The Pineapple News main window is divided into three panes. On the left is the storage view. This is a graphical representation of all storage folders, news servers, and newsgroups. At the top right is the headers view, which displays the contents of whatever is currently selected in the storage view. At the bottom right is the message view, which displays the message that is currently selected in the headers view. So we see a familiar "drill-down" association here: each view is a way to look inside the one that comes before it. Finally the status bar is at the bottom of the window, which is essentially part of the headers view. It is used to display message counts and the progress of file operations.
Due to the arrangement of the three panes there is a vertical splitter that runs down the center of the window from top to bottom and a horizontal splitter that runs from the middle to the right side. You can change the relative sizes of the panes by dragging the vertical splitter left and right and dragging the horizontal splitter up and down. The splitter locations are saved when the program shuts down so you won't lose your customizations.
Items in the storage view and headers in the headers view can be right-clicked with the mouse to bring up a context menu. The selections that appear in the menu will depend on what type of item is selected and what state it is in. For example, right-clicking on a message in the Drafts folder gives you the option to edit it, while right-clicking on a message in a newsgroup will not.
Double-clicking or pressing Spacebar or Enter on any item in the storage view or on a message in the headers view is the same as if you had selected the top-most option in that item's context menu.
There are four types of things that can exist in the storage view: "Fixed" folders that serve a special purpose for the program, personal storage folders which you create yourself to save message files, news servers, and newsgroups.
Fixed folders There are three fixed folders: Outbox, Drafts, and Sent Messages. They will always be the first three items in the storage view. They cannot be deleted or renamed and they can't have other folders created inside them.
The Outbox is where your posts go when you have finished editing them and they are ready to be transmitted to your news server. If you change your mind about sending a post you can select it in the Outbox and press the Delete key and it will be history.
Once a post has been sent to your server it will automatically be moved from the Outbox to Sent Messages. What happens to files in the Sent Messages folder is up to you: you can delete them, drag them into other storage folders, or put them into Tracker windows.
The final fixed folder is Drafts. This is where posts go that you have started but haven't yet finished. To continue editing a message in Drafts, select it in the headers view and double-click or press Enter.
Personal storage folders These are folders you create yourself to save message files that interest you. Personal storage folders can contain message files and other folders. When you select a storage folder the messages that live inside it will be displayed in the headers view. Any files in personal storage folders are immune from being automatically deleted by the program, unlike the posts stored in newsgroup folders (covered below).
When the program is run for the first time there are no personal storage folders. You must create them yourself. You can create, rename, and remove storage folders with the items in the Folder sub-menu, available on the File menu. All your top-level storage folders will appear in alphabetical order below the three fixed folders. If you create a folder inside another folder, the parent folder will grow a "latch" to the left that you can click to expand or collapse it. Once you've created personal storage folders you can drag headers out of the headers view and into the folder. If you use the right mouse button to drag with you will get a menu at the place where you drop the file which will allow you to copy or move it (the default is copy unless you are dragging the message out of a fixed folder, in which case the default is move). If you want ultimate control over your personal storage folders and files you can use the Tracker: navigate to /boot/home/PineappleData/saved and go from there.
News servers The third type of storage view entry is the news server. There will be one of these for every server account you set up. Once you've subscribed to one or more newsgroups the icon for your news server will grow a latch which you can click to see all the server's newsgroups.
Newsgroups The fourth and final type of storage view entry is the newsgroup. They will always appear underneath a server, never anywhere else. When you select a newsgroup by clicking on it all message files that live inside it will be displayed in the headers view.
A newsgroup will have one of three icons depending on its download type. A newspaper with a solid red arrow means that downloads for this newsgroup will get headers and bodies. A newspaper with a hollow red arrow means that downloads will get headers only. A newspaper with no arrow at all means that this newsgroup cannot be downloaded until its type is changed to one of the other two. You can right-click on a newsgroup icon to change its download type.
Pineapple News deletes message files storaged in newsgroup folders when they get past a certain age. How long it will wait before doing so is controlled by the DaysToKeepMessages setting in PineappleNews.ini.
This view presents a list of the messages present in the newsgroup or storage folder selected in the storage view, subject to certain criteria (such as all messages or just the ones that haven't been read).
Most operations performed here will be carried on on whichever message is currently selected. Note that the headers view is a multi-selection list, meaning that more than one message can be selected at a time. This is useful if you want to delete a group of messages, drag a list of messages somewhere else, and so on.
Column data There are many types of column data that can be displayed. To select the ones you want pick the View menu, then Headers. The last group of items in the menu (Subject, Author, and so on) represent column types and can be checked or un-checked, your choice. You can set the relative width of the columns by positioning the mouse over the divider between two column headers. At that point the mouse cursor should change into a pair of arrows and you can drag the divider left and right. To change the order you can drag a column out of its current position and move it somewhere else. You can also remove a column with the mouse by dragging it out of the view and letting go of it.
Sort order The sort order for message files can be changed by clicking on the column headers. The master sort column is indicated by a solid underline. Secondary (and tertiary, and so on) sort columns are indicated by a broken underline. To select a new primary sort column click on it once with the mouse. To change its sort order from descending (lowest to highest) to ascending (highest to lowest), click on it a second time.
To select a secondary sort column hold down the Shift key while clicking on it. To remove a secondary column from the sort order shift-click on it again. To select a tertiary sort column shift-click on another column, and so on. To change the sort order from descending to ascending on a secondary column, hold down the Ctrl key and click on it.
Header display characteristics There are three menu options on the View/Headers menu that control how messages in the headers view are displayed. The first is "Group according to thread." If checked this means that replies will appear underneath the message that is being replied to, if that message is available. (If it is not available then the reply may be underneath an earlier message in the thread.) If unchecked then all messages will be displayed at the outermost outline level.
The second option is "Expand threads." If checked then when you first select a newsgroup all threads will be "expanded," i.e., all replies will be visible. If it is not checked then the newsgroup will be displayed with all threads collapsed and you'll have to click the latches to see the replies.
The message view is split into two parts: a horizontal "header bar" that displays header information and a scrolling text view. The header bar can display the same types of data as the headers view. To select which items are displayed pull down the View menu, then Message. The last set of menu options can all be checked or un-checked, your choice. There is no way to specify the order in which the header data appears.
If the message you are currently viewing contains a binary attachment then a square button will appear at the far right end of the header bar containing an icon appropriate for the type of attachment in the message. Note that the attachment button will only appear if "Show All Headers" is not turned on. More information is available in the help topic Attachments.
The first item on the View/Message menu is "Allow HTML." If checked the program will display HTML posts in a NetPositive replicant inside the message view, similar to the way it would display any other web page. If unchecked then posts will always be displayed as text.
The second item on the View/Message menu is "Show all headers." If checked the scrolling text view will display all Internet message headers for the current message followed by the message text. If unchecked (the default) you'll only see the message text.
The final item on the View/Message menu is "Character set ..." This brings up a dialog box that allows you to select a character set to use for the message you are currently viewing (but no others), overriding whatever character set it had before. The new character set is saved as an attribute on the message file so you will only have to set it once.
URLs in the text view will be highlighted and become clickable links, much like a page in a web browser. There is a help topic that covers this in more detail: Highlighted URLs.