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  #16  
Old November 3rd 19, 08:34 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
VanguardLH[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 10,881
Default Thunderbird -OT

Frank Slootweg wrote:

VanguardLH wrote:
Ken Springer wrote:

VanguardLH wrote:

At best, and if Thunderbird supports it, an article that you read in
one newsgroup could be marked as read when you visit another
newsgroup to which the article was cross-posted.

That used to work, years ago, is my understanding. But Mozilla either
broke it or deleted the functionality. I don't know which.


Keeping a local cache of all MIDs ever retrieved, so the list could be
checked for when you decided to read an article (mark it as read) and
flag it in the list to then scan the MIDs in every other newsgroup you
visit to check for the flag is a lot of overhead.


It's a trivial task, that's why most newsreaders have this
functionality.

Why is it trivial? Because your News server adds its article numbers
(note: article numbers, *not* message-ids (MIDs)) to the 'Xref:' header
it generates and puts in the local (server) copy of the article.

Example:

Xref: uni-berlin.de alt.comp.os.windows-10:105943 alt.comp.freewa951278

So when your newsreader notices you've read the article in one of the
groups, it will mark all the article numbers (105943 and 951278 in the
example) as read. (When you 'leave' a group, the article numbers of
read articles are updated in your '.newsrc' file (or equivalent).)

So your newsreader does not have to keep "a local cache of all MIDs
ever retrieved". It just has to process the article numbers which are
readily available in the 'Xref:' header of the very article it's
currently processing.

Just check any crossposted article and you'll see the groupnames and
your server's article numbers in the 'Xref:' which your server
generated/added.

N.B. Article numbers are server-specific and the 'Xref:' header is one
of the few headers a News server is allowed to change (in transit from
one server to the next).


If it is so trivial to code, why hasn't it appeared in 20 years?
Mozilla Dev obviously never bothered with the requested feature.
Apparently the volunteer community isn't addressing the old tickets,
either.

Thunderbird is sensitive to where is the newsrc file. From bug ticket
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=99238, still listed with
New status (i.e., not resolved) after 18 years, moving the newsrc file
somehow disconnects Thunderbird from knowing which newsgroups to which
it was subscribed under an account. Thunderbird sometimes corrupts the
newsrc file (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=403200, 12
years old).

Aren't newsrc files just text files? That means having to open then and
parse each line to scan for article numbers. That's very slow. If you
subscribe to just a few newsgroups, probably not a noticeable
performance impact. If you subscribe to a few hundred, yeah, all that
lookup will be slow. Isn't there a newsrc file for every subscribed
newsgroup? When selecting a newsgroup to download, each article
retrieve would have its ID search in all the newsrc files for every
other subscribed newsgroup. When you subscribe, and when retrieving all
new messages (which would be ALL of them), that would require the
article lookup across all the other newsrc files. If there is just one
newsrc per account (i.e., per server) which tracks all messages across
all subscribed newsgroups, that would be less files to parse and scan.

I don't use newsgroups from a *NIX host, so I've not been acquainted
with newsrc files or how their contents are structured, and I didn't
have to deal with them with Thunderbird on Windows. On searching, all
the online article talk about how to use tools to tidy up or modify the
newsrc files or how to use them for configuration, but I've not found
one that delves into the content or structure of one. Can Notepad or
gvim be used to edit a newsrc file? If I were still using Thunderbird,
I would hope newsrc files are databases and not text files. If all
articles ever retrieved for a subscribed newsgroup on a server were
stored in a newsrc file, and since some newsgroups have MANY thousands
of article depending on the retention of the server, that's a lot or
records to store in a text file to then parse every line to scan for a
matching article ID. Seems odd that Thunderbird uses SQLite for some of
its databases but doesn't embrace Sqlite for all its databases
(http://kb.mozillazine.org/Files_and_...-_Thunderbird).

Article IDs are unique per server. Only the MID value remains the same
as the article gets peered across servers (barring MID collisions). You
mentioned the Xref header has the article's ID number, but it also
specifies the server from which the article was retrieved. The same
article on a different server would have a different article ID. A user
might subscribe to a newsgroup on more than one server: a cross-posted
article could be one one server in one newsgroup but the user looks at
the copy on a different server in the other cross-posted newsgroup. The
Xref you see would be for the server you used for a subscribed newsgroup
to retrieve a copy of a message. In the cross-posted newsgroup where
you retrieved the message from a different server, that other server's
article number would be different. You'd see one message with its Xref
showing server, newsgroup, and article number but the cross-posted copy
that got peered to the other server would show other server,
cross-posted newsgroup, and different article number. Seems the lookup
to establish the same state (i.e., read) across cross-posted newsgroups
would only work within the confines of subscribing to newsgroups on the
same server. When peering an article across servers, I thought only the
MID value was retained.

