News Xpress 2.0 Help Index

Introduction

Getting Started

Dialog Boxes

Author

Copyright Information

Reporting Bugs


Introduction

What is News Xpress?

News Xpress (NX) is a Windows Sockets compliant USENET news reader for MS Windows that uses the NNTP to access newsgroups and articles on a  news server.

Some of the key features of NX are:

•	support threads; in addition, it is also able to pack multipart articles automatically

• 	support cross-posted articles management

•	support killfile; accept regular expression for specifying patterns

•	support local folders, and outbox

•	support CC-by-mail and Copy-self

•	built-in UUencode, UUdecode, and Base64

•	built-in JPEG viewer

•	MIME-conformant, support Quoted-Printable

•	launching Uniform Resources Locator (URL) automatically

•	remote find articles by Subject, Keywords

•	allow user to rebind keys


Getting Started

Before proceeding any further, please make sure you have set up your Windows TCP/IP stack correctly. Also, you need to know the hostnames or IP addresses of your News Server and Mail Server. If you have any questions please contact your administrator at your local Internet Service Provider (ISP). In addition, you need to setup the Time Zone correctly, so that NX can generate correct time stamped in your articles. This can be done using the Date/Time properties in the Control Panel. Also, please make sure you system clock is working properly and is synchronous with your server, or you may encountered problems in posting articles.

For the very first time you run NX, it will bring up Options Dialog Box  for you to set up NX. At the very least, you need to fill in information in two tabs of Options Dialog Box, Servers and Directory and Personal Information. Once you have entered the information correctly, you may start reading news by selecting File|Connect command from the menu. After successfully connected to your news server, NX will download whole active newsgroup list from your news server. Be patient, this is a time consuming process which may takes several minutes. Once it completed, NX will automatically subscribe news.announce.newusers., news.newusers.questions and news.announce.newgroups for you. If you are new to USENET, it is well worth your time to read articles about netiquette posted regularly  in  news.announce.newusers newsgroup.

MIME Settings

NX has a built-in MIME viewer. In order to make it handle MIME attachments properly, you have to assign the Content Types of frequently used files. This can be done using RegEdit or Windows Explorer. The default Content Type is application/octet-stream.

Here is the list of standard Content Type of common files:

Extensions	Content Type

jpg	image/jpeg

gif	image/gif

tif, tiff	image/tiff

mpg	video/mpeg

avi	video/x-msvideo

mov, qt	video/quicktime

wav	audio/x-wav

aif, aiff, aifc	audio/x-aiff

au, snd	audio/basic

ps	application/postscript

rtf	application/rtf

txt	text/plain

rtx	text/richtext

htm, html	text/html

Multiple News Servers

You can specify NX to use another profile in case you would like to access another news servers simply by creating additional icons and specifying a different profile names in the command line.

nx.exe [profile_name]

The default profile name is "Default".

Common Errors

•	If you receive the "[11004] Valid name, no data record of requested type" error message during connection, it indicates you have given the wrong news server hostname. Please check the News Server setting in the Options Dialog Box.

•	If you receive the "[10061] Connection refused" error message during connection, it indicates that there is no news software running on the server. You may also receive this error message, if your news server uses different NNTP port other than 119.

•	If you receive the "502 Authentication Error" error message during connection, it indicates that either you have given a wrong password or your news server does not support authorization login. If you are not sure, you can leave the Authorization Username and Password fields blank in Options Dialog Box.

Tips

•	If you specify hostnames rather than IP addresses in the Server settings, you are recommended to add two entries for your news server and mail server in the HOSTS file. This will eliminate the necessary of querying your DNS to resolve those hostnames each time to connect the servers.

•	If you use other news readers in other platforms, you may share the newsrc file with NX.


Dialog Boxes

Options Dialog Box

Newsgroups Properties Dialog Box

Folder Properties Dialog Box

Attachment Dialog Box


Options Dialog Box

Servers and Directory

Personal Information

Newsgroup

Article

Compose

Miscellaneous

Keys


Servers and Directory

News (NNTP) server

A fully qualified Internet hostname or an IP address of a NNTP news server.

NNTP Port (optional)

The protocol port number to contact the news server specified above. NX will use the default port number 119 if you enter 0.

Username and Password

This information is for authorization login to your news server. Some news server restricts the access of part or all services to authorized user only, e.g. protected groups access and posting articles. You can enter the yourname and password here if you required to do so. Otherwise, please leave these fields blank. If your machine is shared by any other users, you are recommended to leave the password field blank, so that NX won't save your encrypted password in the Registry database. NX will prompt you to the enter your password when you connect to the news server at the beginning of  each session, if you entered username only.

