MT-NewsWatcher 3.1 is the latest version of the popular Usenet news client for Macintosh, Multi╨Threaded NewsWatcher. It has a suite of features that make reading news faster and easier, including features for connecting to multiple servers at the same time, posting with different personalities, viewing images inline, and posting binaries. MT-NW 3.1 adds new features, improves performance, and fixes a lot of bugs in MT-NW 3.0.
What╒s New?
MT-NewsWatcher 3.1 has some new features, and lots of additional improvements. New features include:
Ñ Inline, progressive display of movies and audio, including QuickTime movies,
MPEGs and MP3s.
Ñ More image formats supported (progressive display of PNG, and other display
of other QuickTime-supported formats).
Ñ Option to retrieve and use accurate article counts (no more ╥>99999╙ counts).
Ñ Ability to choose which server to use when posting, and whether to post using MIME.
Ñ Support for display of UTF-7 and UTF-8, and sending of UTF-8.
Ñ SOCKS support (using the SOCKS settings in the Internet Control Panel).
Ñ Lots of bug fixes and performance improvements.
See the ╥Changes in MT-NW 3.1╙ document for information on how to start using these features, and a list of bug fixes.
System Requirements
MT-NewsWatcher 3.1 is a PowerPC-only application, and will not run on 68k machines. It requires Mac OS 8.1 with version 1.0.3 or later of the Appearance Manager extension; Mac OS 8.5 or later is strongly recommended. MT-NW supports many of the new features of Mac OS 8.5, like proportional scroll bars, window icons and contextual menus. MT-NewsWatcher 3.1 also requires Internet Config 2.0 (which is included with Mac OS 8.5 and later as the Internet Control Panel). You╒ll need 4Mb or more of free memory to run MT-NewsWatcher.
MT-NewsWatcher 3.1 is strictly an online news reader, so requires that you have a TCP/IP connection, either direct to a local network, or via a dialup link (e.g. using PPP). For reading news, you╒ll need access to a news (NNTP) server, and for sending mail, a mail (SMTP) server. Information about these is normally provided by your Internet Service Provider, or system administrator.
Upgrading from older versions
MT-NewsWatcher 3.1 will seamlessly upgrade settings files from MT-NW 3.0, though you won╒t be able to use the same preferences file back in 3.0. It might be a good idea to back it up before running 3.1 for the first time.
If you╒ve been using an earlier version of MT-NewsWatcher (e.g. 2.4.4), then your settings will automatically be updated the first time you run MT-NW 3.1. You can check by looking in the ╘Personalities╒ and ╘News Servers╒ dialogs under the ╘Special╒ menu. After upgrading to 3.1, it is not recommended to run 2.4.4 with the same preferences file.
Settings will not be automatically transferred from other NewsWatcher variants (e.g. YA-NewsWatcher). There is currently no way to import YA-NW filters into MT-NW 3.1.
Known issues
If you are experiencing a crash on quit, and you have QuicKeys installed, disable the ╥Folders╙ plugin in QuicKeys. This appears to be a Mac OS bug, and QuicKeys tech support are aware of this issue.
When viewing MPEG movies with the Movie plugin using QuickTime 5 preview versions, cancelling the article download will cause the movie to abort and disappear. This can also happen at the end of movie download. It appears to be a bug in QuickTime╒s MPEG decoders.
Running under Mac OS X
MT-NewsWatcher 3.1 is not yet Carbonized, but it should run fine on Mac OS X in the Classic environment.
How much does it cost?
In accordance with the licensing agreement for derivatives of the original NewsWatcher program, MT-NewsWatcher 3.1 is free. It may not be sold for profit or included with other software, products, publications, or services which are sold for profit without the permission of Simon Fraser, but otherwise you should feel free to use it and redistribute it.
For more information
Full documentation for MT-NewsWatcher 3.1 is available online (<http://www.smfr.org/mtnw/>, clickable URL available in the programs╒s About window). That page also contains instructions for submitting problem reports and feature requests, and provides links to program updates.
About the author
MT-NewsWatcher has been in development over the past 5 years by Simon Fraser, based on the source code for the original NewsWatcher program by John Norstad. Simon is currently working in Mountain View, CA, for Netscape Communications on next-generation browser software.
