NEWSREADER for EPOC32

version 0.3a

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(see bottom for updated components)
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***************************
*     ALPHA VERSION !!!!! *
*   Please read all the   *
*        DOCUMENT         *
*       SERIOUSLY!        *
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released by Palmscape (http://www.palmscape.com)

Authored by Russ Spooner and Richard Panton

Support queries to go to russ@palmscape.com

Not interested in bugs at this stage, there are loads. I know. It's an Alpha after all.
Feedback is nice though.


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Right.

Here you have an alpha of Newsreader for Epoc32... Yippee.

Don't distribute this, or I will hurt you. Believe me I will know :-)


The unregistered version will always place a footer on any posted articles, proclaiming that it is unregistered.


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To install:

No sis file yet. Will be soon. Just as soon as Richard get's round to it!

I hope you maintained the directory structure when you unzipped this or you'll have to go back and do a pkunzip -d news03a.zip

If you have a previous alpha installed you will have to remove all components i.e. uninstall everything including the contents of your newsreader data directory(ies) you will have specified.

It's all fairly obvious: the contents of the \system\opl directory in this archive should go to \system\opl on your psion/geofox etc...

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Using it:

Weeeell. Its not a finished product so this is all the documentation you're gonna get for now.

Newsreader is intended primarily for offline reading, and so you will find it will take longer to download newsgroup headers than other newsreaders, but I can say it is easily faster than any other Epoc32 Newsreader you're likely to find :-)

This is because it is storing full header information so that you can get more infomation on the posts you might want to flag for download at a later date, and view this extended header information at your leisure.

There are many rough edges as you can imagine- quite simply because it isn't finished yet, but I like it enough to want to share it with you people :-)

Getting Started:

This newsreader gives you a lot of control over what you do.

A couple of concepts must be covered first:

A "connection" in the sense of Newsreader, is a news-server you connect to. If you have more than one server you use regularily, such as the Epocworld news servers, as well as the one your ISP maintains you can create new connection "documents", these contain all the relevant information for the server.

By using these connections you could have many sessions of Newsreader open at the same time each pointing at the same or different servers.

Give it a go- you'll see what I mean...

To get going quickly, when you fire up the newsreader for the first time it will present you with a dialog for you to enter your connection details. I can't really help too much with that, except to say that you will need to choose "authenticate to server" when connecting to  the Epocworld news server....

And that the data directory is the directory that the connection will use to store it's article files, outbox directory and other bits.

You can use an existing directory, for example you accidentally deleted your "connection" file and wish to recreate it and access your old messages.

Otherwise make sure the directory is empty or that it is not being used by another connection otherwise "bad things can happen"!

Once you have filled in the details, being as honest as you can... you will be automatically subscribed to "comp.sys.psion.programmer" and you will see an example article already in the browser.... 

To view this article you just hit (or tap gently on) enter and it will display the message. Cute eh?

BTW don't bother replying to it- it will only cause you hassle!


You will notice a "L" in the left hand column- this means that it is a "Local" message and that you can view the full message at any time.

If you were to hit enter on a remote message i.e. one for which you have nothing in the leftmost column, you will only be able to view the header information.


OK. So what next....


Connecting:

Connecting to the news server is something that always has to be chosen by you. The newsreader will not automagically run off and try to get you online- this is simply because it tends to assume that you want to be offline, and that you will let it know when you want to start killing your phone bill...

Hit the go-online icon on the toolbar or press shift-ctrl-c or choose it from the menu.... etc. etc...

You will see in the status bar the TCP/IP stack's progress as it tries to get itself sorted out and connected to the news server.

OK, so you are online.

The first thing you might want to try is getting some headers.

there are two ways to go about this...

First is by choosing "Headers..." this will check how many headers in the newsgroup there are and if there are more than the maximum no-query limit, it will pop up a dialog to ask you how many you want to get.

Second you can choose "Get more headers". This will get you the maximum no-query number you specified.

