xnews configuration

[badgolferman]

Okay, I am an Outlook Express user and have tried a variety of
newsreaders. I keep coming back to OE because of its ease of use and
ability to be configured easily. Since so many of you veterans insist OE
is an inferior product I am going to give Xnews another chance. But I
need some help in configuring it to be usable to me.

1) How to I mark a thread to be "watched" easily like you can in OE?
Preferably an icon for this lazy Windows user.

2) How do you make the "watched" thread change color and be at the top
of the thread window?

3) How do I setup the filter to automatically make threads I participate
in become "watched"?

4) How do I put toolbar icons that I want on the toolbar in the order
that I want?

5) How do I save threads or messages that I want to keep in a different
mailbox folder?

I will appreciate any help or other pointers in Xnews configuration.

 

[Boomer]

Okay, I am an Outlook Express user and have tried a variety of
newsreaders. I keep coming back to OE because of its ease of use
and ability to be configured easily. Since so many of you
veterans insist OE is an inferior product I am going to give Xnews
another chance. But I need some help in configuring it to be
usable to me. [snip]

I will appreciate any help or other pointers in Xnews
configuration.

Lots of good help over at news.software.readers. You might want to
look for one of my last messages there. It has some helpful
information.

 

[iplom]

I will appreciate any help or other pointers in Xnews configuration.

I use Xnews & Mozilla as newsreaders, but I cannot answer your
questions. You WILL get the answers to these questions in:

news.software.readers

Just put "xnews" in the subject line.

HTH

 

[Onno]

[snip]

1) How to I mark a thread to be "watched" easily like you can in OE?
Preferably an icon for this lazy Windows user.

Alt+A > A
This will bring up a rather itimidating dialog box. However, the preset
choices are at the bottom.
Alt+W
Enter

This is the easiest standard way. It is also possible to assign functions
to key combinations, but you should ask news.software.readers for that.

2) How do you make the "watched" thread change color and be at the
top of the thread window?

Xnews marks watched thread by default.
Have the messages sorted by score.
However, this may not be necessary, as Xnews will immediately jump to the
first message with a score if it can find one. In your case that would be
replies to your post or watched threads.

3) How do I setup the filter to automatically make threads I
participate in become "watched"?

Xnews marks replies to your post by default, up to 4 levels.

4) How do I put toolbar icons that I want on the toolbar in the order
that I want?

No idea, I use key combinations.

5) How do I save threads or messages that I want to keep in a
different mailbox folder?

Create a new archive folder
Folder>New>Archive
Then select a message and Transfer to your new archive folder.

I will appreciate any help or other pointers in Xnews configuration.

This is what I can tell you straight away. There are more answers in the
manual, but I hope you understand that I'm not going to read the manual
for you .

 

[=?ISO-8859-1?Q?=BBQ=AB?=]

Xnews marks replies to your post by default, up to 4 levels.

Only if the idtoken has been set. I think instructions are in the
manual for that.

No idea, I use key combinations.

I do too, and I don't know how to rearrange the buttons. But is
possible to place buttons where you want, and even to use your own
icons. This is indeed a job for news.software.readers, or for a
careful search of changes.txt.

 

[Tech Zero]

The voice of "badgolferman" drifted in on the cyber-winds,
from the sea of virtual chaos...

Okay, I am an Outlook Express user and have tried a variety of
newsreaders. I keep coming back to OE because of its ease of use
and ability to be configured easily. Since so many of you
veterans insist OE is an inferior product I am going to give Xnews
another chance. But I need some help in configuring it to be
usable to me.

Since I'm bored...

1) How to I mark a thread to be "watched" easily like you can in
OE? Preferably an icon for this lazy Windows user.

Lazy is the wrong word to use when dealing with Xnews.

Xnews uses "scoring"; It's sort-of like multiple levels of Watched &
Ignored threads, with values from -9999 to 9999. Like Onno said, using
the score dialog is the easiest way to get started, but at some point
you'll want to get your hands dirty and edit the Score.ini manually.

You'll find more about it the Manual (menu: Help/Manual), and in the
"other" help files; "pcre.html", & "scoring.txt". Also see:
http://www.dragonfur.ca/nowhere/score.ini.txt for some examples.

2) How do you make the "watched" thread change color and be at
the top of the thread window?

