XanaNews - Working with XanaNews (part 1 of 4)

XanaNews > Help > Contents > Working with XanaNews > Accounts

Accounts
XanaNews allows you to connect to as many individual news servers as you
like. The settings for each connection are held in XanaNews in an 'Account'
Often your Internet Service Provider will provide a news server for you to
connect to as part of your package. in addition there are hundreds of free
and commercial news servers available on the Internet. Some of these
servers contain a small number of targeted, private newsgroups. Others
contain tens of thousands of groups.
An example of a small, private news server is the 'forums.talkto.net'
server. This free server holds only a few groups, but these include the
crucial 'xananews.support' and 'xananews.wishlist' newsgroups - where all
things XanaNews are discussed.
You can create more than one Account for a particular server. You may want
to do this for instance, to more easily separate German newsgroups from
English ones; groups containing picture from general discussion groups, etc.

XanaNews > Help > Contents > Working with XanaNews > Creating Accounts

Creating Accounts
To create a new account, select 'Add New Account' from the Account menu.
When the Account Properties form is displayed, type in the name of the
account. This is the name that XanaNews displays in the accounts & groups
tree. For instance:
XanaNews Support Newsgroups
Demon Internet Newsgroups
GigaNews
Next, select the 'Server Settings' section and type in the server name,
and user and password details if required. The server name is its Internet
name. Your Internet Service Provider or newsgroup provider will let you
know this. For instance:
forums.talkto.net
news.demon.co.uk
news.giganews.com
Free servers usually don't require a User Name and Password. Commercial
servers usually do. Leave the 'Always Authenticate' checkbox un-checked
unless otherwise directed by the server provider.
If the server uses SSL encryption, proceed to the Dialup & Connection
section and check the 'SSL Required' checkbox. Most servers don't use SSL
encryption.
That's it! Click the 'OK' button, and start using the new account by
choosing 'Show Newsgroup List' on the Account menu.

XanaNews > Help > Contents > Working with XanaNews > Removing an Account

Removing an Account
To remove an account select 'Remove Account' from the Account menu. Click
'OK' to confirm.
When you remove an account, its settings and all messages in all the
groups you subscribed to in that account are permanently removed.

XanaNews > Help > Contents > Working with XanaNews > Using Accounts

Using Accounts
Once you have created an account you can use it to retrieve the list of
newsgroups it maintained, to subscribe to these newsgroups, and to get
messages for the newsgroup you've subscribed to.

XanaNews > Help > Contents > Working with XanaNews > Subscribing to
Newsgroups

Subscribing to Newsgroups
Before you can read messages on a server you have to subscribe to one or
more newsgroups.
Select 'Show Newsgroup List' from the account menu. The list of newsgroups
is displayed.
The symbol next to the group name indicates the groups you are already
subscribed to.
The symbol next to a group name indicates that the group is a new group.
To subscribe to a group, select the group name and click the 'Subscribe'
button.
To unsubscribe from a group, select the group name and click the
'Unsubscribe' button.
You can subscribe to, or unsubscribe from a number of groups at a time.
Simply select more than one group name by clicking Subscribe or
Unsubscribe.
Newsgroup servers often hold many thousand of groups. To narrow down the
list of groups displayed:
*Check the 'Show Subscribed Groups Only' checkbox to show only the
 groups you're subscribed to.
*Check the 'Show New Groups Only' checkbox to show only new groups.
*To show only groups containing a particular word or partial word, type
 that word into the 'Display only groups that contain' box.
 For instance, if you type 'XanaNews', the list may show:
  alt.fr.outil.xananews
  alt.pl.niusy.czytniki.xananews
  alt.usenet.offline-reader.xananews
XanaNews will automatically detect when new groups are available, so you
don't usually have to select Refresh Group List for an account.
New groups only show up as being 'new' once in the newsgroup list. Once
they've been displayed they are no longer considered 'new'.

XanaNews > Help > Contents > Working with XanaNews > Unsubscribing from
Newsgroups

Unsubscribing from Newsgroups
The quickest way to unsubscribe from a newsgroup is to select it in the
Subscribed Groups tree, and select 'Unsubscribe' from the Newsgroup menu.
If you select more than one group on the Subscribed Groups tree, XanaNews
will unsubscribe from each group in turn.
Alternatively you can display the list of newsgroups for the account, and
unsubscribe there.
When you unsubscribe from a newsgroup, all the messages for that
newsgroup will be deleted from your computer.

