Having moved to a new computer, I've finally decided to bite the bullet
and get shot of Outlook Express as a newsreader - and have opted for
Thunderbird, largely because I'm using Firefox as a browser, and it's
from the same stable - and free!

Anyone know whether there's an Idiot's guide anywhere, telling ex-OE
users how to use Thunderbird for newsgroup access? There doesn't seem to
be any targetted help - the Help menu takes you to a website which seems
mainly geared towards use as an email client.

Specifically, I need to know:
- How to mark interesting threads so that they show up in red
- How to automatically treat all messages as "read" when exiting a group
- How to set the View options so that only new messages (since the last
time I read a group) are displayed

Any pointers will be greatly appreciated.
--
Cheers,
Roger
____________
Please reply to Newsgroup. Whilst email address is valid, it is seldom
checked.

Roger Mills wrote:

- How to mark interesting threads so that they show up in red

Press '1' when a message has focus to tag it as important, that single
message will show in red, press 'W' to watch a thread.

- How to automatically treat all messages as "read" when exiting a group

No option for that, try the "Mark All Read Button" add-on

- How to set the View options so that only new messages (since the last
time I read a group) are displayed

Right click your toolbar, customise, drag the 'mail views' widget onto
some empty space in the toolbar, then you can easily switch filters for
'all, 'unread' and custom filters you create yourself such as 'replied
to', 'last 24hours' etc

In ,
Roger Mills typed on Sat, 22 May 2010 15:55:47 +0100:
Having moved to a new computer, I've finally decided to bite the
bullet and get shot of Outlook Express as a newsreader - and have
opted for Thunderbird, largely because I'm using Firefox as a
browser, and it's from the same stable - and free!

Anyone know whether there's an Idiot's guide anywhere, telling ex-OE
users how to use Thunderbird for newsgroup access? There doesn't seem
to be any targetted help - the Help menu takes you to a website which
seems mainly geared towards use as an email client.

Specifically, I need to know:
- How to mark interesting threads so that they show up in red
- How to automatically treat all messages as "read" when exiting a
group - How to set the View options so that only new messages (since
the
last time I read a group) are displayed

Any pointers will be greatly appreciated.

Hello Roger! I have been using Thunderbird for many years and I still
like Outlook Express v6 with OE-QuoteFix far better. At least for
newsgroups. And no newsreader except OE has the "Show Replies to my
Messages" (CTRL-H) view. Which IMHO makes everything else so bad as a
newsreader. As I think this should be a feature on all newsreaders. But
I guess the other programmers just don't get it.

Thunderbird doesn't call them Watched threads like OE does. But you can
mark them with a Star. Another option is by marking them with a flag (I
think there are 5 different default type of flags). And flags you can
change the color of the header. Kind of like OE.

I am not sure if you can make a newsgroup as read when you exit. I know
you can mark it as read manually. And I remember you should be able to
show only the unread messages under TB. Btw, TB has been released to
different versions. I believe the popular ones are v1.5, v2.0, and v3.0.
And depending on which one you are using, the answers maybe different. I
actually like 2.0 the best, but I also like 1.5 too.

I think this newsgroup maybe able to help you for the questions we here
can't give you.

netscape.public.mozilla.mail-news

--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - Windows XP SP3

In o.uk,
John Rumm typed on Sat, 22 May 2010 17:40:09 +0100:
On 22/05/2010 16:40, BillW50 wrote:

Hello Roger! I have been using Thunderbird for many years and I still
like Outlook Express v6 with OE-QuoteFix far better. At least for
newsgroups. And no newsreader except OE has the "Show Replies to my
Messages" (CTRL-H) view. Which IMHO makes everything else so bad as a
newsreader. As I think this should be a feature on all newsreaders.
But I guess the other programmers just don't get it.

The programmers seem to "get it" just fine. However by making some of
the filtering tools a little more flexible, they are perhaps not quite
as simple. However they give far greater scope if you spend a little
time learning what they can do.

Yes well I use TB 1.5, 2.0, and v3 and use the filtering tools. Even
when you are a pro at using them. None of them work as nice as OE "Show
Replies to my Messages" (CTRL-H) view. Sad isn't it?

So, using the technique I described elsewhere (watching threads to
which you post, and then restricting the view to watched threads) you
get get pretty much the functionality you desire. Hitting "n" (next)
will take you to each unread new post in a thread you have either
started or replied to.

That is another stupid thing from TB. The key for the next unread should
be "u" and not "n". And "n" should be for the next message, read or not.
And sometimes I read with a mouse alone. And adding back, forward, next
unread, and previous unread on the toolbar isn't available for all
version of TB either. How dumb can you get?

Thunderbird doesn't call them Watched threads like OE does. But you
can

panto mode

Oh yes it does!

/panto mode

The older versions didn't call them watched. I think 3.0 now does. It
takes Mozilla many years to make one simple change to a very old
mistake. But then again Mozilla programmers love to show off how
inferior their programming abilities are. They believe in making things
as difficult as possible.

Sun is another company who likes to makes things slow, bloated, and very
difficult to use as well. And Microsoft is starting to do the same. I
guess all of the great programmers at Microsoft have already retired. I
guess nobody writes great software anymore.

mark them with a Star. Another option is by marking them with a flag
(I

Or mark it as watched with a w

think there are 5 different default type of flags). And flags you can
change the color of the header. Kind of like OE.

You can add additional flags if you want.

I am not sure if you can make a newsgroup as read when you exit. I
know you can mark it as read manually. And I remember you should be
able to show only the unread messages under TB. Btw, TB has been
released to different versions. I believe the popular ones are v1.5,
v2.0, and v3.0. And depending on which one you are using, the
answers maybe different. I actually like 2.0 the best, but I also
like 1.5 too.

There are two stable releases generally 2.0.x.x and 3.0.x, three has
some additional group options like killing a sub thread and better
searching (if you let it index anyway). 2 is a tad faster.

V3 is the worse version of TB to date! Bloated and slow just like it's
brother called Firefox. Must be the same dang programmers. Or at least
party together or something. At least FF gets security updates. As they
don't bother with TB.

I think this newsgroup maybe able to help you for the questions we
here can't give you.

netscape.public.mozilla.mail-news

--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - Windows XP SP3

On Sat, 22 May 2010 15:55:47 +0100, Roger Mills
wrote:

Having moved to a new computer, I've finally decided to bite the bullet
and get shot of Outlook Express as a newsreader - and have opted for
Thunderbird, largely because I'm using Firefox as a browser, and it's
from the same stable - and free!

