path: root/doc/knode/using-firststart.docbook

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<sect1 id="first-start">
<title>The first start</title>

<para>You can find &knode; in the <guimenu>K</guimenu> Menu under the
<guisubmenu>Internet</guisubmenu> entry: the menu entry
<guimenuitem>KNode</guimenuitem> launches the program.</para>

<tip>
<para>If the entry for &knode; can not be found or if &knode; does
not appear after clicking on the menu entry, read <link
linkend="faq">Questions and Answers</link>.</para>
</tip>

<para>The main window of &knode; should now be displayed on your
desktop as shown; on the first start, the settings dialog will be
invoked.</para>

<screenshot>
<screeninfo>Setting up &knode;</screeninfo>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="knode-start.png" format="PNG"/></imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>&knode; after first start</phrase>
</textobject>
<caption>
<para>&knode; after first start</para>
</caption>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>

<para>The windows shows the menu bar, the toolbar below and the status
pane at the buttom. The area between the toolbar and the status pane
is occupied by a three-part window.</para>

<para>There is a folder view, which currently contains only three
entries:</para>

<simplelist>
<member>The folder <guilabel>Outbox</guilabel></member>
<member>The folder <guilabel>Drafts</guilabel></member>
<member>The folder <guilabel>Sent</guilabel></member>
</simplelist>

<para>When &knode; is completely and correctly configured, the news
servers and the subscribed news groups will appear there.</para>

<para>In the upper section is the article view; it is currently empty
and does not show any articles. Directly below the article view is the
article window; the body of the currently-selected article
appears there. These windows are also blank at the moment, as there
are no articles, of course. You should not be concerned, though, as before
reading and publishing news some things have to be configured; this
will be covered by the following section.</para>

<para>We are now beginning the setting up of &knode;. Most settings
are not important for daily use, but you should know what settings are
possible and what they are for. Some may skip the
<quote>Quickstart</quote> chapter but those who prefer a quick start
will just glance over the manual anyway. For others, especially those
who have not any or much experience with a news reader, this chapter
offers the chance to fully perform the configuration, although some
things may become clear only later on.</para>

<sect2 id="setting-your-identity">
<title>Personal settings</title>

<anchor id="anc-setting-your-identity"/>

<para>Via
<menuchoice><guimenu>Settings</guimenu><guimenuitem>Configure
KNode...</guimenuitem></menuchoice> you will enter the preferences
dialog of &knode;. The figure shows the dialog.</para>

<screenshot>
<screeninfo>Dialog for entering personal information</screeninfo>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="knode-identity.png" format="PNG"/></imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>Entering personal information</phrase>
</textobject>
<caption>
<para>Entering personal information</para></caption>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>

<para>The dialog is divided into two parts: in one part there is a treeview, in
which the top entry <guilabel>Identity</guilabel> is already
highlighted; in the other part is the corresponding input
dialog -- these settings relate to the identity with which you navigate
through the newsgroups.</para>

<tip>
<para>If you have already configured your personal settings in the
&kcontrolcenter; before the first start of &knode;, they will be
adopted.</para>
</tip>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Name</guilabel></title>

<para>In the field <guilabel>Name</guilabel> you enter your name, &eg;
<replaceable>Joe Miller</replaceable> or <replaceable>Mary
Gordon</replaceable>. This name will later appear in the newsgroups as
sender, and can be seen by anyone.</para>

<para>Filling out the field <guilabel>Name</guilabel> is
mandatory.</para>

<caution>
<para>
In most newsgroups, it is considered polite and appropriate to appear
with one's real name; other newsgroups are less strict about this. But,
there are also cases when one would not want to appear with one's real
name, &eg; in newsgroups where one would like to (and can) talk about
very personal matters without being exposed; these groups mostly do
tell you in their Charter that the anonymity of their members is
explicitly approved.</para>
</caution>

<tip>
<para>For those special cases, &knode; offers settings that can be
adjusted to each newsgroup individually; further information can be
found under <link linkend="group-identity">Group local
Identities</link>.</para>
</tip>
</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Organization</guilabel></title>

<para>The input field <guilabel>Organization</guilabel> is optional
and does not have to be filled out. You can enter, &eg;, the name of
your company or your university if you use &knode;
there; if you leave this field blank, it will often be filled out
later by your Internet service provider.</para>
</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Email address</guilabel></title>

<para>The email address you enter here will be used as sender in news
articles, &ie; as actual address of the author, in conjunction with
the real name (set in the field <guilabel>Name</guilabel>).</para>

<para>The field <guilabel>Email Address</guilabel> shows up when
someone wants to reply to you by email: the email will be sent to
the address entered here. Many newsreaders display the sender address
together with the name in the Header of the article.</para>

<para>Filling out the <guilabel>Email Address</guilabel> field is
mandatory.</para>
<tip>
<para>Note that the e-mail address will only be used for replies to you if
the field <guilabel>Reply-to Address</guilabel> is not filled out; in
this case, the field <guilabel>Email</guilabel> will be ignored for
replies and the address given under <guilabel>Reply-to
Address</guilabel> will be used.</para>
</tip>
</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Reply-to Address</guilabel></title>

<para><guilabel>Reply-to Address</guilabel> offers you the possibility
to enter a different address than your sender e-mail address: if
someone replies to you by email this address will be displayed as
target address in the reply. An example for using <guilabel>Reply-to
Address</guilabel> would be that you write the article at the office
during the day but want to receive the answer in your home inbox,
because your boss co-reads your mail.</para>

<para>Only enter an e-mail address in that field if it actually
differs from the field <guilabel>Email Address</guilabel>.</para>

<warning>
<para>Some news readers deliberately set this to an invalid e-mail
address in order to prevent spam mails from being received; what could
happen, though, is that a reader sends an e-mail to this invalid address
which you will therefore never receive. You should drop a note about
this in the signature.</para>
</warning>
</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Mail-Copies-To</guilabel></title>

<para>If you enter an email address here every article will be sent
to the usenet and to this email address.</para>
</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Signing Key</guilabel></title>

<para>If you have configured the use of <acronym>PGP</acronym> or
GnuPG you can chose your signing key with
<guibutton>Change...</guibutton>. </para>
</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Use a signature from file</guilabel></title>

<para>If this option is selected, the file specified under
<guilabel>Signature File</guilabel> will be used as Signature.</para>
</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Signature File</guilabel></title>

