V540-AddGroups
From Newsbin
Contents |
Add Groups
This is where you select newsgroups of interest. Selecting a newsgroup here adds it to the Groups Tab, in the Unsorted folder. From there, you can move the group into a folder of your choice to better organize your groups. From this screen, you can search for groups by using built in filters or use your own search criteria. The columns can also be sorted.
Note: The terms newsgroups and groups are used interchangeably here.
NewsBin is shipped with a default list of groups that should be available on every news server. Some news servers carry more newsgroups than others so, it is a good idea to download a new group list from your server so you can see everything that is available.
Manual Add
If you know the newsgroup you want and don't need to search for it, type it in here and click the Manual Add button. The group will then be added to the Groups tab in the Unsorted folder.
Download Groups List From Server
Click this button to download the list of newsgroups from all your configured news servers. You will see the group download task appear in the Download Tab. Since NewsBin doesn't know how many groups are available, the progress bars reflect increments of 50,000 groups. So if your server carries 125,000 groups, you will see the progress bar fill two and a half times.
After the download completes, click the Refresh the List button to load the updated list of newsgroups.
If you add an additional news server at some point, and download groups again, they will be added to your current list. The Group Added Date will be updated when a group that wasn't listed before is added.
Refresh the List
Click this button to load the stored list of newsgroups. This is done automatically when you open the Add Group Dialog but you need click this button if you download more newsgroups.
Group Name Filters
This section of the Add Group Dialog allows you to refine the list of possibly 100,000+ newsgroups into something more manageable.
Binaries
Click this checkbox to show only newsgroups with the word "binaries" in them. This will narrow the groups list down from 100,000+ to under ten thousand. NewsBin is optimized for use with binaries groups so, most people will have this selected all the time.
Pictures
Click this checkbox to show only newsgroups with the word "pictures" in them if you are only looking for picture groups. This can be used in addition to the Binaries filter to keep within the binaries groups too.
Filter Out Low Post Group
This is a useful filter to hide all the low traffic newsgroups. They rarely have anything of interest anyways. Using this and the binaries filters will reveal that there are only around 3000 active binaries groups out of 150,000+ total newsgroups available on Usenet.
Search
If you know the type of information you are seeking, you can type a word in here and press the Search button to further narrow down the list of groups to choose. Again, this is used in conjunction with the other filters so, if you have the Binaries filter turned on and enter "Cars" as your keyword, you will be presented with only a few groups. Hit the Clear button to clear the search filter.
Add/Remove Selected Groups
While you can double-click on any group to add it to the Groups tab, you can also select one or more groups and hit the Add/Remove Selected Groups button to toggle the groups in or out of the Groups tab.
Groups List
This is where the list of newsgroups is displayed. The filters described above are applied to this list of groups. If the list is empty then, either you have too many filters selected or, no newsgroups have been downloaded from the server. You should always have something here since NewsBin ships with a default list. If you don't then you need to download the groups list again.
Groups Column
This column displays the newsgroup names. You can sort the column by clicking the column header.
The numbers in parenthesis indicate the number of groups displayed and the total groups available. So if you have the Binaries filter on, you might have something like "Groups (7147/109068)" which means 7147 groups are displayed out of 109068 available.
The box to the left of the newsgroup name indicates whether this group has already been added to the Groups tab. If it has a checkmark next to it then, it is already in your Groups tab. A blank box means it has not been selected.
You can select a group by either clicking in this box or, double-click anywhere on the line. You can also highlight a number of lines and hit the Add/Remove Selected Groups button to either add or remove the newsgroups from the Groups tab.
Whenever a group is added to the Groups tab, it is added to the Unsorted folder. You can then move the group into a folder of your choice using click and drag.
Post Count
This column indicates the number of posts available in the group at the time the groups list was downloaded. This number changes all the time, up and down, as new posts are added and old posts are deleted from each newsgroup. The only way to refresh this number is to download the groups list again. Since the number is an indication of how popular the group is, there really isn't a need to update it very often.
This column is sortable by clicking on the column header.
Group Added Date
This is the date the group was first downloaded into your local groups list. If you download groups again on a later date, any newsgroups that have been added since the last time you downloaded groups will have a newer date.
This column is sortable by clicking on the column header.
Help Button
You probably clicked this button to get to this page.
OK Button
Click this button to close the Add Groups dialog. Any changed you made are reflected immediately in the Groups Tab.