Seem the Xref header MUST be changed by the server when an article is
peered to it. The peered-to server would assign its own article ID to
the peered article, so it would specify its own article ID just assigned
to the peered copy of the message. How would a client know:


which shows the article number and newsgroup for a message on *my*
server was the same as:

or

The Xref header shows only what my server assigned for an article number
for every article my client retrieves from my server. It won't know
what some other server did for article ID assignment. But the MID
should remain the same for peered articles, even when posted to multiple
newsgroups (multiple pointers to one copy of the article).

Xref would allow tracking of cross-posted articles within the same
server, not across servers. I thought that's what the MID was used for.
Doesn't the MID stay the same in each copy of a cross-posted message? I
would think so since the server only has 1 copy of the message and
simply uses pointers to it in each newsgroup. If the client is tracking
messages by Xref, that only works within the confines of one server. I
have accounts to individual.net, eternal-september, and albasani, and I
could add more. I could read a message on server-A in newsgroup-A but
see the same (peered) message on server-B crossposted to newsgroup-B.
Same article but different article IDs on each server. The MID would be
the same, though.

I can see the newsrc file would let you track cross-posted articles
across newsgroups but only on one server. From what I read of newsrc
files, that's what they're for: used for one account that connects to
one server. Each server gets its own newsrc file. Okay, but that
doesn't cover every scenario for tracking cross-posted messages, like
when reading each of the cross-posted newsgroups from a differen server.
Still having something (tracking cross-posting within a server) would be
better than nothing. Likely the vast majority of Usenetizens only
connect to one server.
Ads
  #17  
Old November 3rd 19, 08:37 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Carlos E.R.[_3_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,356
Default Thunderbird -OT

On 03/11/2019 02.52, T wrote:
On 11/2/19 6:47 PM, Paul in Houston TX wrote:
Ken Blake wrote:
Sorry about the off-topic question, but I don't know where else to ask
this.

I'm been trying Thunderbird 68.2.1 as my newsreader, rather than Agent,
which I used to use. I like some things about Thunderbird better than
Agent and some less, so I haven't yet decided which to stick with. But I
have a Thunderbird question:

A cross-posted message is showing up in each folder I open that it's
been cross-posted to. Is it possible to have it appear only once? If so,
what should I change to make that happen.


That's a missing feature in Thunderbird. :-(


The only way I know to do that is to create a filter for your account
server for that post.


That is the only way I can think of either.

Doubles in two groups don't bug me.

I use the "Tag" option the color threads I am following.
I just tag only one group so I ignore the other.


Problem is, there are people that don't answer on all the groups.

What I do is, read in one group, then on the other group skim the posts
that list the previous group. Manually.

--
Cheers, Carlos.
  #18  
Old November 3rd 19, 08:50 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Ken Blake[_7_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 569
Default Thunderbird -OT

On 11/3/2019 12:37 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 03/11/2019 02.52, T wrote:
On 11/2/19 6:47 PM, Paul in Houston TX wrote:
Ken Blake wrote:
Sorry about the off-topic question, but I don't know where else to ask
this.

I'm been trying Thunderbird 68.2.1 as my newsreader, rather than Agent,
which I used to use. I like some things about Thunderbird better than
Agent and some less, so I haven't yet decided which to stick with. But I
have a Thunderbird question:

A cross-posted message is showing up in each folder I open that it's
been cross-posted to. Is it possible to have it appear only once? If so,
what should I change to make that happen.


That's a missing feature in Thunderbird. :-(



Apparently so. I've asked in the Thunderbird NG. If I get a different
answer, I'll post back here.



The only way I know to do that is to create a filter for your account
server for that post.


That is the only way I can think of either.

Doubles in two groups don't bug me.

I use the "Tag" option the color threads I am following.
I just tag only one group so I ignore the other.


Problem is, there are people that don't answer on all the groups.

What I do is, read in one group, then on the other group skim the posts
that list the previous group. Manually.



--
Ken
  #19  
Old November 3rd 19, 09:46 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Char Jackson
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 10,449
Default Thunderbird -OT

On 3 Nov 2019 12:19:15 GMT, Frank Slootweg wrote:

VanguardLH wrote:
Ken Springer wrote:

VanguardLH wrote:

At best, and if Thunderbird supports it, an article that you read in
one newsgroup could be marked as read when you visit another
newsgroup to which the article was cross-posted.

That used to work, years ago, is my understanding. But Mozilla either
broke it or deleted the functionality. I don't know which.


Keeping a local cache of all MIDs ever retrieved, so the list could be
checked for when you decided to read an article (mark it as read) and
flag it in the list to then scan the MIDs in every other newsgroup you
visit to check for the flag is a lot of overhead.


