Scrapblog Series : Bloglines Tutorial (Part 3)

Setting Up and Using Bloglines

A Scrapblogging Series Tutorial

Part 3 of 8

 

Go Back to Part 2 | Go To Part 4 | Go To Part 8 (PDF Downloadable File)

Reading Your Blogs and Editing Your Subscriptions

Option 1 : Edit Subscription and Creating New Folders at the Same Time

Step	Action
1.	Okay, on registering and validating this bloglines account, I chose some Blogs already, but they are not very organised. In preparation for actually going out there and subscribing to some scrapblogs, I’m going to get some folders and things prepared. Starting with the current set of blogs.
2.	I’m going to start with all those Art Blogs I subscribed to, thanks to Blogline’s recommendations. In the left hand pane, click on the Blog name – I’ll choose the top one. The actual blog entries I haven’t as yet read now show in the right hand pane. I can read these straight from Bloglines, or if interested I can click on the Title link to be taken to the actual blog itself (this will open in a new browser window, leaving Bloglines open for you to return to).
3.	In Bloglines and the right hand pane, you now have some options – to edit the subscription, unsubscribe, to find related feeds, mark all as new, and the blue bar also tells you how many people subscribe to this blog (wow, over 8000 subscribers!). Click on Edit Subscription. A small popup window will appear (if your browser allows popups – else this might simply overtake your current browser window)
4.	This Subscription window (above) shows some details. It shows the Feed URL (the xml file you have subscribed to), and whether you want it monitored by a notifier (we will set this up shortly). Importantly, it shows some Folder options. At the moment all these new blog subscriptions are setup at the Top Level folder. What we want to do is create some new folders to file these under. We want to create an Art one, maybe. Click on the Folder dropdown and you will find an option to create a new folder called New Folder…   Input your name for your folder, and click OK. This will return you to the Edit Subscription box where the New Folder: Art has now appeared in the Folder box. Input anything else you may want to, then click on the Update button at the bottom.   There we are – we’ve created an Art folder, which now has the top blog we chose sitting under it. This blog title is now no longer bolded – meaning that you’ve read the blog already. The bold blog titles underneath indicate there is new content to read on those (the numbers in brackets indicate how many content entries there are for each).
5	Go through and read and Edit Subscription on these blogs, creating relevant folders to file these into also. Note : You can start creating Scrapbooking category folders if you want here also. Filing the current blogs into these creates the folder – then you can simply edit subscription on these at a later date, to place them into the correct folders.   Here is my new lovely folder categories, with a new Scrapbooking category already setup. But I’ve left one blog uncatergorised. That’s because I want to show you the second option to creating folders.

Option 2 : Edit On the Left Hand Pane

Step	Action
1.	In the screenshot above you will see my left hand pane folder list. There is only one option available to me at the moment at the top – Edit. Click on this.   Now you have some details against the blogs – take a look at my Librarian blog above, which so far is not under a folder. The little icons tell me it’s not for notification, and not for mobile – yes Bloglines can provide a blog subscription service through mobile phones, but I’m not going to tell you about that one.
2.	Choose the New Folder Link at the top. The Folder little popup comes up. I decided I needed a Misc folder, so created this.
3.	Now we have to put the Library blog into the Miscellaneous Folder. To Do this, grab the library blog by clicking and holding down your left mouse button and drag it into the new Misc folder. (The folder will turn yellow when you’re over it). Organise your blogs into folders in this way.
4.	Whilst you are in Edit mode, check out the other Operations. Under the Choose Operation Drop Down list you have several sorting options. Highlight / choose a folder, and choose a sorting operation from this list. Once you have chosen a few, click on Submit. For this example, I chose to sort my Art blogs in Z-A order, just because I could…
5.	Once you’ve done all this, choose the Finished option from above. (The Add step below will close down this edit option also.)

Option 3 : Exploring the Other Options on the Left Hand Pane

Step	Action
1.	Click on the Options link at the top also.   This is where you set your blog options up. The default setting – to open a blog in a new window (this is when you actually click on a blog title or links within it from the right hand pane) is a good one. You can also sort feed orders – normally the default options are fine.
2	Click the Add Option at the top.   And this is where you can subscribe onto a blog directly, if you know the Feed URL.
3	Try this out – use mine. Input http://scrapability.squarespace.com/scrap-rants/atom.xml and hit the Subscribe button.   This is a screen you’ve seen before. Choose a folder (or create a new one), some details, and hit the Subscribe button. The blog will appear in your left hand pane. This will also close down your Edit options.