Anyone know whether there's an Idiot's guide anywhere, telling ex-OE
users how to use Thunderbird for newsgroup access? There doesn't seem to
be any targetted help - the Help menu takes you to a website which seems
mainly geared towards use as an email client.

Specifically, I need to know:
- How to mark interesting threads so that they show up in red
- How to automatically treat all messages as "read" when exiting a group
- How to set the View options so that only new messages (since the last
time I read a group) are displayed

Any pointers will be greatly appreciated.


I have used Forte Agent for many years now. Originally there was a
stripped-down free version, but that soon changed so it has to be paid
for. But I find it incredibly intuitive to use.

Recently I looked at Thunderbird as an alternative to upgrading to the
latest version of Agent. I found it was clunky and difficult to
understand. After about an hour I gave up and happily upgraded Agent
to the current version.

While Agent must be paid for ($29.00, or slightly less than £20.00),
there is a free 30 day trial so you can see if you like it. If you
can manage with Thunderbird, that's fine, but if not, you might like
to give Agent a try.

http://www.forteinc.com/

By the way, I use Agent only for news, but you can also configure it
for email.

On 22/05/10 20:48, Bruce wrote:


I have used Forte Agent for many years now. Originally there was a
stripped-down free version, but that soon changed so it has to be paid
for. But I find it incredibly intuitive to use.

Recently I looked at Thunderbird as an alternative to upgrading to the
latest version of Agent. I found it was clunky and difficult to
understand. After about an hour I gave up and happily upgraded Agent
to the current version.

I used Agent about 12 years back - and it was good then too. I quite
liked it. However as I use Linux it's a bit of a non starter (never have
been arsed to fiddle with Wine).

Thunderbird isn't as good as the good bits of knode (filtering,
highlighting) but it does mean one less program open (I use it for email
too) and I like the fact it can open basic URLs too from USENET, and I
do like the "ignore subthread" open. My killfile is set to ignore
subthreads from those killed as that's usually where the flamewares
spawn and stay burning...

I must get round to understanding plugin programming - there are a few
things I'd like to tweak...


--
Tim Watts

Hung parliament? Rather have a hanged parliament.

Roger Mills wrote:
Having moved to a new computer, I've finally decided to bite the bullet
and get shot of Outlook Express as a newsreader - and have opted for
Thunderbird, largely because I'm using Firefox as a browser, and it's
from the same stable - and free!

Anyone know whether there's an Idiot's guide anywhere, telling ex-OE
users how to use Thunderbird for newsgroup access? There doesn't seem to
be any targetted help - the Help menu takes you to a website which seems
mainly geared towards use as an email client.

Specifically, I need to know:
- How to mark interesting threads so that they show up in red

pass.
- How to automatically treat all messages as "read" when exiting a group

right click on newgroup in main pane and select 'mark all read'

- How to set the View options so that only new messages (since the last
time I read a group) are displayed



Try my settings, view by thread and view display unread only.


Any pointers will be greatly appreciated.

In ,
John Rumm typed on Sat, 22 May 2010 23:49:06 +0100:
On 22/05/2010 20:09, BillW50 wrote:

The programmers seem to "get it" just fine. However by making some
of the filtering tools a little more flexible, they are perhaps not
quite as simple. However they give far greater scope if you spend a
little time learning what they can do.

Yes well I use TB 1.5, 2.0, and v3 and use the filtering tools. Even
when you are a pro at using them. None of them work as nice as OE
"Show Replies to my Messages" (CTRL-H) view. Sad isn't it?

Watched threads with unread works nicely for me...

I am sure, but nothing as simple as CTRL-H does. I am sure a lab rat
running through a maze that doesn't change to find food works nicely for
them too. But humans are not lab rats and we have more important things
to do to use our intelligence and time than running through mazes.

So, using the technique I described elsewhere (watching threads to
which you post, and then restricting the view to watched threads)
you get get pretty much the functionality you desire. Hitting "n"
(next) will take you to each unread new post in a thread you have
either started or replied to.

That is another stupid thing from TB. The key for the next unread
should be "u" and not "n". And "n" should be for the next message,
read or not.

So change the default key bindings if it bothers you that much.

Use your head. Both new and next start with "n". That isn't good. One of
them needs to be changed. And since unread next can be remembered easily
with "u". The problem is solved. But morons at Mozilla can't be bothered
with solutions. What is wrong with most programmers? They want to treat
everybody as lab rats. I am sorry, but most people are smarter than
that. Okay one or two are not, but that is another story.

And sometimes I read with a mouse alone. And adding back, forward,
next unread, and previous unread on the toolbar isn't available for
all version of TB either. How dumb can you get?

Dumb would be complaining that a feature you want is missing, when its
been standard for ages, and the only reason you have not noticed is
you are using an insecure, non supported, out of date version.

Nope, "Show Replies to my Messages" (CTRL-H) view has been missing from
Thunderbird since day one. Hopefully when TB v4 comes out they will
finally get it. Well maybe it will take until TB v6 you think?

I bet OE 4 does not do everything that you want either, why not
complain about that?

Before OE4 there was Microsoft Mail and News v1.0. And the only
competitor was Netscape back then. And when IE4 / OE4 came out they
buried Netscape into darkness. And if it wasn't for AOL buying them out,
there won't be any Thunderbird or Firefox today. And Mozilla has it so
easy with Thunderbird, as OE is no more. Yet they still can't match OE6
while it is sitting still. I can hire lab rats today and still beat
Mozilla. That is really sad.

Thunderbird doesn't call them Watched threads like OE does. But you
can

panto mode

Oh yes it does!

/panto mode

The older versions didn't call them watched. I think 3.0 now does. It
takes Mozilla many years to make one simple change to a very old

Watched threads have been about for ages...

No it hasn't!

mistake. But then again Mozilla programmers love to show off how
inferior their programming abilities are. They believe in making
things as difficult as possible.

Na, I think they just like to tease you.

Treat smart people and newbies as lab rats, eh? I started as an
electronic engineer back in the 70's. I only programmed too since there
wasn't any programmers worth a darn back then. Well it wasn't their
entire fault, since hardware was changing like crazy back then and you
had to be an electronic engineer to keep up with it all. By the mid 80's
hardware started to stabilize and there was programmers that started
writing code better than I could. So I quit and stuck with electronic
engineering.

