Usenet Newsgroup Browser in SharePoint

The following will show you how to add a Usenet Newsgroup browser to your SharePoint site with a short RSSBus SharePoint WebPart template. The template works by importing the RSSBus NntpOps Connector. The template calls the nntpListArticles operation to list the articles of a particular Newsgroup and displays them in a table. Then, when an article is clicked on, it calls the nntpGetArticle operation to retrieve the actual article (only the first 1000 lines of the article). If the thread is larger than 1000 lines, it will provide a link to view the message in Google Groups. Copy and paste the WebPart template below into your own RSSBus SharePoint WebPart (with the NntpOps connector installed) and it will work right away. This template browses the microsoft.public.sharepoint.windowsservices group (you can set your own news server, group, etc.).

<rsb:import lib="RSSBus.NntpOps" />
<div style="height:100;overflow:auto"> 
  <table width="98%">
   <tr>
    <th style="background-color:LightGrey; white-space:nowrap">Subject</th>                              
    <th style="background-color:LightGrey; white-space:nowrap">Author</th>                        
    <th style="background-color:LightGrey; white-space:nowrap">Size</th>                            
    <th style="background-color:LightGrey; white-space:nowrap">Date</th>                                
  </tr>  

  <rsb:set attr="group" value="microsoft.public.sharepoint.windowsservices" />
  <rsb:set attr="range" value="25" />
  <rsb:set attr="server" value="msnews.microsoft.com" />
  <rsb:call op="nntpListArticles">
   <tr>
     <td style="white-space:nowrap"><a href="?msgnumber=[nntp:number]">[nntp:subject | truncate('60')]</a></td>
     <td style="white-space:nowrap">[nntp:author]</td>
     <td style="white-space:nowrap">[nntp:size]</td>
     <td style="white-space:nowrap">[nntp:date]</td>
   </tr>
  </rsb:call>
</table>
</div>
 <div>
  <rsb:check attr="_request.msgnumber">
  <hr />
   <rsb:call op="nntpGetArticle?maxlines=1000&article=[_request.msgnumber]">
    <div id="headers">
    <table width="98%" style="background-color:LightGrey">
      <tr>
        <td width="75px">From:</td>
        <td><a href="mailto:[nntp:author | htmlencode]">[nntp:author | htmlencode]</a></td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
       <td width="75px">Date:</td>
        <td>[nntp:date]</td>
      </tr>
      <tr>
        <td width="75px">Subject:</td>
        <td>[nntp:subject]</td>
      </tr>
      <tr />
      <tr>
        <td colspan="2"><a href="http://groups.google.com/groups?threadm=[nntp:id | Replace('<', '') | Replace('>', '') | urlencode]">View in Google Groups</a></td>
      </tr>
    </table>
  </div>
   <div id="body" style="height:400;overflow:auto">
    <hr />
    [nntp:body | Replace('0A','<br>','true')]
  </div>
  <p />
  <a href="http://groups.google.com/groups?threadm=[nntp:id | Replace('<', '') | Replace('>', '') | urlencode]">View in Google Groups</a>
  </rsb:call>
  </rsb:check>
</div>

If you want to make the news server and group editable via the "Modified Shared WebPart" property settings, simply delete the rsb:set lines where they are hard-coded in the template, and add the following at the top:

<rsb:info title="RSSBus SharePoint WebPart: USENET Newsgroup Browser">
  <input name="Server" default="msnews.microsoft.com" required="true" />
  <input name="Group" default="microsoft.public.sharepoint.windowsservices" required="true" />
  <input name="Range" default="25" />
</rsb:info>

The above tells the WebPart to create three inputs: Server, Group, and Range. The NntpOps Connector will be able to see the inputs and work with them.