Add Newsgroups
Select the server
In a first step you have to select a newsserver from the drop-down box. If no newsserver is listed, then click the "News-Server..." button to add and configure a server.
If you haven't already downloaded the available newsgroups for the selected server, then this list is downloaded automatically. Downloading the available newsgroups can take up to several minutes. Usually you can let the option "Download available newsgroups" unchecked, re-downloading the list is only required if you are looking for new newsgroups on the server.
Subscribe to groups
After pressing the "Next" button you will see all available newsgroups for the selected server. Click the checkbox in the left column to subscribe to one or more newsgroups. To search for specific groups, you can enter one or more search terms into the search field. For example "music rock" (without quotes) will list all newsgroups which contain "music" and "rock", eg. the newsgroup alt.music.modern.rock
Monitor only headers or full articles with bodies
After you have selected the newsgroups, you are asked in a last step if you want to download newsgroup bodies immediately. Otherwise only the headers (author and subject) are monitored and the bodies (the text of the articles) will be downloaded on demand.
You should only download bodies immediately if you want to monitor the text of articles for specific keywords. In all other cases it doesn't make really sense since the check takes longer and more data must be transferred. Using that option means that you also download bodies for postings you aren't interested in.
If you only want to monitor a newsgroup for new postings and replies, then you should not use the "download bodies" option. The check is faster in that case and bodies can be downloaded on request when you want to read them.