Subj : What do you use for...
To   : Peter Knapper
From : David Calafrancesco
Date : Sat Oct 14 2000 04:48 pm

Peter Knapper wrote in a message to All:

 PK> I am looking for a decent OS/2 native News Reader (preferably free)
 PK> and would appreciate some suggestions. Some attributes I would like
 PK> -

 PK>   1. Plenty of message subject sorting and grouping options,    2.
 PK> Does not show cross-posts,
 PK>   3. At least 2 windows, 1 for Newsgroup lists and Message lists,
 PK> the other for an actual message. Multiple Message windows must be
 PK> able to be open at the same time.
 PK>   4. Small, quick and does not take 1/20th the resources that
 PK> Netscape uses. 

 PK> Is anyone aware of something that would fit the above?

I use Souper and GIGO to batch download newsgroup messages from multiple newsrc 
files (2+ dozen last count). I use kill filters and such to clean up what I 
download. GIGO then converts the entire bundles into echomail messages that are 
then tossable by squish et al. I use TimEd to read the SQ format message bases 
that result. The key reason I still use this with the plethora of NNTP news 
clients is the speed. With any NNTP news client, you have to wait for each 
article to be downloaded before it is viewable. In my case, the articles are 
downloaded continuously - souper sleeps for a few hundred seconds after each 
cycle through the 2+ dozen newsrc files with a few second pause between each 
newsrc file. The reason I use multiple newsrc files is Souper's annoying 
tendancy to not make a connection or to lose track of the connection and hang. 
I have a watchdog that counts the number of minutes that souper has been 
'active' and if it exceeds a set amount then it kills souper. By limiting each 
newsrc file to one or two newsgroups I eliminated having to restart each and 
every newsgroup from the beginning because the last newsgroup in the newsrc 
file failed to complete. 

There are numerous newsreaders available for OS2. There is the default supplied 
newsreader/2, several others that were written for OS2 over the years and then 
there are the newsreaders that were ported over from UNIX via GCC/EMX. Look for 
them on HOBBES, there should be an entire directory dedicated to news and email 
clients for OS2 over there. Things like RN, SLRN, YARN etc... are all news 
readers that have OS2 versions last I knew. 


Dave Calafrancesco, Team OS/2
dave@drakkar.org

.... They got the library at Alexandria, they're not getting mine! 
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 * Origin: Druid's Grove BBS - (914)/876-2237 (1:2624/306)

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