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This is a how-to for Web Feed syndication. You should read the knowledge base article "Support.WebFeeds" before beginning, if you are unfamiliar with the technology.

1.  Introduction

Doubtless, you have noticed that the standard feed icon icon, , appears in your browser, from time to time as you browse the web. It often appears in the location bar, in-fact if you will look at the location bar for this page, you will notice that it is present now. In this short article we will walk you step-by-step through how to add a feed to Google Reader and how to use Google Reader to view your feeds.

2.  Why would I want to use Feeds?

If you have more than a small number of regularly updating sites, such as blogs, that you visit regularly, feeds make it easy to

1. Manage the information influx.
2. Spend less time browsing to sites.
3. Make sure you don't miss anything

3.  Getting Set Up

This how-to uses Google Reader, for three reasons:

1. It is web based, you can access it from anywhere.
2. You can use your Vistua groupware account to log in.
3. Firefox and Google Chrome are already set up to use Google Reader.

Google Reader is not the only feed reader, others exist, both in the form of web apps and desktop software. If you would like to use another online feed reader you can go ahead and do that! Formal technical support is not provided for other feed readers.

We will now show you how to log into Google Reader.

3.1  Logging In

If you aren't logged in when you subscribe to a feed you will be prompted to log in, don't worry about logging in before adding a feed.

Open a new window and visit http://www.google.com/reader (you might want to bookmark that site). You will see what seems to be the standard groupware login screen, but with a Google logo instead of a Vistua logo. Instead of entering your email username as you do with Vistua Groupware, please enter your full email address such as alvin@vistua.com. Your password is your email password.

For now, do not worry about using the page that appears, we will cover it later. For now, we will subscribe to a feed to show you how to do this.

4.  Subscribing to a feed

4.1  Step One

If you click the icon you will get a little popup, similar to this:

Unlike most sites, The Vistua Hub offers two different feeds (one that lists all Hub changes, one that syndicates News & Notes). The majority of sites do not offer multiple feeds, and on those sites you will be taken directly to the next step.

It is also possible that a site may offer a feed, but the standard icon will not appear in the navigation bar. The feed "auto-discovery" requires the site administrator to add things called "link tags" to the site's underlying markup. In some cases this may not be possible. If this is the case, the standard feed icon will be somewhere on the page itself

Many sites, including The Vistua Hub (see page end) use both approaches. You will note the feed icon at the bottom of the page, after the text.

If you are following along, please select 'Subscribe to News & Notes' now.

5.  Step Two

This or a very similar screen appears:

All you have to do here is make sure that "Subscribe to the Feed Using" is set to Google (which is not always the default) and click "Subscribe Now".

This page allows you to preview what you are subscribing so that you will be sure.

In some browsers, this will appear:

Click "Add to Google Reader"

6.  Step Three

You will then be taken to reader and the feed will be shown in reader, however: you are not yet subscribed, click "Subscribe" to actually subscribe.

Once you have done this, Google Reader will periodically poll the feed to check for updates and present them to you.

7.  Reading Your Feeds

To read your feeds, go to http://www.google.com/reader which you probably should.

Shown below is the "All Items" view, which is not what you will see on default, by default you see a useless home-screen (you can disable this annoyance by going to "All Items" at the mid-left, clicking "view settings" and clicking "Set as start page")

You can browse up and down with the scrollbar or mouse-wheel as you pass items they are marked as "read" and will not show up as new any-more. You may also use the "previous item" and "next" item buttons, shown at the bottom. Another fast way to page through content is to press "j" and "k" to go back and forth between articles and "space" to scroll down for long articles.

To the lower left you will see a list of your feeds, click one to show only items (old and new) from that feed.

In the bottom-half of the blue bar near the top you will see "Show XYZ new items - All Items", if you change it to show only new items, don't forget to set it back to showing "All Items" if you need to see the old items again.

7.1  The "list" view

By default, you are in the expanded view which shows each feeds "body content". If you have lots of feeds (the writer has more than 100 new items per day) the "list" view helps you very quickly decide what to read.

1. Click "List" in the blue bar
2. You will now see a line-by-line headline list of all your unread items. (bold)
3. Click an item to expand it
4. When you have paged through the entire list and see no more items you want to read, click to clear the "unread" status of your other items and avoid confusing yourself

8.  Managing Feeds

If you want to remove a feed click "manage subscriptions" at the very lower left. You will then get a massive list of all your feeds and can delete some of them by clicking the trashcan icon in each line.

You can also organize feeds into folders, the illustration shows various feeds relating to technology organized into a "Technology" folder.

You can also drag and drop the feeds, directly in the subscriptions box from the main view, to re-order them if you desire.

9.  Suggested Feeds

The feed adding process can be repeated as desired.

We encourage you to add these feeds: News & Notes feed and System Status feed so that you can keep abreast of developments relating to VNS sites and services.

You can also add all of your favorite blogs, and BBC News and the vast majority of major international news sites offer at least some feeds.

10.  External Links

• Introduction to Google Reader - By Google
• Training - By Google
• Wikipedia:RSS

Categories: Internet, StepByStep, Video