OK, I just installed Agent (I haven't used this since Free Agent in
the mid-90s). I've figured out a lot of the configuration issues, but
one thing that bothers me is: how can I make Agent open the message in
a new window? I prefer to have the newsgroups list on the left, and
the message headers list on the right - nothing more. At any rate, I
don't want 3 panes. Am I missing something, or is there no way to
accomplish this?

Also, is there a way to kill just a part of a thread, based on, say,
who the poster is. eg, if hypothetical poster "numbnuts" tries to
hijack a thread, and some readers are suckers enough to engage him in
a ****ing contest, I would like to ban (or simply "ignore") just that
subthread, but not the rest of the thread.

I've been using Thunderbird for several years now, but the filtering
is pretty rudimentary.

Thanks,
Joe