Download date range of headers

[hollywood]

Hi. I've looked high and low, and can't figure out how to download a range of headers based on calendar date, i.e. from January 1, 2015 to August 31, 2015.
With some groups, their header count is so massive, I don't have the hard drive space OR computing power to grab 50gigabytes of headers just to find six months I am targeting.
Is there a way to do that, or if not, do you have any suggestions?
Thanks

[Quade]

You can't set the range but you can set the age it starts at and then cancel the header download when you got your block of headers.

1 - Set a "download age" that covers the oldest posts you want.
2 - Right click the groups "Post Storage/Delete Stored Posts
3 - Double-click the group to both load and start the download.

News headers will show up. When you get enough, you can delete the header download from the download list.

[hollywood]

You can't set the range but you can set the age it starts at and then cancel the header download when you got your block of headers.

1 - Set a "download age" that covers the oldest posts you want.
2 - Right click the groups "Post Storage/Delete Stored Posts
3 - Double-click the group to both load and start the download.

News headers will show up. When you get enough, you can delete the header download from the download list.

ok, then how do you add to that a week later? Let's say you got all the headers for 2014. Is there a way to not erase those and continue on from the last, dated header in the previously downloaded set of headers, so for example the start of 2015 onward until you manually stop again?

[Quade]

You can use "use download age" instead of "Purge" which will leave the old headers alone. Then after you're done set a short "download age" and reset again, before downloading headers normally.

Make sure you don't purge the old headers right back out by setting a long enough "Storage Age".

[hollywood]

You can use "use download age" instead of "Purge" which will leave the old headers alone. Then after you're done set a short "download age" and reset again, before downloading headers normally.

Make sure you don't purge the old headers right back out by setting a long enough "Storage Age".

Not sure I quite understand the "after you're done set a short download age".

Any chance you can explain that in a different way?

[Quade]

So when you select "Use Download Age". You reset the group counts so Newsbin will start downloading headers from "Download age" ago. Now I know you don't want to download from that point in time to now because that's the whole reason we're talking about this. So after you pull your 2 months of headers from 3 years ago. You're going to want to reset the group BACK to current time. That's why you set a short download age, "Use Download Age" again and then download headers normally to reset the group to download today's headers.

<Past>-----<range you want>--------------------------------<Headers you already have><Now>

So you set the download age to start at "range you want". "Use Download Age", then download enough headers to fill in "range you want". Then reset the download age to something short, "Use Download age" again to reset it to download headers from the last couple days and on into the future.

<Past>-----<range you want>--------------------------------<Headers you already have><New Headers using "Short Download Age">---

You're essentially telling newsbin
1 - Download old headers starting at "download age"
2 - Canceling the download when you have enough.
3 - Setting short download age then use download age
4 - Download headers normally to continue only downloading the newest headers.

[hollywood]

Ok, I’ll give that a go. Ignore my lack of technical coding knowledge, but would it be difficult to have a ‘download headers by calendar date’? Is there something about the structure of usenet which makes this impossible?
Thanks Image link not allowed for unregistered users

[Quade]

Usenet doesn't have a "download by date range" mode. You basically have to probe it, downloading headers, getting an average date for a range. The dates are arbitrary so, you can't trust them. You have to download a range, toss out the ones not inside the average range, then scan forward or back. The is how "Download Age" works. It probes the group.

It's possible to add a "download a range or headers" but you might be one of maybe 3 people who asked for it and it IS possible to do it now without any new code with some extra effort. It sort of breaks how Newsbin works with the groups too. It's built with the assumption is has a contiguous block of headers.