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Contents 1 Advanced Topics 1.1 Using Multiple Servers 1.1.1 Adding an Additional Server 1.1.2 Alternate Ports 1.1.3 Slave Server 1.1.4 Fill Server 1.1.5 SSL Support 1.2 Opening a different Configuration File 1.3 File Storage Locations 1.3.1 Downloading from Headers 1.3.2 Downloading from NZB Files 1.4 File Naming Options 1.5 Incomplete Post Handling 1.6 Filters 1.6.1 Creating Filters 1.6.2 Associating Filters with Groups 1.7 Searching 1.8 Backing up Newsbin 1.9 Copying Newsbin to another computer 1.10 Changing the Newsbin Data Folder location 1.11 Hidden Settings 1.11.1 Auto Assembly Timeout 1.11.2 Image Database 1.11.3 Launching Notepad for Read Post Body 1.11.4 Free Space Limits 1.11.5 NZB Path Cleaning prefix 1.11.6 Suppressing Header Auto-Purge 1.11.7 Time limits on Pause and Bandwidth Limiter buttons 1.11.8 TCP/IP Timeouts 1.11.9 Max Post Age Override 1.11.10 Logging Status Tab messages to disk

Advanced Topics

Information beyond the default configuration to customize how NewsBin works for you.

Using Multiple Servers

If you have multiple servers available, then Newsbin will make it easy to use them all in parallel.

Adding an Additional Server

1. From the Servers tab, right-click and select "Add Server".
2. Enter the Display Name. Use a descriptive name for this server. This is what will be displayed in the Servers and Connections tab after the server is added.
3. Enter the Server Address. This is the news server address specified by your news service provider or your ISP if they provide a news server. It usually looks something like "news.yourisp.com". If you get this wrong, you will get connection errors and a message in the Status tab to the effect of "address not found".
4. The port defaults to 119, which is standard for NNTP. You normally don't need to change this unless you plan to run on an Alternate Port or through a Tunnel.
5. If your news server requires a login (every pay service does, most ISP's do not) then check "Requires Login".
6. Enter your Username and Password if your news server requires it.
7. Click the Advanced Tab and set the "Max Server Connections" to the number of simultanteous connections you want NewsBin to use. Most services have a limit, the average is 4. You should only use as many connections as needed to get your highest line speed. Using more than you need unnecessarily wastes your news server resources and could actually result in slower download speeds due to the extra resources on your computer needed to maintain all the connections.

Other options in the Advanced tab are explained later. When you complete your server settings, hit the OK button then look in the Connections tab to make sure the server successfully connects. If it doesn't, look in the Status tab to see what errors are occuring.

Alternate Ports

Many ISP's are now limiting your speed for Usenet access. They do this by putting a limit on internet traffic using port 119, which is standard for Usenet. Many news servers, including Astraweb provides Usenet access on alternate ports that are set aside for different protocols like telnet, mail, web, or proxies.

Before changing your port number, first check with your news service provider to determine which alternate ports they support. Astraweb supports ports 23 and 8080 in addition to the standard port 119 for example. If you use Astraweb and don't use SSL we recommend using port 8080 instead of port 119. This will protect the downloaded data from "Real-Time Email Scans" that some virus scanners perform. We've seen that some of these scanners damage the downloaded data.

Changing your port number:

1. Right-click on the server in the Servers tab.
2. Enter the port number in the "Port:" field.
3. Hit OK
4. Exit NewsBin
5. Start NewsBin

Check your Connections tab to make sure the server reconnects. If there are problems, check your Status tab for clues as to what is wrong. You may have to configure your firewall to allow access on this port depending on the type of firewall you have.

Slave Server

NewsBin allows you to configure a server to not download headers but still be available to download posts either using headers from other servers or, with NZB files. Turning on "Slave Server" in the Advanced section of the Server Properties puts the server into that mode.

Uses for Slave Servers:

1. Reduce storage requirements on disk for headers.
2. Reduce memory usage when a post list is loaded.
3. Servers that count header downloads towards your total download limit.