It's a trivial task, that's why most newsreaders have this
functionality.


Agent 2.0 has two options under what they call Crosspost Management:
o Subject, Author, Date, Lines
o Message ID

Actions include the following options:
o Do Nothing
o Mark Read
o Don't Retrieve

Note that Agent 2.0 uses a separate database for its crosspost management
tasks, not the .newsrc file. I don't think the .newsrc file can be used for
this task, even if a developer wanted to. The crosspost database gets
consulted/updated during article retrieval, and it gets purged during
article delete/purge, so it never has records for 'all messages ever
received' unless the user never does any housekeeping.

The xref header wouldn't be a good choice because it's server specific.
It's not that unusual to have multiple servers defined, which would likely
break crosspost checking.

Why is it trivial? Because your News server adds its article numbers
(note: article numbers, *not* message-ids (MIDs)) to the 'Xref:' header
it generates and puts in the local (server) copy of the article.

Example:

Xref: uni-berlin.de alt.comp.os.windows-10:105943 alt.comp.freewa951278

So when your newsreader notices you've read the article in one of the
groups, it will mark all the article numbers (105943 and 951278 in the
example) as read. (When you 'leave' a group, the article numbers of
read articles are updated in your '.newsrc' file (or equivalent).)


As stated above, Agent does all of its crosspost checking during article
retrieval. No further work is done when a message is read/unread. Also, I
don't think .newsrc is allowed to be used for crosspost management.

So your newsreader does not have to keep "a local cache of all MIDs
ever retrieved". It just has to process the article numbers which are
readily available in the 'Xref:' header of the very article it's
currently processing.

Just check any crossposted article and you'll see the groupnames and
your server's article numbers in the 'Xref:' which your server
generated/added.

N.B. Article numbers are server-specific and the 'Xref:' header is one
of the few headers a News server is allowed to change (in transit from
one server to the next).


Agreed, and that's why xref wouldn't be the best choice.

  #20  
Old November 3rd 19, 10:10 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Carlos E.R.[_3_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,356
Default Thunderbird -OT

On 03/11/2019 20.50, Ken Blake wrote:
On 11/3/2019 12:37 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 03/11/2019 02.52, T wrote:
On 11/2/19 6:47 PM, Paul in Houston TX wrote:
Ken Blake wrote:
Sorry about the off-topic question, but I don't know where else to ask
this.

I'm been trying Thunderbird 68.2.1 as my newsreader, rather than
Agent,
which I used to use. I like some things about Thunderbird better than
Agent and some less, so I haven't yet decided which to stick with.
But I
have a Thunderbird question:

A cross-posted message is showing up in each folder I open that it's
been cross-posted to. Is it possible to have it appear only once?
If so,
what should I change to make that happen.


That's a missing feature in Thunderbird. :-(



Apparently so. I've asked in the Thunderbird NG. If I get a different
answer, I'll post back here.


Thanks :-)

Even a plugin or an external program would help.


--
Cheers, Carlos.
  #21  
Old November 4th 19, 07:25 AM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Neil
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 714
Default Thunderbird -OT

On 11/3/2019 3:46 PM, Char Jackson wrote:
[...]

The xref header wouldn't be a good choice because it's server specific.
It's not that unusual to have multiple servers defined, which would likely
break crosspost checking.

I'm not sure how common it is for users to access newsgroups from
multiple servers. In all the years that I used Outlook Express, which
had the ability to mark cross-posts as read, it never failed to do so
correctly because I don't use multiple servers. However, providing the
option to turn off cross-post checking could satisfy both types of users.

--
best regards,

Neil
  #22  
Old November 4th 19, 10:29 AM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Chris
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 832
Default Thunderbird -OT

On 03/11/2019 14:54, Ken Blake wrote:
On 11/3/2019 7:42 AM, Ken Blake wrote:
On 11/2/2019 7:05 PM, VanguardLH wrote:
Ken Blake wrote:

Sorry about the off-topic question, but I don't know where else to
ask this.

I'm been trying Thunderbird 68.2.1 as my newsreader, rather than
Agent, which I used to use. I like some things about Thunderbird
better than Agent and some less, so I haven't yet decided which to
stick with. But I have a Thunderbird question:

A cross-posted message is showing up in each folder I open that it's
been cross-posted to. Is it possible to have it appear only once? If
so, what should I change to make that happen.

