OENewsProxy

Downloads

• Binary - A compiled version of OENewsProxy. Suggested for most users.
• Static Binary - (Removes requirement for MFC70.DLL.) A compiled version of OENewsProxy. Suggested for most users without IE 6.
• Source - A Visual C++.NET 7.0 project written using MFC. (Yes, I know MFC is lame. See the Caveats section below.)

About OENewsProxy

OENewsProxy is a simple program designed to fix some of the problems Outlook Express has with posting to Usenet news servers. Among these problems are broken "sigdashes," trailing blank lines, and broken quote wrapping. OENewsProxy works by creating a proxy server that sits between Outlook Express and your news server. Outlook Express connects to OENewsProxy which in turn connects to your news server. Most communication between Outlook Express and your news server passes through OENewsProxy unchanged; however, when OENewsProxy sees that you are posting a message, it will examine the message and fix Outlook Express’ problems in the message.

Installation

To install OENewsProxy, download the OENewsProxy zip file and extract it to the folder where you wish to store the executable file. You will need to manually create any shortcuts you wish to have for OENewsProxy.

Usage

Run OENewsProxy before starting Outlook Express. The first time you run OENewsProxy it will ask for the name of your news server: enter the name and press apply. The "Status" line should change to indicate that OENewsProxy is listening on port 19119. You can click the minimize button to hide OENewsProxy. When minimized, OENewsProxy will place an icon in the system notification area (next to the clock). From now on, when you start OENewsProxy it will automatically hide in the system notification area.

To close OENewsProxy, click on the close button in OENewProxy’s window. You can unhide OENewsProxy by double clicking on its icon in the system notification area.

Setting up Outlook Express

You must change Outlook Express’ settings to use OENewsProxy. To do this click on the "Tools" menu and select "Accounts…" Now click on the "News" tab and double-click on your news server. Now click on the "Server" tab and change the "Server name:" field to localhost. Now click on the "Advanced" tab and change the "News (NNTP):" field under "Server Port Number" to 19119. Now click ok.

If everything went well, Outlook Express will now connect to OENewsProxy. You shouldn’t notice any changes except that your posted messages now conform more closely to preferred posting guidelines.

Changes That OENewsProxy Makes To Posted Messages

• Any line consisting only of "--" will be changed to "-- ". This fixes the broken "sigdash" problem.
• Empty lines following the text of your message will be removed.
• A line that doesn’t begin with a ">" immediately following a line beginning with a ">" will be attached to the previous line. This fixes the broken quote wrapping problem. You must put a blank line between a quote in your message and the text of your message.
• A couple of "Easter Eggs" will be added to your message headers but nothing bad, I promise.

Caveats

OENewsProxy was originally written for my own personal use and as such was more of a quick-and-dirty hack than a useful program. I’ve made a few changes to make it applicable to wider use, but it still retains much of its hackish nature. As such, there is no configurability to OENewsProxy. The only thing that can be changed is the news server’s name. Also, if not used properly the fix for quote wrapping problem could end up munging your post even more than Outlook Express does.

Glossary

Sigdash

(Also known as a "sigsep") A standard seperator used to delimit the text of a news message from a signature. The standard seperator consists of two hyphens followed by a space on a line by themselves. See here for more information.

OENewsProxy is copyright 2002 by Jeffrey Carlyle.

Much of OENewsProxy is covered under the "Artistic License." For details on the terms of the "Artistic License" please see the file LICENSE included in this distribution. The copyright holder is Jeffrey Carlyle.

Links

• OE-QuoteFix - A program that fixes the line wrapping problem and adds coloring to OE messages. Has a link to a program to fix sigdashes, but required changing the Outlook Express executable file.