Newsgroup: This field displays the newsgroup title you are posting a message to. In this example, the messsage is being posted to the "alt.binaries.pictures.animals" newsgroup.

Subject: If you are posting a new message, this field will appear blank, leaving you room to type a title for your message. In this example, the message title is "Here's the tiger photo". In the event that you are replying to an existing message within a newsgroup, this field will be prefilled with the title of the original message you are replying to.

From: This field will also appear blank, and you would use this area to type a nickname, real name, email address, or any combination of the the above. In this example, both a name (Sharon Smith) and an email address (ssmith@here.com) were typed into the "From" field.

Cc / E-Mail: In some instances you may want to post your message to a newsgroup, and send a copy of the message to someone by email. Simply type an email address into this field, and when the message is posted to the newsgroup, a copy will also be sent to the email address that you've referenced.

Attachment / Browse: There are a variety of multimedia newsgroups that feature photos, videos, music clips, and more. If you wanted to post one of those files to an appropriate newsgroup, simply click on the "Browse" button to view the file directories on your local system, and once you've located the file, you would simply "attach" it your post. In this example, a photo file (tiger.jpg) was attached to the post.

X-No-Archive: If you do not want your newsgroup messages stored within a Usenet search engine or archive site, you would checkmark this option box prior to posting your message. 

Send Message: Once you've typed your message, and have filled in the header details (Subject, From, etc.), you would click this toolbar icon to post the message to a newsgroup.

ReplyTrac (tm): This feature will send you an email notification when someone has replied to a message that you've posted to the newsgroups. This is a great feature for anyone that wants to keep track of interesting newsgroup discussions, without having to monitor a newsgroup on a routine basis. To use this feature, simply prepare your newsgroup message, click "ReplyTrac (tm)" to select your tracking and notification settings, and click "Send Message" to post your newsgroup message. After you've selected the "ReplyTrac (tm)" option, you may edit or remove those settings from your "Direct Read News Preferences".

Spell Check: After you've typed your message, you can click on this toolbar icon to check the spelling within your message. A pop-up window will display a copy of your message, and a "question mark" will appear next to any word with a questionable spelling. If the "question mark" is clicked, a list of alternate spellings will appear, and you may choose to substitute another word at that time, or stick with your original spelling. When you've made all your spelling changes, click the "Done" button, and your original message will automatically update itself with the new spelling changes in place.

Preferences: This toolbar icon lets you establish a number of personal preferences or settings within the posting area. As an example, you can preset the information within many of the header fields (Name, Email Address, etc.), and you can create a "signature" that will be added to the end of messages that you post to the newsgroups. In this example, a signature was created to display a name (Sharon Smith / Wildlife Photography) as well as a personal site address (http://www.sharonsmithphoto.com).