Opera Mail Tutorial

Use newsfeeds and newsgroups

Newsfeeds are web-feed formats used to publish frequently-updated content, such as news headlines, blog entries, or podcasts. They are a great way to ensure you are kept up-to-date regularly, as they inform you when new content or updates have been posted on subscribed sites. Opera Mail includes support for multiple news servers, offline reading, and provides easy separation between news and email.

In this topic:

• Subscribe to a newsfeed
• Select a newsfeed item
• Subscribe to a newsgroup
• Read or send newsgroup messages

Subscribe to a newsfeed

Opera can act as an aggregator for Atom, RDF Site Summary and Really Simple Syndication (RSS) newsfeeds. In Opera Mail, newsfeeds are stored on your computer so you can read them later, even when you are offline.

Some webpages offer newsfeeds using a link to the feed. Some pages use automatic feed discovery, and tell Opera that a newsfeed is available automatically. When Opera loads one of these pages, an RSS button shows in the right side of the address field. Click this button to subscribe to the newsfeed.

When you click a link or RSS button to a newsfeed in Opera, a preview displays, to give you an idea of the information the newsfeed provides. If you decide to subscribe, simply select Subscribe.

Once you have subscribed to a newsfeed:

• the Feeds header displays in the Mail panel, with each newsfeed listed under it, even if you do not have an Opera Mail account. When newsfeeds are received, the header displays in bold, showing the number of feeds received.
• the Feeds menu option is added to the main menu, which you can use to read and manage newsfeeds. You can also manually add other newsfeeds by selecting Feeds > Manage newsfeeds.

Select a newsfeed item

When you select a newsfeed from either the Feeds header in the Mail panel or the Feeds menu, it opens a message view showing the items in the newsfeed. Each newsfeed item appears as a separate message. New items are downloaded after a set period of time (1 hour, by default. As with any message in Opera Mail, newsfeed messages can be stored indefinitely, searched, labeled, forwarded, or deleted.

Subscribe to a newsgroup

Newsgroups are similar to discussion forums on the Web as they generally focus on a particular topic. By subscribing to a newsgroup, you will receive a message whenever an item for discussion is posted.

To subscribe to a newsgroup, you first need to set up a news account, as follows:

1. Go to Mail and Chat Accounts.
2. Select Add, then Newsgroups.
3. Enter your name and email address. You can also enter your organization if you like.
4. Enter the news server information provided by your service provider or the newsgroup. For Opera newsgroups, enter “news.opera.com” for both servers.
5. Click Finish to create your new account.
6. Select the newsgroups you want to subscribe to by checking next to them in the list. Use the search field at the top of the dialog to narrow your selection.
7. Close the newsgroup dialog.

Once you have an account set up for the news server, you can add more newsgroups by selecting Mail > Newsgroups from the main menu. For a newsgroup on another news server, you need to set up another account as outlined above.

Read or send newsgroup messages

Reading and writing news articles is very similar to working with email messages. Each news account has its own category in the Mail panel, with a view for each newsgroup you subscribe to. Newsgroup messages do not show in the Unread view by default.

To read newsgroup messages, select the relevant group under the category in the Mail panel. Note: The first time you select and view a newsgroup, you are asked how many headers and/or messages to download since the last posting. For news accounts, headers only are downloaded by default. You can change this setting in account settings.

The table below lists options you may need when handling news messages:

If you want to...	Then...
Post a follow-up article (an answer to the article you are currently reading)	Select Reply on the message
Post a follow-up and also reply to the author by email	Select Reply all on the message
Post your article in multiple groups (called "cross-posting")	Enter a comma-separated list of groups in the To field
Send people copies of the article by email	Enter email addresses in the CC field
Delete an article from the server	Select Cancel post Note: This is respected by some, but not all, news servers
Delete your local copy of a news article	Select the message and press Delete
Download new newsgroup messages from a server	Select the arrow on the Check All button in the Mail panel. Select your news account from the drop-down list, or the newsgroup view. Tip: You can also ensure the view is active and press F5.
Download specific messages	Use the following syntax to download a specific message: nntp://[newsserver]/[newsgroup]/[message range]. For example, to download the first message in the opera.general newsgroup at news.opera.com, use nntp://news.opera.com/opera.general/1. To download the first through one-thousandth messages, use nntp://news.opera.com/opera.general/1-1000. Message numbers are usually located in the Xref message header, as in "Xref: news.opera.com opera.wishlist:16983" which has the form "Xref: [newsserver] [newsgroup]:[message number]. Since these addresses are simple URLs, you can enter them directly into Opera's address field.