Now all of these people are retiring and the ones replacing them are
mostly clueless. The newer generation just doesn't get it. Don't expect
people to act like lab rats. Doing so we only create less and less
people using your product. And Netscape (aka Mozilla) are making the
very same mistakes they did a decade ago. They just really don't get it!

Sun is another company who likes to makes things slow, bloated, and
very difficult to use as well. And Microsoft is starting to do the
same. I

Starting? They invented code bloat!

Wishfully thinking. As MS-DOS v6 was only like 6MB in size. Windows 95
was only 25MB for a full install. The OS wasn't the big thing, but
applications got bloated. I have some programs here right now that
requires at least 1GB of RAM for itself. Heck Acronis True Image itself
eats up like 170MB when it isn't even running.

guess all of the great programmers at Microsoft have already
retired. I

Most of MS's better products were not written by them anyway!

Microsoft always had to fix that crap first. As those products were
worthless as is. As if they were worth anything, they didn't need
Microsoft to bale them out in the first place. Heck Apple would have
been history today if Microsoft didn't bale them out too.

guess nobody writes great software anymore.

Depends on what you want I guess.

Great software like we used to have. I am not asking too much I don't
think.

There are two stable releases generally 2.0.x.x and 3.0.x, three has
some additional group options like killing a sub thread and better
searching (if you let it index anyway). 2 is a tad faster.

V3 is the worse version of TB to date! Bloated and slow just like
it's brother called Firefox. Must be the same dang programmers. Or
at least party together or something. At least FF gets security
updates. As they don't bother with TB.

Yup, I mean TB 2 which is not even the current version has only had 24
point releases. Remember the last update for OE? (don't think MS ever
got round to making it quote properly)

For starters, no version of TB ever worked properly. And even if it is
true that v2 had 24 point releases, they still purposely stopped adding
more in a timely matter:

Mozilla plugs 13 holes in Firefox, retires older 2.0 browser
by Gregg Keizer, Computerworld
Dec 17, 2008 12:28 pm
http://www.macworld.com/article/137607/firefox.html

The site is gone and the Wayback Machine doesn't have a copy of it. But
I save all of this stuff. And it once said:

"Mozilla Messaging's Thunderbird e-mail client, which relies on the
Firefox rendering engine for JavaScript and other functionality, was not
patched Tuesday. It remains at Version 2.0.0.18. Until Thunderbird
catches up -- an update is expected in early January -- users can
protect themselves against the related Firefox vulnerabilities by
disabling JavaScript in the e-mail program."

It is very clear to me that Mozilla doesn't consider acThunderbird as a
serious product. As they will get around to fixing it when they get
around to it. Unfortunately they are always a day late and a dollar
short. No news there. Netscape was exactly the same way. Thus some
things never change at all.

--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - Windows XP SP3

BillW50 wrote:

a lab rat running through a maze

humans are not lab rats

treat everybody as lab rats

I can hire lab rats

Treat smart people and newbies as lab rats

Don't expect people to act like lab rats

It may not be perfect but I, for one, am glad that TB is freely
available (as in speech), you're welcome to stick to your free OE (as
in beer).

No wonder I avoid the big8 and alt groups these days and stick to a
handful of uk groups; someone ungrateful sod like you with an exe to
grind seems to pops whenever a message is xposted left of the pond ...

On 23/05/2010 00:28, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Roger Mills wrote:

Specifically, I need to know:

- How to automatically treat all messages as "read" when exiting a group

right click on newgroup in main pane and select 'mark all read'


That certainly works - but it ain't automatic, it's manual! In OE, when
you exit a group, all messages are *automatically* marked as read.


- How to set the View options so that only new messages (since the
last time I read a group) are displayed



Try my settings, view by thread and view display unread only.



Thanks for the suggestion. I've actually opted for "View threads with
unread"
- which is better than OE since it displays the whole of any thread
which contains
unread messages, allowing you to see more of the context.

[I've no idea why the text in the paragraph above is in two different
colours!]

Thanks to all who have replied to my original questions - I think I'm
getting there! I'm still surprised that there isn't any built-in help
specifically for newsgroup use, or an online "Idiot's Guide". [At any
rate, if there ARE such things, no-one has so far referenced them].
--
Cheers,
Roger
____________
Please reply to Newsgroup. Whilst email address is valid, it is seldom
checked.

On Sat, 22 May 2010 21:55:55 +0100, Tim Watts wrote:
On 22/05/10 20:48, Bruce wrote:
I have used Forte Agent for many years now. Originally there was a
stripped-down free version, but that soon changed so it has to be paid
for. But I find it incredibly intuitive to use.

Recently I looked at Thunderbird as an alternative to upgrading to the
latest version of Agent. I found it was clunky and difficult to
understand. After about an hour I gave up and happily upgraded Agent
to the current version.

I used Agent about 12 years back - and it was good then too. I quite
liked it.


I think that's called "damning with faint praise".

Roger Mills wrote:
On 23/05/2010 00:28, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Roger Mills wrote:

Specifically, I need to know:

- How to automatically treat all messages as "read" when exiting a group

right click on newgroup in main pane and select 'mark all read'


That certainly works - but it ain't automatic, it's manual! In OE, when
you exit a group, all messages are *automatically* marked as read.


- How to set the View options so that only new messages (since the
last time I read a group) are displayed



Try my settings, view by thread and view display unread only.



Thanks for the suggestion. I've actually opted for "View threads with
unread"
- which is better than OE since it displays the whole of any thread
which contains
unread messages, allowing you to see more of the context.

[I've no idea why the text in the paragraph above is in two different
colours!]

Allows you to tag peole and text

Thanks to all who have replied to my original questions - I think I'm
getting there! I'm still surprised that there isn't any built-in help
specifically for newsgroup use, or an online "Idiot's Guide". [At any
rate, if there ARE such things, no-one has so far referenced them].
Indeed. Write one?

In article , Bruce
scribeth thus
On Sat, 22 May 2010 15:55:47 +0100, Roger Mills
wrote:

Having moved to a new computer, I've finally decided to bite the bullet
and get shot of Outlook Express as a newsreader - and have opted for
Thunderbird, largely because I'm using Firefox as a browser, and it's
from the same stable - and free!