Fill Server

Setting a server as a "Fill Server" under the Advanced properties of the server tells NewsBin to only use this server if no other servers has a specific post (chunk). NewsBin will try every other non-fill server in your server list and, when all else fails, will use a Fill server. This is most effective if you choose a high quality, long retention server to serve as backup if your primary server (like the one from your ISP) is missing some critical posts.

Uses for Fill Servers are:

1. Maximize use of free servers and use pay servers only if needed.
2. Limit use of servers with a download limits.

If you want the best in Service and retention to use as a Fill server then we recommend Astraweb as a high quality service to work in addition with your ISP's news service. If you want a basic fill server to act as a backup to a free or ISP news server, then Astraweb is a good candidate as it offers block accounts that do not expire.

SSL Support

If your News Service supports SSL connections (Secure Socket Layer), enable SSL for the server entry using these steps:

1. Right-click on the server entry in the Servers tab.
2. Select Properties
3. Select the "Advanced" tab
4. Click the checkbox next to "Use SSL"
5. Set the Port to 563.
6. Click OK
7. Close and restart NewsBin

Once SSL is enabled, every connection to this server will be encrypted with the same technology used to provide security for websites. SSL for Usenet is also referred to as NNTPS.

Only NewsBin 5.1 and above support this option.

To verify SSL is turned on, you will see a "Lock" icon next to the server entry in the Servers tab and in the Connections tab (Version 5.32 and above only). In the Status messages, if you have the logging level (in the advanced options) set to "Debug and if you have "Show Server Commands" enabled under Options/Network, you will see a message like this:

11/27/2006 14:10:38 MODULE=InterSocket, MSG=SSL Connection Server: ssl.astraweb.com Stats AES256-SHA 256 Bits Version: TLSv1/SSLv3

If you enable SSL for your server, newsbin will ONLY connect using SSL. This means that even if you don't see this message or notice the lock, with SSL enabled, an SSL connection will be required for download.

We recommend Astraweb for their SSL support, extremely long retention, and up to 50 simultaneous connections.

Note that Giganews offers a product that its users can use called the "Giganews Accelerator". Newsbin versions newer than 5.55 have the Accelerator built in so, you no longer need to use the Giganews accelerator. If you've been using the Accelerator, set the Address to "news.giganews.com" and restart Newsbin to use the built in accelerator. The built in Accelerator works with many other major news servers too.

Opening a different Configuration File

Version 5 does not allow you to open a different configuration file once NewsBin is running. We have implemented many features that should remove the need most people had to maintain different configuration files. If you have a situation that still requires different configurations, there are two ways to open NewsBin with a specific configuration file:

1. Launch NewsBin from the NBI File: Close NewsBin, use Windows Explorer to navigate to the NBI file you want to use, then double-click on it to launch. If you have Nero installed, the .nbi file may be associated with Nero BackItUp. If this is the case, you need to either right-click and select "Open With..." to launch with NewsBin or, manually change your windows association for .NBI files.
2. Pass the NBI filename as a parameter: Create a shortcut to NewsBin then go under the shortcut Properties and type the full path to your NBI file in the "Target" field. For example

"C:\Program Files\NewsBin\nbpro.exe" "C:\Documents and Settings\Dexter\Application Data\Newsbin\NBConfig.nbi"

File Storage Locations

NOTE Version 6.40+ has new download path settings. They are documented here: Configuring Download Paths (6.40+)

Files downloaded by NewsBin are stored in various folders depending on how the files are downloaded and how your options are configured. Downloading from headers or by NZB files follow different storage options. There are also special options fo handling MP3 music files.

Downloading from Headers

If you are trying to download a file that has been selected from headers that you have downloaded then the following options are available for specifying where they will be placed.