<para>The field <guilabel>Signature File</guilabel> determines the
file, the content of which is appended to each of your articles. The
field is only enabled if the option <guilabel>Use a signature from
file</guilabel> is selected.</para>

<para>The signature file is a simple text file, which should not
contain more than four lines; it can, for example, contain a reference
to your homepage with the corresponding link, your postal address with
your telephone number (which would then be of course visible to the
whole world with every article) or just a cool quote. The signature is
your brand, so to speak, which will mark all your articles; therefore,
your signature should not be designed sloppily or in the long run annoying
to others: an old joke that one would have to read over and over again
does not foster sympathy or the interest of the other newsgroup
subscribers.</para>

<para>You can directly enter the file name of the signature file but
it is more convenient to use the button
<guibutton>Choose...</guibutton>. This opens a file open dialog and
you can conveniently choose the signature file with the mouse. The
button <guibutton>Edit File</guibutton> enables you, after choosing
the file, to edit the signature.</para>

<tip>
<para>It is not necessary to include a separation line in the
signature file as &knode; inserts it automatically.</para>
</tip>
</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>The file is a program</guilabel></title>

<para>If this option is activated, the signature file is not handled
as a text file, but as a program. The signature file will be started
as a program and the output will be used as a signature. Through that
you'll be able to chose a signature by accident or to use fortune to
generate a cool slogan every time.</para>

</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Specify signature below</guilabel></title>

<para>If this option is selected you can enter the text of the
signature directly in the input field below.</para>

<tip>
<para>Please make sure that in this case also your
<glossterm>signature</glossterm> should not contain more than 4
lines. A separation line is not necessary as &knode; inserts it
automatically.</para>
</tip>
</sect3>

<sect3>
<title>General notes</title>

<para>You can later adapt the identity individually for each of the
subscribed groups via the <guilabel>Preferences</guilabel> dialog,
&eg; you can specify an English signature for English groups and a
German one for German groups. Apart from the language it is also
possible to have context-sensitive signatures, &eg; your favorite
recipe in a cooking group or the names of your twelve cats in a cat
owner group.</para>

<para>You find more in the section <link
linkend="group-identity">Group local identities</link>.</para>

<para>The next step in the configuration covers the news
account.</para>

</sect3>
</sect2>

<sect2 id="setting-the-news-account">
<title>Configuring the news account</title>
<anchor id="anc-setting-the-news-account"/>

<para>Now we must tell &knode; about where we get the news from or
where to send the articles to later on. In the tree view on the
right, there is an <guilabel>Accounts</guilabel> entry; click on it
with the mouse; then, two sub entries will be opened out. Choose the
<guilabel>News</guilabel> entry, because we first want to configure
the news account: the list of accounts is still empty.</para>

<para>To create a new account click on <guibutton>New...</guibutton>. The
following dialog appears:</para>

<screenshot>
<screeninfo>The <guilabel>New Account</guilabel> dialog</screeninfo>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="knode-news-account.png" format="PNG"/></imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>The <guilabel>New Account</guilabel> dialog</phrase>
</textobject>
<caption>
<para>The <guilabel>New Account</guilabel> dialog</para>
</caption>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Name</guilabel></title>

<para>The <guilabel>Name</guilabel> field can be filled in as you
like; the text you enter will later be visible in the folder view. You
could, for example, enter the name of your Internet Provider; for our example we
enter the name <userinput>My News Account</userinput>.</para>

</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Server</guilabel></title>

<para>The next field is labelled <guilabel>Server</guilabel>. Unlike
the field <guilabel>Name</guilabel>, what you enter here is
important. The name of the news server is fixed and you should be able
to get it from your Internet service provider; if you do not know the name
of the news server, you should get it now: without this information you can
not read any news. If your Internet service provider doesn't own a
news server you can use a public one (universities often provide public news
servers.)</para>

<para>For our example configuration we enter the name
<userinput><systemitem
class="systemname">news.server.com</systemitem></userinput>; you will,
of course, enter the real name of your news server.</para>

<tip>
<para>If you want to use &knode; with a local news server, enter the name
<userinput><systemitem
class="systemname">localhost</systemitem></userinput> here.</para>
</tip>
</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Port</guilabel></title>

<para><guilabel>Port</guilabel>, the next field, has already a default
value. The Port designates, roughly speaking, a data channel on which
the server listens for whether someone wants to retrieve news: it
defaults to the value 119, which is applicable in most
cases; therefore, we do not change this default for our example.</para>
</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Hold connection for</guilabel></title>

<para>The time value you enter here is used if you have
established a connection to the news server and if, for whatever
reason, no data is received from or transmitted to the news
server: after the specified time has elapsed &knode; will automatically
disconnect. This, amongst other things, relieves the server of
unnecessary connections which would otherwise reduce its availability
for other subscribers; it also makes sure that an automatically-established
Internet connection is not held unnecessarily even if no data is
being sent or received.</para>

<tip>
<para>This settings mainly makes sense if one receives and reads
news online; for local news servers it is of almost no importance. If
this waiting time is set too low, there can be waiting periods if you
read a longer article and do not do <quote>anything</quote> for some
time: &knode; will have canceled the connection to the server by then (after
the time period has elapsed) and has to reestablish it, causing a delay.</para>
<para> If the waiting time is set too high you might waste online
time whilst doing nothing (perhaps increasing your phone bill).</para></tip>
</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Timeout</guilabel></title>

<para>If &knode; connects to the news server it waits no longer than the
time specified here for an answer; if the period is exceeded &knode; cancels
the connection attempt and you will get an error message stating that the
server is not responding.</para>

<tip>
<para>Depending on the quality of your Internet account and the
news server's current load there can be busy periods where
&knode; cancels the connection; if this happens frequently, you should
set this setting to a higher value.</para>
</tip>
</sect3>

<sect3>
<title>
<guilabel>Fetch group descriptions</guilabel></title>

<para>If this setting is selected, &knode; additionally requests the
available group descriptions; they will be displayed in the 
<guilabel>Subscribe to Newsgroups</guilabel> dialog.</para>

<tip>
<para>There is not a group description for every group, so it is not
an error if no group description is shown when subscribing to a group
later on.</para>
</tip>

</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Server requires authentication</guilabel></title>

<para>The option <guilabel>Server requires authentication</guilabel>
needs only to be selected if your news server requires a user name and
a password when retrieving articles; you can find out if this is the case
from your Internet service provider or the server's
maintainer.</para>

