OK, I just installed Agent (I haven't used this since Free Agent in the mid-90s). I've figured out a lot of the configuration issues, but one thing that bothers me is: how can I make Agent open the message in a new window? I prefer to have the newsgroups list on the left, and the message headers list on the right - nothing more. At any rate, I don't want 3 panes. Am I missing something, or is there no way to accomplish this?
Also, is there a way to kill just a part of a thread, based on, say, who the poster is. eg, if hypothetical poster "n*****ts" tries to hijack a thread, and some readers are suckers enough to engage him in a pissing contest, I would like to ban (or simply "ignore") just that subthread, but not the rest of the thread.
I've been using Thunderbird for several years now, but the filtering is pretty rudimentary.
This can be done in newsreaders (or proxies) that support filtering on the References: header. Find the Message-ID: of the first post of the subthread (the one by "n*****ts"), then filter anything that includes that value in the References: header. I don't know if Agent does this or not. The Nfilter proxy (also known as NewsProxy) will do this.
Thanks Doug, I'm getting a better idea of the use of more advanced filters now. As it turns out, though, when I click on "Ignore this thread" (or just "I") in the middle of a long discussion, Agent informs me that it will just ignore the sub-thread, exactly like I wanted! This will be great for some of the other NGs that I read, where the readers show less restraint even than those here.
Now if I can just figure out how to get the message body to open in a new window (as a default), without having to do any extra clicking on window icons. Thunderbird defaults to the 3 pane display, but if I drag the middle border down (which closes off the message body), it defaults to opening the message in a new window. That way, I get to see more of the thread view, which helps me to decide how I want to proceed.
Not exactly what your looking for, but single pane display is close and what I use 99% of the time.
On the right hand edge, slightly below the close "X" is a square. Click it with the mouse and your in single pane. (It is a toggle so a second click will go back to 3 pane.) While in single pane you can use the "n" key to go to the next unread message, or the tabs to go to the other two panes.
On Thu, 17 Jan 2008 11:55:19 -0500, Joe penned the following well considered thoughts to the readers of rec.crafts.metalworking:
Click the small icon immediately above the scroll bar on the right. It toggles between three panes and the tabbed interface.
Using the tab interface.... click on the "Message List" tab and select a thread. Double click it and the message will fill the screen. Click the "Message List" tab again and you'll be ready to choose the next interesting message.
Position the cursor at the head of the offending sub-thread and hit an "I". Additionally a Shift+I will ignore the entire thread. It is a toggle so if you hit the wrong thing you can always toggle it back.
So is Agent's. You have no capability to filter on text found in the body... and until you do, the filtering will never really be effective.
On Thu, 17 Jan 2008 11:55:19 -0500, with neither quill nor qualm, Joe quickly quoth:
I don't think you can, but you can minimize one pane so it's pretty much hidden by dragging the window nearly closed, showing only the message on the left and list on the right.
No, and that's the only thing I miss in Agent. I keep wanting better filtering for twits and such. BODY TEXT filtering would be ideal, but they haven't enabled it yet. It's in the wish list already.
--- Chaos, panic, and disorder--my work here is done.
I can't help you there, sorry. You might want to ask over at rec.woodworking, whose regulars include a fair smattering of computer geeks, some of whom use Agent and discuss it from time to time -- that group has been repeatedly attacked by trolls and sporgery floods, so various newsreaders and their filtering abilities have been a not-infrequent topic of conversation. And as long as you preface the subject with OT as you did here, there won't be any more objection to it there than normally occurs here.
And the 1, 2, 3 keys on your keyboard move focus through the three panes. If you are "zoomed in" to just one pane they will bring up/focus the corresponding pane while still being zoomed in. I use the keyboard for all most all of my maneuvering. If you use the mouse your arm/wrist will soon start complaining...
Personally I use the 3 pane mode with groups on the top left, message on the top right and the thread view on the bottom. Play around with the sizes a bit and use the "Menu
-> Options -> Save as default window layout" to repeat the settings the next time you run Agent.
Thanks to all of those who have replied so far. I'm now using Agent in a single window, with either the tab or the 1,2,3 keys to switch views (thanks, Leon, for that tip). I don't like to use a mouse all the time; if I can't navigate with keyboard shortcuts, a program loses its attraction for me really quickly. Now I wish I didn't have to hit Ctrl-N to see the next message (or N, then Enter) - a simple N should do. Oh, well, I can live with it.
