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Queue (Pending articles) questions

Posted: Thu Nov 10, 2005 6:04 pm
by ilias
Is there any way to filter (search) the queue in UE? I just needed to do this now, and I can't figure out how to do it (or if it can be done).

I really really liked the ability to filter the queue in NewsPro (in the Pending Tasks window). Also I notice that in UE the queue is not like all other article windows, but has different properties (different right-click commants etc.)

Another thing I can't figure out, for example, is how to sort the queue alphabetically. Let's say that I am downloading a RAR set consisting of 60 .RAR files. And let's say I want to cancel the whole thing. In NP, I could either filter for part of the subject "subject contains" and/or I could sort the pending tasks window alphabetically, so that I could get all the files of a post "together" to select and cancel them. How do you do that in UE?

Another thing I can't figure out how to do is change a pending article's priority. In NP, I could right-click on it and select "Download with Priority" and select the desired priority. I can't do that in UE though. I know that I can rearrange and move artibles up and down, but that's not very helpful if I can't filter or sort so that I can select what I want to move up or down.

I don't mind that things are different in UE, I just want to make sure that I can (and know how to) do the same things I used to do in NP, even if in a different way.

Posted: Thu Nov 10, 2005 6:16 pm
by alex
you can create 'global view', the seventh icon from the left, i see i forgot to add a menu entry in the edit menu.

then you can filter queued articles through e.g. quick filter.

in the same view you can change the priority, i could also add it to the task manager menu, for now in the context menu (task manager, articles pane) there is 'move to top'.

in the task manager you can also select and drage entries up and down, priorities will be changed accordingly, there is also small arrow which direction shows what priority will be assigned relative to the priority of the entry which the arrow points to (it is simpler than it sounds, just try it).

Posted: Thu Nov 10, 2005 6:27 pm
by ilias
Aha.. global view.. ok. If it is like NP then yes, a global view will work.

I still think though that it's a bit cumbersome. It's almost like creating an duplicate (reduntant?) view of the queue just so that you can do some things to it, like filtering or sorting. I am also almost certain that most non-advanced users will not know what to do about this (or how). It's a rather esoteric workaround at best, imo.

Is there a technical difficulty for not integrating this functionality (filtering & sorting) directly on the existing queue window? That would be the most elegant, complete and tight solution, I think. And don't forget, it involves commonly needed and useful functionality, not something that can be described as advanced or rarely needed.

Posted: Thu Nov 10, 2005 6:40 pm
by alex
the task manager is optimized for performance, actually it reflects directly what is inside. it means no column sorting.

the global view is pretty fast (unlike newspro) and it does exactly what you need.

underlying code in the task manager is different than in newsgroup views, if to expand every function to every window it will increase the amount of code and will make it less manageable, so from the development point of view such things should be kept minimal. so it made sense to add quick filter code to the search results view since there was no alternative but for the task manager there is one.

Posted: Thu Nov 10, 2005 6:52 pm
by ilias
Yes, it's pretty fast indeed now that I tried it.

Alex, one question, though. It's not clear to me if the global view opens ALL the headers from ALL newsgroups, or just from the ones that are loaded? I would suspect that it opens them all, otherwise I may have queued articles that are from a newsgroup that is not loaded, so it couldn't pick up those.

(Also, look in your private inbox.)

Posted: Thu Nov 10, 2005 8:12 pm
by alex
no it doesn't open all newsgroups, it only shows all headers from currently loaded newsgroups + all bodies (from all newsgroups) + all headers in the task manager (from all newsgroups).