RE: [leafnode-list] Limiting bandwidth

[Jim Hague <jim.hague@xxxxxxx>]

On 02-Oct-2003 Ed wrote:
> The difference is that with a newsreader you generally only download the
> body of messages you WANT to see.  With LF you download every message.  

With a newsreader must you download at least all the article overviews, so you
can see the article subjects, date and so forth. A good newsreader can be set to
only download the body if you try and read it, or flag the article or similar.

I must admit I don't want that behaviour when reading normal articles. I want
the next article to be shown the *instant* I move on, otherwise it really slows
down reading.

> This may be ok for text groups but is a real problem with binary groups  Or
> am I missing something?

I don't think so. Dealing with this at a news server level is tricky and IMHO
rather unsatisfactory.

I maintain a Leafnode-alike, Noffle, which tries by allowing you to set a
per-group read mode specifying that only the overviews should be downloaded -
or you can set a filter specifying overview-only if the article is over a given
size. If you attempt to read the article, you get a place-holder article and the
read article is downloaded on the next fetch. But you still have to come back
to the article and persuade your newsreader to re-fetch it.

Alternatively, you can put it into 'online' mode, in which case Noffle becomes
a straight caching server (no group auto-(un)subscribe) and the article body is
fetched from upstream straight away. But you can't (currently - hmmm, wonder if
it would be a good idea) do this on a per-group basis.

Personally, I find 'online' mode so useful that I never use it. I know
from bug reports that either the code implementing this is perfect (which seems
extremely unlikely) or that nobody else uses it either. And when I have tried
using 'download overviews only', I've not found it a way or working that agrees
with me. Mind you, I don't read binary groups.



-- 
Jim Hague - jim.hague@xxxxxxx          Never trust a computer you can't lift.

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