• Download Path
  Set the root path where all files are stored. This can be set at both the global level (under Options->Setup), and also at the individual group level (under Group properties). Group level over-rides the global level if both are set.
• Folder Mode
  When turned on, save files in a folder named after the newsgroup. When off, all files are stored in the Download Path. Note that if you also want this behaviour to apply to files selected via NZB files then you have to also set the NZB related option as described later.
• MP3 Folder Mode
  Uses ID3V2 tags in the MP3 file (if they exist) to create a folder named after the title given (i.e. album). How useful this will be will be determined on how good the posters in the groups you frequent are at populating the tags with sensible information.
• Download to Folder
  You can bypass all download path and folder mode settings by right-clicking on the post and selecting "Download to Folder" then specifying a folder for the post or posts to be stored in.

Downloading from NZB Files

If you have selected the file to download from a NZB file, then slightly different options are available. They are set under Options->NZB Files

• Download Path
  The global download under Options->Setup is used as the root download folder for NZB files.
• Apply Global Folder Modes
  NZB Files can obey the Global Folder Mode used for regular files (i.e. store in folder named after newsgroup)
• NZB Folder Mode
  Use this option to store all files represented by the NZB file in a folder named after the NZB file. This folder will be relative to the Download Path. If you are using NZB Folder Mode, then you can also ask Newsbin to remove any standard lead-in characters such as the "msgid" string used at some site sourced NZB files by setting the Clean NZB Path' option.

File Naming Options

• MP3 File Naming
  MP3 files can be named with the subject prepended to the filename.
• Duplicate Filenames
  option to automatically rename a file if a file of the same name already exists.
• Short Filenames
  Specify your definition of a "short" filename, like 2-3 characters, and have NewsBin add the post subject to the filename to make it more descriptive.

Incomplete Post Handling

You can queue incomplete posts the same as a normal post. NewsBin will only download the parts that it knows exists on the server(s). If an incomplete post is in the download queue but not downloading yet, any new headers that arrive on the server will be taken into account when it moves to the top of the queue for processing.

If a file is posted with PAR2 files, using this option will require fewer PAR2 files to fill in the file than if you did not assemble the incomplete post.

There are special options for processing Incomplete files.

The first set are on the right-click menu in the Download list:

• Assemble Incompletes
  Available on the right-click menu when all available parts have been downloaded and the file is sitting at the top of the download queue with the Pause icon set. Select this option to assemble the parts that have been downloaded and store the resulting file in the assigned download path. The post will remain in the download list until you remove it manually. This way you have the option to wait for more parts to show up on the server.
• Assemble Incompletes and Remove
  Same as Assemble Incomplete but the post will then be removed from the download list.

You can also set some automated behavior for the handling of Incomplete files under Options->Advanced:

• Assemble Incompletes
  Automatically performs the Assemble Incompletes and Remove function when all available parts are downloaded. Note that this option is not triggered in the case where a file is incomplete because there were errors trying to download some of the parts.
• Pad Missing Parts
  When an incomplete file is assembled, using this option leaves gaps in the file where the missing part would fill in. This setting is only useful if you might be obtaining missing parts from another source.

Filters

Many newsgroups contain very large numbers of posts. The Newsbin Filter system is used to help you find posts in such newsgroups.

Dynamic and Display filters are those that are applied at the top of Post lists after you have done a Show Posts or Show All Posts to load up headers in a Post list. You will find yourself using this type of filter all the time.

The different type of filter conditions are handled in an additive mode. This means that if you set multiple conditions then only those posts that match all the specified conditions are displayed.

The Display filters available are:

• Find
  This allows you to filter post according to keywords in the Subject line. In the simplest case you simply type in the keywords of interest press Enter (or click find). For those who want to type more complex find expressions newsbin will actuall accept expressions that conform to standard Regular Expression syntax.
• Show filenames
  This is a simple toggle between Newsbin displaying the full subject line or trying to isolate the filename part from the subject line and displaying just that information. Note that when trying to display the filenames Newsbin has to make some guesses as to which part of the subject is the filename, and this tends to only be reliable with yEnc encoded posts where a standard is stipulated as to how the filename should be represented in Subject lines. Note also that it is always possible that when a file is actually downloaded it turns out to have a different name encoded in the file to that suggested by the subject, although this is relatively rare.
• Compact View
  Newsbin has always consolidated all the posts that make up a single file into one line in a Post list. The Compact view option attempts to take this a stage further by consolidating all the files that make up a file set into a single line in the Post list. How successfuly newsbin is in doing this depends on how consistently the Subject lines for the fileset are structured.
• Hide Old
  This is the key setting to use if you are primarily interested in seeing only those posts that are new. To take advantage you need to adopt a policy of clearing the "new" status when you have processed a post. This can be done manually using the Mark Read or Mark All Read options, or you can tell Newsbin to autoamtically mark all posts in a Post list as read when you close it by setting the Automark Old option under->Options->Switches.

The Dynamic filters available are:

• Filter profile
  This option allows you to pick up a previosuly prepared set of filter criteria that have been prepared as described below.
• Age
  This allows you to limit the posts displayed to the specified age. Note that this etting does not stop those posts being loaded in the first place - that can be controlled using the Max post Age setting at either the global or group level.
• Xpost
  The cross post filter allows you to limit posts that have been posted to the specified number of groups (or less). A typical use of this setting is to try and remove Spam post as they tend to be cross-posted to lots of groups.
• Max Size
  This allows you to put an upper limit on the size of the post you are interested in seeing. This option is not that often used if you ahve a high-speed internet connection, but could well be relevant if your connection is low speed so you cannot afford to try and download really large items.
• Min Size
  This allows you to set the minumum size post that you are interested in seeing. This would normally be used to filter out text posts as they tend to be much smaller than binary posts. When using this option it would be quite normal to have set the Show PAR/NFO option under Options->Switches to allow these types of file through regardless of their size.

Stored filters are ones that have been previously prepared and saved. Uses of such filters might be:

• Restricting the amount of material that you see in a group.
• Acting as a Watch Filter to help you find items that you are hoping will arrive in the future. Note that when used in this mode Newsbin will not discriminate between multiple postings of the same type if they all match the filter criteria.
• Searching the stored headers to see if anything matching the filter can be found. This is a form of the Watch Filter type of use mentioned above.
• Used in conjunction with the 'Automatic Download option for downloading files without manual intervention.

Creating Filters

You can create new filters or edit existing filters. It is good practise not to edit the default "Global Filter" to any significant amount. The 'global' filter with standard settings can be used in effect as "no filters applied". As the global filter is by default applied to every group you will find it much easier to create custom filters for special cases.

To create anew filter use the "New" button. This will then ask you which filter should be used as a model, and the name of the new filter. Once a filter has been created then highlighting it from the list at the left will display its details and allow them to be edited. If you want to delete a filter then highlight it in the list at the left and press the DEL key.

• Minimum/Maximum File Size
  This has exactly the same meaning as in the dynamic filters described above.

• Crosspost Filter
  This has exactly the same meaning as in the dynamic filters described above.

• Age Filter
  This has exactly the same meaning as in the dynamic filters described above.

• Subject/Filename Filters
  You will see that there are tabs for two different types of filters. The Subject filters applies to headers that are downloaded and can be used to filter according to the text in the Subject field of headers. This means that it can be applied before any files are downloaded to help you identify which files should be added to the download list. The filename filters on the other-hand apply at the download stage. They are applied to the name of the file that is to be downloaded (which may be completely different to the subject field) so to apply the Filename filters Newsbin needs to download at least the first chunk in the file.

• Accept/Reject Filters
  There are two types of action you can take in Subject and Reject filters. If you set the Accept options then you are saying that you only want files that match one of the accept criteria. If you set the Reject options then you are saying that you do not want any files that match this criteria. If there is any conflict between Accept and Reject settings then the Reject setting over-rides the Accept setting.
  To add a new entry to one of these filters type the text for the filter into the input box and then press the Add button. To remove an entry highlight it and press the DEL key. You cannot edit an entry - instead you have to remove the entry and then re-add it in its corrected form.
  The strings that are entered into the text fields for the Accept and Reject filters use Regular Expression syntax. For those who do not want to worry about the Regular Expression syntax then just type the keywords you are interested in finding into the input box. If you enter multiple criteria on different lines then there is an implicit OR between them so that matching any of the criteria will result in a match.

