User Guide

• Getting started
• Adding a feed
• Importing feeds
• Controlling the ticker
• Using the sidebar
• Saving stories
• Playing podcasts
• Using the RSS reader
• Managing feeds and bundles
• Reloading your account
• Exporting your feeds

Getting Started

After installing the FeedInvader extension you will be asked to log in. If you do not have an account, you will need create one before you can start using the extension.

Adding a Feed

FeedInvader comes pre-installed with three feeds: BBC News, Yahoo News and Hulu. Of course your account isn't just limited to these feeds; you can click the ticker's leftmost button to add additional feeds to your account:

Clicking the button will open the Add A New Feed window:

Enter the name of the feed and its URL. The name you choose is arbitrary-- it's what the ticker displays. For now, select the None bundle. Once you begin to add more feeds, you'll probably want to organize your feeds using bundles. See the managing feeds and bundles section for more info.

Manually entering in feed names and URLs can become tedious. For this reason, FeedInvader supports auto-detecting feeds while you surf. When you go to a website that has an RSS or Atom feed, the add button will change to an orange RSS logo:

Clicking the button will open the Add A New Feed window with the name and URL fields already filled in.

Importing Feeds

If you already use an RSS reader, you can easily import your feeds from your RSS reader into FeedInvader. RSS readers support a standard file format called OPML for importing and exporting feed subscriptions.

Simply export your subscriptions to an OPML file from your feed reader. Then from the feedinvader menu, select Import OPML:

Browse to the exported OPML file on your hard drive and hit Upload.

You can also import your live bookmarks from Firefox. From the feedinvader menu select Import Live Bookmarks.

Controlling the Ticker

Mousing over a story in the ticker will show a preview of the story:

Clicking a story in the ticker with the left mouse button will open the full story in the current tab, while clicking it with the middle mouse button will open it in a new tab.

The ticker has buttons for controlling feeds and their stories:

From left to right, the buttons are Previous Feed, Previous Story, Pause/Resume, Next Story, Next Feed and Refresh Feed.

To see which feeds are before and after the feed that is currently being displayed, click on the Feeds button.

Clicking a feed from the menu displays the feed in the ticker.

To change how feeds are looped through, click the L button to set the Loop Mode:

The Loop All mode will make the ticker loop through all of your feeds.

The Loop Bundle Only mode will make the ticker only loop through the feeds in the bundle of the currently selected feed.

The Loop Feed Only mode will make the ticker only loop through the stories of the currently selected feed instead of moving to the next feed.

Using the Sidebar

Clicking the S button will open the sidebar. The sidebar can be used to view all of a feed's stories:

Clicking the title of a story in the list will display that story in the ticker. Double clicking a title will open the full story in the current tab. Clicking a title with the middle mouse button opens the full story in a new tab.

Saving Stories

Right clicking a story title in either the ticker or the sidebar will pop up the following context menu:

The menu can be used to save the story as a bookmark, email the story to a friend, or even save the story to services like Facebook, Delicious, Digg and many more!

Playing Podcasts

If a story has a podcast associated with it, an icon will appear to the right of it in the ticker:

Clicking the icon will open the podcast in an external player:

Using the RSS Reader

FeedInvader includes a web based RSS reader. Click the Reader button to open it:

The RSS reader provides a convenient way of reading updates from all of your feed subscriptions. You can customize the reader to use one of three views:

You can use the reader's Refresh button to update a feed immediately. If the ticker finds that the selected feed in the reader has been updated, the refresh button will flash until it is clicked and the feed is updated.

Managing Feeds and Bundles

Not only can the RSS reader be used to read your feed subscriptions, but it can also be used to easily manage your feeds and bundles. The ticker will instantly reflect any modifications that you make to your feeds and bundles in the reader.

A bundle is a folder of feeds. To create a bundle, click the Add Bundle button:

To add a feed to a bundle, right click the bundle and select Add Feed:

To move a feed to a bundle, drag and drop the feed to the bundle:

To rename a feed or bundle, right click the feed/bundle and select Edit.

Finally, to delete a feed or bundle, right click the feed/bundle and select Remove. Note that removing a bundle will delete the bundle and all of its feeds.

Reloading Your Account

If you add a feed to the ticker on one machine, and don't see the feed on a ticker installed on another machine, you may need to reload your account. To sync up your account across multiple machines, select Reload Account from the feedinvader menu.

You can also open the RSS reader to automatically reload your account and keep you in sync.

Exporting Your Feeds

You can export your feeds from FeedInvader to an OPML file.

First, select Export OPML from the feedinvader menu. Then click Export and save the file to your computer.