Anyone know whether there's an Idiot's guide anywhere, telling ex-OE
users how to use Thunderbird for newsgroup access? There doesn't seem to
be any targetted help - the Help menu takes you to a website which seems
mainly geared towards use as an email client.

Specifically, I need to know:
- How to mark interesting threads so that they show up in red
- How to automatically treat all messages as "read" when exiting a group
- How to set the View options so that only new messages (since the last
time I read a group) are displayed

Any pointers will be greatly appreciated.


I have used Forte Agent for many years now. Originally there was a
stripped-down free version, but that soon changed so it has to be paid
for. But I find it incredibly intuitive to use.

Recently I looked at Thunderbird as an alternative to upgrading to the
latest version of Agent. I found it was clunky and difficult to
understand. After about an hour I gave up and happily upgraded Agent
to the current version.

While Agent must be paid for ($29.00, or slightly less than £20.00),
there is a free 30 day trial so you can see if you like it. If you
can manage with Thunderbird, that's fine, but if not, you might like
to give Agent a try.

http://www.forteinc.com/

By the way, I use Agent only for news, but you can also configure it
for email.



I've used Turnpike v 5.02 for years now and often wondered if there was
anything better as a news reader and can't say I've come across anything
better as yet;!.....
--
Tony Sayer

In message , tony sayer
writes

I've used Turnpike v 5.02 for years now and often wondered if there was
anything better as a news reader and can't say I've come across anything
better as yet;!

Tony, I agree. However, TP will not work 'out of the box' with Windows
7, so I'm reading this thread with interest. My machine is running XP
with TP 6.06, but I suppose the time will come when a new PC will arrive
with W7.

The comments regarding news are interesting, but how about groups,
specifically Yahoo Groups. Will Thunderbird or Agent thread those like
Usenet? That is a TP feature I could not live without.

Thinking aloud, I suppose there is nothing to stop me running two or
three news readers simultaneously, just to see how each looks and
performs? Presumably, each would fetch news independently of the
others?

--
Graeme

On 5/23/2010 1:42 AM, Andy Burns wrote on Sun, 23 May 2010 07:42:17 +0100:
BillW50 wrote:

a lab rat running through a maze

humans are not lab rats

treat everybody as lab rats

I can hire lab rats

Treat smart people and newbies as lab rats

Don't expect people to act like lab rats

It may not be perfect but I, for one, am glad that TB is freely
available (as in speech), you're welcome to stick to your free OE (as in
beer).

No wonder I avoid the big8 and alt groups these days and stick to a
handful of uk groups; someone ungrateful sod like you with an exe to
grind seems to pops whenever a message is xposted left of the pond ...

Oh I see! We Thunderbird users are not allowed to give our opinion when
the likes of you are around. As we must be thankful and grateful for the
tiny crumbs that Mozilla has given us.

You know, some companies actually do listen to their customers and
improve their software. Some other companies doesn't care what their
customers think. And they want you to feel grateful for the crumbs they
hand out.

And I have no axe to grind either. I am just saying it as it is. If you
have a problem with anything I said, feel free to correct me. So far
though, you have not corrected me on one single thing yet. Why not? And
if you don't have any evidence to the contrary, then what is the problem?

--
Bill
Thunderbird 3.0

In message , Graeme
writes
In message , tony sayer
writes

I've used Turnpike v 5.02 for years now and often wondered if there was
anything better as a news reader and can't say I've come across anything
better as yet;!

Tony, I agree. However, TP will not work 'out of the box' with Windows
7, so I'm reading this thread with interest. My machine is running XP
with TP 6.06, but I suppose the time will come when a new PC will
arrive with W7.

It works with 32 bit, just not the 64 bit version




The comments regarding news are interesting, but how about groups,
specifically Yahoo Groups. Will Thunderbird or Agent thread those like
Usenet? That is a TP feature I could not live without.

Thinking aloud, I suppose there is nothing to stop me running two or
three news readers simultaneously, just to see how each looks and
performs? Presumably, each would fetch news independently of the others?


--
geoff

On 23/05/2010 15:41, Graeme wrote:
In message , tony sayer
writes

I've used Turnpike v 5.02 for years now and often wondered if there was
anything better as a news reader and can't say I've come across anything
better as yet;!

Tony, I agree. However, TP will not work 'out of the box' with Windows
7, so I'm reading this thread with interest. My machine is running XP
with TP 6.06, but I suppose the time will come when a new PC will arrive
with W7.

The comments regarding news are interesting, but how about groups,
specifically Yahoo Groups. Will Thunderbird or Agent thread those like
Usenet? That is a TP feature I could not live without.

Thinking aloud, I suppose there is nothing to stop me running two or
three news readers simultaneously, just to see how each looks and
performs? Presumably, each would fetch news independently of the others?

Thunderbird will thread Yahoo emails (I get individual emails of all
posts for the groups I am interested in). Trouble is that so many people
post in ways that mean they are not threaded even viewed within the
group. Thins like starting a new topic by replying to an existing post
and changing the subject. Or just posting a disconnected message without
making any attempt to place it in a thread.

--
Rod

On Sun, 23 May 2010 09:21:24 +0100, Roger Mills wrote:

snip

Thanks to all who have replied to my original questions - I think I'm
getting there! I'm still surprised that there isn't any built-in help
specifically for newsgroup use, or an online "Idiot's Guide". [At any
rate, if there ARE such things, no-one has so far referenced them].


A free newsreader that no-one has mentioned yet - Pan. It will
automatically set all threads read on exit if you want. It also has good
filtering (but rather weird to set up sometimes). Available in both
Windows and Linux flavours. You can set up thread "watches" and set
"scores" for articles. Then you can set colours for score ranges. It may
be worth further investigation.


--
Mick (Working in a M$-free zone!)
Web: http://www.nascom.info
Filtering everything posted from googlegroups to kill spam.

In article , Graeme
scribeth thus
In message , tony sayer
writes

I've used Turnpike v 5.02 for years now and often wondered if there was
anything better as a news reader and can't say I've come across anything
better as yet;!

Tony, I agree. However, TP will not work 'out of the box' with Windows
7, so I'm reading this thread with interest. My machine is running XP
with TP 6.06, but I suppose the time will come when a new PC will arrive
with W7.


Windoze 7 what's that;?...

The comments regarding news are interesting, but how about groups,
specifically Yahoo Groups. Will Thunderbird or Agent thread those like
Usenet? That is a TP feature I could not live without.

Never bothered with Yahoo groups as such the ones I use are all sent via
e-mail..