<tip>
<para>If you do not know if this setting is necessary forget
about selecting it for now: if you encounter an error later on, you can
try selecting it then. Otherwise, select this option and enter your user name
under <guilabel>User</guilabel> and the associated password
under <guilabel>Password</guilabel>.</para>
</tip>
</sect3>

<sect3>
<title>General notes</title>

<para>By now you have completed the setup of your news account. You can
confirm and save your settings by clicking on the
<guibutton>OK</guibutton> button: as soon as you have done that,
the account will appear in the list by the name that you entered in
<guilabel>Name</guilabel> earlier; and, if you have a close look, you
will see that the account also appears in the folder view.</para>

<para>Using the <guibutton>Subscribe</guibutton> button you could
get directly to the dialog for subscribing to news groups; but, we
still have more to do so we'll ignore it for now: there are several ways
that lead to the goal.</para>

<para>In the <link linkend="multiple-news-accounts"> Managing
multiple news accounts</link> chapter you can learn how to work with multiple
news accounts, but first we will stay with this one; in most cases,
one account is sufficient.</para>

<caution>
<para>Please note that some Internet providers only allow retrieving
news from their news server if you are connected to the Internet
through them.</para>
</caution>

<para>We will now move on to configuring the email account; in order
to do that, click on the <guilabel>Mail</guilabel> entry in the tree
view on the left.</para>

</sect3>
</sect2>

<sect2 id="setting-the-mail-account">
<title>Setting up the mail account</title>

<para>After selecting <guilabel>Mail</guilabel> in the tree view, the
following dialog box appears.</para>

<screenshot>
<screeninfo>Dialog box for setting up the mail account</screeninfo>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="knode-mail-account.png" format="PNG"/></imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>Setting up the mail account</phrase>
</textobject>
<caption>
<para>Setting up the mail account</para>
</caption>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>

<para>You will notice this dialog box is very similar to the news
account settings dialog box; but why do we need an email account in a
newsreader?</para>

<para>Sometimes you need to answer to the author of an article
directly, without posting to the newsgroup; for example, when you want
to make a very personal comment or want to correct an error. Sometimes
an email is more appropriate than a public remark.</para>

<para>That's why &knode; provides the possibility to reply by
email; if you want to use this feature you must tell &knode; how to
send emails: you just need to insert the mail server's address. If you have
already configured an email account, &eg; with &kmail;, you can reuse
the settings used there.</para>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Use external mail program</guilabel></title>

<para>If this option is active &knode; will use the mail program
which is configured in the control center; the other options in this
dialog will then be disabled.</para>

</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Server</guilabel></title>

<para>The name (address) of your mail server as provided by your Internet
service
provider or system administrator; all you have to do here is enter the mail
server's
name in the <guilabel>Server</guilabel> field.</para>

<para>In our example we enter<userinput><systemitem
class="systemname">mail.server.de</systemitem></userinput></para>

<tip>
<para>If you have one you can send your mail via a local mail
server; if this is the case local mail server enter <systemitem
class="systemname">localhost</systemitem> in the
<guilabel>Server</guilabel> field.</para>
</tip>
</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Port</guilabel></title>

<para>Again, the <guilabel>Port</guilabel> field has a default
value; in this case it's port 25. You should not need to change this,
unless your <acronym>ISP</acronym> has a very exotic configuration
and tells you to do so. We do not change this for the example.</para>

</sect3>

<sect3>
<title>Hold connection for</title>

<para>This value is important: if you have established a connection
with your mail server and there is no data transfer occurring &knode;
cancels the connection to your mailserver after the specified amount
of time has elapsed.</para>

</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Timeout</guilabel></title>

<para>When &knode; tries to connect to the mail server it will wait this
long for a reply from the server; if this time is exceeded, you will get a
error message.</para>

<tip>
<para>Depending on the quality of your connection and the actual load
of your mail server you might get long reply times; if &knode; cancels
the connection due to this, you should increase the timeout.</para>
</tip>
</sect3>

<sect3>
<title>General notes</title>

<caution>
<para>Some <acronym>ISP</acronym>s only allow you to send email using
their mail server after you have checked your mailbox for new mail: this
reduces spamming.</para>

<para>For the same reasons, some <acronym>ISP</acronym>s will only allow you
to send mail using their mailservers if you are online with them
or if you are logged in at the mailserver; for example, this is the normal
configuration at GMX and isn't supported by &knode; or &kmail; yet.</para>
</caution>

</sect3>
</sect2>

<sect2 id="knode-appearance">
<title>Defining the appearance</title>

<para>With the <guilabel>Appearance</guilabel> dialog you are given
the ability to set the colors, the character code and the font size of
the text in the article window; the picture below shows the
dialog.</para>

<screenshot>
<screeninfo>Setting up the Appearance dialog</screeninfo>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="knode-colors-fonts.png" format="PNG"/></imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>Setting up the Appearance dialog</phrase>
</textobject>
<caption>
<para>Setting up the Appearance dialog</para>
</caption>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Use custom colors</guilabel></title>

<para>If you select this option you can adjust the color settings of
&knode; in the list field below; to change a color setting do a
double-click with the &LMB; on the list entry to open the &kde;
color-selection dialog.</para>

<para>The color selection can only be configured after the checkbox
has been checked; otherwise, a double-click on the list entries
won't do anything.</para>

<caution>
<para>If the <guilabel>Use custom colors</guilabel> setting is
selected &knode; won't use colors which have been changed later
globally for &kde; but will only use the colors defined here
instead.</para>
</caution>
</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Use custom fonts</guilabel></title>

<para>If you select this setting you can adjust the fonts which
&knode; uses for the display in the list field below; to choose a
font do a double-click with the &LMB; on the list entry to open the
&kde; font-selection dialog.</para>

<para>The font can only be configured after the checkbox has been
checked; otherwise, a double click on the list entries won't do
anything.</para>

<caution>
<para>If the setting <guilabel>Use custom fonts</guilabel> is
selected &knode; won't use later changes to the global font settings
for &kde; but will use the fonts defined here instead.</para>
</caution>
</sect3>

</sect2>

<sect2 id="setting-news-general">
<title>General News Settings</title>

<para>Now click on <guibutton>Reading news</guibutton> and then on the
<guibutton>General</guibutton> sub-entry; the figure below shows the dialog
containing the preferences you can configure there.</para>

