Step by Step Beta Testing Guide

Thank you for beta testing the all-new FaithTree.com. Here’s some suggestions to get started and make it useful to you:

1. If you have not already, please go to FaithTree.com and sign up for an account. If you already have an account at FaithTreeCF.org (for example, if you’ve donated to FaithTree), you can use that account. Feel free to try the forgot password tool!
2. Once you’ve activated your account go back to the front page of FaithTree.com and go to the “Personalize” menu to customize the site to your interests. There are dozens of different news sources, blogs and publications you can pick, along with weather, stocks and (in a very 2020 twist) local COVID-19 reports if that is of interest to you. Please play around and see what looks interesting!
3. The personalize menu also gives you access to change the colors and fonts to make your page enjoyable and fun, as well as a tool to rearrange the front page so the stuff you want to see first shows up first.
4. Personally, my favorite feature is the Feed Reader, which you’ll notice a button for at the top of the front page. Whatever sources you add to your front page also show up there, but it shows them in a feed a lot like your News Feed on Facebook. I use this tool every day. If you scroll down it and read different stories and then come back later, it automatically hides the ones you’ve already read. You can also group news sources into “tags” so that, for example, you can view “World News” in one and “New Recipes” in another.
5. If you have favorite sites that are not included, and they have what is known as an RSS feed, you can add them to your page. (If you add one and you think others would enjoy it, please let me know — I want to add more interesting resources to the directory of content.)
6. The Bible verses search tool is one I hope will quickly become more useful. It provides whatever Bible passage you look up alongside links to devotionals and sermons from some of FaithTree’s church partners almost like study notes in a study Bible. Several churches are just starting to add their messages, so I’m excited about a day in the near future where you can go on there with a verse or passage you want to delve into more and finding a rich set of resources to better understand that passage.

If I can impose, please try FaithTree for a few days and see how it fits your browsing habits. The more you use it, I think the more you’ll see the potential for it to be useful for you. If there are ways you can think of for it to be improved, please let me know! I really want it to be useful for people’s daily routine online — hopefully, including yours!

Thank you again so much for your help!