So What Is XNews?
Xnews is a free, full-featured on-line Usenet newsreader for Windows 9x/NT. Written in Delphi by Luu Tran, it is similar in appearance to an earlier program called News Express - the two programs are not otherwise related. Luu Tran has a full website for XNews, link located here.
XNews is primarily designed as an on-line newsreader - that is to say, it is mainly for use when connected to Usenet. Although both headers and articles can be stored, temporarily or permanently (in addition to downloading and decoding), on-line news reading and binary downloading are what it does best. The program allows you to have multiple news servers open at once, and allows multiple newsgroup windows for each server. Thus, you can have several downloads from different groups happening simultaneously - you're limited only by your connection speed and bandwidth.
XNews has a lot of great tools, and is (mostly) very intuitive to use. There are a few functions that are not well documented in the manual, (such as partial binary downloads, and dealing with parts from multiple servers) so some helper tips are included below. Some sections of this "quickie" guide are extracts/quotes from the Xnews and web site documentation.
As Luu Tran says on the XNews Web Site,
"Behold, I send thee forth as newbies in the midst of wolves, so RTFM! (read the fine manual)"
Setting Up XNews
Xnews is pretty simple to configure. Use [CTRL][F1]
or, from the menu bar, "Special" "Setup Xnews" to access the config menu.
You will need to enter the name of your news server(s), along with username
and password if needed (most ISP news servers don't require this; subscription
services always do). For most other things, the default settings work just
fine, and if changes are needed the settings are self-explanatory. Under the
"Files" tab, you can change the default download directory to whatever you
wish.
Get Some Newsgroups,
Grasshopper!
When you start up Xnews for the first time, the
first thing it does is to get a complete list of all newsgroups available
on your server. After the list is downloaded, you can then select the groups
you are interested in from the list. When you're done, your screen looks like
this.
A group that is not "Subscribed" has an icon next
to it that looks like a blue ball.
A group that is "Subscribed" has an icon that looks
like a green arrow, pointing right.
So, What do the
Icons Mean?
"4-blue-cube" indicates a complete binary article.
Multi-part binaries will have this icon next to each part, if they're complete.
"3-blue-cube" indicates an incomplete binary article.
Double-clicking on the header under the "Subject" sorting bar will show a
list of available parts, by number (xx/yy). If you ask nicely in the "d"
group (alt.binaries.multimedia.erotica.d), most posters will re-send the
missing parts to fill in what you're missing.
"white note" indicates a text-only article. Double
click on the header to read the article. If you're reading a binary group,
and want to filter out the text posts, use the "Filter" "Hide Non-Binaries"
menu bar command.
"yellow folder" indicates a thread. Thread folders
can include both binary and text posts. Double-click on the header under
the "Subject" bar to expand the thread.
If you click on any of these icons, a green ball
will appear over it. This marks the article as "Read". To change this to
"Unread", click on the icon again. 
The Newsgroup Window Lower Tool
Bar
and Server Window Lower Tool Bar
also have some icons - click for a description. Normally in XNews, a
text description comes up if you place your mouse pointer on top of them.
These are the most common icons; there's a full
listing in the manual that comes in the program.
Use The Queue,
Luke!
Xnews uses
a queuing system. To put an article into the queue, highlight the header
and press Space.
Filters, Filters
Everywhere...
XNews has several predefined filters you can apply.
They are:
The "Plonk" or "Kill" filter.Saving and Decoding Partial Binaries From a Single ServerHighlight an offending poster, and hit "k". XNews will killfile all posts from this poster, in all groups. Use with caution; if you plonk someone by accident, you can remove them from the killfile by [CTRL-K] or the menu-bar commands "Special" "View Plonk File".The "score" filter - use to highlight posters, keywords, or threads you want to track, or to kill posters, subjects, threads, or keywords within an individual group. For more on the "Score" system, see the manual.Hide incomplete binaries: hide binaries with missing parts. [Filter Menu Bar]
Show binaries only: only show single-part of complete multipart binaries. [Filter Menu Bar]
Show queued articles only: show only articles that are currently in the queue. Note: previously queued articles that have been processed will not be shown. [Filter Menu Bar]
Show cached articles only: show only articles whose bodies have been cached, i.e., they are available on your hard disk and don't have to be fetched from the server. [Filter Menu Bar]
Show new headers only: This is only meaningful with storage turned on. When you're storing headers, you will have a lot of headers and it may be hard to tell which are new. This filter will show you only headers that are new since the last session, or more precisely, since last time you opened the newsgroup. [Filter Menu Bar]
Show unread articles only: obvious. [Filter Menu Bar]
Show threads with (new headers/queued articles/unread): this is similar to the above filters, except that the filter is done at the thread level rather than on individual articles. To elaborate: when you select "Show unread articles only", Xnews removes all read articles from the current list then threads the result. With "Show threads with unread", it threads the current list (if it's not already threaded) and eliminates all threads that do not have at least one unread article in them. (Articles not part of a thread are considered threads unto themselves.) The advantage of filtering at the thread level is you get to see the articles in their context. [Filter Menu Bar]
01) Open the XNews window. Open your news server, if not already open [Under the "Server" menu bar].Saving and Decoding Parts of Articles From Multiple Servers02) Double click on selected newsgroup to open. Headers will load from server. Highlight the partial article to be downloaded by clicking one on the header line with the mouse. Hit the "Space" bar (or mouse-click in the "Queue" column) to select the article for downloading.