Thinking aloud, I suppose there is nothing to stop me running two or
three news readers simultaneously, just to see how each looks and
performs? Presumably, each would fetch news independently of the
others?

Never tried it but I reckon you can do it..
--
Tony Sayer

BillW50 wrote on Sat, 22 May 2010 14:09:23 -0500:
In o.uk,
John Rumm typed on Sat, 22 May 2010 17:40:09 +0100:
On 22/05/2010 16:40, BillW50 wrote:
Thunderbird doesn't call them Watched threads like OE does. But you
can
panto mode

Oh yes it does!

/panto mode

The older versions didn't call them watched. I think 3.0 now does. It
takes Mozilla many years to make one simple change to a very old
mistake. But then again Mozilla programmers love to show off how
inferior their programming abilities are. They believe in making things
as difficult as possible.

Hello John! Okay I just fired up all three versions of Thunderbird (1.5,
2.0, and 3.0). And you are right, all of them have a watch option.

The sad news though the watch toggle is very limited under all of these
versions of Thunderbird. As you can only do one thing with it. As you
can only see only unread watched threads and that is all. You can't see
or review already read watched threads or anything.

And all three versions the Message Filters are very limiting. None of
them can see anything within a message itself. Not even the search will
let you see inside of a message.

Say for example, months from now you recall somebody mentioning
something about Turnpike. And at the time you were not really
interested. But now you are. And there is nothing within Thunderbird at
all that will help you find it.

I personally see Thunderbird having only a very limited feature set and
that is all. And even some of the most basic features, makes you go
through a lot of unnecessary work.

Take for example, I read from like 10 different servers. Many of the
settings are the same for each one. Take the signature for example. Just
to change the signature, I have to change all 10 of them from different
servers. They could have made this all so much easier.

--
Bill
Asus EEE PC 702G4 ~ 2GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC
Xandros Linux (build 2007-10-19 13:03)

Bruce wrote:

On Sat, 22 May 2010 21:55:55 +0100, Tim Watts wrote:
On 22/05/10 20:48, Bruce wrote:
I have used Forte Agent for many years now. Originally there was a
stripped-down free version, but that soon changed so it has to be paid
for. But I find it incredibly intuitive to use.

Recently I looked at Thunderbird as an alternative to upgrading to the
latest version of Agent. I found it was clunky and difficult to
understand. After about an hour I gave up and happily upgraded Agent
to the current version.

I used Agent about 12 years back - and it was good then too. I quite
liked it.


I think that's called "damning with faint praise".

I've been using Agent since the middle 90s. (Got this particular
upgrade in 2002.) Still downloads my songs, books and this very silly
chatter just fine. What more could a fella want...

In message , geoff
writes
In message , Graeme
writes

Tony, I agree. However, TP will not work 'out of the box' with
Windows 7, so I'm reading this thread with interest. My machine is
running XP with TP 6.06, but I suppose the time will come when a new
PC will arrive with W7.

It works with 32 bit, just not the 64 bit version

Ah. Thank you.
--
Graeme

In message , tony sayer
writes
In article , Graeme
scribeth thus

The comments regarding news are interesting, but how about groups,
specifically Yahoo Groups. Will Thunderbird or Agent thread those like
Usenet? That is a TP feature I could not live without.

Never bothered with Yahoo groups as such the ones I use are all sent via
e-mail..

Exactly. I too receive all Yahoo Group posts as e-mail. Turnpike reads
them as Usenet posts, and threads them exactly as news, with a different
folder for each group, and different threads within each group. Perfect.

--
Graeme

John Rumm wrote on Sun, 23 May 2010 18:00:54 +0100:
On 23/05/2010 03:26, BillW50 wrote:
In ,
John Rumm typed on Sat, 22 May 2010 23:49:06 +0100:
On 22/05/2010 20:09, BillW50 wrote:

The programmers seem to "get it" just fine. However by making some
of the filtering tools a little more flexible, they are perhaps not
quite as simple. However they give far greater scope if you spend a
little time learning what they can do.

Yes well I use TB 1.5, 2.0, and v3 and use the filtering tools. Even
when you are a pro at using them. None of them work as nice as OE
"Show Replies to my Messages" (CTRL-H) view. Sad isn't it?

Watched threads with unread works nicely for me...

I am sure, but nothing as simple as CTRL-H does. I am sure a lab rat
running through a maze that doesn't change to find food works nicely for
them too. But humans are not lab rats and we have more important things
to do to use our intelligence and time than running through mazes.

There are folks out there who insist that [teco | EDT | Emacs | TPU | WS
]... are the only sensible key bindings as devised by God himself. So
basically any choice a programmer makes will be wrong for some people.
The better programmers allow for the end user to change the key
bindings, so that if it really is an issue for a particular user then
the user can change it.

However even that will not please some users, since they expect it to
work in their preferred way (even when that may be less intuitive for
the majority) and don't see why they should use the tools provided to
configure it the way they want.

Not sure what one does about them.

One of the big problems when running applications under the old DOS days
was everybody had their own key commands. Not a problem if you only ran
one application all of the time. But if you ran other applications too,
it would get really confusing.

One of the big promises when Windows first came out was the promise that
all of this would become standardized. And if you learned how one
application worked, you can work any other Windows application as well.

The problem is some did not stick with the same key command standard. So
those of us who uses many different applications, this becomes very
confusing.

So, using the technique I described elsewhere (watching threads to
which you post, and then restricting the view to watched threads)
you get get pretty much the functionality you desire. Hitting "n"
(next) will take you to each unread new post in a thread you have
either started or replied to.

That is another stupid thing from TB. The key for the next unread
should be "u" and not "n". And "n" should be for the next message,
read or not.

So change the default key bindings if it bothers you that much.

Use your head. Both new and next start with "n". That isn't good. One of
them needs to be changed. And since unread next can be remembered easily
with "u". The problem is solved. But morons at Mozilla can't be bothered

So change next unread to u and forward to n and you are done. What's the
problem.

Most folks are probably happy with n for next since its the option they
will use most.

But different applications uses different keys. So switching between
applications actually makes you think or to look up which keys do what.
And it is a real waste of time really.

with solutions. What is wrong with most programmers? They want to treat
everybody as lab rats. I am sorry, but most people are smarter than
that. Okay one or two are not, but that is another story.

