Manually Adding Feed Links to Firefox

18 January 06

RSS feeds in Wion Design are auto-detectable, but are also made more visible as manual links which you need to add to your feed reader yourself. This article explains how to do that.

If you are really new to using feed links, it would perhaps be worth your while to first read my other article, Using Auto-detectable Feed Links (if you just came from there, then keep reading), which not only explains how to take advantage of my feeds in simpler fashion (via the auto-detectable process), but also provides insight to syndication principles in general.

On the other hand, if you a have notion or two about all of this but need a pointer about adding feed links to Firefox, please continue.

Note: Yes, I discuss this process using the Firefox Web browser and the Sage extension feed reader, which is how I do things myself at the moment. If you currently do not use Firefox, then you will certainly want to read that other article linked above first, as it explains the relevant Firefox menus and where the Sage extension applies.

The Simple Process

Step 1: Get Firefox and Sage

Make sure you are using the latest version of Firefox, you’ll be glad you did; it’s kind of like that feeling you get when your car is freshly tuned and oil-changed. Also, if you don’t have it already, install Sage it’s free, integrates into your Firefox browser (not a separate application you have to run), and couldn’t be easier to use.

Note: Although I’m talking about my links in this article, the exact same process is used for any Web site’s RSS links that you may decide to use. RSS links (and Atom links too), which are not made available by site owners as auto-detectable links, can often be found in site footers or in the bottoms of right-side columns. These links may appear as text labels reading “RSS” or my appear as orange buttons with the same letters. A new icon display for this link (Live Bookmarks button.), which is rapidly being adopted by Web browsers such as Firefox (and the new IE7 too) is the one I’m using in my own Feed link list. For a while you may have to look for any of these implementations until site owners adopt the new practice.

Step 2: Choose and Copy the Feed Link

Decide which of my feed links you want to subscribe to, right click the link with your mouse, and select the appropriate mouse menu option to copy the link location (in Windows, the option reads “Copy Link Location”).

Note: If you try and follow my links by clicking them normally, you’ll only see a blank page, or will get a download window asking you what to do with my feed file. (In other sites you may even be shown a view of the feed code.) In all cases, ignore it, back out, and simply right-click the link to save the link path only. That’s all you need.

Step 3: Past Feed Link into Firefox’s Live Bookmarks

In the Firefox menus, click the ‘Bookmarks’ menu, then select ‘Manage Bookmarks’ (i.e., go Bookmarks —> Manage Bookmarks).

In the resulting window, click the ‘File’ menu, then click ‘New Live Bookmark…’ (i.e., go File —> New Live Bookmark).

In the resulting link properties window, paste the link you saved above into the ‘Feed Location’ box. Also, give the link a sensible name, and less importantly, a description. That’s it.

The link will be saved in the special Live Bookmarks section of your Bookmarks folder, which Sage uses to auto-read all the feed links you collect. You can use the Manage Bookmarks utility to rename and archive feed links as you want.

Now, if you didn’t do it, please go read my other article if you want a better understanding of using Sage.