Mastering Newsgroups in Outlook Express: Power User Tips
Published: March 15, 2005
By Tom Koch
To those who know me, either online or off, it is no secret
that I love newsgroups. It is also no secret that I love Outlook Express, and
have been helping others use it for over eight years. During those years many
friends have tried to convince me that I should use a different news reader. I dutifully
tried all of them, both well-known and obscure. Yet tens of thousands of
messages later, I still use Outlook Express, all day and every day. I suppose,
in spite of my reservations about the term, that makes me an Outlook Express
power user.
In this article I will show you some of the ways I use Outlook
Express features to make working and playing in newsgroups faster, easier, and
more productive. In short, these are my personal tips for becoming a newsgroup power
user yourself.
Mouse or Keyboard?
Power users often like to argue which method is better:
clicking with the mouse or typing keyboard shortcuts. Since I use both
extensively, I won't argue either side. I will however specify both methods
when appropriate so that no power user is left behind.
Customize the Toolbar for Mouse Power
The default toolbar for newsgroups includes buttons only for
the most basic newsgroup functions, so power users will want to begin by adding
some buttons and making the icons smaller. Two very useful buttons to add are
those for the Folder list and Preview Pane. They give you the ability to switch from the
default three-pane view to viewing just the message list and preview pane, or
just the message list, and all with just one or two clicks. To add these to
your news toolbar,
1. | Open
any newsgroup folder so that the news toolbar is showing. |
2. | Click Layout on the View menu. |
3. | Click Customize Toolbar. You can also access
this just by double-clicking a blank spot on the toolbar, or by
right-clicking it and selecting Properties. |
4. | In the
left pane, drag the Folder List icon to the right pane, moving it up or
down to suit your taste. If you prefer, you can use the Add button, along
with the Move Up and Move Down buttons, rather than dragging. |
5. | Drag
the Preview icon to the right pane. You can see the result immediately on
the toolbar. |
6. | Add or
remove buttons as desired. |
7. | To
create more space for more buttons, select No text labels in the Text
Options box, and Small Icons
in the Icon Options box. |
8. | When finished, click Close. |
Customizing the toolbar is a fast and easy way to speed up newsgroup browsing
It is really a matter of choice whether you add other
buttons. I like to add just about every news button possible, arranged in
groups that make it easy for me to navigate a busy newsgroup.
To group buttons,
drag the Separator icon from the left pane to the right pane and drop it before
the first button in your group. The following table contains examples of groups you can make.
| Toggle the folder list or preview pane with a single click. |
| Buttons for navigation: Next Unread Folder, Next Unread Conversation, and Next Unread Message. |
| Buttons for reading messages: Mark Message Read, Mark Conversation Read, Mark All Read, and Mark Unread. |
| Buttons for server actions: Synchronize All, Refresh, Get Next Headers. |
| Buttons for special actions: Combine and Decode, Change Encoding, Mark for Download. |
Tip: Rearrange toolbar
buttons using drag-and-drop. If you want to re-arrange buttons on the
toolbar, you don't have to access the Customize Toolbar dialogue. You only have
to hold the SHIFT key and drag
buttons around the toolbar. To add a separator before a button, shift-drag the
button a few pixels to the right. To remove a separator before a button, shift-drag
the button a few pixels to the left.
Kill Files, Friends and Bozos
Most power newsgroup users use a kill file, that rather unfriendly yet most commonly-used term for a
list of blocked senders. Outlook Express makes it very easy to build your own
kill file just by clicking Block Sender
on the Message menu. But that only
blocks messages from the particular poster, not replies to those messages. To
accomplish this you need only to make a message rule that marks messages from
the poster as "Ignored," which assures that any replies will also be ignored.
But power users won't want to stop there. You can also use message rules to
highlight with color all messages from friends so that they stand out. Some
colors make messages stand out, but others make messages easy to skip. I use such
a rule for messages from bozos, another unfriendly yet common term for those
who post foolish or time-wasting messages. Most of the time I don't want to
read messages from anyone on my bozo list, but I
might want to if I see friends participating in the thread. My rule highlights
bozos' messages in silver, making them easy to skip but also easy to find if I
want.
To create your own friends or bozo rule:
1. | On the
Tools menu, point to Message Rules, and then click News. |
2. | Click
the New button to begin a new
rule. |
3. | Under
Select the Conditions for your view, select the Where the From line contains people check
box. |
4. | Under
Select the actions for your rule, select the Highlight it with color check box. |
5. | Under
Rule Description, click contains people. |
6. | Type
the name or e-mail address of your first friend or bozo, and then click
Add. |
7. | When
you finish adding names, click the OK
button to return to your new rule. |
8. | Under
Rule Description, click color, select the
color of your choice and click OK.