***Tech Bit***
There are two schools of thought about retrieving header infomation:

1. You can query the server to find out how many new headers there are since a certain date.
2. You can get headers starting at the most recent and then gradually work your way back in time.


I chose the second method for a couple of reasons, primarily, though:

With the first method, say you go online on friday and query the server "How many new articles since Thursday?" it says "1000". You say "cool, get me 50."

The next day you query the server: "How many new articles since Friday" it says "1603". You say, "cool, get me 120".

You've missed out on a dollop of news.... 


So what Newsreader does is it goes online susses out the most recent article header and then starts worming its way backwards.

If you have asked for 20 headers, it will chug away, and if it finds a header it already has it will ignore it and go on to the next one until it finds one it knows nothing about.

This gives you a bit more control over what you get.
***End Tech***


Right so you have your groovy headers. Hit enter on one of them and it will rush off and get the whole article and you can view it. Easy.

There's a twist though: It will save it locally so you can view it later!

While in the message viewer you can reply to the message, incidentally you can also reply to a message when you are offline and only have the header..!

When you hve finished gaping in awe at some Joe's posting you can hit "back" or ctrl-e to get back to the header viewer.

OK. Now you're bored- subscribe to a new newsgroup.

From the header view hit ctrl-s or choose subscribe from the menu:

You will be given a cute two paned dialog (like it?)

On the left you will see nothing yet, but on the right you will see "comp.sys.psion.programmer"- the group (and eventually groups) you have subscribed to.

The pane on the left will show you a list of newsgroups you have subscribed to in the past or newsgroups that are carried by your news server. (more on that later)

For now click on the "add" button or hit ctrl-a.

In the box type in a newsgroup, you wish to subscribe to... get it right though- it cant check at this stage.

Hit "done" or escape

There. You have subscribed to a new newsgroup. Now you have to change to the group:

Hit ctrl-g or click on the folder icon in the status bar...

Choose your group.

Download some headers!

You're rocking!

Getting a list of available Groups:

On a small server you can expect to have about 1,000 newsgroups, this can take a loooonnng time to download as it can be about 500kb in size!

A teeny one like epocworld should be no problem, though.

Choose "get full list" under news->groups

Once it has downloaded the group list- it will then proceed to add the groups to it's database of newsgroups..... It will do this in the background so that you can get on with other stuff.


Replying to Postings or making new Postings.

Choose either reply or new for this...

Type away... you can actually attach a file to a posting (only one at this point) 

When you have finished, choose "save"- "cancel" will obviously discard the message.

You will then be given a dialog to modify or insert the subject line, Verify the attachment and choose the groups you are posting to...

The newsgroups option will allow you to crosspost, by placing a comma between the newsgroups you wish to post to. Up to a maximum of 255 characters. This is deliberate- no spam from this program!

After you click OK, it will then MIME encode the attachment if there was one, and then save the message in the newsgroup outbox directory (which sits under the data directory you specified when you created the connection).

If you are offline at the time, the message will patiently sit there until you go online. If you are online the chances are that it will be sent immediately!

If you are doing something else on the news server, like downloading headers or getting a list of groups, it will wait until that operation has finished before snding the message.
Once sent the messgae will be placed in the sent directory.

You can safely delete sent messages.


Thats enough to get you going.


Now for the stuff you should be warned against: (remember - it is **alpha** software!)


Aborting Half finished operations can be dodgy. Some will stop gracefully, others will cause the program to exit. (if in doubt exit the program - this will always ensure a proper cleanup)

Try to avoid disonnecting during an operation...


At present you cannot:

Print, well not messages anyhow!

Decode attachments

Append Signatures!

Register

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What's new in this release:

-Zooming
-Toolbar & Title Bar hiding
-10x faster cursor movement.
-Sorting of articles
-Find / Find next implemented
-Fixed loads of bugs.
-File export
-Downloading Flagged Messages
-It will now someitmes disconnect cleanly
-Shortcut Keys even closer to Message Suite, with the exception of ESC in the message viewer
-Proportional fonts
-Even more bugs...
-Put a splash screen in


Ath Ath Athats all Folks!
