About the FAQ
- This page provides answers to Frequently Asked Questions about Agent.
- Click the feedback link at the bottom of each FAQ entry to rate the entry and give us your comments.
- Go here for the Agent Premium Newsgroups (APN) FAQ.
- Use the What's New Page to find out when new FAQ entries are added.
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Agent 3
Agent 4
Binary Attachments
Browsing and Navigating
Configuration and Setup
Editing and Posting
Email and Folders
Error Messages
Errors reported by the server
Errors reported by Winsock
Filtering Messages
General Questions
MIME issues
Miscellaneous
Reading Messages
Retrieving Messages
Alt-T doesn't open the Tools menu in the Composition window
<ALT T> is for both the Tools menu and for the To: field in the composition window. Pressing the two keys at the same time will bring you to the To field. To open the Tools menu via the keyboard, press and release the <ALT> key and then press the <T> key.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 08.03.05, please give us your feedback.
Can I cancel the retrieval of a single message within a larger download task?
Yes, you can stop the download of a single message body from a multiple-body retrieval task without stopping the entire task.
From Agent’s main browser window (not the Task Manager window) select the folder which contains the message you want to remove from the list. In the Message List pane, select the message or messages you want to remove from the task. You can then use either Action menu | Cancel Retrieval of Selected Bodies or Right-click context menu | Cancel Body Retrieval to stop download of this message body.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 08.03.05, please give us your feedback.
Can I change the priorities of my news servers? How do I configure multiple servers 'the right way'?
When configuring the news servers in Agent, they will be listed in alphabetical order, according to the name you entered in step two of the Create News Server Wizard. The only way you can change the listed order in the Servers And Accounts listing is by changing the name of the server. Fortunately, that is not how you change the priority of the servers. For that, go to Folder | Default Properties | News Access Plan and use the Move Up and Move Down buttons to change the server priorities. To disable a server without deleting it, uncheck it.
Like most settings in the Default Properties panels, this can be overridden on a per-folder basis via Folder | Properties.
For more details about the News Access Plan, please consult the Help file via the button on the panel, or see this FAQ entry .
This FAQ Entry was updated on 08.03.05, please give us your feedback.
Can I display a folder in more than one Desk?
Yes, you can display a message folder in more than one Desk.
The only Desk in Agent 3 that actually contains folders is the special All Folders Desk. All other Desks merely hold shortcuts to the folders. As such, you can copy your message folders to any number of Desks as you want.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 08.03.05, please give us your feedback.
Can I post to a different server than I download from?
Yes, you can. You can set Agent to post via a different server than you retrieve from. This is done via Options | Default Properties | News Access Plan | Posting Messages. Select the option to Override the Retrieving Headers servers list and then enable/disable the servers as you wish for posting. Agent will use the first enabled server for posting.
This option is overridable on a per-folder basis.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 08.03.05, please give us your feedback.
Can I rename a newsgroup folder?
Yes, you can rename any message folder, be it used for email or a newsgroup. To rename a folder, select it in the Folder pane and right-click and select Rename Folder..., or the menuitem Folder | Rename Folder..., or merely hit the F2 key.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 08.03.05, please give us your feedback.
Can I still use multiple instances?
Yes, if you want to continue using multiple instances of Agent for any reason, you still can.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 08.19.05, please give us your feedback.
Can I view the descriptions of the newsgroups before I download headers?
Yes, you can. One of the options available in the Update Directory dialog (accessable through the Newsgroup Directory) is the option to download the newsgroup descriptions. If you select this, the newsgroup description, if present, will be displayed next to the newsgroup name in the Newsgroup Directory.
Not all newsgroups have descriptions, so many of the groups will have no such information present.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 08.03.05, please give us your feedback.
Changing the Group Directory search history
This can be changed by editing the agent.ini file. Look for the key "MaxHistory" in the GroupDir section and change the number. Agent needs to be opened and a new search expression used and then closed before the old searches will be removed.
Naturally, Agent must be closed when editing the ini file, and do not let it word wrap or you will destroy several settings.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 08.27.05, please give us your feedback.
Ctrl-d gone?
<Ctrl D> has not been a documented command in Agent for several versions. To save an attachment to your default location, use the Save All To Default Folder command, located in File | Attachments. The keyboard shortcut is listed next to the command.
The documented command to save attachments from Agent has been Save All Attachments since sometime in the version 1.x development cycle through 2.0, and now that's been renamed with the 3.0 re-write. We just never bothered to remove the old command until now.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 10.12.05, please give us your feedback.
How can I manually set the number of connections Agent 3 uses per news server?
To manually set how many connections to the news server Agent will use, go to the server's settings in Tools \ Servers And Accounts. From there, you can adjust the number of maximum allowed connections, how many are reserved for priority tasks and if Agent will automatically adjust.
The default is 10, 1 and enabled, respectively. However, some news services use a non-standard error message that Agent does not recognize for a "too many connections" condition. In this case, or if you want to throttle the bandwidth Agent will use, you can reduce the number of maximum connections. The auto adjust setting will in no case cause Agent to exceed the set maximum, so it is recommended that you always leave that enabled.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 10.12.05, please give us your feedback.
How can I rearrange my folders list?
Agent's list of folders now supports Drag&Drop, so you can drag and drop your folders around Agent's desktops to rearrange the list to your liking.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 08.03.05, please give us your feedback.
How do I recover data from a corrupted database file in Agent 3?
If you are using Agent version 3.0, 3.1 or 3.2, upgrade to the current version, as there is no recovery tool available that works properly with v3 older than 3.3. Version 3.3 adds a built-in database recovery tool. If you are using Agent version 2 or older, see this FAQ entry instead.
In Agent 3.3, select the message folder that has the corrupted database. If you cannot select this folder directly, select the it with the surrounding folders by clicking on the one just above it and then holding the Shift key click on the one immediately below it. Then from the File menu, select the Repair Selected Folders command. This starts a wizard to guide you through the repair process.
