After the configuration of KNode we will now try to read your first news. To achieve this, you need to do some more steps of configuration, but you don't have to do this very often.
If you want to read a newsgroup, you first have to subscribe to it. You click with your mouse on the entry of your newsserver in the folder-list. The right mouse button opens the context menu. Here you select the entry "Subscribe to Newsgroups". KNode, at this moment, does not know which newsgroups are available from this server. KNode asks you if it should fetch a list of available newsgroups. Confirm with yes. Now you see the following dialog.
The Dialog Box "Subscribe to Newsgroups"
After some time, KNode has fetched the list of available newsgroups and shows them in the left window Groups on in a tree view. This tree view shows the newsgroup-hierarchy.
This list shows all newsgroups on this server. If you check one of the checkboxes subscribed only or new only you get the corresponding selection.
The windowCurrent changes shows all changes you made, since you opened the dialog.
The list subscribe to shows the newsgroups you have choosen to subscribe.
Below you see the list unsubscribe from. This list shows all newsgroups you have choosen to unsubscribe. You can not unsubscribe from groups you didn't first subscribe to.
If subscribed only is checked, the tree-view Groups on shows only the groups you are already subscribed to. This is very convenient, if you want to unsubscribe from some groups. You don't have to search the whole tree for these groups.
If new only is checked, the tree-view Groups on shows only the groups, wich are new since you last fetched the group-list. For this to be functional, you first have to fetch a new group-list with New List
The button New Groups give the possibility to show show all new groups since a specific date.
The second and most likely used possibility to navigate in the tree is the input field Filter. KNode filters the groups according to your input with every keystroke. If you are searching for a group around KDE, but you do not know the exact position in the hierarchy, just type kde in the Filter-field.
When you enter the k, you will already see the list changing. The second letter, d, give you a significantly reduced list of shown groups, and the final e reduces the list to the groups with kde in their name. In the US you will most likely end with just one group.
| comp.windows.x.kde |
This incremental search gives you the possibility to search for newsgroups without knowing the exact path.
 | On a close look, you will see KNode showing the groups without a tree if there are only a few groups left. This is not a bug, it is a feature. |
The button New List tells KNode to fetch a new group list from the newsserver.
The newsgroup-hierarchy is in a constant flux. All the time there are groups introduced, renamed or moved. Some groups just disappear, they are no longer available and get deleted. To reflect this, KNode gives you the possibility to refresh the the group list. This is, normally, only needed to see if your server now provides a group which was not there before.
| If you simply want to make sure to see every new group, it is more effective to use New Groups. Fetching the complete list is much more time consuming, but you make sure the deleted groups vanish from the grouplist. |
Unfortunately there is no guarantee that your newsserver is providing all available newsgroups. Many newsserver refuse groups publishing binary attachments. Other groups are only available from special servers. KNode provides you the possibility to use more than one news-server, if you want to acces alternative servers providing these groups. You can read more about this in Section 4.3.7.
This button opens a dialog wich allows you to configure the list of new groups. You can choose between showing all groups since the last refresh or all groups since a given date. With the date option, KNode provides a more flexible posibility to check for new groups. You can even check for new groups before the last refresh of the grouplist.
We now want to subscribe to the KDE-group. Mark the the box on the left of the name. You can now see the group in the list subscribe to. Another posibility is to use the arrows between the two windows.
If you picked the wrong newsgroup by mistake, you can undo your selection by unchecking the checkbox next to the groups name in the Groups on window. Again you can use the arrow. You probably noticed the arrow changing his direction.
If you want to unsubscribe from a newsgroup it is as easy as to subscribe to it. You just uncheck the box next to its name. The groups you unsubscribed from are shown in the list unsubscribe from. Again the arrow is another way for doing things. For correcting your actions you can use the arrow again. This works as long as the dialog is not closed by clicking OK.