You can test a filter that you have prepared by using "Show All Posts" on a group that you want to use with the filter; making sure that Enable Filters is ticked at the top of the post list, and then selecting the filter of interest from the Filter Profile drop down.

Associating Filters with Groups

The first thing you have to decide is whether you want a filter to be associated permanently with a group or not.

If you do not want the filter to be permanently associated with a group, then you can simply select it from the drop down list at the top of a Post list. This filter will then be applied to the headers that are currently loaded into that Post list. As soon as you close the Post list Newsbin will revert to using whatever profile is set as the groups Filter Profile.

If you want a filter to be permanently associated with a group then carry out the following steps:

1. Right Click the group of interest and select Properties.
2. Make sure the Use Profile checkbox is ticked
3. Slect the profile you want to use from the drop-down list.

Searching

More stuff here.

Backing up Newsbin

A question that users regularly ask if what Newsbin related files should be backed up in case a disk crashes, or perhaps if you want to move Newsbin to another machine keeping your settings intact.

To do this you want to make sure that the following are backed up:

• A copy of the Newsbin software so that you can re-install it if necessary.
• A copy of your Newsbin registration information. This is stored in the Windows registry which is not that easily backed up, so in a recovery situation you will need to re-enter it.
• You Newsbin configuration file (the one with the .NBI file extension). This stores most of your configuration information such as server details, subscribed groups etc. In a recovery situation you can double-click this file to launch Newsbin with the configuration information contained in the file.

  The location of this file is under user control, but many users like to store it in the folder that is the DATA path to keep all Newsbin's working files together. The Default location for this file is 'C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\newsbin'.

• Your Newsbin Layout file that stores the window and tab settings (for Newsbin 5.34 or later). This file is found at 'C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\newsbin\GuiItems.db3'. You cannot change the location of this file.
• The files at the location specified as the DATA path under Options->Setup. If you have not changed the DATA path from its default value then it will be 'C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\newsbin'. You definitely want files that are at this level, but do not necessarily want files that are in the sub-folders of this location. Files that are of particular interest (they may not all always be present) are:
  • autosave.nzz which contains the current download list (Newsbin 5.35 and earlier)
  • failedfiles.nzz which contains the Failed files list entries (Newsbin 5.35 and earlier)
  • scratch.nzz which contains the Scratch list entries (Newsbin 5.35 and earlier)
  • *.bak which are backup files for the corresponding .nzz files created during the save process (Newsbin 5.35 and earlier)
  • filters.xml which contains your current filters (Newsbin 5.35 and earlier)
  • filters.db3 which contains your current filters (Newsbin 5.40 and later)
  • downloads.db3 which contains the download list, failed files list and files list (Newsbin 5.40 and later)
  • autopar.db3 which contains details of files from the AutoRAR tab (Newsbin 5.40 and later)
  • groups.db3 which contains your groups list.
  • rpb.db3 which contains any posts read using "Read Post"
  • signature.db3 which contains the current signature cache values for previously downloaded files. This is used as part of the duplicate detection mechanism.
  • search.db3 which contains search related information. Not normally any need to back this up but it is very small.

• You may optionally want to consider backing up the SPOOL sub-folder under the DATA path location. This would back up all your downloaded headers, and status information relating to these headers. Alternatively you may well decide that if necessary you will simply redownload headers and therefore not bother with backing them up.

• The Images sub-folder is used to store the Image database entries if you make use of this facility.

