Panic's Unison Review

Just Another News Reader?

Ryan J. Bonnell Skip to comments 3 Comments (Comments Closed Closed)

While Usenet may not be as prevalent as it used to be, that didn't stop Panic, makers of Transmit and CandyBar, from creating an awesome client for the Mac. Ryan introduces you to the new application.

When was the last time you browsed a Usenet archive or contributed to a newsgroup discussion; weeks, months, years — possibly longer? Maybe you don't even know what a newsgroup is. Don't worry though, all that is about to change for the better.

In this review, we'll fill you in on the whole Usenet craze and be putting Unsion, Panic's new Usenet newsreader application to the test - running it thru a gamut of thrills in classic MacZealots fashion.

Use what when?

What's Usenet and where, why, and how do we use it? Well, let me ask you this: How many times have you heard this discussion before:

"So what is this Usenet thing exactly? I'm not sure, but I think it's that big archive of stuff nobody ever taps into?

You know, all those weird pages on Google that look e-mails back and forth to people that nobody knows. Oh, ya ... I think I know what you're talking about. I always skip over those pages."

Well, Usenet isn't best explained like that, but it can be a complicated subject to grasp if you're not versed on the history of how the Internet got started. Before web pages, web servers, and e-mail were commonplace, Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) and Usenet groups were all the rage. Anyone, anywhere in the world with a modem could openly post their thoughts on a variety of subjects. Think of Usenet as a huge bunch of public e-mails, grouped by subject, shared throughout the world on multiple servers, available to anyone, and archived for years.

Naturally, the Internet matured and the needs of users increased, and today there are practically more webpages than people. Thank God for Google.

More use of UseNet

Put briefly, Usenet is a world-wide distributed discussion system, similar to the web-based forum or message boards today. Usenet consists of a set of "newsgroups" with names that are classified hierarchically by subject.

"Articles" or "messages" are "posted" to these newsgroups by people on computers with newreader software. Originally, Usenet was the only way to group-communicate globally. In fact Usenet archives are some of the oldest content on the web, with archives dating back to 1981! (That's three years before the original Macintosh debuted.)

Even today Usenet is still widely used on a day-to-day basis. Quoting from Panic's website:

"Usenet is the Internet's oldest message board. Containing tens of thousands of groups catering to every imaginable topic, everybody sees what everybody else posts. The Usenet network is unique: when a user posts a message on a Usenet server, that message is transferred from news server to news server, all around the world, until every Usenet server (hopefully) contains a copy of that message.

Thus, every Usenet server, while being independent, is theoretically a mirror of all the others"

So with all of this content sitting out there on the web, why don't we do a better job of tapping into it? Why I thought you'd never ask.

Making Sense of Unison.

Newsreaders have been around since the beginning of time (in Internet years that is) but they've really never been easy for the average user to work with. Panic took this thought and ran with it.

Unison gives us the ease of e-mail, combined with the power of newsgroups, and the vast repository of content thru UseNet, all available at the convenience of our fingertips.

Unison's Competitors

Unison is not alone in it's market, in fact it's the new kid on the block. Panic obviously feels strongly about their product, and right they are. Unison is competing against a widely installed use base, including some of the more popular Usenet newsreaders as:

Now that we have determined who exactly are some of Unison's competitors, we can see how it fares against them, and why you'd what Unison to be your Usenet reader of choice.

Getting Started

When you first startup Unison, it lets you know that to in order to use Unison, you'll need to have an account on a Usenet server. Your two options are to "Get Usenet Access" thru Panic, or "Configure your own access". If you don't choose either of the two options, or not sure what you should do, Panic has included a Quit button to gracefully close the program.

In this review we chose to use our own Usenet access provided by all our owns Alma Mater - Purdue University.

Choosing your access

If you choose to "roll your own" Usenet access, Unison will ask you for the News Server of your Internet Provider, (or in our case our university) and a username and password. If you accidentally clicked on the wrong button or realized that you don't know any of your own ISP's servers settings, Panic has included a helpful button that says "I don't have a server" help!

While we're only in the second step of setting up Unison, we've already seen how Panic is politely pushing their own Usenet service. More on that later�

After you enter the address of your NNTP server, [and without pressing any keys], Unison immediately starts to query the Internet (doing a dig or nslookup I suspect) and tries to verify your news server is indeed just that � a news server. If you enter a website in the address field and Unison can't resolve it to a NNTP server, then you get a Red "X" after the address.

Once you've input a valid Usenet news server, Unison will put a Green checkmark after the address, and will allow you to press the Tab key to advance to the username/password dialog boxes.

Here's where it got a bit tricky for me. The way Panic has Unison setup is that they make it seem like you need a username and password to access your own ISP's Usenet server. For most people's setups, this just isn't true. Most ISP's restrict access to their own servers only if you have one of their IP Addresses. So in this case, majority of the people won't need to enter anything in the username and passwords fields.

