Stickler!™ Scrolling Ticker for RSS Feeds

Users Guide

Installation/Registration

First Run

Adding RSS Feeds

Functions

Preferences

Performance & Troubleshooting

Note for Jaguar and G3 Users

Credits

 

Installation/Registration

Installation is easy. After you have downloaded the "Stickler Disk Image" from one of the online sources, simply drag the "Stickler!" icon into your applications folder.

Then, double-click on the icon in your Applications folder that you just installed.

Stickler! is a commercial software product from Metafy. You can try it for one week, then you must buy a license to continue using it. You will receive your license key by e-mail and should enter it in the "Your Key" field of the Preferences Window (more about preferences below).

Please support innovative software development on MacOS X by purchasing Stickler today!

 

First Run

The first time you run Stickler! (after you accept the license), it should start up with a small grey window scrolling a message asking you to drop an RSS feed to get started, like so:



At the top left of the Stickler window you'll see a Title line showing you the source of the current headline and the text at the bottom left, the current story being displayed.

This is the version of the window seen by Panther users, Jaguar and G3 users will have slight variations, such as different controls or no controls. See the Jaguar/G3 note at the end for more info.

 

Drag/Drop RSS

Adding feeds is is easy! When you find an RSS Badge of a feed to which you want to subscribe, simply click and drag the badge from your browser onto the Stickler window, in four steps:

1. You've found a feed you want to track.




2. Click and drag that feed From your web browser...




3. to the Stickler Window which should highlight...




4. and then Drop it onto the highlighted Stickler Window.

 

 

Stickler Functions

To keep it simple, there are only a few functions in Stickler for you to work with:

Close Window - closes the current document.

Grow/Shrink - makes the document wider or narrower. Version 1.0rc Note: The miniature arrow button may not appear, but clicking & dragging in the right-most area of the window allows you to resize the width.

Users running Panther or newer on a G4 or faster computer should see a window similar to that shown, which also provides spinning dial controls for four functions:

Control Knobs:

Background Color
Use this control to change the background color of the Stickler Document. This control is hidden if the current Skin does not support color.

Baseline Shift
When using other fonts at different sizes, this control will adjust the vertical position of the type for optimum display.

Frame Rate
Control the speed with which the stories scroll by adjusting the Frame Rate. Faster Frame Rates take up more processor time (see Performance notes below).

Transparency
Adjust the transparency of your Stickler Documents from almost completely invisible to opaque.

Context Menu

Stickler Documents use the MacOS X "Context Menu" facility to provide additional functions.

To access the Context Menu for a Stickler document, hold down Control ("ctrl") on your keyboard while clicking in the window.

Version 1.0rc: Adds "Skins" sub menu and changes order of items from image.

The Context Menu Items are:

Last 10 Stories
If you missed a story as it scrolled by, don't worry! You can get a list of the last 10 stories by choosing this option, which will display the stories with their source and any summary information in your web browser.

   (click for larger)


Find Feeds
Need more Feed? Choose "Find Feeds" to be taken to Metafy's ever-growing list of sources for cool feeds.


Skins
To access the different skins that you have installed, simply choose the name of the skin you want to use from this menu. Different feeds can have different skins, no problem! See Skins for more info and additional skins. [Panther/G4+ Only]


Choose Font
Choose Font uses the standard Macintosh font panel to allow you to select a font for your scrolling display. You can also choose the font's color.


Edit Document's Sources
This option allows you to manage the RSS feeds in a given Stickler Document. The list shows you if the feed is active, it's source URL, how many stories it currently has, and it's last update.

   (click for larger)

The buttons at the bottom allow you to Delete a feed, Visit a Feed's site, or force the Feed to Update.


(Note: G3 Users will also find a Context Menu option for controlling their Background Color, Baseline Shift, Frame Rate and Transparency.)

 

Preferences

Use the Stickler Preferences panel (from "Preferences..." in the Apple Menu at the top left of the screen) to configure application-wide settings.

New Windows Float - makes all newly created Stickler Windows float above all other windows on the screen. Preferred Update Frequency - How frequently would you like to check for updates to your feeds? Use "Automatic" and Stickler will try to figure it out based on information provided by the feed. Display Items - Do you want to see the feed's stories in sequential (1, 2, 3...) or Random order? Your Key - Enter your license key here. Feedback - Click on either button to give us feedback on Stickler, including things you like or would like to see changed.

 

Performance & Troubleshooting

Recommended System: a G4 or newer Macintosh running Panther.
Minimum System: a G3 Macintosh running Jaguar.

Stickler is Unicode/UTF-8 Compliant, and has been tested with numerous different language character sets.

Use of many Stickler Windows with fast frame rates will impact your overall system performance.

If you drop an invalid RSS feed link (such as a link to an HTML page instead of the XML data), you should see an error message in your scrolling display. You may need to remove a bad feed using "Edit Document Sources" from the Context Menu.

Throwing away your preferences will reset your 7 day trial, however, you will lose all your saved feeds.

If you have any other problems with Stickler!, please contact us at stickler-bugs@metafy.com

 

Special Note for Jaguar / G3 Users

Some Stickler! functionality is not available on older versions of MacOS X, nor on processors slower than the G4.

However, Stickler! works around these limitations by using different controls and handling the window drawing differently on Jaguar, and simply removing the controls from G3-based systems and instead offering the same controls in a Context Menu option and a separate panel.



Although your Stickler! windows may not look exactly the same as those shown in this document, you should be able to make use of all the same functionality.

 

Credits

Unibody™ Font by Underware. Unibody™ is designed and distributed by Underware, Den Haag, the Netherlands > www.underware.nl, one of many excellent fonts they offer.


Stickler was developed in Cocoa by Joe Pezzillo for Metafy LLC.


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