So when they give you user definable menus, button bars, shortcuts etc,
in fact complete flexibility to tailor something to your needs, you
think you are being treated as a lab rat?

No what I am saying they are only a tease. 3.0 has improved this
greatly, so I have to say kudos there. But what had taken them so long?
This should have been done since day one.

And sometimes I read with a mouse alone. And adding back, forward,
next unread, and previous unread on the toolbar isn't available for
all version of TB either. How dumb can you get?

Dumb would be complaining that a feature you want is missing, when its
been standard for ages, and the only reason you have not noticed is
you are using an insecure, non supported, out of date version.

Nope, "Show Replies to my Messages" (CTRL-H) view has been missing from

Woa!, you seem to have lost the thread. We are talking about having back
and forward buttons and reading news while controlling the app with the
mouse (you can lay CTRL-H to bed for a bit now).

Thunderbird has these capabilities now so the fact that at some point in
the past it did not is not relevant to this discussion.

To see my watched messages under Thunderbird, I must only see them in a
thread view and only unread threads. Why so limiting? Also to get there
I must press ALT-V-E-W. Okay fine, but to get back the other view I like
to use is to sort messages by date with the newest on top. Well that is
a lot of work toggling between those two views under Thunderbird. It
doesn't need to be this hard.

Thunderbird since day one. Hopefully when TB v4 comes out they will
finally get it. Well maybe it will take until TB v6 you think?

I think its pretty good now. Certainly not perfect, but quite usable.

Every time I use Thunderbird it slows me down. Way too much work just to
do just the simple things. Toggling between those two views I mentioned
above is one good example.

OE however is a liability and should be avoided IMHO. The fact that it
uses a proprietary binary file format, combined with its bug that
trashes its mail store when a file reaches et 2 gig boundary, alone is
enough to preclude its use in my book. Being tied to the IE6 render
engine and the fact that that is now end of life also precludes it as a
sensible choice.

I can see it being a concern for one. And I never saw a problem with the
2GB boundary either. Nor have I ever experienced message database
corruption. Although I backup so if one day it happens, I am still good
anyway. Nor have I ever received a virus through OE either. So I
personally don't see a problem.

I bet OE 4 does not do everything that you want either, why not
complain about that?

Before OE4 there was Microsoft Mail and News v1.0. And the only
competitor was Netscape back then. And when IE4 / OE4 came out they
buried Netscape into darkness. And if it wasn't for AOL buying them out,
there won't be any Thunderbird or Firefox today. And Mozilla has it so
easy with Thunderbird, as OE is no more. Yet they still can't match OE6
while it is sitting still. I can hire lab rats today and still beat
Mozilla. That is really sad.

You seem to be rambling. Perhaps the implicit assumption that TB should
emulate or be more like OE is the problem. I expect a good deal of the
user base would not see that as a desirable goal.

Well since OE support is no more, there is a large group of users
looking for a replacement. So some developer making an OE clone would
probably get millions of users right away.

Watched threads have been about for ages...

No it hasn't!

They have been supported since before V2, and that has been out over
three years. It was also in 1.5 IIRC.

Yes you are right. I just checked. Very limited to what you can do with
Watched though. As it must be threaded and unread threads at that and
that is all you can do.

mistake. But then again Mozilla programmers love to show off how
inferior their programming abilities are. They believe in making
things as difficult as possible.

Na, I think they just like to tease you.

No doubt.

Treat smart people and newbies as lab rats, eh? I started as an
electronic engineer back in the 70's. I only programmed too since there
wasn't any programmers worth a darn back then. Well it wasn't their
entire fault, since hardware was changing like crazy back then and you
had to be an electronic engineer to keep up with it all. By the mid 80's
hardware started to stabilize and there was programmers that started
writing code better than I could. So I quit and stuck with electronic
engineering.

Now all of these people are retiring and the ones replacing them are
mostly clueless. The newer generation just doesn't get it. Don't expect
people to act like lab rats. Doing so we only create less and less
people using your product. And Netscape (aka Mozilla) are making the
very same mistakes they did a decade ago. They just really don't get it!

Sun is another company who likes to makes things slow, bloated, and
very difficult to use as well. And Microsoft is starting to do the
same. I

Starting? They invented code bloat!

Wishfully thinking. As MS-DOS v6 was only like 6MB in size. Windows 95

And did what CP/M+ did in 1MB

Well CP/M 2.2 was limited to 64KB of RAM. And CP/M 3 allowed for 128KB
(maybe more in 64KB banks). And so an application could only use like
50KB and that was it. The trick to get around this limitation was to use
overlays. So you would swap parts of the application in and out of
memory. Kind of like a very early version of a swapfile.

was only 25MB for a full install. The OS wasn't the big thing, but

And was vastly inferior to the the fully real time and multi tasking QNX
at under 1.4MB compressed onto a single floppy.

Sounds great. Although applications is what makes an OS, not an OS
itself. You could design the world's best OS and it would be useless
without the many applications to go with it.

applications got bloated. I have some programs here right now that
requires at least 1GB of RAM for itself. Heck Acronis True Image itself
eats up like 170MB when it isn't even running.

Well to an extent we the end users have elected to have it that way. We
want software cheaply, which means dealing with the complexity of modern
hardware and OS's in a sufficiently short time-scale to bring products
to market. That means extensive reuse of code and application frameworks
etc. The days of the individual coding the whole app in assembler are
long since gone. So it takes a bit more ram - spend £20 and add another
gig.

Three decades ago I didn't see it that way and I still don't today. As
many of the developers would purchase the latest and greatest and
beefiest systems they could buy. Thus for most people, it was out of
reach for them. I think it takes a lot for a developer to understand the
latest and greatest shouldn't be your target. But the kind that most
users actually has.

guess all of the great programmers at Microsoft have already
retired. I

Most of MS's better products were not written by them anyway!

Microsoft always had to fix that crap first. As those products were

Hardly - excel was bought in basically working and just needed
rebranding. Foxpro was lightly warmed over before shipping as a MS
product (and stripping the core DB engine for use in access later)

And they sold it to Microsoft why? Btw Excel was also available for OS/2
as well. I think it even came first before the Windows version.

WinNT was effective a re-writing of VMS by the former DEC OS team, and
had little in common with Win9X beyond a tweaked version of the API
glued on top.

Could be and probably.

worthless as is. As if they were worth anything, they didn't need
Microsoft to bale them out in the first place. Heck Apple would have
been history today if Microsoft didn't bale them out too.

guess nobody writes great software anymore.

