.

•	Select the message and press the "+" key.

•	To expand all the threads in a group, hold down the Shift key while pressing the "+" key.

When a thread is expanded, the Collapse Thread icon [image] appears next to it.

To collapse a thread:

•	Click the Collapse Thread icon.

•	Select the message and press the "-" key.

•	To collapse all the threads in a group, hold down the Shift key while pressing the "-" key.

Agent can also automatically expand threads for you.  By default, Agent expands threads when you skip to them.  Note: Agent will automatically expand the thread when you skip to it only if you have already retrieved the body of the original message.  To prevent Agent from expanding threads when you skip to them, uncheck the "Automatically expand threads containing new messages" box on the Navigation tab of the General Preferences dialog box.  If you always want all threads expanded, uncheck the "Show threads initially collapsed" box on the Navigation tab of the General Preferences dialog box.

See Also:

Watching and Ignoring Threads

Marking Messages Read

How to Use Agent as an Offline Newsreader

How to Use Agent as an Online Newsreader

Online Menu Commands Explained


Scroll Lock Behavior

For each pane in Agent, there is a separate Scroll Lock status.  By repeatedly selecting the Scroll Lock key, you can enable and disable the scroll lock for each individual pane.  When the scroll lock state is enabled, you will see SCRL on the status bar.

Unfortunately, the Scroll Lock light on your keyboard can be erratic.  In Microsoft Windows 95, the keyboard scroll lock light is erratic, and in Microsoft Windows NT, an individual program cannot control the keyboard scroll lock light at all..  So, Agent does not try to keep its own SCRL indicator on the status bar in synch with the keyboard light.

For the reasons just described, you need not be surprised or alarmed if the scroll lock indicator light does not match the behavior in one of Agent's panes.  Always refer to the status bar to determine whether scroll lock is enabled or disabled for the pane in focus.


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Progress Indicator

The progress indicator is located at the bottom of Agent's main window on the Status bar.  Whenever you retrieve new groups or headers, the progress indicator shows you what percentage of the total retrieval operation is done.

You can change the progress style and delay options in the VIEW section of AGENT.INI.


COMMANDS


Add Copy of Filter command (Filter menu)

Select this command to add a copy of the highlighted filter in the Usenet Filters window.  When you select this command, the Add Usenet Filter dialog box will appear with all fields set to the values in the highlighted filter.


 Apply Usenet Filters command (Group menu)

Select this command to apply all Usenet filters to all of the selected groups.

See Also:

How to Create Kill and Watch Filters

Kill and Watch Filter Examples

Using Filter Expressions


Cancel Usenet Message command
Cancel Usenet Message command (Message menu)

Use this command to remove a Usenet message you posted.  Canceling a message sends a message to your news server asking it to delete the message.  This message is also passed along to the other news servers on the Internet so that they can delete the message as well.

To cancel a Usenet message:

1.	Select the message and choose Cancel Usenet Message from the Message menu.  You can only cancel your own messages.  Note: Cross-posted messages only need to be canceled from one of the cross-posted groups.

2.	In the Compose Usenet Message window, press Send Now or Send later to transmit the message to your news server.  You should not make any other changes to the message.

After sending the message, the message will continue to appear in Agent until it's automatically pruned or you delete it (see About Usenet Message Purging for details).  Since some news servers do not accept cancel requests, you may want to verify that the posting was actually deleted.

To verify that the message was deleted:

1.	Highlight the message you canceled.

2.	Delete the message's body by selecting Delete Message Body from the Message menu.

3.	Try to retrieve the message's body again by choosing Get Selected Message Bodies from the Online menu.  If the cancel request was accepted, the Message Body Not Available icon [image] will appear next to the message.


Confirm Deletes command (Address menu)

When checked, Agent prompts you before deleting address book entries.

See Also:

Address Book window.


Confirm Deletes command (Filter menu)

When checked, Agent prompts you before deleting kill or watch filters in the Usenet Filters window.


Confirm Edits command (Address menu)

When checked, Agent prompts you before automatically saving address book changes.  Note: Address book changes are automatically saved when you select another entry or close the Address Book window.


Delete command (Filter menu)

Select this command to delete selected filters in the Usenet Filters window.


Delete command (Group menu)

Use this command to remove a group from Agent.

To remove a specific group:

Select the group and choose Delete from the Group menu.

To remove all extinct news groups:

Choose Refresh Group List from the Online menu.  On the Refresh Group List dialog box, select the "Delete all extinct groups" option.

To recover news groups you deleted:

Choose Refresh Group List from the Online menu.


Expand Addresses Command
 Expand Addresses command (Address menu)

This command applies to Usenet and email messages you are sending.  When checked, Agent automatically expands an address to its full address format, when it is inserted into the composition window via the Address Book or Pick Addresses window.  For example, if you select the name ginnyb from the address book, it will be inserted into the composition window in its expanded format, ginnyb@forteinc.com.

See Also:

Address Book window

Pick Address window

How to Use the Address Book


Reply to All command (Post menu)

When checked, Agent opens a reply composition window (Re: <message title>).  The To:, Cc:, and Bcc: fields are automatically filled in with all names from the message to which you are replying.

See Also:

Address Book window


Overwrite Behavior

When editing a message in the composition window, you can type over characters by switching from the "insert mode" to the "overwrite mode".  To do this, place your cursor at the point where you want to begin overwriting text, then press the Insert key until you see OVR on the far right side of the status bar.  Now you are ready to type over the text.  To return to the insert mode, press the Insert key again.  OVR will disappear from the status bar and you will no longer type over existing characters when you enter new text.