The main tree control — the left hand pane — will collapse any previously expanded paths when a new path is opened. Does this make any sense? It will when you see it — it makes the presentation that much cleaner.

Sparks! has two basic configurations — the two pane mode (the "tree" and the browser) and the three pane node (the "tree", the "list" and the browser).

The three pane mode is very useful when recording radio, looking for podcasts, browsing OPML directories and so forth. The list control allows you to quickly locate a particular item that you're looking for. The two pane mode is useful for weblog reading, where items are generally accessed sequentially (as opposed to randomly).

The next version of Sparks! will automatically hop between two pane and three panel mode depending on what you're looking at. If you a different default mode, you can switch between two and three pane mode using the control buttons at the bottom of the application.

A user writes:

Unless I'm just missing it, it seems like Sparks puts all podcasts in the same playlist. It'd be great to have each podcast go to a different playlist for easier managing.

Sparks! does indeed support multiple playlists -- the playlist is simply the category that the podcaster/weblog/radio station is filed under.

• select My Podcasters
• right-click > New Playlist
• click on the New Playlist category that was created and rename to whatever you want it to be
• drag a podcast/weblog into the new playlist
• all (future) podcasts download from that podcaster will go into that Playlist

We'll an easier way of doing this before the 1.8 release.

If you're a current Jäger user and would like to try out Sparks! here's how you move your subscription list over.

Export your subscriptions from Jäger

• Select Actions > Tools > Export Blogroll or OPML
• Select the Publish as OPML link
• Scroll down to the section Blogroll
• Right-click on the link
• From your browser, File > Save

Save this file as C:\blogroll.opml or whatever tickles your fancy.

Import subscriptions into Sparks!

• Select Import > Import OPML Directory...
• Enter C:\blogroll.opml or use the Open OPML File... to select the file you exported from Jäger
• Press OK

And you're off to the races. If you need to "catch up" on what you've already read, select My Weblogs and right click > Move All to Read. As always, remember that the trick to using Sparks! is just pressing the button.

Note that we're not giving up on Jäger development or support! However, we will be focusing on Sparks! for the next little while, then on development a set of online services to complement both products.

"My Directories" ships in every copy of Sparks! with two undeletable directories: "BlogMatrix Radio Stations" and "Podcast Directory". These files are dynamically loaded (using OPML) whenever Sparks! is started.

The total number of radio stations we have access to is pretty big — it's probably two or three megabytes of data. To avoid making you download a lot of data you don't need we've split the directory up by geographical region. Under the "BlogMatrix Radio Stations" directory, you'll see six world icons for Africa, Asia, Europe, Middle East, North America, and Oceania. Double-click on these to get radio stations list for these regions.

Jäger can restore your browser to its original size when Jäger is minimized to the Quick Launch area. You have to go to Jäger Preferences..., select Appearance and change When closing to Restore browser to its original size.

If you're using BlogMatrix Jäger with FireFox, take the trouble to install version 1.0 now. It solves all the problems we've had with versions 0.8 and 0.9 with regards to the wrong window opening, having to install the "single window" extension, and so forth.

After you've installed FireFox:

• select the Tools > Options... menu
• press the Advanced icon
• make sure Tabbed Browsing item is opened
• in the Open links from other applications in: area, select either
  • a new tab in the most recent window, or
  • the most recent tab/window (my favorite)

This is just a reminder that if you want to use Jäger and FireFox together, you'll need to install the Single Window extension and restart FireFox. Yes, it's a nuisance, but there doesn't seem to be anything I can do about it right now.

An upcoming release of Jäger will actually warn you when you change your browser preferences.

If you have a problem with your links opening in two different windows, it's a little be more difficult to fix. Try the following (hat tip: Small Value of Cool). This is still isn't working as great as it should and I'm finding it a little depressing.

