Thoth has been updated once again, and it just keeps getting better. I’m going to take a
quick detour from our discussion of filters to take a look at what has changed with Thoth
since the last time we surveyed this venerable news reader.
The version number changes with Thoth may be a bit misleading. Usually point releases (the
point refers to the last number, for example, 1.4.2 is a point 2 release, meaning it’s the
second minor revision since 1.4 was released) contain little more than bug fixes. However,
there are no hard and fast rules for version numbers, and one developer’s point 1 release
is another developer’s middle number revision. How does this apply to Thoth? Thoth’s
developer Brian Clark usually packs a lot of improvement in a simple point release, and
his latest -- Thoth 1.5.1 -- continues this trend.
One of the most visible changes improves the interface for opening group lists, which has
until now been pretty well hidden. In addition to the old method for activating a group
list, which is buried inside a dialog several clicks deep, the latest Thoth sports a new
item under the File menu titled Open Group List that is connected to a submenu that lists
all the open servers and their associated Group Lists. The change makes Group Lists a much
more discoverable feature. Here is a tip: choosing the name of the server from the Group
Lists menu will open all the closed group list windows for that server. (Also try
selecting a server while holding down the Option key.)
A number of small changes make the application much more Mac-like. Under OS X, most of the
screen buttons beyond the standard window controls adopt an Aqua-friendly interface. The
main control icons are now in color, and even the status window indicator has gone OS X
native. Other Mac-like improvements include relative dates in list views, smoothed fonts,
and several other small interface tweaks. Do not rush to adopt smoothed fonts though; they
extract quite a performance penalty in the form of slower screen redraws or scrolling.
Don’t like the new features? This is Thoth: turn them off! As I’ve written in the past,
the Preferences panel for Thoth is extensive, and its possible to configure, tweak, and
massage Thoth to behave almost exactly the way you want. Most of the new features noted
above have new preferences. Its possible to turn off font smoothing, hide Group Lists in
the File menu, and, well you get the idea.
There are more changes than those I have mentioned here: these are just the highlights.
But before I wrap this up, I want to touch on one other feature that I have never
mentioned before: a new binary encoding format named yEnc. Thoth supports both encode/upload and
download/decode of binary files in the yEnc format, a new encoding scheme that is still relatively rare, but becoming more popular.
I’ve said this before: Thoth is the most powerful Mac newsreader out there, and it keeps
getting better. If you are a hard-core Usenet news junkie, it’s worth the learning curve
to master all its features.
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"More Thoth Polish"
