Track Feeds

2.7 Track Feeds

Web pages that update frequently, like news sites and blogs, often offer "feeds" configured in ATOM or RSS, which stands for Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication. These feeds present links to recent articles in a list, along with a summary or a few lines of each article's content. With Flock's built-in Feed Reader, you can track, organize, update and format all your favorite feeds. Saving articles and inserting quotes into your blog are also only a click away.

In this section:

• Find Feeds
• View Feeds
• Subscribe to Feeds
• Work with Articles
• Manage Feeds

Find Feeds

1. To find pages with feeds, visit a blog or news website and look for links labeled with "RSS", "ATOM", "News Feed", or with the distinctive orange icon.

2. When Flock automatically detects a feed at a website you're visiting, the feed icon in the Location Bar glows orange.

3. Click on the orange icon in the Location Bar.
4. Select the title of the feed from the drop-down menu that appears in order to view the feed.
5. The feed will appear in the browser window and the Feed Sidebar will open, giving you a wide range of options for further action (see below).

View Feeds

1. Click the Feeds button on the Flock Toolbar or in My World, or choose Tools > Feeds from the menu to open the Feed Sidebar.

2. Click on the title of the feed to view the latest updates to that feed. The figure beside the title shows the number of new, unviewed articles.
3. Click on the All Articles button in the Feed Sidebar to view all of the latest articles from all your favorite feeds on one convenient page.

4. Click on the formatting icons at the top right of the browser to display a feed in different ways -- one or two columns, full summaries or titles only, etc.

Subscribe to Feeds

1. Find and view a feed to which you don't currently subscribe (see above).
2. Flock will open a banner across the top of the feed with a Subscribe button.

3. Click Subscribe, or drag the Subscribe button into the Feed Sidebar and drop exactly where you'd like the new feed to be listed.
4. The title of the feed and number of recent articles will now always appear in the Feed Sidebar.
5. You can also subscribe to a feed by clicking on the Feed Options button in the Feed Sidebar, choosing Add a Feed, and typing in the web address for the feed.
6. To unsubscribe, right-click on the title in the Feed Sidebar and choose Delete from the drop-down menu.

Work with Articles

1. When an article summary appears in the Flock Feed Reader, Flock automatically marks it as Viewed. If you like, turn off the automatic marking of articles as "viewed " by clicking the Feed Preferences icon at the top right of the Feed Sidebar and then unchecking Auto-mark as read.

2. While viewing articles in the Feed Reader, click the box beside Viewed to check or uncheck it.

3. Click Save to save the article. To view your saved articles, click Saved Articles in the Feed Sidebar.
4. Click Blog to insert the link or all or part of the article into a blog post. (To learn about setting up your blog to work seamlessly with Flock, see Activate and Manage Blogs. )

Manage Feeds

1. Click on the feed icon on the Flock Toolbar, or choose View > Sidebar > Feeds or Tools > Feeds from the menus to open the Feed Sidebar.
2. Right-click on a title in the Feed Sidebar to open a drop-down menu.
3. Select Edit from the drop-down menu and type a new name into the dialog.
4. Select New Collection from the drop-down menu, and then type a name for a new folder into the dialog. You can also add a new folder by clicking the New Collection icon.

5. In the Feed Sidebar, click and drag titles into different folders or collections to organize them as you like.
6. Click on Feed Options to import or export feeds.
7. Click on the Feed Preferences icon to open the Feed Preferences dialog.

8. In the Feed Preferences dialog, you can change the default feed reader.

Continue on to learn to Get or Build Add-ons for Flock...

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