Organizing and reading RSS feeds easily with QuiteRSS

Easy to Use

After you've configured the software to your wishes, the next step is to populate the addresses of the feeds to monitor. First, you'll want to clarify whether incoming feeds should be stored in folders, which is often the best solution for larger collections.

Using the check mark icon next to the plus sign in the toolbar in the upper left, you can create folders for created feeds. Adding a new feed means entering the URL of its website and the program extracts the address automatically (Figure 5).

Figure 5: Creating a feed entry is as simple as giving it a name and its corresponding URL.

Alternatively, you can go to the website and copy the RSS address directly from the link to the feed. If you have already worked with another RSS reader (e.g., a standalone one, on the Internet, or as part of another program), you should check whether the program has a data export function to save the feeds in OPML format. This will allow you to import your feeds to QuiteRSS.

In tests, the program took on about 400 feeds in a matter of seconds without a complaint and updated them in less than 30 seconds. Even 10 times that many caused no problems. However, such large amounts can cause problems elsewhere, such as for human cognitive faculties. With a few options, you can reduce the amount of new messages that accumulate over time (Figure 6).

Figure 6: If the flood of information gets out of control, a few options can reduce it.

Point of View

The software provides two views for displaying content that you can toggle between the using View | Layout from the menus. The classic view used by default shows only headlines, whereas the so-called Newspaper view presents a short teaser after the headline to give you a better clue of the content of the article it links to. The best choice will depend on your personal taste or work habits.

The program allows opening individual news, folders, and categories in tabs, which facilitates navigation significantly if you're working with many feeds and want to store them for future use without interrupting your workflow. To send feeds to specific folders automatically, use the appropriate filters (Figure 7).

Figure 7: Filters organize news with specific content automatically into categories.

You can use built-in functions to submit especially interesting news directly to the appropriate social network channels or through traditional communication mechanisms, such as email (Figure 8). And, if the existing labels aren't enough, you can create unlimited new ones or edit existing ones to channel the message flow.