<screenshot>
<screeninfo><guilabel>General Preferences</guilabel> dialog</screeninfo>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="knode-read-news-settings.png" format="PNG"/></imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>The <guilabel>General Preferences</guilabel> dialog</phrase>
</textobject>
<caption>
<para>The <guilabel>General Preferences</guilabel> dialog</para>
</caption>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>

<para>You don't need to change most of these settings, but we will
discuss them step-by-step to give you an overview of the
possibilities of &knode;.</para>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Check for new articles
automatically</guilabel></title>

<para>If this box is checked &knode; tries to request new articles
from the server when selecting a newsgroup. These settings especially
make sense when you use &knode; together with a local news
server: downloading the messages obviously only works when the server
is reachable; for a server which is only reachable via an Internet
connection, this setting rarely makes sense and should stay
deactivated.</para>

<para>If your system isn't set up to establish an Internet connection
if necessary, you will get an error message each time you select a
newsgroup.</para>

<para>If you want to keep control over when a connection to the server
is established, the 
<menuchoice><guimenu>Group</guimenu><guimenuitem>Get new
articles</guimenuitem></menuchoice> menu option is appropriate.</para>

</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Maximal number of articles to fetch</guilabel></title>

<para>This sets a restriction on the number articles which are requested
from the server while downloading. The value configured here is for
each newsgroup separately. If this is set, for instance, to 300 only
the 300 newest articles of the newsgroup are requested; other articles will
be discarded.</para>

<warning>
<para>For newsgroups with relatively high traffic you might lose
articles if this value is too low; this especially occurs when you've
just subscribed to a newsgroup or only occasionally download articles
and the traffic for this reason rises above the value specified
here.</para>
</warning>
</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Mark article as read after</guilabel></title>

<para>Articles you have opened in the article window are marked as
read after the number of seconds specified here. If you set this value
to be relatively high you avoid articles you have just glanced at
being marked as read; on the other hand, it can be annoying for
relatively short articles, for which you need less time to read than
specified: if you browsed too quickly through the articles
they would stay unread even though you have read them. Therefore, you
should adjust this value to your personal preferences.</para>

</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Mark crossposted articles as read</guilabel></title>

<para>Sometimes an <glossterm>article</glossterm> will be posted to
more than one group; this is known as crossposting. If you activate this
option, those crossposted articles will be marked as read in all the
newsgroups to which they were posted if you read it in one newsgroup.</para>

</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Smart scrolling</guilabel></title>

<para>If this option is selected the lines in the article list are
scrolled smoothly instead of jerkily.
</para> <!-- LW: FIXME could be explained a tiny bit better -->

</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Show whole thread on expanding</guilabel></title>

<para>This setting lets a discussion be displayed completely (over
multiple answer levels) if you click on the plus in front of the
discussion; if this setting isn't checked, only the immediate answers
to the current article are displayed.</para>

</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Default to expanded threads</guilabel></title>

<para>Here you can toggle whether the threads are expanded by default or
not.</para>

</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Show article score</guilabel></title>

<para>Here you can toggle whether the scoring column should be shown
in the article view.</para>

</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Show line count</guilabel></title>

<para>Here you can toggle whether the column with the number of lines
should be shown in the article view.</para>

</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Cache size for headers</guilabel></title>

<para>Here you can configure how much memory &knode; should use for
the caching of the headers.</para>

</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Cache size for articles</guilabel></title>

<para>Here you can configure, how much memory &knode; should use for
the caching of the articles.</para>

</sect3>
</sect2>

<sect2>
<title><guilabel>Navigation</guilabel></title>

<para>Here you can change some navigation properties of &knode;.
Normally everything here is switched off, but if you don't like this
kind of navigation you can change it.</para>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>General</guilabel></title>

<para>The keyboard behavior between &knode; and &kmail; is a bit
different; with the <guilabel>Emulate the keyboard behavior of
KMail</guilabel> switch you can activate the same keyboard behavior
as in &kmail; for &knode;.</para>

</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Mark All as Read</guilabel></title>

<para>If the box <guilabel>Switch to next group</guilabel> is checked,
&knode; automatically switches to the next group if you mark all
articles as read.</para>
</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Mark Thread as Read</guilabel></title>

<para>If <guilabel>Close the current thread</guilabel> is
checked, &knode; automatically closes a thread if you mark
it as read.</para>

<para>If <guilabel>Go to next unread thread</guilabel> is
checked, &knode; automatically shows the next thread if you mark the
the previous thread as read.</para>

</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Ignore Thread</guilabel></title>

<para>If <guilabel>Close the current thread</guilabel>is
checked, &knode; automatically closes a thread if you choose to
ignore it.</para>

<para>If <guilabel>Go to next unread thread</guilabel> is
checked, &knode; automatically shows the next thread if you choose
to ignore the previous one.</para>

</sect3>
</sect2>

<sect2 id="knode-scoring-settings">
<title>Scoring rules</title>

<para>To sort the articles you have the possibility to score them. The
standard score is 0: a higher score means that the
<glossterm>article</glossterm> is interesting; a lower score means
it is less interesting.</para>

<para>In the middle of the window you see a big, white area; here you
can see your scoring rules. Scoring rules are used by &knode; to score
the incoming articles automatically; if, for example, a person always
posts nonsense you can automatically score the articles of that person
down and hide them.</para>

<para>With the buttons below the list of scoring-rules you can
<guibutton>edit</guibutton>, <guibutton>add</guibutton>,
<guibutton>remove</guibutton> and <guibutton>copy</guibutton> a
rule. We will skip this feature for now, because it is not essential
for the setup of &knode;.</para>

<para>You can learn more about scoring; in the chapter <link
linkend="anc-score-watch-ignore">Scoring, watching and
ignoring</link>.</para>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Default score for ignored threads</guilabel></title>

<para>Normally you only need the functions ignore and watch; this
simply shows if a thread is interesting or not. Here you can configure
a default score for the ignored threads; choosing the 
<menuchoice><guimenu>Scoring</guimenu><guimenuitem>Ignore
Thread</guimenuitem></menuchoice> menu item will give this score to all the
posts in that thread, and will apply that score also to future posts
that follow up the thread.</para>

</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Default score for watched threads</guilabel></title>

<para>If an article is interesting, it will get a score above 0. Here
you can enter the default score for those articles; choosing the
<menuchoice><guimenu>Scoring</guimenu><guimenuitem>Watch
Thread</guimenuitem></menuchoice> menu item will give this score to all the
posts in that thread, and will apply that score also to future posts
that follow up the thread.</para>

