As discussed in an earlier chapter of this documentation, RSS is a web feed which allows you to gain updates to online content. Websites usually use RSS feeds to publish frequently updated information, such as blog entries, news headlines, or episodes of audio and video series. Subscribing to a website RSS removes the need for you to manually check the website for new content. Instead, a program to read the RSS feed monitors the site and informs you of any updates.
Leasey has its own method of retrieving the posts from RSS feeds. From the outset, it has been designed for people who want or need an easy way to retrieve the content of RSS feeds easily. However, it has limitations. The primary limitation is that you cannot synchronise the content between your computer and an alternative device such as a phone. It is also more difficult to import feeds from an external file derived from an alternative RSS application into Leasey's RSS interface.
Leasey now provides special scripting for a service known as The Old Reader which can be found at https://www.theoldreader.com.
The Old Reader will not only allow you to monitor RSS feeds in the traditional way, but it could also be used as a podcast client and even to monitor your favourite YouTube channels so as to always have access to the latest videos. You will find the Old Reader to be a very robust and user friendly RSS platform.
Navigating The Old Reader is achieved through any one of Leasey's supported web browsers. There is also an app for mobile devices which achieves our primary objective of synchronisation. When everything is set up correctly, navigating it is very similar to the way in which you would have navigated Leasey's own RSS tool.
Prior to using The Old Reader, you will want to sign up for an account. This is the means by which The service displays the content of the feeds you have subscribed to. Signing up for an account can easily be achieved from the home page. There are two types of account: free or paid. The free account gives you access to up to 100 feeds with displayed adverts. The paid version offers up to 500 feeds to monitor and no adverts. Given the cost of the paid version is minimal, we recommend a paid plan since Leasey's functionality will work more smoothly with this.
Navigation of the web site is straightforward. Leasey has been modified so as to provide the majority of text labels for various controls where the meaning was unclear. Many keyboard shortcuts have also been added together with a special Old Reader menu. This menu allows you to manipulate some features of the Old reader without the need to launch the web site.
The following paragraphs set out some common tasks you may wish to work through with the Old Reader.
From within any application, you can press the Leasey key followed by Shift+O for Old Reader. This brings into view a list box of options.
The easiest way to get started with the Old Reader is to enter an RSS feed manually. Ask someone to give you an RSS feed which may interest you. Here is an example:
http://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/rss.xml
This is the RSS feed for the BBC's news service. To subscribe to a feed:
You are now subscribed to the feed in the Old Reader.
It may be that you do not have an RSS feed containing content which interests you. To that end, go back to the Old Reader menu with the Leasey key then Shift+O. This time, select the option "Search For RSS Feeds". Type a search term into the edit field and press Enter. A search term may be "Technology" or "Disney Parks". JAWS will confirm that a search is being carried out with your search term.
A list of results appears matching your search term. Move to the top of the page and press letter H to go to the first heading. As you move down the page, you will find a Subscribe link, the feed title and The URL for the feed. This order is important. The link to subscribe to the feed is first in the order of items.
Activate the appropriate Subscribe link for the feed of interest, the one immediately before the feed title.
To view all posts which have been updated regardless of the source, from the Old Reader menu select "All Posts" and press Enter. This takes you to a page containing all updated content.
The start of each post is denoted by a level 2 heading. You will read the title of the post which is hyperlinked, and underneath, the originating feed title of the source from which it came, followed by a brief description of the post. There are other links below this which we will ignore.
Theoretically, you can keep pressing letter H to move through the posts by heading until such time as you find an item of interest. When you do find such an item, press Enter to move to the page containing the full text. This opens up the item in a new tab in the web browser. When you have finished reading the item, press Control+F4 to close it and return to the Old Reader.
An alternative approach may be to press Shift+Enter on the link which will open up the item in a new window, whereupon pressing ALT+F4 will close it and return to the Old Reader.
This is an important question. The Old Reader needs to know which posts you have read in order that it can show only updated content. Below each post, you will find a link entitled "Mark As Unread". However, activating this link on each item is frustrating. Fortunately, unless you change the behaviour in Account Settings, there is a useful feature of the site. JAWS has been instructed to scroll the screen as you move through the headings. Therefore, as you move through them, the Old Reader knows that you have read those items and you no longer wish to see them in updated content.
