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WebNews User's Manual
Briefly . . .
To use WebNews, point your World Wide Web browser at the appropriate
URL
such as:
http://nice.co.nz/cgi-bin/webnews.cgi
Having done this, enter your Username and Password to login and
read and post news. It's that simple but for more details read on...
For quickly getting started...
- How can I get my NEWS?
- How do I login?
- How do I read and post news?
For more details...
- WebNews Overview
- The Login Page
- Group List Page
- Article List Page
- Article Page
- Posting a News Article
- Spell Checking News Articles
- Searching
- User Configuration
Notes on using these manual pages:
This User Manual guides you through the various pages of WebNews, noting
the functions of all of the Buttons, Links
*, Check Boxes and Text Fields that you will find on them.
In addition to normal links (for related information) there are glossary
definitions for many of the technical terms and acronyms. These glossary
definition links are shown like this: server *
New users in particular should find these links to the NetWin Glossary helpful.
For the experts who are just skimming, red text will generally
contain interesting tips on how to get the most out of WebNews. Also,
see the Technical Details section.
If you are new to WebNews you should still read the parts in red text but don't worry if you don't understand them immediately.
Here is the instant three step guide...
| 1. |
Start your web browser |
- e.g. Netscape, Internet Explorer etc. |
| 2. |
Point it at the WebNews page |
- your Internet Service Provider (ISP) or Computer
Department will have told you the URL to use, e.g. http://nice.co.com/cgi-bin/webnews.cgi. |
| 3. |
Depending on how WebNews is setup, you
will probably see a login page. If so, enter your username and password
(then click the 'Login' button) |
- again, you will probably have been given a username
and password to use. |
|
Bingo - you're at your new group list! |
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For more detailed information please read through the next few sections.
Before you can use WebNews you need to login. On some systems WebNews
will be setup to automatically log you in, using cookies.
To login to WebNews you must first supply a username and password. The
username and password are checked against various authentication methods.
For more details on the different styles of authentication, see authentication
The News Administrator will have assigned a default NEWS server for use
with WebNews. So, as a user, as long as you have used the correct URL* in
your web browser you will be automatically logged in to the correct location.
You do not have to enter anything in the 'Enter Host' box, if one is
present.
Once you have logged in to WebNews correctly, you will be presented with
the News Groups. This is a list of all the news groups available to you
on the NEWS server. WebNews allows you to select a news group and read
their articles.
If you return to the group page later just click on the Group List
icon to return to this list.
In order to send an article you should first locate the group to whom
you wish to post news. Once you are viewing the articles, select the Post
button on this page. After this, fill in the various fields on the Create
an Article page which will appear, and click the Send Message
button.
WebNews is a web-news gateway which allows you to read and process your
news from a web browser running on any machine with access to the internet
( or your intranet ). It is a fully featured news client package which
provides facilities to read news, and to send and view attachments.
WebNews uses the NEWS protocol and talks to a NEWS server so that your
messages are left on the server. You can see and manipulate all the same
news and news groups which can be accessed from a standard NEWS client,
but from any web browser anywhere on the net.
Some systems log you in automatically using a temporary account, others
display the login page first. If you are using a temporary account you
are able to login into the system using the login button on the menubar.
The login screen will display some or all of the below:
Logging into WebNews allows you to keep your user settings from session
to session.
You do not have to fill in the 'Host' text field. Your
system administrator will have setup local accounts to connect to, with
the username and password that you supply. If, however, you wish to connect
using your own EMail account, you will need to specify your POP/IMAP server
and then enter your details there.
Your Internet Service Provider (ISP) or Computer Department should have
told you which username to use and hopefully which password too. If they
haven't, you will need to contact them before proceeding. If you haven't
been given a special username and password for WebNews then your normal
email client username and password should work.
When you first login or when you click on the 'Group List' button, you
will be presented with the following page layout:
The top two frames will remain on display as you move throughout WebNews.
The descriptions below show what the 4 lefthand most buttons are used
for.
Group List
This will return WebNews to the page displayed above at any time.
Search Group
This will take you to the search options, allowing you to do
a quick search for the news group which you are interested in reading.
Set Options
This will display the user option screen, allowing you to change
some of the user settings.
Logout
This will logout the user. This is sometimes replaced with
a Login button, which will display the login page.
The top right frame is a quick search allowing quicker navigation in
order to locate the news group which you are interested in.
The bottom frame will change depending on where you are currently located
in WebNews. Currently this is displaying:
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| This allows you to find the News Groups which you are looking
for quickly. Clicking on a letter will cause only news groups that
start with that letter to be displayed. |
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| If there is more than 1 page to be displayed, you will see something
similar to the above image, where clicking on a number will take
you to that page. Clicking on the left and right arrows also changes
the page. |
Part Group ( rec
(724 groups) , rec.arts
(120 groups) )
Items in the list which display the word 'groups' in brackets
(see above) have the number of groups displayed inside this group name.
