How do I have my signature added to the end of my post?

The default signature is designated in the Group | Default Properties for All Groups Dialog. Select the "Posting" tab on this dialog, and then select the signature you want as your default signature. The signature is automatically attached to all documents that you post or mail using Agent.

If you would like to set up different signatures for each group, you may override the default by first selecting the group whose properties you are overriding, and then select Group | Properties for Selected Groups. Go to the "Posting" tab, select "Override Default Settings", and then choose the signature to use when posting from that group.

You can also override the default signature on an individual message by pressing the "All Fields" button and changing the signature field.

Why doesn't my signature appear in the edit window?

Once you've set up your signature as described in the topic above, you may be surprised when it still doesn't appear in the edit window or in the messages in the Outbox. Don't worry - Agent appends the signature at the time that it sends the message, although it never appends it to the part that you see. If you want to verify that Agent is going to append the correct signature to your post, press the All Fields button. The name of the signature that Agent is going to use will appear in the Signature field. If you want to use something other than the default signature, you can change it here.

As a future enhancement, we're considering changing Agent to add the signature to the editable text in the message window. This would allow you to confirm that the signature really was there, and to edit it if necessary.

How does word-wrap work when I'm editing an message?

For outgoing messages, there are two parameters that control wordwrap -- the Message | Word Wrap menu option, and the Line Length option on the Message Posting tab of the Preferences dialog box.

When a message is transmitted, only the Line Length parameter is used. All lines are wrapped at Line Length characters (remember, posted messages are inherently "fixed-pitch"), with one exception: Lines that begin with one of the quote characters are not wrapped, based on the assumption that the original text was formatted correctly (or, at least the way the author wanted) to begin with.

The display in the editing window itself is also affected by the Word Wrap option. Lines will still wrap at the Line Length setting (unless they're quoted), but if Word Wrap is set then all lines also wrap as necessary to make them fit in the window. If you don't set Word Wrap, then lines may be wider than the window and you'll have to scroll horizontally to see parts of them.

If you want to see exactly what the message will look like when it's posted, select a fixed-pitch font, make sure your window is wide enough to display Line Length characters, and turn off Word Wrap. OTOH, if you have a very narrow window and just want to see the text without worrying about the final format, turn Word Wrap on, select the font of your choice, and type away.

Why is editing a message sometimes so slow?

Because of some inefficiencies in our word-wrapping algorithm, the response can sometimes be very slow when typing characters into the middle of a large message. We will be addressing this in a later release.

Do I have to re-type a failed post?

No. Whenever you attempt to post a message, Agent saves it in the out-box. This means that if the post fails for any reason, the message is still there and you can try to post it later. To do this, select the Online | Post messages and Emails menu option.

To see the contents of the out-box, select Window | Open Outbox Window. All of the messages and email messages that you have entered will be there, with icons to show whether their posting was successful. A yellow smiling face means that the message was posted successfully, while a red frowning face means that the posting failed and will be tried again the next time you select the Post messages and Emails menu option.

Why are my posts listed as having 0 lines?

Agent doesn't set the Lines field (the field that tells how many lines there are in the message) when posting a message, because we thought all news servers added it automatically. It turns out that some don't, so any message posted through them will end up with a header claiming that it has 0 lines. The message text is still there and can still be viewed, but many newsreaders will display it in the browser with a line count of 0.

This problem will be fixed in a later release.

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