NewsGator Inbox – NewsPage (Cont’d)

As we discussed in the last post, the Most Recent Posts column provides a listing of all of the posts from the feeds that you have subscribed too. Just a quick review, the NewsPage setting is the default for any folder that you setup, but does not apply to an individual feed. Basically this means that the NewsPage will be present on any category or higher level folders unless you turn in off in the options prior to setting up the folder. This goes for any folder that is created via the sync function as well. When you select one of these folders (category, like Science, or higher level, like “My News”) the NewsPage will fill your Outlook reading pane (or inbox mail list pane, depending on how you configure your Outlook). One of the things that I noticed about the “Full Post” option for delivery of the posts is that sometimes the full post does not open in the NewsPage view. Even after trying to refresh several times, I could not get the post to load. I am not sure if it was NewsGator Inbox or something on my end, like configuration, hardware, Outlook or internet access. I found it to be a little frustrating but it seemed to be an exception rather then the rule.

Anyway now that we have a good understanding of what we will see in the NewsPage, we can now dive into the functionality of the Most Recent Posts section. As you peruse the headline view that the posts are delivered in there are a couple things that you will notice. The first will probably be the three main function links at the top of the page; Mark All Posts As Read, Delete All Posts and Refresh. The Mark All Posts As Read link will mark all of the posts currently listed in your headlines of Most Recent Posts as read. This will not mark all of the posts in your NewsGator Inbox as read but simply those listed in the NewsPage currently. The number that will be marked as read will be dependent first upon how many posts you have selected to be delivered in this view (this was done in the options, under Post Options). I have my NewsPage setup to deliver 100 posts at a time so it will mark that number of posts read as long as I have 100 in the NewsPage at that time. I have less it will mark whatever number of posts presently listed as read. Delete All Posts works basically the same way, except that it will remove all of the posts listed rather then simply marking them as read. Refresh acts predictably and refreshes the posts that are listed.

So the second set of tools you will notice are in a small box at the bottom of each post. These include a check mark, a X, a disk and something that looks like a sheet of paper with an arrow next to it. These perform the same tasks as the main link tools that I described earlier, but rather then doing it for the whole list of posts they do it just for the post that they are under. The check mark will mark the post as read, the X will delete the post and the disk will save the post (this saves to My Clippings and brings up another box so you can choose the exact folder). The sheet of paper with an arrow next to it is a little more interesting….it will post to your Blog. I have not gotten this to work yet, but I will work on it a review it in a later post.

One thing to note is that none of the posts will be marked as read or deleted unless you use one of these tools.

There are also a couple of more subtle tools imbedded in the NewsPage Most Recent Posts. The first is by clicking on the headline, you will automatically launch a new window that will look like an email. It will list who it is from, which is basically the author of the post. It will have posted to: which sill be the feed that it came from and the headline will be the subject. In the body of the message there will be the full feed plus a link to go to the source (such as Engadget). At the end of the headline there is this funny looking square with an arrow shooting out of the top right corner. This utilizes Outlook's ability to integrate internet explorer and launches into the source page from within Outlook. I noticed a few times that the page wouldn’t load or it only partially loaded. I believe it to be a Microsoft issue rather then a NewsGator issue but it is worth mentioning. The last tool is located below the headline and identifies what the source of the feed is, like BBC. This is a link and when you click it, you will be taken to the feed within your folder tree. So if I click on BBC, NewsGator Inbox takes me to my International folder and opens the feed BBC. I did not really find this last tool very useful, but I am sure there is a reason that it was included.

Next time I will review one of the tools that seems to be unique to the Inbox when compared to the other NewsGator platforms.