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Chris in Madison · Jan 8, 2002, 12:33 PM

Hello all,

Anyone know of any decent news clients for OSX? I've looked at Baker and Thoth, but they seem to be better suited to leeching/downloading than interactive NG usage. Am I going to have to stick with OE/NS for decent newsgroup features?

Best regards,
Chris

someone_else · Jan 8, 2002, 02:42 PM

Originally posted by Chris in Madison:
Hello all,

Anyone know of any decent news clients for OSX? I've looked at Baker and Thoth, but they seem to be better suited to leeching/downloading than interactive NG usage. Am I going to have to stick with OE/NS for decent newsgroup features?

Best regards,
Chris

Well, if you have Office X, Entourage is a farily decent news reader. Although I wish Simon Fraser would hurry up and release MT-Newswatcher (even just a beta). Nothing compares to MT-NW and a lot of people are waiting for it.

NewsFlash is an OpenSource Cocoa news reader, but last time I tried it, it had a long way to go.

HTH.

[ 01-08-2002: Message edited by: someone_else ]

someone_else · Jan 8, 2002, 02:43 PM

[ 01-08-2002: Message edited by: someone_else ]

someone_else · Jan 8, 2002, 02:48 PM

Sorry, another dup post. Stupid IE.

[ 01-08-2002: Message edited by: someone_else ]

Ron Goodman · Jan 8, 2002, 02:51 PM

I'm not sure what your problem is with Thoth. It works about like any other news client I'be ever seen, doesn't crash, has lots of options. ???

memento · Jan 8, 2002, 05:12 PM

Add me to the queue for MT-NW!!

Originally posted by someone_else:


Well, if you have Office X, Entourage is a farily decent news reader. Although I wish Simon Fraser would hurry up and release MT-Newswatcher (even just a beta). Nothing compares to MT-NW and a lot of people are waiting for it.

NewsFlash is an OpenSource Cocoa news reader, but last time I tried it, it had a long way to go.

HTH.

[ 01-08-2002: Message edited by: someone_else ]

foamy · Jan 8, 2002, 05:30 PM

I just use Mozilla. I use it for browsing and it has the best newsreader IMO. The feature I really like is the ability to sort by thread AND date. In OE if you view threaded, then it is sorted by subject which is completely stupid. If you click on date, it breaks the threads. In Mozilla, you can sort the threads by date.

I tried Thoth and I just can't stand it. Nothing about the app seems intuitive and it has little windows everywhere, when you read a message it is gone the next time you come back, plus it is just fugly.

Newsflash has promise, but you can't sort your messages by anything except subject (has this changed), which renders the app useless.

Chris in Madison · Jan 8, 2002, 05:32 PM

I'm taking a look at it again. When I first looked at it, it seemed pretty daunting. I guess I'm a creature of familiarity having used Outlook Express on Windows for so long. I was looking for a client that acted similarly as I move to OSX as my primary means of computing.

The one thing I haven't found yet in my brief re-evaluation is a feature comparable to OE's "Watch" function where I can set a flag for those articles to which I have replied. Since I spend a lot of time to programming NGs, it's vital that I'm able to quickly look at those that I've provided answers to. Any quick hints?

So far my second pass with the program looks pretty good.

Best regards,
Chris

stevenhaddon · Jan 8, 2002, 05:35 PM

I seriously recommend Entourage X, if you're willing to purchase it. Until I bought that, my newsreader situation was pretty dire.

Newsflash kept crashing and didn't have much in the way of features.

Thoth is dire. The functionality may all be there, but it's one of the most unfriendly user interfaces I've ever come across.

Before Entourage I was forced to use Netscape/Mozilla. If you're looking for something free, that's probably the best you'll find, as far as I'm aware.

Steve

Chris in Madison · Jan 8, 2002, 06:34 PM

Originally posted by stevenhaddon:
I seriously recommend Entourage X,

I was leaning toward Entourage X, actually, but couldn't find any reference to it being a newsreader on MS's web site. Since I'm so entrenched in OE, I would feel more productive if it did so.

I'm still going to try out Thoth a little bit further to see if I can make it work for me, but I think I might be barking up an annoying tree. We'll see I suppose.

Thanks for the input.

Best regards,
Chris

stevenhaddon · Jan 8, 2002, 07:15 PM

I used OE in 9; moving to Entourage for email/news is a smooth step. I love the program, and would seriously recommend it. It does everything I need in those two fields, and has a calendar as well.

Steve

Chris in Madison · Jan 8, 2002, 11:46 PM

Originally posted by stevenhaddon:
I used OE in 9; moving to Entourage for email/news is a smooth step. I love the program, and would seriously recommend it. It does everything I need in those two fields, and has a calendar as well.

