January 31, 2005, 1:47 PM — One of the most interesting features of the Firefox browser is its support for extensions. Extensions are rapidly adding useful features to Firefox. An excellent example is Sage 1.3.
Sage is an extension that adds support for XML news feeds. The Firefox/Sage combination can really streamline your web browsing. Sage integrates the latest news feed headlines into a browser sidebar. This makes it easy to scan the news, and then click and view pages that you want to read.
Sage Features
* Reads RSS (2.0, 1.0, 0.9x) and Atom feeds
* Automatic feed discovery
* Integrates with Firefox's bookmark storage and Live Bookmarks
* Imports and exports OPML feed lists
* Feed rendering customizable via style sheets
* Technorati and RSS search engine integration
* Supports many languages
* Simple, install / uninstall
Installation and Configuration
Adding Firefox extensions is very straightforward. Firefox has an extension manager (under Tools - Extensions) that helps you add or remove them. There's an option to "Get More Extensions" that takes you to a directory of extensions. From there, browse to News Reading - Sage 1.3 and click the Install link. This will install Sage & update your Extensions list.
Sage adds a new sidebar to Firefox. To open it, select View - Sidebar - Sage, or use the shortcut Alt-S.
Toggling it on adds a sidebar with two main panes. The top pane shows the names of the news feeds that you are subscribed to. If you click on one of the news feed's names, the lower pane shows the news feed's current headlines.
In Use
Sage installs with several default feeds. Click on a feed name in the upper half of the Sage sidebar, and the feed's headlines will show up in the lower half of the sidebar. Click on any headline to view the full page in the browser.
To add a news feed bookmark, right-click in the Sage news feed list and select New Bookmark.
When you click on a news feed title, Sage also creates a web-style index page from the XML news feed. This lets you browse the headlines and a brief summary of each article. Each summary links to the full article.
Because RSS feeds have become so common, using a newsreader that integrates with a Web browser can make browsing very efficient. The Sage sidebar lets you quickly check the headlines and view pages you're interested in at each of your favorite sites.
Power Tools
Sage is very easy to get started with, but also has options for power users.
Sage supports auto-discovery of news feeds. Browse to any page that has feeds on it and click on the Sage magnifying glass search icon. This opens the Discover Feeds window, which will display any feeds that Sage finds. Select a feed and use the Add Feed button to bookmark it.
The Sage sidebar makes basic news feed organization easy. If you want to do more advanced editing, the Manage Feed List window provides more advanced options. You can move entries, edit their properties, add separators, and create folders for grouping items. It also provides ten options for sorting entries.
Sage even lets you completely customize the way feeds are rendered in Firefox. In the Options - Settings window, you can assign a custom style sheet. For corporate users, this makes it possible to adapt Sage to a company style. For individual users, expect community-contributed styles to provide additional options within the upcoming months.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