Mail (SMTP) server

A fully qualified Internet hostname or an IP address of a SMTP mail server.

SMTP Port (optional)

The protocol port number to contact the mail server specified above. NX will use the default port number 25 if you enter 0.

Home Directory

The directory for NX to keep newsrc,  killrc, and folders.


Personal Information

Fullname

Your name.

E-Mail

Your Internet e-mail address, you are required to enter a valid e-mail address here. It should contains '@' and at least one period '.' character in the domain name.

Organization (optional)

Your organization

Default Signature File (optional)

A plain text file contains your default signature. You are recommend not to create a signature which is larger than 10 lines. You can specify different signature file for each newsgroup from Newsgroups Properties Dialog Box.


Newsgroup

After Connected

You can tell NX if it should retrieve newsgroups information or not after connected to your news server. If you select Retrieve all active groups, NX will download whole list of newsgroups. This is a time consuming process, but if you enable the Mark Crossposted articles read in all groups option, you may need to check this option once a week to allow NX to trim the read article list in newsrc. This will improve the efficiency of accessing newsrc. If you select Retrieve new groups only, please make sure the system clock of your machine is synchronous with your news server, or it may not work properly.

Automatically Connect to News Server at Startup

If this option is checked, NX will connect to the news server at startup.

Update Subscribed Groups Every N Minutes

If this option is checked, NX will update the newsgroups information after successfully connected to the news server. This is not required if you select Retrieve all active groups. You can also specify for how long should NX updates the newsgroups information periodically in a session. If you enter 0 here, NX will not update the information

Hide Groups without Articles

If this option is checked, NX will not display empty newsgroups in the Subscribed tab of the newsgroups window.

NewsRC File

The name of newsrc file. If you don't specify the pathname, NX will create it in the home directory.

Backup NewsRC File

If this option is checked, NX will back up the original newsrc file when NX  is about updating the newsrc file. The filename used for the backup file is the name of newsrc file plus ".old". If you disable the long filename support in Windows, please do not specify the extension in the newsrc filename.


Article

Headers

This specifies the headers which will be displayed in the article window. The headers are separated by commas. For examples, Subject,From,Organization. You cannot enter spaces in between. If you check the Except checkbox, NX will instead display all headers except those specified.

Sort By

This specifies the default sorting method in the thread window.

Threading Method

This specifies the threading method in the thread window. In addition, if Multipart is checked, NX will group multipart articles in correct order so that you can easily manipulate them.

Date/Time Format

This is the format specification of date and time displayed in threads windows. The format string consists of directives and ordinary characters. A directive consists of the % character followed by a character. All possible directives are shown below:

%a	Abbreviation weekday name

%A	Full weekday name

%b	Abbreviation month name

%B	Full month name

%c	Date and time

%d	2 digits day of month (01-31)

%H	2 digits hour (00-23)

%I	2 digits hour (01-12)

%j	3 digits day of year (001-366)

%m	2 digits month (01-12)

%M	2 digits minute (00-59)

%p	AM or PM

%S	2 digits second (00-59)

%U	2 digits week number (00-52), Sunday is first day of week

%w	Weekday (0-6), Sunday is 0

%W	2 digit week number (00-52), Monday is first day of week

%x	Date

%X	Time

%y	2 digits year (00-99)

%Y	Year with century

Skip Old Articles

If this option is checked, NX will not retrieve headers of read articles.

Suppress "Re:"

If this option is checked, NX will hide "Re:" subject prefix in thread window.

Word Wrap

If this option is checked, the article will be wrapped based on the article window size by default.

Highlight Quoted Text

If this option is checked, article text lines which start with any character specified in the list will be highlighted.

Automatically UUdecode Articles

If this option is checked, NX will automatically decode article while you are reading article. The binary data decoded is stored in memory instead of file. Thus, if you have low memory resources, you should disable this feature.

Display Inline Image

If this options is checked, NX will display inline image in the article window. You need to enable above option if you want to view image in non-MIME articles.

Cross-Posted

This specifies how NX should handle cross-posted articles. If you select Mark in all groups, NX will mark seen cross-posted articles as read in the rest of newsgroups. If you select Mark read in subscribed groups, NX will skip those unsubscribed newsgroups to save the newsrc file size. If you select Ignore, NX will not handle cross-posted articles.


Compose

Quote String

This specifies the string for quoting original message text. You are recommended to keep this string short.

Include Headers of Original Text

If this option is checked, headers of original message will be quoted as well as the body.

Prompt for Quoting Original Text

If this option is checked, NX will ask you whether to quote original message text each time when you are about to reply or follow-up article.

