Finding and Reading Newsgroups


Usually, when you read a newsgroup, you must first subscribe to it. A subscription simply means you've placed a bookmark of sorts in Outlook Express for that group, making it easy to return to and follow conversations whenever you are using OE6.

Before you can subscribe to a newsgroup, you need to find one that piques your interest. Searching for a group in your downloaded list is fairly simple in OE6 (see Figure 11.3). If the list isn't already open, you can open it by clicking your news account in the Folders list. If the list doesn't open automatically, you can click the Newsgroups button on the toolbar.

Figure 11.3. You can begin typing a word to search the newsgroup list. The list automatically gets smaller as you type, showing only those groups with names that match what you typed.


As you type a word in the Display Newsgroups Which Contain field (Figure 11.3), the list of newsgroups shrinks. You can experiment by typing a keyword you are interested in, pausing after each keystroke.

Newsgroups are usuallybut not alwaysnamed descriptively. In Figure 11.3, you can see the option to search newsgroup descriptions as well as their names, but very few groups actually have descriptions listed in this window.

TIP

If you don't find a newsgroup that interests you, try a search at http://groups.google.com/ or another Web source to see whether other groups not currently available on your news server exist. There is no such thing as a "complete" list of newsgroups, so a search of several different resources will yield the best results.


Subscribing to Newsgroups

OE6 does not require you to subscribe to a group to view its contents. You can simply select a group from the list and click Go To to see messages posted to the group, but you might find it easier to manage the process by simply subscribing anyway. Subscribing to a newsgroup does not require any great level of commitment on your part because you can always unsubscribe with just two mouse clicks.

When you find a newsgroup you want to subscribe to, do the following:

1.

Click once on the newsgroup name to select it, and then click the Subscribe button. An icon should appear next to the group name, as shown in Figure 11.4.

Figure 11.4. You can select a newsgroup and subscribe to it here. When you click Go To, this window automatically closes.


2.

Click Go To at the bottom of the Newsgroup Subscriptions window. The window closes, and the 300 most recent posts are downloaded to your computer.

Actually, only the message headers are downloaded, and they appear listed in the OE6 window. The message contents are not downloaded until you choose to view a specific message.

Managing Your Subscriptions

Newsgroups you are subscribed to are listed in the OE6 Folders list, under the news account listing, as shown in Figure 11.5. If you have multiple news server accounts, individual subscriptions are listed as subfolders under the server you used to subscribe to them.

Figure 11.5. Subscribed newsgroups appear in the Folders list.


When you click a newsgroup's listing in the Folders list, the 300 most recent headers are downloaded.

If you want to change the number of headers shown, p. 415.


If you decide that you don't want to remain subscribed to a group, unsubscribing is easy. Just right-click the group's listing in the Folders list, and choose Unsubscribe from the shortcut menu that appears.

Reading and Posting Messages to a Newsgroup

As you learned previously, when you first access a newsgroup using OE6, only the first 300 message headers are downloaded. You can download additional headers by clicking Tools, Get Next 300 Headers.

If you want to read a message, you need to manually open it. If you are using the Preview Pane, all you have to do is click once on the message header to cause it to download. If you are not using the Preview Pane, you can double-click a message to open it in a separate message window.

To learn how to show or hide the Preview Pane, p. 362.


As you peruse the list of messages in the group, you need to understand the concept of discussion threads. A thread occurs when someone responds to a message. Others respond to the response, and this conversation becomes its own discussion thread. Messages that are part of a thread have a plus (+) sign next to them, and you can click this icon to expand a list of other messages in the thread. Figure 11.6 shows several expanded threads.

Figure 11.6. Threaded messages.


Posting messages to a newsgroup is quite simple. Perhaps the easiest way to post is to reply to an existing message. This process works much the same as replying to regular email, except that you must take extra care to ensure that your reply is going to the right place. Notice that the toolbar has a new buttonthe Reply Group buttonas shown in Figure 11.7.

