DL: Our BatchDownload (tm) feature allows you to select files in the newsgroups and automate their download to your computer. Simply click the "DL" link that appears next to the files that you wish to download, and our interface will move those file to a separate BatchDownload window. 

When you've completed your selections, click the "Download" button in the BatchDownload window, and our interface will automatically decode the files and compress them into a single ZIP file that will be downloaded your computer system. If your Internet connection should be disrupted, BatchDownload offers a "Resume" feature that allows you to pick up where your download was disrupted. Once you receive the ZIP file, you can uncompress it on your local system to access the individual files.

06/08: The date that a message was posted to a newsgroup. In this example, the message was posted on June 8th.

Sharon Smith: The name or email address of the person that posted the message. In this example "Sharon Smith" posted the message.

1.5K: This indicates the size of the text message or multimedia file that has been posted to a newsgroup, and is measured in either Kb's or Mb's. If you wished to view a particular message from the list, you may click on the file size link to open the message. In this example, "Sharon" posted a text message that is "1.5K" in size. 

"Help! Please recommend reliable...": Each newsgroup message is given a title by the person that posted it. In this example, "Sharon" titled her message "Help! Please recommend reliable equipment for underwater photos". If you wished to view a particular message from the list, you may click on the title link to open the message.

Action Icons: A person may post either a text message or a multimedia file (photos, videos, music, etc.) and if you look to the left of each posted message within a newsgroup you'll find a Direct Read News "Action Icon" which indicates the type of message that has been posted...

	File Archive	Music file	Video file
	Photo file	Exec file	Text file

When you click on one of these "Action Icons", Direct Read News will automatically decode and display that post, regardless of whether it's a text message, video, photo, music clip, etc. As an example, the illustration at the top of this page indicates that "Martin Brunner" has posted a photo to the newsgroup titled "bigbear.jpg (1/1). You can tell that it's a photo because the photo "Action Icon" appears next to his post, and if you click on that icon, Direct Read News will automatically decode and display the "bigbear.jpg" photo.

Multipart File Archives: It is very common to find large newsgroup files broken into multiple parts or archives, which can be very difficult to manage when it comes to gathering, decoding and downloading all of those individual parts. Direct Read News simplifies that process by taking a large multipart file archive, such as this...

...and automatically gathers and collapses those multiple parts into a single line item within a newsgroup...

A "CD" icon will appear next to that line item, and if the icon is clicked, Direct Read News will automatically decode and combine those parts into a single file that can then be viewed or downloaded. A text indicator will also appear next to the "CD" icon, and will display how many archives have been received within the newsgroup, to let you know if a file is complete or still missing components. In this example, their were 5 main archives that supported the entire file, so the text indicator will display a "5A".

If you do not wish to decode and entire file, but have an interest in retrieving specific file parts within a particular post, you can click the "Subject" line to display all the individual file parts. From there, you can download the file parts independently.

Multipart Posts: Often times large multimedia files need to posted to a newsgroup in smaller parts/segments, which would have to be manually assembled, decoded, and downloaded. Direct Read News automates this process for newsgroup users, so that they simply have to click on an Action Icon, and the interface automatically assembles, decodes, and displays a multipart file for them.

Some of these files may contain over 200 individual parts, and rather than take up valuable screen space displaying all of those parts, Direct Read News has an "Assemble" feature that will only display the Subject line from the first part of a  multi-part post. As an example, if a 5 part file were posted to the newsgroups, all 5 parts would traditionally be displayed in this manner... 

...but with the "Assemble" feature, Direct Read News will display the 5 part post as one assembled file, along with an accumulative file size (5.0 MB in this example). In addition, a green checkmark () will appear next to the Action Icon indicating that all the file parts have been received and assembled...

In the event that all the parts within a multipart post have not arrived in the newsgroup yet, Direct Read News will display a letter "P" next to the Action Icon rather than an assembled "". If you'd like to know how parts have already been received, simply place your mouse cursor over the "P" symbol and pop-up tag will indicate the number of parts that are available...

If your web browser does not support this "Alt Tag" function, you can simply click on the message's title link ("Video of a huge rhino..."), and Direct Read News will display a list of all the parts that have been received and processed up to that point.