FeedDemon – Help Menu

To close out the the tool bar, lets talk about the Help Menu. The help options are varied and seem to have something for everyone. There are several tools here to help you if you need it.

The first option is the online help. This launches a webpage like experience inside of the reading pane and offers several links to help topics to help you understand each of the functions. These are a little on the high level side, but will aid your understanding if you have any questions. Each one provides you with the basic instructions to perform the task.

The next option is a tutorial. This tutorial provides you with a detail of each of basic parts of FeedDemon, like the what is RSS, a little about the feeds and folders, or the newspaper view. This provide a basic understanding for each of the parts, but do not dive into detail.

The next item is the NewsGator Support. This will open the NewsGator webpage in your default browser. From here you can access the Knowledge Base which is basically a wiki with more detailed information. It also provides access to the NewsGator Forums. This is an area where you can ask questions and get answers from other users and the NewsGator Staff. It is also searchable so that you can look up your question. This is followed by the feedback form. This basically launches in a new browser window. It allows you to provide feedback to the NewsGator team about FeedDemon.

The last three options are pretty mundane. The first one just takes you to NewsGator Online. This is followed by a way to manually check for a new version. The last one gives you information about your version of FeedDemon.

So next time I will talk about the tool bar over the folder list.

FeedDemon – Tools Menu (Options Vol.3)

With all the options packed into FeedDemon, hopefully we will be able to finish out our discussion today. So as I pointed out yesterday when you select the options from the list and the Options window opens the default is the General options which we discussed yesterday.

There are however several tabs across the top. The next one after the General tab is the Reading Tab. This is the options for the reading pane and the Newspaper views. There are three headings on this tab, one for Reading, one for News Item List and the last for Newspaper. Under the Reading options you can set when the posts will be marked as read, such as when the feed changes or when you change to a new Newspaper page. Under the News item list you can set the option to be able to move to the next unread item with the spacebar and you can set how many lines each post description has with it. Under the Newspaper section you can optimize for low bandwidth, which means FeedDemon will remove the images. You can also enable the embedded content from you posts. Finally you can set the number of posts that you want to appear on each Newspaper page.

The next tab is the Browsing tab. From here you can tell FeedDemon if you want to open external links in your default browser instead of FeedDemon. You can also setup what will happen when you select an item, even if the description is empty. On the bottom section the options pertain to the tabbed browsing function. The options available include opening new browser windows as tabs, loading the tabs in the background and having FeedDemon remember your tabs when you leave FeedDemon so that they are available when you open it next time.

The next tab is for Desktop Alerts. These are little pop-ups that let you know when new feeds have arrived. You can turn these off or set the timing for how often they appear. You can also set them up to appear all the time or only when you have FeedDemon minimized. The other thing you can set in this tab is whether and when the FeedDemon icon will show in the system tray. You can also have FeedDemon minimize to the system tray rather then closing.

The last tab is the Appearance tab. Through this tab you have many options to change the appearance of FeedDemon. You can change the user interface from Office 11, which follows the Windows theme, or you can chose classic which basically changes the menu or toolbar edges from rounded to square. You can also change the colors for the main characteristics within FeedDemon. These include Unread items, Flagged items, Alternate Rows, Descriptions and Subscriptions. The last thing that you can control is the fonts. You can change the News Item Fonts as well as the Newspaper fonts. There is also an option to increase the size of the fonts in the Newspaper view.

Next time we will check out the toolbar over the folder list.

FeedDemon – Tools Menu (Options Vol.2)

So it seems that FeedDemon has a plethora of options available for you to make it your own. When you first select Options from the menu a new window opens. You will notice several check boxes, several buttons and several tabs.

The default tab will be the General tab. The check boxes on this tab pertain to actions that FeedDemon can do automatically, such as update feeds, collapse folders or check for new versions of FeedDemon. The buttons give you even more options. The first button is for confirmations and this will give you the ability to fully customize what tasks will ask you for confirmation before completing the task. So basically if there are tasks that you do not need a confirmation before FeedDemon completes the task then you can turn it off.

The next button is for Enclosures (or Podcasts) that may be delivered as a part of your posts. You can setup whether all file types like wma, mp3, etc, will have access or just certain ones that you specify. Additionally you can tell it to add them to your FeedStation queue or have them open immediately. The next button has to do with your network connection. You can set the timeout seconds, or how long FeedDemon waits for a response from the server before it gives up. I find the default of 30 seconds to be fine but you can set it for several minutes if you have a slower connection. You can also set the Maximum connections, I am not sure what this is for, but the default seems to work ok. The second tab in this window will let you set your proxy server settings. The third window will let you setup the Redirects. You probably won’t need to change this but some Internet service providers issue permanent redirects for all HTTP request. This tab has a check box allowing you to disable the reset of feed URLs on permanent redirect so that FeedDemon will work properly.