Steve

MS has a 30-day trial thing going, so I gave it a shot. It works nicely, but the one thing about it that annoys me is that you can't sort by date when you have it set to "View By Thread." It defaults to 'sort by title' which throws off the whole date thing, which is bad news for a guy like me who totally relies on dates AND threads to monitor discussion topics. Dangit. Otherwise, it's really nice. I don't understand why there can't be continuity in features across platforms with these guys...

Thoth pissed me off. Non-intuitive interface, can't watch threads...

Somebody's going to get it right at some point. I _so_ want to move over to my Mac for this...

Best regards,
Chris

jambajooz · Dec 7, 2003, 03:11 PM

Originally posted by stevenhaddon:
I seriously recommend Entourage X, if you're willing to purchase it. Until I bought that, my newsreader situation was pretty dire.

Newsflash kept crashing and didn't have much in the way of features.

Thoth is dire. The functionality may all be there, but it's one of the most unfriendly user interfaces I've ever come across.

Before Entourage I was forced to use Netscape/Mozilla. If you're looking for something free, that's probably the best you'll find, as far as I'm aware.

Steve

I just recently used Entourage soley for newsgroups use. I found that the messages aren't indented like outlook express on windows. It was hard for me to keep track of messages as far as who replied and to what topic/message. Is there a setting anywhere? I couldn't find it.

Ludovic Hirlimann · Dec 8, 2003, 04:22 AM

Originally posted by Chris in Madison:
Hello all,

Anyone know of any decent news clients for OSX? I've looked at Baker and Thoth, but they seem to be better suited to leeching/downloading than interactive NG usage. Am I going to have to stick with OE/NS for decent newsgroup features?

Best regards,
Chris

I personnaly use MacSoup. It does news and just the news. It's not geared towards leeching but more in the spirt of exchanging messages. It's a shareware but it's not crippled (at least I never saw the cripple and used it for a long time before registering it).

Gee4orce · Dec 8, 2003, 04:24 AM

Halime is the best newsreader I've found for X. Don't judge it by the ropey icon !

theolein · Dec 8, 2003, 04:48 AM

Thunderbird, the Mozilla mail and news standalone client is what I used for a while, and it works pretty well. (I was dumb enough to use my real e-mail address and have been severe spamitis ever since).

Sven G · Dec 8, 2003, 07:59 AM

Originally posted by Gee4orce:
Halime is the best newsreader I've found for X. Don't judge it by the ropey icon !

... But it's a real pity that it seems to have been discontinued. Maybe it will revive as an open source project (see the author's website)...

Phoenix1701 · Dec 8, 2003, 12:03 PM

Err... MT-Newswatcher has been out for Mac OS X for a very, very long time actually. You can download it here:

http://www.smfr.org/mtnw/downloading.html

It works quite nicely, as it always has.

iNeusch · Dec 8, 2003, 12:35 PM

I use Thoth, it's great...

Moonray · Dec 8, 2003, 06:51 PM

Originally posted by Gee4orce:
Halime is the best newsreader I've found for X. Don't judge it by the ropey icon !

Heh, the icon is cool

-

Moonray · Dec 8, 2003, 07:21 PM

Oh, and my experiences with Thoth are that it *does* crash, that it has the worst user interface I've seen for years on a Mac (both, the look and the handling), and - what most users might not get aware of soon - that it leaks memory like a broken dam.
No thanks.

-

trusted_content · Dec 8, 2003, 07:47 PM

Has nobody actually recommended pan yet?

Blasphemy!

Pan is a very very fine GTK2 newsreader. Requires X11 and either fink or darwinports to install (unless you're willing to go through the work yourself), and a bit more work to make it extra pretty, but it most certianly pays off in being one of the most awesome newsreaders ever:

If anybody wants a nice guide on setting up GTK2 with a good theme and fontset, ask me, and I'll be glad to post it (I've already posted it on other boards).

Lordx_ · Dec 8, 2003, 07:52 PM

Originally posted by trusted_content:
Has nobody actually recommended pan yet?

Blasphemy!

Pan is a very very fine GTK2 newsreader. Requires X11 and either fink or darwinports to install (unless you're willing to go through the work yourself), and a bit more work to make it extra pretty, but it most certianly pays off in being one of the most awesome newsreaders ever:

If anybody wants a nice guide on setting up GTK2 with a good theme and fontset, ask me, and I'll be glad to post it (I've already posted it on other boards).

Please do. the default look of X11 is nasty.

trusted_content · Dec 9, 2003, 01:00 AM

Originally posted by Lordx_:
Please do. the default look of X11 is nasty.

here you go