FlatPress Wiki

Enables a widget with a subscribe button

Why RSS or Atom feed instead of mailing lists?

Unlike email notifications, with RSS/Atom the initiative comes from the visitor to your FlatPress blog who has subscribed to the feed. This means that you as a FlatPress admin cannot select the readers, but in return you do not have to worry about managing the reader base (for example with mailing list software). Visitors to your blog do not have to disclose that they are monitoring your posts or comments and can subscribe or unsubscribe much more easily and anonymously by simply changing the settings in their RSS/Atom aggregator.

RSS/Atom makes it easier to monitor a large number of sources, such as blogs, where changes are infrequent but readers may not want to miss updates.

Screenshot:

feed_1_0_2.zip if FlatPress ≤ 1.2.1

Use web feeds to subscribe to websites and get the latest content in one place.

Feeds put you in control. It’s like subscribing to a podcast, or following a company on Facebook. You don’t need to pay or hand over your email address. You get the latest content without having to visit lots of sites, and without cluttering up your inbox. Had enough? Easy: unsubscribe from the feed.

You just need a special app called a newsreader.

This article explains how to get started.

A feed is also known as a “web feed” and the technical term (which you’ll see a lot) is “RSS feed.” A feed contains the latest content in a form that your newsreader app understands. (Your newsreader checks the feed automatically, every few hours.)

Tons of websites have feeds, mostly news sites and blogs. You’ll often see a link at the bottom of the page that says “RSS” or “Atom”.

Whenever you see a website with a feed, that means you can subscribe to that site.

When you subscribe to only one site, you might say “This doesn’t save me much time.” But when you end up subscribing to 10 or 20, you’ll find that your newsreader becomes your regular place for news and to hear the latest.

You won’t miss content (unlike Facebook, there’s no algorithm deciding to drop content from your feed unless the author pays) and it’s spam-proof. Had enough? Just unsubscribe from the feed.

To subscribe to feeds, you’ll need a newsreader app. A newsreader app feels a little like an email app, in that there is an inbox of all the latest content, or like Facebook in that there is a newsfeed from many different sources.

There are many different newsreader apps to choose from.

Install an app on your phone or laptop, or use a newsreader app through a website. Here are five apps, in alphabetical order:

• Feeder – Android
• Feedly – Web/Android/iOS.
• Inoreader – Web/Android/iOS.
• NetNewsWire – iOS/Mac.
• The Old Reader – Web and apps for many platforms.

It doesn’t matter which you choose, as newsreaders make it fairly easy to export your list of subscriptions and move them to another app in the future. So choose one you like the look of.

Choose your app, and either sign up or download it.

You’ll need the Feed URL. To get this, go to the website you want to subscribe to and find that RSS link or the feed icon. Then…

• On desktop, right-click on the link and choose “Copy Link Address” or similar.
• On mobile, tap and hold the link until a menu comes up. Choose “Copy link” or similar.

Then go to your newsreader app and look for a function which will be named something like

• “Subscribe”
• “Add Web Feed”
• or maybe a “+” icon

and paste in the Feed URL.

You’re done! You can now read the latest content in your newsreader.