Import subscribed newsgroups from newspro?

HelDC · Post by **HelDC** » Sun Jul 03, 2005 7:31 pm

Is there a way to import into UE the newsgroups I had subscribed in NP?

alex · Post by **alex** » Mon Jul 04, 2005 1:34 am

the program formats are not compatible, but the main impediment is newspro uses registry and ue doesn't so it may only be added in the registered version, not trial. as long as you are running ue as a rule you don't need multiple instances since the program usually can contain all you want in one instance and for backup you only need to keep reg.dat from the settings directory.

you can download newsgroup list and doubleclick on newsgroups you want to subscribe to or use copy paste given the newspro export file, it should take only several minutes.

HelDC · Post by **HelDC** » Mon Jul 04, 2005 6:07 am

alex wrote:you can download newsgroup list and doubleclick on newsgroups you want to subscribe to or use copy paste given the newspro export file, it should take only several minutes.

Dude, I've got about 100 newsgroups subscribed. Even copy/pasting the NG names into a search box, it'll take freaking forever! *sigh*

alex · Post by **alex** » Mon Jul 04, 2005 6:16 am

but it won't take years as writing the code

it is still work in progress, the code is not compatible with newspro, so you cannot expect all newspro features in the new framework automatically.

i have an idea. in newspro you select all subscribed newsgroups. then you invoke 'copy newsgroup names'. then you go to an editor and replace spaces between newsgroup names with |

then you download newsgroup list in ue and put the string in the 'name' field of the quick filter bar (ensure in properties->general, wildmats for quick filter are checked, but i remember it is now the default.

after it shows only the matching newsgroups you select all of them and then invoke 'subscribe' then you just click click click until they are all there.

deadken · Post by **deadken** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 5:18 am

Alex.

I really think it would be worthwhile for you to write a simple Newspro->UE conversion Wizard. It would really only have to import newsgroup names and server accounts. Anything else (priorities, server setting etc) would be a bonus.

Gary Gnews · Post by **Gary Gnews** » Tue Aug 02, 2005 7:38 am

I wanted to chime in before, but I resisted. But, since this keeps coming up, I'll add my 2 cents...

I, like most of us, subscribe to a lot of groups (121 right now, to be exact). It would have been easier to set up my groups if there was some import feature. However, it was not really that difficult or time consuming to do it manually. I simply loaded the full group list and filtered it by keywords for groups I wanted. For example, searching *mp3* rendered a list that contained every mp3 group I wanted that contained "mp3." So, I just ctrl-clicked them all and subscribed them in one shot. From there, I built my folder/subfolder structure and dragged them into where they belong. The whole ordeal took maybe an hour, and I obviously only had to do it once.

I just don't see this as a monsterous task - I spend much much more time browsing a few groups than it took me to set up all of them in UE.

Bert · Post by **Bert** » Wed Aug 03, 2005 10:06 pm

I agree with Gary. It probably would take much more time for Alex to write an convertor than for someone to create a new database.

Even if there was a convertor I'd rather would make a "fresh" database.

dengle · Post by **dengle** » Thu Aug 04, 2005 5:42 pm

the copy, paste, and replace spaces with "|" works wonderfully, fyi.

The Cat · Post by **The Cat** » Fri Aug 05, 2005 7:42 am

Has anyone of you resetted your machine when UE is running? In my case (it happened more than once) you see that you have lost half of your subscriptions. So you have to start over again to setup UE. To do it once is indeed not a problem, but imagine doing it everytime just because your system crashed (or had a power failure).

Gary Gnews · Post by **Gary Gnews** » Fri Aug 05, 2005 8:34 am

I've had power failures (lots of storms here lately), and I have not had this happen at all...not once.

Did you "save all" after the initial setup?

Anyone else have this happen?

The Cat · Post by **The Cat** » Fri Aug 05, 2005 8:58 am

I did save all after the initial settings and even have save all every 30 minutes on.

Gary Gnews · Post by **Gary Gnews** » Fri Aug 05, 2005 10:25 am

In Alex's absence (he is on a well-deserved vacation), I went ahead and did some tests, trying to reproduce this error. I cannot make it happen on my end. Of course, I have only minimal skills compared to Alex, but I thought I'd try anyway.

You have been describing this problem for some time, yet no one else has. I can't help but wonder if it is a problem on your end. I know that's not what you want to hear, but if it's the truth, then it's the truth. You see, UE keeps a database that includes the groups to which you subscribe; this database is stored on the HD. It is just not likely (possible?) that the data written to the hard drive would somehow be lost of invalidated because of a system crash. Of course, there could be issues of which I am unaware. But *my* suggestion would be that you run a physical scan of your hard drive. I, based on my admittedly-limited knowledge, just can't see how the data could be ignored by UE unless it fails to save to the HDD.

Josef K · Post by **Josef K** » Fri Aug 05, 2005 5:10 pm

The Cat wrote:Has anyone of you resetted your machine when UE is running?

You didn't use System Restore, by any chance, did you? I find that to be surreptitiously evil giving some really unpredictable results in certain situations. I've learned to just be careful, making my own backups and having System Restore turned off completely.

The Cat · Post by **The Cat** » Fri Aug 05, 2005 5:21 pm

No, I bought a new graphics card and totally installed the machine from scratch. But some codecs where getting in each other hair. I finally found the bug. But in between I had a lot of random crashes. With the result of having to configure UE again. The hard disk is fine. I tested it and it gave no problems. I did do a diagnostic integrety, which gave an error, but after a restart of UE everything came out fine. I will try to reproduce it after my download cue is a bit empty. I hate to lose some posts now.

Josef K · Post by **Josef K** » Fri Aug 05, 2005 5:32 pm

If you have UE set up the way you want it, you should go to your database directory and backup the entire 'Settings' directory. All settings are stored there and the files are small enough for you to keep many backups. I've RARed mine up just in case and if anything drastic ever did happen, then I could extract them to a fresh database directory if I needed to.