unPoster – The Lister

Location in the unPoster: The Lister can be opened from the File menu.

The Lister’s job is to show you the list of files that the Watcher has found. When you click on a newsgroup on the Lister, it will show you the size of that group’s database file, which will give you an idea of how many files there are. If you then click the Files button, the total number of files will be shown. This total isn’t shown automatically because it can take a while to calculate on large groups.

The Lister will automatically reclaim space in the group database files, however if you clear a large number of files, you can save some disk space by using the Compact Database button.

You can selelct multiple files by using the standard list-selection methods.

The Clear Files button will remove the files you have selected. The Clear Group button will clear all the files in the newsgroup.

The Read button is so that you can view text posts and NFO files. This is important when downloading large files. Before you download a 4gb file, it is good to read the NFO and any comments made by other people. Posters often make mistakes and it is always annoying to spend so much time downloading a file only to find out that it is messed up.

If you have the viewer setting enabled, clicking on a JPG or GIF will automatically download and display the picture. Of course, you can also use the Download button to get these files.

Double-clicking a newsgroup will load all its files. Double-clicking a file, will create a Downloader for it.

You can select many files, and click the Download button to create a Downloader that will download them all. Or, you can click the Download button for each file to make many Downloaders. You can make as many Downloaders as you want, though there is a practical limitation based on how many connections your Usenet server(s) allow. Each Downloader opens a connection to its server, and of course, the Watcher also opens a connection. So, if your server allows five connections, you can run the Watcher and four Downloaders at the same time.