Thunderbird newsgroup: mozilla.support.thunderbird
Mozilla NNTP server:Â*Â* news.mozilla.org, port 119

I doubt you can have a newsgroup omitted in one newsgroup when visiting
another newsgroup to which it was cross-posted.Â* After all, hiding would
depend on which newsgroup you visited first to then hide in the other
newsgroup(s) which you might or might not visit.Â* Also, just because
someone decides to cross-post to multiple newsgroups doesn't mean
everyone who replies must also post to the same group of newsgroups.
Users might decide to send their reply only to the newsgroups they know
or the ones they visit, not to someplace they don't know and don't go,
especially if cross-posting involves unrelated or garbage newsgroups.
You'd read an article with its replies in one newsgroup but hiding that
article in another newsgroup means not seeing the separate replies over
there.Â* No one has to cross-post their replies to the same newsgroups
the prior user decided to cross-post to.

At best, and if Thunderbird supports it, an article that you read in one
newsgroup could be marked as read when you visit another newsgroup to
which the article was cross-posted.



Yes, I worded my question poorly. That's what I wanted.

Thank you and thanks to all others who responded. It looks like I can't
do what I want, but I'll try the Thunderbird newsgroup. I have a vague
memory of having tried to get the,re but my newsserver couldn't get
there. I'll try again.



OK, I just subscribed to it. My memory of a problem was wrong.


I don't think you'll have much luck. This issue is a reason many people
don't use Thunderbird and development on the project has crawled to a
halt. To my mind it is the best free nntp and email desktop client.
However, nntp is niche and email is all webmail these days so there's
little demand.

Correction:
I had noticed that development had moved, but I didn't realise that I
had to download the new version rather than allow it to update. My
version is quite old (60.9.0) and the current version is 68.2.1


  #23  
Old November 4th 19, 02:42 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
nospam
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 4,718
Default Thunderbird -OT

In article , Neil
wrote:

I'm not sure how common it is for users to access newsgroups from
multiple servers.


it's extremely common for binary downloads, which is the overwhelming
majority of usenet these days.
  #24  
Old November 4th 19, 03:22 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Frank Slootweg
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,226
Default Thunderbird -OT

VanguardLH wrote:
Frank Slootweg wrote:

VanguardLH wrote:
Ken Springer wrote:

VanguardLH wrote:

At best, and if Thunderbird supports it, an article that you read in
one newsgroup could be marked as read when you visit another
newsgroup to which the article was cross-posted.

That used to work, years ago, is my understanding. But Mozilla either
broke it or deleted the functionality. I don't know which.

Keeping a local cache of all MIDs ever retrieved, so the list could be
checked for when you decided to read an article (mark it as read) and
flag it in the list to then scan the MIDs in every other newsgroup you
visit to check for the flag is a lot of overhead.


It's a trivial task, that's why most newsreaders have this
functionality.

Why is it trivial? Because your News server adds its article numbers
(note: article numbers, *not* message-ids (MIDs)) to the 'Xref:' header
it generates and puts in the local (server) copy of the article.

Example:

Xref: uni-berlin.de alt.comp.os.windows-10:105943 alt.comp.freewa951278

So when your newsreader notices you've read the article in one of the
groups, it will mark all the article numbers (105943 and 951278 in the
example) as read. (When you 'leave' a group, the article numbers of
read articles are updated in your '.newsrc' file (or equivalent).)

So your newsreader does not have to keep "a local cache of all MIDs
ever retrieved". It just has to process the article numbers which are
readily available in the 'Xref:' header of the very article it's
currently processing.

Just check any crossposted article and you'll see the groupnames and
your server's article numbers in the 'Xref:' which your server
generated/added.

N.B. Article numbers are server-specific and the 'Xref:' header is one
of the few headers a News server is allowed to change (in transit from
one server to the next).


If it is so trivial to code, why hasn't it appeared in 20 years?


Because Thunderbird - especially the NetNews part - is one big mess.

Mozilla Dev obviously never bothered with the requested feature.
Apparently the volunteer community isn't addressing the old tickets,
either.

Thunderbird is sensitive to where is the newsrc file. From bug ticket
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=99238, still listed with
New status (i.e., not resolved) after 18 years, moving the newsrc file
somehow disconnects Thunderbird from knowing which newsgroups to which
it was subscribed under an account. Thunderbird sometimes corrupts the
newsrc file (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=403200, 12
years old).


Apparently TB currently uses the newsrc file only for recording the
subscribed groups, *not* for recording the article numbers of the read
articles in those groups.

See Tools - Account Settings - your News account - 'Server
Settings' - Message Storage - newsrc file: - Browse...

You will see one or more server.rc files with entries like:

alt.comp.os.windows-10:

which means you're subscribed to that group.

A *normal* (non-TB) .newsrc file would have:

alt.comp.os.windows-10: 1-37201,37225,37231,37233-37235

which means I've read all articles with the indicated ranges and
numbers.

I.e. I've *not* (yet) read articles 37202-37224, 37226-37230 and
37232.

Why TB can't be bothered to do this properly is anyone's guess.

Aren't newsrc files just text files? That means having to open then and
parse each line to scan for article numbers. That's very slow.


