| Getting Files and Using the Download Queue |
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This section covers all the different ways of retrieving files. That is, after all, what NewsBin is all about. |
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| Getting Files and Using the Download Queue > Manual Download Methods |
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If you don't have the hard drive space to spare, or just like to be personally involved in everything going onto your computer, then these are the ways you'll be wanting to get files. |
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| Getting Files and Using the Download Queue > Manual Download Methods > Read Post Body |
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If you aren't interested in saving the contents of a post to a file, or if there isn't a file in the post, then you can read what is there using the Read Post Body command. This will decode any simple text files attached to the post, such as .nfo, .sfv, or .txt and display them, along with the actual text contents of the post, in the default .txt viewer on your system (usually notepad). You can perform this command by selecting the posts you are interested in reading, right clicking on them, and selecting Read Post Body, or by hitting Ctrl+R. While the post body is being retrieved, the Retrieve Articles Bar will appear. |
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| Getting Files and Using the Download Queue > Manual Download Methods > Queue File |
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If you do wish to save the files in the selected posts, then the Add to Download List command is the one you want. This will add the posts to the Download List where it will be downloaded when it's turn comes. As usual, this can be done by right clicking on the posts in question, and selecting Add to Download List, or by hitting Ctrl-E. Checking the box to the left of the subject also has the same effect. Also in the right click menu is Download To Folder..., this command allows you to specify a folder for the file in this particular post to be downloaded and saved into. Unlike the rest of the files in the queue, the destination of files queued using the Download To Folder command will not be remembered when the Download List is saved. |
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| Getting Files and Using the Download Queue > Manual Download Methods > Force Download |
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If a post failed to download due to a filter hit, server failure, duplicate match, or other error, it may still be retrievable using the Force Download command. Select, then either right click on the posts you're interested in and click on Force Download, or hit Ctrl-Y to use this function. |
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| Getting Files and Using the Download Queue > Manual Download Methods > Combine Posts |
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If a poster has posted a part of a multi-part post using a subject other than the one originally used for the multi-part post, it will not be automatically included in that post's entry in NewsBin's Post List. This could result in a post that is actually complete being displayed as two separate, incomplete, posts. When this occurs, you can tell NewsBin to treat multiple "posts" as it would one normal one by selecting them, and using the Combine Posts command in the right click menu. |
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| Getting Files and Using the Download Queue > Manual Download Methods > Download Incompletes |
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By selecting the post you are interested in, right clicking on it, and choosing Download Incompletes, you can download all the parts of the file that are available, and combine them together as if they were all there. This is mostly useful for files such as MP3s or MPGs where missing part of the file only results in you being unable to watch that small part. It's also handy when PAR2 files are supplied with a post, since you won't have to recover the whole file, only the missing parts. |
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| Getting Files and Using the Download Queue > Manual Download Methods > Download Chunks Only |
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The Download Chunks Only command in the right click menu for a post tells NewsBin not to attempt to assemble the decoded parts of a multi-part post. (When decoded, each part is called a chunk.) By using the Download Chunks Only option, all the available parts are downloaded and decoded and you can manually look later for the missing part, or even download it from another source. This will only work if the first part exists since NewsBin needs it as a reference point. |
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| Getting Files and Using the Download Queue > Manual Download Methods > Download Visible Posts |
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This option will be implemented in a future version of Newsbin. |
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| Getting Files and Using the Download Queue > Manual Download Methods > Download All Posts from Poster |
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If you want to download all the posts shown in the Post List which have the same poster, then you can use the Download All Posts from Poster command. Again, this can be accessed using the right click menu on the post(s) you're interested in. |
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| Getting Files and Using the Download Queue > Manual Download Methods > Adjusting parts in the Post Properties |