Wrap Line at

This specifies which column should the message editor wraps each line. The recommended value is 76, this will give some spaces for others quoting your message.

Use MIME

If this option is checked, NX will compose your message using MIME. This is recommended, if you use 8-bit character set, e.g. ISO-8859-1.

Character Set

This specifies the character set you used to compose your messages.

Encoding Type

This specifies the method for encoding your messages. You can simply ignore this if you are using US-ASCII character set.

CC-by-mail

If this option is checked, NX will enable the CC-by-mail option in the message editor.

Copy-self

If this option is checked, NX will enable the Copy-self option in the message editor.

Generate Message-Id Header

If this option is checked, NX will add Message-Id header for your article locally. Generally, you won't need this and should disable this feature.

Confirm upon Delivering

If this option is checked, NX will prompt you before sending your messages.

Subject Template

This specifies the default subject template for attachments. The template consists of directives and ordinary characters. A directive consists of the % character followed by a character. All possible directives are shown below:

%s	Original subject

%f	Filename

%p	Current part

%t	Total parts

Default Cut Size

This specifies the default multiparts split size.

Templates

Thess define the headers and introduction line for composing article and mail. You can also specify the default contain of each header field in the template. Note, NX does not support multiple lines header. Also, you MUST enter Newsgroups and Subject in the post headers template,  To and Subject in the mail headers template, NX will not automatically add one if any one of them does not present. For the introduction line, it consists of directives and ordinary characters. A directive consists of the % character followed by a character. All possible directives are shown below:

%m	Message-Id

%a	Original author name and e-mail

%o	Original author's organization

Samples:

Post headers and introduction lines:

Newsgroups:

Subject:

Keywords:

In article %m,

   %a wrote:

Mail headers:

To:

Cc:

Subject:


Miscellaneous

Saving Directory

This specifies the default directory for saving decoded file.

Confirm before Decoding Articles

If this option is checked, NX will prompt you before decoding selected articles.

Execute Files after Decoded

If this option is checked, NX will attempt to execute the decoded files.

Transfer Deleted Articles into the 'Trash' folder

If this option is checked, NX will transfer deleted articles into 'Trash' folder. Note, the 'Trash' folder is not capable to save messages from Outbox and Copy-self folders.

Warn before Permanently Deleting Items

If this option is checked, NX will warn you before deleting items. If the above option is enabled, NX will not warn you while deleting articles.

Empty the 'Trash' Folder upon Exiting

If this option is checked, NX will delete the 'Trash' folder file upon exiting.

Fonts

List	Font used to browse newsgroups, folders and threads

Article	Font used to display article

Article (Fixed)	Fixed-pitch font used to display article

Print Out	Font used to print article

Right Mouse Button

This specifies the behaviour of right mouse button in Newsgroups, and Threads window, selecting items or bring up track popup menu.


Keys

You can rebind the key for each function by selecting the function from the list and pressing a desired key. If conflict occurs, NX simply ignore the key.


Newsgroups Properties Dialog Box

Killfile

Subject

This specifies the entries of killfile for Subject header. For each regular expression, which is preceded with the '+' character, represents autoselect operation is selected. The '!' character represents exclusive kill operation is selected.

From

This specifies the entries of killfile for From header.

Older than N days

This specifies the entries of killfile for Date header.

Less than N1 lines and more N2 lines

This specifies the entries of killfile for Lines header.

Foldername for Archiving Articles

This specifies which folder used to archive articles in this newsgroup.

Signature

This specifies signature file for this newsgroup.


Folder Properties Dialog Box

Folder Name

This specifies the folder name.

Filename

This specifies the filename. If you do not specify the filename while creating a new folder, NX will use the folder name.


Attachment Dialog Box

Filename

This specifies the filename for attachment.

Subject Template

This specifies the template for constructing the Subject header. The template string consists of directives and ordinary characters. A directive consists of the % character followed by a character. All possible directives are shown below:

%s	Original subject

%f	Filename

%p	Current part number

%t	Total part number

Apply Template to The First Article

If this option is checked, NX will apply the template to the first article and assign the part number to zero. This option is enabled only if you check the "Attachment starts in Separate

Encoding

This specifies the encoding type for the attachment.

Attachment Starts in Separate Article

If this option is checked, NX will send the attachment in separate article.

Cut Size N Lines

If this option is checked, NX will split the attachment if it reachs N lines.

Add Boundry

If this option is checked, NX will insert "BEGIN ..." and "END ..." lines for separating the attachment from the article body.