<tip>
<para>You can use the <keycap>W</keycap> key to watch a thread or the
<keycap>I</keycap> key to ignore it.</para>
</tip>
</sect3>
</sect2>

<sect2 id="knode-filter-settings">
<title>Filter settings</title>

<para>This screenshot shows the filter settings.</para>

<screenshot>
<screeninfo>The filter settings</screeninfo>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="knode-filters.png" format="PNG"/></imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>The filter settings</phrase>
</textobject>
<caption>
<para>The filter settings</para>
</caption>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>

<para>This dialog shows two lists. The upper list, labeled <guilabel>
Filters</guilabel>, shows all defined filters; when you use &knode;
for the first time, you will only see the predefined filters.</para>

<para>With the buttons <guibutton>Add</guibutton>,
<guibutton>Delete</guibutton>, <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> and
<guibutton>Copy</guibutton> you can add new filters or delete filters
which are no longer needed; we will skip this feature for now, because
it is not essential for the setup of &knode;.</para>

<para>You can find more-detailed information about filters in <link
linkend="using-filters">Defining and using filters</link>.</para>

<para>The lower list, labeled <guilabel>Menu</guilabel>, shows the
appearance of the <menuchoice><guimenu>View</guimenu>
<guisubmenu>Filter</guisubmenu></menuchoice> menu, which you can reach from
the menu bar; the order of the filters in the this menu can be
configured in this list.</para>

<para>The <guibutton>Up</guibutton> button shifts the selected filter
one position up. Try it: select the second filter and press
<guibutton>Up</guibutton>; this entry will then go up one position.</para>

<para>The <guibutton>Down</guibutton> button does the opposite
action: select the filter you just shifted one up and
press<guibutton>Down</guibutton> until it reaches its old
position.</para>

<para>With the two buttons <guibutton>Add Separator</guibutton> and
<guibutton>Remove Separator</guibutton> you can visually group
the filters on the menu. The separators are shown as <literal>====</literal>
in the list; in the Menu they show up as some more-appealing
horizontal lines. Try adding separator; then, select the
separator and remove it by pressing <guibutton>Remove
separator</guibutton>.</para>

<para>Any changes you make here, you can see in
<menuchoice><guimenu>View</guimenu><guisubmenu>Filter</guisubmenu></menuchoice>
after closing this dialog.</para>

</sect2>

<sect2 id="knode-headers">
<title><guilabel>Customize displayed article headers</guilabel></title>

<anchor id="anc-knode-headers"/>

<para>In this dialog you can set how the single header lines are
displayed in the article window.</para>

<screenshot>
<screeninfo>The <guilabel>Customize displayed article
headers</guilabel> dialog</screeninfo>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="knode-header-settings.png" format="PNG"/></imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>The <guilabel>Customize displayed article
headers</guilabel> dialog</phrase>
</textobject>
<caption>
<para>The <guilabel>Customize displayed article
headers</guilabel> dialog</para>
</caption>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>

<para>This list shows all the header lines which are to be
display in the article window. The identifiers at the left will be
displayed alongside the header lines in &lt; &gt; to their right;
the header lines are taken from each message, &eg; for
<guilabel>From</guilabel> the From header line will be used (indicating
who send the message).</para>

<para>Using <guibutton>Edit</guibutton> you can alter the shown
identifiers, alter the header line shown by each identifier and
change the font settings of the text used. To make things clearer,
we'll now simply select the
<guilabel>From:&lt;From&gt;</guilabel> entry in the list and open the dialog
for editing the header display by clicking on
<guibutton>Edit</guibutton>.</para>

<screenshot>
<screeninfo>The Header Properties dialog</screeninfo>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="knode-edit-header1.png" format="PNG"/></imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>The Header Properties dialog</phrase>
</textobject>
<caption>
<para>The Header Properties dialog</para>
</caption>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Header</guilabel></title>

<para>The <guilabel>Header</guilabel> selection box shows the entry
<guilabel>From</guilabel>: that is the name of the header line for the
sender, as present in the article and evaluated by the
newsreader. If you drop down the selection box &knode; shows a range
of other identifiers, which stand all for a certain header lines in the
article: for now, we'll leave the <guilabel>From</guilabel> identifier
configured; we'll work with this list later, when we add a header line
to the display.</para>
</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Displayed Name</guilabel></title>

<para>This field holds the name you'd like to be later shown in the article
window as a label alongside the actual header
line text; for example, for the <guilabel>From</guilabel> header line the
label <guilabel>From</guilabel> is used. If you leave this field blank, only the
content of the header line appears in the article window; this is, for
example, the default setting for the <guilabel>Subject</guilabel>
header line. We won't change anything here either, for now.</para>

</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Name</guilabel></title>

<para>Here you can influence the way the 'Displayed Name'
text is displayed; in our case, the <guilabel>Bold</guilabel> attribute
is selected for the name <guilabel>From</guilabel>, &ie; the text will
be shown in bold letters in the article window. Of course, you can
combine different attributes, for example <guilabel>Bold</guilabel>
and <guilabel>Underlined</guilabel>.</para>

</sect3>

<sect3>
<title>Value</title>

<para>Here you can influence the way the header text is displayed
in the article window; for example, if the
<guilabel>Italic</guilabel> entry is selected the sender, &eg; <quote>John Doe
&lt;johndoe@doubleguns.com&gt;</quote> will appears in an italic
font.</para>

</sect3>

<sect3>
<title>Add and remove header lines to the display</title>

<para>To explain the possibilities of this dialog to you we're going
to add a new header line to the display.</para>

<example>
<title>Show the newsreader used for a post in the article window</title>

<para>This pictures shows the dialog with the header line
<literal>X-Newsreader</literal>.</para>
<screenshot>
<screeninfo>The Header Properties dialog</screeninfo>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="knode-edit-header2.png" format="PNG"/></imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>The Header Properties dialog</phrase>
</textobject>
<caption>
<para>The Header Properties dialog</para>
</caption>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>

<para>It would be nice if one could see which newsreader another
subscriber uses in the article window; it is actually quite easy
to do this because there is a (optional) header line which contains
the necessary information.</para>

<para>Drop down the <guilabel>Header</guilabel> selection field and
select the <guilabel>X-Newsreader</guilabel> entry from the
list.</para>

<para>In the <guilabel>Displayed name</guilabel> field, enter
<userinput>Newsreader</userinput>.</para>

