Tickr

I am sure you are familiar with this situation: as the anchor reads the latest news, a scrolling window down at the bottom of the TV screen presents other important headline. And I am also sure you are familiar with RSS feeds. If you’re familiar with these two elements, what you need to know is that Tickr (formerly NEWS – RSS Ticker) nicely blends them together. This is an open source application that presents info from your RSS feeds as a scrolling ticker on your desktop.

Tickr is available for multiple platforms, mainly Linux and Windows. A simple setup wizard will help you install Tickr on your Windows PC in the language of your choice. When you’re done, and you will be done in no time at all, you will be presented with a first run Quick Setup wizard that will help you set up the following parameters: ticker location, ticker always on top, display feed title, display item title, display item description, pick a browser for the Open in Browser command, disable popups. Then you will be presented with a prompt that invites you to import a URL list – if you don’t want to import one, you will be invited to load a sample URL list.

The Tickr interface, by default, presents white text on top of a black scrolling band. From the Preferences menu you can change the color scheme for the interface and you can change the text’s formatting. When you place the mouse cursor on the ticker, the scrolling stops – click a title and it will be opened in your browser.

While Tickr is running, it presents info from RSS feeds on your desktop. As mentioned above, the application can load a sample URL list and present info from a bunch of RSS feeds the developer selected. You can view the entries in the list, select the ones you want, remove unwanted items, and new ones, and so on. Take the time to come up with a personalized URL list and Tickr will present info from the feeds that are relevant to you.

Tickr is a free application released under a GNU General Public License.

Conveniently stay on top of your feeds by letting Tickr display them as a scrolling ticker on your screen.