Depends on what you want I guess.

Great software like we used to have. I am not asking too much I don't
think.

Such as?

Everybody has their favorites from the past. And I usually like the
older versions far better than the newer versions. Such as I like OE6
far better than Windows Live Mail. I like the older versions of
Thunderbird than the newer ones. I even like the older browsers than the
newer ones. And I like Windows XP far better than I do with Vista and
Windows 7. And the list goes on and on.

It is very clear to me that Mozilla doesn't consider acThunderbird as a
serious product. As they will get around to fixing it when they get

They have limited resources and have to chose carefully where to spend
those. TB was a less important target the FF - I am sure Moz would agree
with that appraisal.

I am sure that FF has far more users than TB has. But it is clear which
one they really don't put a lot of effort in.

around to it. Unfortunately they are always a day late and a dollar
short. No news there. Netscape was exactly the same way. Thus some
things never change at all.

Netscape were not always in that situation. Then again they did have to
content with a competitor attempting to put them out of business[1]
using every trick in the book (legal or otherwise).

Actually there was an interview on TV with both of the two guys who
started Netscape (Jim Clark and Marc Andreessen). And they freely
admitted that they pushed Microsoft right into that war. As they wanted
to go head to head with Microsoft. And they fully believed whatever
Microsoft could do, they could do better.

Note, not by producing a better product either. Bus still that is old
history.

Those two admitted when they first saw IE4/OE4, they knew it was far
better than anything that Netscape could ever produce and they knew
Netscape was finished as a company.

--
Bill
Thunderbird Portable 1.5

On 23/05/2010 18:45, BillW50 wrote:


Say for example, months from now you recall somebody mentioning
something about Turnpike. And at the time you were not really
interested. But now you are. And there is nothing within Thunderbird at
all that will help you find it.

Except the message body filter.

--
Rod

On 5/23/2010 3:01 PM, Rod wrote on Sun, 23 May 2010 21:01:30 +0100:
On 23/05/2010 18:45, BillW50 wrote:


Say for example, months from now you recall somebody mentioning
something about Turnpike. And at the time you were not really
interested. But now you are. And there is nothing within Thunderbird at
all that will help you find it.

Except the message body filter.

Where is that Rod? I don't see that under 1.5, 2.0, or 3.0.

--
Bill
Thunderbird Portable 3.0 (20091130)

BillW50 wrote on Sun, 23 May 2010 14:54:25 -0500:
John Rumm wrote on Sun, 23 May 2010 18:00:54 +0100:

They have been supported since before V2, and that has been out over
three years. It was also in 1.5 IIRC.

Yes you are right. I just checked. Very limited to what you can do with
Watched though. As it must be threaded and unread threads at that and
that is all you can do.

Oops! You can actually see watched unread as unthreaded. Although it
takes a lot of work to get there. And I only found it by accident.

--
Bill
Thunderbird Portable 2.0 (20090812)

On 23/05/2010 21:10, BillW50 wrote:
On 5/23/2010 3:01 PM, Rod wrote on Sun, 23 May 2010 21:01:30 +0100:
On 23/05/2010 18:45, BillW50 wrote:


Say for example, months from now you recall somebody mentioning
something about Turnpike. And at the time you were not really
interested. But now you are. And there is nothing within Thunderbird at
all that will help you find it.

Except the message body filter.

Where is that Rod? I don't see that under 1.5, 2.0, or 3.0.

I am running 3.0.4.

On what I have now seen is called the Mail toolbar. The right end of
that has a box starting with a magnifying glass icon with a dropdown.
Have a look here
http://support.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/kb/Global+Search - but what
I see isn't exactly like that.

--
Rod

On 5/23/2010 3:34 PM, Rod wrote on Sun, 23 May 2010 21:34:04 +0100:
On 23/05/2010 21:10, BillW50 wrote:
On 5/23/2010 3:01 PM, Rod wrote on Sun, 23 May 2010 21:01:30 +0100:
On 23/05/2010 18:45, BillW50 wrote:


Say for example, months from now you recall somebody mentioning
something about Turnpike. And at the time you were not really
interested. But now you are. And there is nothing within Thunderbird at
all that will help you find it.

Except the message body filter.

Where is that Rod? I don't see that under 1.5, 2.0, or 3.0.

I am running 3.0.4.

On what I have now seen is called the Mail toolbar. The right end of
that has a box starting with a magnifying glass icon with a dropdown.
Have a look here
http://support.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/kb/Global+Search - but what
I see isn't exactly like that.

Okay I see it and mine doesn't look like that either. I tried it and it
couldn't find Turnpike. But I have Thunderbird set to not to download
message bodies. So maybe that is why. OE6 can be set not to download
message bodies either. But it stores them automatically if up opened
them once or have them set as being watched. I like that a lot. Probably
not a good idea if you have Internet access all of the time and are
tight on disk space too.

--
Bill
Thunderbird Portable 3.0 (20091130)

On 23/05/2010 16:13, geoff wrote:
In message , Graeme
writes


Tony, I agree. However, TP will not work 'out of the box' with Windows
7, so I'm reading this thread with interest. My machine is running XP
with TP 6.06, but I suppose the time will come when a new PC will
arrive with W7.

It works with 32 bit, just not the 64 bit version


It certainly does - I'm running it under Win 7-32 bit - and it installed
without any problems.


One further question, if I may . . .

Where does Thunderbird keep its data? I would like to back up my
accounts and messages - but can't find where it hides this stuff!
--
Cheers,
Roger
____________
Please reply to Newsgroup. Whilst email address is valid, it is seldom
checked.

In message , Rod
writes

Thunderbird will thread Yahoo emails (I get individual emails of all
posts for the groups I am interested in). Trouble is that so many
people post in ways that mean they are not threaded even viewed within
the group. Thins like starting a new topic by replying to an existing
post and changing the subject. Or just posting a disconnected message
without making any attempt to place it in a thread.

Excellent, thank you. Yes, broken threads are a problem even with
Turnpike, although TP does at least treat the broken thread as a new
thread within the same folder, which is logical.

Delighted to read that Thunderbird is able to search within saved
messages, whether group, news or mail. That is a TP facility I use
frequently.
--
Graeme

xxx
Thunderbird will thread Yahoo emails (I get individual emails of all
posts for the groups I am interested in). Trouble is that so many
people post in ways that mean they are not threaded even viewed within
the group. Thins like starting a new topic by replying to an existing
post and changing the subject.

