$ # K Main Window
The main window, initially in the upper left corner of the screen, displays a list of newsgroups.  Double-clicking on a newsgroup name causes WinVN to display a list of subjects of available articles in that newsgroup in a group window. 
Clicking on a newsgroup name "selects" that newsgroup and displays it in reverse video (light on dark).  Selecting a newsgroup is useful only for subscribing to it; see Subscribing to Newsgroups.  By default, subscribed groups appear in black; unsubscribed groups appear in blue.  See  
The first character of each newsgroup line in the main window gives information about that newsgroup:
space	indicates either that WinVN has no information on the status of this group, or that no new articles have appeared in this group since your last WinVN session.
>	indicates that this newsgroup has been selected as the result of the previous Find operation.
*	indicates that new articles have appeared in this newsgroup since your last WinVN session.

Network Menu Commands
Group Menu Commands 
Utilities Menu Commands
Config Menu Commands
Help Menu Commands

$ # K Network Menu Commands
Connect to Server
Starts a network connection between your workstation and your news server.  Use this command if you have the Connect at Startup option disabled under the Config Menu.  
Disconnect from Server
Terminates the network connection to your news server without exiting WinVN.
Mail Logout
Manually logs out of a network-based mail system (such as Microsoft Mail) without exiting WinVN.  This can save both local and network resources if you are sure you won't be needing to send mail for a while.  If you are logged out from your mail system and wish to forward an article via mail, WinVN will force another mail login if necessary.
Reset Server Protocol
Resets WinVN's idea of the status of the session with the news server, aborting any outstanding requests.  This command is used to work around problems with WinVN, your news server, or your network.
Quit without Saving
Terminates WinVN without updating the NEWSRC file.  When you use this option, WinVN's idea of which articles you have seen and to what groups you are subscribed will revert to the status at the beginning of the session.  In other words, WinVN will forget the activity in this session. 
Exit
Terminates WinVN, and writes of record of which articles you have seen, and to which you have subscribed to the NEWSRC file.

# $ Group Menu Commands
Find...
Searches the main window for a newsgroup name that contains a specified text string.  Find brings up a dialog box into which you enter the string for which you want to search.  Click on OK to start the search, or Cancel if you decide not to search after all.
If a newsgroup is found which contains the specified string, the main window will be scrolled so that the newsgroup name is visible.  The selected newsgroup name will be marked with a ">".  If no such newsgroup can be found, WinVN says so via a dialog box.
Find Next
Continues the search started by the previous Find... or Find Next.  The next newsgroup name containing the string, if any, is displayed.
Subscribe selected groups
Subscribes to the currently-selected newsgroups.  See Subscribing to Newsgroups.
Unsubscribe selected groups
Unsubscribes from the currently-selected newsgroups.  See  Subscribing to Newsgroups.
Move selected groups to Top
Subscribes to the currently-selected newsgroups if they are not already subscribed, and moves them to the very top of the newsgroup list.   See Subscribing to Newsgroups.
Deselect all
Clears all newsgroups in the main window, so that no newsgroups are currently selected.

$ # K Utilities Menu Commands
New Article
Creates a Posting Window, which you can use to begin creating a new article that is not a followup to an existing article. 
Compose Mail
Allows you to send Electronic mail directly from within WinVN.  The type of mail system that WinVN will use will be determined by the setting of the Mail Transport option on the Configure Communications menu.
Batch
Performs "close" or "send" operations on a group of open windows.  See Batch Submenu Commands.
Decode a File
Decode the contents of a binary file.
Encode a File
Encode the contents of a binary file into a series of printable ASCII characters that can be transported over the network as a non-binary file.  The file can then be decoded by the recipientusing the Decode a File menu option.  The popular uuencode encoding scheme is used, so the recipient need not be a WinVN user.

$ # K Batch Submenu Commands
Close Articles
Closes all open Article windows.
Close Groups
Closes all open Group windows.
Close Status
Closes all open Status windows.
Send Posts
Sends all postings in open Posting windows.
Send Mails
Sends all electronic mail messages in open Mail windows.