It looks like I will spring for this program after the 30 days is over.
Again, thanks to y'all, and if you have any more handy Agent tips, feel free to send them on.
We southern Appalachian candyasses are getting ready for our second snowfall in 3 days; it will be interesting to see what happens this time. South Carolina isn't used to much snow, and the guys with 4WD haven't figured out that it is no help on black ice. The pickup boys throw their chainsaws in the back, so they can clear off the fallen trees. That leaves the roads open so folks can go a little further before they slide into the ditches. It snows so seldom that no one owns tire chains.
Years ago when I lived in Charleston, we got an inch of snow one Friday night. We got up for work on Saturday and drove our Harley's to work. As we turned into the parking lot at work, the Police were sitting there and telling everyone that the streets were closed. When we rolled up on our bikes, they couldn't believe it. We didn't have any customers that day.
He he, that would be a real trick on my panhead - I'm not sure if there is any measureable tread on the rear tire by now. It's funny, you pay so much money for those M/C tires, and they wear out after
3-5K miles. And I don't even do any burnouts, corner like a madman, etc!
Are you retrieving all message bodies ahead of time? If so a single N should jump to the next unread message. At least it used to and does in the version I am using (2.0/32.652). Control N just focuses the message pane at the same time in this case.
I still think you should get used to the three-pane model (grin). For what I have been looking at for many years see this slightly squashed image:
formatting link
Agent has an excellent Help file, take a minute and look it over :)
Huh? The way my copy works, hitting the spacebar, while reading a message, switches the view to the Folders pane (or jumps to the Folders pane, in multi-pane view). I couldn't find anything in the Navigation section of the Options that suggests otherwise. I'm running v4.2.
OK, I see now - that only works if you already have the message bodies downloaded. I guess I might have to change my download preferences and just put up with downloading all the messages that I don't want, as well as the ones I do want. In that respect, it would be no different than Thunderbird, so I guess there's no harm.
When I had tried it out before, there were no more messages left unread in rcm, and since rcm is the last of the newsgroups in my list, the view just went to the Folders pane. Doh!
OK, here's another needed shortcut that would come in handy: While composing a message, is there an easy way to toggle between the Composition view and the Newsgroups view (without having to click on "Window" on the Menu Bar)?
Now you are seeing why unix users tend to prefer the keyboards with the Ctrl key to the left of the 'A', and the Caps-Lock moved out of the way. :-) There are a *lot* of unix programs which heavily use the Ctrl sequences.
I was a beta tester for Agent and started using it with version 0.56. You don't need to download messages you don't want.
This is the way I have been using Agent for years.
Down load headers for subscribed newsgroups. . This takes a while because I subscribe to a lot of groups. While the headers are coming in I start selecting which bodies I want to read. This is done in the "threads" window by hitting the "M" key when that header is highlighted. This marks the message to download and moves to the next unread header. If I don't want that one the "N" key moves to the next unread header. If it is a long boring off topic thread I use the rodent to move to a thread that looks interesting.
Once I have marked (with "M") all of the headers that I am interested in starts downloading messages. Agent downloads ONLY the bodies I have checked. The unmarked headers are now shown in black now and the headers which contain messages are still red. At this point the spacebar is particularly useful.
I start at the top of my subscribed groups and hit the spacebar. This takes me to AND opens the first unread message. If I had hit the "N" key it would have taken me to the first unread message but I would still be in the "Thread" window. If so double click opens the message.
Assume I went to the message with the spacebar. I read to the bottom of the window and hit the spacebar again. This keeps moving me down one screen in that message until I reach the end. One more hit on the spacebar opens the next unread message and skips all of those headers that I didn't mark to retrieve. If the entire message is in one screen the spacebar opens the next unread message. If I am in a long boring message I can hit the "N" key to bail out and go to the next unread.
When there are no more unread messages the spacebar opens the group window and I am finished reading messages for that session.
At this point I close Agent and purge the empty headers. If you forget to purge those black unread headers will still be there the next time you download headers and it is a PITA to have the black unwanted headers interspersed with the new ones.
That is what it is supposed to do.
Cascade vertically or horizontally... Shift key plus F4 or Shift key plus F5 might do what you want. This is shown when you click on "Window". You can use the Ctrl plus Tab keys to move through the Agent "windows". This is interesting because Agent apparently takes control of that key sequence. Normally you would move through open Windows programs with those keys but with Agent in focus it stays in the Agent windows. Neat huh.
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