XanaNews > Help > Contents > Working with XanaNews > Working with an
Account's Messages

Working with an Account's Messages
Once you have subscribed to some of an account's groups you can perform
certain actions on all the groups you are subscribed to in that account.
Select the account (rather than a group) in the Subscribed Groups tree,
and right-click to bring up the popup menu.
*'Get Messages' will display the 'Get Messages' form, and get the
 requested messages for all groups in the account.
*'Delete Messages' will display the 'Delete Messages' form and deleted
 the required messages from all groups in the account.
*'Mark all messages as Read' will mark all messages in all groups in
 the account as 'Read'
*'Quick Get Messages' will perform the default Get Messages action for
 all groups in the account.
*'Search Messages' will search messages in each group in the account in
 turn.

XanaNews > Help > Contents > Working with XanaNews > Refresh Account's
Group List

Refresh Account's Group List
Select 'Refresh Group List' from the Account menu to re-download the
complete list of newsgroups from the server.
This happens automatically the first time you show the newsgroup list.
And because XanaNews automatically downloads details for any new
newsgroups that are subsequently created you rarely need to do this.
Note that any groups that have been marked as 'new' by the automatic
download process will be unmarked if you refresh the group list.

XanaNews > Help > Contents > Working with XanaNews > Account Properties

Account Properties
The Account properties form allows you to control all aspects of an
account's operation. The form is divided into five sections:
Basic Account Settings
Server Settings
Dialup & Connection settings
Posting Server Details
Derived Settings

XanaNews > Help > Contents > Working with XanaNews > Basic Account
Settings

Basic Account Settings
The Basic Account Settings section contains the following options:
Account Name
The Account name, as it is displayed in XanaNews. This is not used to
connect the server, so it can be any name you like. Note that duplicate
account names are not supported.
Make Secret Account
Secret accounts don't appear in the groups & accounts tree when you start
XanaNews. You can make them appear (and disappear again) by selecting
'Show Secret Accounts & Newsgroups' on the View menu.
Enable Keyphrase Scanning
Enabling Keyphrase Scanning means that the groups in this account will be
scanned for the key phrases you set up in Tools/Options, Keywords.
Keyphrase Scanning was made optional because of concerns that it might
affect the overall performance of XanaNews. However, in practice there is
little noticeable difference when keyphrase scanning is enabled, and the
option mat be removed (and left enabled) in a future version.
Mark Messages as Read when Leaving Groups in this Account
If this option is selected, whenever you leave a selected newsgroup, all
its articles will be marked as 'read'.

XanaNews > Help > Contents > Working with XanaNews > Server Settings

Server Settings
The Server Settings section contains basic server details:
Server Name
The Internet name of the server. This can be given as a 'host name' (eg.
forums.talkto.net) or as a raw IP address (eg. 192.244.87,121)
This Server Requires Me to Log On
Select this check box if the server requires you to log on using a User
Name and Password.
User Name
The user name used if log on is required.
Password
The password used if log on is required.
Always Authenticate
Force XanaNews to log on to the server before trying to do anything else.
This is not usually required. Usually servers will ask for request
authentication if and when they need it. However some non-standard
servers will act differently if a particular user has logged on, maybe
presenting extra 'private' newsgroup in their group list, etc.
Last Greeting Received from Server
The last greeting received from the server is displayed here. This can
be useful for diagnosing connection problems.

XanaNews > Help > Contents > Working with XanaNews > Dialup & Connection

Dialup & Connection
The dialup & connection settings control how XanaNews connects to the
server specified in Server Settings
Dialling Options
Controls which Dialup connection is used when XanaNews connects to this
account's server. The options are:
 Dial default Internet connection. If no Internet connection is already
 established, XanaNews will dial the default connection specified in the
 Windows control panel. Most accounts will probably use this. It supports
 LAN connected computers, broadband, and dialup modems.
 Don't Dial. Use the existing connection to the Internet. If there is no
 existing connection, XanaNews will not attempt to dial, and the action
 will fail.
 Always dial a particular connection. XanaNews will always use the
 particular Dialup Connection when connecting to the server. If another
 Dialup Connection has already been established, XanaNews will disconnect
 it first if necessary, before redialling the specified connection.
Timeout
Controls how long XanaNews remains connected to the server after a
session becomes idle.
NNTP Port
Controls which port number XanaNews connects to on the server. The
default port for newsgroups is 119
Use XOVER
Using the XOVER command, XanaNews can request groups of message headers
from the server, rather than requesting them one at a time. Although
XOVER was not in the original Newsgroup protocol, almost every server
now implements it, and it provides a big performance boost.
SSL Options
Some secure servers require SSL encryption. This ensures that all network
traffic between your computer and the server is secure. Most news servers
do not use SSL. The default port for SSL encrypted newsgroup traffic is 563.
Use Pipelining
Pipelining involves sending several message requests to the server in one
chunk, instead of sending them one at a time. If the server supports it, it
can deliver a big performance boost. Most servers do support Pipelining. If
XanaNews keeps reporting errors while retrieving messages from a particular
server, try turning off pipelining.

[end part 1; see part 2 for continuation]