The next button on the is like a password manager. If you have feeds that are password protected or if you have to be a subscriber to view this will house the password so you don’t have to enter it every time. You can also set whether FeedDemon makes a sound when you do certain things. These include adding an item to watch or a clippings folder or a desktop alert. You cannot add your own for other tasks, just the preloaded options from FeedDemon.

The last button on the General tab takes you into the Prefetch options. Prefetching is when FeedDemon downloads links and images in your posts so that you can see them if you are offline. The options for this function allow you to set how many items to prefetch, the maximum size that it should prefetch, and if you want it to be automatic. The second tab allows you to set which feeds that you want it to prefetch for you each time.

It seems that there are a lot of options to talk about, so I will continue with the other tabs in the main options window in the next post.

FeedDemon – Tools Menu (Options Vol.1)

In the last few posts we have discussed the Tools Menu. Picking up where we left off during the last post we will continue with the section of the tools menu containing the options.

The first option is the Internet Properties. When you select this option it will basically open the Internet Options window. This will be the Internet Options from your default web browser. So if you use internet explorer then it will be the Internet Explorer options, similarly if you use Firefox you will see the Firefox options or so on. So this means that any changes you make here will affect your internet browser as well. These changes will also affect the browsing within FeedDemon and it may affect how FeedDemon connects to the internet depending on what you change.

The next option has to do with the way that FeedDemon synchronizes with NewsGator Online. This basically allows you to setup and/or change the settings for your account, the frequency that FeedDemon checks for updates, or your location if you use FeedDemon on multiple computers. There are two more tabs available in the synchronization window. The second tab allows you to manage which folders synchronize with NewsGator Online. This function allows you to identify exactly which folders will synchronize with NewsGator Online, however you can also identify folders that you do not want to have synchronize with the online version. This can be handy if you utilize FeedDemon on multiple computers and/or in multiple locations. You will be able to just have feeds that relate to work if you use it at work and other feeds at home only. This gives you many options in order to customize your experience.

Next time we will finish out the Tools Menu and look at the FeedDemon Options.

FeedDemon – Tools Menu (Misc)

Today we will continue with our review of the tools menu and some of the additional functionality that is built into FeedDemon. After the panic button there are a couple of miscellaneous tools seem kind of mundane but they can be helpful as well.

The first one will help if you are having some sort of problem with your connection. One thing to point out here is if you cannot bring up a web page in your web browser then it is an overall connectivity problem and you should check your internet connection or contact your internet service provider (ISP). However if you have a good internet connection and you can navigate to web pages in your internet browser but you are having an issue connecting with FeedDemon, then this tool can help. Once you select this tool it will launch a window that basically tells you what I just did, if you select start it will run a series of test and help you diagnose the problem.

The next tool reset all the toolbars. So if you have made a bunch of changes to you toolbars rather then de-selecting the icons that you don’t want or manipulating the toolbars through the customize screens you can select the Reset Toolbars. It is like waving a magic wand and all of your toolbars return to the default layout. FeedDemon wants to make sure that you really want to do that so it will confirm that is what you want to do and then presto change-o, its a clean slate.

The next tool has to do with keyboard short cuts. It turns out that FeedDemon has a very extensive list of available tasks that you can run from keyboard shortcuts. When you select this tool a new window will open. There will be two tabs in the window, one for standard shortcuts and the other for Newspaper shortcuts. Both are fully customizable. The standard functions will accept many combinations using the control, alt and shift keys with letters in order to setup the controls. The Newpaper page will accept one digit letters in order to control with shortcuts. So you can setup each task that you use most often with its own keyboard shortcut and move throughout FeedDemon or manipulate it quickly and easily. The only trick is remembering all the short cuts once you get them setup.

The last miscellaneous tool is the language setting. When you setup FeedDemon you have the option to choose other languages then the default, English. If you have multiple languages configured in FeedDemon then this function will act as a toggle and you can move back and forth between each language. The one that is selected in the list will have a check next to it (I probably don’t nee to say that since it should be fairly obvious based on the changes to FeedDemon when the language is changed).

Next time I will close out the Tools menu with a look at the options.

FeedDemon – Tools Menu (Panic Button)

The next tool in the list for us to review in FeedDemon is the Panic Button. If you are like me and you are easily overwhelmed by the number of unread items that may be in your FeedDemon folder list then you will really find great value in this tool. For some reason, probably because of all the time I spend on work and personal email, I feel that I have to read anything that is unread. Well as the Panic Button will tell you, you don’t have to read everything.

