Community NNTP Bridge to Forums

For any of you struggling with the Web interface, and discouraged by the
quality of the MS provided NNTP Bridge, there is a new option, the Community
Bridge. This is in active development, with builds often more than once a
day being made available, and the results are quite impressive. Not only is
it faster than the MS bridge, but it has much better conversion to Plain
Text, handles code samples better, and allows for easier managing of
messages and thread that you've participated in. The "Ctrl-H" feature of
OE/WinMail works just as you'd expect.

Please take a look at: http://communitybridge.codeplex.com for details and
the current download.

Once you get the Community Bridge up and running, you'll find Hyper-V
discussions in the Technet.en-us.winserverhyperv Forum.

And THANK YOU to Jochen and the others who have contributed. This is a fine
example of what can be accomplished with good programmers and a healthy
community.

--
Charlie.
http://msmvps.com/blogs/russel

On Sat, 5 Jun 2010 06:44:31 -0700, "Charlie Russel - MVP"
<Charlie@mvKILLALLSPAMMERSps.org> wrote:

>For any of you struggling with the Web interface, and discouraged by the
>quality of the MS provided NNTP Bridge, there is a new option, the Community
>Bridge. This is in active development, with builds often more than once a
>day being made available, and the results are quite impressive. Not only is
>it faster than the MS bridge, but it has much better conversion to Plain
>Text, handles code samples better, and allows for easier managing of
>messages and thread that you've participated in. The "Ctrl-H" feature of
>OE/WinMail works just as you'd expect.
>
>Please take a look at: http://communitybridge.codeplex.com for details and
>the current download.
>
>Once you get the Community Bridge up and running, you'll find Hyper-V
>discussions in the Technet.en-us.winserverhyperv Forum.
>
>And THANK YOU to Jochen and the others who have contributed. This is a fine
>example of what can be accomplished with good programmers and a healthy
>community.

Does it make real NNTP clients that do not underatsnd HTML work?
Like Forte Free Agent (Agent version 3 and below)???
I tried the MS NNTP Bridge with Agent and it did not work, every post
was shown as an attachment instead of plain text and opened in a
browser. Not usable.

Only way to make it work was with Thunderbird set up as a news reader,
but that is not my preference...

--

Bo Berglund (Sweden)

> Does it make real NNTP clients that do not underatsnd HTML work?

A text only option that is in "beta", I imagine it will be working well in
not too long a time, Jochen is quite fast at fixing any issues that come up.

--
Bob Comer


"Bo Berglund" <boberglund@myotherhome.sec> wrote in message
news:de0p069v6vbo4ts67lquta5a2q8hsger1n@4ax.com...
> On Sat, 5 Jun 2010 06:44:31 -0700, "Charlie Russel - MVP"
> <Charlie@mvKILLALLSPAMMERSps.org> wrote:
>
>>For any of you struggling with the Web interface, and discouraged by the
>>quality of the MS provided NNTP Bridge, there is a new option, the
>>Community
>>Bridge. This is in active development, with builds often more than once a
>>day being made available, and the results are quite impressive. Not only
>>is
>>it faster than the MS bridge, but it has much better conversion to Plain
>>Text, handles code samples better, and allows for easier managing of
>>messages and thread that you've participated in. The "Ctrl-H" feature of
>>OE/WinMail works just as you'd expect.
>>
>>Please take a look at: http://communitybridge.codeplex.com for details and
>>the current download.
>>
>>Once you get the Community Bridge up and running, you'll find Hyper-V
>>discussions in the Technet.en-us.winserverhyperv Forum.
>>
>>And THANK YOU to Jochen and the others who have contributed. This is a
>>fine
>>example of what can be accomplished with good programmers and a healthy
>>community.
>
> Does it make real NNTP clients that do not underatsnd HTML work?
> Like Forte Free Agent (Agent version 3 and below)???
> I tried the MS NNTP Bridge with Agent and it did not work, every post
> was shown as an attachment instead of plain text and opened in a
> browser. Not usable.
>
> Only way to make it work was with Thunderbird set up as a news reader,
> but that is not my preference...
>
> --
>
> Bo Berglund (Sweden)

Yes, there's a Plain Text conversion. I don't really have a pure Text only
client any more to verify it, but it appears to work as expected for me when
I have my WinMail set to "Plain Text Only", which I do.

Try the Community Bridte. If you have issues, please post a bug report on
the CodePlex site. Jochen has been very proactive about fixing bugs. And
very quick.

