Getting Started

 

  1. The first thing you should do is configure your news servers. Click on the Configuration node in the treeview of the configuration form, and click on the New Server button. Now go to Server Setup and Configuration tab sheet.
    1. Type in a name for this server (something simple that distinguishes this server from other servers you have access to, if any), host name (or IP number) of this server, server communications port (if you don't know this it is probably 119), and your username and password if your server requires them.
    2. Now go to Connections tab sheet and select when this server is available. If you have several ISPs for Dial-Up Networking you can select the ones that give you access to this server if not all of them do.
  2. After you have configured all of your news servers, it is time configure the default settings for newsgroups. These settings will be used for all the newsgroups you later subscribe to, so it is recommended you do this before you subscribe to any newsgroups. Click on the Group Setup tab and go thru all of the tabs, Settings, Appearance, Decoding, File Checking and Plugins and setup them the way you want them. Note that you can later change all of these settings for each of the newsgroups you subscribe to, so leave this Default level as generic as possible.
  3. Now is the time to connect to the news servers. If you use Dial-Up Networking, first initiate the connection to your ISP the way you normally do. Next, click on the news server name in the treeview and click on the Connect button. Note that you can only connect to servers that are accessible using your current Dial-Up Networking account, as you configured earlier. The icon beside the newsgroup name in the treeview shows you whether the server is unavailable, available but disconnected, or connected. When you have connected to the news servers BNR will download a list of newsgroups which might take a while.
  4. Next step (after the newsgroup list download is completed) is to select some newsgroups to subscribe to. Go to the Newsgroups tab sheet and a suitable newsgroup and click on the Subscribe button. You can do this for several newsgroups. Note that the new newsgroups appear in the treeview under the Newsgroups node.
  5. After you have selected some newsgroups to subscribe to you can click on the newsgroup name in the treeview and configure the newsgroup-specific settings (for example decoding directory or directories where to check for existing files), and by clicking on the Open button you can open this newsgroup. After you have clicked Open, BNR will download the headers for this newsgroup from all the currently connected servers that carry this newsgroup. If you have selected Connect-On-Demand in the newsgroup settings BNR will also attempt to connect to currently disconnected servers.
  6. Now you are ready to start using BNR to download binary articles!

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