As a KDE and KNode user you will probably want to subscribe to the group. So make sure you checked the box and press OK. This group now appears in the tree-view under the server entry it was choosen from. In our example this is My News Account. If you can not see the group, click on the cross next to the server entry or on the server entry itself. The list of subscribed newsgroups should appear.
Click on the newsgroup. Now you see on the right in the article view an empty folder. KNode has to fetch the articles for the new newsgroup. When you have in Settings-> Preferences->Reading news ->General, the check box checking for new article automatically checked, KNode trys to fetch the articles from the server, when the newsgroup is first selected. If this is unchecked, you have to use Account-> Get new articles
 | When you are using leafnode as an server, there will be a single article in the group. leafnode generates an article in every new subcribed group. This indicates leafnode will consider this group the next time it fetches articles. You can ignore an error message saying the article can not be found. If you select this article you tell leafnode you are really interested in this group. You get the real articles, when your local newsserver fetches them from the Internet and provides them to you. Details about this you can find in the documentation of your local newsserver. |
When everything worked, the articles of the subscribed newsgroup appear in the upper right window, the article view.
KNode always shows three views (folder view, article view and article window). You can change height and width of these views with the mouse. If you click in a window it gets the focus. This is important, if you want to use KNode with the keyboard. The Tab key changes the focus between the views. The currently active view is indicated by a small colored bar over the coloum headers.
This picture shows KNode with the subscribed KDE-newsgroup.
The three views of KNode
The folder views contains not only the accounts you configured - in our example this is My News Account - but also three other folders. When you already subscribed to some newsgroups ther will be cross next to the accounts name. Clicking on the cross or the name of the account opens the tree.
| Using the right mouse button you get a context menu for the selected item (folders or newsgroups). If you select a newsgroup and choose Properties, you can, among other things, specify your identity for this particular group. You can find more about this in Section 4.3.6 |
When you select a newsgroup with your mouse, a list of articles of this group appears in the upper right window. If there are no articles in the upper left window, there are two posibilities. There are no articles for this newsgroup on the newsserver or the newsserver did not fetch them yet. Select Account-> Get new articles. If there are still no articles appearing, you have some problems with your settings or there really are no articles for this group. Try another group. If there are no articles for this group, you most likely have to work through the first chapters, about the configuration of KNode, again. The chapter Frequently Asked Questions may help you, too.
 | If you are using a local newsserver, the articles only appear if the newsserver already got them from the internet. When you are using leafnode this is done by the the program fetchnews. |
The newsgroup folders appear with the name the are given by the hierarchy on the newsserver. In our exapmle this is comp.windows.x.kde. You can change the name shown in this view. In the context menu (right mouse button on the newsgroups name) choose Properties then you can change the name in the inputfield Nickname:. A good name for comp.windows.x.kde would be for eample The KDE-Newsgroup.
If you leave the input field empty, the hierarchical name is shown.
Besides the name of newsgroups the folder view shows much more informations by the appearance. When there are new articles in a group or folder, the name is shown bold. The columns Total and Unread tell you how many articles are in the according group or folder and how many are marked as unread.
Selecting this folder shows you the articles you succesfully sent, including your e-mail replies. You can delete the messages in this folder, but this has no influence on the messages already sent.
| If your are using a local newsserver, an article appearing in the folder Sent only indicates the local newsserver receiving the article. It is possible this article never appears in any newsgroup, because the local newsserver was not able to send it for some reason. If you notice some article not appearing in the according newsgroup, first make sure it was sent by the local newsserver. |
| If you are using leafnode articles, leafnode was unable to send, are found in /var/spool/failed.postings, normally. |
The folder Outbox contains all articles, wich are supposed to be sent later or which could not be sent because of an error. If you want to sent an article later, choose File-> Send Later in the editor. The article is then filed in the Outbox folder. It is possible to edit, delete, or send these articles later.
| If an article was not sent because of an error, it is stored in this folder. You are not losing these articles! |
This folder is used for storing drafts of your articles. For example if you want to do some further work on them, but you have no time for it right now. For storing an article in this folder choose File->Save as Draft in the editor.
