CoffeeShop Help
Table Of Contents
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is enabled.
The CoffeeShop homepage provides users with "live" information about the most recently
read articles by the CoffeShop community and a list of the most popular CoffeeShop
users.
In order to really take advantage of CoffeeShop though, one must log in. This can be done by either creating an account, or logging in.
Creating an account can be accomplished by clicking the "Register" link in the Log
In Panel. Fill in the necessary fields.
Afterwords, click the "Create User" button. The user will now be brought to the
Reader.
For a user to log in, he or she must type their username and password into the Log
In Panel. The user can
also click the "Log In" link in the navigation links in the top right hand corner
of the screen.
Upon clicking this link, the user will be asked to type his or her username and password.
Upon logging in, the user will be brought to the Reader.
The Reader is the main page of CoffeeShop. The Reader page is composed of the
following components:
- Feed Browser - select articles to load for article selection in the Article Selector
- Article Selector - select article to display in the Article Viewer
- Article Viewer - displays the article selected in the Article Selector. This
includes displaying the content of the article, a link to read more, any comments
made by CoffeeShop users on the articles, and an article functions panel to rate
articles and recommend the articles for specific fans.
- Options Menu - links to add feeds, add idols, add tags, edit user profile, change
passwords, and view fans.
The Feed Browser allows users to select articles to load for article selection in
the Article Selector. The article selection options are:
- View All - every article of every feed the user is subscribed to.
- Popular - the most popular articles read by the CoffeeShop community.
- Your Feeds - articles for a specific feed subscribed to by the user.
- Idols - recommended/highly rated articles by idols of the user.
- Tags - articles for feeds with the listed tags applied by the user.
Additional notes:
- By default, only unread articles are loaded into the Article Selector. The
"Show read articles" checkbox toggles this feature.
- The numbers to the right of "Your Feeds", "Idols", and "Tags" represents how many
feeds, idols, and tags there are respectively.
- The numbers to the left of feeds, idols, and tags represents how many articles will
be loaded into the Article Selector when clicked.
The Article Selector displays article summaries for all of the articles selected
in the Feed Browser. Any article that is selected by clicking its respective
article summary in the Article Selector is displayed in the Article Viewer.
An article summary is composed of:
- Feed - the feed from where the article comes from.
- Headline - the headline for the article.
- Date - the date the article was published.
- Idol - the idol that the user received the article from. Articles from the user's feeds will have this field blank.
A few cosmetic notes:
- Article summaries that are bolded correspond with unread articles. Similiarly,
articles that are unbolded have been read.
- The orange-highlighted article summary corresponds with the summary that the user's
cursor is hovering over. Said another way, whichever article summary is highlighted
orange corresponds with the article that will be displayed in the Article Viewer
if the user were to click his or her mouse.
Articles can be "sent" to a user by an idol in two ways:
- Idols can recommend specific articles to specific users independent of the
rating given to the article. This is accomplished by the idol in the Article
Viewer. These specifically recommended articles are distinguished in the Article by being
at the top of the Article Selector and not having a number to the right of them.
- When an idol rates an article highly (4 or 5 stars), the articles is "sent" to
the idol's fans automatically. These automatically "sent" articles are distinguished
in the Article Selector by having a number to the right of the idol name.
This number corresponds to the rating given by the idol. They are also displayed
below the specifically recommended articles in the Article Selector.
In the example above, the user has specifically recommended articles and articles by "stevenloeppky" with ratings of 4 and 5 stars.
The Article Viewer displays the article selected in the Article Selector.
Specifically, the following is displayed:
- Headline
- Creation Date
- Article Content
- "Read More" link
If the article has an image associated with it, it will also be displayed.
Not all feeds include images with articles. For example, articles in a Google
News feeds contain images, but no articles in Slashdot's feed have associated images.
In addition to displaying the article, CoffeeShop also provides users with the ability
to comment on articles, apply ratings to articles, and recommend articles to fans.
Article comments can be viewed by clicking "Show comments" at the bottom of Article
Viewer. If any other users have commented on the article, their comments will
be displayed. The user also has the option of adding their own comment in
the text box and then clicking "Add comment". After clicking "Add comment",
the user's comment will added to the article.
If the user would like to add an additional comment, he or she must click "Hide
comments" and then "Show comments" to get the "Add comments" text box to reappear.
