Using group categories
Why are group categories useful?
When you post an article, you have the option of assigning a category to it at that time. Message categories make it easy for other users to find articles pertaining to a given subject, without requiring the use of new newsroups or keywords in the article header or body. For example, if you are posting an announcement regarding a new Web browser, you might want to assign the message to the category Announcement:browsers. Thus, a user interested in new browsers may use the same category as a filter when reading articles, and only those articles having the same category will be displayed. A user who selects the Announcement category will see ALL articles which have been assigned to an announcement category, e.g., Announcement:browsers, Announcement:packages, Announcement:user groups, etc.
Category files use a standard naming convention: they are named after the newsgroup, e.g., categories.comp.lang.java, categories.misc.test, etc. You may create your own category files by just creating the file with the appropriate name, using your favorite editor, and following the format of categories.comp.lang.java included with the WebReader distribution. You may edit a categories file as you wish, keeping in mind that a subcategory is defined by appending a colon to the end of the category name, followed by appending the name of the subcategory.
To assign a category to an article, first create the article. Next, press the Select category... button in the Post dialog window. A dialog window looking somewhat like the following will be displayed:
The category dialog window will contain the names of the categories which you have defined for that group when you created the category file. Those categories which begin with an asterisk have subcategories, which may be accessed by double-clicking on the category in the list. Press the Back button to return to the previous category.
After you have found an appropriate category for your article, press the Select button. The category dialog window will disappear and the selected category will be included in the article header when you post the article.
To display only those articles which have been assigned a given category, select the category from the list in the category dialog window and press Select. This will cause the article list to be modified to display only those articles assigned the selected category. Categories are propagated to threads, which means that, unless a user posting a followup manually changes the category for the followup, the followup will be given the same category as the original article. Selecting the All item in the category list will cause all articles to be displayed.
If your category files includes one or more two-letter US state abbreviations, with or without city names as subcategories, then any articles which include the appropriate geographic information fields in their headers will be displayed.
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