Helpful Tips About
Newsgroups:
Newsgroups can be accessed by
using many different web applications like the Collabra Discussion Groups function in
Netscape, Outlook Newsgroups or Free
Agent Newsreader. Postings to Newsgroups can also be accessed using a Web
Browser online at http:/www/deja.com. To give you a
general understanding of how you can access newsgroups for review, contributing
to a discussion or posting of a question, we have chosen Netscape
to use for our example below.
About Netscape Collabra
Netscape Collabra enables you to participate in
Collabra discussion groups.
To participate in a discussion group, you must:
When you list discussion groups available to
you, you can subscribe to them, or you can browse without subscribing.
How to open your groups server, so you
can access, update, and subscribe to discussion groups it hosts.
Or from the function list bar at the top of
the Netscape Window, select Communicator, Collabra Discussion Groups from the function
list bar at the top of the Netscape Window.
In your Message Center window, open our news.silcon.com
server by clicking on it. To open a groups server other than your primary server,
select the groups server and click on it. Any groups you already subscribe to will
be shown in the expanded list after you have opened our news.silcon.com server.
The Message Center window lists and updates
discussion groups to which
you are currently subscribed on the selected server.
Collabra downloads headers of new Collabra
messages in each of your
subscribed groups. (This is how Collabra displays information about the
discussion groups.) To set a limit on how many headers Collabra can
download, set groups server properties.
You do not download a Collabra message until
you open it, or unless you
select its group for downloading before going offline.
To easily access and organize discussion groups
you are interested in, keep a list of discussion groups to which you are subscribed. When
you open our news.silcon.com server, Netscape Collabra
automatically updates groups to which you subscribe on that server. After opening the
Message Center, use the Subscribe to Discussion Groups dialog box to list discussion
groups available on from your current groups server.
To open the Subscribe to Discussion
Groups dialog box:
On the toolbar of your Message Center window,
click Subscribe, which brings up the Subscribe to Discussion dialog box.
The Subscribe to Discussions dialog box
enables you to list:
All available discussion groups
Discussion groups whose descriptions contain a
keyword you specify
Discussion groups created since you last
listed available discussions
Use the List All Groups dialog to:
To use the List All Groups panel:
To view an entry in the discussion list, in
the Discussion Group field, type the name of the discussion whose entry you want to view.
If you feel displaying the list is taking too
long, click Stop, which stops your Discussions server from sending the remainder of the
discussion group list.
To make it easier to scan the list, click
Collapse All, which collapses the list into types of discussion groups.
To view the full hierarchy of discussion
groups, click Expand All.
To subscribe to your selected discussion:
Searching for Discussion Groups
To use the Search for a Discussion dialog to list available discussion groups
whose descriptions contain a keyword you specify:
At Search for, enter a keyword that represents
any part of a discussion name.
From the On Server menu, choose a server whose
discussion groups you want to search.
After search results display, subscribe to a
discussion whose name is listed by clicking the entry in the list, and:
Click OK to add the subscribed entries to your
subscription list.
To cancel without saving changes to your
subscription list, click Cancel.
Listing New Discussion Groups
Use the List All Newsgroups dialog to:
Browsing Discussion Groups
To browse discussion groups with Netscape
Collabra:
Open your groups server in your Message Center
window.
Double-click on the name of a discussion
group, which opens the discussion group in a Message List window. Use the Message List
window to:
Select messages or threads and open them in messages windows.
Or, use the Message List window's message
panel to browse messages and threads.
About Posting Collabra Messages
You can contribute to a discussion in the following ways:
Start a new thread by posting a new message
Contribute to an existing thread by replying
to the discussion group
Reply to contributors individually, instead of
posting to the discussion group itself
Starting a New Thread
To post a new message to a discussion:
Choose whether you want to send plain-text or
rich-text.
Choose whether you want to: Post a response to
a message or contribute to an existing thread.
Or, start a new thread.Use the Compose window
to compose and post your message.
Contributing to a Thread or Posting a
Response
To contribute to a Collabra thread or to post
a response to a Collabra messages:
Ensure the thread you are contributing to or
the message you are responding to is open in a Message List or Message window.
Select whether you want to reply by mail to
the author of the original message, or whether you want to post your response to a
discussion:
To mail a response only to your recipient,
click Reply and select Reply to Sender Only (Windows) or To Sender Only (Mac OS).
To post a response to discussions listed in
the original message, click Reply and select Reply to Group (Windows) or To Discussion
(MacOS).
Use the Compose window to check the address
list, quote the original message text, and compose and send your message.
When you reply or respond to a Collabra
message:
If replying by mail, your response is
automatically addressed to recipients listed in the Reply to header of the original
message.
If posting a response to a discussion group,
your response is automatically addresses to discussions listed in the Post to header of
the original
message.
In either case, ensure your reply is correctly
addressed. Check the addresses in the address list and delete addresses and names of
discussions that are not familiar to you. Use the Address Area to add or edit addresses,
if you need to.
To include the original message in your reply,
click Quote, which is on the Compose window toolbar. When you include the original
message, it is included as an attachment, so you can see an entry in the attachments area,
but you do not see the message in the composition area.
Compose your response in the composition area.
If you are composing in HTML, use the Composer application tools.
To send the message, click Send Now,which is
on the Composition window toolbar.
Removing a Discussion Group from Your
Subscription List
To remove a discussion group from your subscription list:
Open your Message Center by clicking
Discussion Groups on the component bar. The component bar, when undetached, is in the
lower right
corner of any Netscape Communicator window.
In your subscription list, locate the entry
for the discussion group you want to remove and click the checkbox on the right side of
the entry. The
checkbox of a discussion removed from your subscription list does not contain a check.
Troubleshooting
Before the Message Center window can display your primary groups server's name, you must
have your Groups Server preferences set to news.silcon.com. If you do not
have your Groups Server preferences set, the Mail & Discussion Groups Wizard (Windows
only), or the Groups Server panel of the preferences dialog comes up automatically. Use
the Mail & Discussion Groups Wizard or the Groups Server panel to help you set
required preferences.
If an invalid groups server name appears for
your primary server in your Message Center's list of servers, provide the correct server
name by using the Groups Server panel of Mail & Groups preferences.
If an invalid groups server name appears for a
server that is not your primary server, use groups server properties to correct the name
of the server.
If you can't access a server using a dial-up
connection with auto-connect, check your network software, such as PPP and TCP/IP, and
modem settings to see if they're correctly configured to access the server's site. Enable
configurations for the server's site, then try opening the server.
Additional Topics are covered in
the Netscape Help Function, Getting Started - About Collabra
If you have any other questions,
comments or problems, please complete our Technical Support Request. |