You can edit, delete and send the articles in this folder.
The article view gives you a list of all articles in the selected newsgroup or folder. You can change the appearence of this view with the menu entry View. The uppermost row of the view contains the coloumn headers.
The Subject coloumn shows the subjects of an articles, which, most of the time give you a clue about the content ot this article. The subject is chosen by the article author. You can find more about this in How to post and reply to news.
The column From shows the author or her e-mail adress, if the author did not give a name. You can configure your settings in Settings->Preferences+Identity When you publish an article KNode will show these settings in the From coloumn.
The column Score shows the scoring of an article as a number. The default is 50. Articles which are important to you can be scored up, articles you want to ignore, can be scored down. The range is zero to one hundred. Read more about this in chapter Scoring, Watching and Ignoring
The Date (Time) column shows the date and time when the article was written.
This is a shot explanation of the different symbols for labeling articles.
Already
read articles are labeled with this symbol.
Articles labeled with this symbol are read and the body was fetched from the
server.
Articles labeled with
this symbol are unread and the body has not yet been fetched.
Articles labled with this symbol are unread but the body has already been
already fetched.
Articles labeled with this
symbol are part of a thread with new and unread articles in
it.
Articles labled with
this symbol are parts of a guarded thread. This corresponds to a score of
100.
Besides different symbols, KNode is using the following highlighting:
The article is new in this group. It was fetched during the last connection with the server.
There are no unread follow-up articles.
You can navigate in articles, display an article and open or close threads with your mouse or keyboard.
When you select an article with your mouse, its entry in the the article view gets colored. At the same time the header and body of this article appear in in the article window. If you want to read an other article, you can use the mouse for selecting it or you can use the cursor keys. When you use the coursor keys, you can move the dashed frame to the article you want and then press Enter for marking and diplaying the article.
There are many key commands, wich allow a comfortable navigation in a news group and for switching between newsgroups. Here the most common key commandos of the standard key configuration are listed. You can configure this key bindings in Settings ->Configure Key bindings
The replies on an article are either shown or hiddden by multiply pressing this key. Another possibility for opening threads is using the right arrow key
This key gives you a convenient possibility for browsing through the article view. By pressing this key the article in the article window is scrolled. When you reach the end of the article by repeatedly pressing Space, it takes you to the next article. When you have read all articles in one newsgroup, Space takes you to the first article of the next newsgroup. By repeatedly pressing Space you can browse through all subscribed newsgroups like this.
This key binding jumps to the next unread article. The sequence follows the order of articles in the article view. A thread is opend if needed to do so.
This command jumps to the next thread containing unread articles. The first unread article is selected and shown. The sequence follows the order of articles in the article view.
This command jumps to the next article. The sequence follows the order of articles in the article view. Replies in closed threads are ignored.
This command jumps to the previous article in the group. The sequence follows the order of articles in the article view. Replies in closed threads are ignored.
This command jumps to the next newsgroup. The sequence follows the order of articles in the article view.
This command jumps to the previous newsgroup. The sequence follows the order of articles in the article view.
Some newsgroups are very crowded and contain lots of articles. Perhaps only some of them are interesting to you. One possibility to keep track is sorting your articles with certain criterias.
Sorting your articles and the choice of sorting criterias is done with the column titles in the article view. Clicking on a cloumn title makes it the current sorting criteria. Another click on the same coloumn title changes the order of sorting.
| The current sorting criteria is indicated with an arrow next to the titel. This gives you an easy sign, wich column is used for sorting, too. You have to make the coloumn wide enough, so that you can actually see the arrow. You can change the coloumn width by moving the mouse pointer on the small area between two column titles. The pointer changes it's appeareance in two horizontal arrows. Click and hold left mouse button allows you now to change the width of the column left to the mouse pointer. |
KNode gives you the posibility to reduce the flood of articles. You can show only the articles fitting in your specific criterias. KNode uses filters for this task. In this paragraphs we are just dealing with the predefined filters. For defining and using your own filters, please refer to the chapter Section 4.3.1
Normally you will read most articles only once, and then never again. KNode labels the articles which are unread, but when there are more articles in a news group than can be shown by the article view, you often have to search for unread articles. It would be much easier to see only the new fetched and unread articles. KNode gives you this feature by the predefined filters.
