Welcome to the Newzgrabber!

WHAT IS NEWZGRABBER?

Newzgrabber is an application used for retrieving file attachments to newsgroup articles. It handles multiple message attachments (large attachments broken over several messages) as well as UU, yEnc, and Base64 Encoded types. The application is written in pure Java and has both a graphical and batch mode interface.

WHERE CAN I DOWNLOAD IT?

I have the sources along with JAR (Java Archive) files bundled in both tar.gz format or zip format (for Windows). Alternatively, all things can also be gotten through the main project location on sourceforge.net

WHAT DO I NEED TO USE IT?

Basically, any machine/OS with a JVM (Java Virtual Machine) installed with a version of 1.2.2 or greater "should" be able to run it. You can download Java for free from Sun Microsystems. Just look for the appropriate operating system on this page and download the JRE (Java Runtime Environment) and follow the installation instructions. NOTE: You can download the SDK as well which is a full development kit. However, it is much larger and is only needed if you want to write/edit/compile java source code.
I've ran it (Newzgrabber) on Windows (98,NT4,2000), Linux (Redhat 8.0 and Suse 7.3), and Solaris 2.7 with no problems (in both modes). I haven't tried it on any other operating systems for availability reasons but would be really curious to know how it performs/functions on them (especially MacOS).

HOW DO I UNPACKAGE IT?

This is probably far below anyone reading this but I wanted to assume nothing for everyone's sake. Depending on the archive type you got, unpacking it is simply:
For tar.gz format:

gunzip Newzgrabber-1.1.tar.gz
tar -xvf Newzgrabber-1.1.tar
cd Newzgrabber-1.1


For zip format:

unzip Newzrabber-1.1.zip
cd Newzrabber-1.1

OR JUST OPEN THE ZIP ARCHIVE IN WINZIP IF YOU HAVE IT.

HOW DO I COMPILE IT? (Only needed for developers)

I have included my JAR (Java Archive) file which should stand alone as well as the source code to the project. If you want to make changes to the source code (or are just curious) you can compile the code yourself. If you're interested in becoming a developer on the project drop me an email. To create the JAR file from the source code one should do the following (assuming you have already unpackaged it and changed to the program directory from the previous stage):


javac ./Newzgrabber/*.java
jar cf Newz.jar ./Newzgrabber/*.class

HOW DO I RUN IT?

As I mentioned before, this application does have both graphical and batch modes. Before using batch mode, however, it is probably best to start with the graphical mode at least once to initialize the ini files in the application directory that will be needed in the future. The following are the different methods (depending on your OS/shell-type) for starting up the GUI (continuing from the How-Do-I-Unpackge-It step):

# from sh in the Newzgrabber-1.1 directory type:
java -cp ./Newz.jar Newzgrabber.Newzgrabber >/dev/null 2>&1 &

# from DOS (Windows) in the Newzgrabber-1.1 directory type:
Newzgrabber

# OR JUST run Newzgrabber.bat from either the Run menu or Explorer

Once the GUI has started, the normal setup sequence for the first time run should be:

1) From the Options index:
	a) fill in the News Server
	b) fill in the Username/Password if your server requires it
	c) Set threads (number of simultaneous downloads/NNTP sockets)
	   that can be opened.  FYI: my server's limit is 3
	d) Click "Build Group List"
	e) Click "Download Directory" (only necessary before you begin
	   download session)
2) From Groups index:
	a) Click "Subscribe to Newsgroup(s)"
		This will search your newly formed ini file
		created in the "Build Group List" operation
		for a pattern entered.  The matching groups
		(if any) can then be added and will go in the
		"Subscribed Groups" section of the Groups index.
	b) Activate one or more newsgroups
		This must be done before a group can be searched
		and a download session for that group started.
3) From the Search panel
	a) Click "Start Search"
		This returns the articles found available for download
		in the group(s).  You can then select one or more
		of them which will then enable the "Download" button.
	b) Click "Download"
		You can then see the activity downloading in the
		Transfer index
	
	One thing to note about downloads:
		Every time you click download, the present 
		Download Directory is used for every download
		in that session.  You can change this on a session
		by session basis.  For example, if you wanted to 
		activate/search/download alt.mp3s.1980s to ~/songs/1980s,
		just set that directory before your download and then
		start the downloads.  Then, while downloading, you can
		change the download directory to ~/songs/1970s (without
		effecting the 1980s downloads) and do a 
		activate/search/download from alt.mp3s.1970s

4) Upon exiting the program you should have 2 ini files; 
Newsgroups.ini and Newzgrabber.ini.  Newsgroups.ini can be quite
large (depending on how many groups your server subscribes to) and 
can be updated and overwritten at any time by running "Build Group List".