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4.2. Subscribing to newsgroups - The newsgroup-dialog
If you are interested in a newsgroup and want to read it, you must subscribe to it first. To do this, select
the menu-item "Group->Subscribe" or click on the toolbar-button.
The "newsgroups-dialog" will appear, that consists of a list with two tabs, a text-field and four buttons.
Initially the "Subscribed"-tab is selected showing a list of all your subscribed groups, marked with
.
If you want to see a list of all available groups, click on the "All"-tab.
To subscribe to a group, doubleclick on the list-item, which will be marked immediately. Unsubscribing works the same way.
To find a specific group, type in the name or a part of it into the "filter"-field. The grouplist will automatically update itself, showing
only the groups that match the entered string.
It is recommended to download a new list of groups from the after some time. This can be done by clicking on the "new List"-button.
The "Help"-button opens the online-manual of KNode.
4.3. Reading news
Reading news in KNode is very easy. Just select a newsgroup by clicking on an item in the
groups-pane and select an article in the
article-pane. KNode will then connect to the server, fetch the article and
show it in the message-pane. Well, that's it :-)
Btw, there are some keybindings, that make this procedure more convenient. For details see the
Key-Bindings section.
4.4. Posting news
There are several ways to post an article:
-
Posting a new article: Just select "Article->Post new article" from the menubar or click on the appropriate
button on the toolbar. A composer-window
will appear, so you can edit your message. If currently a newsgroup is selected, the groupname is filled in
automatically.
-
Posting a reply: If you want to post a reply to an article, select "Article->Post reply" from the menubar or
click on the toolbar-button. A composer window will appear containing the currently selected article as quoted text.
The "newsgroup-line" of the reference-article is filled in, or the Followup-To, if the author has set one.
If the author has set "Followup-To: poster", a mail-composer is opened instead.
-
Sending the reply as a mail: You can send your reply to the mail-adress of the author by selecting "Article->Mail reply"
from the menubar or clicking on the toolbar-button. This will open a mail-composer containing the current artcile as quoted text.
There are several key-bindings concerning this procedure. For details se the Key-Bindings section.
The article-composer
The toolbar
send the article - if you click on this button and keep the mouse-button pressed, you can choose wether
you want the article to be sent now or later
save the article in the drafts-folder
append the signature if present
delete this article
The header-fields
- Subject: you can edit the subject of your article here. This field is mandatory.
- Newsgroups / To: this field contains the newsgroups or an email-adress. This field is also mandatory.
If you click on the "..."-button the group-select dialog is opened.
- FollowUp-To: it is possible to set a followup-to in this field. This is recommended if you have choosen more than
one newsgroup.
The Editor
Well, this is the editor. Need I to say more?
4.5. Using filters
KNode provides a powerful filter-mechanism, that makes it easy to find the articles you want to read. There are
5 predefined filters, but you can edit or delete them or define as many of your own filters as you want.
Applying a filter on a newsgroup is really simple. All you have to do is to select one from the "View"-menu or
use the corresponding toolbar-button. The filter stays active for all groups until you select a new one.
As you can see, the basic usage of filters in KNode is very easy, but what you really want to know is, how to define
your own filters. This is described in the following section :
Editing filters
To edit an existing or add a new filter select "Options->Filters" from the
menubar. This brings up the the filter-dialog, that is divided into two tabs. The "Filters"-tab contains
a list of all defined filters and three buttons (new, delete, edit). You can delete a filter by selecting it in the list
and clicking on the "delete"-button. A message-box will appear asking if you really want to delete the filter.
If you say yes here, the selected filter is permanently deleted.
To add a new filter cklick on the "new"-button, to edit an existing double-click on a list-item or click on the
"edit"-button. In both cases an edit-window will be opened. This window is basically divided into
a part containing general information about the filter and a part that lets you specify the filter-criteria.
General information:
First of all you have to provide a name for this filter. This name will be displayed in the filter-menu, if the option
"show in menu" is switched on. This is useful, if you do not need the it all the time but don't want to delete it now.
Such an inactive filter is marked with
, an active one with
.
The "apply on"-optinon needs some more explanation. Basically you can choose between two values:
- single articles: this means, that all articles this filter displays, must match the specified criteria
- whole threads: with this setting it is possible to display articles, that don't match the specified criteria, but only if
the belong to a thread, that contains at least one matching article.
For more details see the examples at the end of this section.
Filter-criteria:
In this part you can specify which criteria the articles have to match to be displayed by this filter.
The following settings are available:
-
Status: Here you can set wether you want the articles to
- be read or unread
- be new
- have unread followups
- have new followups
- Subject: with this setting you can specify a string or regular expression, the subject must or
must not contain.
- From: same as "Subject", but the "From" is filtered
- Score: here you can set an exact value or a certain range for the score
- Age: a value or a range for the age. In this context age does not referr to the
date the article has been posted, but to the time, it has been downloaded from the server. In many cases
this is identical, though.
- Lines: a range or value for the number of lines
Note: As you can see, every setting has got a checkbox in front of it. If you don't care about a criterion, just make sure, the checkbox
is switched off. In this case no attention is payed to it.
As stated above, the filter-dialog consists of two tabs. The second tab called "Menu" is responsible for
the appearance of the filter-menu. It contains a list of all active filters, that are to be displayed in the menu.
You can change the order by using the "up"- and "down"-buttons. It is also possible to
insert separators into the menu, to make it more clearly arranged. A separator appears as "===" in the list.
There are two buttons to add or remove a separator.
Examples
-
A filter for unread messages:
- open filter-dialog
- click on "add"
- name -> unread, apply-on -> single articles, show in menu -> on
- Status -> switch on checkbox "is read" -> choose value "false"
- switch off all other settings
This filter displays only articles that are unread.
-
A filter for threads with unread:
- open filter-dialog
- click on "add"
- name -> threads with unread, apply-on -> whole threads, show in menu -> on
- Status -> switch on checkbox "is read" -> choose value "false"
- switch off all other settings
This filter displays all threads, that contain at least one unread article, hence it might display articles, that are read!
-
A filter for own messages
- open filter-dialog
- click on "add"
- name -> own messages, apply-on -> singe articles, show in menu -> on
- Subject -> switch on checkbox -> choose value "does contain" ->
enter [your name] in the textfield
- switch off all other settings
This filter displays all messages you have posted. If you set "apply on" to "whole threads"
you will see all threads, you have contributed articles to.
I think you have got the picture. Just try it and define your own filters.
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