Sage is a lightweight news aggregator for Mozilla Firefox. This means that Sage can improve your time management by automatically downloading updated feeds from websites. Forget checking websites manually to see if they are updated. Sage can do that for you!

Atom/RSS

Both Atom and RSS are webstandards. These two protocols are based on XML and allow a web developer to publish content on their website in a format that a computer program can easily understand and digest. A file that is based on Atom or RSS is also called a (news)feed. And it are these feeds that will make your life easier! Feeds are used on newssites, weblogs, etc.

Most of the time feeds are shown as an orange XML button (sometimes an RSS or an Atom button). Firefox has also an auto-detect feature. It shows a button in de URL bar if there are feeds available.

The news- or blogitems in a feed are called a feeditem.

Sage to the rescue

Sage is an extension for Firefox, so the installation is easy. Go to Sage’s website. Click on installation (at the top) and choose click here to install. Firefox’s extension manager will take care of the installation. After the installation is finished, you have to restart Firefox to activate Sage.

After the installation, you can add the Sage button to your toolbar. To do this, right-click on the toolbar. Then choose Customize…. In the box that is now chown, you’ll find an icon with the text Sage (with a green leaf). Drag that icon out the box and drop it anywhere on your toolbar. Click the button to activate the Sage Sidebar.

You can also use View > Sidebar > Sage to make the Sage sidebar visible. Alternatively, you can use Alt+S.

Configuration

The first thing you have to do after the installation, is the configuration of Sage. Open Sage and click on Options > Settings.

• Select Feed Folder: All your feeds are grouped in one folder in your bookmarks file. Chose an appropriate folder to store all your feeds in (ex. Feeds).
• Automatically update feed titles: If this option is active, Sage will read the feed title and make that title show up in the sidebar. Uncheck this option if you want to be able to choose your own names for feed titles. Most users should leave this option checked.
• Use 12 hour clock: Americans make use of AM and PM to make a difference between morning and afternoon (ex. 2pm). Other people may prefer the standard (European) style (14.00h). Check the box if you want to use Sage with AM/PM notation.
• Feed item order: If you choose chronologically, Sage will read the feeditem’s time and display the newest item at the top. If you choose source, Sage will parse the feed without sorting the items.
• Feed discovery mode: Sage can find feeds on webpages. There are two modes for this. Conservative will do a simple scan of the page. Exhaustive will do an extensive scan, but it will take more time to do this. If you are unsure, choose for exhaustive, it will show more feeds…
• Render feeds in contents area: The contents area is the place where webpages are normally shown. If you check this option, Sage will render your feeds in the contents area. The items displayed in the contents area are marked up with CSS, so you can adapted the font, the font-size, etc. (more about this later). If you are unsure about this, check this option, it is very useful.
• Allow HTML tags: Some feeds contain basic HTML formatting (ex. bold, italics). If you check this option, the HTML markup is shown. Note: if you uncheck this option, images won’t show up in the contents area.
• Use custom CSS: CSS is a way of making up websites. Sage is also able to make use of CSS to make up the contents area. Check this option and choose a CSS file if you want this. You can find some CSS files for Sage on this website.

Adding feeds

Adding feeds to Sage is very easy and straightforward. Let’s take “Inside Firefox”, the weblog of Ben Goodger (one of the Firefox developers) as an example. Point your browser to http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/ben/.

At the bottom of the right column, you find the text Syndicate this site (XML). Click on the text and drag it into Sage. The feed will show up immediately.

Alternatively, use Feed Discovery. This is much easier (because you don’t have to search for the feed yourself). Click on the looking glass icon in the search bar. A window will pop up and it’ll display one or more feeds. In the case of “Inside Firefox”, you will see 3 feeds (RSS 1.0, RSS 2.0 and Atom 0.3). Select one of them (they contain the same information) and add it using the Add feed-button.

Viewing feeds

If you’ve added some feeds, you can take a look at them. Note that how the feeds look depends on your configuration. Just click on a feed to display its contents. Always remember that the feed will be loaded in the active tab!

If you have more than 10 feeds, this technique takes too much time (you always have to click the feed). To simplify things, Sage has a special button for this: Check feeds (the button with the two arrows). Click on that button and Sage starts checking all the feeds for updates. If the feed is updated, Sage will display a different icon (a red star, depending on your current Firefox theme) and the feed title will be in bold. If there is a problem with the feed (wrong URL, server timeout, etc), Sage will display a yellow exlamation mark next to the feed.

You can view your feeds while Sage is updating them, so you don’t lose time.

If you click on an item title (in the Feed List or in the content area), Sage go to the webpage.

Getting the most out Sage

• If you have a lot of feeds, it’ll be easier if you group them. To do this, click on Options > Manage feeds…. This will open Firefox’ Bookmark Manager (because your feeds are bookmarks, remember?). To make a new group, click the button New folder and type an appropriate name for the folder (ex. News). You can make subgroups and subsubgroups if that’s necessary.
• You can also add separators to divide groups. To add one, click Add separator in the Bookmark Manager. Type a name and use drag and drop to place the feeds/folders.
• The feed item list (the list at the bottom of Sage) can take up a lot of place. Certainly if you have a lot of feeds, it’ll be just in the way. To deactivate the feed item list, choose Options > Show Feed item list.
• Sage has a feed search bar (Feedster). Enter a search term and press enter. Feedster’s results will be displayed in Sage (in the contents area).
• Sage can display tooltips. Make sure Options > Show Description Tooltips is enabled. Then hover over a feed to view its description.
• If you have categorized your feeds into folders, you can update all the feeds in one folder (instead of all the feeds). Right-click on the folder and choose Check feeds to update all the feeds in that folder.

1. If you want to update the feed title manually, right-click the feed and choose Get feed title.

* Sage has the ability to import and export OPML. OPML is an an XML-based format that allows exchange of outline-structured information between applications running on different operating systems and environments. You can export all your feeds from another news aggregator and import them in Sage. Some websites (like this one) have prepared some OPML files. If you want to rapidly extend you feed collection, import these… * Sage has a very good mailinglist. Use it to ask question, to make feature request and to report bugs. You can find Sage’s mailinglist at http://www.mozdev.org/mailman/listinfo/sage/.

Stylesheet

Sage uses CSS to separate style from content. If you know a little bit of CSS, you can easily adapt the way Sage displays the feed items in the contents area. On the wiki, there is a brief explanation of the Sage’s CSS.

Using the instructions there, it’s very easy to change colors, hide the datestamp, create a nice hover-effect, etc.

If you want to chose another style without too much hassle, use the [Sage Stylesheet Selector][sss]. It’s a convenient way to change the stylesheet of Sage.

[sss]: http://branders.name/projects/sage/ “Sage Stylesheet Selector”.

Links

RSS and Atom

• All About RSS
• What is RSS?
• AtomEnabled
• Lockergnome: RSS & Atom resources

Sage

• Homepage
• Sage Community Wiki
• Planet Geek Review