How do I decode and view binary files?
(This discussion is taken almost verbatim from the "How to Retrieve a Binary Attachment" section of our online help. Whenever you don't know how to do something, the "How To" button on the Help toolbar is always a good place to start.)
The latest release of Agent has a greatly improved process for retrieving, decoding, and viewing binary files. You can now get multiple binaries in a single operation, and bypass most of the manual steps that were necessary in our first release. To retrieve (and optionally view) a binary posting from a newsgroup, follow the steps below:
Select the binary file(s) you want: Select at least one article from each binary file you want to retrieve. In most cases, Agent will be able to find all of the other articles that contain parts of the binary file.
If you select articles for more than one binary file, Agent will retrieve all of the articles for all of the files you selected.
Retrieve or view the files: Choose either File | Save Binary Attachments or File | Launch Binary Attachments.
If you are configured for online operation, Agent will immediately begin downloading and decoding the binary attachments. If you selected the Launch... option, it will automatically run the Windows application associated with the attachment's file type.
If you are configured for offline operation, Agent will mark all articles containing the attachments for later downloading. The next time you select the Online | Get Marked Article Bodies menu item,Agent will download and decode the attachments.
Regardless of whether you chose the Save... or Launch... option, Agent will store the binary files in the directory entered in the Attachments tab of the Group | Default Properties... dialog box, unless you've overridden that with the Group | Properties... dialog box for the specific group you're in.
If the automatic process doesn't work:
Occasionally, you may find multi-part attachments whose subject lines don't match the standard conventions (they might not include the standard "Part 1 of 2" or "[1/2]" notation, for example). In this case, Agent won't be able to find all of the articles for the file or won't be able to get them in the correct order. This may announce itself with a dialog box saying that Agent couldn't find all of the articles, or with an error during the decoding process.
To decode such files, you'll need to select and order the articles manually:
Like most things in Agent, this is configurable. By default, Agent purges outdated articles from a group each time you tell it to download new headers for the group, which you do with the various Get ... Headers commands in the Online menu.
You can also choose to have articles purged whenever you close Agent, so that old articles will be gone the next time you start up.
This means that when you're through browsing a group, your articles aren't purged when you leave the group as they are with most other newsreaders. Instead they persist at least until you close Agent, and perhaps until the next time you go online to get new headers, which might be several days later.
How do I control which articles are purged?
Whenever Agent is purging articles for a group, it examines each article to see if it should be deleted. It makes this decision based on the settings in the What to Purge page of the Properties... and Default Properties... dialog boxes (reached through the Group menu).
These dialog boxes allows you to set different criteria for deleting articles depending on whether you've previously downloaded the article body and whether you've read the article. For example, most people set these options so that articles with their full text are kept longer than mere headers, since these are the articles that interested them enough to read in the first place.
There are two main sections on this dialog box - one for articles that you've already read, and one for articles that are still marked unread. Within each section, there are separate options for articles without bodies (i.e. headers only) and articles that do have bodies (i.e. whose text you've previously downloaded).
You can choose to have articles with no bodies deleted:
- When they're no longer available on the server
- This option automatically deletes all headers that the news server has already deleted from its own list of articles. Selecting this option makes the list of articles displayed by Agent a mirror image of the articles that are available from the server. This is probably the best option for most groups.
- When they're older than a specified threshold
- This option deletes headers based on their age.
- On every purge
- This option deletes the headers on every purge. Selecting this will make Agent work like most other newsreaders, although we think that negates one of our big advantages.
For articles that do have bodies, you have the following options:
- On every purge
- This option deletes the articles before downloading any new headers. As with headers, selecting this will make Agent work like most other newsreaders.
- On every purge, delete bodies only
- This is like the previous option, but leaves the header in the database so that you can download the article again if you choose.
- When they're older than a specified threshold
- This option deletes articles based on their age. You might specify that you want articles with bodies kept for 30 days, and manually set the "Keep" flag for any that you don't want automatically purged.
- Never
- If you select this option, Agent will never automatically delete articles. They'll accumulate until you delete them manually, or until something causes their purging status to change. (For example, you might set unread articles to never be deleted, but read articles to be deleted after 30 days. This means that an unread article would never be purged, but when you read it it will then be purged after 30 days.)
Regardless of how you set the above options, you can always override them for an individual article. If you want to delete an article before its time, simply delete it manually. If you want to keep an article longer, set its "Keep" flag and Agent will never automatically delete it.
How do I make purging work like other newsreaders?
Agent maintains an intelligent database of headers and articles that persists from session to session. This provides many advantages over traditional newsreaders, like letting you see new messages in context with older ones. We strongly suggest that you try using this for a while before deciding to disable it; most of the people here who use Agent wonder how we ever lived without it.
However, this feature does come at a cost in both downloading speed and disk space usage, and it just isn't the way some people want to work. Here's how to make Agent behave very much like ordinary newsreaders:
Agent will now behave much more like an ordinary newsreader. Whenever you download new headers for a group, it will delete all of the existing headers and articles in that group (except those that you've explicitly set to Keep), so that you see only the new ones. These new articles will remain in the database until the next time you download more headers.
For an even closer simulation of a conventional newsreader, follow the steps above and then continue on:
Agent will now behave as much like an ordinary newsreader as it can. It will now delete all headers and messages in all newsgroups whenever you close it, so the newsgroups will always be empty each time you start the program (again, except for articles you've chosen to Keep).
How do I cancel a connection attempt that's obviously failing?
(From some of the bug reports we've seen, a better title for this one might be "Why doesn't Agent have a Cancel button on the "Connecting to Server" dialog box?")
The "Connecting to Server" dialog box appears during the period of time when Agent has passed control to the underlying winsock driver, during the first call to the driver after it is loaded. Whether or not this happens during the dial-in phase depends on the particular winsock driver you are using. If you are using the Trumpet winsock, the dial-in occurs as a side-effect of the first winsock call, which won't return to Agent until the call either succeeds or fails.
That's why there is no cancel button on the dialog box - Agent isn't in control of the process at this point, and has no way to tell the winsock driver to cancel the connection attempt. With Trumpet Winsock, as far as we know at present, the only way to cancel the call is to go to TCPMAN and press ESC. That will cancel the connection attempt and return control to Agent.
These are errors that the news server reports to Agent after the connection has been completed.
These are errors that your Winsock driver reports to Agent, and usually indicate problems with the connection process.
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