How to setup and use the Post to Newsgroup feature
| By: Jeremy North | Last Updated: December 3rd, 2007 |
QC Plus allows you to post a QualityCentral report from QC Plus onto a news server in a specific newsgroup.
Before accessing the Post to Newsgroup feature of QC Plus, details about the newsgroup server are required.
Where to setup a newsgroup server
To setup a newsgroup server you need to add the information into QC Plus. You do this by accessing the NNTP Servers options page in the options dialog. Open the option dialog by selecting the Tools | Options menu item. When the options dialog displays select the NNTP Servers page that should be a child page under the Report page (Figure 1).
Figure 1
How to setup a newsgroup server
Once you have selected the NNTP Servers option page a list of servers is displayed. An option about which Report Summary to use is also visible.
Adding a new server to the list is a simple task. Click on the Add button, complete the Add Server dialog (Figure 2) and then click on the OK button.
Figure 2
The Add NNTP Server dialog is pretty straight forward.
Description - Name for this server. Appears in all lists of servers so should be self explanatory.
Server - Host of the news server.
Port - Port that is used to communicate with the news server. Port 119 is the default port for an unsecured server, if the server has SSL security, then generally port 563 is used.
Name - The name on the server that the post was made by.
Address - The address that is supplied with the post on the server. Generally this would be your email address.
Use SSL - Check this item if the newsgroup server requires an SSL connection.
SSL Settings
Username - Username required for accessing the secure server.
Password - Password required for accessing the secure server.
Port - The port number used to communicate with the secure server.
Use Signature File - If checked then each post will retrieve the contents of the text file and append it to the message.
Signature memo - Instead of using a file that contains your signature, you can enter in a signature into the memo.
Note: Signatures can be modified before posting the message to the server.
Once you have added your server it will appear in the server list back in the options dialog. Click on the Update Newsgroups button (Figure 3) to retrieve and cache a list of newsgroups found on that server.
Figure 3
Maintaining Newsgroups
In the initial release of QC Plus with the new newsgroup posting feature, it is not possible to manage the list of newsgroups that are stored for a server. This is functionality that will be added later if the requests are forthcoming.
Default Report Summary to use
This option specifies the initial format of the new message body. The format is based on either the Short or Long report summary. As the text in the group box describes, the Short and Long report summary contents are customizable. You can perform this customization using the Summary Options option page which is also under the Report options page.
Maintaining existing servers
You can maintain your existing servers by selecting the server in the list and clicking on either the Edit button to modify the existing settings or the Delete button to remove the server altogether.
Deleting a server will also deleting any cached newsgroup lists that were associated with the server that was deleted.
Using the Post to newsgroups command
The Post to newsgroups command is available in two places. The command is available on the Report menu and also on the New menu item. As it appears on the New menu item, it is available from the New menu item in the File menu and in the New button dropdown on the toolbar. Currently the command does not exist on any context menus within QC Plus. This is something that is subject to change.
The command is only valid when a report is currently active in QC Plus. There are no restrictions on posting reports by users other than you. This means that you can post any report visible to a newsgroup server of your choice.
It is therefore up to you to make sure you are posting appropriate content to the selected newsgroup servers.
Figure 4 shows the result of clicking the Post to newsgroups… command.
Figure 4
As you can see from Figure 4, the body of the message is set out in a particular format. The format used is based on the setting chosen in the NNTP Servers options page. The image shows the typical format of using the long report summary format.
Once you have selected the server you want to post on the Newsgroups drop down fills with available newsgroups and the name, address and signature fields are populated with the values specified when you added the new server account. Figure 5 shows the completed dialog. The server I setup has no default signature specified, but if I wanted I could still add in a signature for this post by entering the text into the signature memo at the bottom of the dialog.
You can freely edit the generated subject and message body in the New message dialog.
Click on the Post button to post this message to the selected newsgroup. If successful, a dialog will display letting you know the message was posted successfully.
Using SSL
To use the SSL servers you need to download the INDY OpenSSL libraries. You can download these libraries from the following URL.
http://www.intelicom.si/www.nsf/docs/6GERPJGIBC?opendocument&cat=9&doc=6GERPJGIBC&lang=en
Extract the contents of the zip file to the same folder where QC Plus is installed.
If you attempt to connect to a server that requires SSL and do not have the libraries installed correctly, the following dialog is displayed.
Summary
Once you have setup your NNTP servers, you can easily post your QualityCentral issue to the appropriate newsgroup, and hopefully encourage fellow users of the QualityCentral system to vote and rate your report.
Where to get QC Plus
You can download QC Plus from http://www.jed-software.com/qc_download.htm.
The QC Plus homepage is http://www.jed-software.com/qc.htm.
Tips and Tricks will be posted on my blog http://jedqc.blogspot.com/.
About the author
You can contact Jeremy via the contact page on his website at http://www.jed-software.com/.
JED Software provides the Delphi community with developer tools, specialized components and other IDE enhancements. Some are free, while others incur a small fee.