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RSS TUTORIALS

For Beginners

The following tutorial is aimed at people who have never used RSS feeds before. It uses Bloglines to illustrate the "how to" sections - Bloglines was chosen as it is freely available on the web, and very easy to use.

What does an RSS feed look like?

If a website has an RSS feed, it should make it obvious, by using a little orange RSS or XML button, like those on the NHS Evidence News & Rss page below.

Screen shot of NHS Evidence News & RSS Index Page

If you click on that orange RSS button, you get a page of code that looks something like this (below):

Screen shot of XML/RSS Feed

This page does not look very useful in itself at the moment, and does not appear to be laid out as clearly as a normal webpage. What you're actually seeing is a page of text and XML (eXtensible Markup Language) code and your browser doesn’t know what to do with it. A normal webpage consists of text and HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) code and the browser knows exactly how to handle it. This is why you need an RSS Reader or Aggregator to view RSS feeds.

The main thing we need to concern ourselves with is the web address of this page:"

Screen shot of the RSS/XML Web address in the browser address bar

You can copy and paste the web address into an RSS reader or aggregator, so that the feed displays in a readable format.

Getting started with Bloglines - www.bloglines.com

Screen shot of Bloglines homepage

First, you will need to register with Bloglines - an easy process, just click on the Sign Up button in the middle of the screen. Once you have submitted your details, you will get a confirmation email, which you need to reply to to be fully registered. Once fully registered, you will have your email address and password which you use to login.

To login, go to www.bloglines.com and click on the Log In link in the top right hand corner of the page. You will be taken to a login page, where you enter your email address and password, then click on the Login button. You will then be taken to a page that looks like this:

Screen shot of Bloglines logged in homepage

The left hand side of the screen will list the feeds that you add in to Bloglines - it automatically subscribes you to the Bloglines News feed.

The right hand side of the screen will display the individual items from a feed, once you click on the feed from the list on the left.

Now all you have to do is to find and add feeds into your reader!

Adding feeds to Bloglines

If you already have the web address of a feed that you want to put into your reader, this is very easy. Click on the Add link in the top left hand corner of the Bloglines screen.

Screen shot of Bloglines Add Feed option

You will then get a screen like this:

Screen shot of Bloglines Add Feed page

You then just need to type or paste the web address of the feed into the Blog or Feed URL box in the middle of the screen, and click on the Subscribe button.

You will then be given some options about how you want the feed to display - you can leave those as they are, and just click on the Subscribe button at the bottom of that page.

You then get a screen that looks like this (notice the NHS Evidence Hitting The Headlines feed in the list on the left):

Screen shot of Bloglines with NHS Evidence Hitting The Headlines feed added

The Hitting The Headlines feed shows there are 10 new items to look at. To view them, just click on Hitting The Headlines in the list on the left hand side:

Screen shot of NHS Evidence Hitting The Headlines display in Bloglines

Finding RSS feeds

The NHS Evidence RSS Directory makes it easy for you to find and subscribe to health-related newsfeeds. But if you want to see what other types of feeds are out there, Bloglines has a search facility:

Click on Add, as before, then click on search from the top of the page - you can type in your keywords, and it will bring back a list of feeds that match those keywords.

Each feed in your results has a Subscribe button, so if any feeds look useful, you can subscribe to them as before.

What else can you do?

Once you've added feeds into Bloglines, you can Edit, and Sort or Re-order the feeds themselves, recommend feeds to other people, and "clip" particularly useful items from feeds into your own Clippings file or weblog for later reference.

Editing your feeds

You will find the Edit option just under the My Feeds tab in the top left hand corner of the screen:

Screen shot of Bloglines Edit feed option

Click on the Edit link, and the left hand side of your screen will refresh and look like this:

Screen shot of the Bloglines Edit feed options

From the Choose Action drop-down list that appears, you can now delete a feed, create folders to categorise your feeds, and move your feeds around into different folders.