Clicking on one of these links will cause the part groups and news groups
which are in this part group to be displayed.
News Group ( rec.humor
(870 items) )
This is a complete news group which displays the number of
articles that are currently available. Clicking on one of these links
will cause the articles of this news group to be displayed.
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This section will display 0 or more News Groups which have been
selected to be displayed. It will only display today's and
yesterdays news, so that you can see at a glance whether there is
any new news.
Clicking on the New Groups name will cause the all of the available
articles of that news group to be displayed.
If you click on an article, that article will be displayed. |
Once you have selected a news group you will be shown the list of articles
available. The page will look like the following:
Post ( Post )
This allows you to create a new news article to post to this
news group.
Search ( Search )
This allows you to do a search within this news group or on
an article name and/or author. This is used to search quickly through
the articles.
Latest Items ( Latest Items
)
This forces WebNews to download the latest news articles for
this group. The administration may have setup restrictions which only
allow you to download a maximum of every minute or so. Therefore, there
may be a time delay in seeing new news articles.
Group List ( Add to Group
List )
This adds the news group to the list of News groups which the
user can quickly get to. This list can easily be seen on the user option
page.
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| If there is more than 1 page to be displayed, you will see something
similar to the above, where clicking on a number will take you to
that page. You may also click on the left and righthand arrows to
change the page. |
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|
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| This displays the new articles.Clicking on the article will
cause the article to be displayed. |
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A news article which you select, will be displayed in the following page
layout:
| Group: |
|
rec.humor |
| Subject: |
Re: Invention of the Century
- what's your pick? |
| Date: |
Thu, 07 Oct 1999 20:04:52 GMT |
| From: |
w@x.y.z |
| News Groups: |
nz.general,rec.humor |
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>> >The "Y2K bug" scam.
>> >
>> >It's made me millions...
>> >
>> >[:-)
>
>> You won't mind sharing then :-D
>
>Certainly. Which Y2K scam would you like to buy?
Up front and cheeky here, I mean't sharing your money not the
merchandise. :-)
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Previous Item ( Previous
Item )
This moves to the previous article.
Next Item ( Next Item
)
This views the next article in this group.
Reply ( Reply )
This creates a new news article in reply to the article.
Latest Items ( Latest Items
)
This forces WebNews to download the latest news articles for
this group. The administration may have setup restrictions so that you
may only download a maximum of every minute or so. Therefore, there
may be a time delay in seeing new news articles.
Search ( Search )
This allows you to do a search within this news group on an
article name and/or author. It is used to search through the articles
quickly.
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This will change the view style of the current Article. There
are 5 different checkboxes which have different effects on the displayed
article.
| Raw |
- |
This forces the article to be displayed in the actual form
stored on the NEWS server. |
| Headers |
- |
This displays all the Article's headers. |
| Variable width font |
- |
This displays the text in a variable width font instead
of a fixed width font. |
| Inline Images |
- |
This forces text, html and image's attachments to be viewed. |
Enable html scripts,
forms and applets |
- |
This stops the CGI from automatically removing the scripts,
forms and applets. |
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When you are posting a new news article or replying to a existing article
you will see the following screen:
| Send Message ( |
|
) |
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| When clicked, this will send the new article and post it to the
news server. |
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| Check Spelling ( |
|
) |
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| When clicked, this will check the body of the message for spelling.
Attachments files will not be preserved. |
When you are spell checking a news article before you send post to the
news server you will see the following screen:
The above example has two spelling errors- 'millions' and 'Certainly'.
When deciding to change a word you simply click on it, and the following
browser window will be displayed:
As you can see the CGI gives suggestions which may be selected
from. You may also add words to your personal dictionary.
The purpose of the search function is to assist in locating news groups
or articles which you are looking for. There are 3 different searching
methods:
(1) Search for Group
(2) Search for Article
Article Search in rec.humor
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(3) Do an Advance Search
The advance search is like a combined News Group search and Article search.
The user configuration screen can be seen below:
Cookie Login
When this is ticked, a cookie will be sent and stored on your
machin. This will allow an automatic login when you enter the correct
URL of WebNews, and saves you from having to go through the login screen.
Signature
The signature file can be attached to all News articles sent.
Selected Groups
These are groups which have been selected for frequent use.
You can click on a group name to view it's new articles. When the tick
box to the right called 'View' is ticked, the latest news articles of
that group are displayed on the groups list page.
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