Any standalone offline newsreaders with killfile?

  • Thread starter Thread starter M.L.
  • Start date Start date
M

M.L.

I need an offline newsreader with a more robust killfiling feature
than Agent. I tried 40tude Dialog, which looked promising, but it did
not work when I tried to use it from my USB flash drive on a different
computer. Are there any other candidates? Thanks.
 
I need an offline newsreader with a more robust killfiling feature
than Agent. I tried 40tude Dialog, which looked promising, but it
did not work when I tried to use it from my USB flash drive on a
different computer. Are there any other candidates? Thanks.
Click to expand...

MicroPlanet Gravity, highly configurable [Open Source]
<http://mpgravity.sourceforge.net/>
 
I need an offline newsreader with a more robust killfiling feature
than Agent. I tried 40tude Dialog, which looked promising, but it did
not work when I tried to use it from my USB flash drive on a different
computer. Are there any other candidates? Thanks.
Click to expand...

Try Xnews.
http://xnews.newsguy.com/
s...
 
Try Xnews.
http://xnews.newsguy.com/
Click to expand...

Xnews is great [my preferred newsclient], but it doesn't do offline
newsreading and never has.

From the Xnews manual:

**/
Xnews is an on-line reader. It has pseudo offline features such as
header storage, but if you need true off-line capabilities, use Agent,
Gravity, or something else.
/**
 
M.L. said:
I need an offline newsreader with a more robust killfiling feature
than Agent. I tried 40tude Dialog, which looked promising, but it did
not work when I tried to use it from my USB flash drive on a different
computer. Are there any other candidates? Thanks.
Click to expand...

Agent + Nfilter perhaps?

"Nfilter is a supplemental filtering program to your existing newsreader. It is designed to run transparently alongside any client
for Windows such as Outlook Express, Agent, Netscape, etc."

See: http://www.nfilter.org/faq.html


Can use simple filters or regular expressions; can also filter on any header if your
news server responds to the "XHDR" command (otherwise you are limited to
the standard overview.)


I've used the 1.2.1-b1 executable without installing: running the exe without
installing didn't add any entries into the registry.(it uses an ini to store settings)

You may want to download and unzip the 1.2.0 install to obtain the sample
nfilter.dat

Both versions were equally stable for me; however both share a minor bug
which can cause nfilter to abort if nfilter.dat contains an invalid filter.
 
_M.L._, venerdì 18/mar/2005:
I need an offline newsreader with a more robust killfiling feature
than Agent. I tried 40tude Dialog, which looked promising, but it did
not work when I tried to use it from my USB flash drive on a different
computer. Are there any other candidates? Thanks.
Click to expand...

About Dialog, I've read from many users that it works very well from a USB
drive. Did you understand what didn't work on your side?
 
About Dialog, I've read from many users that it works very well from a USB
drive. Did you understand what didn't work on your side?
Click to expand...

All I know is that it would not download any newsgroups. It went thru
the motions and IIRC, the status bar indicated that the downloading
was complete, but no groups were actually downloaded.
 
M.L. said:
I couldn't get Nfilter to work on my WinXP Pro system. The website
does not state that it is compatible with WinXP.
Click to expand...

Nfilter ceased to be developed prior to XP, hence no mention.
However I've been reliably informed by XP users that it works
fine with XP, although if using the 1.2.0 set-up (np-120.exe); it has
to be manually unzipped (eg using 7-zip)


There is a minor bug in Nfilter, that can cause problems.
Invalid filters can either cause it to misbehave - usually with an
invalid page fault or else to not filter as expected. I've also found
it is usually necessary to shut Nfilter down and restart it
after updating nfilter.dat .
 
Nfilter ceased to be developed prior to XP, hence no mention.
However I've been reliably informed by XP users that it works
fine with XP, although if using the 1.2.0 set-up (np-120.exe); it has
to be manually unzipped (eg using 7-zip)


There is a minor bug in Nfilter, that can cause problems.
Invalid filters can either cause it to misbehave - usually with an
invalid page fault or else to not filter as expected. I've also found
it is usually necessary to shut Nfilter down and restart it
after updating nfilter.dat .
Click to expand...
Thanks for the info. I didn't see a zip installation for Nfilter, just
its source code. I tried installing Nfilter again and I got the
following messages when I clicked on the np-120.exe and NewsProxy.exe
downloads:

"...np-120.exe is not a valid Win32 application."

"...NewsProxy.exe is not a valid Win32 application."

I was soooooo hoping that Nfilter would work.

I downloaded Xnews and Portable Thunderbird. I haven't tried
Thunderbird yet but I'm evaluating Xnews a bit and I'm not liking what
I see so far. It annoyingly opens a new window for each newsgroup I
launch. I hope there's a way to override that to keep all viewing in
one window. In addition, I was unpleasantly surprised to find that the
app defaults to *online only* mode. I corrected that only after
downloading some newsgroup threads and finding them deleted when I
opened the app offline.
 
M.L. said:
On Fri, 25 Mar 2005 23:07:59 -0000, "Mel"

Thanks for the info. I didn't see a zip installation for Nfilter, just
its source code. I tried installing Nfilter again and I got the
following messages when I clicked on the np-120.exe and NewsProxy.exe
downloads:

"...np-120.exe is not a valid Win32 application."

"...NewsProxy.exe is not a valid Win32 application."

I was soooooo hoping that Nfilter would work.
Click to expand...


np-120.exe is a slightly broken, self extracting zip -
set-up program.
(Windows 98 will run it cause it's not that fussy)

A good zip program will extract the files from the .exe
(eg try opening np-120.exe with 7-zip) - the
newsproxy.exe included is the version other XP users
report working.