Note: NX does not support multipart MIME message. In addition, you are recommended to use Base64 rather than UUencode for binary attachment in MIME message.


Author

W.L. Ken, Ng

Rm F, 5/F, Odeon Bldg.,

26-28 Shu Kuk St., North Point,

Hong Kong

E-Mail:	kenng@hk.super.net


Copyright Information

News Xpress is the property of City University of Hong Kong. Permission to use, copy and distribute this software and its documentation for non-commercial purpose is hereby granted, provided that it is not modified.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.


Reporting Bugs

Mail your bug reports to Ken Ng <kenng@hk.super.net>. Please include the steps to reproduce the bugs, and any other information that might help the developer locate and correct the cause.


Regular Expression

A regular expression consists of one or more statements separated by '|'. A statement consists of one or more items. An item consists of zero or more operators, and one or more characters. Any character which is reserved for operator, must be preceded by a blackslash to match it literally.

Operator	Explanation

?	preceeding item is optional

*	preceeding item occurs zero or more times

+	preceeding item occurs one or more times

^	matches item at the beginning of a line

$	matches item at the end of a line

[chars]	match any character in the given list of characters; a range of characters may be specified by separating two characters by '-'; for example, [a-z], [A-Z], or [0-9]; to specify '-' literally, make it the first or last character in the list

[^chars]	match any character not in the given list of characters

Example 1:

test|ignore|make (\$*|money)

This regexp matches any string which contains "test", "ignore", "make $", "make $$", or "make money".

Example 2:

ok

[^a-z0-9]ok[^a-z0-9]

The first regexp matches any string which contains "ok", such as "book", "look", or "token"; the second regexp matches any string which contains the word "ok".


Cross-posted Articles Management

NX will automatically mark cross-posted articles as read in other groups once they have been seen or read. This feature is enabled only if your news server does supported Overview Database and it does provide additional Xref header in the XOVER command.


Launching URL

NX is capable to launch associated Internet client automatically to access URL embedded in article. In order to enable this feature, you have to setup the associations correctly. This can be done using the View|Option... command in the Windows Explorer to associate those URL registered file types.


Windows Sockets

The Windows Sockets specification defines a network programming interface for Microsoft Windows which is based on the "socket" paradigm popularized in the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) from the University of California at Berkeley. Network software which conforms to the Windows Sockets specification will be considered "Windows Sockets Compliant".


CC-by-mail

Sometimes, you would like to forward you follow-up to the original author via e-mail. In NX, you can do this automatically by enabling CC-by-mail, so when you send the article, NX will send your reply to the newsgroup as well as the original author.


URL

A Uniform Resource Locator (URL) is a system of identifying where a resource resides anywhere on the Internet. Databases, images, newsgroups, Gophers, Archies and many other services are capable of being addressed via URLs


Copy-self

NX is able to save your messages to the local 'Copy-Self' folder once you sent them, so that you can refer them later on.


Outbox

Outbox

Outbox is a special folder for holding queued messages, so that you can send those messages in batch, instead of sending each message individually. Besides, you can send the messages selectively.

To save your new message into the Outbox, you can select the File|Save command in message editor window.


USENET News
USENET News System

The USENET News System is a set of bulletins, discussion groups, program sources, and other bits of information distributed around the world. The information is generally called "articles" and is broken up into "newsgroups". Each newsgroup deals with a subject or a set of subjects. The subjects for newsgroups are varied from discussions about particular versions of UNIX to movie reviews, from information on the X window system to commentary on current social and political issues.


News Server

An Internet host running a special software which provides services for exchanging USENET news.


Newsreader

Newsreader is an interface to the USENET news system that allows users to read and write articles by accessing a central news repository.


Mail Server

An intermediate machine which is used to deliver electronic mail to recipient. It is also known as a mail gateway, or mail bridge.


NNTP

Network News Transfer Protocol is a standard for the distribution, inquiry, retrieval, and posting of articles among the ARPA-Internet community.


SMTP

Simple Mail Transfer Protocol is a standard for the exchange of mail between machines.


NewsRC

NX uses a file called newsrc to store a list of all newsgroups from news server. Each line shows a newsgroup name in full, followed by the numbers of the articles that have been read. A colon after the newsgroup name indicates that the newsgroup is subscribed and an exclamation mark indicates that the newsgroup is unsubscribed.


Threads

NX uses articles' subject and references to order the discussions in a reply-ordered sequence, which is called threads. This makes following the discussion easier, and also makes it easy to backtrack a specific discussion from the beginning.


XOVER

XOVER is an NNTP extension for accessing the Overview database in a news server.


Signature

A few lines attached to the end of posting that give sender information.