MT-NewsWatcher Files

The MT-NewsWatcher Program File

This is the MT-NewsWatcher application. You can put it anywhere you wish on your hard drive. You don't normally need to double-click this file, so you can bury it deep inside some nested folder if you wish. You only need one copy of this file, even if several people are sharing your Mac and using MT-NewsWatcher. Normally, you would put MT-NewsWatcher in the Applications folder.

User Group List Files

This is your user group list file. You double-click this file to run the program when you want to read the news. This file records your list of subscribed groups. It also keeps track of which articles you have read in each of your subscribed groups. On a private Mac, you can put this file anywhere you wish. Many people like to keep it in their main window, on the desktop, or in their Apple Menu Items folder for convenient access. You can give this file any name you wish. You can also create multiple user group list files if you wish. On a shared Mac, your user group list files must be in your personal NewsWatcher folder. On a lab Mac, your user group list files must be on your personal NewsWatcher floppy disk.

User group list files are stored in standard "UNIX .newsrc" format. You can open the file with a text editor or word processor if you want to see this information. This is rarely necessary, however.

The MT-NewsWatcher Prefs File

This is your preferences file. It is created automatically by MT-NewsWatcher the first time you run the program. The file is stored in the MT-NewsWatcher Prefs f folder, which is created inside the Library/Preferences folder in your Home directory.

This file is used to save all of your MT-NewsWatcher settings and preferences between runs of the program (e.g. your news servers information, personalities, group settings and other preferences).

The full group list for one of your servers is also saved on this file. When you run MT-NewsWatcher after the first time, it gets the full group list from the preferences file instead of getting a whole new copy from the server. This saves lots of time, especially over slow dialup connections.

You can double-click a MT-NewsWatcher Prefs file to run MT-NewsWatcher using the preferences saved in that file.

Tip: If you have problems with MT-NewsWatcher, and everything else you try fails to solve the problem, try deleting your preferences file and starting over from scratch. Sometimes preferences files can be damaged by disk errors or system crashes. MT-NewsWatcher does some checking for damaged prefs files when it starts up, but it does not detect all possible kinds of damage.

When a new version of MT-NewsWatcher is released, the new version automatically reads and converts the prefs file created by any older versions of the program. To update your copy of MT-NewsWatcher, just replace the program file with the new version. Everything else is automatic.

The full group list for the first server is stored as plain text in the data fork of the prefs file. You can use a word processor or text editor to open the file if you wish. This is rarely necessary, however.

The other preference information is stored in resources in the resource fork of the prefs file. You can use a resource editor to look at this information, but be very careful if you change it.

News Server Groups Files

When you create your second and subsequent news servers, MT-NewsWatcher creates a file for each one in the same folder as the preferences file. These files are called "Groups for <server name>", where <server name> is the name of the news server. These files store the full groups list for that server in their data fork (which you can examine with a text editor), and the news server settings in a resource.

As mentioned above, the full groups list for the first server you created is stored in the preferences file. If you delete this news server in the News Servers dialog, then the data for one of the other servers is moved into the preferences file, and its "Groups for <server name>" file is removed.

MT-NewsWatcher stores aliases (like Finder aliases, but internal) to each of these groups files, which is how it finds the data for your additional servers. However, if you copy all your MT-NewsWatcher preferences to another machine, it might no longer be able to find the servers. In this case, you can use the Open command on the File menu to open a server groups file, and that file will be 'adopted' by the program.

MT-NewsWatcher Database File

The 'MT-NewsWatcher database' file is used by the option that remembers which articles you have read on another server. This file gets created it you enable that option by checking the box entitled Read on another server under the Duplicate removal options in the Article management prefs. When on, the message-ID of each article that you read is stored in the database file. When you open a group, MT-NewsWatcher then checks to see if each article is in this database, and if so, it knows that you have seen it before.

Sometimes, if you crash while using MT-NewsWatcher, this file can get corrupted. If you start getting random crashes while opening groups, or when MT-NewsWatcher is just sitting there, then a corrupted database could be to blame. If that happens, trash this file. A fresh one will be created next time you run.

If this file gets very large, then reduce the length of time that information for a given article is stored, using the options in the Article management prefs.

Article Index File

The 'Article Index' file also lives in the same folder as the preferences file. It is used by the option that indexes the text of articles as you read them, which you turn on using the Index article text when read box in the Article management preferences.

Again, if this file gets very large, reduce the length of time that information for articles is stored, in the Article management preferences.

Filters File

The Filters file stores the filters that you have created. By default, it is created in the same folder as the preferences file, but you can move it elsewhere or duplicate it and use the copy. If you have moved the file, or copied it onto a new machine, you tell MT-NewsWatcher how to find the filters file in the Filtering options preferences.

The filters are stored in binary format that is not user-editable. If you want to export the filters to edit en masse, use the Export command on the File menu, from the Filters window.

Saved Articles

This is an example of a saved article file. It is a plain text file belonging to SimpleText. If you save this file in MT-NewsWatcher, then later double-click it to open it, SimpleText runs and opens the file.

SimpleText is the default owner for saved articles. To change this, use the Article windows preferences topic. You should set your favorite word processor or text editor as the owner of saved articles. SimpleText is the default owner of saved articles in MT-NewsWatcher because this is the only word processing program or text editing program common to all Mac users. SimpleText cannot open files larger than about 32,000 characters, however, and saved article files can often be larger than this limit.

Saved Messages

This is an example of a saved message file -- a news posting or mail message you saved while you were composing it. Saved messages belong to MT-NewsWatcher. If you double-click them, MT-NewsWatcher runs and opens the file.

MT-NewsWatcher saves messages as text files. You can open and edit them with any text editor or word processing program. You can only view and edit the main message body with other programs. You cannot view or edit the header information or other saved message window information with other programs.

Your message headers, links to attachments, and other information about the message are saved as resources in the resource fork of the saved message file.