RSS News Feeds - Instructions

Instructions

• News Reader: Download and Installation
• Subscribing to a journal RSS feed
• Entering the news feed into the reader
• Usage of journal feeds

News Reader: Download and Installation

News readers for various operating systems as well as web-based reader services (Bloglines, Google Reader) are available on Google News Reader Directory. Download and install your prefered reader according to the installation instructions that come with the software.

For Windows we recommend the following NewsReaders: Awasu Personal Edition (free), FeedDemon (shareware) oder SharpReader (free); for Mac OS X: NetNewsWire (free).

Subsribing to a journal RSS feed

Search for the journal in question in our list of online journals . Journals with issue feeds are marked with an orange icon, journals with article feeds by a blue icon.

For subscribing to an issue feed click at the icon.

A new page is loaded with the feed URL and a notice about the restriction of the feed to the ethz.ch domain. Mark the URL as shown and copy it to the clipboard (Windows: Ctrl+C, Mac OS X: Cmd+C).

Alternatively, you can right-click (Mac OS X: Ctrl + mouse button) the icon and select "Copy Link" from the context-sensitive menu.

Then paste the URL in the news reader.

For subscribing to a article feed right-click (Mac OS X: Ctrl + Maustaste) the icon and choose "Copy Link" from the context-sensitive menu.

Then paste the URL in the news reader.

Entering the news feed into the reader

The following news reader functions are described for NetNewsWire Lite; they are similar in other news reader software.

Subscribe to the feed URL that was stored in the clipboard by choosing menu "File > New Subscription" or the "Subscribe" button.

Normally, the URL is already displayed in the input form. If not, paste it by entering Cmd+V (Mac OS X) or Ctrl+V (Windows). Then press button "Subscribe".

The RSS feed will be inserted into the list of feeds.

Usage of journal feeds

The properties of a subscribed feed can be changed by selecting menu "Window > Info" or using the short cut Cmd+I. E.g. feed title or refresh frequency can be changed. In News Readerns for Windows, feed properties can be changed by selecting "Properties" (or similar) in the menu.

Issue feeds such as shown below display the volume, issue number, year, and date when the issue was received. The last 10 issues are shown per journal. Double-click an issue record will load the issue in the browser. Unread issues are displayed in bold, whereas the read issues in normal script. Depending onf the functionality of the news reader software the issue may be displayed directly in the reader window. Double-clicking the feed title leads to the web site of the Information Center that authors the RSS feed.

Article feeds show the titles of the latest articles and in many cases also their abstracts. Double-clicking the article title opens the article in the browser or in the news reader. Double-clicking the feed title in the left column opens the home page of the online journal.