--
Charlie.
http://msmvps.com/blogs/russel




"Bo Berglund" <boberglund@myotherhome.sec> wrote in message
news:de0p069v6vbo4ts67lquta5a2q8hsger1n@4ax.com...
> On Sat, 5 Jun 2010 06:44:31 -0700, "Charlie Russel - MVP"
> <Charlie@mvKILLALLSPAMMERSps.org> wrote:
>
>>For any of you struggling with the Web interface, and discouraged by the
>>quality of the MS provided NNTP Bridge, there is a new option, the
>>Community
>>Bridge. This is in active development, with builds often more than once a
>>day being made available, and the results are quite impressive. Not only
>>is
>>it faster than the MS bridge, but it has much better conversion to Plain
>>Text, handles code samples better, and allows for easier managing of
>>messages and thread that you've participated in. The "Ctrl-H" feature of
>>OE/WinMail works just as you'd expect.
>>
>>Please take a look at: http://communitybridge.codeplex.com for details and
>>the current download.
>>
>>Once you get the Community Bridge up and running, you'll find Hyper-V
>>discussions in the Technet.en-us.winserverhyperv Forum.
>>
>>And THANK YOU to Jochen and the others who have contributed. This is a
>>fine
>>example of what can be accomplished with good programmers and a healthy
>>community.
>
> Does it make real NNTP clients that do not underatsnd HTML work?
> Like Forte Free Agent (Agent version 3 and below)???
> I tried the MS NNTP Bridge with Agent and it did not work, every post
> was shown as an attachment instead of plain text and opened in a
> browser. Not usable.
>
> Only way to make it work was with Thunderbird set up as a news reader,
> but that is not my preference...
>
> --
>
> Bo Berglund (Sweden)

On Mon, 7 Jun 2010 07:42:33 -0700, "Charlie Russel - MVP"
<Charlie@mvKILLALLSPAMMERSps.org> wrote:

>Yes, there's a Plain Text conversion. I don't really have a pure Text only
>client any more to verify it, but it appears to work as expected for me when
>I have my WinMail set to "Plain Text Only", which I do.
>
>Try the Community Bridte. If you have issues, please post a bug report on
>the CodePlex site. Jochen has been very proactive about fixing bugs. And
>very quick.

I installed the Community bridge and can confirm that the plaintext
conversion of messages *from* the forum seems to work fine. :-)

I have yet to post anything so I don't know what it will be like *to*
the forum, though.

One observation is that the process of retrieving new messages is very
slow. If I compare to how Agent gets messages from this newsgroup to
how the bridge gets them from the forum I would say there is at least
a 5:1 difference in time of getting a comparable number of messages.

Another observation (maybe not related to the bridge) is that it seems
like not a single message has quoted previous message text that is
being commented so it is rather hard following the discussions. Is
quoting prohibited on the forum or is it removed by the bridge or is
it just something one does not do on forums???

Maybe it is the plaintext converter that removes quotes? How does it
look like in HTML-aware readers not using the converter?

--

Bo Berglund (Sweden)

On Tue, 08 Jun 2010 07:28:40 +0200, Bo Berglund wrote:

> Another observation (maybe not related to the bridge) is that it seems
> like not a single message has quoted previous message text that is
> being commented so it is rather hard following the discussions. Is
> quoting prohibited on the forum or is it removed by the bridge or is
> it just something one does not do on forums???

You have to choose to quote text in the forums when using the web UI. Some
do, most do not.

--
Paul Adare
MVP - Identity Lifecycle Manager
http://www.identit.ca

Generally, quoting is not done in the forums. With the way the web UI
works, it isn't the default and really isn't necessary.

As for speed - most of the speed issues are on the Forum side at this point.
Once you get past the initial download of a new forum, the useable speed for
new messages seems acceptable. No, not as fast as real NNTP, but acceptable.

--
Charlie.
http://msmvps.com/blogs/russel




"Bo Berglund" <boberglund@myotherhome.sec> wrote in message
news:cqkr069a3ces4rdtr0tp0195qdue03pqcb@4ax.com...
> On Mon, 7 Jun 2010 07:42:33 -0700, "Charlie Russel - MVP"
> <Charlie@mvKILLALLSPAMMERSps.org> wrote:
>
>>Yes, there's a Plain Text conversion. I don't really have a pure Text only
>>client any more to verify it, but it appears to work as expected for me
>>when
>>I have my WinMail set to "Plain Text Only", which I do.
>>
>>Try the Community Bridte. If you have issues, please post a bug report on
>>the CodePlex site. Jochen has been very proactive about fixing bugs. And
>>very quick.
>
> I installed the Community bridge and can confirm that the plaintext
> conversion of messages *from* the forum seems to work fine. :-)
>
> I have yet to post anything so I don't know what it will be like *to*
> the forum, though.
>
> One observation is that the process of retrieving new messages is very
> slow. If I compare to how Agent gets messages from this newsgroup to
> how the bridge gets them from the forum I would say there is at least
> a 5:1 difference in time of getting a comparable number of messages.
>
> Another observation (maybe not related to the bridge) is that it seems
> like not a single message has quoted previous message text that is
> being commented so it is rather hard following the discussions. Is
> quoting prohibited on the forum or is it removed by the bridge or is
> it just something one does not do on forums???
>
> Maybe it is the plaintext converter that removes quotes? How does it
> look like in HTML-aware readers not using the converter?
>
> --
>
> Bo Berglund (Sweden)

