Subscription (RSS, Atom...)

In addition to displaying you blog content as web pages, Dotclear allows you to make your content available as a "feed" (or "thread") that can be read using stand-alone tools or specific browser add-ons. These tools fetch the feeds as your mail client fetches your emails, and tell you when a site has been updated.

Because of the multiple terms used to name the threads, their technical nature and the numerous reading tools available, syndication might seem obscure at first sight (Atom, RSS, aggregation, syndication, XML, subscription… all these words are explained in the glossary). But all you need to know is that a feed/thread informs you when a website is updated without you having to visit the site.

Its major benefit is that you can subscribe to many blogs and sites and gather the update alerts in one single place.

Everything is there already, you only have to go to your administration interface, in the Presentation widgets section, and to drag and drop the Subscribe links widget into the desired sidebar. (By default it is already placed in the Extra sidebar.) A new section will then appear in your blog menu and display the URL (address) of your posts' feed and that of the comments' feed.

It may be useful for you to subscribe to your own comment feed as an excellent alternative to email notification if it is not easy for you to check your emails, or if you choose to subscribe to other blogs and sites. There are four types of tools that can read feeds: dedicated applications, online services, browser addd-ons and specific feature in mail clients.

As for any kind of tool, there are many of them, and they all have their advocates and critics. we are mentioning a few examples here, but a quick research should allow you to find many others. The following were picked because they are free and easy to use, and because we could find nice tutorials for them:

• Windows : FeedReader (GPL, free). You will find all the tips you need on FeedReader's help page.
• Mac : NetNewsWire Lite (the lite version is free). Tutorial.
• Linux : Liferea. The install howto is here and the full documentation is there.

Once you have installed the application on your computer, a menu option or a button allows you to add a feed, typically via a dialog box that prompts for the feed URL.

You may then change other settings such as refreshing frequency (the default frequency depends on the tool you use), how many items you want to keep in your threads, their layout, etc.

Pros :

• often offers more customization than other methods
• the content is on your computer, which means you can read it even when you are offline once the items are fetched
• most of these tools let you organize your feeds in directories and subdirectories, which can be very useful if you are a hardcore subscriber.

Cons :

• unless you install the software on a USB key you can take with you everywhere, you won't be able to check your feeds from another computer than your own. Still, some applications work jointly with an online service that let you read your feeds from your computer at home and from the office at your friends', on a webpage that will be automatically synchronized with your application. That way, what was read in a place will marked as read in another.

These are websites on which you create a dedicated page, indicating the feeds you want to suscribe to. Most major web companies offer this type of service : Google, via Google Reader, Yahoo offers to include a feed reader to your MyYahoo page, etc. and there are specialized providers such as Netvibes.

You will find all the information you need to set up your page in the help pages of these online services.

Pros :

• no installation required
• you can check and read your feeds from any computer connected to the Internet.

Cons :

• you depend on the provider's quality of service
• you cannot read your feeds off line

The feed reader is directly included in your browser either by default (on Safari), or through a small add-on (i.e. Sage for Firefox). You can then add feeds while you browse, and a specific menu or panel in your browser lists your subscription and lets you know what's new.

Tutorials : check Sage wiki or Safari's features - IE7 now includes a feed reader.

Pros :

• you do everything from your browser

Cons :

• you can't read your feeds from another browser (neither from another computer naturally)

The layout and the operation are very close to a newsletter subscription, except that your mail application fetches the news instead of receiving them from the website (in other words, the content is pulled and not pushed).

Thunderbird (on every platform) already includes a feed reading feature (help) but you will need an add-on for Outlook, i.e. Intravniews (Windows).

Pros :

• your mail and subscriptions are available from a single application
• you don't need to learn anything new, except pasting a URL in a field ;)
• the content you have checked is saved and readable offline

Cons :

• available only from the computer on which the mail client is installed

The information of this page are far from being comprehensive. If you're interested in knowing more on the subject, we encourage you to turn to more specialized webpages such as the dedicated article on the Wikipedia or this (huge) list of desktop, web-based and browser-based feed readers.