$ # K Config Menu Commands
The main window's Config menu allows you to configure much of the information WinVN uses.  There are several configuration menu commands:
Configure Comm...
Configure Personal Info...
Configure Miscellaneous...
Configure Logging...
Configure Signature File...
Configure Fonts
Configure Color
Save Configuration
Save Window Positions

$ # K Configure Comm...
Brings up a dialog box allowing you to select communications/networking options.  
WinVN is a WinSock based TCP/IP application.  You must have networking software loaded on your PC and a WinSock compliant Dynamic Link Library (DLL) in your Windows or Windows System directory.   WinVN makes all calls to WinSock thru a generic network interface DLL called GENSOCK.DLL.   This interface has been developed to allow WinVN to also work with DLL's that predate the WinSock specification (such as the WSOCKETS.DLL used in Microsoft Lanmanager 2.1a and DEC Pathworks 4.1) and also to allow experimentation with other non-sockets based networking transports.
NNTP (News)
Fill in the Internet address of a news server.   Obtain this information from your system administrator.  
TCP port
Fill in the TCP port designation of the news server program.  Typically this is "nntp".  In the case of some misconfigured TCP/IP software, you may need to type in the value 119, which is almost always the port number used by news servers.  Other values can be used only if your local news server is so configured.
SMTP (Mail) Server
Fill in the Internet address of an SMTP mail server if you plan on using TCP/IP mail from within WinVN.  
Username & Password
Some NNTP news servers require you to provide an authorizing username and password before they will allow you full access to some or all newsgroups.  If you plan on connecting with such a server, you should fill in the appropriate username and password for the server you have selected.  WinVN stores your password in encrypted form in winvn.ini.  However, be aware that the NNTP AUTHINFO protocol used to authenticate you to the server is quite insecure, so your use of this option may be hazardous.
Mail Transport
Select one of 4 options used to determine how WinVN will send mail.   The options are:
	Disable	Do not allow outbound mail.
	Use MAPI	Send mail via Microsoft's Mail Applications Protocol Interface (MAPI).  Use this option if you are using Microsoft Mail at your site.  
	Use SMTP	Send mail via the Internet Simple Mail Transport Protocol (SMTP) interface.  WinVN provides a simple SMTP mailer.		
	Auto Select	WinVN will attempt to locate MAPI and use it if available,  If MAPI is not available, it will default to SMTP.
Demand Logon
If you have the Demand Login option selected, WinVN will force a MAPI login "upon demand" (when mail is sent) instead of requiring a login instantly when WinVN is started.
See Saving Configuration Information and Authorizing Yourself to the News Server.

$ # K Configure Personal Info...
Brings up a dialog box allowing you to specify personal information:  your name, electronic mail address, and organization name.  The organization name is typically the name of your employer or educational institution.  This information is used to construct headers for articles and electronic mail messages that you write.
See Saving Configuration Information. 

$ # K Configure Miscellaneous
Brings up a dialog box allowing you to specify miscellaneous preferences regarding the operation of WinVN.  Click on the appropriate portion of the figure below to bring up help on that option:
{bml c:\winvn\doc\cfgmisc.shg}
See Saving Configuration Information.  

If New window for each group is checked, WinVN will attempt to create a new group window for each newsgroup selected from the main window.  If this option is not checked, WinVN will reuse an existing group window to display newly-requested newsgroups.
If New window for each article is checked, WinVN will attempt to create a new article window for each article selected from the main window.  If this option is not checked, WinVN will reuse an existing article window to display newly-requested articles.
Checking Append saved articles affects what WinVN does when you attempt to save the contents of an article to an existing file.  If this box is checked, WinVN will append the article to the file.  Otherwise, it will ask you what to do.  See File Menu Commands. 
The Check for new groups on startup option determines whether WinVN queries the news server for newly-created newsgroups.  Checking for new newsgroups also allows WinVN to determine which groups have received new articles since the last WinVN session.  The Yes and No options are self-explanatory; Ask means that WinVN will ask the user whether to check for new groups every time it starts up.  The Yes option is recommended for Ethernet-attached PCs.  Checking for new groups can take a very long time on serially-attached PCs, though.
See Saving Configuration Information.  

$ # K Check for new groups on startup
When WinVN connects to the news server, it can ask the server for a status list of all the news groups.  This operation can be time-consuming if you have a slow connection.  However, it's useful to know how many new articles and groups there are.
You control whether WinVN requests this information from the server by choosing Yes, No, or Ask.  If you choose Ask, WinVN will always prompt you whenever it connects to the server.

$ # K New window for each group
If New window for each group is checked, WinVN will attempt to create a new group window for each newsgroup selected from the main window.  If this option is not checked, WinVN will reuse an existing group window to display newly-requested newsgroups.

$ # K Connect at startup
If this box is checked, WinVN will try to connect to the news server whenever WinVN is launched.  There is rarely a reason to not check this option.