In the status line at the bottom border of your main window behind the word Filter the actually active filter is shown. If you do not change the filter configuration, this is the filter all. This means all articles of a newsgroup are shown. all is one of the predefined filters. There are eight of them, wich are described in more detail here.
This filter is the default setting. It shows all articles in a newsgroup. You can choose this filter by selecting View-> Filter->all
This filter shows only unread articles. You can choose this filter by selecting View-> Filter->unread
This filter shows only articles fetched during the last connection. You can choose this filter by selecting View-> Filter->new
This shows only threads chosen as watched threads by you. For example, because you are participating in this thread or you are particular interested in the anwsers. You can choose this filter by selecting View-> Filter->watched
This filter only shows something, if you selected one or more threads to watch. You can achieve by selecting Article->Thread->Watch. Next to the subject appears a symbol, showing a pair of eyes.
This filter shows only thread containing unread articles. You can choose this filter by selecting View-> Filter->threads with unread
This filter shows only threads with new fetched articles. You can choose this filter by selecting View-> Filter->threads with new
This filter shows only articles you published. You can choose this filter by selecting View-> Filter->own articles
This filter shows only threads containing articles you published. This filter shows only articles you published. You can choose this filter by selecting View-> Filter->own articles
| For everyday use the unread filter is propably the most useful. It shows all unread articles, including the old ones. The other filters are very special and seldom used. In the end it is a matter of taste which filter to select. |
The article window shows the currently selected article. You can scroll in it like in a normal text editor window. The difference is, you can not change the article. The article window ist for read only.
The window itself is divided in three areas. They are explained in more detail now.
This part shows the header lines or a part of the header. You will recognize some informations here from the article view. For example the subject and the adress or name where the article originated. When you click on the From:-adress, KNode opens an editor window. The e-mail adress of the author and the subject of the refering article are already filled in for you. This enables you to reply to the author directly from her article.
The appeareance and content of the shown header shown by default can be configured by choosing Settings->Preferences+Reading News+Headers You can find a more detailed view on this in Section 4.1.5
By selecting View->Show all headers you force KNode to show the whole header as it is produced by the newsreader and newsservers. Normally you do not need this view, becaus it needs a lot of space in the article window.
The last lines of the header contain, if necessary, some references to other articles, shown as numbers in the range from 1 to n. These References are articles refering to the current article. The article labled with 1 is the oldest article. This means it is the first one refering to the current article. The article with the highest number is the one the current article is refering to.
When you click on a reference, the according article is loaded and shown in the article view. It can occure, KNode is telling you, the refered article is no longer reachable. This always happens when an article is older and the article management of KNode or your newsserver decided to delete it from the newsgroup. How to get such an article, please refer to the Frequently Asked Questions.
The body of the article follows straight after the header. This is the actual message, the author published in the newsgroup. Be aware of an article possibly containing quotes from other articles, which are not always recognizable as quotes. This depends on the newseditor and the habits of the author.
KNode provides some highlightings, wich are used in the article window. At the moment these are:
| /italic/ |
| *bold* |
| _underlined_ |
Do not use the highlighting too often. With increasing use of it, the impact decreases.
Most of the time a quote is indicated by a prefixed > on every line. There are other possible signs. If you can not directly recognize a quote, the author did not obey the rules of proper quoting.
Furthermore it is usual to start an anwser with a introductionary line.
