help

How to start your own collection

• Creating your collection
  You start a collection by clicking on the “make a collection!” button on the right side of the tab bar. After that you’ll get a field where you can add your collection name. This has to be a unique name. When it isn’t a unique name it will show a few examples of possible other names. After you choose your name it will add a new tab on your bar and you can start adding feeds to your collection. If you choose a wrong name of a collection you can delete the collection afterwards or you can rename the tab.

• Collection name not possible:
  Every collection has to have its own unique name. Therefore the website will check if the name has already been in use by someone else, if that is the case you have to rethink the name you tried. Spectives also gives you a option of possible alternatives that might be a valid option for your collection name.

How to add feeds to your collection

• Adding a feed the first time:
  

  

  After you successfully created a collection you can start adding your own feeds to this collection. The first time you will add a feed to your collection you will see a nearly blank screen with the following option "You can start adding feeds now.". When you click the link you go to the page where you can add the address from the feed you would like to add to your collection. After you successfully added a feed to your collection you will be automatically taken to your collection and you will see the first images of your feed in your collection.
  
  
• Adding a new feed to your existing collection of feeds:
  

  

  When you want to add a new feed to your collection that is possible by either hovering your mouse above the downward arrow at the end of the title of your feed and pressing the button "add feed" or by pressing the button "Add a feed to this collection" on the right side of the page. After you clicked either one of these 2 buttons you will be redirected to the page where you added your first feed to your collection. There you can add your new feed.
  
  
• Adding a feed from a collection of someone else to your collection:
  

  

  Below every topic from a feed in a collection there is the name of the feed where the topic comes from. There is also a small downward arrow next to it. When you hover your mouse above the icon it will show you a menu with all your current collections. You can now add that feed to your collection by clicking on the name of the collection you wanted the feed to be added too.
  
  
• How to copy a entire collection of feeds to a new collection:
  

  

  There is a way of copying all the feeds from one collection to another collection. This is possible by copying the path name in the window where you add a new feed to your collection.
  
  
• Multiple feeds found on the website:
  When spectives finds multiple feeds it will give back the list of found feeds. When you have no idea what feed you need, we advise you to use the one at the top of the list. Mostly that is the correct one. Sometimes websites give their feeds split up by topic. When you want to follow only one topic you can add only that feed to your collection. When you want to follow multiple topics you should add the website multiple times to add all the available feeds.

Adding tags

• Adding tags to a collection:
  

  

  You can add on the right side of the page tags to your collection. This can be done by filling in the tag name in the field there and then press the "ok" button afterwards. You will see your added tag been shown above the field where you just entered it.
• Removing tags:
  

  

  You can only remove tags you added yourself, you can't remove tags of someone else. This can be done by clicking on the X icon behind the tag.
  As owner of a collection you can remove all the tags that have been added to your collection. This works the same way as removing your own tags.

Possible errors why you can't add a feed to your collection

• There isn't a news feed available on the given website:
  When you want to add a feed too your collection you might get the announcement that there isn't a feed on that website. This means you can't add that page to Spectives.com. How to see the webpage has a rss feed available you can look at the rss icon in the address bar in your browser. When it shows a rss icon it means the website supports a rss feed.
  
  
• There aren't any images in the requested news feed:
  For Spectives.com to be able to show the images in your collections it requires the feed to have images in it. When there aren't any images in the feed available it means the feed isn't usable for Spectives.com.
  
  
• The images in the news feed are too small:
  When you get this announcement it means that the images in the feed are too small to use. Spectives.com requires the images in the feed to be at least 75x75 pixels. This is done to be sure the images aren't too small to be shown in the format Spectives.com uses. When images are smaller they get below the quality requirements of Spectives.com, therefore the smaller images are disabled.

How the collection tabs work

• Renaming collection tabs:
  

  

  You can rename your collection by clicking on the name on the tab from the collection you are currently watching. When you do this the name of the collection turns in to a field where you can edit the name. After clicking at something else the name of your collection is changed.
  
  
• Explanation of the icons on the collection tabs:
  Magnifier: This is a icon for your saved search results. By clicking on this tab you will see the results from that saved search request.
  Colored corner: This means the tab is a collection of your own. When you created a collection the tab will get that icon.
  Cross: This is the button to remove the tab from your bar. By clicking this button you stop following that collection.

• Search results
  By default search results are sorted by date with the newest posts on top. This gives you an idea what is going now for the query you did. There is also a possibility to sort the results on relevance. Every search result has an RSS feed. Besides looking at posts (the images + headlines) the search engine also looks at matching collections and adds them in a row at the right of the topic results.
  
  
• Adding your search results to a tab:
  You can save your search results to a tab. This can be done by clicking on the link "save this search" on the top of the page. When you've done that it will show a extra tab on your bar with the magnifier icon on it. The search result will be sorted in the way you saved them (so, by default on time, otherwise on relevancy).

You can change your settings (username, password, email address) on the settings page. In the right top corner of your screen (you have to be logged in for this).

You can change your profile picture on Gravatar.com. Gravatar is a great service where you upload your avatar once, and many sites can make use of your avatar if you register there. Make sure you use the same email address at Gravatar and Spectives.