<para>Now you can select any attribute for the display of the field
and its content; next, acknowledge your input with the
<guibutton>OK</guibutton>: the new header line appears now in the list
and will later be shown in the article window.</para>

</example>

<para>Use the <guibutton>up</guibutton> and
<guibutton>Down</guibutton> buttons to arrange the order of the
headers in the article window.</para>

<tip>
<para>The statement that the new header line will be shown in the
article window is actually pretty optimistic, because the entry
X-Newsreader isn't required for Usenet articles; therefore, not all
articles will contain that header line: if the line doesn't exist, the
according entry simply won't be shown. You can get more information
about headers at <ulink
url="http://www.kirchwitz.de/~amk/dni/headerzeilen">http://www.kirchwitz.de/~amk
/dni/headerzeilen</ulink>
(german)</para>
</tip>
</sect3>
</sect2>

<sect2>
<title><guilabel>Viewer</guilabel></title>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Show fancy header decorations</guilabel></title>

<para>If this is active, the headers will be 'beautified' a
bit; otherwise, only the plain text is shown.</para>

</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Rewrap text when necessary</guilabel></title>

<para>If this option is active, the text wrapping in the viewer will
be automatically corrected.</para>

</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Remove trailing empty lines</guilabel></title>

<para>If this is active empty lines at the end of the article will
be automatically hidden.</para>

</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Show signature</guilabel></title>

<para>If this setting is activated, the
<glossterm>signature</glossterm> of the sender is displayed in the
article window; if it isn't, the signature is surpressed.</para>

<caution>
<para>Please notice that &knode; can display the signature
correctly only if it can be separated correctly from the article
content in the current article: there are newsreaders which do this
separation incorrectly. Two <quote>-</quote> characters followed by a
<quote>&nbsp;</quote> (space) is correct.</para>
</caution>

<tip>
<para>Many participants in the newsgroups give hints on their homepage
or say that they have intentionally erroneously specified their Email addresses
in the header fields: if you disable displaying the signature, you might
lose this information; on the other hand, you might save yourself
from reading strange quotes.</para>
</tip>
</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Interpret text-format tags</guilabel></title>

<para>If this is active, all text format tags in the message like
<literal>*bold*</literal>, <literal>/italic/</literal> and
<literal>_underline_</literal> are shown directly in the viewer. These
text-format tags are an unofficial standard.</para>

</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Recognize quote characters</guilabel></title>

<para>To display the quoted text in another size or color, &knode;
needs to recognize that it's quoted text. Quoted text is normally
marked with a <quote>&gt;</quote> at the beginning of the line, but
sometimes there are other characters. In this field you can enter all
characters that should mark quoted text.</para>

</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Show attachments inline if
possible</guilabel></title>

<para>If this setting is marked, &knode; tries to display the contents
of possible attachment directly in the window when opening an
article; for instance, a picture would be displayed directly below the
article text.</para>

<para>Additionally, you have the possibility to save the attachment or
open it with the application you have associated with the
<acronym>MIME</acronym> type of the attachment by using the context
menu.</para>

</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Open attachments on click</guilabel></title>

<para>If this box is checked, attachments are opened with the external
program which is configured for the <acronym>MIME</acronym> type; if
there is no such association, a dialog for saving a file is opened and
you can save the attachment to a separate file.</para>

</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Show alternative contents as
attachments</guilabel></title>

<para>Articles which are sent as Multipart <acronym>MIME</acronym>
contain the text of the message in multiple formats, for example as
raw text and <acronym>HTML</acronym>; the newsreader decides which
part of the article is displayed. This setting makes it possible for
the other formats to be opened as if they were attachments with a
mouse click.</para>

<para>If this setting is disabled, alternative contents are not
displayed.</para>

</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Open links with</guilabel></title>

<para>Here you can select which browser is used for displaying links
you clicked on in a message. Currently, you can either select the
<application>Netscape Navigator</application> or the default,
&konqueror;; the selected browser has to be installed, of
course.</para>

</sect3>
</sect2>

<sect2 id="knode-post-news-settings">
<title>Settings for publishing articles</title>

<para>When you post articles with &knode; the settings in the
following dialog box are used.</para>

<screenshot>
<screeninfo>The Technical Settings dialog</screeninfo>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="knode-post-settings.png" format="PNG"/></imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>The Technical Settings dialog</phrase>
</textobject>
<caption>
<para>The Technical Settings dialog</para>
</caption>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>

<caution>
<para>If you choose the wrong settings here your articles could be
unreadable or not sendable at all, so please be careful with these
settings.</para>
</caution>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Charset</guilabel></title>

<para>Here you can choose the charset used for encoding your
articles. Normally this is <acronym>US-ASCII</acronym> for English
speaking countries, but your charset may differ. The default is the
charset used in your global &kde; settings, so you should not have to
change this.</para>

<para>When you want to post articles in newsgroups with other charsets
(&eg; eastern European or Asian) you can set the required charset
here.</para>

</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Encoding</guilabel></title>

<para>Here you set the encoding of the characters for the message
transfer; you can choose between 8-bit and 7-bit
(quoted-printable).</para>

<para>If you choose 8-bit encoding most special characters are
transfered correctly; this is, for example, the normal option for the
German groups (de.*).</para>

<para>If you choose quoted-printable 8-bit characters (&eg; German
umlauts or special characters) are send as encoded 7-bit
characters.</para>

<tip>
<para>In the English newsgroups 7-bit encoding is quite
normal.</para>
</tip>

</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Use own default charset when
replying</guilabel></title>

<para>If this option is active, &knode; uses your default charset for
replying instead of the charset of the article you're answering
on.</para>

</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Generate Message-ID</guilabel></title>

<para>When this is active, &knode; generates its own Message-IDs for
all articles you post.</para>

<caution>
<para>The Message-ID must be unique worldwide: there would
otherwise be collisions between messages with the same Message-ID and the
news server would reject the second article because it thinks
this article has already been received.</para>

<para>A Message-ID consists of a valid <acronym>FQDN</acronym> (Full
Qualified Domain Name); this means it looks similar to an email
address with an identification before the <literal>@</literal> and the
domain.</para>

<para>The identification is generated by &knode; automatically, but
you must provide a valid domain name in <guilabel>Hostname</guilabel>;
if you do not have your own domain, you should not activate this
option &mdash; let the newsserver generate a Message-ID for you.</para>

