- Basics
The organization of FreeRange uses four hierarchical screens:
- Feeds
- Articles
- Abstract
- Full Story
For example, let's say you are interested in reading articles from CNN.
You first select CNN, then use the
Open menu right-arrow key to access CNN's Articles screen.
Next, you select an article you are interested in reading, then use the
Open menu right-arrow key to select that article's Abstract screen.
Finally, if you are interested enough to get the Full Story straight from CNN's web
site, you use the
Open menu right-arrow key to load that screen.
To return to the previous screen, use the
Escape key.left-arrow key.
Tip: You can use the 4 or Enter (to go down) and 6 or Del (to go up) shortcut keys to move among the screens.
- Next/Previous
Within the Abstract and Full Story screens, use can use Next and Previous
menus to quickly scan through articles without having to travel up and down the
screen hierarchy.
Simply access the "Next" or "Previous" menu item and that article abstract
or full story will be loaded.
Tip: You can also use the 3 (for Previous) and 9 (for Next) shortcut keys.
- First/Last
Within the Feed and Articles screens, use can use 1 shortcut key to go to the
first item in the screen and the 7 shortcut key to go to the last item in the screen.
- Scrolling
Use the trackwheel or trackball to scroll up and down a screen. You can
also use the Space shortcut key to page down.Use the Up and Down arrow
to scroll up and down a screen.
- Links
You can access links, if they're available, in both the Abstract and Full Story screens.
FreeRange allows you to access links but does so without making you scroll through mountains of
links. It does this by having two modes in Abstract and Full Story screens: "Page" and "Links".
In "Page" mode, links are not selected and you can scroll by page to get to the article
text quickly.
In "Links" mode, links are selectable and you can scroll to the one you want to open.
To switch between "Page" and "Links" mode, use the "Access links" menu
or the 5 shortcut key. If you have a trackball and are on the Full
Story screen, you can click on that as well to switch to "Links" mode.
Once you are in "Links" mode, you can use the "Open link" menu, 5 shortcut key, or trackball click to open the links menu.
To switch between the "Page" and "Links" mode, use the 5 shorcut key.
Once you are in "Links" mode, you can use the 5 shortcut key or fire key to open the links menu.
Within the links menu, you can choose to either open an article's link within the
Full Story screen or open the phone's browser instead.
- Folders
In the Feeds screen, you can have one or many folders to organize your feeds.
See Properties
To expand or collapse a folder, select it and choose the Expand/Collapse menu.
To expand or collapse a folder, select it and hit the fire button.
- Full Story
When you navigate links within an existing Full Story, the history of
links you visit is not saved currently. That means if you go
back up the hierarchy, you will return to the Abstract screen.
- Viewing images
You can zoom any image from between 1x to 3x in size. Access these options from the links
menu mentioned above.
- Shortcuts
There is an extensive set of shortcut keys available. Make sure to see this list from
the "Help" menu.