Yes, as shown above, they're just text files. Slow!? You're kidding
right!? Scanning a few hundred line text file, which is probably cached
in memory, is slow? You do realize that the articles themselves - and
the headers in them - are also 'just' text. The .newsrc file is orders
of magnitude smaller than the articles, so why worry about it's
'slowness'?

That's very slow. If you
subscribe to just a few newsgroups, probably not a noticeable
performance impact. If you subscribe to a few hundred, yeah, all that
lookup will be slow. Isn't there a newsrc file for every subscribed
newsgroup?


No. One .newsrc file for all the groups subscribed on a particular
News server.

When selecting a newsgroup to download, each article
retrieve would have its ID search in all the newsrc files for every
other subscribed newsgroup. When you subscribe, and when retrieving all
new messages (which would be ALL of them), that would require the
article lookup across all the other newsrc files. If there is just one
newsrc per account (i.e., per server) which tracks all messages across
all subscribed newsgroups, that would be less files to parse and scan.

I don't use newsgroups from a *NIX host, so I've not been acquainted
with newsrc files or how their contents are structured, and I didn't
have to deal with them with Thunderbird on Windows. On searching, all
the online article talk about how to use tools to tidy up or modify the
newsrc files or how to use them for configuration, but I've not found
one that delves into the content or structure of one. Can Notepad or
gvim be used to edit a newsrc file?


You normally do not edit a .newsrc file, because it's created, managed
and maintained by your newsreader. But, being a text file, you *can*
edit it with any text editor. When you edit it, you do it while your
newsreader isn't running, so that your newsreader doesn't interfere with
the changes you're making.

I could give an example of when one might like to edit a .newsrc file,
but that's not very useful in the context of this thread, i.e. TB not
being able to marked crossposted articles as read in all crossposted
groups.

If I were still using Thunderbird,
I would hope newsrc files are databases and not text files. If all
articles ever retrieved for a subscribed newsgroup on a server were
stored in a newsrc file, and since some newsgroups have MANY thousands
of article depending on the retention of the server, that's a lot or
records to store in a text file to then parse every line to scan for a
matching article ID.


A .newsrc file only records *ranges* of article numbers, with the
occasional not-yet-read article numbers.

A typical entry/line is well less than 80 characters. *Some* entries/
lines might be a few hundred characters long, during the time you have
not yet completely 'catched up' with the group.

For example, my .newsrc file is 2574 bytes, 94 lines, i.e. a little
over *27* characters per entry (including LF).

Believe me, the structure, 'size', 'slowness', etc. of a .newsrc file
is a complete non-issue. It wasn't an issue on 640KB machines and it
surely isn't now.

Seems odd that Thunderbird uses SQLite for some of
its databases but doesn't embrace Sqlite for all its databases
(http://kb.mozillazine.org/Files_and_...-_Thunderbird).

Article IDs are unique per server. Only the MID value remains the same
as the article gets peered across servers (barring MID collisions). You
mentioned the Xref header has the article's ID number, but it also
specifies the server from which the article was retrieved. The same
article on a different server would have a different article ID. A user
might subscribe to a newsgroup on more than one server: a cross-posted
article could be one one server in one newsgroup but the user looks at
the copy on a different server in the other cross-posted newsgroup. The
Xref you see would be for the server you used for a subscribed newsgroup
to retrieve a copy of a message. In the cross-posted newsgroup where
you retrieved the message from a different server, that other server's
article number would be different. You'd see one message with its Xref
showing server, newsgroup, and article number but the cross-posted copy
that got peered to the other server would show other server,
cross-posted newsgroup, and different article number. Seems the lookup
to establish the same state (i.e., read) across cross-posted newsgroups
would only work within the confines of subscribing to newsgroups on the
same server. When peering an article across servers, I thought only the
MID value was retained.


If a newsreader can handle getting articles from multiple News
servers, then there's a .newsrc file per server. Handling multiple
servers is of course more complex, but several newsreaders handle this
functionality in a seamless way. (AFAICT, TB can handle multiple News
servers, but without any integration, i.e. if you're subscribed to the
same newsgroup on multiple servers, you'll see each article multiple
times.)

Seem the Xref header MUST be changed by the server when an article is
peered to it.


Yes.

The peered-to server would assign its own article ID to
the peered article, so it would specify its own article ID just assigned
to the peered copy of the message. How would a client know:

Xref: uni-berlin.de alt.comp.os.windows-10:106017

which shows the article number and newsgroup for a message on *my*
server was the same as:

Xref: yourserver alt.comp.os.windows-10:someOtherArticleID
or
Xref: yourserver crosspostednewsgroup:someOtherArticleNumber

The Xref header shows only what my server assigned for an article number
for every article my client retrieves from my server. It won't know
what some other server did for article ID assignment. But the MID
should remain the same for peered articles, even when posted to multiple
newsgroups (multiple pointers to one copy of the article).