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When you right click on a post or posts and select Properties or hit Ctrl-I (not Ctrl-L, which is Load Spool), you are presented with a screen that displays all the information about the post that is contained in its headers, including the parts of the post that were found, the server each was found on, and the post number of each part. You can control which parts of the post NewsBin will use to download by selecting an article from the list and using the Delete and Insert keys. If you want to read just one of the articles in the post, then you can select that article, and press the Read Chunk Button. This will act the same as the Read Post Body command, but on the selected article rather than the first one. |
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| Getting Files and Using the Download Queue > Automatic Download Methods |
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When Utilities > Automatic Download (Ctrl-T)
is enabled, NewsBin will automatically add everything that gets displayed
in the Post List into the Download Queue. In order
to reduce memory usage, the |
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| Getting Files and Using the Download Queue > Managing the Queue |
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The Download List Tab contains a list of all the posts queued for download. The numbers on the tab itself are calculated the same way as the ones on the Post List Tab and the Columns are the same, and behave identically to those in the Post List. The Download List can not however, be filtered in any way. In the Download List, posts can be switched to Force Download, their Properties viewed and altered, and their Posters Locked Out, the same as they can in the Post List. |
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| Getting Files and Using the Download Queue > Managing the Queue > Arranging the Queue |
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From the Download List Tab, posts can be moved, or removed from the queue. Selecting Remove from Download List from the right click menu, or using the shortcut Ctrl+D, will remove the selected post(s) from the Download List. Unchecking the box to the left of the subject has the same effect. When posts are added to the Download Queue, they are appended to the end of the list. There are two ways to move the posts into the order you desire. First is the Move to Top command, found in the right click menu, which will move the selected posts to the very top of the Download List. The second method is to select the posts you are interested in, then use the mouse to drag them to the position you wish. Be careful that you select the text portion of the subject though, and not any empty space beside it when trying to drag, otherwise they may not move, and you will find yourself lassoing a new set of posts. |
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| Getting Files and Using the Download Queue > Managing the Queue > Saving/Loading the Queue |
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NewsBin automatically takes a snapshot of the posts you have queued up in the Download List when you exit and will automatically load them upon startup the next time NewsBin is run. The Save Download List command (Found under File > Save Download List…(Ctrl+H)) gives you more control over when the download list is saved, and can come in handy if your system is prone to unexpected downtime. This can be used if you need to close NewsBin for some reason and you wish to resume your downloads at a future time. Another use is that if you hit your download limit for your news server, you can save the download list and start it up again after your download limit has been reset. Assuming the posts still exist on the server, of course. The Load Download List command (found under File > Load Download List… (Ctrl+F)) allows you to re-load a previously saved download list. All headers loaded (including automatically) will be displayed in the Post List Tab, where you can then queue them for download again. Any multi-part posts that were in the process of being downloaded at the time NewsBin was interrupted will pick up where they left off (well, to the nearest part anyway). Note that any folders specified using the Download To Folder command will not be retained when the Download List is saved. |
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| Getting Files and Using the Download Queue > Actual Downloading |
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This section will help explain the mystic process that occurs when a post reaches the top of the Download Queue, and is started downloading. The first thing that happens is that NewsBin will start downloading each file from the first enabled server listed in the Servers Tab that has the first part of the post. If it comes across a part that is not available on the first server, it will go to the next enabled server to download the part. If downloading the part from the current server will exceed the Server Connection Limit or the server download limit, then NewsBin will also go to the next available server to download the part. |
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| Getting Files and Using the Download Queue > Actual Downloading > Progress Bars and Thumbnails |
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The Thumbnail bar displays thumbnails of images that NewsBin is downloading. The Thumbnail bar also is home to the Connection Control, Kill Button, and Progress Bars. You can control if this bar is displayed, as well as if the thumbnails themselves are shown inside it by using the View menu. To adjust the number of total connections made to download files from the servers, you use the Connection Control, clicking on the Up and Down buttons to adjust the number of connections allowed. NewsBin supports up to 8 simultaneous connections for downloading binaries. This is separate from the connections used for downloading headers or for posting to the newsgroups. This is also adjustable by going to Preferences > Options... > Setup Tab and specifying a number under Connections. If a file is being downloaded that you are no longer interested in, you can use the Kill Button for that connection. It allows you to terminate any download