Add a Creeping Line to Your Desktop Using the Windows News Bar
Staying on top of the news is important, but if you’re not downloading a news aggregator app , it can be difficult to keep up with the most important news of the day without browsing the home pages of multiple posts. Fortunately, Windows users can try out the new Microsoft News Bar for Windows 10, which is constantly updated with the latest headlines from major online publications.
The newsbar is still in beta, so there may be a few bugs here, but it worked reasonably well in the short time I spent with it. Unfortunately, you cannot add or remove news sources from your feed, or filter by keywords like in most news aggregation apps. You can add a stock exchange abbreviation of a company to follow its market behavior if you like, but I hope more tracking channels will be added in the future.
Also, the bar is … well, frankly, ugly. When the newsbar is running, it constantly takes up a portion of your screen area, which means that all other applications will be slightly compressed unless you are running a full-screen application such as a video or game. This is not to say that it is obstructive (although I find animated bouncers to be distracting), but it is small enough that the header images are pixelated and grainy. Fortunately, the panel is collapsible, and there are some limited customization options that allow you to tweak its position or color.
Aside from these minor quibbles, Microsoft’s newsbar works well, has a decent variety of sources, and is easy to customize. Personally, I prefer checking the news at specific times throughout the day rather than looking at the latest headlines as they come in, but I can’t deny the convenience of just looking at the ticker to see what’s going on in the world.
How to install and configure the Windows News Bar app
- Go to the News Bar app page in the Windows Store.
- Click Get.
- Wait for the download and installation process to complete.
- Click “Run” on the store page, or open the Windows Start menu, find “News Bar (Beta)” and click it to launch the application.
Hover over the image to read the headline and get a synopsis of the story. Clicking on the image will open the article in Edge. The strip is automatically updated with new stories as they come in, but you can press “<” or “>” to scroll through the feed.
You can also press the “_” button to collapse the scrolling line. However, it still runs and updates in the background, so you can open it from the system tray icon and view new articles. You can also customize the appearance and position of the newsbar on the screen by clicking the gear icon. This will open the settings menu, which includes a menu for adding stock market tracking.