Tasks Properties

The tasks options page is relatively basic, but I'll describe what each option does.

Within the "Maximal number of tasks" area are the most commonly used task definitions.
 
  1. Total defines the total number of tasks to be used for all tasks except public server searching. This includes downloading articles, retrieving headers, posting articles, and downloading newsgroup lists. The simultaneous number of tasks will never exceed this number
  2. Article bodies defines how many tasks may be used for retrieving articles. If you are able to max your download speeds with fewer connections it is usually best to do so.
  3. Posting defines the number of concurrent post tasks. If you do binary posting through NewsPro and are able to max your upload speeds with just one connection it is best to do so. For some servers it may require multiple connections, but for erratic upload servers you may end up uploading articles out of order.
  4. Find servers is used for public server searching. This defines how many slots may be used when running searches for open or public servers. This is different from testing public servers.
  5. Total under the "Hard tasks" section defines how many total tasks may be used for getting new headers and retrieving newsgroup lists. Since these two tasks can be very resource intensive a definition specific to these tasks was included.
  6. New headers defines how many task slots may be used for obtaining new headers, rescanning headers, or getting new headers via an XPAT search.
  7. Newsgroup lists sets the amount of tasks that may be used for getting newsgroup lists from a server. Since much information is obtained during such a search it is advised to keep the number relatively low depending on your system. Getting new newsgroup lists isn't a heavily used task under normal usage, however.
  8. Public server tests defines how many public/open servers may be tested simultaneously. While the previous Find servers task defined how many slots could be used to actually look for servers, this function defines how many of the servers you have found may be tested. Testing includes checks for openness, basic login tests, or newsgroup checks.

Below "Maximal number of tasks" is the "Article tasks - advanced' area. These integrate with the download priority features for downloading articles.

  1. Download Later allows you to define the priority for which articles will always be added to the end of the download queue. If you are downloading files and find others you wish to download but want to ensure they are not downloaded until everything else is finished then you would use this. In my options any article set to download at priority 3 or lower would always wait until everything else was entirely finished before attempting to download.
  2. Download Immediately sets priorities for which any article at that priority or higher will be immediately downloaded at the next available chance. This is integrated with the Extra task slots in that articles flagged with the specified priority or higher will be allowed to open additional article task slots above what is normally allowed. This is extremely helpful in the case of downloading many binaries while reading text groups. In my options I would set article priority to 12 or higher and upon flagging a file or article to read it would immediately open up to 4 extra article task slots. The extra task slots are available only for these high priority downloads, so unless I use priority 12 or higher I would be limited to the regular 4 article tasks as defined in the above section.

In the "Bandwidth" section you can specify how much of your bandwidth to dedicate to certain tasks.

  1. Limit to specifies how many KB/sec to use for any task requiring downloaded data.
  2. Limit upload to specifies how many KB/sec to use for posting tasks. Since any items being uploaded on a system most always take priority over anything that is incoming this option can be helpful to ensure you can still browse the web or download files while uploading binaries.
  3. Pause button pressed allows you to define how many KB/sec to use when the Pause button is pressed. By default this is set to zero, thereby making the pause button actually pause all downloads or uploads. Defining another amount will allow you to control the Pause button to your wishes. If this was set to 5KB/sec, for example, then pushing the Pause button would drop all downloads and uploads to 5KB/sec total.
The "Hard tasks" section helps to reduce hard drive "thrashing" during resource intensive header operations. Though the NewsPro database efficiency has been greatly improved over when this feature was originally implemented it may still be useful for slower systems or for users who frequently access very heavily used newsgroups.
  1. Limit to is similar to the feature described above, but in this case it refers only to the hard tasks of getting headers and getting newsgroup lists. Due to their resource usage this can help to reduce hard drive slowdown during such operations by reducing the amount of data being downloaded from a server.
  2. Prevent overload was implemented to address the issue of bandwidth versus system resource usage. For people with high-speed broadband connections it was noted that headers would often be downloaded so fast that the hard drive reads and writes required to process those headers would lag behind, thereby creating a potential system slowdown to the point where it could become unusable until the operation was complete. When this feature is used it will limit the bandwidth being used to get new headers to what you have specified, but only when the number of unprocessed downloaded headers exceeded your defined number. Basically it tells NewsPro to slow down getting those headers when it sees it has so many that have yet to be processed. This allows your system to catch up with the downloaded items, making things run more smoothly.

The "Relative chance to run" section specifies which tasks are likely to gain priority over other tasks, it is fairly straightforward. Tasks with higher numbers are more likely to run than are tasks of lower numbers. In my options the large difference between tasks is not necessary, it is only required that one be higher than another for the feature to work. For example in my options article bodies have a relative chance of 10 while new headers have a relative chance of 90 (though 11 would work just the same here). This means that if I were to allow 10 total tasks, 7 article tasks, and 7 header tasks, during a download of articles if I were to issue a Get New Headers command NewsPro would finish up enough of the article downloads to be able to open the 7 header tasks I have allowed while still using the maxium of 10 total tasks (there would then be 3 article tasks and 7 header tasks running). I would advise that posting priority be left as the highest, as most people would like to ensure that any newsgroup replies posted are done so as soon as possible.