newsgroups - show number of articles?
 

Is there any way to get OE6 to display the number of articles in the
newsgroup subscriptions box (or anywhere else for that matter)? There are
so many usenet groups these days, many of them totally bogus and not worth
navigating to. Nice to be able to see if there are any appreciable number of
posts to a group before doing the download.

Thanks - Oppie

newsgroups - show number of articles?
 

No.
--
~Robear Dyer (PA Bear)
MS MVP-Windows (IE/OE, Shell/User, Security), Aumha.org VSOP, DTS-L.org

Oppie wrote:
Is there any way to get OE6 to display the number of articles in the
newsgroup subscriptions box (or anywhere else for that matter)? There are
so many usenet groups these days, many of them totally bogus and not worth
navigating to. Nice to be able to see if there are any appreciable number
of posts to a group before doing the download.

Thanks - Oppie

newsgroups - show number of articles?
 

There is a way to find out how many subscribers there are to the groups you
subscribe to, by clicking on Msnews.Microsoft.com in the Folders column in
Outlook Express. However, since there are so many newsgroups you would
only need to look at those related to your computer system. Also there
are many other websites where you will find user forums offering all kinds
of wise and wonderful advice, for example, Dell User Forums, Big Blueball
Forums, Castlecops, and many more. But life is too short to spend all your
computer time reading about other users' and other types of computer
problems. I am amazed by the number of computer gurus who contribute
so much of their time and knowledge every day to helping others with their
problems. However, I make a point of using the Dell Forums because I
have several Dell computers and they are easier to use than the Microsoft
Newsgroups You can find them he

http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/

T.Hyde

"Oppie" wrote in message
...
Is there any way to get OE6 to display the number of articles in the
newsgroup subscriptions box (or anywhere else for that matter)? There are
so many usenet groups these days, many of them totally bogus and not worth
navigating to. Nice to be able to see if there are any appreciable number
of posts to a group before doing the download.

Thanks - Oppie

newsgroups - show number of articles?
 

Huh? Tell us more, please.

Tom _Hyde wrote:
There is a way to find out how many subscribers there are to the groups
you subscribe to, by clicking on Msnews.Microsoft.com in the Folders
column in Outlook Express.
snip

newsgroups - show number of articles?
 

"Tom _Hyde" wrote in message

There is a way to find out how many subscribers there are to the
groups you subscribe to, by clicking on Msnews.Microsoft.com in the
Folders column in Outlook Express.

No.

--
Frank Saunders, MS-MVP OE
"Anyone who prefers security over freedom deserves neither."

newsgroups - show number of articles?
 

"Oppie" wrote in message
...
Is there any way to get OE6 to display the number of articles in the
newsgroup subscriptions box (or anywhere else for that matter)?


Maybe. Try an experiment? Open your list of subscriptions for
a news account (e.g. from one newsgroup press Backspace) and press
F5 (Refresh). What happens? E.g. do the numbers in the Total column
for any of your subscriptions change? (I just noticed that those numbers
would not be showing if you don't have them checked in that account's
columns dialog, so View, Columns and check Total if it isn't showing.)

Obviously, this test would be best done before connecting to any specific
newsgroups and the question is what does it do? I wouldn't trust the
troubleshooting log to show us if OE connects to the server and issues
some group requests for each newsgroup in the subscription but if it does
show you that, that would be your answer. The best diagnostic in this case
would be an independent trace of the NNTP protocol layer, e.g. using
netcap. There are other possible answers using the different NNTP
requests, which I know the troubleshooting log does not trace.

Even without a trace you could infer whether or not the Refresh
actually caused some headers to be downloaded or not.
E.g. after doing it and seeing the numbers change, set Work Offline
and go into a newsgroup. Then see what the Status bar shows.
If the command only changed the counts the Status bar should reflect
that with additional qualifications such as "not downloaded", etc.


There are
so many usenet groups these days, many of them totally bogus and not worth
navigating to. Nice to be able to see if there are any appreciable number of
posts to a group before doing the download.

Thanks - Oppie



Good luck

Robert Aldwinckle
---

newsgroups - show number of articles?
 