1. Open Windows Explorer ("Start > All Programs > Accessories > Windows Explorer")
2. Select "Tools > Folder Options..."
3. Select "File Types" tab
4. Scroll down to extension "(NONE), File Type: HyperText Transfer Protocol"
5. Click "Advanced" at the bottom of the Window
6. Click "Edit"
7. Clear the "DDE Message" field
8. Press "OK"
9. press "OK"

You can access Waypath Post Analysis by selecting a blog or posting and doing Actions > Tools > Waypath Post Analysis. If anyone has ideas for closer integration, let me. There is an API and examples, you know.

Here's a quick guide to using Watch Lists to find BitTorrents you are interested in. Watch Lists are a feature that makes Jäger check newly arrived entries for certain keywords. If the keywords are found, the entries are given a color marker to alert you. For example, let's say you're interested in "Jon Stewart, Wilco shows, Larry David". Just:

• Select the BitTorrent blog in Jäger
• Select "Actions > Watch List > Watch List Wizard"
• Enter "Jon Stewart" Wilco "Larry David" (with the quotes)
• Select "Watch for any words in this phrase". The quotes will do exactly what you think they should, but our language could be a little clearer here
• Press Next and so on

And that's that. When any of these names show up in a new BitTorrent, you'll see the marker. There's one little problem here: the attachment paperclip will be covered by the Watch List asterisk, but you know it's there.

If you're only interest in seeing items from your Watch List, select the blog and then "Actions > Mark as > List Only Watched Entries" and items that didn't match any of your keywords won't be displayed.

BitTorrent is a technology that speeds up file downloading by sharing the network load across all the users. With its RSS 2 enclosure support, Jäger now works quite nicely with this software. Here's how you do it:

• download and install a copy of the BitTorrent client.
• subscribe to an weblog that provides BitTorrent information as RSS enclosures. For example, drag this link over to your copy of Jäger.

When new "torrents" become available, they'll be listed with a little paperclip in the main window.

• To download, do either "Actions > Open Attachments" or right-click in the list and select "Open Attachment".
• Jäger will then ask your browser to open the attachment, which will in turn call the BitTorrent client to do the work (this is less clumsy than it sounds).
• Enjoy your downloaded file

Don't forget to leave a small donation over at the BitTorrent site when you get the chance. Once you've done this you can turn off the annoyware component of BitTorrent by creating a file called "C:\Program Files\BitTorrent\donated".

We don't have an automated downloading function yet, though a fair portion of this code is written. Do you want this? Send us a note or leave a comment.

1. Subscribe to weblogs by dragging links onto Jäger. You do not need to find the RSS feed or (usually) even the home page: almost any associated link will do.
2. After you've read a few blogs, click on the Recently Updated List button again and everything you've seen will disappear. If you're a power reader, turn on View > Recently Updated List > Skip After Reading and they'll disappear as soon as you've moved on to the next blog!
3. You can interactively unsubscribe to an entire Category of posts by selecting Actions > Unsubscribe....
4. Almost everything you can do in the Actions menu is available directly in the Recently Updated and All Weblogs Lists by a right mouse button click.

Here's the default templates for the Public Blogroll Tool Extension, just in case you lose the originals:

HTML Blogroll

<div class="blogroll">
#for $category in $categories
<div class="sidetitle">$category</div>
<div class="side">
#for $blog in $blogs
#if $blog.category == $category
<a href="$escape_html($blog.url)">$escape_html($blog.title)</a>
<br/>
#end if 
#end for
</div>
#end for
</div>

OPML Blogroll

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<opml version="1.0">
<head>
 <title>OPML Blogroll</title>
 <ownerName>Generated from BlogMatrix Jäger</ownerName>
</head>
<body>
 <outline title="Blogroll">
#for $category in $categories
  <outline title=$quote_attribute($category)>
#for $blog in $blogs
#if $blog.category == $category
    <outline 
      title=$quote_attribute($blog.title)
      url=$quote_attribute($blog.url)
#if $blog.syndication_url
      xmlUrl=$quote_attribute($blog.syndication_url)
#end if
    />
#end if
#end for
  </outline>
#end for
 </outline>
</body>
</opml>