It is best not to choose red because that is the default color used for
Watched messages. Also be sure to choose different colors for friends and
bozos! |
9. | Under
Name of the rule, type a name for your
rule, such as "My friends" or "Bozos," then click OK. |
10. | Use the Move Up or Move Down button to place your rule where you want it, then click OK . |
Viewing Your Own Messages and Replies
Outlook Express has a handy feature tucked away on the View menu under
Current View labeled Show
Replies to my Messages (but accessed much more quickly just by pressing CTRL+H).
When this option is checked, all conversations in which you have
posted a message are shown, including sub-threads not directly related to your
own message. Power users might prefer to filter out the latter by using a
message rule that marks your own messages as Watched. When Outlook Express
detects a new reply to a Watched conversation, the name of the group turns red,
but you can change that if you want:
1. | On the Tools menu, point to Message Rules, and then click News. |
2. | Click the New button. |
3. | Under Select the Conditions for your view, select the Where the From line contains people check box. |
4. | Under Select the actions for your rule area, select the Mark the message as watched or ignored check box. |
5. | Under Rule Description, click contains people, type your name or e-mail address, click Add, and then click OK. |
6. | Under Rule Description, click watched or ignored, click Watch Message, and then click OK. |
7. | In the Name of the rule, type a name for the rule such as "Watch my messages," and then click OK twice. |
The Watched rule will mark only those messages that are directly
related to your message. Sub-threads of a conversation that are not in the same
sub-thread as your own will not be marked, making it easy to follow only your
sub-thread.
Use a message rule to mark your own messages as
Watched so that replies are easier to find.
If you use this method and use multiple news accounts, you
will want to configure your news accounts so that they are not included in
automatic checks for new messages. Instead you should use the Synchronize All command on the
Tools menu, or the Sync All toolbar button. For more about this, please see
Inside Outlook
Express.
Combining Features for More Power
To gain even more control over which messages are displayed
or hidden, you can use message rules to mark messages as Watched, Ignored, or
Flagged; and then use a custom view that filters on those attributes. For
example, in addition to a rule that marks my messages (and therefore any
replies) as Watched, I created a custom view to "Show Watched Conversations."
To create this view:
1. | On the
View menu, point to Current View, and then click Define Views. |
2. | Click
the New button. |
3. | Under Select the Conditions for your view, select the Where the message is watched or
ignored check box. |
4. | Under
View Description, click watched or ignored, click
Watch Threads, and then click OK. |
5. | Under View Description, click Show/Hide,
click Show Messages, and then click OK. |
6. | Under Name of the view,
type a name like "Show Watched Conversations." |
A custom view is even more powerful when
combined with message rules.
By specifying multiple conditions within a view, it's
possible to show only unread watched messages, or only unread downloaded
messages, or to hide unread messages that are older than five days. I also make
frequent use of view that shows only messages that are marked Ignored. That
allows me to delete them very quickly by pressing CTRL+A (which is identical to clicking Select All on the Edit
menu) followed by Delete.
To switch to a different view, just click Current View on the View menu, then select the view you want. For faster switching, add
the Views Bar by right-clicking a
blank spot on the toolbar and clicking Views
Bar. This displays a drop-down
list with all your views. You can drag the Views
Bar just to the right of the Help
menu, where it fits nicely even in smaller windows.
Switch Views Even Faster.
Rename your favorite views by adding a number in front of the name. If your
most-used view is "Hide Read Messages":
1. | On the
View menu, point to Current View,
and then click Define Views. |
2. | Click Hide Read Messages, and then click
the Copy button. Copying is
necessary because you cannot modify any of the default views. |
3. | Click
the Modify button and in the Name box,
change the name to "1. Hide Read Messages." |
4. | Now
rename your second most used view to, for example, "2. Show All Messages." |
Now to switch views, hold down ALT and press V, V, and 1. There
you have it! Less than one second to switch views!
Hidden Power at Your Fingertips
There are two undocumented keyboard shortcuts that power
users will find useful. To quickly view the message source of any message you
are viewing, just press CTRL+F3.
This is the fastest way to view message headers, and is in fact the only way to
see all of them. There is no quick equivalent for mouse users though. They will
have to right-click the message, then click Properties, then click the Details
tab, and finally arrive by clicking the Message Source button.
If the message you are viewing is in Rich Text Format (HTML),
you can view the HTML source code by pressing CTRL+F2. To my knowledge there is no way to do that using the mouse
or menu commands, at least not without installing a small, third-party tool.
But MVP Steve Cochran created just that in his OETool utility. Running this tiny program adds an entire set of
useful toolbar buttons that are otherwise available only by clicking through
various menus. The only caveat is that you must enable the Views Bar we discussed
earlier for OETool to appear. You can download OETool from Steve's
Web site.
