M1

WINDOW LAYOUT
WINDOW LAYOUT

This is one of Agents strongest features.  The window layout gives you total control over how your version of Agent works and feels.  There is a screen shot of my favorite layout to the right.

There are dozens of variations, each of which can be customized further.

To resize a windows layout, hold your cursor over the outside edge and left click and drag to your hearts content!

The red lines indicate the header area, this is where new and old headers for newsgroups are displayed.

The black lines indicate the position of the group window, this will show all your subscribed groups and folders.

The blue lines indicate the active article or e mail window.  This window rarely needs to be larger then the header field, as most articles and e mails will view nicely in a smaller window.


You may want to keep the header window as large as possible, this window will always display the most info, and you will refer to this window more often then the others.

In the header window you will see the following as a title bar:

Status
Shows the file size of the highlighted article, and whether it is a multi-part file, and whether it has been saved or retrieved.

Subject
This will show the actual header field.

Author
This will show who sent or posted the article or e mail.

Date
This shows the date the article was posted or sent.

All but Status can be resized by holding the cursor over the dividing lines, then left clicking and dragging.

If your double click on the date, subject or author title section, it will perform a sort for you.  This means if you want to see the newest articles first, double click on the date, and Agent will sort the articles for you.  A neat and very handy feature, not often used as most folks simply don't know they can do it!

The author double click is extremely useful, say a certain poster has put up a number of articles over a weeks time, and you want to see all of that persons posts.  Highlight one of his posts, then double click on the author tab, all of that persons posts will now show in order of date posted.

I have touched the surface of this section, it is a great thing to have a program that can be so functional and yet so highly configurable.  Play with this section often, if you find that you prefer a certain date sort, or author sort over the default, go to Groups, Default properties, and make the changes permanent.

Note that you can make the changes global, that is, affect all groups, or you can make the changes only affect the group you highlight.  Under Groups you will see two sub menus, one for properties, and one for default properties.

Properties affects only the highlighted group.

Default properties affects all groups globally.
 