When you open a newsgroup, Unison downloads a predetermined number of message headers to give you an idea of what is available. Each header corresponds either to an individual message, or a small piece of a larger file.
By default, up to 50,000 headers are loaded, but this number is adjustable in the Preferences. Unison does not download all available headers at once (although you can request it do so) because high-volume newsgroups may have millions of headers which take time to download, and may count against your Usenet account's data allowance.
Any newsgroup may contain messages, files, or a mix of both. By default, Unison shows you everything in the newsgroup. You can display just messages, or just files by clicking on the corresponding button at the bottom of the window:
A plain text message is identified by an envelope icon. A blue dot indicates an unread message:
To read a message, click on it.
A thread is a collection of related messages that share the same subject line. A disclosure triangle indicates a message thread.
To expand an entire message thread, click on its disclosure triangle.
A half-filled blue dot indicates a message thread with both read and unread messages:
Clicking on the top-most row in a message thread will display an overview of the entire thread, whether or not you have expanded it. From the overview, you can click on a particular message in a thread to jump directly to it:
Switching to the Messages overview will show you the entire thread contents in a single view.
In a thread overview, you can navigate to the previous or next message by clicking the back or forward buttons. The up button takes you to the message that the current message is in reply to, if any:
If Unison detects that a message or thread contains files, it will display a file icon instead of an envelope:
A green dot indicates a file (or file thread) that Unison believes is complete, meaning that the entire file (or file thread) appears to be present on the server.
A red dot indicates a file that Unison believes is incomplete. At least one part of the file is missing on the server. The missing parts may arrive at the server later, or may have already expired.
A yellow dot indicates that at least one file is missing from a group of files. However, some of the files in the group are complete, and can be downloaded. It may be possible to reconstruct incomplete files using a PAR set, if one has been posted in the thread.
A blue and white checkmark indicates that the file has previously been downloaded to your designated downloads folder.
Files that have not completely propagated to your server can be hidden, to help you avoid accidentally downloading an incomplete file. Choose View > Hide Incomplete Files to toggle between hiding and showing incomplete files.
Files with red or yellow dots may actually be complete on the server, but you haven't received all the headers yet. Downloading more headers may change red or yellow dotted files to green.
There are several ways to download additional headers:
Depending on the type of files in a thread, Unison may display additional viewing options:
Threads containing images will display a camera icon with a number next to it, indicating the number of images in the thread:
Clicking this icon toggles image thumbnail previews:
Double click a thumbnail to view it at full-size:
While the full-size view is open, click the back or forward arrows to navigate through images in the thread. You can also use the arrow keys to do this.
If the full-size image is larger than your screen, the scaling icon will be enabled. Click to toggle between actual size and fit-to-screen views. At actual size, you can scroll the image by dragging it with your mouse.
To close the full-size image view, click the close box, click on the image itself, click outside the view, or press Esc.
Note that Unison must download the entire image in order to display a thumbnail.
To adjust the size of the image thumbnails, use the slider that appears near the lower-right corner of the window when image thumbnails are being displayed.
Threads containing audio will display a musical note icon with the number of audio files found:
Clicking this icon toggles a list of the audio files. Clicking the play button will attempt to play the audio file directly from the server:
If the thread contains regular messages in addition to files, a speech balloon icon will be shown, allowing you to view the message headers:
Note that selecting the Images, Music, or Messages viewing mode for a file thread will automatically expand the entire thread, as if you had clicked its disclosure triangle. Collapsing the thread will turn off any special viewing modes that have been turned on.
To download an individual file or an entire file thread, click on the down arrow icon at the right edge of its header:
To search within a newsgroup for a certain word:
Only messages matching your search term will be shown. Note that Unison downloads only message headers by default. This means you will not be able to search the content of messages that you haven't viewed, unless you have configured the group to cache all content when headers are loaded.