Something like:
On 12/25/2000 Santa Claus wrote:
| Normally you do not have to bother with these introductionary lines. KNode does this automaticaly, when you reply to an article. How to configure this line, you can read in chapter Section 4.1.9 |
In Settings->Preferences+Reading News +Appearance you can choose how the articles are shown. In particular KNode provides the smat coloring of different reply levels. You can read more about this in th chapter Section 4.1.6.
| KNode provides smart colouring of quotes, but at the moment, only quotes starting with > are coloured. |
When the body of an article contains links to internet adresses, you can invoke an internet browser, starting with this adress, by clicking on the link. Details about configuring this feature you can find in Section 4.1.4.
Below the main text of an article, you find the signature of the author. Provided you did not turn this behaviour off in Settings->Preferences+Reading News+General The signature is divided from the text by thin, horizontal line.
If an article contains attachment, they are shown below the signature in a table.
The multipart-mime format allows to send the body of an article in more than one format. For example in plain-text or HTML. It depends on the newsreader which format to provide for reading the article.
KNode allows showing the different formats by selecting Settings->Preferences+Reading News+General+show alternative contents as attachments. When this option is checked, all alternative formats are sown as attachments and can be opend and viewed like them.
When this option is unchecked, you do not see the different text formats and KNode decides which one is best to be shown.
Before you start writing article or replying to other Usenet users, be sure you understand the habits in the current newsgroup. Again, reading Chapter 7 would be a good idea.
For testing the Settings of KNode please resist sending an article to a random newsgroup. It is not very friendly to bother people with test articles. What if you are subscribed to a newsgroup and half of its articles are only containing the word "test"? This is like somebody calling you just for testing her phone.
This is the reason for the special groups having "test" in their name. An example is: alt.test. In these groups you can test everything you want, without bothering somebody. Some groups even send you error messages back.
You can find a selection of test groups in Test Groups
Subscribe to one of the test groups now. Some newsservers have their own test groups, which are probably less crowded.
| Remember, you have to download the articles of the new subscribed group. Perhaps there are many articles in these groups, so it will take some time to fetch them the first time. The only important articles are yours and the anwsers by the check handler. If you want to reduce the amount of fetched articles during the test. you can configure this in Settings+ Preferences+ Reading News+ General+ max to fetch If you reduce this dramatically, you should not wait too long for fetching the new articles after sending your test article. You article can be a vicitim of your limitations. A tolerably fast newsserver, should provide your article right after you sent it. Feel free to send another article, if can not see you initial one. This is what the test groups are for. |
| When you are using a local newsserver, the configuration of max to fetch in KNode is useless. You should consult the documentation of you newsserver instead. |
If you did not encounter any errors, unsubscribe from the testgroups and set max to fetch back to normal (1000).
You have seen a big part of KNode now. You used KNode passively so far, so lets get to some action. We will publish a test article now. Select the new subscribed test group in the folder view. With Article->Post new article or the key P, the Editor is called.
You can use the KNode-Editor like a normal Texteditor. There are some additional features for writing news articles.
When you look at the editor window, you see two input lines. One for the subject, which is empty at the moment, and another for the newsgroups this article is going to be posted to.
Enter the text This is a test in the subject field.
| When you post an article, use a descriptive subject. Articles without a descriptive subject are often ignored. Avoid subjects like "Help, it doesn't work !!!!!" This subject gives no information about the content of your article. |
The Groups: field already contains the test newsgroup you selected befor. Do not change this.
The features provided by the Check Box and Combo Box below the input fields mentioned above, are not used in this test. Please refer to The Editor for further information.
For simplicity reasons we only use a simple sentence. Type:
This is the body of my test article. @ $ %
Enter an empty line, followed by.
Did it work?
This may look funny to you, but it does what it is supposed to do, testing your configuration. Just write it.
Your article should look like the screenshot below now.
Your first article
If you are using KNode with a local newsserver, choose File->Send Now in the Editor. If you do not have a connection to a newsserver at this point, you may want to send the article later. You can achieve this by using File->Later. KNode, then, stores this article in the folder Outbox. You can start sending the articles in the Outbox manually, by selecting File-> Send pending messages.