<example>
<title>Message-ID</title>

<para>An example for a valid domain would be:
<literal>kde.org</literal>; a Message-ID generated with this domain
would look like:</para>

<screen>934lek9934@kde.org</screen>
</example>

<para>An unique identification is only guaranteed if you have your
own domain. Even when you do not use &knode; for generating your
Message-IDs there may be collisions when you are using a local
newsserver; for example, <application>leafnode</application> generates
a Message-ID which it derives from the local hostname.</para>

</caution>

<tip>
<para>You can get more information about this and how to own a free domain at
<ulink
url="http://www.qad.org/faq/faq-messageid.html">http://www.qad.org/faq/faq-
messageid.html</ulink>.</para>
</tip>
</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Hostname</guilabel></title>

<para>Here you enter the Hostname of your computer; this is used to
generate the Message-ID. If you do not have your own domain you
should not activate this option &mdash; let the newsserver generate a
Message-ID for you. Using the example above this would be:
<userinput>kde.org</userinput>.</para>

</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>X-Headers</guilabel></title>

<para>Here you can enter X-Headers which are not provided by &knode;;
for example, <userinput>X-No-Archive: yes</userinput>, which can be
used to prevent your articles from being archived by archive services
such as Google.</para>

<para>X-Headers are experimental headers, which are not included in the
standard for Internet-Messages; they are, for example, used for
extended information transfer. To prevent collisions with later
standard headers, they have a <quote>X-</quote> prefix.</para>

</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Don't add the "User-Agent" identification
header</guilabel></title>

<para>When this option is checked &knode; does not include the
corresponding line in the Header before posting.</para>

<para>This header is used for identification of the newsreader the
article was written in; apart from statistical reasons, this allows
non-standard newsreaders to be identified. You should not activate this
option &mdash; &knode; has no need to hide.</para>
</sect3>
</sect2>

<sect2 id="knode-composer-settings">
<title>The Composer Settings</title>

<screenshot>
<screeninfo>The Composer Settings dialog</screeninfo>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="knode-composer-settings.png" format="PNG"/></imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>The Composer Settings dialog</phrase>
</textobject>
<caption>
<para>The Composer Settings dialog</para>
</caption>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Word-wrap at column</guilabel></title>

<para>Here you can set the column number at which &knode; wraps the
line; also, you can deactivate the automatic word-wrapping
completely.</para>

<tip>
<para>It is recommended to use no more than 76 characters even if
you are able to display more: many Usenet users use text-based
newsreaders which can not display more than 80 characters and it is
difficult to read your articles in such a newsreader if you increase
this value &mdash; this would reduce the probability of your articles
being read at all.</para>
</tip>
</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Append signature automatically</guilabel></title>

<para>When you write a new <glossterm>article</glossterm> or a
<glossterm>followup</glossterm>, your <glossterm>signature</glossterm>
is appended automatically if you have configured one in
<menuchoice><guimenu>Settings</guimenu><guimenuitem>Configure
KNode...</guimenuitem><guilabel>Identity</guilabel></menuchoice>.</para>

</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Introduction Phrase:</guilabel></title>

<para>When you write a followup, &knode; inserts an introduction
phrase before the quoted original text. You can put arbitrary text
here; you can also use the variables which &knode; extracts from the original
article, &eg; the name of the author or the date the article was
written.</para>

<para>The following variable are available:</para>

<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term><varname>%NAME</varname></term>
<listitem>
<para>The name of the original author;</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><varname>%DATE</varname></term>
<listitem>
<para>The date on which the original article was written;</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><varname>%EMAIL</varname></term>
<listitem>
<para>The original author's email address;</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><varname>%MSID</varname></term>
<listitem>
<para>The Message-ID of the original article;</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><varname>%GROUP</varname></term>
<listitem>
<para>The name of the <glossterm>newsgroup</glossterm>the article
comes from.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>

<tip>
<para>Keep this short, because this introductory line appears in
every followup: a long introductory line can be as repelling as
a long signature.</para>
</tip>

<example>
<title>An example introductory line</title>

<screen><userinput>On <varname>%DATE</varname> <varname>%NAME</varname> wrote in
<varname>%MSID</varname></userinput></screen>

<para>Let us assume the original article was written by Konqui on
Saturday the 17th of June at 17:42:32 - 0500. The article has the
Message-ID &lt;8igdg5.3vvijgt.3@lizard.physos.com&gt;. &knode; will
then insert the following introductionary line.</para>

<screen><computeroutput>On Sat, 17 Jun 2000 17:42:32 +0200 Konqui wrote in
&lt;8igdg5.3vvijgt.3@lizard.physos.com&gt;:</computeroutput></screen>

</example>
</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Rewrap quoted text automatically</guilabel></title>

<para>When this is checked, the quoted text is wrapped at the correct
border value; hence, every new line will be at the correct quoting
level.</para>

</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Include the author's signature</guilabel></title>

<para>When this is activated not only the text of the original
message, but also the signature of the author, is quoted in a
reply.</para>

<tip>
<para>Quoting a signature is unnecessary and is often considered
impolite.</para>
</tip>
</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Put the cursor below the introduction
phrase</guilabel></title>

<para>Normally the cursor will appear below the whole message when
answering; with this option turned on the cursor appears below the
introduction phrase.</para>

<tip>
<para>This is especially helpful if you quote an article and wish to
write between the quoted lines from top to bottom.</para>
</tip>
</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Define external editor</guilabel></title>

<para>You can define an external editor here which is opened by
selecting <menuchoice><guimenu>Tools</guimenu><guimenuitem>Start
external editor</guimenuitem></menuchoice> in the Composer
window.</para>

<para>When <guilabel>Start external editor automatically</guilabel> is
checked the external editor is opened directly.</para>

<caution>
<para>Notice the <varname>%f</varname> after the name of the
editor: this is a variable for the filename of the article you want to
edit; do not delete this &mdash; you will get an error message when opening
the external editor if you do.</para>
</caution>

<tip>
<para>If you have problems with starting your external editor, the
reason may be that the editor starting in "the background"; this is called
forking: &knode; only notices the sub-process started and has finished, and
thinks you have quit the editor. The editor
<application>gvim</application> is an example for this; you can
disable the forking of <application>gvim</application> with the
commandline switch <option>-f</option>. It is recommended that you refer to
the documentation of your editor you are experiencing this problem.</para>

<para>If you want to use <application>gvim</application> in
<guilabel>Specify Editor</guilabel> enter the following:</para>

