M2
FILTERS
FILTERS


Ah....filters!  Agent has an incredibly powerful way to handle all types of filters for better reading of your groups.

The short and simple way to do this is as follows, keep in mind that once the initial settings are in place, it is a simple 3 step path to blocking out unwanted messages!

First, set it up:


Default Properties
Filters tab


Use this dialog box to define your default group settings.  This tab controls the default settings which appear in the Add Usenet Filter dialog box.

Disable filtering for all groups
Uncheck this one




Kill Action

Select the default Kill action for your filters.
Choose skip from the drop down menu.


Watch Action

Select the default Watch action for your filters.
Choose watch thread.


Scope

Select Global if you want the filter to apply to all groups, or select Group: <newsgroup> if you want the filter to apply only to the current group.
Choose global for this one.


Keep

Check this box if you want Agent to automatically insert a Keep icon  next to all messages retrieved for filters with watch actions.
Uncheck this one.

Search For

Select whether you want Agent to search on the subject or author information, when evaluating filter criteria.
Subject is fine for this one.


Kill Priority/Watch Priority

Enter default priorities for kill and watch filters.  This can be any value between 0 (lowest) and 1000 (highest).
1000 for kill filters
600 for watch filters.

Expire this filter in

Check this box if you want the filter to be automatically deleted after the number of days specified.
Leave this unchecked.







Now, to use a filter or to add one do this.


1) Highlight the offending or wanted article.

2) Right mouse click it, choose Usenet filters, add kill filter.

3) All settings should be setup for you, check the box that says Apply to groups immediately, and click OK.

4) If you want to change the filter, or if the authors e mail name is too close to someone else, use the paste subject menu, and use that.  Edit out as mush as you can from it, but not too much to make it ineffective.

Example:

Author:Max
Max is too common for me, so I would go to paste subject.

Header subject reads:

RE: No shit packard bell sucks part 1/1500000

I would change that to read:
packard bell

This way I will ignore any posts that contain packard bell in the header, less drivel to read.

If your concerned with losing important stuff, then in Default properties choose expire filter in 5 days, this way you at least get a temporary reprieve.

Watch filters work the same basic way, I don't use them too much because I don't like defaults for file retrieval, and I would rather use the find function to locate special files or folks.  Plus the watch filter does not let you know it found anything!