Hi Robert,
The screeen which you refer to is 'synchronization of newsgroups on
server'.
This screen does show the number of messages (unread and total) but it can
only show the message count in groups that are already subscribed to. The
challenge is to find out how many messages are in a group #before#
subscribing. I reasoned that if a group had only a small number of posts,
that it was not worth subscribing to.
Regards - Oppie

"Robert Aldwinckle" wrote in message
...
"Oppie" wrote in message
...
Is there any way to get OE6 to display the number of articles in the
newsgroup subscriptions box (or anywhere else for that matter)?


Maybe. Try an experiment? Open your list of subscriptions for
a news account (e.g. from one newsgroup press Backspace) and press
F5 (Refresh). What happens? E.g. do the numbers in the Total column
for any of your subscriptions change? (I just noticed that those numbers
would not be showing if you don't have them checked in that account's
columns dialog, so View, Columns and check Total if it isn't showing.)

Obviously, this test would be best done before connecting to any specific
newsgroups and the question is what does it do? I wouldn't trust the
troubleshooting log to show us if OE connects to the server and issues
some group requests for each newsgroup in the subscription but if it does
show you that, that would be your answer. The best diagnostic in this
case
would be an independent trace of the NNTP protocol layer, e.g. using
netcap. There are other possible answers using the different NNTP
requests, which I know the troubleshooting log does not trace.

Even without a trace you could infer whether or not the Refresh
actually caused some headers to be downloaded or not.
E.g. after doing it and seeing the numbers change, set Work Offline
and go into a newsgroup. Then see what the Status bar shows.
If the command only changed the counts the Status bar should reflect
that with additional qualifications such as "not downloaded", etc.


There are
so many usenet groups these days, many of them totally bogus and not
worth
navigating to. Nice to be able to see if there are any appreciable number
of
posts to a group before doing the download.

Thanks - Oppie



Good luck

Robert Aldwinckle
---

newsgroups - show number of articles?
 

"Robert Aldwinckle" wrote in message ...
"Oppie" wrote in message
...
Is there any way to get OE6 to display the number of articles in the
newsgroup subscriptions box (or anywhere else for that matter)?


Maybe. Try an experiment? Open your list of subscriptions for
a news account (e.g. from one newsgroup press Backspace) and press
F5 (Refresh). What happens?


Yuck. All that does is Refresh the list of newsgroups.
(The equivalent of Ctrl-w,Alt-R) Who knew?

However, I was on the right track. Just wrong command.
The right command is Synchronize Account.
(E.g. click on that button or press Alt-T,n)

Then, provided all your subscriptions are marked Don't Synchronize
(e.g. unchecked in that display) you will get a warning message
that there is nothing to Synchronize but you will get the latest estimate
from the 211 Group reply for each of your subscriptions.
BTW this information is also given by the OE troubleshooting log.


FYI

Robert
---

newsgroups - show number of articles?
 

"Oppie" ÓÏÏÂÝÉÌ/ÓÏÏÂÝÉÌÁ × ÎÏ×ÏÓÔÑÈ ÓÌÅÄÕÀÝÅÅ:
...
Is there any way to get OE6 to display the number of articles in the
newsgroup subscriptions box (or anywhere else for that matter)? There are
so many usenet groups these days, many of them totally bogus and not worth
navigating to. Nice to be able to see if there are any appreciable number
of posts to a group before doing the download.

Thanks - Oppie

newsgroups - show number of articles?
 

"Robert Aldwinckle" wrote in message
...
"Robert Aldwinckle" wrote in message
...
"Oppie" wrote in message
...
Is there any way to get OE6 to display the number of articles in the
newsgroup subscriptions box (or anywhere else for that matter)?


Maybe. Try an experiment? Open your list of subscriptions for
a news account (e.g. from one newsgroup press Backspace) and press
F5 (Refresh). What happens?


Yuck. All that does is Refresh the list of newsgroups.
(The equivalent of Ctrl-w,Alt-R) Who knew?

However, I was on the right track. Just wrong command.
The right command is Synchronize Account.
(E.g. click on that button or press Alt-T,n)

Then, provided all your subscriptions are marked Don't Synchronize
(e.g. unchecked in that display) you will get a warning message
that there is nothing to Synchronize but you will get the latest estimate
from the 211 Group reply for each of your subscriptions.
BTW this information is also given by the OE troubleshooting log.


FYI

Robert

Where does one find the OE troubleshooting log?

Thanks again