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Thomas Tanner edited this page Nov 29, 2019 · 16 revisions

General

What is InfoRSS?

infoRSS is a lightweight RSS reader. This extension take a minimum of space in the browser, and the news are always displayed in the status bar (or in a toolbar at the top or bottom of the screen).

What does InfoRSS look like?

infoRSS installs a small icon (looks like an earth) in the status bar. The headlines are displayed beside this icon.

How often is a feed refreshed?

By default, every 30 minutes, but this can be customized by the user. Select the feed in the infoRSS menu, right click on it (ctrl click on Mac), and then change the refresh time in the settings tab, and click on Apply. You can also open the main option dialog to change the settings.

How many headlines are displayed?

By default, 3 news headlines are displayed, but this can be customized by the user. Select the feed in the infoRSS menu, right click on it (ctrl click on Mac), and then change the number of titles in the settings tab, and click on Apply. There is also a "default value" for newly created feeds. Each time you add a new feed in infoRSS, it will be created with the default value

How many character per title are displayed?

By default, the first 25 characters are displayed, but this can be customized by the user. Select the feed in the infoRSS menu, right click on it (ctrl click on Mac), and then change the number of characters to display under the settings tab, and click on Apply.

How can I know that a new version is available?

Open the extension manager, select infoRSS and try to update it. Otherwise, you can subscribe to the commit feed from this site.

Is InfoRSS available in foreign languages?

So far, InfoRSS is available in English (en-US), Swedish (sv-SE), German (de-DE), French (fr-FR), Italian (it-IT), Albanian (sq-AL), Brazilian/portuguese (pt-BR), Dutch (nl-NL), Spanish (es-ES), Japanese (ja-JP), Bulgarian (bg-BG), Danish (da-DK), Traditional Chinese (zh-TW), Simplified Chinese (zh-CN), Czech Republic (cs-CZ), Polish (pl-PL), Russian (ru-RU), Slovenian (sl-SL), finnish (fi-FI), Hungarian (hg-HG). If you want to have it in your language, just follow the instructions in the Translations page.

If I open several windows in the browser, are they synchronized?

Yes, when you open a new window in the browser, the known headlines from the main window are transferred in the new window. That is to say that viewed or banned headlines in the main window are considered as "viewed" or "banned" in the new window. When you click on an headline in one window, all window are synchronized and the headline bar is refreshed. When an headline is banned in one window, all open window are synchronized.

Is this extension compatible with other Gecko products?

Well, sadly, no. Mozilla in their infinite wisdom dropped the status bar and then they stopped the ability to add your own toolbar. I have some hopes of getting this to work again on Thunderbird and Firefox, though if they drop xul support at the end of 2017, basically, no

What is an html feed?

A list of news from an HTML page (unlike RSS or Atom), extracted with a Regular Expression. Info on Regular Expressions can be found here

What is the cycling feature?

If you set this feature to on, when an feed or a group of feed is selected, after a configurable number of minutes, the next feed or group is selected and become the current feed or group.

Does infoRSS remember the read news after I close it?

Yes, the extension uses a local history file to store the read date, the viewed flag, and the banned flag for each headline. The local history file is inforss.rdf

Can I hear (or view) a podcast while browsing?

Yes, you can either hold the mouse over the headline in which case the tooltip will pop up a mini browser and play the podcast, or you can click on the speaker (or film reel) icon and a new tab will open with the podcast URL.

What is the difference between a basic group and a playlist?

All feeds that belong to a group are all fetched at the same time if cycling is not active[1], or one by one during a period of time that correspond to the cycling setting. A playlist group fetches its feeds according to the setting of the user: order and elapse for each feed. [1] This is not actually true. All feeds are fetched at 30 second intervals, and then according to the refresh time. This section needs rewriting a bit.

Is there a live demo available?

You can see a live demo here.

Is there any spyware or adware in the extension?

This extension is completely free of adware or any other malware.

Usage

How do I add a new feed?

Well, hopefully, there will be an RSS feed icon in the address bar. Just click on it and select "InfoRSS reloaded" as the provider (if you haven’t already defaulted it!). Also, if the page has feeds, they will appear in the popup menu. Failing that, just select the text of the feed’s URL (in the url bar, in the browser, in a separate editor, …​), then drag and drop it onto the inforss icon in the status bar. In case of success, a popup window will display the main information of the feed: title, url, description, …​

How do I remove a feed?

Just click on the inforss icon in the status bar, a popup menu will show the list of all RSS feeds infoRSS handles. Then click on the feed you want to remove, and drag and drop it on the trash icon in the menu.

How do I select another feed?

Just click on the inforss icon in the status bar, a popup menu will show the list of all RSS feeds infoRSS handles. Then click on the feed you want to see in the status bar.

How can I change the background colour in the menu and in the status bar?

Just select the extension in the list of installed extension (menu > tool > extension) and click on "option". Then, on the third page, you can choose the background colour.

How do groups work?

Go in the option dialogue (menu - tool -extension - inforss - option), click on the "feed/group" tab, click on the "new group", type the name of the new group, and then, select your RSS with the checkbox. Then click on the "Apply" button.

How can I see more titles?

Go in the option dialogue (menu - tool -extension - inforss - option), click on show title in sub-menu:on, and click on earth icon at the bottom of the screen. The menu should show you all your RSS with a sub-menu "wait for 3 seconds…​". Wait for 3 seconds and all titles (up to 20) should be displayed. You can click on any of them to see it in a tab of your browser.