You can choose to repair a damaged folder, or recover deleted messages, or both. You can tell it to just do it, or you can tell it to only analyze for results but not to actually recover anything. Other options include recovering only messages with bodies because you may not be interested in items with only headers, only complete messages because Agent will re-use space marked as available which can lead to messages being partly overwritten when they've been deleted or corrupted, and to mark recovered items as unread so you can easily find them. As always, you can click the Help button for more detailed information about the options.
When you click the Next button, the wizard will start to work. There will be two progress bars at the top showing you the progress over all and for the current folder. Under that will be the list of results showing you the folder name and the name of the database file pair, the number of messages in the folder before the wizard ran, how many of them were valid before the wizard ran, how many damaged messages were repaired by the wizard, how many deleted messages were recovered, and the new total of messages after the wizard ran.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 03.22.06, please give us your feedback.
How do I set a specific Persona for a folder?
After you create one or more Personas, you assign them to folders from the Properties for the folder(s) in question.
Folder | [Default] Properties | Posting Messages | Personas. From here, you set the Persona to be used for each of the three message types Agent can make: one for Email messages, and two for Usenet messages: one for posts/responses to usenet and one for email responses to a received usenet message.
Default Properties affects email and newsgroup folders. Properties overrides the defaults for the selected folder(s).
This FAQ Entry was updated on 01.31.06, please give us your feedback.
How do I set the message view for my folders? Can I set them independently?
You set the message view through the View | Custom Message View menu. You can also place the Message View commands on the toolbar via the program's Options panels.
Message views are saved per folder type, not per folder. There are seven folder types:
- Drafts
- General Purpose
- Mail
- Newsgroup
- Outbox
- Sent
- Trash
When you change a view while in a type of folder, it will change the view for all folders of that type, and this view is saved when you close Agent.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 08.03.05, please give us your feedback.
How do I set up Agent 3.3 for SSL?
Starting with version 3.2, Agent supports SSL for all three types of servers. To enable SSL, all you have to do is select the option in the Servers And Accounts configuration panel for the server in question. Agent will automatically set itself to use the standard SSL port for that type of service. If you need to use a non-standard port, you can change it via the Advanced Settings button for the server in question.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 03.09.06, please give us your feedback.
How do I set up multiple POP3 accounts or servers?
Configuring multiple POP3 accounts or servers is done in exactly the same way as configuring for multiple usenet accounts or servers.
From Tools | Servers And Accounts, click the New button, this will give you a two-item menu, to choose making a new email account or news server, select the email account option. This will start a Create Email Account and Servers Wizard to guide you through the process. Just follow the steps in the wizard. If you have any questions about any of the options, click the Help button on the wizard to see the documentation for that specific panel.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 01.31.06, please give us your feedback.
How do I subscribe to newsgroups? Where is the group list?
The full list of newsgroups is in the Newsgroup Directory, and you can assign newsgroups to your folders list from there.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 08.03.05, please give us your feedback.
How do you configure multiple SMTP servers?
Configuring multiple SMTP accounts or servers is done in exactly the same way as configuring for multiple POP3 accounts or servers.
From Tools | Servers And Accounts, click the New button, this will give you a two-item menu, to choose making a new email account or news server, select the email account option. This will start a Create Email Account and Servers Wizard to guide you through the process. Just follow the steps in the wizard. If you have any questions about any of the options, click the Help button on the wizard to see the documentation for that specific panel.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 01.31.06, please give us your feedback.
How does the Task Manager work?
The Task Manager displays your active tasks, completed tasks, and shows the data from the error log. The Completed Tasks and Error panels are informational only, you cannot change or edit the contents, though you can adjust the column widths.
The Active Task panel, however, is there to show you what is currently going on, and to allow you to change it. From here, you can pause or cancel any selected task or selected group of tasks, or all tasks. You can reorder the tasks by moving selected item(s) up or down either one place at a time or directly to the top or bottom. Each item in the Active Task panel has its own progress indicator. As your online resources become available, you will have more than one task processing simultaneously.
The tasks listed are in the format of "<server nickname>/<group name>" where <server nickname> is the display name you gave for the server in question.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 08.03.05, please give us your feedback.
I have more than one instance of Agent for email. How do I combine all the filters into one copy?
There is a filter export/import utility that will consolidate email and usenet filters into one instance of Agent 3.x. This utility has been created by the user community, and not by Forte. Please read the text files thoroughly, including the warnings and the section about feedback. This 3rd party utility is not affiliated with Forte and so we cannot provide support.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 02.03.06, please give us your feedback.
I just don't understand the whole 'desks and folders' thing. Please explain it to me...
We now use the generic term "Folder" for all of Agent's message containers, be they for a newsgroup, email, or generic message storing, or any of the other folder types Agent 3.3 uses. This is a change from previous versions when we specifically distinguished a "Folder" as not a newsgroup message container. Where it may be tricky at first is when used in combination with the "Desks".
As discussed elsewhere in this FAQ, you can have multiple Desks for multiple purposes, and you can assign folders to more than one Desk. This provides you with an incredible amount of flexability in how you want to organize your message folders.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 03.09.06, please give us your feedback.
Installing Agent 3 as a new program
- Run Agent setup executable
- If you are running Windows XP SP2, you may receive a "Open File - Security Warning". Click on the "Run" button to accept our digital signature. NOTE: In order to launch this dialog, Windows Explorer
will attempt to connect to comodoca.com, the signing authority. If Windows Explorer is blocked from accessing the Internet, you may experience a delay getting this security prompt.
- On the Welcome screen, choose "This is a new install."
