Program configuration for Groundhog

Please make the following adjustments to use our news server:

1
Start Groundhog like any other application.

2
If you have not configured a server address yet, you will be greeted by the following notice:

Startup: Empty server address

Press Ok to go to the Settings menu. If you have configured a server address from before and only see the - possibly empty - group list, press the Settings button instead.

3
In the Settings menu, first choose Connection:

Settings: Overview

Then select Server Address:

Settings: Connection

4
Enter the name of our news server - News.CIS.DFN.DE - and press Ok:

Settings: Server host address

5
Then select Login name from further down the menu and enter the "username" from the account details that you have received from us. Press Ok:

Settings: Login name

6
Finally, select Password (depending on screen size, you may have to scroll down the menu to find this option), enter the "password" from the account details that you have received from us, and press Ok.

Storing your account information in the news reader's configuration is a potential security risk. If you are unsure, please refer to our FAQ at http://news.cis.dfn.de/faq.html#1.6.

It is not necessary to enter a password if your institution is a member of the institutional access scheme (Anwenderzulassung) and you are accessing the server from your institution's network.

Settings: Enter password

7
If you prefer connecting to our server over SSL (encrypted connection), check Use SSL and set the Server Port number to 563:

Settings: server port for SSL

8
Next, go back to the main Settings menu by means of the Back button and select User info:

Settings: User info

9
Under Name, enter your name as it should appear when posting on Usenet, and press Ok:

Settings: Enter name

10
Under Email, enter your correct e-mail address. For spam protection, you can use the top-level domain .invalid as described in our FAQ at http://news.cis.dfn.de/faq.html#5.3. Please do not use the "fakeemail" domain that Groundhog suggests by default.

Settings: Enter email

11
The basic configuration is now complete. Use the Back button to go back to the empty Groups List, and press Add Groups to subscribe to the groups you are interested in:

Groups List: empty

12
To subscribe to a group, type a part of its name and press Search Groups. When you do this for the first time, Groundhog will connect to our server and download the group list, which can take while depending on your connection speed. If you made a mistake entering our server name in step 4 above, this is where the error occurs.

Subscribe to Groups

13
A selection of groups matching your search will appear:

Subscribe to Groups: Search

14
Select the group that you want to subscribe to, and confirm by pressing Yes:

Subscribe to Groups: Search

15
Repeat until you have added all the groups you want, then return to the Groups List by using the Back button:

Subscribe to Groups: Success

16
In the Groups List you now see the groups you just added. In order to download some articles, press the Menu button:

Groups List: Sync Articles

Then select Sync Articles:

Getting full articles

After a while, the Groups List shows the unread article count in front of the group name:

Groups List: unread article count

17
Select a group to see a threaded view of its articles:

Article thread

Tap on an article to read it; use the left and right arrow buttons to navigate to the previous or next article:

Article body