At this point, it is assumed that you’ve already installed the program and have successfully executed it for the first time. If not, you should read Installation and come back here once you’re ready.
From the program’s Account menu, select “Identities ...” The identity edit window should appear. You can use the plus button at the bottom of the window to create a new identity. The minus button will delete the current identity. To switch between identities, use the pop-up menu button at the top of the window. You can create up to 20 identities if you like. Only the first one is required.
Name is the name that other USENET users will know you by. There are no particular requirements for this field, you can put anything you want in here.
Organization is the name of whatever organization you’d like to claim affiliation with. The information goes into a header in messages you post. It’s okay to leave this field blank.
Real E-mail should be your real e-mail address, without any faking involved. It will be used as your return address if you reply to a USENET message via e-mail. This address will never appear in any headers of the USENET messages you write.
Munged E-mail is the e-mail address that will be added to the headers of messages that you post. It seems to be the tradition these days to use a fake e-mail address, or “spam guard,” when posting to USENET. If you’re into that sort of thing, this is the place to put your made-up address. If you do, please do us poor programmers a favor and don’t get too creative. Many “spam guard” e-mail addresses are so far into outer space that Pineapple News can’t properly parse the author’s message headers. The program checks the address you enter and won’t let you proceed if it doesn’t look at least halfway valid. If you don’t mind the whole world seeing your real e-mail address, then you can duplicate the contents of the previous field here.
Use Signature File, if checked, indicates that you want to have some signature text appended to articles you write. You can use the controls below the checkbox to select a particular text file to use for your signature, and to edit its contents. Pineapple News creates one default signature text file for you, ready to be filled out with whatever text you’d like. If you check the box labeled “Add Signature to Replies,” then the signature will be appended to every article you write. If you leave the box unchecked, then the signature will be used only for messages that are not replies to any other message.
When finished editing identities, close the window to save your changes to disk.
Pull down the Account menu and select “Create ...” You’ll see a dialog box that is filled in with example values, which you can edit to suit your particular configuration.
Account is the “friendly name” you will use to refer to this account. You can put anything you want in here.
Identity This is a pop-up menu button that allows you to select any of the identities you created earlier.
Newsgroup Settings ... This button allows you to set default newsgroup settings for every subscribed group for this account. Read the help topic Newsgroup Preferences to learn more.
DNS Name is where you put the name of the computer that will provide you with your connection to USENET. You should have received this name as part of the information you got from your internet service provider. You can put a dotted-quad IP address here if your server does not have a DNS name. If you are a beginner and find yourself totally bewildered, here’s a server that my artist discovered, which won’t cost you anything to use: freenews.netfront.net
Timeout is the amount of time Pineapple News will wait for a reply from your news server before giving up and assuming that the connection must be dead. The default is 30 seconds, which is appropriate for most situations. If you know your server connection is particularly unreliable, you might increase this time to, say, five minutes. Note that you enter the timeout in the form of an integer and a unit name, for example “30 seconds” or “5 minutes.”
Server Requires Login is a checkbox that specifies whether or not your news server requires you to log in with a username and password. (If you are using the freenews.netfront.net server suggested earlier, you don’t need a username or password.) If you check the box, then the two fields below, Username and Password, are enabled and will allow input. If you need a username and password for your server, it should have been given to you by your internet service provider. If you didn’t get a login ID, then it’s probably safe to assume that you don’t need one, so leave the box unchecked. If you’re not sure whether you need a username and password or not, it won’t hurt to try to connect without them. If it turns out that you do need a login ID, the worst that can happen is that your news server will send back an error code, which Pineapple News will display for you to see.
Now you’re ready to create your new server account. Close the window to save your changes. Assuming all data passes the validation checks, your new server account will be created and will appear in the left pane of the main window, referred to as the “storage view.”
Next you’ll see a roll-down sheet asking if you want to download the server’s newsgroups list. This is the master list of all newsgroups available on your server. It is required for proper operation, so you’ll want to do this unless you cannot connect to the internet at the moment for some reason. If you don’t download the list now, you can do it later by selecting “Download newsgroup list ...” from the Account menu.
If you choose to download the newsgroup list, the Transfer Window will appear. With a little luck, everything will go okay and in a minute or two the newsgroups list will be completely downloaded. If not, the Errors tab of the window will display the response the server gave, or perhaps some reason that Pineapple News couldn’t connect with your news server. Hopefully the messages will be of some assistance in helping you resolve the problem.
If you cannot download the server’s newsgroup list for some reason, it is possible to create a text file that will work as a substitute. See the help topic Navigating with Finder for more information.
One USENET server account is enough for most people, but Pineapple News allows you to create up to 20. You might wish to do this if you have a main server account provided by your internet service provider, and one or more specialty servers you’d like to access, such as the ones run by Gibson Research and mozilla.org.
To complete this step, you must have already successfully created a server account, including downloading its master newsgroups list.
Click on the icon that represents the account you’re interested in, which will be in the left pane of the main program window. From the Account menu, pick “Select newsgroups ...” This brings up the newsgroups selection window.
The window has two lists of newsgroups. The list on the left contains the groups your news server carries. The list on the right will be newsgroups you are subscribed to.
By default, the left list in the newsgroup selection window displays all groups that the server carries. For a full-featured USENET server, that might be many thousands of groups. You can narrow the selection by typing a string into the window’s search field. For example, you can narrow the list to newsgroups devoted to the Macintosh by using “comp.sys.mac” as your search string.
Once you’ve located one or more newsgroups you’re interested in, select them with the mouse or keyboard. You can select more than one group at a time by holding down the ⌘ key while you click on them. Press the “Subscribe” button, and all the currently selected newsgroups go into your subscription list, and will be removed from the server’s master newsgroup list. If you change your mind about one or more groups, select them in the right-hand list and press the “Unsubscribe” button. When finished, close the window, which should cause the newly subscribed groups to appear in the storage view, underneath the icon for the current account.
Now that you’ve subscribed to newsgroups, it’s time to get some articles. In the storage view, which is in the left pane of the main window, right-click or control-click on the icon for the newsgroup you’re interested in. That should bring up a context menu. The first choice is the one you want, “Download newsgroup.” This will cause the transfer window to appear again, and you’re on your way. You can get the same result by double-clicking on the newsgroup.
The top right pane of the main window is called the headers view, which should start to fill with headers. If this group is set to download full articles, then they will be completely downloaded and ready to read. If you chose headers-only downloads, then you’ll have to double-click on a header you’re interested in to download it. Or you can mark a bunch of headers for download and get them all at once. Control-click on each header, which will produce a context menu. Select “Mark for download.” The article header’s icon will change to include a red arrow, meaning it is ready to be downloaded. When finished marking all articles, you can open the Transfer menu, pick “Download Marked,” then “Group” to get all selected articles.