• The CHUNKS sub-folder holds chunks related to any partially downloaded files, or files that failed to download completely for some reason and have not reached the auto-purged age. It is unlikely that you would want to back up this folder although in practice it is normally quite small. If a file completes without error then these chunks get removed when the file assembles. If the file had errors then the chunks are retained for a period determined by the "Purge Chunks Older than" setting under Options->Advanced (these chunks are retained for a period so that if you can correct the error the file can be downloaded later without redownloading any chunks).

Advanced users

There is a small amount of display related information stored in the Windows registry under the key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\DJI Interprises. None of this information is critical to Newsbin running, and backing up/restoring registry entries is deemed an advanced topic that the average user would not want to get involved in attempting to carry out, so it is not covered in any detail here. Advanced users might wish to examine this information and decide if they want to try and include any of it in their Newsbin backup.

Copying Newsbin to another computer

Newsbin stores a minimal amount of information in the registry, so it is relatively easy to copy Newsbin to another system keeping the settings and information intact. The steps involved are:

• Install Newsbin: The Newsbin software needs to be installed and registered on the target machine. Note that the terms of the standard Newsbin license allows you to install the software on up to 3 computers (typically something like a home machine, a work machine and a laptop). If you intend to run a beta release you will need to first install the last production release, and then upgrade to the beta release.
• Copy the Configuration file: The Newsbin configuration file keeps all your important settings such as the groups you are subscribed to; the servers you use; and all the settings that are set via the Newsbin Options dialogs. This file will have a .NBI file extension and the name is displayed in the Newsbin title bar. The location and name of this file is controlled by the user, so you need to find where you have put this file. Some users like to put this in the same location as the DATA path but this is not a requirement.
• Start Newsbin: The first time you launch Newsbin you want to tell it to use the configuration file you copied rather than try and create a new one. The way to achieve this is to launch Newsbin by double-clicking the .NBI configuration file that you copied earlier. This is only required the first time you launch Newsbin - on subsequent launches Newsbin will remember the last configuration file you used and default to that one if you do not provide a specific configuration file at Newsbin launch.
• Set folders: The chances are that you will want your Newsbin files in a different location to that on the original system. Go into Options and change the DATA and DOWNLOAD folders to point to the locations you want for the new installation.
• Save and Exit: Hit the save button to ensure any changes you made to the configuration file are saved, and then exit from newsbin.
• Copy the data folder over: The folder set as the DATA location under Options->Setup in Newsbin is the place where all the Newsbin working files are kept. Copying this across from the old installation to the new installation keeps all this information intact. This will include the files described under the section above on backing up Newsbin. Whether you also copy the sub-folders depends on why you are making the copy of Newsbin.
• Copy the layout file over (Newbin 5.34 and later): The Newsbin window and tab settings are stored in the file Guiitems.db3, and these needs to be copied to the location 'C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\newsbin' on the new computer if you want to use the same settings as on the previous one.
• Restart Newsbin: You should now be running using your new Newsbin installation with all files and settings as required.

One thing that is not copied is the column widths in the various tabs. These are stored in the registry so copying the settings across (although technically possible) is normally not worth the effort - it is easier to reset them as required on the target machine.

CAUTION: The path specified in a download list is not changed by changing the DOWNLOAD folder as described above - the change is only used for queuing new items. To change existing entries you need to explicitly right click entries in the download list and select the Download to Folder option to mke the change.

Tip There is a program called nzz2nzb produced by a Newsbin user that has an option to patch the paths in a autosave.nzz or scratch.nzz file to a different drive and/or folder. This can be a useful facility if moving Newsbin between machines

Changing the Newsbin Data Folder location

There are times when users want to move the Newsbin DATA folder to another location on the same computer. This could be for a number of reasons the commonest of which are:

• You are running out of space on the drive that currently holds the DATA folder, so would like it to be at a different location.
• You have just upgraded from XP to Vista,. If you were using the default location for the Newsbin DATA folder area on XP (under the Documents and Settings) area, then you will find that this area has silently been set as Read-Only during the upgrade. Newsbin will therefore start to misbehave until you move the DATA folder to somewhere where write access is allowed.

