26/08/04
37Newsfire 0.1 beta
There seems to be more choice of RSS readers for OS X than browsers these days. Stalwarts like NetNewsWire (my favourite) and Shrook, are sharing the aggregator pool with relative youngsters like Pulp Fiction.
David Watanabe (who created the P2P app Acquisition) has released the very first public beta of ‘NewsFire’, an RSS reader that takes a slightly different approach. Rather than imitate the Apple Mail style interface, you get a single minimal metal window that makes it feel at home with Safari.
It positively drips with OS X beauty – not just in the visual effects, but in the way the interface is pared down to the minimum. Its delightful to use. There are few things I’d like to see added, with the only change to the current set up to make the site name the larger headline (this is currently smaller grey text, while the most recent article is a large headline). It is still very much a beta (features/functionality not final) but its certainly stable. Its shallow, but I love the way that news feeds reorder themselves – the same effect used in iChat when buddies change status!
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Switch said 1456 days ago:
This sucks, there are plenty of awesome RSS Aggregators for OS X, but there isn’t a decent aggegrator for Windows where I’m happy with, the most plain suck and the others aren’t really what I like.When I see these designs and simplicity of the OS X aggregators I get jaleaous and wished I had money for an iBook, too bad I don’t.
Jon Hicks said 1456 days ago:
I can see I’m going to have to add another ‘rule’. “No whining about I’d like a Mac, but can’t afford it..” ;o)Rafal Dyrda said 1456 days ago:
Is the rule in place yet? I’d like a Mac but can’t afford one… Well not yet, putting aside 150 dollars each month for one, that’s all I can do at this time. Maybe by the time I have enough cash they’ll have a G6 with a 3d or holographic display, heheChris Pederick said 1456 days ago:
It looks very nice – I particularly like the simple interface.However, I must admit I’m sold on Bloglines and don’t anticipate switching back to an actual application. The ability to quickly go to the website (as I did in this case to view the screenshot and make a comment) and to have my list of feeds stored in a central location for use on many machines is just something that I prefer over any of the reader applications I have used.
Mike D. said 1456 days ago:
Yep, I echo Chris on the Bloglines thing. Server-side aggregation is definitely where it’s at.Nice looking interface on that Newsfire thing though!
And as for the people who can’t afford Macs, just price it out based on the amount of time you’ll save not having to fix stuff on your machine. A few hours a week, times 52 years a year equals about 150 hours a year. Even at minimum wage, that’s like a grand a year! At $100 an hour, that’s $15,000! Enough to buy a gaggle o’ Macs.
Chris Vincent said 1456 days ago:
Yes, I’ve recently switched to Bloglines as well. With every other aggregator (I’ve tried every one I can find for the Mac, except NewFire, of course), I get a nice, big bog-down when it comes to checking feeds for new content. That’s just something that’s going to happen, given the great number of feeds I keep tabs on. With Bloglines, I can have a separate server do the checking for me, with everything accessible from anywhere.As far as feed readers go, those are the major areas to improve on. Speed, scalability (goes hand-in-hand with speed), and distributed access. Meh.
But before I switched to Bloglines, NewsFire was just the sort of thing I was looking for. So good job to the developers!
Alex said 1455 days ago:
It looks like a nice approach, but Yikes! The default for refreshing feeds is set to 5 minutes? Perhaps I misunderstood the setting.marc nothrop said 1455 days ago:
Sorry for the long post!On the issue of server vs. client aggregators, I’ll say that I’m firmly in both camps… that, or the third option, of a desktop client for a server-based system, giving you the strengths and flexibilities of both approaches (although, critically, there must also be local caching and some level of funcionality without the network.)
IMHO, I think this is thw way of the future (ugh, I actually said that?!) , it’s the natural extension of Web Services, and the evolution of operating sytems as network clients.
Afterall, it’s far from perfect, but isn’t this what email is effectively (POP or IMAP and web interfaces.) Obvioulsy IMAP is better for the client in that you get the syncronisation of view status, but ths model is there.
An excellent contemporary example would be Buzz Anderson’s Cocoal.icio.us desktop client for the del.icio.us social bookmarking service.
The Shrook news reader has an online synchronising feature, and NetNewsWire are looking at this for their next version, but I’m not sure that these do/will offer a web interface, or are more limited to separate installed instances of the client.
With online service increasingly offering rich APIs for interaction, I believe that there will be an increasing trend of clients or application plugins for specific online services… think of this as an extension to the approach of the Google Bar, various site news tickers update/download managers, eBay clients, apps like Watson, Sherlock, and things to come, e.g. via Dashboard in Tiger.
On the issue of NewsFire, it’s a really nice looking (feeling) app, I tend to really like David’s UI work. Peronsally I’d like to see a ‘widescreen’ view similar to Shrook (or the ‘hacked’ version of NNW Lite that I currently use.)
...These days I really miss the concept of OpenDoc, there are so many wicked little apps, whose features I would like to draw together, beyond the very loose coupling of the services framework.
