How to set up a "Deals Ticker" for firefox!!

Setting it up

It's actually quite simple.

Firstly, go to Click Here and install the RSS Ticker extension for FireFox.

Once this has been installed go to the menu at the top of FireFox and click on the "Bookmarks" tab. Click on "Organise Bookmarks..." and a new window opens.

In this new window click on the File Menu and then click "New Live Bookmark...".

Name the Bookmark as something like "HotUKDeals" or whatever you want and add a description if you like too. Also make sure that "Display Feed in Ticker" is checked.

Where it says "Feed Location" you can add:
http://www.hotukdeals.com/rss/hot

This will show you the hottest deals.

It's better if you setup custom deal alerts and add categories and forums so that you only see the deals and threads which matter to you. This also works with the "custom" tab so it's worth doing.

If you have custom settings then use this link:
http://www.hotukdeals.com/rss/yourusenamehere

Remember to replace "yourusenamehere" with your username!!

Once you've done this you should start getting Deal titles popping up in the ticker.

Customising the Ticker

If you click on The Tools menu in FireFox, click on Add-Ons, then find the RSS ticker in the list and click on "Options" there are more things we can play with.

I suggest the following setting on this screen:
* Hide the Ticker When Empty (this means it only pops up when there's a new deal).
* Ticker Placement: Below Status Bar.
* Hide items you've already read.
* Selecting "Randomise" will shuffle the ticker items if you have more than one feed added

Also, if you click on the advanced tab you can change two more things:
* Lower the number in the "Update Frequency" box to check for deals more often.
* Lower the number in the "Ticker Speed" box if it's going too fast for you.


How do I use it exactly?

Simple. Click on those RSS items that you want to open by clicking on them. They should open in a new tab.

If you don't want to read an item, hold down the "Ctrl" (control) button on your computer (command key on mac) when clicking on it and it will disappear from the feed.

If you're already on HotUKDeals or for some reason want to clear the entire thing then right click on an item from the HotUKDeals feed and click on "Mark Feed as Read" and it should remove all ticker items for that feed.

You can disable the ticker in the "Add-Ons" window, accessible via FireFox's "Tools" menu.


Is that it?

No!! What's great is that you can add other RSS feeds for items such as BBC News, blogs, etc. These will all appear in the same ticker, and if you have them randomised then you will see a fairly equal mix of these.

You can add feeds wherever you see the RSS logo by clicking on them and then clicking on "Subscribe Now" in the Live Bookmarks box at the top of the page.

RSS logos:

Alternatively, you can copy the RSS link and use the "Organise Bookmarks" method above. You can remove feeds by deleting them from your bookmarks.


Why not add links to your favourite and mose helpful RSS feeds in this thread?

RSS feeds are very powerful. Lots of applications can handle them and they all work in different ways. You can download desktop programs, add them to your email client so they appear like emails or add them in your borwser.

Here are some more helpful links:

What is RSS? (Wiki)
Different ways of reading RSS (Wiki)
Some good RSS readers
RSS readers in FireFox.
IE7's RSS Reader
Google's RSS reader
How to add RSS feeds to Your Customised Google Home Page

Working a treat - thanks

Glad you got it working. Wasn't sure if my guide was 100% right as I was trying to write it without setting mine up all over again to check.

Da da da. Bumpity bump in case anyone else is interested.