Sorry wrong terminology At the top of usenet articles/postings window there is a bar with "subject", "from" "date" etc. There is a range of things that can be displayed on or removed from this bar. If you place your mouse on the bar and right click a list appears. The "thread" option will put an icon on this bar. Clicking this icon will toggle between expanding all threads and collapsing all threads - the equivalent to the to pressing the \ or * keys but witha single click of the mouse.