Splash of Style...Macs, Photography, Design, and other Passions

Sage RSS & ATOM Reader

June 30, 2004 by debbie T | Firefox Browser

Sage RSS & ATOM Reader is a fantastic extension for Firefox 0.9. I installed the other day, and am now getting used to how it works. Pretty easy! There are simple instructions available, but I am going to elaborate on them a bit more here.

So, first you might be asking what is RSS anyway? Instead of me going over what has been said much better on other sites, just try searching on Google, and take your pick of a multitude of sites! But to take a quick stab at a basic definition, it is basically a specially coded version of a blogged site; the aggregator (or reader) interprets the coding and renders the information. It is a great way to keep up to date with your favorite blogging sites.

I have an account with bloglines, which I found very enjoyable to use, but bloglines might not always be free, so I figured that searching out other resources is a good idea.

After downloading the Sage extension, I customized my toolbar to add the Sage icon for easy access (Right-click on toolbar, choose customize.) You can also access the extension by choosing View>Sidebar>Sage or the keyboard shortcut Alt+S.

Next, let’s get the environment ready for Sage. Create a new folder in your bookmarks list. This is where the news feed links will be saved.

In the extension manager (Tools>Extensions), scroll down and click on the Sage extention item, then click on the tiny checkmark icon for “options”. Select the bookmarks folder from the pulldown menu at the top. I checked the box next to all other options except the last (CSS) setting. (By the way, the Custom CSS setting is a intriguing option which I might try to explore later!)

Now you are ready to add your first feed.

A really good place to find popular feeds is on the bloglines web site. Take your pick of the top blog sites, right-click on the “feed” link and choose Bookmark this Link. Make sure to save the link in the feed folder.

Most blog sites have RSS or ATOM Links readily available from their sites. I found out that the site links that work best are the ones that end in .xml extension. The links ending in .rdf do not work.

So now that you have a few cool sites to read, click on the icon to display the side bar. There is an options menu available, where you can customize your viewing options. Add new folders to organize the feed links, or click/drag the links in any particular order. More favorable feeds can stay at the top, while less popular links can be dragged to the bottom or to a sub-folder.

Yep, it is a basic reader, without frills, but it works very good and is very easy to use. Oh and don’t forget to save the Splash of Style feed to your reader list.

Found an excellent Flash Tutorial on Sage! Much better to “see” it in front of you!

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