One of FeedDemon’s lesser-known features is its support for Media RSS thumbnails, which are used in a number of RSS feeds, including those from Flickr. When FeedDemon displays Media RSS feeds, it extracts the thumbnails and shows them in a banner along the top, like this:
Navigating to the full-size photo on Flickr’s site is as simple as clicking one of these thumbnails.
FeedDemon also makes it very simple to subscribe to a Flickr feed for a specific tag. For example, to subscribe to a feed containing Flickr photos tagged "nature," just follow these steps:
- Click "Subscribe"
- Instead of entering a URL, type
nature(screenshot) - Click Next
- Select "Flickr Photo" from the list (screenshot)
- Click Next
- Choose the folder to add the feed to, then complete the wizard
That’s all there is to it. Here’s a screenshot of FeedDemon which shows the Flickr feed we just added:
Bonus tip: This also works for YouTube feeds – just select "YouTube Video" instead of "Flickr Photo" in step 4.
I must say, that never grew on me. For most Flickr images the thumbnails are just too small, and sometimes the images lose their appeal due to the crop. My solution is to patch the MediaRSS support out of Surfer, and use Outland for my Flickr and Zooomr subscriptions.
PS: I wish I could specify the “Full Posts/Excerpts” option on a feed by feed basis! I reckon excerpts are worthless for Flickr feeds, as some photos have a description, and get collapsed (mini photo), while those without an description are shown expanded.
My 2ct.
So beautiful the style: Surfer, especially with flickr.
This is a great feature that I wish went a step further. It’d be great if you could customize feeds you’ve already added to tell FeedDemon “This feed is stuff from Flickr.” Keep up the great work, Nick.