When you select the Panic Button from the tools menu it will launch a new window. The first thing you will notices, besides the big red picture of a button, is the number of unread items that you have in your subscriptions. The next thing you will probably notice is a heading that says “Mark as read” with a drop down box below it. If you select the drop down there is a list of options. The default is to have the Panic Button review items that are 48 hours old or older. However you will have a choice here of reviewing items that are either 24 hours old and older, 48 hours old and older, 5 days old or older and all items. I usually select the 24 hours or older because I like to read the recent news.

There is also an options button located on the bottom left of the Panic Button window. When you select this a new window will open. Within the new window there is an option to set the Panic Button to automatically run when you hit a certain number of unread items. You can enter any number from 1 to 9999. I have mine set to 300, which may even be to many, because once you get over 100 there will still be a lot of posts to read. Now that you have your options set, the Panic Button will run any time the number of your unread items exceeds the number in your Panic Button options.

So now there is just one thing left to do….Hit the Panic Button! When you Hit the Panic Button the current window will close and a progress window will open. This is a relatively quick process, like less then 30 seconds, and then the final window will open which tells you how many items were marked as read. When you click ok it will sync with NewsGator Online. You will notice that the number of unread items has changed in your folder tree. Remember that you are just marking these items as unread, you are not deleting them from your subscriptions folders. So if you wanted to you could still go back and read all the posts!

Next time we will continue reviewing items from the Tools Menu.

FeedDemon – Tools Menu (Cleanup Wizard)

Today we are going to look at the next item in the tools menu list which is the Cleanup Wizard. This is an easy way for you to manage the posts that are in your FeedDemon Subscriptions, Watches and Clippings.

When you select the Cleanup Wizard from the list a new window launches. This window is designed to help the Cleanup Wizard to understand exactly what you want to cleanup. Much like the Cleanup Wizard in the NewsGator Inbox (that we discussed in an earlier post), the FeedDemon Cleanup Wizard gives you options. You can either cleanup just the subscription folders, just the watches or just the clippings. It will also allow you to cleanup all of the folders, watches or clippings at one time if you prefer.

When you click Next, there are more options to ensure that the Cleanup Wizard cleans just what you want it too. Since this is to cleanup old posts the wizard allows you to select how many days old you want it to start with. The default is 60 days old. I typically do not go back an read very many articles or posts that are older then a couple of weeks, so I generally will set this to 20 or 30 days. The next option allows you to identify ho may of the most recent posts you would like to keep, the default is 200 and I find that this is usually sufficient. The next two options tell the wizard to skip over the unread items and the flagged items when doing the cleanup. If you want the wizard to clean these up too, simply uncheck the boxes next to each sentence.

At this point the wizard will have enough information in order to clean up your FeedDemon folders and will ask you to simply confirm that you are ready by clicking Finish. Then the Cleanup Wizard will run, it will take anywhere from a few seconds to just under a minute depending on the options you chose, how many posts you have and how long it has been since the last time you ran the cleanup wizard. When it is finished it will tell you how many posts it cleaned up. When you select OK, you will be back in FeedDemon in you your regular view. One thing to note, if you do not have the Cleanup Wizard cleanup the unread items, or your flagged items, you will not notice much difference after running the Cleanup Wizard because the unread items will be the same as before.

Next time we will get into the Panic Button!

FeedDemon – Tools Menu (FeedStation)

Last time we left off with the Search Subscriptions options from the FeedDemon Tools Menu. Today we will pick up there and move on to the next tool, which is FeedStation. FeedStation is what they call a podcatcher and what it does is basically catch, or download video or audio files they may be received as a part of a post from a feed that you subscribe to. When you select FeedStation a new window will open that will give you the option to have FeedStation work automatically. It uses your regular NewsGator Online username and password. This is a nice feature because if you are like me you do not receive very much audio or video from your feeds so you can just run it when you want to. Or if you are more like my cousin, who is 10 years younger then I, you can have it on automatic and it will be packed full of audio and video each time you open FeedDemon. It is funny though if you do try to skip through the automatic setup there is a pop up message that basically tells you that you are lame and how to setup the automatic feature later, through My Podcasts in FeedStation’s Options.