Can I control the size of the headlines area?

If you locate the inforss area in the status bar, you can control the size if you are in the scrolling mode by dragging the grey spot beside the inforss icon. Otherwise, you can’t.

Can I set the different options of inforss?

You can use the menu > tool > extension > inforss > option menu item, or right-click (ctrl-click for Mac user) on the inforss icon to display the option dialog.

How can I set the scrolling mode?

You can use the menu > tool > extension > inforss > option menu item, or right-click (ctrl-click for Mac user) on the headlines to toggle to scrolling mode.

I missed one headline in the scrolling area, how can I see it quickly?

If you hover the mouse on the headline area and your mouse device has a scroll wheel, you can move it to move the ticker backward and forward. If your mouse driver supports proportional speed, the faster you move the wheel, the faster the ticker moves.

How can I see the XML file of the RSS feed?

Simply click on the inforss icon at the bottom of the screen, then, drag and drop an item of the menu (the title of the feed) onto the main browser window. Note: Do not do this if you have made inforss your default handler for feeds.

What is the category filter?

Some feeds are provided with a CATEGORY tag. You can filter (include or exclude) headlines based on the value of that tag. If you click on the category button, the current categories in the feed are displayed, but you can type in any categories you want.

What is the quick filter?

This is a full text filter on the headline title that allow the user to quickly focus of specific headlines.

Can I import feeds from another RSS aggregator?

Yes, you can use the import button in the repository section of the advanced tab of the option dialogue. The format must be OPML

Can I export feeds to another RSS aggregator?

Yes, you can use the export button in the repository section of the advanced tab of the option dialogue. This will export your list of feeds to a file in OPML format.

Can I easily add a feed to the current active group?

Yes, open the menu with all the feed, and drag and drop a feed onto the headline bar (which should contains the feed from the active group)

How can I filter the headlines?

You have filters at the feed and at the group level and both can be combined. You can have as many filter as you want per feed and group. To add filter, open the option dialogue and go to the "feed/group" tab or right-click (crtl-click on mac) on the feed in the menu and select the "filter" tab. To add a filter click on the "+" button. To remove a filter, click on the "-" button in front of the filter. A filter can be active or inactive (see the checkbox in front of each filter).

How can I fetch news from an HTML page?

Open the Option Dialogue and create a "new html feed". Type the url of the HTML page and give a name to the new feed. Click OK. This will then up a window that allows you to configure the HTML parsing. You definitely need to know what Regular Expressions are for this. See here for more information.

Some feeds have a podcast feature, can I listen to (or watch) them?

Yes. If you move the mouse over the headline bar, the tooltip will open a mini browser and you will be able to see or hear the podcast. An appropriate plugin must be installed - quicktime, or other…​

Can I read the news without clicking on the headline and opening a new tab?

You can select this feature in the option dialogue. If you move the mouse over the headline bar, the tooltip will open a mini browser and you will be able to view the full article.

What is this little browser in the option dialogue?

It is in fact a little browser! It displays the main web page of the feed. You can click on it to open it in a new browser tab.

Troubleshooting

How can I report a bug?

Create an issue on the issue page. You can keep track of it from there too.

I dropped a new feed URL on the icon, but nothing happened. Why not?

Maybe the inforss repository is corrupted. Locate the inforss.xml file on your hard drive (in your browser profile directory) and delete it. Then restart the browser, and try to drop another URL.

The application does not display the news in the status bar?

Go in the option dialog (menu - tool -extension - inforss - option), click on activity:on, and click on the "Apply" button.

Why doesn’t infoRSS save the feed that I have added?

Sometimes, there are some trouble with the current profile; try to create a brand new profile to see if this fix the problem

Sometime, I get a "repository has no properties" error. What does that mean?

This means that something went wrong when reading the repository. The best thing to do is to go to the option dialogue, turn on all debug settings, restart, note all error popups and contact the author; It could be very useful to locate the inforss.xml file in your profile and send it to the author. You can also delete the inforss.xml file and restart.

The extension slows down my browser, what can I do?

The two main reasons are

  1. scrolling eats a lot of CPU, especially at high scolling speed. Your can turn the scrolling off.

  2. the refresh time. If you have a lot of different feeds to monitor, all active at the same time (in a group), and all with a little refresh time, it could also eat the CPU when refreshing. Try to adjust the refresh time to a proper value. By default this value is set to 2 min. Try to avoid having all your feeds set to the same value.

I have set the tooltip on the headline with the "full article" option. When I move the mouse over an headline I see a mini browser, but why can’t I scroll the displayed page?

Even if you see a mini browser, this browser is a tooltip, so when the mouse moves out, the tooltip disappears. If you have to see to full article and scroll, just click on the headline.

I click on the "make current" button in the option dialogue and nothing happened. Why not?

You have to validate with the "apply" or "ok" button any change in the option dialogue, including the "make current" action.

I’m having trouble with the repository, why does nothing nothing get saved?

It seems that the extension must be installed by the user themselves, not an admin user on behalf the user.

Each time I quit and restart, why do I see old headlines that I have already read?

You have to check if the purge delay (option dialogue) is not too small (ie. 1 day), or maybe the inforss.rdf is corrupted. In that case, just quit, delete the inforss.rdf file and restart.

Security concerns

Can I add RSS feed from secure url (SSL)?

Yes, if the url starts with "HTTPS", you will be prompted to enter your user account and password.

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