Proceed just as you would for moving Newsbin to another computer, but you can omit the first step about installing the Newsbin software.

Hidden Settings

Some functions that have either been needed for troubleshooting, or have been requested by users have been implemented through configuration file settings. This was done for functions we decided would not be widely used or, were confusing for new users so we did not include them in the user interface.

Auto Assembly Timeout

Newsbin will not normally auto-assemble incomplete items that have very recently been posted to Usenet. This is in case these items are still being uploaded and will shortly complete. You can specify the time that Newsbin is to wait (based on the Posting date/time) before Auto-Assembly will happen. For example, you might have an NZB for a file set. The NZB is complete. You try to download it from your server but, it's not on your server yet. By not auto-assembling immediately, as the files complete on your server, they can be downloaded successfully. If they were assembled immediately, the file set would never complete.

To set the time that Newsbin uses for this, add

AutoAssembleTimer=n

to the [SETTINGS] section of your Newsbin (.NBI) configuration file where n is the delay in hours.

The default value that is used if this entry is absent is equivalent to

AutoAssembleTimer=48

which gives a delay of 2 days.

Image Database

When Image Database is enabled, images are written to both the database and to disk. This setting will delete the file after it's written to the image database.

[IMAGESAFE]
SaveImages=0 

NOTE: If you DON'T have "ImageSafe" mode turned on, that means you LOSE the downloads.

Launching Notepad for Read Post Body

There is an option to suppress launching whatever text editor you have associated with .txt file when you perform a Read Post Body (ctrl-r). Any RPB's automatically show up in the Read Posts tab and by default, your text editor will launch to display the text as well.

To turn off launching the external program, add

DisplayReadPosts=0

to the [SETTINGS] section of your Newsbin (.NBI) configuration file.

Free Space Limits

Newsbin monitors the free space on the drives set as the DATA and DOWNLOAD paths under Options->Setup. When these get below a predetermined value then Newsbin will put up a dialog indicating that it has run out of space. Many users have indicated that they would like to be able to set a much larger trigger value than that built into Newsbin. This can be done by creating an entry of the form

MinFreeSpace=xxxx

where xxxx represents a size in Mbytes to the [Filename] section of your newsbin (.NBI) configuration file. As an example a value of 1024 for xxx would set a limit of 1Gb.

NZB Path Cleaning prefix

Newsbin gives you the option to create folder names for files downloaded via NZB files where the folder name is based on the NZB Filename. In many cases the NZB filename has a standardised prefix that it is desireable to remove, and you specifiy this by setting the clean NZB path option under options->NZB Files. Newsbin will by default be set up to handle the prefix for a NZB site, but you may want to change the prefix to be removed if you a different source of NZB files.

The prefix is identified using a Regular Expression. The expression to be used can be set by creating an entry of the form:

NZB_PathCleanRE=expression

to the [NZB] section of your newsbin (.NBI) configuration file.

As an example the value that is used for a NZB site is:

NZB_PathCleanRE="^(msgid_[0-9]*_)|([0-9]?_)"

Suppressing Header Auto-Purge

new in Newsbin 5.34

Newsbin is set up to automatically purge old headers as part of the header download process when the server says that that they are no longer available. This is precisely the behavior that is normally wanted as it means housekeeping of headers is completely automatic and kept in line with your servers. However there have been cases reported (primarily from users using Newshosting as their news server) where the servers seem to have a blip and incorrectly report the number of headers they have available in a group.

Typically this happens when the news supplier runs a server "farm" of identical servers to handle the load, and one of them gets out of sync with the others and reports a diffent range of headers to be available. This can result in Newsbin believing that many of the headers have been purged from the server so it purges the local copies as well. As a result the majority of headers for a group(s) appearing to suddenly disappear and as the user typically has no control over which server in a server farm is used at any particular time this happens in an unpredicatble manner.