- Choose a destination directory and click Next
- By default, Agent will be installed to the directory C:\Program Files|Agent. You can select another directory by clicking the "Browse" button
- Choose any additional character sets (English is included by default) and click Next
- Choose whether you want to create start menu shortcuts and click Next
- If you choose to create shortcuts, select a Start Menu Program Folder and click Next
- On the Ready to Install screen, verify setup summary information and click Start
- On the Installation Complete screen, click Finish. This will start Agent
- Read and accept the License Agreement
- In the Forte Agent Trial dialog, select your option. If you have already purchased Agent, select the first option, hit next, then enter your registration key as requested
- Follow the instructions on the startup wizard
Go to Help | Getting Started for pointers on how to start using Agent 3.3.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 03.09.06, please give us your feedback.
It takes a long time for the installer to start
Our installer file is now digitally signed (see this FAQ entry) to guard against forgeries. Some versions of Windows will attempt to connect to the signing authority in the digital signature to verify the file. If Windows Explorer is blocked from accessing the Internet, or if the remote server is down, it may take several minutes for the connection to time out. Windows will not proceed with the installation until it either verifies the signature or the connection attempt times out.
Once that happens, the installation will be able to proceed.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 08.03.05, please give us your feedback.
My email provider says to use SSL, but I can't connect to the SMTP server
Your SMTP server may require the use of the StartTLS command instead. This is a variation of SSL where an unsecured inital connection is made first to establish the raw connection and then a command is sent to the server to switch to a secured connection to send and receive data. Agent 3.2 did not support this, but starting with 3.3 Agent now does.
To do this in Agent, select the SMTP server in Tools | Servers And Accounts | Outbound Email Servers and select the appropriate setting in the Connection drop-down box. Your choices are to not use a secure connection, to connect securely on the standard SSL port, to connect securely with TLS "if available" and to connect securely with TLS and "fail if unavailable". What those last two mean is "if available" will revert to a non-secured connection if the StartTLS command is rejected, but "fail if unavailable" will fail to complete the task with an error message.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 03.14.06, please give us your feedback.
Retrieve new email and usenet at the same time?
The command to get new headers has never in and of itself caused Agent to retrieve email. This has always been an implied action according to your settings in the Checking For Email settings panel. If you had Agent version 1.x or version 2 set to retrieve your email automatically, it will still do this according to your time interval setting in the Tools | Options | Inbound Email | Checking For Email panel. If you are on a broadband connection, then leave the option immediately below (Check only when dial-up connection is open) unchecked.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 08.19.05, please give us your feedback.
Task logs: How do I clear them?
You can control if and how much Agent will log the task history for the Completed Tasks and the Error Log through settings in the Task Settings panel, which is accessed through the Tools | Options | Online Operation menu. You can also set Agent to clear these logs when it closes when logging is enabled.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 11.03.05, please give us your feedback.
The menus are different
As part of the redesign of Agent, we have changed the way the menus are organized. We think that the new menus are grouped into more logical sets. You can find a description of the new menu layout in the Help file: Help | Index and select Menu commands from the list.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 08.03.05, please give us your feedback.
Unread count position
You can place the folder's unread count to the left of the folder name if you prefer the old display via Tools | Options | Display | Folders Pane
This FAQ Entry was updated on 08.19.05, please give us your feedback.
What's the difference between 'removing' and 'deleting' a desk or folder?
When you remove a Folder, you are only removing it from the current Desk. When you delete a Folder, it's completely gone from Agent. When you delete a Desk, you are removing the Desk, but not any of the Folders assigned to it, they will remain in any other Desk they've been assigned to, specifically including the All Folders desk, which contains every folder you have in Agent.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 08.03.05, please give us your feedback.
What are 'Personas' and how would I use them?
Personas is what we call the feature that allows you to define different identities to use in email and usenet.
Do you have multiple email addresses and you want the software to know which one to use as your return address? Define a Persona for each and assign the Persona to one or more folders, email or usenet or both, in Agent. Do you use mailing lists, and want Agent to treat it like a newsgroup and just know the address of the group when you post from the folder you have its messages filed to? Define a Persona for it and assign it to that folder.
In a Persona, you can define many message attributes. You can, naturally, define your own name and email address to be used as your identity, but you can also define here default signatures to be used for new messages and replies, whether the Persona can be used for email, usenet, email responses to usenet posts, or any combination of the three. You can also set any/all user-editable headers including custom headers, and if you use more than one outbound email server, you can also define which one the Persona will use.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 01.31.06, please give us your feedback.
What are the keyboard shortcuts, or some of the shortcuts have changed
Yes, several of the keyboard shortcuts have changed in Agent 3. If you find that you can no longer control Agent with your remembered set of shortcuts, you can find the updated list of keyboard shortcuts in the Help file: Help | Index | keyboard shortcuts.
Probably the most prominent change here is that email-reply and newsgroup-followup are now both started with the R key, and is simply called Reply.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 08.03.05, please give us your feedback.
What files are no longer needed by Agent 3?
Files that previous versions of Agent created that are no longer used by Agent 3 include the groups.*, grp*.bak and outbox.* pairs, and the layout.dat file in the database directory.
Some notes:
The groups.* file pair is superseded by the new groupdir.dat file, the outbox.* pair is superseded by a normal folder dat/idx pair, and the settings in layout.dat will be obsolete after you change and save your layout, the new layout will be saved to the agent.ini file instead.
In case you still have them laying around, the old dictionary files that can be deleted are the ones without the '5' in the name. For example, the name of the English (American) dictionary files are mainenu5.* in your program directory and custenu5.tlx in your database directory.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 03.09.06, please give us your feedback.
What is the 'agent.exe.manifest' file?
If you are using Windows XP, 'manifest' files make the named program conform to your active system theme. Your scrollbars, button styles, menu styles, etc, will have the same visual style as the rest of your system. If you delete the agent.exe.manifest file, nothing bad will happen, but Agent, particularly the toolbars, will look a little dated. If you are not using Window XP, the agent.exe.manifest file does nothing for you.
If you are interested in the technicals, it's merely an XML formatted configuration file. You shouldn't edit it unless you know the specific syntax of these files.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 08.03.05, please give us your feedback.