After sending the article you will notice KNode stored a copy in the folder Sent.
Depending on how fast your article is published in the according newsgroup, you can check the result after some time. Mostly it is sufficient to check for new messages immediately after sending the article. Be patient it may take the article some hours before reaching the newsgroup. If the article does not arrive after some hours, most likely, something went wrong. Try again. If it is still not working, have a look at the Frequently Asked Questions
| Even when you are using a local newsserver, you have to check for new articles. The local newsserver just sends the article, it does not store it in the local newsgroup. So you have to synchronise with an external newsserver, if you want to see if your test article arrived. |
When the article shows up in the newsgroup, you were successful. Check the From: line and the readability of the articles body. If everything is ok, you succesfully used KNode to send your first article.
After succesfully publishing an article, we will now anwser to your own article. You want to anwser the question you asked, don't you?
Select your article in the article view and press the right mouse button. You see a context menu, where you choose Post reply.
KNode opens the Editor again, but this time there is already a subject filled in for you. The subject line reads:
Re: This is a test
Re: is a shortcut for the latin "In re", which means something in the lines of "relating to". You should not change the subject and above all the Re: . Most newsreaders sort threads by the subject.
| If you want to change the subject for some reason, put the new subject in front of the old and replace the Re: with a parenthesized (Was: ... ). In our example this would look like A new subject! (Was: This is a test) With this kind of subject you show the other readers, there is a branch in the original discussion. This happens, when a new topic occurs in the original discussion or the original subject changed for some reason. If you anwser to an article with such a subject, delete the parenthesized part of the subject. The first part with a prefixed Re: remains. Re: A new subject! |
Let us have look at the Editor now. The contents of the article, we want to reply to has already been copied to the Editor by KNode To indicate the text is a quote, every line is prefixed with a >.
In front of the quoted text, KNode has put a introduction line. The content of this line refers to the original author. You can change the standard text of this line in Settings ->Preferences +Posting News +Composer +Introduction Phrase: .
The original article contains the question: Did it work? We want to anwser this question now.
Place the cursor below the quoted question and write in the next line:
Yes it worked, congratulations!
We are not finished now. It is considered polite to begin with greeting like "Hello" in the first line. If you call the atuthor by his name or not, depends on your habits. Watch the newsgroup to get used to the habits there.
Next we delete all not mandatory parts of the quoted article. In our case, we delete all parts, except the question.
With such a short text this is unnecessary, but this just an example. If you have to read a message 100 lines long, again, just to find a ["I agree"] at the end, you will understand. Aside from this, articles get smaller and use less space on the server.
In the end we say good bye.
This screenshot shows our answer before sending it.
Your answer on your article
Sending the reply is equivalent to sending the original article.
The Mail Reply follows the same lines as posting a reply in a newsgroup. The Mail Reply is sent directly to the author and does not apear in any newsgroup. This is the only difference.
Sometimes it is better to use an emailed reply instead of posting a reply to newsgroup. Primarily, when you want to correct an error or misconduct by the author, without hurting his feelings by doing this publicly on the newsgroup.
For answering with an e-mail, you select your article, again, open the context menu with the right mouse button, and choose Mail Reply. KNode opens the Composer with the quoted article.
Subject and body are identical with posting an article, but the Groups: field is replaced by a To: field. Here appears the authors e-mail adress. In our example this should be your own e-mail adress, if KNode is set up correctly.
For e-mails apply the same rules for quoting and politness apply as for posting an article in a newsgroup.
After finishing your Reply, you can send it.
The screenshot shows the reply we distributed by email.
A Mail Reply
| The Mail Reply only works, when you used the right settings in Settings->Preferences+Accounts+Mail. Depending on the configuration of your computer, you will find the reply in your mailbox. Perhaps you have to connect to your ISP first and fetch your new mails. |