google alerts RSS feed on homepage feed module I am trying to import a google alert, which I have chosen to be a feed, onto the homepage of a drupal site I am creating.

The goal is to be able to automatically display the results of the rss feed but also to not publish everything right away as I would like to potentially screen the results before they are posted. 

I just want to link to the articles respective webpages not necessarily store them as articles within our own drupal site. 

I am trying out the module feeds http://drupal.org/node/622696

It might be a lot more than what I need but maybe the only available module. If you know of something better that suits my needs let me know.

I am new to drupal and this module required me to also install:

CTools
Job Scheduler

both of those were listed in the readme, but when I went to the modules admin page I was told I was missing:

features
views

So I went ahead and installed those as well. Is it normal that I had to install those even though they weren't included in the readme at all?

In any case.. I was able to import a feed but it seems to store all rss feed items as articles. 

I also do not see any settings for setting how many posts should be visible, how much content should be shown right away (just want headlines). Although I may need to dig deeper into the code to change this stuff.

I guess what I am really asking is if there is a better/easier way to do what I want.
You should only need Features and Views if you enable the Feeds News module. I think you can import from an RSS feed without that (by changing the Fetcher and Parser settings). However, IIRC, the Feeds News module does automatically create a View interface for you that manages all the feed items from a specific source so it can be handy.

Your setup sounds similar to one I implemented in D6, and it works well for the client. Once the items are imported, use Views to customize the output: a Views block can be configured to show the desired number of posts, titles as links, etc.

You may also want to implement VBO to manage the publishing of the feed items from your administrative page.