Charlie Russel - MVP wrote:

> For any of you struggling with the Web interface, and discouraged by the
> quality of the MS provided NNTP Bridge, there is a new option, the Community
> Bridge. This is in active development, with builds often more than once a
> day being made available, and the results are quite impressive. Not only is
> it faster than the MS bridge, but it has much better conversion to Plain
> Text, handles code samples better, and allows for easier managing of
> messages and thread that you've participated in. The "Ctrl-H" feature of
> OE/WinMail works just as you'd expect.
>
> Please take a look at: http://communitybridge.codeplex.com for details and
> the current download.
>
> Once you get the Community Bridge up and running, you'll find Hyper-V
> discussions in the Technet.en-us.winserverhyperv Forum.
>
> And THANK YOU to Jochen and the others who have contributed. This is a fine
> example of what can be accomplished with good programmers and a healthy
> community.

Does this proxy fix the invalid Message-ID problem? Last I heard, one
of the reasons that newsreaders were having such a tough time with
gatewayed forum posts was that the Message-ID did not follow valid
Usenet standards. When using Microsoft NNTPbridge proxy, retrieving a
message has headers that look like:

Message-ID: <20073bca-ecf4-4593-89b4-9fec1443bc4f>

Almost looks like a classID in the registry. Apparently Microsoft can't
be bothered to slide in a valid domain on the rightside of the "@"
character. A valid MID should look like:

Message-ID: <uniqueID@nntpbridge.microsoft.com>

Because many newsreaders use the MID for sorting or threading using rhe
References header, and because these messages' MID will show up in the
References header for replies, the invalid value is farking over a lot
of newsreaders.

I gave up early on Microsoft's NNTPbridge. I got it working but it was
so damn slow that I gave up, plus I'd have to go hunting for the nearest
matching group for the newsgroups where I participate now.

Does the bridge even generate the MID value? Since the inane web-based
forums probably don't generate MID values, my guess is the bridge has to
get an forum article number and use that. Since the bridge isn't the
NNTP server, it doesn't have the responsibility of the site to generate
unique IDs for the id-left token in the MID header.

I didn't find any discussions or issues discussing the incomplete
Message-ID value problem. It's been a few weeks since I tried
Microsoft's NNTPbridge. Did Microsoft change the forum so its articles
number emulate the Message-ID syntax to eliminate this screwup?

VanguardLH wrote:

> Charlie Russel - MVP wrote:
>
>> For any of you struggling with the Web interface, and discouraged by the
>> quality of the MS provided NNTP Bridge, there is a new option, the Community
>> Bridge. This is in active development, with builds often more than once a
>> day being made available, and the results are quite impressive. Not only is
>> it faster than the MS bridge, but it has much better conversion to Plain
>> Text, handles code samples better, and allows for easier managing of
>> messages and thread that you've participated in. The "Ctrl-H" feature of
>> OE/WinMail works just as you'd expect.
>>
>> Please take a look at: http://communitybridge.codeplex.com for details and
>> the current download.
>>
>> Once you get the Community Bridge up and running, you'll find Hyper-V
>> discussions in the Technet.en-us.winserverhyperv Forum.
>>
>> And THANK YOU to Jochen and the others who have contributed. This is a fine
>> example of what can be accomplished with good programmers and a healthy
>> community.
>
> Does this proxy fix the invalid Message-ID problem? Last I heard, one
> of the reasons that newsreaders were having such a tough time with
> gatewayed forum posts was that the Message-ID did not follow valid
> Usenet standards. When using Microsoft NNTPbridge proxy, retrieving a
> message has headers that look like:
>
> Message-ID: <20073bca-ecf4-4593-89b4-9fec1443bc4f>
>
> Almost looks like a classID in the registry. Apparently Microsoft can't
> be bothered to slide in a valid domain on the rightside of the "@"
> character. A valid MID should look like:
>
> Message-ID: <uniqueID@nntpbridge.microsoft.com>
>
> Because many newsreaders use the MID for sorting or threading using rhe
> References header, and because these messages' MID will show up in the
> References header for replies, the invalid value is farking over a lot
> of newsreaders.
>
> I gave up early on Microsoft's NNTPbridge. I got it working but it was
> so damn slow that I gave up, plus I'd have to go hunting for the nearest
> matching group for the newsgroups where I participate now.
>
> Does the bridge even generate the MID value? Since the inane web-based
> forums probably don't generate MID values, my guess is the bridge has to
> get an forum article number and use that. Since the bridge isn't the
> NNTP server, it doesn't have the responsibility of the site to generate
> unique IDs for the id-left token in the MID header.
>
> I didn't find any discussions or issues discussing the incomplete
> Message-ID value problem. It's been a few weeks since I tried
> Microsoft's NNTPbridge. Did Microsoft change the forum so its articles
> number emulate the Message-ID syntax to eliminate this screwup?

Oops, found it right on their home page, which said:

"MessageId contains a valid domain name "

I ran out of coffee too long ago. Need another jolt.