03) Click on "Article" menu bar & slide down to "Archive -> Binaries". Click on it.
04) The available segments will start downloading, by default to a folder inside the XNews directory. [You don't need to worry about where they're going - the program knows]. What it's doing is storing the actual, un-decoded parts of the binary file.
05) After the available parts have been downloaded, wait until the remaining parts are available on your news server. Open up the same newsgroup (or another newsgroup where the same article has been crossposted).
06) Find the same article (sorting by "From" or using the text window at the bottom to search by a word or words in the header speeds things up).
07) Highlight the partial article to be downloaded by clicking one on the header line with the mouse. Hit the "Space" bar (or mouse-click in the "Queue" column) to select the article for downloading.
08) Click on "Article" menu bar & slide down to "Archive -> Binaries". Click on it. The segments available from server #2 will download.
09) When downloading is complete, go to "Folder" on the menu bar, and slide down to/click on "Binaries".
10) The binary folder will open. If you downloaded your binary's different parts with _exactly_ the same header, a complete article will show in this folder window (4 blue cube icon). Queue the article by highlighting the header & clicking on the space bar. Then hit "F4" to decode.
11) If you downloaded your binary parts with two (or more) different headers, you will need to manually select the decoding order of the parts. Double-click on each binary header to expand the parts inside. Queue the parts in order (e.g. 1/35, 2/35, etc.). When you come to a missing section in the first binary part, select it from those available in the other binary header. When all are selected, hit "F4".
1) Open the window for your first news server. [Under the "Server" menu bar].USING 2 OR MORE NEWS SERVERS2) Double click on selected newsgroup to open. Headers will load from server. Highlight the partial article to be downloaded by clicking one on the header line with the mouse. Hit the "Space" bar (or mouse-click in the "Queue" column) to select the article for downloading.
3) Click on "Article" menu bar & slide down to "Archive -> Binaries". Click on it
4) The available segments will start downloading, by default to a folder inside the XNews directory. [You don't need to worry about where they're going - the program knows]. What it's doing is storing the actual, un-decoded parts of the binary file.
5) go to your second news server. Open up the same newsgroup (or another newsgroup where the same article has been crossposted).Queue Folders - Another Way of Queueing Articles From Multiple Servers6) Find the same article (sorting by "From" or using the text window at the bottom to search by a word or words in the header speeds things up).
7) Highlight the partial article to be downloaded by clicking one on the header line with the mouse. Hit the "Space" bar (or mouse-click in the "Queue" column) to select the article for downloading.
8) Click on "Article" menu bar & slide down to "Archive -> Binaries". Click on it. The segments available from server #2 will download.
9) When downloading is complete, go to "Folder" on the menu bar, and slide down to/click on "Binaries".
10) The binary folder will open. If you downloaded your binary's different parts with _exactly_ the same header, a complete article will show in this folder window (4 blue cube icon). Queue the article by highlighting the header & clicking on the space bar. Then hit "F4" to decode.
11) If you downloaded your binary parts with two (or more) different headers, you will need to manually select the decoding order of the parts. Double-click on each binary header to expand the parts inside. Queue the parts in order (e.g. 1/35, 2/35, etc.). When you come to a missing section in the first binary part, select it from those available in the other binary header. When all are selected, hit "F4".
Queue folders.
Version Y2K-SE introduces a new type of folders called
Queue folders. Unlike the regular (archive) folder, a queue folder stores
only the headers when you transfer articles into it. Then when you read or
decode the articles, Xnews gets the articles from the server, just as if
you're in a newsgroup.
What can you do with such an animal? You can use
it as a global queue. You can use it to collect multipart binaries from different
servers. Because you can switch what server you want to pull articles from
in queue folders, you can pull down headers from one server then retrieve
from a different server. If you're one of the lucky dogs with a broadband
connection and your server is throttling your speed, you can split your download
into two separate queue folders and download simultaneously.
This XNews FAQ is by no means a complete manual
for the program, and users should consult the available documentation if problems
are encountered. Thanks to Luu Tran for developing, and continuing to improve
such a great newsreader, and for making it freely available.
No cute furry animal were abused during the writing
of this page, although several were consumed as light snacks.