NewsBin Pro 3.3 Tool Bar

 

Load

  This button brings up the "Open" dialog box which allows you to load a different configuration file.  You can set up different configuration for different types of file that you want to download.  As you learn more about the "Options" and "Spam Filters" configurations, you will find that different types of files work better with different settings.

This dialog box shows you all your NewsBin configuration files (ending with .nfg) in the directory where NewsBin is installed.  Select the configuration file you want to use and then click on the "Open" button.

Save

The Save button allows you to save your configuration.  NewsBin will automatically save your configuration upon exit if you tell it to under the Options screen but you can manually save your configuration by clicking this button whenever you make changes.

Go

The Go button only works in Automatic Download Mode.  This is selected by clicking on the checkbox to the left of the words "Automatic Download".  Pressing this button tells NewsBin to process all selected groups and process all headers.  If you are not in Automatic Download Mode, NewsBin will display a warning message stating that the Go button is only for Auto Mode.

Stop

The Stop button tell NewsBin to stop all current work.  If a header download is taking place, it will stop immediately.  NewsBin will also ask you if you want to remove all work that is waiting to be downloaded.

Clicking "Yes" will remove all files that are queued in the "Download List" and NewsBin will not download any more files after the files already in the process of downloading are completed.  Clicking "No" means all queued files will remain in the "Download List" and NewsBin will continue to download all files until they have all been processed.

Pause

This button will temporarily stop all downloads.  It can be used if you need to access the web while NewsBin is using all your available bandwidth.  You should be able to pause for several minutes at a time but, depending on your news server, your paused connections may time out and your current downloads will fail.  To un-pause, simply click the Pause button again and NewsBin will resume.  If your current downloads fail for any reason, you can re-select them and perform a Force Download.

Servers

The server button takes you to a screen where you can enter information about your news server.  You must enter valid NNTP USENET News Server information here.  If you do not know what your news server name is, contact your ISP and find out.  If you are with AOL or MSN, read this.  Otherwise, your news server is most likely the name of your ISP with the word "news" in front.  For example, EarthLink's news server is news.earthlink.com.  Using NewsBin, you may be better off signing up for a commercial news server (average of $10 per month).  They typically have better performance than the news servers maintained by ISP's.  Our favorites are news.usenetserver.com, news.supernews.com, and news.onlynews.com.

Groups

This is how you select the newsgroups you want to download from.  Groups you select here will be transferred to the "Groups" window on the NewsBin Main Screen.  You can also download a list of all news groups available on your server from this screen.  You can sort newsgroups by name or by number of posts (activity) by clicking on the column headings.

Options

The Options button takes you to a series of screens for configuring NewsBin's many runtime options.

Spam Filters

This button takes you to a series of screens that allow you to set up filter criteria for NewsBin to determine whether to download a file or not.  Filters include filename, filesize, and anti-spam filters like poster lockouts, cross-group posts, and keyword lockouts.  To be documented

Skip Group

When in Automatic Mode, this button will skip the group that is currently being processed and start processing the next group in the list.

Post

This button takes you to NewsBin's simple posting mechanism.  This option is functional but has not been fully developed and is a little tricky to set up.

To post binaries to a newsgroup or groups, follow these steps:

  1. Copy the binary file or files you wish to post into the NewsBin download directory  (This is not a typo, it is the download directory right now).  This is the same directory you have selected as the Download Path on the Options screen.  All files found in this directory will be posted as a binary file.

  2. Create a file called posttext.txt in the directory from which you run NewsBin.  Use Windows Notepad or some other text editor to create text in this file.  This file is optional.

  3. Select the groups to which you want to post in the Groups Window.

  4. Select the news server you to which you want to post in the Servers Window.

  5. Click the Post button and you will see the following dialog box:

  1. Text entered into the "Subject" field will be the subject of the post.

  2. Enter the email address you want to display as the "From" for the post.  This does not have to be a valid email address.

  3. The "Chunk Sizes" box tells NewsBin how to break up large files for multi-part posting.  Using 300 as shown above will post any file under 300KB as one post.  A 1MB file will be posted in 4 posts. (NOTE: Multipart Posting is broken in 3.3!  Make sure your chunk size is big enough to post each file as one post.)

In general, if you are going to post with NewsBin, set up all your information and do a test post into alt.binaries.test to make sure you have everything set up correctly.  Then, you can select the group (or groups) to which you want to post and fire away!

Back to the NewsBin Main Screen