Strictly speaking this is a problem at the server end and if the server end is fixed the problem goes away. However to cater for servers which seem to be unable to rectify the problem, Newsbin now provides a facility to suppress the auto-purging of headers by creating an entry of the form:

AutoPurgeHeaders=0

to the [SETTINGS] section of your newsbin (.NBI) configuration file. If you set this you will need to manually purge headers using the "Purge to Global MPA" facility, or alternatively wait until they reach 120 days at which point Newsbin will purge them anyway. Note that if you set this facility you are quite likely to find yourself trying to download files that are no longer on the server as there is no way to tell they have been purged until you try to download.

Do not use this facility unless you really need it.

Check the Date and Time on your PC - if it is wrong it can also cause unexpected purging of headers.

Time limits on Pause and Bandwidth Limiter buttons

new in Newsbin 5.34

A number of people have mentioned that they find they click on the Pause or Bandwidth Limit buttons and forget that they have done so. What has been requested is a way of putting a timeout on these buttons being depressed for such scenarios.

To enable this facility for the Pause button, the following entries:

UsePauseAutoOff=0/1
PauseAutoOff=nn

in the [SETTINGS] section of the .NBI configuration file. The UsePauseAutoOff value is 0 if this option is disabled, and 1 if it is enabled. The PauseAutoOff is the time (in minutes) after which the Pause button should be automatically disabled.

In a similar way the entries:

UseBwAutoOff=0/1
BwAutoOff=nn

can be used to set the Bandwidth Limiter to be automatically disabled after a predetermined time.

TCP/IP Timeouts

new in Newsbin 5.34

TCP/IP connections have a timeout value for the case where no response is received from the remote end (the news server in this case). In most cases the default values built into newsbin will be fine, but users with specific requirements may wish to set their own values.

This can be done by creating registry values with the names:

RecieveTimeout  <-- yes, it is spelled wrong.
TransmitTimeout

to the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\DJI Interprises\Newsbin50\Settings key. The key should be created as a REG_DWORD and make sure you have it set to Decimal if you are entering decimal numbers. The numbers represent number of seconds. Note that a check is done that the values are not less than 20 seconds as lower values can cause even good connections to start behaving badly.

The default values built into Newsbin are equivalent to the following values:

RecieveTimeout = 300
TransmitTimeout = 60

and these are probably good values for general use.

Max Post Age Override

Through version 5.35, the Max Post Age (MPA) has a hard limit of 120 days. As servers such as Astraweb increase their retention well above this, the limit has become a problem for some people. While you can always have NewsBin ignore the MPA by using a Show All Posts, you can force an MPA higher than 120 by editing your NewsBin configuration file (ends with a .nbi extention). Use a standard text editor like Windows Notepad to edit the file and change the "PurgeRecords" entry under [SETTINGS]. It is based on seconds so use the following table to set the number of days:

Days	Seconds
120	10368000
140	12096000
160	13824000
180	15552000
200	17280000

To set any arbitrary day, one day = 86400 so use #days * 86400 to determine the correct value.

For example, to set the MPA to 200, your NBI file should have something like this in it:

[SETTINGS]
PurgeRecords=17280000

By default, the NewsBin Configuration file is in c:\documents and settings\<user>\application data\newsbin unless you saved it somewhere else or you are running Vista.

Logging Status Tab messages to disk

Newsbin writes various types of information (in particular errors) to the Status tab.

In its default setting there is not that much information written to the Status tab, so it is easy enough to examine the messages visually from within Newsbin itself. However if you are getting more detailed information written to the Status tab, either because you are running a beta version with additional built-in diagnostic messages, or you have used the option to display Server commands, then you may prefer to get copies of these messages written to disk so that can be examined at more leisure.

This can be done buy creating following key

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\DJI Interprises\Newsbin50\Settings\LogFile 

in the registry as type String where "LogFile" is the name and path of the logfile you want it to write to. Now when you start Newsbin all messages that are written to the Status tab are also written to this file.

CAUTION: Newsbin will overwrite this file every time that it is started up, so if you want to preserve such log files you may want to write a batch file to launch Newsbin that first copies an existing loggile to another name.