Tekk Spexx # 8 – Initial setup of FreshRSS and how to add RSS feed links

After you followed through with the initial setup of FreshRSS, as explained under point 4. in the first article of this series, you can find a little step by step tutorial, on how to add RSS feed links to FreshRSS, below, similar to the both prior articles for RSS Guard and FeedBro Reader. You can find the manual for FreshRSS here and download FreshRSS here. The latest release can be found here.

A short word in advance: The most important settings you might want to adjust, are the archiving and the filter action settings, so you can tune your personal preferences of your FreshRSS news server/reader. Please be aware, that depending on the number of RSS news feeds, you choose to add to your FreshRSS news server/reader, the news database in the background may grow quite large, over a longer period of time (years, maybe), in terms of webspace required. Please keep that in mind, when looking for the right webspace hosting provider. The benefit you’ll get, on the other hand, is an extended searchable database, with all the news sources of the past years, and the release dates of the articles into the public domain, which may be invaluable when you’re doing academic, scientific or other professional work, in whatever sphere, where links to original documents and article resources might be crucial in terms of notes, references and bibliography, for your professional work.

The first screen after the first login to FreshRSS will show you the FreshRSS releases feed in the main stream, by default.

In order to add a fresh RSS feed you’ll have to click on the blue button “Subscription management” on the top left of the page.

This will open the subscription management main page, where you can add a fresh category on the right hand side of the main page, in order to sort all your newly added feeds into, or you can simply add a new RSS feed.

After you selected one of the choices, FressRSS will open up a page with three seperate options: Add a category, Add a feed, or Add dynamic OPML. In case you have an OPML file, you can add the OPML file with all your RSS feed bookmarks. In case you want to add a RSS feed, you can add a RSS feed with the correct syntax, as described in the second article of this series.

In case you want to add a category, simply enter the name and then click “Add”.

This will take you back to the subscription management overview.

You can then add a fresh RSS feed with the correct syntax and click “Add”, to add it.

This will take you to a page with various feed settings to select from. You can choose the following main options for RSS feeds: “Login, Filter actions, Archiving, Type of feed source, Advanced and Maintenance”. Just scroll down the page and make yourself familiar with all the options, to determine, which options might come handy to you. Like explained in the introduction of this article, the most important settings you might want to adjust, are the archiving and the filter action settings, so you can tune your personal preferences. Click the blue “Submit” button to add the feed, which will take you to the following screen, where you’ll be able to see an overview on the left hand side of the screen. Click “Submit” and you’re good to go.

You can then leave the subscription management via “← Go back to your RSS feeds” on top of the page.

As you can see on the image below, FreshRSS will show you the fresh RSS feed and category on the main page.

You can click on an article headline and FreshRSS will show you part of the article.

You can configure the look and feel of FreshRSS via the admin/configuration circle symbol on top of the right side. You can also add additional extensions to resemble the look of your news reader, to something you might be used to, already, since years. An e-mail client, like Thunderbird, or Outlook, for example.

Like mentioned before, this solution is accessible from every web browser of your choice, and you’ll own your data with a self-hosted instance of FreshRSS. You can check the available extensions for FreshRSS below. Be sure to check for the manual entry on how to add and install extensions to your FreshRSS instance here. Additional extensions can be downloaded here.

* Using some of the links above, might earn the https://open-fab.org open source computer club a commission and helps with your support, to improve and expand this web service, for your convenience!

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