June 2005

Use Newsgroups with Netscape 4.6

Contents

1. Introduction
2. Interface
3. Subscribing to Discussion Groups
4. Reading Newsgroups
5. Posting a Message to a Newsgroup
6. Warning about Newsgroup Posting

1 Introduction

NOTE: Due to space restrictions on our News server (newshost.uwo.ca) not all of the newsgroups are available.

2 Interface

To Read Newsgroups you will need to choose Newsgroups from the Communicator menu. This version of netscape has included the newsreader with the mail reader to help with ease of use and familiarity of the look and feel of the applications. For the rest of this document we will refer to this window as the "Message Centre".

The initial screen you see when starting the newsreader using this method is the Netscape Inbox  except you are set to be looking at the newshost and not your e-mail INBOX. If you are already subscribed to some newsgroups they will be displayed below the newshost.uwo.ca name once you click on the  plus sign. If you are not subscribed to any newsgroups you will not see the  plus sign. Commands are located at the top of the window in the menu and toolbar. 
Message titles appear in the upper right viewing area and message content appears in the lower right viewing area of the Message Centre. 

3 Subscribing to Newgroups

1. Click on "File" from menu at the top 
2. Click on "Subscribe".
3. After a few seconds a new window will appear. On a dialup connection this may take some time so please be patient. The top of the window should look like this 
4. You will see a list of "compressed" newsgroup headings 
5. You can look at all of the available newsgroups within one of the compressed lists by clicking on the  or by clicking on the newsgroup name (ie. alt.*) and pressing the  button. In the example listed here you will notice that there are 10913 newsgroups under the heading of alt.* so expanding this list will take some time.
6. Select the group you want from the list and click the "Subscribe" button  OR click on the "Search " tab at the top and select the group from your search results. The only compressed groups that will be searched will be the one(s) that are highlighted in the compressed list. To choose all of the groups to be searched click on the alt.* newsgroup and scroll down to the bottom of the available groups list and hold down the Shift key on your keyboard and click on the last compressed newsgroup name. All of the newsgroup names should be highlighted. Now when you click on the Search tab and search for music, for example, all of the newsgroups with the word music in the name will be listed.
7. Once you have subscribed to the lists that interest you, click  to return to the Newsgroup Reader window and the list of newly subscribed groups should be part of your list of subscribed newsgroups.

4 Reading Newsgroups

1. When in the "Message Center" double-click on the group you want to read.The system will now begin to download the headers of the newsgroup you have selected. If there are more than 500 unread messages in the newsgroup you have selected, a window will appear asking you if you want to download all of the headers or just the first 500.
2. The message headers will appear at the top right of the window. A message with a plus  beside it indicates that it has responses associated with it. Click on the  plus to display the responses. These messages with responses are known as "threads".
3. To read a message, simply click on it once and its contents are displayed in the lower viewing area.
4. To respond to a message, click on the  Reply button in the toolbar.  A new window will appear where you can type your response.

5 Posting a Message to a Newsgroup

1. To post a new message to a newsgroup, open that newsgroup just as you did previously to read the messages in the newsgroup and click on the New Msg icon in the toolbar.  A new window will appear. You will notice that the look and feel of this is exactly what you do when you are dealing with e-mail messages, if you use Netscape as your e-mail program.
2. Type in a subject in the subject field. 
3. Type your message in the message field. The big window below the Subject field shown above.
4. Check your spelling by clicking on the Spelling button 
5. Click the Send button to send the message 

6 Warning about Newsgroup Posting

You are completely responsible for any message you post to the newsgroups and because you are a member of the University of Western Ontario you represent the University so you should not state anything that would make the University look bad. You should not do cross-postings to inappropriate newsgroups or post "Get Rich Quick" or other pyramid schemes.

You can read the Acceptable Use Policy for further information in regards to your UWO Internet account.

©2000 - 2005, The University of Western Ontario. Permission is granted to copy in whole or in part provided that due credit is given to the authors, the Division of Information Technology Services, and The University of Western Ontario.