What is the Newsgroup Directory?
The Newsgroup Directory is where you will find the complete list of newsgroups you have available. From here, you can add groups to a Desk by either using the Add Newsgroups to Desks... wizard or draging the group(s) directly to a desk in Agent's main display. This is also where you can update the groups list via the Update Directory wizard. You can show and update groups for all of your configured servers at once, or by selecting only those that you want to.
Note that Free Agent only allows for a single newsserver to be configured.
The Newsgroup Directory can be opened from the Tools menu.
Please use the Help button on the Newsgroup Directory window for detailed information.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 01.20.06, please give us your feedback.
What is this "Limit body retrieval rate" setting?
When you retrieve more than 7 or so per second, the UI may get sluggish. The following factors can affect the rate at which bodies are retrieved:
- the speed of your Internet connection
- how many connections your news servers allow
- how many servers you retrieve bodies from simultaneously
- how big the bodies are (small text bodies make the problem worse because you naturally can get more of them faster)
So, the solution was to add an option to limit the rate at which bodies can be retrieved. This sets the maximum rate, and imposes no penalty when bodies come in slower than that. In particular, it should have no effect on the rate at which you can download large multiparts. The default setting of 4 per second seems about right based on observed results. The rate can be set between 0.1 and 100 bodies per second.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 08.03.05, please give us your feedback.
Where did my All Groups list go? Why doesn't All Folders show me all the newsgroups?
Agent now uses a Newsgroup Directory to contain the complete list of newsgroups you have available. You can open the Newsgroup Directory via the Tools menu. The All Folders desk only lists the message folders and newsgroups you have configured to hold or retrieve messages.
Please see this entry for more about the Newsgroup Directory.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 08.03.05, please give us your feedback.
Why am I seeing responses to me before my own posts?
If you have Agent set to file replies in the same folder as the original message (Group | Default Properties | Posting Messages), this copy is files in a marked as read state, and responses are threaded to this copy, not the copy of your message that you subsequently download.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 08.03.05, please give us your feedback.
Why can't I delete the 'All Folders' Desk?
You cannot delete the All Folders Desk because that is the Desk that actually contains the folders, all other Desks that you may create merely hold shortcuts to the folders.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 08.03.05, please give us your feedback.
Why can't I download more than one body at a time?
Agent will download as many message bodies at one time as you have available connections. If it looks like you are only downloading one message body and you have, for example, four connections available from the server, check to see what it is that you are downloading.
Agent downloads multipart sections in parallel, but the status display shows the main body activity only. This means that if the multipart item has at least as many sections as you have available connections, then Agent will show only one item being downloaded, because it's using all the connections on that one multipart item.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 08.27.05, please give us your feedback.
Why would I want multiple 'Desks'?
One very good reason to use multiple Desks is to organize your list of folders into categories. These categories can be based on anything you want. Some suggestions include, but are certainly not limited to, Desks specific for email folders, folders for newsgroups you always read and newsgroups you occasionally read.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 08.03.05, please give us your feedback.
Windows Explorer contacts comodoca.com when I install Agent 3
Forté is now providing a digitially signed installation file to guard against bogus installers. When you run a signed program file in Windows XP sp2, it will attempt to contact the signing authority that issued the certificate to verify the authenticity, and this will show up in your firewall or network logs as coming from Windows Explorer. Comodoca is the certificate signing authority we are using.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 08.03.05, please give us your feedback.
Can I finally import an address book into Agent?
Yes, you can. As of Agent version 4, you can import address book info from other email clients. Agent 4 supports importing addressbook info in either csv or xml format.
The xml format used by Agent is described in details on our web site here: http://www.forteinc.com/spec/addressbook.php. Also, if the xml you wish to import is named "aabimport.xml" Agent will automatically import it when the program starts.
The csv format is less structured. Just make sure that the first line contains the field names, and Agent will be able to import it. If your mail client does not have an option to export to a csv file, you can use Dawn to extract it. Dawn supports most email address books and can convert them to CSV.
Currently, Agent only exports its address book into xml format. Exporting to csv will be added later.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 08.21.06, please give us your feedback.
Can I kill-filter messages posted to a specific newsgroup?
Yes. As of Agent 4, you can now create a usenet filter based on the Newsgroups header. To filter on this, simply enter "Newsgroups: " in the expression editor like you would "Author: " or "Subject: ", and the name of the newsgroup. You can also use a usenet filter to control crossposts. Here is an example:
newsgroups: ({\,.+\,.+\,.+\,} and warez)
That will filter based on a message being crossposted to four or more newsgroups where at least one of which has the word 'warez' in the name.
NOTES: A new filter based on the Newsgroups will not be applied immediately when created, these expressions only work on message headers as they are being downloaded. This is because the Newsgroups header does not actaully exist in the overview data, so Agent simulates it based on other overview data. This other overview data does not exist either if you have set Agent to use the XHDR command instead. By default, Agent does not use the XHDR command.
For more on how Agent 4 can manage crossposts, see the FAQ entry "How does the new crosspost detection in Agent 4 work?".
This FAQ Entry was updated on 11.14.06, please give us your feedback.
Does Agent post in HTML?
While Agent 4 can now render received HTML messages, Agent does not compose HTML messages. When you reply to an HTML message, Agent uses the plain text version of the message, if there is one. If there isn't one, Agent converts the HTML to plain text and uses that.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 08.18.06, please give us your feedback.
How do I control the image viewing in Agent 4?
Agent 4 can optionally display image attachments as thumbnails in the message body pane and/or a separate Image Preview pane.