There's little point in running the setup as it just
adds the installer registry keys and one
software key that nfilter (newsproxy.exe)
doesn't use.

Hope that helps

Regards
Mel.
 
np-120.exe is a slightly broken, self extracting zip -
set-up program.
(Windows 98 will run it cause it's not that fussy)

A good zip program will extract the files from the .exe
(eg try opening np-120.exe with 7-zip) - the
newsproxy.exe included is the version other XP users
report working.

There's little point in running the setup as it just
adds the installer registry keys and one
software key that nfilter (newsproxy.exe)
doesn't use.

Hope that helps

Regards
Mel.
Click to expand...

Thanks Mel. I opened np-120.exe with Izarc and installed it. However,
I'm not sure how Nfilter is supposed to work with Agent (the Readme
and Info files don't help). It also appears that I must change a
configuration file in order to killfile anyone. That seems a lot more
inconvenient than the way Agent handles it. Finally, it appears that
the filtering does not work while offline.
 
Thanks Mel. I opened np-120.exe with Izarc and installed it. However,
I'm not sure how Nfilter is supposed to work with Agent (the Readme
and Info files don't help). It also appears that I must change a
configuration file in order to killfile anyone. That seems a lot more
inconvenient than the way Agent handles it. Finally, it appears that
the filtering does not work while offline.
Click to expand...

http://www.nfilter.org/faq.html

Normally found that to be an effective description.

Newsproxy points to your news server, and your newsreader points t
localhost (127.0.0.1).

It is a header retrieval filter, so by the time you are offline, it's
work is done!

If you use the DROP action, the header is not passed on... no further
action is required in the newsreader program, as the header will not
be there at all... the message is discarded, and NOT recoverable other
then by rescanning headers with different filtering.

Using the FLAG action adds a marker to the subject, and AFLAG adds it
to the Author (from).

If you want anything else done with those, you need a filtering
capability in your newsreader, though newsproxy may be able to mark on
conditions you cannot filter on without it's help.

Finally, the SCORE action is only useful in preparing for a secondary
score related action - SCORE is entirely local to newsproxy.
Useful for conditions more complicated than "OR" (just use two filters
on two lines) or "AND" (combine filter conditions on one line).

Score is handy for combining "good" conditions and "bad" ones, and
assessing the result
 
Yes, it is inconvenient. Fortunately you won't have to change its
rules very often if you're careful. It can filter in ways that
Agent cannot.
http://www.nfilter.org/faq.html

Normally found that to be an effective description.

Newsproxy points to your news server, and your newsreader points t
localhost (127.0.0.1).

It is a header retrieval filter, so by the time you are offline, it's
work is done!
Click to expand...
There are ways to filter in Forte Agent when offline though.
Pick the group(s) or folder(s) you wish to filter, and use Ctrl+G
to bring up a search box. All messages meeting the filtering
criteria will be listed. You can delete them or move them as a
group.

I've released a GPL compliant update of NewsProxy, complete with
the commented source code. Unlike the build I put out last year,
this one can and should be distributed with my blessing. Whomever
picked up the nfilter.org domain name is free to host the archive
as well. I've set the version at v1.2.2 for continuity reasons.

One thing missing from that build is complete posting header control.
I've been threatened over that issue and cannot risk being hauled
into court by a frivolous lawsuit. Providing that level of control
will have to wait for a replacement that's entirely my own work.
--
Changes from v1.2.0

1. Forgery Flood has been disabled. The code was not
included in nps-120.zip for a simple reason - releasing
it would provide troublemakers with the filtering rules.

2. Cancel-lock has been disabled. Few if any news servers
supported that abandoned proposal.

3. The tray icon has been changed to more closely conform
to the Windows User Interface Guidelines from Microsoft.
Double-clicking will unhide the app and bring it to the
foreground, right-clicking will bring up a context menu.
The icon has been changed to give you a visual cue that
it is a new version.

The file is attached to the message cited below.
You can right-click on the Message-ID and jump
directly to that message.

I will watch alt.usenet.offline-reader.forte-agent.modified
for trouble reports and input for new features.
--
From: "(akula)" <[email protected]>
Newsgroups: alt.binaries.freeware
Subject: NewsProxy v1.2.2 - "nps-122.zip" (1/1) yEnc
Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2005 18:18:34 +0000
Lines: 2199
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
 
http://www.nfilter.org/faq.html

Normally found that to be an effective description.

Newsproxy points to your news server, and your newsreader points t
localhost (127.0.0.1).

It is a header retrieval filter, so by the time you are offline, it's
work is done!

If you use the DROP action, the header is not passed on... no further
action is required in the newsreader program, as the header will not
be there at all... the message is discarded, and NOT recoverable other
then by rescanning headers with different filtering.

Using the FLAG action adds a marker to the subject, and AFLAG adds it
to the Author (from).

If you want anything else done with those, you need a filtering
capability in your newsreader, though newsproxy may be able to mark on
conditions you cannot filter on without it's help.

Finally, the SCORE action is only useful in preparing for a secondary
score related action - SCORE is entirely local to newsproxy.
Useful for conditions more complicated than "OR" (just use two filters
on two lines) or "AND" (combine filter conditions on one line).

Score is handy for combining "good" conditions and "bad" ones, and
assessing the result
Click to expand...

Thanks for the explanations Matt. I've chosen to uninstall nfilter. I
still have xnews on my system but I think I'll get rid of that one too
because I can't get used to its interface. I really liked 40tude
Dialog although it didn't work on my USB pen drive the last time,
someone said it should have worked as a standalone, so I'll give it
another try. I really liked that its interface was so similar to
Agent.
 
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