FeedDemon – Tools Menu (Update & Search)

The Tools menu is next on the list for review and it is packed full of functionality. Due to the number of tools available I will split it up across a couple of posts. Today will cover the first part of the menu.

The very first tool available when you click on tools is “Update”, which has a submenu with additional options. Each of the options will go out and get the most up to date posts from each of the feeds that you subscribe to. The first option will only activate when you have a feed selected from the folder tree and will update that individual feed. It will not update any other feeds that you subscribe to. The next will update the category folder with the latest post. It will perform the update if you have an individual feed or the category folder highlighted in the folder tree. The last will perform an update of all of the feeds in your Subscriptions list (folder tree). The last option can also be done with the icon from the Reading Pane toolbar or the toolbar over the folder tree that resembles an orange internet browser refresh button.

The next option from the list is the Search Subscriptions function. This also can be activated from an icon on the Reading Pane toolbar. It is the large magnifying glass and when you hover over it with you mouse pointer it will say Search Subscriptions. By selecting this option FeedDemon will launch a new window. From here you can enter keywords which it will use to identify the posts that you want to see. You can also tell the tool which folders or feeds that you want it to search in order to retrieve the search results. You also have options that allow you to search titles, descriptions, only unread, or only flagged. You can also have it search for matches to the whole words that you enter rather then just partials. Lastly you can have it search by time period, which includes; anytime, today, yesterday, this week, last week, this month and last month. So if you know what you are looking for and you know which subscriptions will have posts on what you are looking for you can narrow the search and get your results faster.

For instance I put in a search for “GM Bankruptcy” and asked it to search all of my subscriptions. It returned three posts that had these specific words in the title or the post summary. Even though the format is the same as your reading pane when a feed is selected, the list will include subtle differences that make it look very much like a Google search. The keywords that you entered will be highlighted and the headlines will be prominent links that take you to the post’s webpage. This will however include the tools that are indicative of FeedDemon.

Next time we will continue with the tools.