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This section discusses the most common ways to use NewsBin to download binary attachments to usenet posts including some information on the most common types of files encountered on usenet and what extra processing may be needed to make use of these files.
Multi-part posts are large binary files that have been split up and posted separately to avoid their being dropped by news servers. The news servers have some limit for the size of a post and they will not propagate posts that exceed that limit.
NewsBin shows all the parts of a multi-part post as one line. Multi-part posts use a pseudo standard of identifying the number of the post out of the total posts in parenthesis like this:
"This is a large file – largefile.dat (01/50)"
What NewsBin hides from you are 50 other posts that have (02/50), (03/50), etc, in the subject. If NewsBin cannot find all the parts to completely download the post, a capital "I" in a yellow box to the left of the header will be displayed in the Main Screen > Post List Tab. If you have Show Incomplete Posts on the Filters Bar, turned off (unchecked), you won’t see it at all.
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NewsBin searches all your selected servers for all the parts of the post. If you select this post for download, NewsBin will start downloading from the first selected server listed in the Groups/Servers Bar > Servers Tab that has the first part of the post. NewsBin will download as many parts as you allow with the number of simultaneous connections you have configured, either by selecting the connections with the spinner on the thumbnail bar or by going under Menu > Preferences > Options > Setup Tab and specifying a number under Connections. If the part is not available on the first server, it will go to the next selected server to download the part. Also, if downloading the part from the current server will exceed the server connection limit or the server download limit (set by right-clicking on the server name and selecting Properties…), then NewsBin will go to the next available server to download the post. More details about multiple server support are in the next section.
As NewsBin is downloading the parts of the post, they are stored on disk in the "SPOOL" folder in the folder where NewsBin was installed. Each part is 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 download directory (specified under Menu > Preferences > Options > Setup Tab).
These files are already decoded and are in binary format.
If you configure NewsBin with multiple news servers, it will download headers from all selected servers simultaneously. As you select posts for download, NewsBin will start with the first server in your server list. You can re-arrange the priority of the servers by click and dragging the servers in the Groups/Servers Bar > Servers Tab to the order you want to use them, the most used on top and least used on the bottom. If any posts or parts of multi-part posts do not exist on the first server, NewsBin will check subsequent servers until it can find the post or part to download.
TIP: The recommended configuration is to have your cheapest, highest datarate, highest bandwidth server first and put more expensive but more complete servers last. Typically this translates to using your ISP's default server first and then any pay servers afterwards.
Each server can be configured under the Toolbar > Server button or by right-clicking the server form the Groups/Servers Bar > Servers Tab and selecting properties. You can set a connection limit and download limit per server. For example, if your server only allows 4 simultaneous connections, set the connection limit to 4 and even if you have NewsBin set to use 8 connections, it will never open more than 4 with the server.
The Download limit can be monitored in the Groups/Servers Bar > Servers Tab and can be reset from there as well. When the limit is reached, you will see messages in the Main Screen > Status Messages Tab saying the download limit has been reached for the server. You can then wait for your download limit to reset on your news server and then reset the download limit that NewsBin knows about by right-clicking on the server and selecting Reset Download Count.
NewsBin 4.0 has very extensive filtering capabilities to match user defined expressions in subjects or filenames, and to set file size ranges and crosspost threshold. Since different newsgroups may require different filters, NewsBin allows you to define a "Filter Set" (see Defining Filter Sets in this document), which you can choose on the main screen depending on the type of files you are downloading.
Location: Menu > Preferences > Filter Options…
or Toolbar > Filter
Button. For subject and filename filters, NewsBin provides both a "Reject List" and an "Accept List". You can run only "Reject Filters", or only "Accept Filters", or both. If both filter types are selected, the list of "Accept Filters" is checked first, then anything passing the "Accept Filters" is compared to the "Reject Filters". Anything matching a "Reject Filter" is filtered out.
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The filters themselves use Perl-like regular expression parsing syntax. This is not the same as the DOS style wildcards. For example the DOS style *.jpg would be written as .*\.jpg in RegEx. The "." means "match any single character" and the "\" is an escape character so the second dot is taken literally instead of a command in the expression. Read more about common RegEx expressions and how to build basic expressions on our site at NewsBin.com.
Location: Preferences > Filter Options… > Subject Filters Tab
or Toolbar > Filter Button > Subject Filters Tab. Any expression entered here is applied to the subject portion of a post. Headers are filtered and hidden from the Main Screen > Post List Tab if there is a filter hit based on your settings. Many posters include the filename of the attached file in the subject. Selecting a filename type filter in the "Subject Filters" is more efficient then using the "Filename Filters" (read more about this in the next section) but the filtering is not 100% correct since the filename in the subject may not be the same as the actual filename.
Checking the Filters Bar > Show Filtered Posts checkbox will allow filtered posts to be seen in the Main Screen > Post List Tab.
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Location: Preferences > Filter Options… > Filename Filters Tab
or Toolbar > Filter Button > Filename Filters Tab. Any expression entered here is applied to the actual filename of the attached file. It does not match the filename given in the subject header as those are sometimes different, especially when it comes to spam or viruses. Because NewsBin does not know the actual filename until the binary portion of the post is being downloaded, these posts will be seen in the Post List unless they are filtered by a subject filter. When a filter hit is made on a filename, NewsBin must drop the connection to terminate the download and then re-connect to continue downloading other queued posts. Some news server don’t behave well to dropped connections, especially if you hit a long run of filenames that hit your filter. Subject Filters should always be used before Filename Filters for performance reasons but it would be prudent to use Filename Filters as a backup to catch unwanted .exe, .scr, .pif, .vbs, or other suspicious or unwanted filenames.
Location: Preferences > Filter Options… > Settings Tab
or Toolbar > Filter Button > Settings Tab. Here you can set a minimum file size, maximum file size, or both for limiting the size of files that NewsBin will download. The file size filter is based on the file size reported in the header data and may not reflect the actual file size in the case of spam or virus postings.
The Crosspost filter tells NewsBin to filter out any post that was posted to more than X different newsgroups. X being some number that you configure.
Location: Preferences > Filter Options…
or Toolbar > Filter Button. To save a set of filters defined for a specific category of files, you can define a name identifying your set up filters. Do this by clicking the Filter Button to access the Filter Options screen. Click the New button at the bottom of this screen and specify a name for your new filter set. If you have a previous filter set defined that is close to what you want the new filter set to be, you can specify the other filter set as a "Template" and that will be used as a starting point for your new filter set. Once you have named your filter set, configure your filters and then click OK. If you want to change a filter set, go into the Filter Options screen and select the filter set you want to modify. The filters will then be displayed on the screen.
To use a pre-defined filter set, go to the Filters Bar and select from the Apply Filter Profile dropdown list the filter set you want to use.
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This filter will apply to all download performed from that time forward. You can also assign filter sets to be used for different groups by right-clicking on the group name and selecting Filter Profile. Whenever you download from that group, the specified filter set will always be used. If you have Show Incomplete Posts on the Filters Bar, turned on (checked), you won’t see the Filter Profile options.
You can configure a group to always use a specific filter set by doing a right-click on the group you are interested in and selecting Filter Profile. A list of defined filter sets will be displayed and you can choose one. Each time you download from that newsgroup, that filter set will be applied.