What is NPDL Manager?


NPDL Manager is a tool that lets you have complete control over your downloaded articles. When enabled in NewsPro, NewsPro will log all download activity to a file. NPDL Manager reads that file and displays it in an easy to use format.

Make sure you enable download logging via Properties...General...Saving attachments...Log before downloading!

For example, you downloaded 2 CDs in MP3 format:

CD 1:

01 - Foo.mp3
02 - Bar.mp3
03 - Foo revisited.mp3


CD 2:

01 - RIAA and the shotgun.mp3
02 - Privacy's last stand.mp3
03 - Don't make me move offshore.mp3


NewsPro lets you assign a folder to save attachment in at the newsgroup level. Lets say we chose C:\mp3s\ as our path. When all the downloads are done, C:\mp3s will look like this:

01 - Foo.mp3
01 - RIAA and the shotgun.mp3
02 - Bar.mp3
02 - Privacy's last stand.mp3
03 - Don't make me move offshore.mp3
03 - Foo revisited.mp3


Now if the poster was smart, he ID3 tagged all his songs, but if he didn't, how would you know what songs go together? Here is where NPDL Manager comes in. It will be able to tell you which songs belong together because it knows everything there is to know about the file from the log NewsPro generates. An example would help!

The example

First, we load the file containing our downloads. Select File...Open and then select the SavedAttachments.txt file. This is created in your NewsPro installation directory. If you use Tools...Set file path first, you will only need to do this once.




Now that the file is loaded, you will see entries in the grid at the bottom. Notice how the songs are listed in alphabetical order (file path column).




To sort by a column, click the header of the column. To group by a column, drag it to the area that says 'Drag a column header here'.
Below we see what happens when we group by the from field. Now we are getting somewhere!




If we expand a group by clicking the + sign, we see that this poster posted several CDs. Notice how the subjects are not listed next to each other.




Click the subject header to list all like subjects together. Notice the file path has now changed as well. All our posts for a particular CD are in order now!




Now select the files you want to deal with. In this case, everything from The Best of album. Right clicking brings up a menu.




Selecting 'Move files to...' brings up a dialog to pick the destination directory. Once you select a directory, the highlighted files will be moved there.
Based on the program options you have selected, the files will be removed from the list (see main page for tools explanations).




Based on the program options you have selected, the files will be removed from the list.





That is about it for the basics. Just repeat those steps for each set of files you want to deal with.
There are some advanced options and settings that are explained on the main page. Feel free to email me with any questions as well!