Oh, whoops, I do that,
So message threading isnt done by the subject line,
but by some hidden code within the message?

[g]

changed subject for experiemnt

will this thread with its ordinal title:
"Re using Thunderbird for Usenet"
or thread under its new subject name?


Graeme wrote:
In message , Rod
writes

Thunderbird will thread Yahoo emails (I get individual emails of all
posts for the groups I am interested in). Trouble is that so many
people post in ways that mean they are not threaded even viewed within
the group. Thins like starting a new topic by replying to an existing
post and changing the subject. Or just posting a disconnected message
without making any attempt to place it in a thread.

Excellent, thank you. Yes, broken threads are a problem even with
Turnpike, although TP does at least treat the broken thread as a new
thread within the same folder, which is logical.

Delighted to read that Thunderbird is able to search within saved
messages, whether group, news or mail. That is a TP facility I use
frequently.

"george [dicegeorge]" gurgled happily, sounding
much like they were saying:

Thunderbird will thread Yahoo emails (I get individual emails of all
posts for the groups I am interested in). Trouble is that so many
people post in ways that mean they are not threaded even viewed within
the group. Thins like starting a new topic by replying to an existing
post and changing the subject.

Oh, whoops, I do that,
So message threading isnt done by the subject line, but by some hidden
code within the message?

Get your usenet client to show you all headers. There's a line in there -
"References:" - which shows the threading hierarchy.

If it was just on the subject line, then different languages or setups of
clients would regularly break the threading just by adding the ""
reply prefix in different ways, let alone a user changing the title for a
sub-thread drift.

In Thunderbird when I click the [Subject] column header
this message is filed alphabetically under subject:

its not grouped along with
"Re using Thunderbird for Usenet"
But, if I understand Graeme correctly,
in some newsreaders it will be grouped along with its initial subject name?

[g]



george [dicegeorge] wrote:
changed subject for experiemnt

will this thread with its ordinal title:
"Re using Thunderbird for Usenet"
or thread under its new subject name?


Graeme wrote:
In message , Rod
writes

Thunderbird will thread Yahoo emails (I get individual emails of all
posts for the groups I am interested in). Trouble is that so many
people post in ways that mean they are not threaded even viewed
within the group. Thins like starting a new topic by replying to an
existing post and changing the subject. Or just posting a
disconnected message without making any attempt to place it in a thread.

Excellent, thank you. Yes, broken threads are a problem even with
Turnpike, although TP does at least treat the broken thread as a new
thread within the same folder, which is logical.

Delighted to read that Thunderbird is able to search within saved
messages, whether group, news or mail. That is a TP facility I use
frequently.

george [dicegeorge] wrote:
xxx
Thunderbird will thread Yahoo emails (I get individual emails of all
posts for the groups I am interested in). Trouble is that so many
people post in ways that mean they are not threaded even viewed
within the group. Thins like starting a new topic by replying to an
existing post and changing the subject.

Oh, whoops, I do that,
So message threading isnt done by the subject line,
but by some hidden code within the message?

MSGID usually
[g]

george [dicegeorge] wrote:
In Thunderbird when I click the [Subject] column header
this message is filed alphabetically under subject:

In my thunderbid, its filed under the original thread, because I use
thread viewing.

its not grouped along with
"Re using Thunderbird for Usenet"

It is here.

But, if I understand Graeme correctly,
in some newsreaders it will be grouped along with its initial subject name?

[g]



george [dicegeorge] wrote:
changed subject for experiemnt

will this thread with its ordinal title:
"Re using Thunderbird for Usenet"
or thread under its new subject name?


Graeme wrote:
In message , Rod
writes

Thunderbird will thread Yahoo emails (I get individual emails of all
posts for the groups I am interested in). Trouble is that so many
people post in ways that mean they are not threaded even viewed
within the group. Thins like starting a new topic by replying to an
existing post and changing the subject. Or just posting a
disconnected message without making any attempt to place it in a
thread.

Excellent, thank you. Yes, broken threads are a problem even with
Turnpike, although TP does at least treat the broken thread as a new
thread within the same folder, which is logical.

Delighted to read that Thunderbird is able to search within saved
messages, whether group, news or mail. That is a TP facility I use
frequently.

John Rumm wrote:
On 25/05/2010 10:46, george [dicegeorge] wrote:
In Thunderbird when I click the [Subject] column header
this message is filed alphabetically under subject:

its not grouped along with
"Re using Thunderbird for Usenet"

It could be if you wanted...

But, if I understand Graeme correctly,
in some newsreaders it will be grouped along with its initial subject
name?

If you click a column header then it will do a simple sort in order on
that column (click a second time for reverse order).

If you click on the "thread gadget" column header then it will thread
properly based on the message references.

However, by using options on the View | Sort By menu, you can also do
tricks like sort by any column of your choice, but also retain the
threaded nature. So sort by "received" with threading on, will pop a
thread to the end of the list each time a response to it is received.


Thanks - I hadnt noticed the Thunderbird thread gadget column before,
I can see it will be useful sometimes!

[g]

In message , "george [dicegeorge]"
writes
In Thunderbird when I click the [Subject] column header
this message is filed alphabetically under subject:

its not grouped along with
"Re using Thunderbird for Usenet"
But, if I understand Graeme correctly,
in some newsreaders it will be grouped along with its initial subject name?

Yes, using Turnpike, your message appears within the same thread, as it
should.
--
Graeme

On 23/05/2010 16:28, mick wrote:

A free newsreader that no-one has mentioned yet - Pan. It will
automatically set all threads read on exit if you want. It also has good
filtering (but rather weird to set up sometimes). Available in both
Windows and Linux flavours. You can set up thread "watches" and set
"scores" for articles. Then you can set colours for score ranges. It may
be worth further investigation.

I tried it a few weeks ago on XP. It needs work on the interface IMO.

Also unfortunately, Pan doesn't handle the reception or transmission of
'format flowed' plain text though, so a pain if you are reediting text
in it - ye have to keep hitting the Rewrap button to insert a line break
after 74 (or whatever number of) characters. Then when text entered like
that is quoted in various clients, the end result is a mess.

I hope they work on fixing the above.

At the moment, Pan's strengths seems to be in downloading binaries in
usenet, and scheduling and managing these activities from different
servers.

--
Adrian C