To control the display in the message body pane, go to Tools | Options | Display | Message Body Images. Here, you can control whether or not Agent will display thumbnails when the image is sent as an attachment and/or when they are inline. (Usenet binaries are almost always attachments, whereas a lot of email image binaries are inline.) You can also set the zoom factor to control how large the thumbnails can be. If you set it to measure in pixels, the thumbnail will always be a maximum of that size regardless of the size of your message body pane. If you set it to measure as a percentage, the size will be compared to the current size of the body pane. (Your message body pane has two sizes: when the pane is maximized/zoomed, and when in the classic three-pane view.
To control the display of the Image Preview pane, go to Tools | Display | Image Prevew. The options on this settings panel should be pretty self-explanitory. Also, when the preview pane is enabled to be seen, you can toggle it on and off via the <F7> key, and you can instantly maximize and restore the pane via the <F8> key.
See http://www.forteinc.com/agent-features/image-preview.php for screen shots and some additional information.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 08.18.06, please give us your feedback.
How do I get the spam to be marked as read? How do I set Agent to not alert me to new spam?
Select the Junk folder and then open its Properties via Folder | Properties and then Receiving Messages | When To Mark Read. In the "Email Unread Marks" box, enable the option to override the default, then enable the option to "Mark messages read when routed to this folder". This will mark all messages automatically filed or routed to that folder as read.
Now, to have Agent not alert you to new spam being received, go to Tools | Options | Inbound Email | Checking For Email and enable the item "Only if new messages were marked unread".
This FAQ Entry was updated on 08.23.06, please give us your feedback.
How do I merge multiple address book from Agent 3 or older into Agent 4?
Unlike merging message databases, there is no automatic way to do this. But it can be done manually.
- Close Agent and if there is a contact.xml file in the database, move it to another directory. Make sure there is a personal.aab file in the database and start Agent. Agent will import the old address book and create a new one. Close Agent.
- Move the new contact.xml to another directory. Do not overwrite any other contact.xml files
- Copy the next personal.aab file to Agent 4.x and start Agent. It will import the old address book into a new one. Close Agent.
- Repeat steps 2 and 3 as often as necessary, making sure to either rename each subsequent contact.xml to a unique name (contact1.xml, contact2.xml, etc) or move them to separate directories. Leave the last one created in the database. Close Agent if it's still running.
- When done with the above, rename a moved contact.xml to aabimport.xml and move it into the database directory. Start Agent. It will be imported and merged with your new address book.
- Repeat step 5 until you've merged all variations of your old addressbook data.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 10.13.06, please give us your feedback.
How do I turn HTML rendering on or off?
On HTML messages, there should be at least two status icons on the left edge of the Message Body Pane bar. The left-most is the normal message body status indicator, the next one over is the HTML status: If present, there is HTML in the message. If "lit", you're looking at the rendered message, if "grey", you're looking at the plain-text version.
If you wish to launch the HTML into your web browser, just hit <CTRL L>.
To toggle the HTML rendering on and off, you can find the command in the View menu.
To configure the base HTML display options, go to Tools | Options | Message Body Pane and make your selections in the middle of the panel.
To configure the download of online graphics for HTML messages, go to Folder | [Default] Properties | Receiving Messages | HTML Messages. Default Properties affects all folders. Properties overrides the defaults for the selected folder(s).
This FAQ Entry was updated on 09.02.06, please give us your feedback.
How does subthread filtering work?
Subthread filtering in Agent 4 is intended to enable you to Ignore subthreads while leaving the rest of the thread unaffected.
Example: You are interested in a topic, but one branch, or subthread, has wandered off into something you're not interested in or was invaded by a "troll", so you have no interest in reading responses within that part of the main thread. So, just press the i key to Ignore that message and Agent will also Ignore all responses to that message. NOTE: that is i and not I. Lower case ignores the current message and its responses, while uppercase will ignore the entire thread from the beginning.
This works even on threads that have a Watch filter in place.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 08.18.06, please give us your feedback.
How does the new crosspost detection in Agent 4 work?
Crosspost management in Agent 4 is no longer limited by a cache file. Instead of comparing the new message against a database of other messages, Agent 4 simply looks at the message's list of newsgroups and compares it against itself and your list of message folders in one or both of two possible built-in methods:
- You set it so that if a message has been crossposted to at least a number of groups to kill it
- If a message is posted to two or more groups that you are subscribed to, you can choose whether to retrieve or kill the duplicates and (this is the neat part), you tell Agent which one is the "top" group by the order of the message folders in a user-specified desk
Additionally, you can kill filter messages that are crossposted to any specific newsgroup your server carries. See the FAQ entry "Can I kill-filter messages posted to a specific newsgroup?" for details.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 08.18.06, please give us your feedback.
How does the new Junk filtering work?
The junk filter new in Agent 4 uses Bayesian Statistical Analysis to determin what is and what is not junk. The filter start off knowing nothing, it learns as you teach it. When something is routed to a message folder that is really junk, simply move it to the Junk folder, and Agent will train itself that that message, and messages like it, are junk. If a message is routed to the Junk folder that really isn't, simply move it to where it should go and Agent will train itself that that message, and messages like it, are not junk.
The junk filter considers your Contact List to be a whitelist, and will not even look at messages from contacts in your Contact List, unless the "Detect Junk messages sent by this contact" setting is enabled on that specific contact's record. This works for individual contacts, mailing list records and domain records in the contact list. More information and screen shots can be found here: http://www.forteinc.com/agent-features/junk-filtering.php.
Describing how Bayesian analysis works on a technical level is beyond the scope of this document. Google and Yahoo are your friends.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 08.18.06, please give us your feedback.
How many different types of Folders are there? What do they do? Why are there so many?
There are ten types of folders in Agent:
Message Folders
- Newsgroup folder
- Binary newsgroup folder
- Email folder
- General purpose folder
Special Folders
- Junk folder
- Inbox folder
- Outbox folder
- Sent folder
- Drafts folder
- Trash folder
The main reason why there are so many is so that each kind of folder can have its own set of View Messages setting. For example, if you are looking at a Newsgroup folder set to show only Unread Watched & Threaded messages and you then click on the Outbox, you won't see any messages at first, even if the Outbox indicates it has "unread" messages. That is, unless the Outbox had its own View Messages setting.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 10.27.06, please give us your feedback.