Sure, bundles can be useful, Input Managers add some of this as well… oh well…
KParts anyone? ; )
Rimantas said 1455 days ago:
I used Sharpreader and FeedDaemon on Windows. Former is free, later is very good one.No I’ve droped them both and use bloglines.com
instead. I don’t fhink I’ll ever switch back to desktop agregator, unless something weird happens.
Donnie said 1455 days ago:
Isn’t it nice to see a functional application with an aesthetically pleasing interface? Functional and Nice to look at? what a concept.Jon Hicks said 1455 days ago:
I hear what you’re all saying about Bloglines, and it is nice when you use more than one computer, but I hate the look of Bloglines with a passion. Its better than it was, but its still not the interface that I want. I tried out Feed on Feeds too, but kept coming back to NetNewsWire.You’re right Marc. Shrook has the nice feature of keeping your subscriptions on shrook.com, and NNW 2 will use .Mac syncing. I've never been too keen on Shrook through. I lacks a little finesse, (which NewsFire has in bucketloads).
Alex – agreed. Surely every 30 minutes would be OK? Every 5 minutes is sure to get John Gruber angry with me.
Michele Campeotto said 1455 days ago:
On the issue of server vs. client aggregators, I’ll say that I’m firmly in both camps… that, or the third option, of a desktop client for a server-based system, giving you the strengths and flexibilities of both approachesmarc, I think you’re looking for a server with Hep on it.
Small Paul said 1455 days ago:
Can’t afford a Mac?What are banks there for, if not to be robbed?
Wolfgang Bartelme said 1455 days ago:
I’ve just installed NewsFire and I really like the sexy interface and the iChat-like sorting of the several rss-feeds.But it seems as if the application ain’t got any icon yet… a job for you Jon?!
Chris said 1455 days ago:
I’m a big fan of Bloglines. Granted is doesn’t look too pretty but I like the way it works. Designer types might like a similar service from RocketInfo: Rocket RSS Reader – it’s certainly more visually appealing and free of course.Having said that I’m now strangely addicted to NewsFire.
Brandon Williams said 1455 days ago:
Newsfire is gorgeous – I love it. Personally, I much prefer client-side RSS aggregation rather than server.I can only think of two things I’d add to Newsfire. First, a three-pane layout, similar to NNW. Although Newsfire absolutely flies on my G5, it does seem like a bit of extraneous clicking to get around an otherwise polished GUI.
Secondly, inclusion of the feed’s icon. This helps me navigate feeds a bit faster in NNW – a visual cue makes a big difference. That said, icons would spoil Newsfire’s smooth and wonderfully consistant look, and I could certainly live without them.
I’m guessing part of the goal is to avoid copying NNW’s interface – which may be why these things are missing. And if that’s the case, then that’s fine by me. All in all, this is a gorgeous new piece of software, and I can’t wait to see where it goes.
It seems a few times a week, some new (or improved) software arrives for OS X that makes it a continual joy to use – something that never happened when I was still using Windows.
Mark said 1455 days ago:
Liking it. I’ve only recently dabbled with RSS. It seems nowadays my list of daily reads is getting longer and longer. RSS solves those problems of growing bookmark folders.Just out of interest Jon, I subscribe to your feed in netNewsWire at the moment. I see you have a ‘favicon’ type icon, when viewed in the reader, as do a lot of other sites. I can’t for the life of me find out how to do this with my own feed.
Please put me out of my misery and let me know how it’s done!
Jon Hicks said 1455 days ago:
I think it just picks up on your link tag. Maybe change yours to have the full URL? This is mine:Mark said 1455 days ago:
Hmmm, no, that’s not working. Weird. I can’t work out why, i’ve scoured the web for a solution and i’m just hitting a brick all everytime.Brian Behrend said 1455 days ago:
I’ve got to definitely give my vote to Bloglines. During a single day I use anywhere from 3 to 4 different computers (PC at work, PC laptop and desktop at home, and Powerbook at home) so it’s wonderful to have one central place to check and read all my feeds. Plus with all the different setups there’s really only one common denominator, FireFox. The Bloglines Notifier extension works as advertised on both my PC’s and Mac.I tried NewsGator and FeedDemon but didn’t like either enough to pay for them. I used an RSS reader extension for FireFox (RSS Reader and then Sage) and liked them but when I would get to a dif computer I had to wade through all the items I had read elsewhere in order to find new stuff.
I’ll check out NewsFire when I get home, but just because of my habits I imagine I’ll stick with Bloglines.
Mark said 1455 days ago:
Sorted my little problem out. The .ico file has to reside in the root directory for it to be recognised by NetNewsWire.Just in case anyone else was having the same sort of problem.