Xref would allow tracking of cross-posted articles within the same
server, not across servers. I thought that's what the MID was used for.
Doesn't the MID stay the same in each copy of a cross-posted message? I
would think so since the server only has 1 copy of the message and
simply uses pointers to it in each newsgroup. If the client is tracking
messages by Xref, that only works within the confines of one server. I
have accounts to individual.net, eternal-september, and albasani, and I
could add more. I could read a message on server-A in newsgroup-A but
see the same (peered) message on server-B crossposted to newsgroup-B.
Same article but different article IDs on each server. The MID would be
the same, though.

I can see the newsrc file would let you track cross-posted articles
across newsgroups but only on one server. From what I read of newsrc
files, that's what they're for: used for one account that connects to
one server. Each server gets its own newsrc file. Okay, but that
doesn't cover every scenario for tracking cross-posted messages, like
when reading each of the cross-posted newsgroups from a differen server.
Still having something (tracking cross-posting within a server) would be
better than nothing. Likely the vast majority of Usenetizens only
connect to one server.


As I said, several newsreaders can handle multiple News servers just
fine, in a seamless way. Perhaps people using such newsreaders can come
forward with specifics. (In the meantime, Char already posted about
Agent.)

FWIW, I use a local,'small', 'personal', News server (Hamster) to -
amongst others - get the same - multi-server - functionality. Hamster
sits between my newsreader (tin) and my NSP (News SP),
News.Individual.[DE|.NET]. To my NSP, Hamster looks like a newsreader.
To my newsreader, Hamster looks like a News server.
  #25  
Old November 4th 19, 03:22 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Frank Slootweg
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Posts: 1,226
Default Thunderbird -OT

Char Jackson wrote:
On 3 Nov 2019 12:19:15 GMT, Frank Slootweg wrote:

VanguardLH wrote:
Ken Springer wrote:

VanguardLH wrote:

At best, and if Thunderbird supports it, an article that you read in
one newsgroup could be marked as read when you visit another
newsgroup to which the article was cross-posted.

That used to work, years ago, is my understanding. But Mozilla either
broke it or deleted the functionality. I don't know which.

Keeping a local cache of all MIDs ever retrieved, so the list could be
checked for when you decided to read an article (mark it as read) and
flag it in the list to then scan the MIDs in every other newsgroup you
visit to check for the flag is a lot of overhead.


It's a trivial task, that's why most newsreaders have this
functionality.


Agent 2.0 has two options under what they call Crosspost Management:
o Subject, Author, Date, Lines
o Message ID

Actions include the following options:
o Do Nothing
o Mark Read
o Don't Retrieve

Note that Agent 2.0 uses a separate database for its crosspost management
tasks, not the .newsrc file. I don't think the .newsrc file can be used for
this task, even if a developer wanted to.


Correct. Apparently Agent does things differently and has more
functionality (than just noting/marking article numbers).

The crosspost database gets
consulted/updated during article retrieval, and it gets purged during
article delete/purge, so it never has records for 'all messages ever
received' unless the user never does any housekeeping.

The xref header wouldn't be a good choice because it's server specific.
It's not that unusual to have multiple servers defined, which would likely
break crosspost checking.


Correct. As I mentioned in another response, multiple servers needs
either multiple .newsrc files or another method/database (such as Agent
uses).

[...]
  #26  
Old November 4th 19, 04:41 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Ken Blake[_7_]
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Posts: 569
Default Thunderbird -OT

On 11/4/2019 2:29 AM, Chris wrote:
On 03/11/2019 14:54, Ken Blake wrote:
On 11/3/2019 7:42 AM, Ken Blake wrote:
On 11/2/2019 7:05 PM, VanguardLH wrote:
Ken Blake wrote:

Sorry about the off-topic question, but I don't know where else to
ask this.

I'm been trying Thunderbird 68.2.1 as my newsreader, rather than
Agent, which I used to use. I like some things about Thunderbird
better than Agent and some less, so I haven't yet decided which to
stick with. But I have a Thunderbird question:

A cross-posted message is showing up in each folder I open that it's
been cross-posted to. Is it possible to have it appear only once? If
so, what should I change to make that happen.

Thunderbird newsgroup: mozilla.support.thunderbird
Mozilla NNTP server:Â*Â* news.mozilla.org, port 119

I doubt you can have a newsgroup omitted in one newsgroup when visiting
another newsgroup to which it was cross-posted.Â* After all, hiding would
depend on which newsgroup you visited first to then hide in the other
newsgroup(s) which you might or might not visit.Â* Also, just because
someone decides to cross-post to multiple newsgroups doesn't mean
everyone who replies must also post to the same group of newsgroups.
Users might decide to send their reply only to the newsgroups they know
or the ones they visit, not to someplace they don't know and don't go,
especially if cross-posting involves unrelated or garbage newsgroups.
You'd read an article with its replies in one newsgroup but hiding that
article in another newsgroup means not seeing the separate replies over
there.Â* No one has to cross-post their replies to the same newsgroups
the prior user decided to cross-post to.