The URL in the status bar does not match the displayed link I'm hovering over. Is it safe to click?
That depends on what the URL shown in the status bar is. As part of the "Safe rendering" of HTML in Agent, it does not process label commands for hovering over a link. When you hover the cursor over a link in an HTML email shown in Agent, the URL shown in the status bar is the URL that will be sent to your web browser. So if the link says PayPal and the status bar says PayPal, it'll take you to PayPal and not some scammer looking for your password.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 08.18.06, please give us your feedback.
What are the Task Priorities?
There are now six priorities for retrieving messages. They are, from top to bottom:
| Top |
Any tasks submitted with the SHIFT key pressed |
| Small Posts |
Tasks to post Usenet messages that have no attachments |
| Small Bodies |
Tasks to retrieve Usenet message bodies for which every body being retrieved has fewer than lines (user-definable in the Usenet Tasks settings panel) |
| Headers |
Tasks to retrieve Usenet headers |
| Ad Hoc Bodies |
Tasks to retrieve bodies invoked manually by the user, that aren't otherwise designated Small Body tasks |
| Bottom |
All other tasks |
This FAQ Entry was updated on 08.18.06, please give us your feedback.
What do you mean by "safe" HTML rendering?
What we mean is that Agent 4 only parses layout commands and displays graphics only. All other HTML tags are simply ignored. Specifically, this means that Agent will not render or process scripts (ActiveX nor Java), nor will it render forms.
Also, Agent will not automatically retrieve linked images from the server unless you have told it to retrieve such images in the contact record for the sender in your Contact List. You can always manually tell Agent to retrieve the images, there will be an adviser bar at the top of the message body pane to let you know that it has not retrieved images. Naturally, images that were sent with the message will be displayed, if you are viewing the message with HTML enabled. More information and screenshots can be found here: http://www.forteinc.com/agent-features/safe-html.php.
Agent will display HTML only if the HTML viewer is enabled in the View menu. If it's not on, Agent will instead display the plain-text version of the message, if present. If there is no plain-text version, Agent will convert the HTML to plain text and display that.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 08.18.06, please give us your feedback.
What does Route By Identity mean?
Route By Identity is the name of the set of features that will cause your inbound email to be routed to folders based on Contact List records instead of email filters. Like the new junk filter, this feature learns how you want messages to be routed by what you do with them. To teach it that an email from your brother, for example, should be in your "Family" folder instead of your default Inbox, simply move it there, and answer the question Agent will ask you. When you tell it to always route that contact to that folder, it will do so. You can Route By Identity individual contacts, entire domains, and mailing lists.
You can have contacts assigned to multiple folders. If you do, you can tell Agent to use content analysis to enhance RBI. This setting is in Tools | Options | Inbound Email | Junk and Routing. This is also where you enable Route By Identity so it will work at all.
When RBI is enabled, you enable it for the specific email folders via Folder | Properties | Receiving Messages | Email Training.
More information and screen shots can be found here: http://www.forteinc.com/agent-features/rbi.php.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 08.23.06, please give us your feedback.
What happened to Free Agent?
Free Agent has been discontinued. We're sorry, but version 3.3 of Agent is the last version to have a freeware mode. If you do not register Agent 4 by the end of the 30 day trialware period, it will no longer perform any online action. You will, of course, be able to access the program itself and any data stored in it, and you will be able to register it at any time to re-enable online functionality.
Forté has offered Free Agent for more than 10 years. With the release of Agent 4.0 we have decided to retire Free Agent and focus on providing Agent customers with exciting new features and timely upgrades.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 08.19.06, please give us your feedback.
What is a folder scheme?
A folder scheme, called Property Schemes in Agent, is a saved set of folder properties, and are functionally in between Folder Properties and Folder Default Properties in that they override the default properties and can be overriden in turn by the individual folders. They are accessed via Folder | Property Schemes. You can have any number of Property Schemes.
The beauty of them is that you can configure Agent to automatically apply a Property Scheme to new folders based on their type or keywords in their names. For instance, you can configure a scheme for music binary newsgroups and another for video binary newsgroups, another for email folders, and one for everything else, and have them applied automatically simply because one newsgroup has the word "music" in it, one has the word "multimedia" in it and one has the "email folder" type assigned to it.
See http://www.forteinc.com/agent-features/folder-schemes.php for more information and screen shots.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 08.18.06, please give us your feedback.
A uuencoded message wasn't decoded. How do I decode it?
First, ensure that you have the 'detect uuencoded messages automatically' checked on the Folder | Default Properties | Receiving Files tab.
If you have already received the message, you'll need to save the file to text using the File | Save Messages As option, and then import the message back into Agent with the above setting on. You cannot import messages with Free Agent.
You should now be able to right click on the message, choose Index, and save the uuencoded message from this dialog.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 11.05.04, please give us your feedback.
A yEnc encoded message wasn't decoded. How do I decode it?
Please see the FAQ entry Attachments appear as blocks of code instead of icons.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 11.05.04, please give us your feedback.
Attachments appear as blocks of code instead of as icons.
Press CTRL+R; it's a toggle (the current state of which is shown by the presence or absence of a checkmark against the Show Raw Message command on the Message menu).
If the above does not resolve the problem, check to see what encoding the attachment is. If there is a line at the top of the data block that looks like this example:
=ybegin part=1 line=128 size=14323712 name=filename.jpg
then you are likely using an older version of Agent or Free Agent. Agent's support of yEnc starts with version 1.91, and Free Agent's started with version 3. Please see our Upgrade Policy to see if you are eligible for an upgrade.
If the above line looks like this instead:
=ybegin part=1 total=9 li ne=128size=4656098name=filename.avi
then please read this FAQ entry.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 09.14.04, please give us your feedback.