<para>
<userinput>
gvim -f %f</userinput>
</para>
</tip>
</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Start external editor
automatically</guilabel></title>

<para>If this option is active the external editor will be used for
editing articles.</para>

</sect3>
</sect2>

<sect2>
<title><guilabel>Spelling</guilabel></title>

<para>Here you can configure the behavior of the spell
checker.</para>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Create root/affix not in
dictionary</guilabel></title>

<para>If this is checked a known word-root with an unknown affix will
be automatically accepted as a new word.</para>

</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Consider run-together words as spelling
errors</guilabel></title>

<para>Here you can toggle if two known words that run together to form an
unknown word should be treated as an error or
not.)</para>

</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Dictionary</guilabel></title>

<para>Here you chose the dictionary the spell-checker should
use.</para>

</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Encoding</guilabel></title>

<para>Here you can tell &knode; which encoding should be used for
spell checking; for English text this should normally be
<acronym>US-ASCII</acronym>.</para>

</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Client</guilabel></title>

<para>Here you can switch between the spell-checkers; you can use
<application>International Ispell</application> or
<application>Aspell</application>.</para>

</sect3>

</sect2>

<sect2>
<title><guilabel>Signing and verifying</guilabel></title>

<para>Here you can configure &knode; for signing articles with
<application>GnuPG</application> or
<application>PGP</application>. Your
<application>GnuPG</application>/<application>PGP</application>
<acronym>ID</acronym> will be built automatically from your configured
name and email address; it is identical to the from line in the
header of the <glossterm>article</glossterm>.</para>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Encryption tool</guilabel></title>

<para>Here you can choose your encryption tool.</para>

</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Keep passphrase in memory</guilabel></title>

<para>If this option is active you only need to type the passphrase
for your private key once; &knode; will remember your passphrase until
you close &knode; again.</para>

</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Show ciphered/signed text after
composing</guilabel></title>

<para>If this option is activated &knode; will show the signed message in
an extra window for confirmation before changing it in the
editor.</para>

</sect3>

<sect3>
<title>Always show the encryption keys for approval</title>

<para>If you are using public newsgroups (on Usenet) you can safely
ignore this option as it would not be useful to encrypt messages sent
to Usenet; this option may, however, be useful in private
newsgroups on private networks where encryption is desired.</para>
<!-- FIXME: LW - I can see use for -->
<!-- encryption, on private networks etc. This needs a rewrite -->
<!-- AndrewColes: is this revision any better? -->
</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Check signatures automatically</guilabel></title>

<para>If this is marked, the <application>PGP</application> signature
of the article is automatically checked when showing the article; if
there's no mark, you can check the signature for correctness manually
with the <menuchoice><guimenu>View</guimenu><guimenuitem>Verify
PGP-Signature</guimenuitem></menuchoice> menu entry.</para>

</sect3>

</sect2>


<sect2 id="knode-article-cleanup">
<title>The article-cleanup settings.</title>

<para>The dialog below shows the settings for the article
cleanup; these settings are used to keep the number of articles on
your local harddisk to a reasonable number. &knode; administrates the
articles in memory so there can be some decrease in speed if you
have to many articles lying around; most of the time it makes no sense
to keep articles for a very long time. Services like Google and
Altavista make archiving unnecessary.</para>

<caution>
<para>&knode; isn't an offline reader, so all of the
configuration refers to the headers which are managed by &knode;; if
you are running a local news server, such as
<application>leafnode</application>, you should refer to its
documentation to handle expiring the articles on the server &mdash;
&knode; cannot do this for you.</para>
</caution>

<screenshot>
<screeninfo>The cleanup settings</screeninfo>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="knode-cleanup.png" format="PNG"/></imageobject>
<textobject>
<phrase>The cleanup settings</phrase>
</textobject>
<caption>
<para>The cleanup settings</para>
</caption>
</mediaobject>
</screenshot>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Expire old articles automatically</guilabel></title>

<para>When this option is active all subscribed groups are checked for
old articles in the time interval set here; the old articles will
then be deleted.</para>


<tip>
<para>You can force this check by selecting
<menuchoice><guimenu>Group</guimenu><guimenuitem>Expire
group</guimenuitem></menuchoice></para>
</tip>
</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Purge groups every</guilabel></title>

<para>Here you can configure how often subscribed groups should be
checked for old <glossterm>article</glossterm>s and how often those
articles should be deleted; this option only has an effect when 
<guilabel>Expire old articles automatically</guilabel> is
selected.</para>

</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Keep read articles</guilabel></title>

<para>Read articles are deleted by the next cleanup if they are older
than this value; &knode; uses the creation date for this.</para>

</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Keep unread articles</guilabel></title>

<para>Unread articles are deleted by the next cleanup if they are
older than this value; &knode; uses the creation date for this.</para>

</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Remove articles that are not available on the
server</guilabel></title>

<para>It may happen that you'll see a <glossterm>header</glossterm> in
&knode; but the article is not available on the server; if this option
is set, those articles will automatically deleted in &knode;.</para>

</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Preserve threads</guilabel></title>

<para>This selection forces a thread to be deleted only if all
articles contained in it fulfil the delete conditions; this means that a thread
will not be deleted until the last article in the thread should be
deleted.</para>

<para>This prevents old articles in a long thread from vanishing before
the discussion has ended.</para>

<caution>
<para>&knode; can not predict whether there will be a reply after the set
conditions are fulfilled; you will have to find your own settings for
this. Some newsgroups have days between replies; others only hours. Use
your own judgement.</para>
</caution>
</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Compact folders automatically</guilabel></title>

<para>This option refers to the memory behavior of &knode;. If an
<glossterm>article</glossterm> in a folder is deleted it will be
marked as deleted but still take up space on your hard disk; with
this option you can tell &knode; to actually delete the articles and
free the hard-disk space regularly.</para>

<tip>
<para>You can force this check by selecting
<menuchoice><guimenu>Folder</guimenu><guimenuitem>Compact
folder</guimenuitem></menuchoice> or for all folders together with
<menuchoice><guimenu>Folder</guimenu><guimenuitem>Compact all
folders</guimenuitem></menuchoice>.</para>
</tip>
</sect3>

<sect3>
<title><guilabel>Purge folders every</guilabel></title>

<para>Here you can configure how often the folder is checked for
deleted articles; this option only has an effect if the
<guilabel>Compact folders automatically</guilabel> is set.</para>
</sect3>
</sect2>

</sect1>