currently in progress. When you kill a download, it is placed in the PostID Cache as well as the Signature Cache since it assumes that if you kill it, you never want to see it again. The post's entry is then moved to the Failed Files Tab. If you decide you want to download this file in the future, you will have to use the Filter Bar to find it, then the Force Download command to bypass the filters. The area to the right of each Kill button is the Progress Bar. The bar fills from left to right as the encoded data is downloaded and decoded. The number of bytes downloaded is displayed and updated in the center of the bar. If your machine is working hard keeping up on a high bandwidth connection, updates to the bar will happen less frequently since it is considered a low priority task. If you want to force the bars to display more frequently, waving the cursor over the bars will force an update. The thumbnail display will progressively display each image as it is
downloaded. Thumbnails can be viewed in two different resolutions, high
and low. High resolution shows all the pixel information and, if the thumbnail
bar is expanded, will show the full quality of the image. Low resolution
reduces the number of pixels shown and uses fewer resources. On a high
bandwidth connection, you will actually improve your download data rate
by running in low resolution mode. High or low resolution mode is set
using the Low Res Thumbnails checkbox in
Preferences > Options… (or by clicking the To achieve the highest performance for downloads, suppress displaying thumbnails using the View menu, or Alt-6. |
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| Getting Files and Using the Download Queue > Actual Downloading > Pause |
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You can pause all file downloads at any time by pressing the Pause can be used if you need to access the web, or otherwise using your internet connection while NewsBin is using all your available bandwidth, though a better way to deal with this may be to set a Bandwidth Limit in place. |
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| Getting Files and Using the Download Queue > Actual Downloading > Chunks |
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As NewsBin is downloading the parts of the post, they are stored on disk in the "SPOOL" subfolder of the folder where NewsBin was installed. Each part is decoded, then stored as a "chunk" file (filename.chunk.001, filename.chunk.002…). If NewsBin is stopped during a download of a multi-part post, NewsBin will resume from where it left off without having to re-download these parts. After all the parts are successfully downloaded, NewsBin puts them all together and moves the resulting file into the directory specified by the Download Path. |
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| Getting Files and Using the Download Queue > Other Settings that affect File Downloads |
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Selecting Signature Cache in the Utilities menu will toggle NewsBin's ability to filter files based on a stored signature of the file. For every file downloaded, NewsBin calculates a 22 byte signature of the first 24Kb of the file. If, in the future, the same file is downloaded, NewsBin will drop it, even if the filename is different. Depending on the Preferences > Options... > Advanced > Old Style Signature setting, NewsBin may wait until the current part has completed downloading before stopping. That way, it will not have to disconnect and reconnect to the server on a match. Enabling the Old Style Signature will cause it to disconnect immediately upon finding a match. The Signature Cache is stored in the NewsBin folder in a file called signature.dat. If you mainly download MP3's or other large multimedia files that have the same beginning, you should disable this setting since it will detect them as duplicates. Within Preferences > Options... (also
accessible through the In the Setup Tab: Download Path specifies the directory that your downloaded files will be stored in by default. Max Retries sets the maximum number of attempts to make to download a file, setting it to 0 means infinite retries. If a permanent error occurs, this is ignored, and the file is sent straight to the Failed Files Tab. In the Switches Tab: Folder Mode can enable the creation of subfolders for each newsgroup. These folders are created under the specified Download Path. Files downloaded from a newsgroup will then be saved in the folder named after that newsgroup. Auto Rename will cause any files downloaded that have the same filename as existing files to be renamed to something that isn't in use. Copy Style Rename will change the way the file is renamed. Auto Shutdown? will tell NewsBin to automatically close itself when all the files in the Download Queue have been downloaded. In the Network Tab: The Bandwidth Limiter will allow you to set a maximum speed for NewsBin to download at. This can allow the rest of your applications to have some bandwidth to play with even when NewsBin would otherwise take it all. In the Advanced Tab: Save Chunks will tell NewsBin not to delete the chunks once it has finished combining them into the finished file. This is generally only useful for debugging purposes. Save Chunk Text will tell NewsBin to write the chunks it downloads in undecoded format as well as the normal decoded form. Again, this is generally only useful for debugging purposes. NewsBin holds connections open to news servers anticipating commands to download more posts. This is for performance reasons so time and overhead isn't used stopping and starting connections needlessly. Occasionally, you may want to force NewsBin to kill connections, especially if a news server thinks you are using too many connections or has some other policy issues about keeping connections open. The Utilities > Kill All Connections command forces NewsBin to kill all open connections with all news servers. |
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