Once you select OK a new window will open. This is the FeedStation window and if you have any multimedia feeds they will be listed here. I don’t have any because I am lame, but if you are cool and have some feeds that send audio or video they will be listed here. In order to test this out I added a new subscription. As I have said before I am interested in Linux so I added the Linux News Log Podcast. I know not very cool, but it gets the job done. I added it in FeedDemon thinking that it would automatically sync with FeedStation and the new feed would be in my FeedStation list. Turns out it is a little more complex.

In order to get my FeedStation list, or queue as they call it, to populate with the new feed, I had right click on the new feed in the folder tree in FeedDemon and open the Feed Properties. Then I went back to FeedStation and selected Queue from the tool bar and Add to Queue from the drop down menu. This launches another window that will have the url for the feed that you want to download. Then simply select OK and the new feed will populate to your list.

So you are probably wondering what the heck this tool actual does at this point because within FeedDemon you go directly to the feed’s website when you select a link or headline and you can see the video or hear the audio from there. Well FeedStation gives you the capability to download the media from the web and view or hear it in your favorite media player, such as iTunes or Windows Media Player. From the FeedStation Options screen (found by going to FeedStation and selecting Tools, then select Options from the list, OR you can select the little cog icon from the toolbar) you can tell FeedStation to copy your new multimedia feed over to either iTunes, Windows Media Player or another folder. This allows you to listen to, or view it later. Also, for me it is a little nice to watch the feeds in one of these multimedia tools then online anyway.

So that is FeedStation in a nutshell. Next time I will look at the Clean up wizard from the FeedDemon Tools Menu.

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.

FeedDemon – Browse Menu

In looking at the Browse Menu I realized that for many of the items in the menu, I have already provided reviews in earlier posts. So today’s post is really just for consistency’s sake and I will refer to several previous posts for areas where you can find more information.

The first thing to notice when you select the Browse Menu is that it is used to manipulate the internet browser function of FeedDemon. The very first option refers to the Tabbed Browsing function that is embedded in FeedDemon. You will find a submenu attached to this function which will provide several options. The first is a New Browser Tab which will create a new tab for the reading pane and will populate it with the Blank Page info until you select a feed and/or post from your folder tree or News Items List. The next item in the list is the Next Browser Tab which will move you to the next tab on the right, which activates it, showing the article or newspaper view that is open on that particular tab. If you are on the last tab it will take you back to the very first tab.

The next two items in the submenu pretty much behave as you would expect. The first one is Close Browser Tab and it will close the current browser tab that you have selected. It will not have any other affect except to open the next browser tab in the reading pane. The second and last item in the Tabbed Browsing submenu is Close Other Tabs. This one basically closes all of the tabs that you have open, except for the one that you are currently viewing.

After the Tabbed Browsing is the Browser Home. This button as I explained in an earlier post, will show the home page you have selected as default in your default web browser. So if you use Internet Explorer it will be the home page that you see when you open Internet Explorer. The next two buttons are the back and forward buttons that are indicative of most web browsers and will take you back to the previous web page that you were looking at in the Reading Pane, or forward if you have already gone back. The next two items are also very familiar to internet users as they provide a stop function and refresh. The stop as you would expect will end the loading of any webpage that you may have navigated to or web application that may be running in conjunction with the current web page that you are viewing in the reading pane. The refresh item will reload the page that you are viewing.

The next item in the list will adjust the size of the text in the reading pane. There are several options to choose from in the submenu. I tend to prefer Medium, but this is a personal preference tool so try each one until you find the one you like. This is followed by the print feature. This will follow your computer’s default print settings and will send to your default printer. You will have the opportunity to make changes though before printing. The last tool in this menu is the Show in External Browser option. If you have a web page (this can be a post or another url that you have navigated to) open in the reading pane, this tool will launch the current active page (the one that you are currently viewing in the reading pane) into your default browser. For instance if Firefox is your default browser, FeedDemon will treat the feed or web page as a link (like in an email) and will open Firefox to the web address of that link.

Next time we will look at the Tools menu.

FeedDemon – View Menu

So today I continued my review of the main toolbar in FeedDemon and looked at the View menu. This is located at the top left of the screen and provides several options to be able to customize the view to fit with your preferences.

The first option from the list is the Browser Position which lets you manipulate how the Show News Items function. The default setting does not use the Show News Items screen but if you remember my post on Customize Reading Pane Toolbar (Vol. 1) I showed how to activate the toolbar button so you can easily switch between views. Just to review, when you have the Show News Items activated, there will be another column or section in the reading pane that will be a list of all the posts within the feed that you have highlighted in the folder tree. This makes FeedDemon look and feel very much like an email client (such as Outlook or Thunderbird). At any rate the Browser Position button allows you to move the news item list from the left side, between your folder tree and the newpaper view in the reading pane, to the top which is over the reading pane.

