Working with articles

Getting started with articles

1. Open once of the groups you subscribed to by double clicking on it. All the articles will now be displayed. A purple subject denotes a new article, black is an old article. The box to the left of the subject reflects whether or not an article has multiple parts. White is no, green is yes.
2. Clicking on a column header sorts the list of articles. Click again to reverse the direction
3. Right click on an article. The context menu that results is massive. Lets go over it now

'Main' context menu




Explanation of all options

• Get New Headers - same as right clicking a group and selecting 'Get new headers'
• Stop getting new headers - cancels downloading new headers for this group
• More - Opens sub menu, described below
• Download articles - Downloads selected articles and keeps them in the spool
• Download with priority - Opens sub menu allowing you to assign a priority to this download. Higher is more important
• Cancel downloading - Cancels downloading selected articles
• Download immediately - Downloads selected articles immediately, regardless of priority
• Download later - Marks selected articles for download later with priority as set in Properties...Tasks...Download later
• Save attachments - Move attachments from the spool file to a directory as defined in Properties...Newsgroups...Save. If you have a Save folder for a virtual group and not an individual group, the default folder will be used
• Download and Save attachments - This is your bread and butter. You will use this option for downloading most things. This will mark the article for download and make it eligible for autosave
• Download and save with priority - Opens sub menu allowing you to assign a priority to this download and save. Higher is more important
• Download and save later - Marks selected articles for download later with priority as set in Properties...Tasks...Download later, but still eligible for autosave
• Save text - Saves article body to a directory you select via dialog box. Attachment encoding is NOT saved in this file
• Save source - Saves entire post to a directory you select via dialog box. Attachment encoding is saved in this file
• Delete bodies - Delete selected article bodies from the spool
• Delete headers - Delete selected article headers from the spool
• Undelete headers - Unmark previously deleted headers as deleted
• Mark old - Marks selected headers as old (changes color to black)
• Mark New - Marks selected headers as new (changes color to purple)
• Mark Read - Marks selected headers as read (changes color to gray)
• Mark Unread - Marks selected headers as unread (changes color to black)
• All Headers - Opens sub menu, described below
• Focused Entry - Opens sub menu, described below
• Clear errors - Clears any errors from the task manager (CTRL+T)
• Reply - Post a reply to the selected article
• Google search - Search Google groups for this article
• Properties - Displays statistics on the selected article such as completion, what servers article is available on, etc

'More' context menu




Explanation of all options

• Rescan headers - same as everywhere else
• Reset newsgroup - same as everywhere else
• Find - Invoke find dialog
• Message filter - Invoke message filter dialog
• Apply filter - Apply a predefined filter to the active article listing
• Save filter - Saves the active filter to a file for later use
• Reset filter - Removes all filters from the active article listing
• Delete probable duplicates - Saves space by removing dupes from the spool
• Show deleted headers - Unhides headers that were previously marked for deletion
• Purge deleted headers - Deletes headers from the spool that are marked for deletion
• Enable autosupport for partial messages - Toggles autosupport for partial/multipart messages. Same as clicking 'Autosupport for partial messages' on toolbar
• Partial messages in replies - Not too sure about this one!
• Show incomplete partial messages - Toggles showing message with missing parts. Same as clicking 'Show messages with missing parts' on the toolbar
• Delete bodies of partials with missing parts - Remove partial article bodies from the spool
• Partial message, manual reassembly - Allows you to select several partial files and manually combine them.
• Show missing parts - Displays missing parts of an incomplete/partial message
• Clear selected - Unselected the currently selected rows
• Copy subject - Copies subject to clipboard
• Copy author - Copies author to clipboard
• Copy message-ID - Copies message ID to clipboard

'All Headers' context menu




Explanation of all options

USE WITH CAUTION! Affects every article in current view!!
• Download articles - Downloads ALL article and keeps them in the spool
• Cancel downloading - Cancels downloading ALL articles in current view
• Download immediately - Downloads ALL articles immediately, regardless of priority
• Download later - Marks ALL articles for download later with priority as set in Properties...Tasks...Download later
• Save attachments - Saves any attachments in the current article and removes attachment from spool
• Download and Save attachments - Mark ALL articles for download and make them eligible for autosave
• Save text - Saves article bodies to a directory you select via dialog box. Attachment encoding is NOT saved in this file
• Save source - Saves entire post to a directory you select via dialog box. Attachment encoding is saved in this file
• Delete article bodies - Deletes ALL article bodies from the spool
• Delete headers - Deletes ALL article headers from the spool
• Undelete headers - Unmarks ALL previously deleted headers as deleted
• Mark old - Marks selected header as old (changes color to black)
• Mark New - Marks selected header as new (changes color to purple)
• Mark Read - Marks selected header as read (changes color to gray)
• Mark Unread - Marks selected header as unread (changes color to black)
• Clear errors - Clears any errors from the task manager

'Focused Entry' context menu




Explanation of all options

• Download article - Downloads selected article and keep in the spool
• Cancel downloading - Cancels downloading selected article
• Open article - Opens selected article for viewing
• Save attachments - Saves any attachments in the current article and removes attachment from spool
• Download and Save attachments - Mark the article for download and make it eligible for autosave
• Save text - Saves article body to a directory you select via dialog box. Attachment encoding is NOT saved in this file
• Save source - Saves entire post to a directory you select via dialog box. Attachment encoding is saved in this file
• Delete body - Delete article body from the spool
• Delete header - Delete article header from the spool
• Undelete header - Unmark previously deleted header as deleted
• Mark old - Marks selected header as old (changes color to black)
• Mark New - Marks selected header as new (changes color to purple)
• Mark Read - Marks selected header as read (changes color to gray)
• Mark Unread - Marks selected header as unread (changes color to black)



4. Bring up the task manager by clicking (CTRL+T)
5. Now that you know everything about every damn option in those context menus, right click on some articles and select 'Download and save attachments'
6. Click the 'Articles' tab in the task manager. Notice the running tasks and the pending tasks. This is basically the same as the 'Headers' tab we saw when we downloaded headers
7. When the pending task is empty and the last running tasks finish, you have downloaded your first article! Congratulations!
8. Autosave should kick in and move the attachment to the directory you specified in Properties...Newsgroups
9. Download, install and read about NPDL Manager. This will let you manage your downloads quickly and efficiently. There is a nice tutorial at my site as well on NPDL Manager.