Sending RSS Feeds From Opera to FeedDemon

August 19, 2008 : Permalink :

Like many, I much prefer the (free) FeedDemon RSS Reader over the one built into Opera.  And, one thing that has long annoyed me in Opera is the inability to send feeds to my default RSS Reader (something FF3 and IE do very well).

Nick Bradbury, the creator of FeedDemon, wrote a blog post in 2004 outlining how to add a “Send to FeedDemon” context menu option in Opera¹.  Still, I didn’t find it to be the complete solution I was looking for

So, here’s how I send RSS feeds from Opera to FeedDemon:

Step 1: Add the Send to FeedDemon Button
Since FeedDemon is intelligent enough to pick up the default feed, this works fine for 98% of my cases.

However, if a site has numerous feeds and you don’t want to pick the default, then the Button isn’t the ideal choice.  So, here’s a few alternative ways to accomplish the task.

Step 2: (optional) Disable Mail (and, thus, Opera Feeds)
This will prevent the annoying ‘Do you want to subscribe to this feed in Opera’ popup.²  However, it will also disable the RSS icon that is displayed in the address bar when a feed is found.

1. Uncheck opera:config#UserPrefs|ShowE-mailClient.
2. Save Settings & Restart Opera.

Step 3: Add the feed:http protocol.

1. Go to Preferences (Alt+P) -> Advanced Tab –> Programs.
2. Select “Add…”.
3. Under Protocol, type feed:http .
4. Select “Open with other application” then Choose the FeedDemon.exe path (note: if FeedDemon is your default feed reader, this step isn’t absolutely necessary.  Still, I like setting this so that even if another broswer/app steals the feed protocol, FeedDemon will always be used.)

Step 4: Add the ‘Send to FeedDemon’ context menu.

1. Open Windows Explorer and browse to ‘C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\Opera\Opera\profile\menu’.
2. Save Opera-FeedDemon-Menu.ini in the menu folder.
3. Go to Opera Preferences (Alt+P) –> Advanced Tab –> Toolbars and select ‘Opera 9.5 + FeedDemon’ from the Menu Setup.

Step 5: How to Use.

1. Click the ‘Send to FeedDemon’ button while on the website. Or…
   
2. Right-click in the whitespace of this webpage and select “Send to FeedDemon” from the menu.  Or…
3. If the link uses the feed protocol, clicking on the link directly will open the feed in FeedDemon.  Or…
   
4. In some cases (like with FeedBurner, for example), you will be redirected from the main website to a page where you can select the RSS reader of your choice.

Example/Test Feeds³:

• http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=245333
• feed:http://www.opindian.com/feed/
• http://feeds.feedburner.com/NickBradbury

1. Nick Bradbury’s ‘Adding FeedDemon to Opera’ blog post [↩]
2. Opera Forums – disabling and/or managing feeds… [↩]
3. Tested with Opera 9.5 Weekly & FeedDemon 2.7 [↩]

View Comments Tags: Opera, optimization, software, tweaks