Just in case you are beginning to think this column is about Thoth, the whole Thoth, and nothing but Thoth, its time once again to survey other Usenet newsreader clients available for the Mac. Given that Mac OX is a year old, this column takes a look at what is available for users who desire a buffet of choices when selecting an application. With Mac OS X’s strong developer support, its no surprise that there is a lot to choose from. Some of the choices are not ready for prime time yet, but all of these programs are under active development and continue to improve rapidly.
The first client is not a client in the traditional sense, its
Newsguy’s DRN Web interface for reading messages in your Web browser. If you have never tried it, now is the time. It has several significant advantages over traditional clients. It works with most Web browsers, DRN is very good at stitching together multi-part binaries (it only displays a single line for many message threads), and best of all, it can suppress non-binary files. Although it may seem slower than a dedicated client (and probably is, for most tasks), using DRN for browsing for binary files feels polished and quick. Making the time to become familiar with DRN is worthwhile even if you only use it those times when the local client cannot get the job done.
Baker is a special purpose client that specializes in uploading and downloading binary files. It can display image previews, cycle between various NNTP servers, queue files for later retrieval, and it supports multiple simultaneous connections on multiple servers. This is a Mac OS X-based newsreader to watch, as it keeps getting better and better.
MacPAR and
MacPAR deLuxe are not technically clients, but utilities for locating missing elements in multi-part PAR archives. They were independently developed and both do basically the same task, although the deLuxe version has a more polished interface.
Newsflash is a work in progress. Currently in early development, Newsflash is an open source Mac OS X newsreader featuring MIME and UUEncode support, an Aqua GUI, multi-threaded (non-blocking) operation, and article threading by reference. Newsflash has some maturing to do, but it’s a great example of how vibrant the newsreader is at present.
Halime is another newsreader client under active development. It also supports most of the usual features found in current newsreaders, including a graphical threaded view. One might ask why I’m taking the time to note applications in early development. There are two answers. First, to see what it just over the horizon, and second, providing feedback early in the development phase to the developers increases the chance that your pet feature will make it into the release version.
NewsWatcher X is an early Carbon port of the John Norstad's original and venerable NewsWatcher. It is small, fast, and sports a clean interface. It is not the most powerful new client available today, but its one of the fastest, and its feature set is more than most users probably need.
For the truly adventurous souls who can compile their own applications under Mac OS X, and long for the good old days before graphic user interfaces,
check out tin, one of the earliest Usenet CLI utilities.
While Thoth is still the lead dog in this pack, the pack is getting much larger, thanks in no small part of the number of developers who have begin exploring new opportunities in Mac OSX. |
"OS X Client Roundup"