You can't change the color, but you can sort the group so watched
threads are at the top (and indecently, Ignored at the bottom). Just
place these entries in the following files while Xnews is closed:

In Xnews.ini:
[Display]
SortOn=Date
SortOrder=-1

In Groups.ini:
[~binaries]
SortOn=Score
SortOrder=-1

3) How do I setup the filter to automatically make threads I
participate in become "watched"?

At the top of your Score.ini:

[.]
% Message Tagging...
Score: =9000
Message-ID: badgolferm@
~References: @
Score:: 3500
Subject: badgolferman
References: badgolferm@([^>]*>){1,2}$
Score: 1000
References: badgolferm@([^>]*>){3,}$

The color range is:
9999 and up = yellow
5000 to 9998 = red
1001 to 4999 = green
1 to 1000 = blue
0 = no color
-9998 to -1 = grey
-9999 and less = black

4) How do I put toolbar icons that I want on the toolbar in the
order that I want?

Read the manual...
It's under the "Xnews.ini: Global settings", "[ToolBars] section:".

5) How do I save threads or messages that I want to keep in a
different mailbox folder?

Create a new one and use the transfer menu to put posts into it.

You can also do it automatically by setting the default Archive folders
in your Groups.ini, like so (place above the "[~binaries]" entry)...

[^(alt\.(anime|music)|rec\.(arts|video|music))]
Archive=Multimedia
continue=1

[^alt\.(comp|spam)]
Archive=Tech
continue=1

[^news\.software\.readers$]
Archive=Tech
continue=1

Again...
Read the manual & also the sample "Groups.ini" file for more info.

I will appreciate any help or other pointers in Xnews
configuration.

Go to news:news.software.readers and read some of the "[Xnews]"
threads.

 

[Boomer]

The voice of "badgolferman" drifted in on the cyber-winds,
from the sea of virtual chaos...

Okay, I am an Outlook Express user and have tried a variety of
newsreaders. I keep coming back to OE because of its ease of use
and ability to be configured easily. Since so many of you
veterans insist OE is an inferior product I am going to give
Xnews another chance. But I need some help in configuring it to
be usable to me.

Since I'm bored...

1) How to I mark a thread to be "watched" easily like you can in
OE? Preferably an icon for this lazy Windows user.

[snip]
Go to news:news.software.readers and read some of the "[Xnews]"
threads.

Excellent idea.

 

[Tech Zero]

The voice of "Boomer" drifted in on the cyber-winds,
from the sea of virtual chaos...

Go to news.software.readers and read some of the "[Xnews]" threads.

Excellent idea.

Ahhh...
But it was so much fun creating that post, and since it was already OT.

(We do have OT filters, right?)

 

[Boomer]

The voice of "Boomer" drifted in on the cyber-winds,
from the sea of virtual chaos...

Okay, I am an Outlook Express user and have tried a variety of
newsreaders. I keep coming back to OE because of its ease of
use and ability to be configured easily. Since so many of you
veterans insist OE is an inferior product I am going to give
Xnews another chance. But I need some help in configuring it
to be usable to me.

Go to news.software.readers and read some of the "[Xnews]"
threads.

Excellent idea.

Ahhh...
But it was so much fun creating that post, and since it was
already OT.

(We do have OT filters, right?)

Sure mark a post OT and then just post any thing in this group?
I think thats one of the issues this group is trying to straighten out.

Appreciate if you could point others to sites or groups when the _talk_
moves away from freeware. Much thanks, Tech Zero

 

[Me]

Okay, I am an Outlook Express user and have tried a variety of
newsreaders. I keep coming back to OE because of its ease of use
and ability to be configured easily. Since so many of you veterans
insist OE is an inferior product I am going to give Xnews another
chance.

As a standing-on-the-side-of-the-pool-should-I-jump-in newbie, why is
Xnews better than Agent or Gravity (or is it?)

KeithS

 

[Tiger]

As a standing-on-the-side-of-the-pool-should-I-jump-in newbie, why is
Xnews better than Agent or Gravity (or is it?)

It is only better to those of us who prefer it. It's all a matter of
personal preference. I use it because I have an "always on" cable
connection (therefore, no need for offline capabilities) and because it
is less vulnerable to security problems than OE. There are a few
cosmetic and functional differences that I prefer as well. Try it.