When you start the program for the first time it creates a “Thoth Preferences” folder in the current Preferences folder. This is where Thoth will store its preferences and various settings that are used across multiple news servers. If you wish to have the program preferences stored elsewhere, after quitting the program you may move the folder to another location, and place an alias to the moved folder in the Preferences folder. The alias file must have the name “Thoth Preferences.”
Inside the “Thoth Preferences” folder is the “Thoth Prefs” file. This file contains all the settings that are edited in the program's “Preferences” dialog, plus your filters and newsgroup settings. The folder also contains the “Thoth Servers” folders which holds items for the “Open Server” command, the “Thoth Stationery” folder for personalities, and the “Thoth Signatures” folder for random signature support. The “Thoth Servers” and “Thoth Stationery” are automatically managed by Thoth. Placing text files in the “Thoth Signatures” will permit them to be used as random signatures.
Thoth will create a set of default preferences when it first starts up. Before the program can be used you must perform some additional steps to fill in needed information about yourself and the news and mail servers you wish to use.
1) After starting the program for the first time, use the “Preferences” command. This displays the multi-pane “Preferences” dialog. It is particularly important to enter your name and email address in the “Message Options” pane of the dialog, and to specify a mail server in the “Mail Servers” pane.
2) Close the “Preferences” dialog. Now choose “New News Server” from the File menu. You'll be shown a dialog that has 3 panes. Enter the name of your news server and other settings in the first pane, and any needed authentication settings in the second pane. Most independent commercial news servers do require authentication, and for most such servers you should click on the “Authenticate When Connecting” option. Click OK to close the dialog. Next you're presented with a new folder dialog, asking you where you want to create and save the new folder that will have the news server settings file. Use the dialog to navigate to where you want to create the new folder that will hold new files, then click on the “New” button to name and create the new folder. Finally you'll then see the “Open Server” alert asking you if you want to open the new server. Say yes. The program should then proceed to get the full newsgroup list from the news server.
3) Once the program has completed getting the full newsgroup list and is idle, you can create your subscribed newsgroup lists. Use the “News Server Settings” command in the Edit menu to display the “News Server Settings” dialog again. Go to the “Group Lists” pane of the dialog. Click on the “Add New” button to create a new group list window. The window will be displayed after you close the “News Server Settings” dialog. Enter a name for the new window, click OK to close the dialog, then click OK again to close the “News Server Settings” dialog. The new, empty group list window will now be shown.
4) Use the “Show Full Group List” command from the Windows menu to display the list of all newsgroups on your news server. Choose which newsgroups you wish to subscribe to, and drag them to the new group list window. Use the Save command to save your group list. You can now begin to read news using Thoth.
5) To display the articles in a given newsgroup, double click the name of the newsgroup in the group list window you just created. Thoth will begin to get the headers for the articles, and will display them in a new article list window. In the article list window you can open individual posts by double-clicking them, or select a number of articles and save them to disk using the Save command. If a selected article has a binary attachment, the “Extract Binaries” command will download the article to disk and extract any binary attachments.
For more information on article list windows, including the various options you can set to determine how articles will be displayed and what headers will be shown, please see the User Guide.
