On the Mark: 2/21/2003

	Friday, February 21, 2003

NewsGator and Zoe. It seems like Zoe and NewsGator could make a nice combination. I would like to be able to use Zoe to index the postings that come in through NewsGator. I know I could probably use Google to track down those postings, but sometimes I am looking for something that I specifically remember seeing come through one of my newsfeeds, but I cannot tell Google to constrain the search in that way. [Quick aside: that might be a nice Google feature - only present results from newsfeeds I subscribe to).] Thus, I would like to have Zoe index the newsfeed postings for me so I could quickly zero in on the item I am looking for. Anybody know of a way to get Zoe to index more than one Outlook folder?
10:22:34 AM

NewsGator I took the plunge this morning. I am trying out NewsGator. So far I like it. I can easily scan new postings at the same time I grab my email (and do so through the same facility - Outlook). Jon Udell provides some insights on how to improve the view and provide a simple mechanism for scanning only unread items. Since's Jon's comments are a little vague, allow me to provide some detail. First, before you import/add any news subscriptions go NewsGator's Folders tab (from NewsGator/Options... menu). Set the Default Folder to the Base news folder. This will group all newsfeeds into a single folder. Next, select the NewsPage tab and deselect the 'Show NewsPage' option. This prevents a summary page from displaying when you click on the Base Newspage folder (so you can see all of the news items instead). Finally, you will want to customize the Outlook view a bit. Select the Base Newspage folder, then select Outlook's View/Current View/Customize Current View... menu. From 'Fields...' you will probably want to deselect everything but the subject and received fields. Then click on 'Group By...'. Here you will want to select from the 'Select Available Fields From...' drop-down list the User defined fields option. In the first Group items by drop down select Feed Name. Now the news postings in the Base Newspage folder will be grouped by feed. You're done with the grouping. You may want to also go into the 'Sort...' customization dialog and sort postings by receipt date in ascending or descending order (according to your personal preference).

It is fairly important that you do these things before importing any newsfeeds (otherwise newsfeeds will get placed in their own folder making it difficult to view only unread posts.

One final note, if you mess up, I found that I was able to start over by simply deleting the Base Newspage folder and closing Outlook. When I restarted Outlook NewsGator prompted me for a Newspage folder and let me pick things up from there.

10:11:47 AM