BinHex Encoded files? Does Agent support them?
[Free] Agent does not support BinHex. This is actually an Apple/Macintosh standard, not PC/Windows. To decode the file manually, you will need to download the message attachment as text, and then save the message encoded in binhex as a text file, by selecting the message and choosing File | Save Message As....
Once you have saved the attachment to a text file, you will need to use an external decoding program to decode the file. Programs you can use to decode the BinHex encoded file include Stuffit Expander and WinZip.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 11.08.04, please give us your feedback.
How do I forward messages with attachments?
You can forward messages with attachments by using the Forward As Attachment command in the Action | Forward Special menu. This will take the entire message, including any existing attachments, and send it as an attachment to a new outbound message.
Or you can save the attachments, use the regular Forward command, and re-attach the files to the new outbound message.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 01.30.07, please give us your feedback.
How do I handle files with rar or rXX extensions?
These are WinRAR files. The poster has pre-processed the file with RAR to split the item into smaller pieces, more suitable for transmission in Usenet. You will need a copy of WinRAR to recombine these files into their original form. This has nothing to do with Agent, or any news client. Think of rar files as you would a zip file.
You can get WinRAR from www.rarlab.com.
We have more information about downloading binary files in Agent on our Guide To Binaries page.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 01.23.07, please give us your feedback.
How do I save inline files?
You need to edit your AGENT.INI file:
[Article] SaveNamedInlines=0 (change this to a 1)
When this value is non-zero, if a MIME section has a filename, Agent will display the yellow icon for the message and will save the section when you select the File | Save All Attachments menu item.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 11.05.04, please give us your feedback.
How do I specify file types other than text be non-encoded when sending messages?
There are two ways of doing this.
When you are attaching the file to the message (by clicking on the Attachments button while in the composition window) select the file, then change the type of data field to "text/plain".
Or you can use the File | Insert Text File command to insert the file into the message body at the current cursor location.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 11.05.04, please give us your feedback.
I get a disk out of space error saving an attachment, yet I have oodles of free space
You can get an error complaining about the hard drive being full even though you have many gigabytes of free space left due to limitations of the way Windows manages the hard drive's file system. There are basically two different methods used by Windows for this, and which one your computer is using depends, with one exception, on which version of Windows you are using.
Windows 95 SR2, Windows 98, and Windows ME all use FAT32 for disk management. Windows NT4, and Windows XP use NTFS for disk management. Windows 2000 may have been installed using either FAT32 or NTFS, depending on where you got it. The technical differences between FAT32 and NTFS is beyond the scope of this article. What is important here is that NTFS allows for larger hard drives, larger individual files, and more files per folder than FAT32.
The following information about the capacities of the two file systems is taken from the Windows Network & .NET Magazine site:
FAT32 (Win9X or newer):
- Maximum disk size: 2 terabytes
- Maximum single file size: 4 gigabytes
- Maximum files per folder: 65,534 (Note: using Long File Names will reduce this number - the more LFN files you have, the fewer you can have)
NTFS (WinNT, 2K, XP, servers):
- Maximum disk size: 256 terabytes
- Maximum single file size: size of disk
- Maximum files per folder: 4,294,967,295
If you are interested in a deeper technical comparison between FAT32 and NTFS, here is a Google search.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 08.24.04, please give us your feedback.
I get an error when I try to launch a file from Agent, but it works when I launch it from Windows
If you can correctly launch the file by double-clicking the same type of file in Windows Explorer, then go to Agent's Tools | Options | URL And MIME Types | MIME Types and remove the configuration for that file type there. If you had set the type "application/octet-stream" or any of the other default types that cannot be deleted, clear the Application and Extensions fields. Agent then will use Windows to launch the file directly, as if you were launching the file from Windows Explorer.
If you get the wrong application or an error when you double-click the file in Windows Explorer, check with the technical support people for the application that should be used when launching the file. You may have to reinstall the application to reset the file associations.
If the above does not work, then do a partial reversal of the above and make a setting for the file type. Go to Tools | Options | URL And MIME Types | MIME Types. Click the Add button and add the type and subtype of the problem file type, click OK. Then select the new item and enter the file extension(s) used for that kind of file, in a comma separated list. Do not enter an application. When you click Apply, it should show an application icon for the handler in the space under the Application line.
You can find a reasonably complete MIME Type listing cross-referenced to file extensions at <http://www.w3schools.com/media/media_mimeref.asp>.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 10.08.07, please give us your feedback.
I get an "unable to create file" error when I try to save or launch an attachment
This error means that the path you have defined for saving or launching attachments does not exist.
Go to Folder \ [Default] Properties \ Attachment Folders and use the Browse buttons to make sure that the directory paths are correct. Default Properties affects email and all newsgroups. Properties overrides the defaults for the selected newsgroup(s).
This FAQ Entry was updated on 05.13.03, please give us your feedback.
I just registered Agent and previously downloaded yEnc files are still not recognized
If you downloaded yEnc encoded files while in Free Agent mode, they will not be recognized as files after entering your registration code. The reason for this is that in order for the flag to be set that marks a message as a binary, the message has to be downloaded, or imported, while Agent can recognize that it is a file.
What you will have to do is export the messages as text files via File | Save Messages As... with the options UNIX, Raw, and All Headers, and then import the text file(s) via File | Import Messages.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 11.05.04, please give us your feedback.
I just upgraded to the new Free Agent. Everything is different. How do I...
- Launch a file (view it) by highlighting the message with the file in it and press the keyboard shortcut key 'L' to launch the file, using the menu option: File | Launch Attachment, right clicking the message and choose Launch Attachment, or pressing the Launch Icon on the toolbar
- Save a file (to a directory on your computer) by highlighting the message with the file in it and press the keyboard key 'A' to save all the files in that message, or using the menu option: File | Save all Attachments, or right clicking the message and choose Save all Attachments
- Delete a file (from the directory on your computer) by selecting the menu option: File | Delete Saved Attachments or right clicking the message and choose Delete Saved Attachments
- Delete the body of the message containing the attachment (so I can download it again) by selecting the menu option: Message | Delete body or right clicking the message and then select delete body. You can also use the keyboard shortcut: CTRL+Del
This FAQ Entry was updated on 11.05.04, please give us your feedback.
