Currently things changed a bit - in the following examples leading and trailing asterisks can be omitted in wildmats (see also boolean wildmats in development history v2.2) if the second combo box that is not shown on the screenshots below but is enabled in the current version is set to 'Contain'.
   Messages in newsgroups can be filtered with the selection dialog. Here when the 'ban' button is pressed all records whose author contains 'wild bill' or 'penny' will be hidden. That affects only the current newsgroup window, so if it will be reopened in the next time or the reset button will be pressed - the hidden records will become visible again:
   The select button selects messages (like you can select them manually when the message filter dialog isn't shown). The extract button selects and extracts selected messages. The ban button selects and bans selected messages. Selection is applied based on scope - it can be applied to all, only selected or only unselected messages. The clear button clear selection, the reset button restores the original underlying view, open/add/save buttons apply/add/save filters from/from/to files.

   Let us extract all records that contains 'free' or 'open' 'server'. We just enter the wildmat (*free*|*open)&*server* and press the Extract button:

Filter editor

   You can save the current sequence of actions in the selection dialog in a file and reuse it afterwards. The same filters are used for defining kill filters that filter records on their entry into the database. Because such filters may be large - a filter editor has been introduced.
   Here we'll ban all records that contain 'wild bill' or 'penny' in their author field and all records that have in their subject 'money' or 'make...$...' or 'sex' or whose subject ends with at least three digits:

Kill filters

   Kill filters are defined in the filter pane in properties. Newsgroup kill filter is a set of filter files. The default entry defines filters that will be added on newsgroup creation (subscription):

   Here we'll just add the 'trolls' filter to the alt.free.newsservers newsgroup:

   Kill filters can be defined for every newsgroup. A new newsgroup gets filters from the 'default' entry (the filters that are there at the moment). To define filters look at the properties dialog, the 'Filters' pane. Names of the newsgroups that have filters are distinguished with the green color; the red color means that a previously defined filter (file) was deleted. In both list controls multiple selection is allowed for easy copying and pasting. Number of filters for every newsgroup basically doesn't influence performance. Every filter should have 'extract' or 'ban' (not 'select') in its last line because otherwise the resulting compound filter would depend on the order of appliance. Redefining filter for a newsgroup as well as editing a specific filter will be in effect for all subsequent tasks immediately after saving the filters or pressing the Apply or OK button in the properties dialog. Messages are filtered on entering the database; those that are filtered out enter the database as deleted headers and can be still accessed as such.