Newsreaders

A computer interface that allows one to read and post newsgroups items, and to manage these items in some systematic way, is termed a newsreader. There are various newsreader programs available, but these days Web Browsers generally come equipped with their own integrated newsreaders. For our tutorial, we will use the newsreader that comes packaged with Netscape 2.0.

Starting the Newsreader

In your Netscape browser window, pull down the "Window" menu and select "Netscape News". Your computer should then pop up a new display window that looks something like the one shown below. You will notice many similarities with the Netscape Mail interface, and the main Netscape browser window that we have encountered before; this is one of the advantages of using an integrated browser package supporting additional functions like mail and newsreading.

Actually, it may not look exactly like this window, since you can configure the browser to display the reader in different formats. The format shown here corresponds to a choice that can be set in the "Preferences" of Netscape 3.0 by going to the "Options" pulldown window at the top of the newsbrowser, selecting "Mail and News Preferences", and then in the resulting window checking "stacked" under "News Pane Configuration". If your browser is displaying in a different format, all the parts we are about to discuss will be there, but arranged differently from the picture above.

The Parts of the News Window

The News Window may be divided into 4 basic parts (which are stacked one on top of the other in the format shown above):
  1. The control buttons at the top.
  2. The list of newsgroups in the next panel down.
  3. The list of posted items, if a particular newsgroup has been selected from the list of newsgroups in the next panel down.
  4. The text of a news item, if one has been selected from the list of posted items.
In the example shown, 5 newsgroups are displayed in the newsgroup list: The newsgroup comp.infosystems.www.browsers.mac has been selected by clicking with the mouse button, as indicated by the box surrounding this entry, and that its icon is darkened. From the list of posted messages from this newsgroup in the next panel down a posting entitled "News Problems with Netscape 2.0/3.0", posted by a user named Steve Meloan on July 6, 1996, at 4:32 PM has been selected, and the text of that message appears in the bottom panel.

Subscribing and Posting

That's about it as far as reading newsgroup messages are concerned. However, there are a few more things that we need to learn if we are going to use Newsgroups to their full advantage: So the next sections will deal with these topics. As part of that, we will also say a few words about "net etiquette" or "netiquette": what is acceptable and what is not in postings to newsgroups (particularly unmoderated ones).

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