Newsgroup reader question

F

flwolf

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jun 13, 2003
Messages
403
I just switched back from Mac to PC and I can't seem to find what I am looking for on the PC side. I used a newsreader on my Mac called Unison. What I liked about it is that it would combine multi-part binaries into one line in the list that showed the total combined size. I prefer this view over scrolling through every single binary part being shown.

Which newsreaders for the PC can do this? Newsleecher doesn't do it and I can't find any option to do this in Forte Agent.

Any suggestions?

Thanks.
 
Newsbin Pro 5 does what you are asking about. It's what I use and love it.



 
In Newsbin Pro, you check off the box that says "Compact View" and it'll "compress" the entire group of posts that make up a file you want to download. Here's the box unchecked:



Checked:



That's just an NZB I grabbed to show as an example, but if you actually download headers for a newsgroup, it works the same way. If the list doesn't look "compact" then uncheck the box and then re-check it immediately; that should compact the list down to the single files.
 
Now I remember why I had switched to a Mac - nothing is ever easy. I found the compact view - thanks.

But, this program won't download any headers. I have the server address, login, etc correct, but when I try to download headers, this is the error I get:

Warning- no posts were loaded. Check the date ranges and/or update the group.

I have checked the dates and tried to update, but nothing ever happens. Nothing is ever downloaded. What gives?

Edit: also want to mention that it doesn't matter if I click Download All Headers or Download Latest - nothing happens. Status tab is useless and shows no errors.
 
Hmmm, I've never had any problems with Newsbin. It SHOULD be really easy to use. I don't have it installed on my work machine (for obvious reasons), so I can't be much help right now. It does sound like there's a problem with your server information, but I really don't know.



 
It passes the server test and I have used this news server for years. The settings are correct.

No matter what I try, headers won't download. The status tab only says the group was purged.
 
Ok, after uninstalling and reinstalling several times it still didn't work. So, I uninstalled one last time, deleted all the left over entries in the registry, rebooted, and reinstalled. Now it is working.

Sheesh.
 
Well, it's good that you got it working finally. I've never had any problems with it.

Anyways, it's got some cool features. When you grab a complete post, it will only download the actual files themselves. It won't grab the par2 files, but will keep them under the scratch header. Then, if you have some incompletes, you only need grab the number of blocks you need. This, as well as the compact view were the best features added to v5.




 
Newsbin Pro does not automagically download headers just by doubleclicking on the group name in the list the first time you doubleclick on a group that hasn't had a header download since it was added. Read that again if you must so you understand the point: it won't download headers the first time (the group is empty) and you get this:

warningtb6.png


That's changed in the past year from how it used to be in the past because with groups having bazillions of headers (alt.boneless, anyone? Last count: over 750 MILLION of 'em on Giganews) doubleclicking on a group name could trigger that download, so it was altered.

Now, when you first add a group, you right click on it and choose "Download All Headers" and that will grab all of the ones sitting on the news server. If you choose the option just above it, "Download Latest," it will only download the number of headers specified in the options under "First Time Messages," which defaults to 500,000 headers. To get 'em all, you've got to download them all using the "All Headers" choice.

Once you've acquired all of them, or even the latest 500,000 after you just added the group (it's new), at that point you can doubleclick for future latest updates as required.

These days, with Usenet search sites like Newzleech.com, binsearch.info, and a host of others, there's no real reason to grab hundreds of thousands of headers anymore - that's what NZB files are for, originally created for use with Newsbin itself. You can go through headers if ya want, as I do with some groups, especially the lossless ones (audio) because sometimes I just like new music or I can't think of anything specific, so scrolling through the headers can sometimes give you that "A-HA, been wanting that album" or whatever... and no, I don't mean A-HA the one-hit wonder group that sang "Take On Me" either. :)

Been using Newsbin myself since it was first released many years past, will never use anything else. Gravity, or more appropriately "Super" Gravity is the best actual newsreader ever made, and Newsbin/Newzleecher/etc are better considered to be binary downloaders for newsgroups.

It can do most anything with Usenet content... everything else pales in comparison, especially on the Mac. I use Unison myself as required, but honestly, it's crap - Codeweavers gave away Crossover a few days ago and I grabbed a free copy, installed it on OSx86 10.5.5 on a test box and loaded up Newsbin Pro once again. It blows Unison and all the competition clear outta the water... ;)

About the PAR stuff: the newest versions/releases of Newsbin will not only handle the PAR/PAR2 functionality, it'll put the files together; if pieces are missing it'll download them and assemble the parts; it'll Auto-unRAR RAR archives (you can choose to keep or delete the source files, same with PAR/PAR2 files), and a whole lot more. It's getting to the point where it's almost 100% automated, just say you want a specific file or file-set and wham, it'll do the rest, even put the content where you want and name the folders/directories as required.

Amazing piece of software, and my $40 paid years past has paid itself over hundreds of times with Newsbin Pro. Quade really has done an amazing job with it...

Oh yeah, Newsbin Pro has a 64 bit version too... for those bazillions of headers I mentioned, it kicks ass in the memory management for that.

ps
If you have Giganews, they have a header "Accelerator" that compresses the header data - you can achieve effective speeds in excess of 50Mbps downloading just the headers on those big ass groups like alt.boneless or the *.dvd ones. Amazing stuff...
 
just for the record (divergent from the thread)
freebsd here... version _7 (stable)
.................
in /usr/ports (the add-on programs subdirectory)
"make search key=nzb"
returned 5 results
................
the following 4 might serve if you were running linux, freebsd, or even MacOSx Terminal
or even have windows binaries? at their respective web sites
...............
/usr/ports/news/hellanzb
/usr/ports/news/nzbget
/usr/ports/news/sabnzbd
/usr/ports/news/sabnzbdplus
..................
 
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