I wish Panic would have somehow restructured their manual Usenet server configurations, so it didn't ask the user for a name and password unless they specifically required it. I think a better approach would be a button that says something like "Does your Usenet server require authentication" and if so, Unison could have prompted them for their logon credentials. As it stands now, I find it confusing and ambiguous.

The initial interface

Once you've got your servers settings correctly entered, Unison loads the full program interface and starts to download all of your provider's Usenet groups. For my setup, this meant some 5,151 groups and discussions.

The initial interface window of Unison is very clean and not cluttered. Unison's interface resembles the likes of an OS X's Aqua Finder window set in Column View.

Unison starts out by showing you three choices of navigation: Discussion, Files, and Others. I did what most people did and start clicking on each of the folder icons. After scanning thru each of the choices, I was left wondering where all the 5,100+ groups I had downloaded before?

Well if you're not looking for it, Panic has put a tab across the top allowing you to select from a list of Favorites you can create or showing you a list of "All Groups." For the average use it was a good choice to take the "Favorites" approach, as it provides them with the most common types of groups and files they might be looking for.

For the Power User in your, the "All Groups" tab in Unsion lets you see all of the newsgroups and discussions on your Usenet server.

Navigating Around

There are several ways to navigate around in Unison, the easiest being to search what you are looking for. Tucked in the upper right hand corner is a nice and accessible Search Field input box, for you to enter in criteria for Unison to search for.

Similar to how searching works in iTunes and Mail.app, Unison's filters our results as you type and refine search terms. The search feature is lightning quick and very accurate � no more waiting for results to be displayed, they're filtered and shown to you immediately.

Next to the full name of the Usenet group (i.e. comp.sys.mac.apps) is the amount of messages in each group. You can sort the search results based on the amount of messages or, alphabetically by the name of the group.

Once you've found what you're looking for, double clicking on the group name opens it in a new window.

The other two ways of navigating around Panic is to view all of the newsgroups in a list view, or to mark a group as a favorite. You can mark groups as Favorites by clicking on the icon in the toolbar, and it will bring up a Safari type bookmark / favorite save dialog. Unison automatically suggests the name of the group as the name of the favorite, but everything is completely customizable � where you save the favorite, how you name it, and even the creating a new folder for a favorite.

If searching for the newsgroups your looking for, or using the built-in favorite system isn't for you, Panic hasn't left you out. Long time Usenet users will feel right at home being able to browse their entire server once level at a time. Navigating deeper in the Usenet groups couldn't be easier, and since Unison displays the groups in a Finder Column like view, you can quickly and easily go back and forth between groups.

Working in Groups

Once you've found a newsgroup you want to participate in, you can double click on the group icon and Unison will open the entire group in a new window. This is where the fun begins and you get to see the real power of Unison.

Immediately you'll notice the entire Toolbar of Unison has changed, and you're greeted with many more icons. Across the top of the group windows are icons for Downloading the message, Previewing any files, Ungrouping messages (threads), Getting more headers, Posting a message, and Replying to messages. Control clicking the toolbar (or View -> Customize Toolbar �) gives you a contextual menu to configure your Toolbar, again similar to the way the Finder let's you customize its look and feel.

Be default the lists of messages in a group are threaded � meaning they are collapsible and expandable by the click of a button. Mail.app employs the same behavior and it's nice to see Unison having the same option. Sometimes trying to understand what messages are grouped together in a discussion is next to impossible.

The nice thing about Unison is that it doesn't get in your way or try to make what you're doing harder than it should be. It's incredibly comfortable and easy to use. If you're familiar with the ubiquitous 3-paned e-mail interface (especially Mail.app) you'll feel right at home with Unison.

Conclusion

Panic has hit yet another home run, this time with their flagship newsreader application, Unison. It's everything a newsreader should be: fast, intuitive, easy to use, and best of all easy to use.

Ryan J. BonnellRyan J. Bonnell is a Web Developer, Student, and leading contributor to MacZealots.com. When he is not playing around with his endless amount of toys, he can be reached at .

Reader Comments (3)

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1 Ernie remarks:
#1) On March 6, 2004 7:46 PM

I have been using Unison for a couple of weeks and I have to say that it is the best news app I’ve seen. It does everything I could want. I groups large posts into one file to download, it puts a group of files that are ment to go together in one colapsable “folder”. Both great for downloading lossless concerts from usenet.

Thanks Panic for a great app.

2 Michele Bugliaro Goggia remarks:
#2) On March 7, 2004 6:25 AM

Wow, Unison is impressive: when most competitors offer a poor interface, this beats them all!

3 Thoth remarks:
#3) On March 7, 2004 8:44 AM

Unison is nice for a intro newsreader, but does not have nearly the feature set required by a power user. But for casual users, it seems to be a hit. Like anything else, it’s utility derives from how it will be used. For example, I find the interface too simple and rigid for my needs. Best of luck to the good folks at Panic.