Figure 11.7. You must choose your reply mode carefully.


Each reply button serves a unique purpose:

Reply Group

Sends a reply back to the group

Reply

Sends a reply only to the original sender

Forward

Forwards the message to a third party


One aspect to watch carefully is that messages you post to a newsgroup are relevant. If the newsgroup is moderated, someone reviews all posts and removes those posts that are deemed inappropriate. Look for a newsgroup FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) for more information on netiquette and any rules that might apply to the groups you are subscribed to.

CAUTION

Information posted in newsgroups can be viewed by anyone, and we do mean anyone! Never post personal or sensitive information in a newsgroup.


NOTE

The default news message format is Plain Text. You should maintain this setting to ensure that your message can be read by other news readers.


Managing Messages

By default, OE6 deletes messages from your computer five days after you download them, but you can change this option easily. Likewise, you can also set up Outlook Express to delete read messages every time you leave the group. You can review these settings by choosing Tools, Options. In the Options dialog, click the Maintenance tab to bring it to the front, as shown in Figure 11.8.

Figure 11.8. You can review your message management settings here.


If a message you read earlier becomes unavailable, see "Message No Longer Available" in the "Troubleshooting" section at the end of this chapter.


If you're not sure which messages have been read and which haven't, see "Which Ones Are New?" in the "Troubleshooting" section at the end of the chapter.


If you want to maintain a record of the messages in your newsgroup, remove the check marks next to each Delete option shown in Figure 11.8. Messages remain in OE6 indefinitely if you deselect both of these options, but keep in mind that if the group has high traffic, these messages could eventually eat up a lot of disk space.

The better option is to save individual messages that you want to maintain. To do so, create a new folder for storing news messages under Local Folders in the OE6 Folders list, and then drag any messages you want to save into the folder. You can also drag and drop newsgroup messages to any of your email folders, but you might find it easier to keep newsgroup and email correspondence separate.

Reading News Offline

In Chapter 9, "Browsing the World Wide Web with Internet Explorer," you learned that you can download Web pages for offline viewing. You can do the same with newsgroup messages, a capability that makes especially good sense if you must limit your Internet connection time or will be traveling with your laptop. OE6 calls this feature synchronizing.

CAUTION

Before you synchronize a newsgroup for offline viewing, check the size of the messages you will download. Some people post pictures and other large files into newsgroups, and they can add significantly to download time.


To begin downloading a newsgroup for offline viewing, click your news server account in the Folders list. A list of the groups you are subscribed to then appears, as shown in Figure 11.9. Now follow these steps:

1.

Select the newsgroup(s) you want to synchronize, and review the synchronization settings. By default, only new messages will be synchronized, but you can change this setting by clicking the Settings button and choosing another option.

2.

Place a check mark in the box(es) under Synchronization settings, as shown in Figure 11.9.

3.

Click Synchronize Account. Messages are downloaded based on the synchronization settings you choose. Keep in mind that if you choose to synchronize all messages, the download could take awhile.

Figure 11.9. You synchronize messages for offline viewing by choosing options as shown here.


When the download is complete, you can get offline to read the downloaded messages. If you try to open a message that isn't available offline, a warning advises you of this fact.

If, after you synchronize a newsgroup, some messages are not available, see "Some Messages Are Unavailable After Synchronizing" in the "Troubleshooting" section at the end of this chapter.



You also can select individual messages for offline reading. Choosing particular messages may be a better course of action, especially if the newsgroup has thousands of messages and you want to download only the first few. Select several message headers in the newsgroup by Ctrl+clicking or Shift+clicking. Then right-click the selection and choose Download Message Later from the menu that appears. When you later choose Synchronize Account from the server account window shown in Figure 11.9, only the selected messages are downloaded. Note that if you select to download all messages in your synchronization settings, all messages will be downloaded, not only the ones you selected.



Special Edition Using Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Special Edition Using Microsoft Windows XP Professional (3rd Edition)
ISBN: 0789732807
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 450

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