Using
Using is fairly straightforward and should give you no big problems, assuming that you already configured No matter whether you are running in the main panel or it's own child panel, it appears as an area with a scrolling text and a button with a small arrow next to it.

The Applet
The area (it is white per default, but you can change the background color easily using the preferences dialog) with the scrolling text in it is called the news scroller. It keeps scrolling the downloaded headlines (or just the most recent headlines) continuously and provides easy access to the articles. If you see an interesting article, just click on it to open the web browser, showing the full article which belongs to the headline you clicked on. If you feel that a possibly interesting headline just scrolled out of view, you have also some ways to influence the scrolling:
You can click on the news scroller with the left mouse button and move the mouse around (while holding the left mouse button pressed down). The news scroller will continue scrolling as usual if you release the left mouse button again.
If you own a so-called Wheelmouse, you can use the wheel on your mouse to scroll the headlines back and forth.
There's also a very powerful context menu , which you can access either by clicking on the news scroller with the right mouse button, or by clicking on the arrow button with the left button. This context menu is the most interesting part of the applet, as it contains about all the functionality.

The Context Menu
This is what the context menu of looks like, if using just the default news sites.
This is what the context menu of looks like, if using just the default news sites.
The context menu is basically split into two functional parts:
The upper part shows a list of entries, each entry having a small icon like this next to it. This list represents the list of currently configured news sites. You can click on any of the news sources to open another menu which contains a listing of headlines which are available for that particular news site as well as an entry labelled Check news to refresh the headline list for this news site. Each of the headlines has an icon next to it which indicates whether you have read that article already or the in case it is still unread.
The lower part shows currently four entries (explaining from top to bottom):
Check news 	This entry has a little next to it. If you want to force to check the configured news sites for new articles, you can click here.
This does not reset the internal timer which queries the news sites for new headlines automatically in certain intervals.
Offline mode 	This entry in the context menu has no icon associated to it. Click this button to enable a special offline mode which pauses the internal timer for querying the news sites and prevents any automatical download of new headlines. The offline mode comes in handy if you have to leave your computer for a while during which the system isn't connected to the Internet, as it saves you from all the error messages which pop up if any of the news sites couldn't be connected.
You can still force a reload for single news sites as well as for all the news sites by selecting the respective Check news entry.
Help 	This entry is marked with a small . Clicking on this entry opens the documentation (which you're reading in this moment) which details all the features and abilities of .
About 	This entry is marked with a small , too. Selecting it opens a small dialog which lists the contributors of as well as the copyright and the license.
Preferences 	This entry is easily recognizable due to the icon which is next to it. Select this entry to open the preferences dialog which lets you customize all of the properties for