Chances are that you may not want to view all updated posts regardless of the source from which they came. It may be that you would prefer to view posts from an individual feed you have subscribed to. In order to do this:
Rather than working through the above procedure to locate an individual feed for later viewing, which seems very convoluted, Leasey gives you the ability to save this as a favourite. This means you can easily locate it without having to launch the Old Reader web pages.
To locate the previously stored favourite, again move into the Old Reader menu. This time, you will find an additional item on the menu reflecting the name of the favourite you created. Press Enter on this so as to launch the web page displaying posts relative to the feed.
Should you wish to remove an item from the favourites list, go back into the Old Reader menu, locate the name of the favourite and press the Leasey key followed by Delete.
If you wish to unsubscribe from a feed:
Please note: If you have stored the feed you have just removed as a Leasey Old Reader favourite, you will need to remove it from this list as well by finding it in the Old Reader menu, then pressing the Leasey key followed by Delete.
There is a possibility that you would like to group various feeds into folders. This has the advantage that you can view updated feeds from the folder as a whole rather than all posts or on a feed by feed basis. For example, you may wish to have a folder containing RSS feeds pertaining to news organisations, or perhaps a folder containing podcast feeds. We will discuss working with podcasts later.
In order to set up a folder, please work through the following steps:
Rather than working through the above procedure to locate an individual folder for later viewing, Leasey gives you the ability to save this as a favourite. This means you can easily locate it without having to launch the Old Reader web pages. This is especially helpful for example if you have a folder containing all podcasts to which you are subscribed.
To locate the previously stored favourite, again move into the Old Reader menu. This time, you will find an additional item on the menu reflecting the name of the favourite you created. The name of the favourite will relate to the folder. Press Enter on this so as to launch the web page displaying posts relative to the folder.
Should you wish to remove an item from the favourites list, go back into the Old Reader menu, locate the name of the favourite and press the Leasey key followed by Delete.
If you wish to remove a folder:
Please note: If you have stored the folder you have just removed as a Leasey Old Reader favourite, you will need to remove it from this list as well by finding it in the Old Reader menu, then pressing the Leasey key followed by Delete.
As you read the posts related to the subscribed feeds, you will note below each item is a link to share it using social media. If you wish you can use this. However, Leasey provides a more convenient way to achieve this.
The Old Reader can be used as an extremely effective client for managing all aspects of podcasts. You already have most of the skills to manage this effectively. However, the following steps will assist you in setting up a podcast management tool. It will also describe how to play and download podcast episodes.
Locate an RSS feed. We will use the Living Blindfully podcast feed as an example which is:
https://pinecast.com/feed/livingblindfully
Be sure this feed is copied to the Windows clipboard.
You will almost certainly wish to move all podcast feeds to their own dedicated folder. This is so that whenever you wish to see if there are new podcasts available from your favourite providers, you can move into this folder and check them.
Repeat the above steps to subscribe to as many podcasts as you like. Remember, after you have added each feed, you will want to move it to your podcasts folder by:
We have now subscribed to some podcasts, we moved them into a folder entitled "Podcasts", and we've also created a Leasey favourite pointing to the folder in which they are contained.
The Old Reader can even keep track of the latest videos from your favourite YouTube channels.
If you have previously used an alternative RSS client, there is a good possibility you can export the feeds saved within it to an OPML file. This file can then be imported into the Old Reader.
From the Home Page of the site, find the word "Import" which is hyperlinked. Press Enter to open up the importing page.
On the newly selected page, find the "Import" button and, when prompted, browse to the file name containing feeds you wish to import and press Enter.
The importing process may take a few minutes depending upon the number of feeds and folders therein. You will receive an Email notification when the process is complete.
Leasey provides many more keystrokes to move to (and activate) other functions on the Old Reader web site. However, you should not need to use most of these provided you have followed the above instructions. You can retrieve a list of the keystrokes by focusing upon the Old Reader and pressing the Leasey key then H. Back to Help Index.