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 and Feed Readers
• Use the Diggman

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 and select the title of the feed from the drop-down menu that appears in order to view the feed.

4. The feed will appear in the browser window and the Feed Sidebar will open, giving you options for further action (see below).

View Feeds

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

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 the feed with one or two columns, full summaries or titles only, etc.

5. Click REFRESH to update the page and MARK ALL AS VIEWED to record that you have already seen the currently displayed articles.
6. You can also right-click (CTRL-click on Mac) on the Feed Sidebar to open a dropdown menu that allows you to refresh selected feeds, or all feeds. You may alternatively click on the Feed Options button and select Refresh All.

Subscribe to Feeds

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

3. Click Subscribe, or drag the Subscribe button into the Feed Sidebar and drop it where you'd like the new feed to be listed. The title of the feed and number of recent articles will now always appear in the Feed Sidebar.
4. 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.
5. To unsubscribe, right-click (CTRL-click on Mac) on the title in the Feed Sidebar and choose Delete from the drop-down menu.

Work with Articles

1. While viewing articles in the Feed Reader, you have a number of options for actions:

• Click the box beside Viewed to check or uncheck whether or not you've read the article.
• 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. )
• Click Email to compose a message with the article embedded. This will open in your Webmail or in your Desktop Mail application, depending on which you have Flock set to use as default. (To learn about seamlessly connecting your Webmail accounts to Flock, see Set Up Webmail in Flock.)
• Click Digg It to submit the article to the social news site, Digg. (If you don't already have a Digg account, you'll be directed to a free sign-up page.) If the article is already Dugg, it will display the number of Diggs and Digg comments it has.
• Click Save to save the article. To view your saved articles, click Saved Articles in the Feed Sidebar.

Manage Feeds and Feed Readers

1. Right-click (CTRL-click on Mac) on a title in the Feed Sidebar to open a drop-down menu of the most common options for managing feeds.

2. Select New Folder 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 Create a new folder icon.

3. Drag and drop titles into different folders to organize them as you like.
4. Click on the Feed Options button to access other common options allowing you to import or export feeds to or from other services, change your default feed reader, or stop auto-marking feeds as read.

5. You can also access these options by clicking the Feed Preferences icon at the top right of the Feed Sidebar.

6. This takes you to directly to the Options dialog Content tab, which includes the common feed management options..

7. Click on the Choose button if you wish to select a different Feed reader.

8. In the Applications tab beside Web Feed, click the arrow to select another default Feed Reader.

Use the Diggman

1. Click on the Top Digg Stories icon at the right side of the Location Bar to activate Flock's Diggman feature.

2. The menu will show the top stories from Digg, the social news site feed which provides articles voted on or "Dugg" to the top of their listings by their users. (The Diggman icon will glow orange when one of the top 5 stories has over 5000 Diggs.) Select any one from the list to read that story.
3. Select Digg This Page to register your own vote with Digg to endorse the current web page you're reading. (You'll need a free Digg account.)
4. Disable the Diggman by clicking the Diggman, selecting Options, then unchecking Enable Digg flyout.

Continue on to learn to Use Enhanced Search Tools and Favorties Organizing...

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