Product Information and Features...

K.R.S.S. supports all known versions of Rich Site Summary (RSS) documents.

RSS documents provide a brief listing of news items as well as information about a site, or channel. RSS was first developed in 1999 by Netscape for use in My Netscape Network (MNN). Since then, thousands of web sites, from CNN.com to linux.com, have been supplying RSS feeds - to see a large online resource for feeds, just check out moreover.com.

For example, the well-known Slashdot.org is an online news site boasting that they provide news that matters to geeks. Roughly they have about 5 to 10 different news items a day - each with a Headline, or Title, a brief description, and a link to where you may read more.

RSS documents capture this simplicity while making it even simpler. Generally, the news descriptions are shorter. Also, RSS documents remove the other noise surrounding sites - banners, menus, multiple images, etc.

RSS documents are not widely supported on the desktop - this is where K.R.S.S. comes in.

K.R.S.S. is an application that permits you to define the feeds from which sites you want to review on your desktop. This is similar to visiting a news-source site, skimming the headlines, visiting another news-source site, skimming the headlines, and so on, perhaps stopping along the way to read which articles interest you the most.

K.R.S.S. is easy. Getting the news items is just a click away. You don't have to remember any URLs. K.R.S.S. will do this for you. To read more about a news item, it is just a click away.

K.R.S.S. is quick. Compare the time it would take to visit freshmeat.net, scan their news page, then visit slashdot.org, then icewalkers.com, then sourceforge.net, then linux.com, then linuxtoday.com, then CNN.com, then ... well, you get the picture. Think of simply clicking a button and have all of these sites come to you. Since RSS feeds tend to present smaller descriptions than what is on the actual site, scanning or filtering news items is faster.

K.R.S.S. is configurable. Set up the program to reflect what you want to see, how you want to see it.

Features of K.R.S.S. include:

• This application is perhaps the only rich site summary display to work on KDE.
• You can downloaded feeds and images locally, and display them as and when you wish.
• You can filter out unwanted news through the use MyFilters, so that you only see the news you want. A feature not found in any other news aggregator.
• You can view feeds either on-line or off-line.
• You can configure a personalized listing of the RSS Feeds, using MyFeeds. You can create and maintain both feeds which you would actively see and feeds which you could just save for future use.
• You can alter the text properties to display the news how you want by using configurable Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). You can start with the template which is provided.
• You can alter the text properties to display the news how you want, using configurable HTML tags ("schemes"). You can also preview instantly what your configuration will look like.
• You can "jump" between feeds, that is, scroll to the top of the feed that you click on, by using MyChannelBar.
• You can control whether or not the feed scrolls when displaying on your desktop, as well as the speed.
• You can define and save an unlimited number of feeds, as well as define which feeds are "active", permitting you to retrieve only the ones you want.
• You can share feeds with other individuals. Tell others of feeds you have discovered, as well as learn which feeds others are using.
• You can take advantage of the pre-loaded set of AmphetaDesk's Site Listings - thousands of RSS feed locations, included with K.R.S.S. Or you can import or download the lastest site listings from their website at any time from within K.R.S.S.
• You can configure K.R.S.S. to use the System Tray when you minimize the main window.
• You can get Tips, upon starting up, which help you use K.R.S.S. to the fullest.
• You can set the frequency at which K.R.S.S. will automatically retrieve feeds - in days, hours, or minutes.
• You can temporarily pause or resume scrolling of the feeds.
• You can configure your own shortcut keys, or toolbar menu, or Search button.
• You can change the background and channel title colour, as well as change the spacing between Channels, using the scheming capabilities of MyChannelBar.
• You can Drag'n'Drop RSS feed information using the MyChannelBar feature. Channel Titles and Descriptions are automatically filled in, so you don't have to spend any time typing.
• You can update one feed at a time by using the MyChannlBar's popup menu.
• You can set K.R.S.S. to always stay on top of all other windows.
• You can toggle between having 'active' feeds or no 'active' feeds without having to actually specify that the feeds are active or not.
• You can still use K.R.S.S. while you update your feeds.
• You can display date and time information about when a feed was last downloaded and last displayed in the form of a tooltip, by using the Date and Time Tag in MyChannelBar.
• You can set an expiration date on the feeds so that they will expire (that is, become old) after a certain amount of time - in days, hours and minutes.
• You can configure new feeds to display in a different colour by using the Colour Code in MyChannelBar.

In summary, you can configure K.R.S.S. to get the only the news you want, when you want, and how you want.