Usenet Explorer - quick questions

[Cynyster]

Love the new program.. It is so much easier on my processor and memory. But I have a few question about certain features that were in news pro that either I don't know how to activate or aren't there.

First off A help file. The one you had for news pro was great I hope a similar one is in the works for UE. (sorry feeling lost with all the features you have here)

In the newsgroup workspace there used to be always showing artcle numbers they only seem to show after you open the group.

A couple feature requests
user configurable tool bar for common tasks (perhaps even a users configurable short cut keyes) I'm an old DOS fool that likes to tap a couple keys to do things and I have noticed that many of the tasks have differant keyboard shortcuts (like delete selected headers)

Changable tray Icons that can have a differant icon depending on the status of the program.. (Like downloading headers.. articles downloading... idle and so on)

A way to back up the settings easily (might even have one now and I haven't discovered it) I back up my critical install files and settings regularly as I generally use my home computer for testing software (I reload my computer a lot)

and lastly at least for now (LOL not asking for a whole lot am I?) the ability to cancel tasks based upon group (instead of all article tasks I often just want to cancel all the tasks for one group and allow the other groups to continue)


Thanks for the great product . I ordered it as soon as I saw it
Cynyster

[Josef K]

First off A help file. The one you had for news pro was great I hope a similar one is in the works for UE. (sorry feeling lost with all the features you have here)

The only help file right now is located from Help->Help notes, a simple text file. I assume Alex is thinking that, for now, mainly NP users are migrating to UE - in which case they'll already be familiar with the layout and general usage. So with this in mind it's not a huge priority, I suppose. This has already proven true with the 'this feature used to be in NP but it isn't in UE' posts. So we can tell people are already getting to grips with UE. For now, I think the best help file is right here - ask a question and it should be answered soon enough.

In the newsgroup workspace there used to be always showing artcle numbers they only seem to show after you open the group.

I think this one is related to how the db is loaded. UE has a separate db for each group (adds stability and speed) so compared to NP, loading the whole lot all the time (all groups in one db - not stable and not speedy) there has to be a compromise. You could have all groups set to 'load' permanently but then you'd lose the benefits of the new framework. When loaded, the groups do indeed state the number of articles within but do you think this is such a neccessary feature - and if so, why?

A couple feature requests
user configurable tool bar for common tasks (perhaps even a users configurable short cut keyes)

This one's easy. Right-click the toolbar. This will allow you any buttons you like (even down to which icons or text you want for them) and the option to choose any keyboard shortcut you'd like.

A way to back up the settings easily

Backup the files in your UE '%your db name%\settings' directory.

and lastly the ability to cancel tasks based upon group (instead of all article tasks I often just want to cancel all the tasks for one group and allow the other groups to continue)

How do you mean 'based upon group'? If you want to cancel just certain articles you can simply select them in the Articles pane and right-click to cancel them from there.

[dengle]

In the newsgroup workspace there used to be always showing artcle numbers they only seem to show after you open the group.

True, you can, however, set each group to open when UE loads. If you have a high header count group (such as an alt.binaries.* group), i strongly suggest using the Compact Binary group type.

With the CB group-type, I have all of my groups open simultaneously--over 50 million headers! -- and it's only using 200MB of memory.

user configurable tool bar for common tasks (perhaps even a users configurable short cut keyes) I'm an old DOS fool that likes to tap a couple keys to do things and I have noticed that many of the tasks have differant keyboard shortcuts (like delete selected headers)

I'm guessing you mean customizable hot-keys?

A way to back up the settings easily (might even have one now and I haven't discovered it) I back up my critical install files and settings regularly as I generally use my home computer for testing software (I reload my computer a lot)

An import/export of group configurations and servers would be nice for an emergency situation. As a temporary workaround, you can zip up the current database's Settings subdirectory. That's the bare minimum you should require to keep all group and server configurations for a restore situation.

and lastly at least for now (LOL not asking for a whole lot am I?) the ability to cancel tasks based upon group (instead of all article tasks I often just want to cancel all the tasks for one group and allow the other groups to continue)

open the particular group, check the "queue" filter box, select all, right click, cancel.

Not as easy as pushing one button, but it works
[/quote]