I need to Manually Join a Binary Attachment. How can I do that?
Occasionally, you may find multi-part attachments whose subject lines don't match the standard conventions (they might not include the standard "Part 1 of 2" or "[1/2]" notation, for example). In this case, Agent won't be able to find all of the articles for the file or won't be able to get them in the correct order. This may announce itself with a dialog box saying that Agent couldn't find all of the articles, or with an error during the decoding process.
To decode such files, you'll need to select and order the articles manually:
- Select all of the articles that contain parts of the binary file. You can do this by selecting one article and then Ctrl-clicking on the others to include them. Be sure to select articles for only one binary file; you'll have to repeat this entire process for any others that you want.
- Select the Message | Join Sections... menu item.
- Agent will display a dialog box showing the articles you selected. Make sure they are all in order - if they aren't, use the Up and Down buttons to order them correctly.
- Launch or decode the attachment by pressing the corresponding button. If you are offline and have not yet retrieved the articles, Agent will immediately go online and download them.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 09.13.02, please give us your feedback.
Is yEnc available in Free Agent 3.3?
Yes. yEnc decoding is now available with the release of Agent 3.2.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 03.09.06, please give us your feedback.
The files I download disappear
You have to actually cause the attachments to be saved. Simply viewing them does not necessarily do this.
You can save them manually with any of the menu (File menu or right-click context menu), keyboard (hit the <A> key) or toolbar commands. Or you can do this automatically with the settings in Group | [Default] Properties | Receive Files. Default Properties affects email and all newsgroups. Properties overrides the defaults for the selected newsgroup(s).
This FAQ Entry was updated on 10.24.02, please give us your feedback.
yEnc suddenly stopped being recognized
Some users have reported this issue began after the install or upgrade of Zone Alarm version 5.1. Have you just installed or upgraded to this version? Users have reported there is a problem in Zone Alarm 5.1 that is causing it to mangle yEnc encoded file attachments. It's doing this by taking spaces from the latter half of the =ybegin line and inserting them in the middle of a keyword. This makes a line that should look like this:
=ybegin part=1 total=9 line=128 size=4656098 name=Blood For Blood - A Postcard From The Edge.mp3
look like this instead:
=ybegin part=1 total=9 li ne=128size=4656098name=BloodForBlood-APostcardFromTheEdge.mp3
The only way to deal with this is to replace the problem version of Zone Alarm. On November 8, 2004, Zone Labs released version 5.5 which reportedly solves this problem. If you are using Zone Alarm 5.1, please upgrade to 5.5 immediately to solve this, and other, problems.
If you are interested in the list of fixes and changes, you can find it on their web site here.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 11.09.04, please give us your feedback.
All my messages and folders dissappeared. Agent is empty.
If you are using Windows XP and you have multiple computer logon profiles, make sure that Agent is not open in another user profile.
Otherwise, with Agent closed, open your database directory in Windows Explorer and verify that you have the grpdat.bak and grpidx.bak files. Assuming you do, delete groups.dat and groups.idx and copy grpdat.bak to groups.dat and grpidx.bak to groups.idx.
These are backup files for the master groups listing. Agent creates/updates these files whenever you get group names or import a newsrc file. If you attempt to get groups while your Groups list is corrupted, the backup files will inherit the corruption.
In some rare cases, this could be caused by a problem with the agent.ini file. As such, it is recommended that you backup this file occasionally. You can do this manually by making a copy of the file periodically. Or, you can automate the process using a batch file. Or, you could rely on the system restore function of your Operating System. If you use this method, check to insure the drive agent is installed to has system restore enabled.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 12.18.06, please give us your feedback.
How can I reverse the configured Trash settings for specific messages?
Like in a lot of places in Windows, pressing the <SHIFT> key will alter the function of the selected action. For example, in Internet Explorer a <shift click> on a link will open it in a new window. In Agent, if you are configured to use the Trash folder, <shift delete> will instead send the selected message(s) to oblivion.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 10.04.02, please give us your feedback.
How do I mark and retrieve all messages in certain groups?
There are two ways to do this:
If you want to do this on an ad-hoc basis after you've retrieved the headers, press Ctrl+A to select all of the headers, select Message | Mark for Retrieval and then select Online | Get Marked Message Bodies.
If you always want to get the bodies automatically for a particular group, select the group and use the Group | Properties option to open the Group Properties dialog. On the Retrieving page, check "Override default settings" and then check "Retrieve bodies for all new messages."
This FAQ Entry was updated on 07.15.02, please give us your feedback.
How do the auto-thread-expand options work?
In Options | General Preferences | Message List you will find the settings to control the automatic exanding of threads.
Expand thread if necessary to highlight current body pane message will cause Agent to always expand the current thread in the Message List pane to show the current message.
Initial thread setting controls when Agent will automatically (or not) expand threads in the Message List pane. When skipping to unread followups controls when and how Agent will expand collapsed threads when skipping to an unread message within the thread.
This FAQ Entry was updated on 11.05.04, please give us your feedback.
If I retrieve new headers, but I don't read any messages, how do I prevent the headers from being marked as read?
By selecting Folder | [Default] Properties | Receiving Messages | When To Mark Read and selecting both "Do not mark any existing messages read" items. Default Properties affects email and all newsgroups. Properties overrides the defaults for the selected newsgroup(s).
This FAQ Entry was updated on 05.09.06, please give us your feedback.
The arrow keys don't move the selection, they scroll
Check the SCRL indicator in the lower right hand | 