At best, and if Thunderbird supports it, an article that you read in one
newsgroup could be marked as read when you visit another newsgroup to
which the article was cross-posted.


Yes, I worded my question poorly. That's what I wanted.

Thank you and thanks to all others who responded. It looks like I can't
do what I want, but I'll try the Thunderbird newsgroup. I have a vague
memory of having tried to get the,re but my newsserver couldn't get
there. I'll try again.



OK, I just subscribed to it. My memory of a problem was wrong.


I don't think you'll have much luck.



I don't think so either. So far I've had no replies.


This issue is a reason many people
don't use Thunderbird



It's not the biggest of issues to me, but it is an issue. There are
still things about Thunderbird that I like better than Agent.



and development on the project has crawled to a
halt. To my mind it is the best free nntp



Best free usenet client? Definitely. Best usenet client? I'm not so sure.



and email desktop client.




I haven't tried it for e-mail, primarily because I use Outlook, and am
mostly happy with it.


However, nntp is niche




Alas, yes. It's disappearing,


and email is all webmail these days



That's incredible to me, but yes, it's largely true. It's hard for me
understand why anyone would prefer webmail to even the poorest e-mail
client.




so there's
little demand.

Correction:
I had noticed that development had moved, but I didn't realise that I
had to download the new version rather than allow it to update. My
version is quite old (60.9.0) and the current version is 68.2.1




I didn't have to download it. It prompted me to do it.


--
Ken
  #27  
Old November 4th 19, 05:36 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Char Jackson
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Posts: 10,449
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On Mon, 04 Nov 2019 09:42:09 -0400, nospam wrote:

In article , Neil
wrote:

I'm not sure how common it is for users to access newsgroups from
multiple servers.


it's extremely common for binary downloads, which is the overwhelming
majority of usenet these days.


Agreed, but even the text-only folks have been migrating to the free NSPs
such as Eternal-September and AEIOU (sp?), and from what I hear, the free
providers are flaky enough that people are configuring both so they'll have
a fallback when the primary goes down.

  #28  
Old November 4th 19, 06:48 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Char Jackson
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Posts: 10,449
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On 4 Nov 2019 14:22:20 GMT, Frank Slootweg wrote:

[big snips ahead, because it's mostly stuff that I agree with and some
other stuff that I'm not addressing in this post]

Apparently TB currently uses the newsrc file only for recording the
subscribed groups, *not* for recording the article numbers of the read
articles in those groups.

See Tools - Account Settings - your News account - 'Server
Settings' - Message Storage - newsrc file: - Browse...

You will see one or more server.rc files with entries like:

alt.comp.os.windows-10:

which means you're subscribed to that group.

A *normal* (non-TB) .newsrc file would have:

alt.comp.os.windows-10: 1-37201,37225,37231,37233-37235

which means I've read all articles with the indicated ranges and
numbers.

I.e. I've *not* (yet) read articles 37202-37224, 37226-37230 and
37232.

Why TB can't be bothered to do this properly is anyone's guess.


Hmmm, that's very interesting. Are you sure that your .newsrc file is
indicating which articles you've read?

My experience is limited to Agent, which has always touted itself as being
fully compliant with standards, (and why wouldn't they), but with Agent the
..newsrc file only tells me a few things.

1. Contains a list of all available newsgroups available at this server,
one newsgroup per line, ending with a blank line to indicate EOF. My
current server, Newshosting, carried 110,673 groups as of my last refresh,
so my .newsrc file for this server is 110,674 lines long.

2. Shows me which groups are currently subscribed (: versus !)
Subscribed groups are moved to the top of the list.

3. For any group for which I've ever retrieved headers, (whether currently
subscribed or previously subscribed), it tells me the server-specific
article numbers that have been retrieved, shortening the list to a range
(x-y) when possible, otherwise using a comma separated list.

That's all, nothing else. No Message IDs, no read/unread status. No
additional fields of any kind.

Does your .newsrc tell you more than that? If so, the whole notion of
sharing a common .newsrc file across multiple newsreaders is in jeopardy.
Not that I share a common .newsrc, but I always assumed that I could.
That's essentially why it was created, after all.

One .newsrc file for all the groups subscribed on a particular
News server.


For all of the groups that are available at that server, not just the
groups that are subscribed.