Note: editing comments and comment threading currently isn't supported.
Article rating is completed by clicking the star that corresponds with the rating
one would like to give the article in the Article Functions panel in the top right
of the Article Viewer. Article rating is based out of 5 stars. For example,
to rate an article with 3 stars, one would click the third star (reading left to
right). The user can change the article at any point. Any articles that
a user rates with 4 stars or higher will automatically be sent to that user's fans.
Notes:
- Once an article is rated, it is currently not possible to set it back to unrated.
- Article ratings can currently only be viewed in the Article Viewer. They do
not appear in the article summaries that appear in the Article Selector.
- Article rating is used by the CoffeeShop heuristic for determining popular articles.
Idols can recommend specific articles to a specific fan irrespective of their rating
in the Article Functions panel in the top right of the Article Viewer. Simply
select the fan in the "Recommend to..." drop down box, and the article will be "sent"
to that fan.
In the example above, user "steveloeppky" would be "sent" the article that the current
user is reading.
Notes:
- If you would like to recommend an article to a group of fans, you must recommend
the article fan by fan.
The Options Menu provides the following handy links for common tasks related
with reading RSS articles:
- Add feeds
- Add idols
- Add tags
- Edit user profile
- Cange password
- Vew fans
Note: all of these tasks are completed or linked in the the Options
page.
The Options page allows the user to:
Similiar to the Options Menu of the Reader, it also has links to:
It can be accessed by the "Options" link in the navigation links in the top right
hand corner of the screen.
Changing a user's profile requires updating any of the profile fields, and then
clicking the "Save changes" button.
Changing a user's password requires typing in the old password, the new password, and the new password again for verification purposes.
After, click the "Change password" button.
All of a user's fans are listed. To view more information about the fan, click the fan's name.
All of a user's idols are listed. To view more information about an idol, click
the idol's name. Similiarly, to remove an idol, click the "remove" link to
the right of the idol's names.
There is also a "Search for more idols" link, which links to the Search For Idols page.
All of a user's feeds are listed. In the lavendar box enclosing the feed name
is a "remove" link. When a user clicks the "remove" link, the respective feed
will be removed. Beneath the feed name are the tags applied to the feed
(if any). For every applied tag, there is a "remove tag" link to move the respective
tag. There is also a text box where the user can add a new tag. After
typing in the new tag and clicking the "Add tag" button, the new tag will be applied
to the feed.
There is also a "Add more feeds" link, which links to the Search For Feeds page.
The "Add Feeds" page can be reached through the Options Menu or the Options Page.
A user can either enter a url to an RSS feed or a keyword. When a keyword
is entered, CoffeeShop searches accross the list of feeds subscribed to by all CoffeeShop
users to find any matches. In the example below, the keyword "Apple" was used.
In the above example, one result was returned. Any feed results that are returned
can be added to the user's feed list by clicking the "Subscribe" link.
The "Search for Idols" page can be reached through the Options Menu or the Options Page.
When searching for idols, a user can search based on:
- Username
- Email
- First name
- Last name
- City
- State
- Country
- Tags
After selecting a field to search on and entering a search term, press the "Search"
button. In the example below, members with firstname "Steve" are being searched
for.
The results for the search are below. If any users are returned, their information
can be viewed by clicking on their username, and they can be added as an idol by clicking the
"Add Idol" button.
Besides the essential topics above, a user should be aware of a few other features.
Logging out can be accomplished out by clicking the "Log out" link
in the navigation links in the top right hand corner of the screen.
Once logged in, anytime a user sees a username, a user can click on that username
and be brought to the respective user's profile page. A fellow CoffeeShop user's profile page
contains their:
- Name
- Location
- Email address
- Feeds
- Fans
- Idols
A user can click on any of the feed names to subscribe to that feed. A user
can click on any of the fan or idol names to view their profile.
Above the profile of the requested user will be the relationship between
the requested user and the requesting user. In the example above, "test" is
a fan of of the user. In addition, "test" is an idol of the user. The
user could remove "test" as an idol by clicking the "Remove Idol" button.
Similiarly, if "test" were not an idol of the user, he or she would have the option
of adding "test" as an idol.
The following techniques can be beneficial:
- Becoming an idol of oneself - this allows one to quickly view the articles that
he or she has rated highly since this option isn't currently implemented.