First create a new newsgroup. Rather than adding in a normal newsgroup name, however, we create one beginning with a pound (#) sign. This is NewsPro's cue that this will be an XPAT search group.

Next invoke 'Get New Headers' (or Rescan Headers) to bring up the search dialog box. Since NewsPro knows this is a search group you'll notice that a special dialog box appears. It is here that you define the criteria of your search.

 

In this situation you can see that I am searching the 'Subject' field of headers for a matching string of 'tcf-hp'. Multiple criteria can be defined, and for more than one string in a single critiera use the pipes symbol (|) as an OR wildmat. For example if I also wanted to look for 'Harry Potter' in the subject the string would appear as 'tcf-hp|Harry Potter'. You would be able to see such multiple definitions in the box at the lower right of the window. Similarly you can define multiple search patterns using the 'Add /\' and 'Add \/'. Both accomplish the same task by adding a new line for definitions, one adds above and one below. This is useful if you wish to search for a particular author in a group as well as a certain subject line or date.

 

The group being searched below is defined as 'alt.binaries.svcd'. You can click the 'Newsgroups' button to open your downloaded newsgroup lists if necessary. Multiple groups can be defined, just leave a space in between group names.

 

Check the 'rescan' box in order to rescan the groups during this search. If you invoked 'Rescan Headers' rather than 'Get New Headers' then this box will already be checked. Rescanning will verify that any headers previously retrieved from a server during a prior search are indeed still available on that server. The process can be quite slow depending on the headers in that group for a given server, so give it time. There is nothing NewsPro can do to improve the speeds here, unfortunately, because XPAT searching is a server-side activity.

 

The 'Remarks' section simply allows you to add in comments regarding each particular search string. For example if you were looking for a specific word, such as 'cheese', you may want to add a comment as to why you were searching for it. Message-IDs would also be a good comment to add if you knew exactly what you were looking for but didn't want to forget. Basically this box is for your own use, it doesn't add functionality to the searches themselves.

Once you've got everything defined click 'Start' to begin the search. XPAT searches can take some time depending on the number of headers in the groups you're searching on each server. Servers with fewer headers will most likely take less time, though it also depends on the server's processing power as well.

 

Upon viewing the task manager you will first seen green progress bars. This is the state where NewsPro has sent the strings to search for to the server and is letting the server run through its database. Once the server has compiled the results it returns to them NewsPro, you'll notice the progress bar turns light blue. This portion takes longer than a regular get header process because we're not retrieving a constant stream of articles from the server but rather are picking on the articles that the server told us  matched the search.

 

As you can see in my example to the left every header seen contains 'tcf-hp' somewhere in it. Once you have the results this search newsgroup works just like any other newsgroup. You can apply filters, delete headers, queue up files for download, anything that can be done in a regular newsgroup.

That's it for XPAT searching within NewsPro - as you can see the process is pretty simple. This method is very useful when you know something you're looking for and have an idea of what groups it may be in but really don't want to grab all headers from those groups. For example when I download movies for my co-worker I always use XPAT searches on the VCD groups. Due to the long retention on some of my servers the total headers in, for example, alt.binaries.vcd can reach upwards of 800,000-1,000,000. Since I really only need particular items from the group it would be unwise to retain so many headers at all times.