Communicator Help: My AOL Today for AOL<sup><font size=-3>®</font></sup> Communicator

Contents | Index | Tutorial Movies

My AOL Today for AOL Communicator

Using My AOL Today

Starting My AOL Today
Running My AOL Today
Customizing My AOL Today
Customizing My AOL Content
Team Lookup

Starting My AOL Today

My AOL Today is a screen saver that displays dynamic, full-screen, interactive content based on your My AOL settings. You can also run My AOL Today as regular AOL Communicator application

When My AOL Today is active, images and headlines scroll across your screen. You can click an image or headline at any time to display more details.

To launch My AOL Today manually:

These instructions assume that at least one AOL Communicator application is already running.

1. Click the AOL Communicator icon in your system tray (near the lower-right corner of your screen).

Or open the Window menu in any AOL Communicator application.

2. Choose My AOL Today from the menu.

My AOL Today launches.

To close My AOL Today and return to your regular screen, click the close box near the upper-right corner.

To turn on My AOL Today as your screen saver:

1. Click the AOL Communicator icon in your system tray (near the lower-right corner of your screen).

Or open the Window menu in any AOL Communicator application.

2. Choose Launch Options from the menu.
3. Under My AOL Today, select the checkbox labeled Make My AOL Today my default system screen saver.
4. Click OK.

The My AOL Today screen saver appears after the interval set in your Display control panel has passed with no activity on your computer (default setting is 5 minutes).

To change this interval, click the Start menu, then Settings, then Control Panel, then Display. Then click the Screen Saver tab, adjust the Wait value to your liking, and click OK.

Related topics:

Running My AOL Today

<< back to top

Running My AOL Today

When My AOL Today starts up, you'll see five categories at the top of your screen:

- Click a category to view its headlines.
- The topics displayed under Business, Entertainment, News, and Sports depend on your My AOL News selections.
- The items displayed under Portfolio depend on your My AOL Portfolio selections. For instructions on using this area, see Portfolio Summary.

Streaming images: Near the bottom of the screen (under Business, Entertainment, News, and Sports), you'll see a continuous stream of images, each representing a story or video in the category highlighted at the top of the screen:

- The headline images reflect your customized My AOL settings for that category.
- Move your pointer over an image see a summary of that story.
- Click an image to explore the story further.

If you leave My AOL Today running by itself, it rotates through all the stories and videos in each News category, but does not display Portfolio.

Story or Video Summary: The middle of the screen usually displays a summary of a single story or video.

- Click Read More or Watch Video to explore further.

Sports, Weather, Financials: The bottom left of the screen rotates sports scores, weather, stocks, and market indices (depending on your My AOL settings).

Google™ Search: On the bottom right, you'll see a Google search field:

- To search the World Wide Web, type the terms you want to search for and click Go.

Related topics:

Customizing My AOL Today
Portfolio Summary

<< back to top

Customizing My AOL Today

Tutorial movie:
Customize My AOL Today

There are two ways to customize the content displayed by My AOL Today:

- Customize your My AOL content settings (no matter where you sign on)
- Select Watcher content (for My AOL Today only)

If you're not already viewing the Customize My AOL Today window, click Customize near the upper-right corner of My AOL Today.

The window has two sections:

My AOL Content

Click Customize Content to edit your My AOL settings for News, Portfolio, Weather, Sports Scores, or Horoscopes.

The Customize My AOL Today Content window opens to Customize News. You can select different categories from the drop-down list at the top of the window.

Watcher Content

This part of the window lets you select the categories of information from your My AOL web page that will be continuously summarized in the area at the bottom left of My AOL Today.

The content that the Watcher displays for each selected category is determined by your corresponding My AOL settings.

Related topics:

Customizing My AOL Content
Setting Up Your Portfolios

<< back to top

Customizing My AOL Content

When you customize My AOL Today or My AOL Today Ticker, you can also customize your My AOL content.

To do so, click Customize Content in the Customize window for My AOL Today or My AOL Today Ticker.

Changes you make to these My AOL settings are reflected on your My AOL web page as well as in My AOL Today.

Changes you make directly to your My AOL web page are reflected in My AOL Today and My AOL Today Ticker (with the exception of Portfolio; see Setting Up Your Portfolios).

The screen name that ties your My AOL settings together, no matter where you sign on, is stored under AOL Synchronization Settings in AOL Communicator Address Book.

Customize Content for:

Choose the My AOL category you want to edit from the drop-down list at the top of the window.

For News, Portfolio, Weather, Sports Scores, and Horoscopes, the list on the left shows available subcategories, and the list on the right shows those that are currently displayed:

- Read the instructions near the top of the window.
- Select one or more items and click Add or Remove to move the selected items from one list to the other.

For detailed instructions on Portfolio, click Help for that category or check the related topics below.

Related topics:

Customizing the Ticker
Customizing My AOL Today
Setting Up Your Portfolios
Managing Your Portfolios

<< back to top

Team Lookup

When you're using the Customize Sports panel, you can look up a specific team (regardless of sport or league) by name or city.

If you're not already viewing the Team Lookup panel, choose Sports Scores from the drop-down list in the upper-right corner of the Customize My AOL Today window.

Then click Team Lookup and follow these steps:

1. Enter Team or City below: Type the first letters of a team or city in the field at the top left
2. Click Team Lookup.
   Matching teams are listed in the field below, including the sport and league for each one.
3. Click to select the team you want to add (or hold down the Ctrl key and click to select more than one).
4. Click Add to List to add the team.
   The Customize Sports panel appears again, and the team(s) you selected appear in the My Sports list on the right.

Related topic:

Customizing My AOL Today

<< back to top

© 2002-2003 America Online, Inc. All rights reserved. Trademark Information

Last Updated September 16, 2003