To remove a feed:

  • Click in the check boxes next to the feed(s) you want to delete
  • Click on the Choose Action drop-down arrow and select Remove
  • Click on the Submit button
  • You will get a window to confirm that you want to delete the item(s) - click ok
  • The page will then refresh and your feed(s) will no longer appear in your list

To create a folder:

  • Click on the Choose Action drop-down arrow and select Move to: New Folder
  • This will automatically open a little window that prompts you for a folder name
  • Type a name for your folder and click on ok
  • The page will refresh, and display your list of feeds, with the new folder showing (using similar icons to Windows Explorer)

To move feeds into a particular folder:

  • Now when you click on the Choose Action drop-down arrow, you should have the option to Move to: [name of your new folder] - select this
  • Click in the check boxes next to the feed(s) you want to move
  • Click on the Submit button
  • The page will refresh, and then display your feeds, showing that some have moved - you may need to click on the little "+" symbol next to the folder to expand it and show the folder's contents

To move feeds out of a folder:

  • Choose the Move to: Top Level option from the Choose Action drop-down list

To amend the name of a feed:

  • Make sure you're in the Edit options
  • Click on the feed's title
  • This will open a new window entitled Edit Subscription, with details of the feed
  • Amend the title in the very top line of the window
  • Click on the Update button

Once you've finished editing your feeds, you must make sure you click on the Finished link underneath the Edit link, in the top left-hand corner of your screen, so that the editing options close, and you can use your feeds as normal.

Screen shot of Blogline feed Edit confirmation

Re-ordering and sorting your feeds

You can change the order in which your feeds appear by clicking on the Reorder/Sort link in the top left-hand corner of the screen.

Screen shot of Bloglines feed options

When you've clicked on the link, the page refreshes and you will see all your feeds listed with a checkbox for selecting them, and a drop-down list.

Screen shot of Bloglines feed Reorder/Sort options

To reorder or sort your feeds:

  • Check all the boxes
  • Click on the drop-down arrow
  • Choose the order that you want to display your feeds in
  • Click on the Sort button
  • Your page will refresh, showing your feeds in the new order

The Unsorted option puts the feeds back in the order in which you added them to your reader.

Make sure you click on Finished to exit the sorting options.

Choosing how your feeds display

The final link next to Add, Edit and Reorder/Sort is Options. Clicking this link gives you some control over how your feeds display. You can:

  • Choose whether or not to open links in new windows
  • Choose to keep your folders open or closed
  • Make the newest or oldest posts appear first
  • Choose how much of a feed you display
  • And choose to just show updated feeds - so that when you log into Bloglines, you won't necessarily see the list of all your feeds, just the ones that have new items

Emailing an individual news item

As you read the items that your feeds find, you may well come across a piece of news that you want to share with someone else. Bloglines makes it easy for you to do this - each individual news item has an Email This link at the bottom of it:

Screen shot of the Bloglines Email This option

When you click this link, a new window opens - type in the email address of the person who you want to send the item to, add in a message, and click on the Send Email button. The recipient gets an email with your message, a snippet of the item, and a link to the original website.

Saving news items - Clippings in Bloglines

Yo may also find that you want to save several items - either to come back to later, or to put a selection together for a current awareness bulletin, etc. Again, Bloglines makes this very easy - it allows you to take "Clippings" - and each individual item from a feed has a Clip/Blog This link at the bottom of it.

Screen shot of the Bloglines Clip/Blog This option

When you click this link, a new window opens that has the title of the item, and a URL. You can type in further text here if you wish. Then just click the Save to Clippings Folder button at the bottom of that window. You get a message to say that the item has been clicked, and can close that window.

To find your clippings, click on the Clippings tab in the top left hand corner of your screen. Your screen will refresh and display a list of the clippings you have made.

Screen shot of the Bloglines View Clippings option

Click on a title in your list to display the item in full on the right hand side of your screen. Again, you can edit, delete, re-order and sort your clippings, using the links at the top of the screen.

Once you have a set of clippings, you can highlight text, copy and paste the items into an email or a Word file - and use it as a newsletter or current awareness bulletin.

There are various tutorials available on the web that you may want to look at in addition to this tutorial and the other RSS Help pages available within this directory.

A good place to start is:

For Content Publishers and Webmasters

If you want to produce your own RSS feed and make it available to other people, or if you want to find out more about adding RSS feeds to your own website so that news and current awareness from other websites is displayed, you might find the following resources helpful: