Software Update: NewsLeecher 4.00 Beta 1

The first beta release of NewsLeecher 4.00 was released on Monday. With this program it is possible to download files from newsgroups in a simple way. NewsLeecher has support for nzb files, it has a so-called ‘super search’ and can automatically check downloaded files for completeness and then extract them automatically. The main improvement in this release is the support for threads. Furthermore, adjustments have been made to deal with the increased retention of super search: it is now 370 days. The full changelog of this release looks like this:

Note:

• Note that this NewsLeecher release introduces a completely new article cache system which is significantly different from the previously used cache system. Because of the major change in the format of the cache, it will be necessary to re-fetch headers for any subscribed usenet groups the first time NewsLeecher V4.0 Beta is used.
• Because of the early beta stage of this NewsLeecher V4 release, it is recommended that you keep settings for NewsLeecher V4 separate from settings for earlier releases of NewsLeecher that you might have installed. To setup a separate NewsLeecher V4 settings folder, check this. You can of course also take the chance and simply install this release on top of your currently installed NewsLeecher copy, and hope things work out Doing that will probably also work fine.

New features:

• *MAJOR ADDITION*: NewsLeecher now fully supports collections (also known as threading) of binary articles. The collections feature will group associated binary articles together and present them as a single article entry in the NewsLeecher listviews, instead of multiple separate entries. Collections are supported by the entire NewsLeecher interface. That is the article browser, the SuperSearch service and the NewsLeecher download queue. Besides providing better article overview, the collections feature also speeds up group loading by 500%+ for most binary groups aswell as keeping memory usage much lower than what previous NewsLeecher releases does.
• It’s now possible to specify separate paths for NewsLeecher to store settings and temporary files. For more info on how to set the paths, check this URL.
• NewsLeecher will now ask for confirmation before closing down, if Repair’n’Extract is actively working on one or more file sets.

Improved features:

• This NewsLeecher release supported mixed-case subject lines returned by SuperSearch. Earlier releases would show all subject lines returned by SuperSearch in lowercase.
• More parts of the internal Windows Explorer are now multi-threaded. This brings a significant speed improvement when browsing folders containing many sub folders.
• The entries in ‘Max Days’ SuperSearch filter have been re- organized to better suit the new elevated SuperSearch retention.
• Improved ‘Leech Specify’ dialog to be more intuitive and easy to use.
• Many smaller improvements. (The mouse hint text for the SuperSearch favorite buttons now shows the query to be searched, SSL libraries updated, etc.)

Fixed bugs:

• The entire NewsLeecher codebase has been probed for memory leaks. Lots of leaks have been fixed.
• Fixed a bug prevented NewsLeecher from properly updating groups containing an extremely large amount of headers (such as alt. binaries.boneless). The bug was only triggered on a few usenet servers.
• Fixed bug that somestimes caused NewsLeecher to hang on shutdown.
• Many smaller fixes. (The Repair’n’Extract verification state was sometimes reset between sessions, GUI tweaks, etc.)

Removed features:

• Removed option for turning off error checking of downloaded articles as there’s no reason not to check them for errors.
• Removed outdated option to cancel errornous articles from being downloaded as the option could cause some confusion. Also the introduction of PAR2files and the NewsLeecher Repair’n’Extract feature makes errornous files usable.