Before you post, you should set your e-mail address, name and signature. You don't need these to post, but it's nice to tell people who you are. Go to the Reply information section of the preferences.
Here you can set these options. The e-mail address you add is the address to which e-mail replies will be sent. If you post with your real e-mail address, spammers can read your address and send you junk mail. You can set a false e-mail address if you have a problem with spam. You should include your real e-mail address in your signature. Also, realize that some news servers, if unable to post your article, will try to e-mail you that your post was unsuccessful. With a false e-mail address, you will not know why your article was not posted. The username you enter is the full name that will appear in article headings.
You can change your signature under the Signature tab in the preferences. Your signature will be printed at the end of the articles you post. The default signature is
Posted with Ink Spot (for Windows CE) from DejaVu Software, Inc.
Usenet wherever you are - http://www.dejavusoftware.com/
Feel free to post with the unchanged signature!
You can post a new article, post a reply to an article, forward an article via e-mail, or e-mail a reply directly to the author. After creating a post or reply, Ink Spot will store the article until you connect to your news server again. When you connect next, Ink Spot will upload and post your articles. Until you connect, you can edit your posts or delete them.
Ink Spot provides two different post views, "easy" and "full". The easy view (the default) separates the components of your post, such as the subject, the receiver, and the body, to make the composition of your post more intuitive. The full view simply gives you a text area in which you can compose your post free-form. This is intended for more advanced users, who want to have more control over the headers of their posts. You can select which view Ink Spot will use under the Reply information tab in the preferences.
To add a new post, choose the Post New Article option from the Group, Thread, or Article menu. Ink Spot will display the article editing window. If you're using the "easy" post view, choose Subject from the picker, and enter a one-sentence summary of your post. ("HELP!!!" is not a summary.) Choose Newsgroups from the picker, and enter the names of the newsgroups to which you want your message posted. If you're posting to more than one group, you must enter the names in a comma-separated list, with no spaces (e.g. "comp.os.ms-windows.ce,microsoft.public.windowsce"). Then write the text of your post. Ink Spot will include your signature. Tap the OK button to save your post or send your e-mail.
To reply to an article, choose Post Reply from the Article menu while viewing the article. Ink Spot will copy the original article using the quote string you specify. Before the original post, Ink Spot will add the line,
In message [number], [previous author] wrote:
Now you can edit your post. You should trim the quoted text, so that it only contains the portion to which you're responding. You can also change the subject line, if the thread has drifted off topic.
To send a reply via email, Choose Email To from the picker and enter an email address. If you don't enter any newsgroups, your reply will only be sent via email. You must either enter an email address, or one or more newsgroups, or both. Then tap OK to save your post!
Sure it feels good to blow off at that idiot who doesn't have two brain cells to rub together... but that's not what the Net is about, is it? Once you've created a post, you can edit or delete it up until the time you next connect.
Posts can be edited only from the group view. The number of posts you have queued will be shown under the Welcome to Ink Spot message.
While viewing groups, tap Post under the Group menu and choose View post queue. The list of queued posts (by subject) will appear. Tap the post subject to display and edit it. Once you've finished editing, tap OK. If you want to discard your edits, tap the close box.
While viewing groups, enter the post queue as above. Tap the subject of the post you want to delete. Tap the Delete option from the pop-up menu that appears. Ink Spot will ask you to confirm the deletion. Tap [yes] to delete, [no] to cancel. Once a post is deleted, you cannot recover it.
If you choose to reply via e-mail, Ink Spot will pass the message to your e-mail software after you first write the post. If you want to edit or delete the e-mail, you must use your e-mail software. It will probably be in the Outbox section of the Inbox application. Refer to the documentation for your e-mail program.
Ink Spot offers all sorts of options to make your replies fun. Most people customize their signature, but Ink Spot also allows you to customize quote strings and attribution strings.
The quote string appears to the left of the original article. The factory-installed default is "> ". Other common quote strings are ": " and "| ". If you want to change the quote string, go to the Reply information tab of the preferences. Enter the quote string you wish to use.
The attribution string appears before the quoted article. The default string is
In message [number], [previous author] wrote:
You can change this, also under the Reply information tab of the preferences. Enter the attribution string you wish to use. The variables for substitution are:
The default string appears as:
In message $i, $a wrote:
Ink Spot offers you the option of adding your own headers to every post. For instance, if you would like to add the header "X-No-Archive: yes" to every message that you post (which causes some archiving agents, such as Deja.com, to ignore your post), you can do this. Go to the Advanced:Headers section of the preferences and type "X-No-Archive: yes" in the box shown.
Warning: Adding malformed headers may cause your news server to reject your posts. Add headers only if you are sure of what you are doing.
[ Reading | Ink Spot | Manual Overview ]