A .newsrc file only records *ranges* of article numbers, with the
occasional not-yet-read article numbers.


I would change "not-yet-read" to "not-yet-retrieved".

There is no requirement that news servers create and assign article numbers
in sequential order. They usually and normally do, but Easynews (for
example) used to be notorious for creating articles out of order. Agent,
and I presume other newsreaders, has the capability to deal with that
through a configuration setting.

In Agent, for each configured server, you get an opportunity to declare
that this "Server creates messages out of order." By checking the box,
you're telling Agent not to assume that the highest article number means
that everything before that has been retrieved.

There's also an edge case that a certain Dutch dump group presented quite a
few years back. That group got so much traffic that news servers were
forced to roll over the article numbers, starting again at the beginning.
Newsreaders were generally unprepared for that and marked everything as
retrieved, thus making tons of posts 'disappear'. The Easynews support
group was awash with support requests when that happened. Folks who had
configured their newsreaders to expect article numbers to be retrieved out
of order didn't suffer when the article numbers rolled over. Everyone else
did. (Full recovery was always possible, of course.)

A typical entry/line is well less than 80 characters. *Some* entries/
lines might be a few hundred characters long, during the time you have
not yet completely 'catched up' with the group.

For example, my .newsrc file is 2574 bytes, 94 lines, i.e. a little
over *27* characters per entry (including LF).


As a second data point to reinforce your position, my Newshosting .newsrc
file is currently 3,008,221 bytes, 110,674 lines (one line per group plus a
trailing blank line to show end-of-file). The longest line is 14,211
columns, but the second longest is just 85 columns and every line after
that is less than 45 columns. All in all, this would be extremely easy to
parse, if desired.

Believe me, the structure, 'size', 'slowness', etc. of a .newsrc file
is a complete non-issue. It wasn't an issue on 640KB machines and it
surely isn't now.


I totally agree.

If a newsreader can handle getting articles from multiple News
servers, then there's a .newsrc file per server. Handling multiple
servers is of course more complex, but several newsreaders handle this
functionality in a seamless way. (AFAICT, TB can handle multiple News
servers, but without any integration, i.e. if you're subscribed to the
same newsgroup on multiple servers, you'll see each article multiple
times.)


That's why Agent uses a separate database for its Crosspost Management
function. The .newsrc file(s) aren't suitable substitutes since they:
1. Don't show read status.
2. Don't include Message IDs.
3. Only show server-specific article numbers.

The newsreader would have no way of knowing that article X on server A is
the same as article Y on server B if all it had to go on is the article
number. So .newsrc file(s) are useless for crosspost management.

FWIW, I use a local,'small', 'personal', News server (Hamster) to -
amongst others - get the same - multi-server - functionality. Hamster
sits between my newsreader (tin) and my NSP (News SP),
News.Individual.[DE|.NET]. To my NSP, Hamster looks like a newsreader.
To my newsreader, Hamster looks like a News server.


That's good to hear. I used to hear a lot of Hamster stories in the early
2000's, but not so much anymore. Same with Stunnel stories. I used Stunnel
for a period of time, but never Hamster. I'm familiar with it, though.

  #29  
Old November 4th 19, 07:09 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Char Jackson
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Posts: 10,449
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On Sat, 2 Nov 2019 18:11:51 -0700, Ken Blake wrote:

Sorry about the off-topic question, but I don't know where else to ask this.

I'm been trying Thunderbird 68.2.1 as my newsreader, rather than Agent,
which I used to use. I like some things about Thunderbird better than
Agent and some less, so I haven't yet decided which to stick with.


What kinds of issues are you having with Agent? I was going to suggest
posting in alt.usenet.offline-reader.forte-agent but I see that you're
already active over there.


  #30  
Old November 4th 19, 07:12 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10
Char Jackson
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Posts: 10,449
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On Sun, 3 Nov 2019 07:54:50 -0700, Ken Blake wrote:

On 11/3/2019 7:42 AM, Ken Blake wrote:
On 11/2/2019 7:05 PM, VanguardLH wrote:
Ken Blake wrote:

Sorry about the off-topic question, but I don't know where else to ask this.

I'm been trying Thunderbird 68.2.1 as my newsreader, rather than Agent,
which I used to use. I like some things about Thunderbird better than
Agent and some less, so I haven't yet decided which to stick with. But I
have a Thunderbird question:

A cross-posted message is showing up in each folder I open that it's
been cross-posted to. Is it possible to have it appear only once? If so,
what should I change to make that happen.

Thunderbird newsgroup: mozilla.support.thunderbird
Mozilla NNTP server: news.mozilla.org, port 119

OK, I just subscribed to it. My memory of a problem was wrong.


I'm curious, did you subscribe to it on news.individual.net or on
news.mozilla.org? Are the two groups mirrored?

 




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