Speed Read with FeedDemon's "Next" Button

When people first use FeedDemon, they often treat their unread articles the same as they do their unread email.  They read every single article, and only mark them as read after they've actually looked at them.

But after they use FeedDemon for a while, it dawns on them that reading feeds isn't the same as reading email.  They don't have to read everything - in fact, they can't read everything, because they've subscribed to so many feeds that they can't possible read them all.

At this point, they start skimming the headlines looking for interesting articles, and just mark the rest of them as read without even reading them.  Before long, though, even this seems like too much work, and they look for a better way to blast through their unread articles.

This is when FeedDemon's "Next" button becomes incredibly valuable.  This unassuming button - which resides on the toolbar above FeedDemon's browser - marks every article on the current page as read, and then moves to the next page that contains unread articles.  If there aren't anymore unread articles in the current feed, this button automatically moves to the next feed that has unread articles.

If you haven't discovered this button yet, I encourage you to start using it.  You can power your way through hundreds of unread articles in a very short time by flagging the ones that look interesting (or opening them in a new browser tab), and then clicking "Next" to move to the next page.  Once you've finished going through your unread articles, you can then read just the ones that looked interesting.

This is how I deal with all the stuff I'm subscribed to (and it's another reason why using great titles is so important).

Comments

[Jon-Paul LeClair]

Nick... that's exactly how I use FeedDemon. I love that feature. I just buzz through all my feeds by folder only displaying the title and if I want to check it out I just expand it and it's onto the next.

[Jack Brewster]

How about a "Next Item" button. I'd love to be able to "single-click" my way through my posts without having to scroll at all. :)

[Ben]

I love that feature. It's the only way to stay sane.

I'd love to see FeedDemon take the "Next" button one step further. I'd love it if FeedDemon would mark items that had scrolled off the screen as "Read". that would be the ultimate. It would be especuially useful with feeds that have a high volume of daily posts (engadget, gizmodo, etc). So if I've scanned half way down the 50 or so posts and get interupted, I can pick it up where I left off.

[Tris Hussey]

Yep, though I use the shortcut key ... fingers on cntrl-d (Next) and Page down ... I also set FD to show 25 items per newspaper page.

Yes, great titles and opening lines are absolutely key. When I'm skimming (which is most of the time) you have about 1-2 seconds to get my attention.

[Peter]

I've been using FD for years and I just discovered the Next button when I had to re-configure the toolbar when I upgraded to 2.6. It's great. I also switched my view to Unread Feed View. Now I can move through all my feeds in a fraction of the time I used to.

[Roman]

I use Next button - it is very useful. But browsing can be improved even more. First I browse all folders (using Next button) and open all articles I want to read by "Open link in new tab". However, new tab becomes active so I have always go back to folder newspaper view. I'd welcome opening link in new tab and stay in newspaper view.

[Roman]

I have to correct myself. I found such setting - "Load new tabs in the background". Thanks!

[Dossy Shiobara]

People still use their mouse? :-P

My FeedDemon reading consists of the spacebar to scroll through an entry, "n" to go to the next entry, Ctrl-M to mark the current page as read, and Ctrl-D to mark the entire feed as read.

[David Cole]

Another here for the keyboard, ctrl-d to skip the page - with a page showing 5 items with 3 line summary. Being able to map that to the space bar would be nice.....

[David Swinney]

Nick, thanks for pointing out this feature; it has really sped up my utilization of FeedDemon.

I was also wondering about your thoughts on the Slate article (and the product discussed) posted on February 20: http://www.slate.com/id/2184810/

Is there anything of value here that might be built into FeedDemon going forward?

[Nick Bradbury]

@David: I haven't used Persai, but it certainly sounds interesting, and it looks like it does some of what I'd like FeedDemon to do regarding finding relevant articles for you.

[Tim Marman]

I used to use Newsgator Inbox primarily and sync with FeedDemon, but I've found myself using FeedDemon more. Mostly, I like having my clippings saved/flagged in Outlook on things that I need to follow up with (like blog, etc).

My issue is that I don't want my exchange account to contain all of those items if they're unread. I've been actually *delete* the stuff from FeedDemon instead of marking them unread. Is there a better way to sync just the clippings into Outlook and still be able to use the keyboard? Is there a way to "select/delete" in newspaper mode?

[Tim Marman]

And also, from a usability perspective, wouldn't it make sense to have this icon in the lower-right as well (next to the next page + mark all as read)?

I've tried using it a little today, and most of the time I'm reading the page through and when I get to the bottom I want "next"... but now I have to go back up to the top of the page to do this.

[Tahsin]

i'd like to see "delete all" button similar to "mark all".