Alec said 1455 days ago:
I would love to see NewFire with a Hicks icon!Scrivs said 1455 days ago:
Woohoo, CSS Vault screenshot!!!sorry
nick said 1455 days ago:
i’ll have to try it out when I get home.BUT, I do have to say that I love the SAGE RSS plugin for Firefox.
it’s easy to load all your feeds into sage, pop up the side bar and check the feeds.
while i like checking out all the new apps, I’ll bet I stay with SAGE.
check it out if you haven’t yet.
http://update.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?id=77&vid=531
Mark said 1455 days ago:
I ahve one powerbook that I use for home and work so I have never needed to sync/store my feeds. but this app looks smooth. I currently use NNW Light and love it. but Will definately give this a shot.Josh Bryant said 1455 days ago:
I love news readers but they don’t really fit my needs. I move from one computer to the next quite often and almost any news reader does not support online sync, and even if it did, 30 percent of the time I am on windows. I love services like bloglines for this sort of thing. But it looks like an excellent program.Xellos said 1454 days ago:
Have you guys tried RSS reader built into Opera? I think it’s great, since I can continue reading articles on the site with just one mouse drag. Also it uses the same interface as Opera’s mail and newsgroups client. It really feels like using one single application for everything you need, the best way you can.I don’t hear much about Opera around here. Is there any particular reason why you don’t like it?
dce said 1454 days ago:
Don’t know if I can make the switch from NNW just yet, but this is a very nice piece of software. The sort of elegant, clean and usable application that makes you wonder why everything isn’t developed that way. I’m going to keep this on my radar screen – it’s the first RSS aggregator that’s made me even consider moving away from NNW.Jon Hicks said 1454 days ago:
Xellos – Thoughts on Opera. First of all, I like Opera’s feature set. Its very impressive. Page zoom is really useful, and I like the idea of integrating email and rss. I’m not put off by the cost either. I would pay a lot of money for the right browser.So here’s the thing. Opera’s interface is a piece of sheer madness. There’s stuff all over the shop, the special ‘mac skin’ looks like it was designed for OS 10.0. It lacks the simplicity, organisation and sheer design of browsers like Safari and Camino. Hell, even Omniweb has a tidier interface. To me, it looks like a dogs dinner. If there was a decent skin, and toolbar setup that was more refined, I would reconsider it. Do you know of any good OSX style skins?
Jon Hicks said 1454 days ago:
Nick – I tried sage. I liked the way it worked in the sidebar, but I found the functionality very limitedShawn Rice said 1453 days ago:
Your comments on Opera’s interface madness sums up my feelings exactly. When sampling all the browsers available for OS X, I didn’t last 10 minutes with Opera because the interface was bugging me so much. (Heck, one of the big reasons I switched to a Mac was the visual beauty of the OS)As for Newsfire: The interface is wonderfully simple. My only desire at the moment would be for more “Refresh Feeds” options. The longest time I could select was 2 hours. Most of the sites I read update no more frequently than once a day. Overall, a nice application. Thanks for mentioning it!
Xellos said 1453 days ago:
I don’t know any OSX skins, but the skin I use – “Fresh” – is really nice and very clean, with some good looking icons.I made 4 screenshoots for you to have a look on, but I have to warn you: my toolbar setup is very “specific”.
With Opera you can change basicly every element of the interface. It’s not Firefox where you can’t move the tab bar to the other side of the window. You can move/change/remove anything you want. You can even edit every menu that’s in the application.
With that said, a couple of notes for the screenshoots.
-there’s no navigation toolbar on my screen – I use mouse gestures
-there’s no File, Edit, View etc… toolbar – I have it hidden in some other menu, that’s not something you use very often anyway
-I have removed almost everything except status bar and tab bar
-I have the menu on the left always on, but I left only 4 icons (bookmarks, mail, contacts, chat). I use it to switch quickly between tasks.
You can find the screenshots here:
http://xellos.info/gfx/opera/
Jon Hicks said 1453 days ago:
Xellos – thanks for taking the time to make the screenshots. Immediately, I saw something that explained everything. You use a PC!At the end of the day, Opera for OS X will always be a port of a PC app. It just doesn’t ft in the way that Safari, Camino or Omniweb does. These are apps that made especially for Macs. Opera for Mac seems like an afterthought.
matthew said 1452 days ago:
I quite like newsfire but its just too damn simple compared with nnw imo, and unless im missing something, but its not so easy to navigate with the keyboard.Im holding out for nnw2 where i can update my wordpress site with it and itll sync with .mac – which would have been nice to have before i moved over to my new 15” powerbook and while the Apple transfer auto-thing did a decent job, id already started formating my old Powerbook before I realised it hadnt taken my 150+ nnw feeds :-(
Jonathan Hicks said 1452 days ago:
Matthew – It is simple and thats the joy of it. I think the approach David has taken is to make a slim, but beautiful to use news reader. Its also the very first beta, and the features aren’t complete yet. I’d be interested to know what features you miss though. Maybe the abilty to create groups?Having said that, NNW 2 is going to be excellent.
Can you not use NNW to update your Wordpress site now?
Jay said 1449 days ago:
How about making an icon for Newsfire? ;)Wim said 1444 days ago:
Hi Jon,Tried to “discover feeds for site” in Newsfire and it did not find your rss…. Added it manually which works.
Great reader, thanks for the tip.
Cheers,
W