OT - feeding the trolls

[spamlet]

I asked on a microsoft.public outlook express group:

In OE the best idea doesn't solve the 'good subthread' dilemma, but MS are migrating newsgroups to web forums anyway:

S

[David WE Roberts]

This has yet again made me consider the choice of (free) news reader.

At the moment I use Windows Mail which is suspiciously like OE.

Plus points - displays threads well and the GUI for following, expanding, collapsing, ignoring, watching threads is straightforward and reasonably intuitive.

Minus points - no sophistication in the filtering of news posts. AFAIK you can't even block messages posted to more than one NG, let alone do more complex scoring and filtering. You have to go and manually edit a rule to block an author.

No doubt I have been polluted by M$ GUIs over the years but the few other Windows based contenders don't seem to have such an intuitive GUI. I suspect that the commercial driver for M$ Windows applications has been ease of use and simple features aimed at the great mass of non-technical users, wheras the Unix/Linux news readers have been developed for geeks by geeks and then had a GUI retrofitted for the masses.

So if you are running Windows because you need/want certain commercial software packages which only run under Windows (e.g. Microsoft Autoroute and the Virgin Mobile internet dongle) you seem to be stuck with a limited choice of news readers.

You can either have a familiar and intuitive GUI or a powerful rules engine but not both.

So why isn't there a news feed pre-processor?

You configure the pre-processor to connect to your news feed. You configure your news reader to connect to the pre-processor as if it was a news feed. You can then filter before presenting the remains to your favourite news reader. I guess this would be a news proxy?

Obviously not as good as an integrated news reader with both the GUI and rules engine, but perhaps not that hard to implement.

The only Linux news reader I could get on with is Pan, but the Windows version never seemed to work well and it seems to be drifting into obscurity on Linux as well.

Last time I looked at Thunderbird there wasn't even an obvious option to block an individual author - ISTR Pan had a simple 'plonk' button and a rules engine which offered a simple 'block multiple posting' with a maximum number.

Last time I looked at Thunderbird it was all about numeric scores with no simple 'point and shoot' stuff. I could sit down and learn how to program the rules but that is turning to the geek side.

The thing I really like about OE/Windows Mail is the ability to double click on a message then navigate the thread from the pop-up window. For some strange reason Thunderbird doesn't seem to offer this - no 'forward/back' arrows in the pop up window. This alone makes it very unattractive. Again, AFAIK Pan would allow this.

Which is why I find myself still using the dumb Windows program

Ho hum.

Dave R

[David WE Roberts]

Just got excited for a few seconds then looked at the way the rules can be configured. On Windows Mail (clone of OE) there isn't an option to handle just Ignored threads. You only have the option for 'Watched or Ignored' threads. What? I want Watched threads to be especially visible. I want Igonred threads to be invisible and/or deleted. This seems to be the intended purpose of both categories. Why give one option to cover both types of thread which have mutually incompatible requirements? Oh, M$.

[Andy Burns]

Leafnode? Though I don't think it's available for Windows.

[David WE Roberts]

M'Lud, the prosecution rests. ;-)

[Andy Burns]

You *can* customise the toolbar on the pop-up window to add back/forward or next/previous buttons ...

[JTM]

You could try Messenger Pro available for Linux or MS

available on 30 day trial. It is very popular on RISC OS and is said to have decent filtering. I use a different agent but I'm thinking of migrating.

John

[stuart noble]

A good example of the human brain being the best tool for the job. Even mine can scan a screen full of messages and apply a series of criteria, some of which I may have only just thought of, in a split second.

[John Rumm]

probably because it is OE in most respects! ;-)

Don't know when you last looked at Thunderbird, but the initial visual look is quite similar these days.

You can use the virgin internet dongle without all the software they supply if you don't mind using the ordinary windows (or other OS0 tools for creating a "dial up" style connection. Better still, stick it in a

3G router!.

There probably is...

It would indeed

TB has quite easy to use filters now. There is no "kill this user" button, but it is very easy to say configure a filter to identify all posts from a particular author, and then set flags to say its already been read. That way if you jump to the next unread post with "n", it will be missed out. It will still retain its place in the thread hierarchy though. (you could have it coloured differently if you wanted)

You can now (TB3) also kill a sub thread - so you could whack anything that follows a particular post (Shift k, rather than k) - that will mark the sub thread as read immediately, and then next time you switch to the group the whole sub thread will be hidden.

You can have a filter tag messages with colours, stars, and a watch flag. The standard display options also allow for viewing only watched threads with unread messages. I personally quite like this since it means I can have a filter colour my posts differently, and set a watch on any thread I have posted to. Later, by selected the above option I get a list of only threads I am participating in, that have new responses. It makes it very easy to make sure you don't miss a reply to a thread - even if it was from a month ago etc.

When was that, version 0.5? ;-)

"programming" now is just case of selecting you match criteria (which could be a simple as from a particular poster, or a complex list of rules), and then an action - that again can be simple (ignore thread or sub thread) or more complex.

They are there now (in fact have been for ages). (the keyboard shortcuts also work)

Grab TB3 and try again...

[Andy Burns]

As simple as right-clicking on an email address and selecting "create filter from ..."

[Tim Streater]

I tried using TB3 but it appeared to lack some basics (like marking a post unread or searching) so I've gone back to using MT-NewsWatcher which is generally superior.

[John Rumm]

Marking unread can be done with a right click and then deselecting "read" from the mark menu.

Search options (using Find on the edit menu) can search most fields these days, but not the main body of messages. The quick find at the top right of the screen is good for searching on topic or author in real time.

[Andy Burns]

or just press 'm'

[Adrian C]

Possible that the Mac version of TB is a bit simplified compared to the Windows one. Macs don't have the concept of 'right-click' IIRC.

[John Rumm]

They do - if you have a sensible mouse on them. Failing that, hold down the apple logo key and click IIRC.

[John Rumm]

Sorry, my bad - yes it can!

[Tim Streater]

Yes they do.

[Tim Streater]

Any Apple mouse supports right click these days. And its CTRL, not the command key (there's no key with the Apple logo on it).

[Andy Burns]

They do *now* but it was a bit tricky between 1984 and 2005 (when they introduced the Mighty Mouse)

[Tim Streater]

easiest to clean). Optical mouse, but it has a pea-sized scroll ball on the top - *much* better than a scroll wheel as I can scroll in both directions at once while mousing around at the same time.