$ # K Confirm batch operations
If Confirm batch operations is checked, WinVN will prompt for confirmation before executing batch operations, such as breaking up a large binary file into multiple posts, encoding each one and posting them as separate articles.

$ # K Always confirm save on exit
If Always confirm save on exit is checked, WinVN will prompt the user to save the winvn.ini and newsrc files upon exit.  If this options is disabled, WinVN will automatically save these files.

$ # K Confirm use of Reply-To
If Confirm Use of Reply-To is checked, WinVN will prompt you for confirmation anytime you reply to a post that has a From: address different than a Reply-To: address.   A number of large sites on the internet allow their people to send mail directly from computers inside their facility but don't allow responses to come back thru the same route.   Those sites typically will use the Reply-To field of a mail message to identify a proper return address.   However, other sites have broken mail software and checking this option will allow you to verify addresses.  You usually won't know what is a proper address so the typical procedure is to use the Reply-To field (if it exists), and if the email bounces, try the From: field.

$ # K Append saved articles
Checking Append saved articles affects what WinVN does when you attempt to save the contents of an article to an existing file.  If this box is checked, WinVN will append the article to the file.  Otherwise, it will ask you what to do.  See File Menu Commands.

$ # K Full-name 'from' in group window
If Full-name 'from' in group window is checked, WinVN will display the name of the person that posted an article instead of his/her E-mail address.   If WinVN can't find a persons "Full Name", it will use their E-mail address out of the news article's "From" field.

$ # K Show unsubscribed groups
If the Show unsubscribed groups option is checked, WinVN will display all groups on your News Server, even ones that are not currently subscribed.

$ # K Multi-Select in Group Window
The option Multi-Select in Group Window changes the behavior of the mouse when used to select multiple groups.    The default behavior of the mouse allows you to click on groups individually and that group will stay selected.   With Multi-Select enabled, a Mouse Left click on any group highlights that group and turns off all others.  After the first click, a Shift Mouse Left Click will highlight ALL intervening groups between the 1st click and your current mouse location.

$ # K Show full subject in threads
If the Show full subject in threads is checked, WinVN will display the actual subject string of all articles in the thread.  Typically this is not meaningful since most articles in a particular thread all have the same subject.  However, sometimes someone changes the subject in the middle of a thread and selecting this option allows you to see these changes.

$ # K Compute threads
If the Compute Threads options is checked, WinVN will request additional "references" data for each article in the displayed group.  You can then sort articles by threads.  

$ # K Article Fetch Limit
WinVN fetches header infomation on articles when you view a newsgroup.  Article Fetch Limit determines how many article headers you are willing to have WinVN automatically fetch from the server.  If the number of articles in a group exceeds this number, WinVN will prompt you with a dialog box before proceeding.  
This number defaults to 300, which is fine for a local area network connection but it may be too high for a lower speed serial SLIP connection.  

$ # K Configure Logging...
Brings up a dialog box allowing you to specify whether all outgoing posts or mail messages should be logged to a local text file.  If you enable these options, you must also specify the file names to which postings or electronic mail messages should be written.  

$ # K Configure Signature File...
Brings up a dialog box allowing you to turn on an option to automatically append a signature to outgoing postings.  If you select this option, you must specify the name of the DOS text file containing the signature.  

$ # Configure FontsK 
Activates a submenu which allows you to select the fonts used for the various window types.

$ # K Configure Color
Activates a submenu which allows you to customize the foreground and background colors used by WinVN in each of its windows.

$ # K Save Configuration
Immediately saves your WinVN configuration information to the WINVN.INI file.  Normally, saving of WINVN.INI is done only upon exit from the program.

$ # K Save Window Positions
Records the postion of your different window types.  The next time WinVN runs, it will position newly-created windows of the same type in the same place on your screen.  

# $ K Saving Configuration Information
When you exit WinVN via the main window's Network/Exit menu command, you are given the option of saving the configuration options you have set during the session.  (The information is saved to WINVN.INI.)  If you haven't changed any configuration options during the session, it doesn't do any harm to save them anyway.  
If you change configuration options and want to save them immediately to guard against the computer crashing (yes, this has happened with WinVN!), use the Save Configuration menu command of the main window.

# $ Help Menu Commands
Index 
Starts the Help system with WinVN's main Help index.
About...
Displays a dialog box containing WinVN credits.
Show Version
Displays a dialog box containing WinVN version information.  Press Enter to dismiss this dialog box.