Newsgroup Manager is a WebExplorer feature that gives you access to USENET newsgroups. You can subscribe to, browse, and contribute to these newsgroups using the various options that Newsgroup Manager provides.
This help describes how to configure,
start, and use
the Newsgroup Manager to explore the wide variety of newsgroups
available online. If you are unfamiliar with newsgroups or newsgroup
terms, see More about newsgroups.
Newsgroup Manager is a client application that connects to a news server. The news server provides a connection to the USENET and maintains a current list of all available newsgroups. Before using the Newsgroup Manager, you need to specify the news server that Newsgroup Manager will use. To do this:
To send articles to be posted on a newsgroup, you also need to specify your E-mail address on the Configure Servers window. The address is displayed as part of the posted article.
Newsgroup Manager uses the following files to keep track of newsgroup data:
Note:The Newsgroup Manager can share this file with the IBM NewsReader/2 program, which allows each program to access your current newsgroup subscription list.
These configuration files are located, by default, in the TCP/IP ETC directory on your machine. However, you can change the location (path) of these files if you want to store them in a more convenient directory. To change the path for any one of the files:
You can start the Newsgroup Manager in two ways:
To go directly to a newsgroup from the WebExplorer main window, specify the news: protocol followed by the newsgroup's URL. For example, news:alt.fishing takes you directly to the alt.fishing newsgroup.
The Newsgroup Manager main window displays the list of newsgroups that you currently subscribe to. From this window, you can add a newsgroup to the list, delete a newsgroup from the list, check for new articles or postings to a newsgroup, or browse the contents of a specific newsgroup.
When you select Add Newsgroups, the Newsgroup Manager displays a window showing your current newsgroup subscriptions. From this window, you can:
When you select Delete Newsgroups, the Newsgroup Manager displays a window showing your current newsgroup subscriptions. You can delete all of the newsgroups in this list or select individual newsgroups to delete.
When you select Check for new articles, the Newsgroup Manager checks the news server to see if any new articles have been added to the newsgroups in the list. The list is updated if there are any new articles.
The Newsgroup Manager monitors your newsgroup subscriptions and displays the number of unread articles in each newsgroup since your last session or update. When you select a specific newsgroup in the list, you can load and browse a portion of the articles available or see all articles at once. Articles are displayed from the most current to least current, and are highlighted after they are read. Replies to specific articles are indented under the main article. In addition, the number of lines in an article is shown in parentheses to the right of the article.
When you display the list of articles for a specific newsgroup, Newsgroup Manager includes the following options:
When you select a specific article in the list to read, additional options are provided as appropriate:
Note: At the top of each article is a list of all newsgroups that the article has been posted to.
USENET (short for USERS NETWORK) is a logical network that provides access to a centralized database of world-wide news. A USENET newsgroup is a collection of articles (also called "posts" and "appends") on a certain topic or area of interest. There are newsgroups, for example, about sports, health issues, computing, and so forth. Newsgroups may or may not be moderated, and topics range from serious and scholarly to whimsical and bizarre. Articles posted to a newsgroup are seen by all subscribers to that newsgroup and anyone can post a reply.
The USENET has some broad categories of newsgroups that share a general focus. These include newsgroups with the following prefixes: