1. To move headlines left and right - click-and-drag with the mouse.
2. To view the full story - double-click.
3. To personalize WorldFlash - right-click and select Customize menu option.
4. To search the Web - type your search terms and hit Enter.

The new RSS Feeds page lets you set up the program to get scrolling headline information from your choice of RSS feeds. Up to 64 different RSS feeds can be entered on this page in the registered version. Please click here for more details on RSS feeds.   to top

On the Email page, you can set up your personal Email account info so that WorldFlash can periodically check for your incoming Email. Please note that if your email address is "foo@bar.com", then your Email name is "foo" and your POP3 mail server might be something like "mail.bar.com" or "postmaster.bar.com". See the information provided by your Internet Service Provider to determine the name of your POP3 mail server. WorldFlash also supports Free Web-based email boxes from Hotmail, Mailexcite, ZDNetMail, Yahoo, Email.com and Google's Gmail. You can configure up to 12 separate email accounts, and for each one you can choose how often this mail server should be checked for new mail. You can also choose to have new email messages treated as "Breaking News Alerts".

To use a service like Hotmail, put "hotmail.com" in the Mail Server box, your hotmail name in the Mail Name box, and your password in the Password box (and leave the Email Program Path box blank). Click here for details.   to top

On the Stocks page, you can change the stock symbols and stock indices tracked in the scrolling quotes window. To delete a stock symbol, select it and hit the Delete Sym button. To add a symbol, enter its lookup symbol and push the Add Sym button. If you mess up, you can hit Cancel to restart the operation with the original list. You can have up to 100 symbols tracked at once, including stock indices. Also, you can set alerts for the stock symbols. Each symbol can have up to 3 separate alerts: Price High, Price Low, and Price Change (plus or minus). To set an alert, simply select the company symbol and type the appropriate values in the boxes. You can also change the text label associated with this company in the stock ticker. Hit OK to confirm your changes. Stock Alerts show up as contrasting displays in the Stocks ticker.

You can also turn off the stock ticker and just display news headlines in their place. There is also an option to request "stock headlines", which are news stories that are specific to this publicly traded company. The Stock Symbol headlines will appear in the regular news ticker, not the dedicated stock ticker. Finally, you can choose to move the stock ticker to the right side of the toolbar (this feature does not affect the TV-Ticker display mode).  to top

The Weather/Sports page lets you define which weather stations to include on the scrolling weather forecast window. To add a weather city, select the city in the main list box and push Add City. To delete a city, select that city from the small box and push Remove City. You can also switch to Centigrade temperatures.

You can also choose which portal page(s) your personal sports ticker gets information from. If you prefer no sports ticker, just leave these checkboxes blank. To manage your teams, go to the portal page referenced in the checkbox and choose your teams of interest from there, WorldFlash will automatically recognize your choices.   to top

The Features page allows you to manage a list of up to 64 keywords, as well as providing management for the "Marked- For-Later" and "Old Headlines" features. Using the Keyword list, WorldFlash will alert you when a key word/phrase appears in a news headline. To add a keyword or keyphrase, type it in the box and select Add Keyword. If the keyword is found, it appears in a contrasting color and a keyword sound effect can be triggered. The checkbox next to the keyword is used to control the sound effect for that word. The Flashing Titlebar effect is also used to draw your attention when a keyword is about to be displayed--use the checkbox to turn off this effect for all keywords.

You can also manage your marked-for-later headlines here. You can choose to have your keywords also be marked, change the maximum number of marks that are stored, and view or clear the current list of marked headlines.

To manage your old headlines, set the "Consider headlines old at" dropdown to a reasonable expiration time such as 2 hours. You may need to adjust this value based on the number of content sources that you have selected in the ticker, and how often they add new headlines. Using the radio buttons on the right, you can control whether old headlines are scroller in grey, or not scrolled at all. The "Make clicked-on headlines old" checkbox determines whether to consider stories that you have clicked on from the scrolling tickers, or Breaking News Alerts box, as old. If you want to "renew" the headlines, say after running the program overnight, simply click the "Renew All Headlines" button.   to top

The Display page lets you change options relating to the visual appearance of the WorldFlash toolbar. Here you can set the various fonts, colors, and motions of the display elements.

Choose Ticker Fonts 1-7: You can change the font displayed by each information database, i.e., the primary and secondary news headlines, weather, email, sports scores, stock symbols and RSS feeds.

Low Profile Mode: In this mode, the taskbar controls are located on the right side in a variable size portion of the docked window. With this option turned off, the top of the window is reserved for the caption bar and the clickable program icons.

Enable Smooth-Scrolling: This mode, which is only useful for users of Windows 95/98/ME, enables "multimedia timer" events which results in a smoother scrolling display. Addition CPU resources are consumed, so we recommend a 300Mhz or faster processor to avoid any slowdown.

Reduce Flashing on LCD displays: Adds a moderate shadow effect to the text output which can noticably reduce the strobing or flashing caused by moving text.

Fast Headline Scan Mode: Turn this on, you might like it! You'll see the headlines whiz by and pause just long enough for you to read them. You can still change the overall speed of the headlines using the Pane Speeds sliders. Experiment to find your best combination.

Turn Off 3-D Background Effect: For a "flat" colored ticker background.

Remove Logo (Registered Users Only): You can remove the WorldFlash logo from the toolbar window, and from the scrolling panes in TV-Ticker™ display mode.

Force ALL UPPERCASE Headlines: Choose this option if you prefer to see your news headlines in an UPPER CASE font. This option has no effect on stock quotes, sports scores or weather forecasts.

Separator String: You can choose a character (such as a bullet) to help separate the headlines, up to 4 characters can be prepended to every news headline.

Scroll Speed/Pane Speeds: You can vary the overall scrolling speed as well as the scrolling speed of the individual panes. Experiment with these settings to get the smoothest scroll effect on your screen. The checkbox to the right of each slider reverses the scrolling direction of that ticker pane.

Color 1-4: You can change the base background color of each of the four scrolling panes. Experiment with different colors to find the most pleasing hues, or choose from one of the 9 pre-defined color palette schemes. "Invert Text" switches from a dark-text on light-background to a reversed, light-text on dark-background visual display.

Toolbar Height: Use this to switch between two and four pane viewing mode, and to visually set the overall height of the toolbar using the vertical slider.

Transparency: If you are using Windows 2000 or later, you can set a transparency level for the scrolling toolbar window from this slider.   to top

The Options page allows you to change several things about the program operations.

You can set WorldFlash to create a new Browser window (e.g. Netscape) when you double-click, or it can re-use your existing window.

You can adjust WorldFlash's use of your computer's Internet connection. Moving the Internet Connection Usage slider to the left reduces the WorldFlash Internet usage, moving it to the right increases the overhead. If your Internet connection is faster than the typical 56K Modem, you may want to move the slider to the right to get information faster. If you are running with a 28.8K Modem or a slower wireless connection, you should probably move the slider to the left. Experiment to find the optimal setting for your individual situation.

Mute All Sound Effects. Set these checkboxes to make WorldFlash run quietly. You can mute all the sounds or control individual sound effect groups. Also, there is a button that brings up the Windows Control Panel's "Sounds" dialog box, which allows you to assign any available system sound the individual WorldFlash sound effects. You can also delete the individual .WAV files, or record your own ones!

When Closing WorldFlash, Automatically Show. Use this option if you want WorldFlash to display headlines in the browser when you close the program window. If you choose All Headlines, all of the current headlines will be brought up, or you can use Marked Headlines to show only those headlines that have been marked. The default is nothing.

Auto-Launch WorldFlash. You can control how WorldFlash starts up using these options. The choices are Manual, which allows you to start WorldFlash using the normal icon and start-menu shortcuts. Dial-up causes WorldFlash to launch when you initiate a dial-up connection to your ISP. If you choose Always, WorldFlash will start whenever you boot Windows. To make the scrolling tickers immediately available, be sure to check "Launch with Scrolling Toolbar Visible". The default option shows only the system tray icon.

Name of Browser: If you prefer to use a browser that isn't Netscape, go ahead and enter the path to that browser here. Use IExplore to specify Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

Proxy Authentication: If you are using WorldFlash from within a corporate Proxy/Firewall network, then you may need to enter your user name and password in these boxes.

Don't Save Search Terms. Turn this on if you prefer that your search terms not be saved in the WorldFlash main search box.

Single Mouse-Click Linking. Setting this option allows you to jump to a story from a WorldFlash scrolling pane just by clicking on it once with the mouse. You may find this more convenient than the default double-click link.

Always-On-Top Window. This window flag tells Windows to keep WorldFlash on top of all other windows. This is mainly useful with "floating" toolbar window.

Mouse-drag Slide Ratio. This setting affects how fast a headline scrolls when you click-and-drag with the mouse. Move the slider to the right to make the headlines scroll faster.

Access Compressed Headline Source. Turning this setting on enables an alternate method of downloading headlines/links onto your computer. This method involves retrieving a compressed "batch" of headlines from multiple sources at one time, which on some systems can result in improved bandwidth efficiency.   to top

Finally, the Personal Info page allows you to enter (optional) user information. If you enter your preferred Home Page URL in the appropriate box, you can click the large WorldFlash Logo to jump directly to your chosen home page. Information on how to register the software is included here, as is the location to enter the registration code and email address.

You can also access the "Sync Preferences" feature, which is used to upload a copy of your WorldFlash customization settings. These settings can later be downloaded to another copy of WorldFlash running on a different computer. For more details, please see this help page.

We want to hear your comments, ideas, feedback, and locations of Web pages you would like to see--you can easily send us mail at any time by clicking the Send Mail to WorldFlash button. Our privacy policy contains much more detailed information.   to top