• If "Open Links" is "Open in new external browser window":
  • "Open Entry" should show link in new window that is the user's default browser
  • "Open Entry in New Window" should show link in new window that is the user's default browser
• If "Open Links" is "Open in same external browser window":
  • "Open Entry" should show link in a window that is the user's default browser, reusing that window every time. [Something about Internet Explorer and Tools > Internet Options... > Advanced "Reuse windows for launching shortcuts"].
  • "Open Entry in New Window" should show link in a new Internet Explorer window. This window should not be reused for subsequent opens of any type.
• If "Open Links" is "Open in the same Internet Explorer window":
  • "Open Entry" should show link in an Internet Explorer window, reusing that window every time a new link is opened.
  • "Open Entry in New Window" should show link in a new Internet Explorer window. This window should not be reused for subsequent opens of any type.

If you have a serious problem with Jäger — like a crash or hang — you can mail me the data files for debugging:

• Kill Jäger by doing CTRL-ALT-DEL, selected "BlogJaeger.exe" and pushing "End Process".
• Go to the directory "C:\Documents and Settings\<Username>\Application Data\BlogMatrix", zip up everything and mail it to me: support at blogmatrix.com.

Make sure you stop Jäger before installing new versions. The File > Close does not do this. Look in the "Quick Lauch" area of your Windows taskbar. You will see a tiny BlogMatrix icon there: right click on it and select Exit. This will do the trick.

If you are currently using an aggregator, want to try Jäger and you it export an OPML blogroll to a web location (i.e. http://...) then you can easily move your subscription list. Just export the OPML blogroll and drag the URL link into Jäger (or do Actions > Add a weblog... and paste in the URL).

This will take several minutes to complete, as a lot of "discovery" has to take place.

Douglas asks:

Should I check both boxes it gives me, or just the top one that's checked already [on this page]?

The simple answer: go with what it gives you, unless you know a reason otherwise. Jäger goes through a step called discovery which tries to find out what you're really subscribing to.

For example, if you drag in the link "http://blog.davidjanes.com" (or even "http://blog.davidjanes.com/index.xml") it knows you are really subscribing to "http://blog.davidjanes.com/" (note the trailing slash) using the syndication feed of "http://blog.davidjanes.com/index.xml". This one you are "really" subscribing to is the one that will be checked in Jäger, the link that you actually dragged in will be unchecked, just in case you really did mean that page.

Douglas asks:

I tried copying the URL of an RSS feed, thinking I could paste it in the Jaeger main window, but I was not allowed to do so. I understand that it's drag and drop, but from where am I dragging?

For example, you see an RSS link on your page (or just the URL of a blog you're interested in, or whatever):

• left click on the link and hold down the button
• drag (that is, move the mouse while holding down the button) the link to Jäger
  • if Jäger is hidden, drag it to the Jaeger icon in the task bar (on the bottom of your window)
  • after a few seconds, Jäger will appear on your desktop, then
• position the mouse cursor anywhere over Jäger's main window
• drop it — that is, release the button

I will add a Copy and Paste version of this in an upcoming version.

Colin asks:

One thing, your ‘Great Sources’ is this like links or places we can find new blogs or news to subscribe to?

Yes, exactly.

Does the source have to be RSS/XML feeds? It seems so, so far. Or can it be a blog directory or search engine?

The Great Sources will be a mix of all of the above. I haven't quite figured out what I want to put in there yet. There will be pages with a "bulk subscription" button, where you can subscribe to everything at one -- say "the top 10 entertainment blogs", for example.

Note that you don't (usually) have to find the RSS/XML for a blog: just drag a link -- even "entry" links -- onto the window and Jäger will figure out the rest.