The next option from the View Menu is the “Views”. I will go into greater detail in a future post, but basically this will allow you to manipulate or configure the view for your folders and your feeds to fit your preference. The next item in the menu is the Show News Items and is another way to get the list of items as shown above.

The next two icons will activate or deactivate things in your current view. For instance if you uncheck the next item which is Show Subscriptions, your folder tree will be hidden. To get it to come back you simply choose View and Show Subscriptions and the folder tree will unhide. You can do the same thing with Toolbars. If you select Show Toolbars all of the toolbars except for the main menu will disappear. Conversely if you selected it again they will all reappear. One thing to note is when these two are selected there will be a check mark next to them in the list.

The next item in the list will be Newspaper. This option will give you another menu that will contain a new list of options. The first will be to sort in reverse order. This reorganizes your headlines in the reverse order depending on which filter you have in place. Usually this will be by date, so if you start out with the newest on top and you select this option it will reorganize the reading pane headline list with the oldest on top. The next option from the list the Previous Page which is followed by Next Page. These are tools to control the Reading Pane window for the feed that you have selected in the folder tree. These will move you back and forth between the pages. They will only be active if there is another page available before the current for Previous Page or another page available after the current for Next Page. The last one in this list is Style, which has another menu attached to it. This menu lest you pick the Newspaper view that you prefer from the list of options. By changing the newspaper view you will change the view of the reading pane and how the headlines are presented to you. I prefer Surfer, but you will have to check them out and choose the one you like best.

The final option from the View Menu is Reports. There are several reports available to you. Check out my post on the Reports tool for more on this function. There is also additional information available on the Attention Report in one of my earlier posts.

Next time I will look at the Browse menu.

FeedDemon – Edit Menu

The next item to review is the Edit Menu. This is the second option from the main menu and houses many options to help you manage the status of your posts. It also has some options to help you with managing the properties of your feeds and your folders.

The first item in the list is Mark All Feeds Read. As you would expect, this marks all of the feeds as read. This is something you can use if you want to mark all of the feeds within your FeedDemon inbox as read. It will pop up a confirmation message just to make sure that this is indeed what you want to do. This is followed by “Mark Page Read”. This will mark all of the posts that are currently in the reading pane as read. The next option, ”Mark All Pages Read”, will let you mark all of the pages for the feed or folder that you have highlighted in the folder tree as read.

The next option is the Move Feed option. This will only be active when you have one of your feed subscriptions highlighted in the folder tree. Once selected it will launch a new window that contains a list which includes all of the category folders that are within you Subscriptions folder. You simply choose the folder that you want the feed to move too. The feed will now disappear from the current folder and reappear in the new location. You will also have the option to create a new folder from this window and then you can select the new folder and hit OK. I know this may seem like the long way when FeedDemon will allow you to drag and drop, but for some users this is actually easier.

Another option in the Edit menu that will only activate when you select a feed from your folder tree is the Feed Properties tool. I will cover this in more detail in a future post, but basically this allows you to customize the feed and its behavior to meet with your personal layout and expectations. The next item in the list is the Folder Properties. This will be active any time you have a folder or a feed highlighted in the folder tree. When you select Folder Properties it will launch a new window. From here you will be able to change the folder name, update whether it should synchronize with NewsGator online as well as update some of the characteristics of the folder. For instance in the default tab you can turn on or off desktop alerts for that folder. So when FeedDemon is minimized it will let you know when new feeds have been downloaded to that folder. You can tell it how many posts to keep in the folder, up to 2,500. Lastly if you choose not to Sync with NewsGator online you can setup the frequency with which FeedDemon will look for new posts.

The Second tab is for statistics and it will provide you with a high level run down of the folder. For instance if I highlight my “News” folder it provides the following stats; The folder contains 3 feeds, 1,200 items, 41 unread items and 0 flagged items. The last tab is the Advanced tab. This tab lets you set the folder to automatically download enclosures, or podcasts, as well as setup your prefetch options that I discussed in my last post. Lastly you can setup the Newspaper style that you want to view that folder with. This would be if you wanted to view it in a different newspaper style then your default choice.

The last option from the Edit Menu is the “Find in this Page” function. This works very similarly to the find within Firefox. A new bar will appear at the bottom of the reading pane. From here you can type in whatever keyword you are looking for, and FeedDemon will take you to that point in the reading pane. There is also an option to move the find toolbar from the bottom up to the the top of the reading pane. You can use the little arrow at the far right of the toolbar to move it between to the two locations.

Next time we will go over the View menu within FeedDemon.