Feeds Beta - An RSS/Google Reader Application - Page 6

Basl · 10/08/2009, 06:58 PM

Any way to add a button that will add a link to a "read it later" list. I'm pretty sure read-it-later allows for a bookmarklet that will add an item to a list. If you could include this bookmarklet somehow, it would allow for saving of particular posts that people want to revisit later.

eekfuh · 10/08/2009, 08:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sprugman

Nice app, on the way to great.... I'm sure many of these ideas have been mentioned earlier in the forum, but here's my list of improvements I'd like to see:

1. Offline Data. Certainly of the feeds and previews. Ideally of the full page, as well.

2. Add toggle to hide feeds with no unread posts in them (like you did with the posts).

3. Find a different method for opening images. I wind up opening them all the time when all I mean to do is scroll down.

4. Ability to lock rotation. (I'd love this for the web browser, too, FWIW.) Reading in bed can be irritating....

5. There seems to be a memory leak of some kind. I haven't checked the latest version yet, but I had to restart my machine a number of times when I was either loading a large list of posts, or trying to click through cached posts while in airplane mode. (I use airplane mode a lot when I'm on the subway. It seems to save battery....)

6. It doesn't seem to properly sync read items to google, so when I go back to the browser version, everything I've read is not marked as such....

Thanks for the good work.

Offline data is coming.
Ability to lock rotation will be added, great suggestion.
Memory leak is being addressed.
It does a blind mark as read to Google, if google doesn't respond, instead of throwing an error at you it just continues.

Caching posts is coming next.

azkevman · 10/08/2009, 11:00 PM

eekfuh, with this latest release I am seeing duplication of posts within the All Items feed. Here are a few screenshots:

Duplication #1 of Posts within All Items feed

Duplication #2 of Posts within All Items feed

Image of same post above within regular feed

eekfuh · 10/10/2009, 02:47 AM

Sixth update (10/09/09):
Fixed a memory leak.

squeff · 10/13/2009, 10:15 AM

Looking good, but I still see a few issues (and, considering that you're deactivating the beta soon)...

(1) The folder-level list doesn't sync with the individual feeds. It's unread count doesn't update.

(2) When using the arrows to move between articles, it doesn't always register as a read. While it's nice that I can zoom past something and not have it marked as read, don't like how 50% of my articles aren't getting marked.

(3) There's no indication that an article is loading vs. is loaded. Some articles don't seem to have anything in them. I think this is because it's just slow to load. Knowing that it's still loading/done loading is important. Also see #2: it seems like any article that's not fully loaded can't get marked as read by viewing the article.

(4) There's still a lot of "Load More" where there isn't any more (when "unread only" is selected).

(5) Worse, when you tap "Load More," it simply re-loads the same articles, so that they appear multiple times.

(6) Not a bug, but a request: I'd like to have an easier way to "mark all read." Personally, I'd rather have the "all/unread only" selection be via menu and have that space used for a "mark all read" button. With a confirmation, of course.

(7) "Mark unread" is critical, although I realize that this is not a bug.

(8) Highly desireable: "Star" or "Mark Later"

Thanks!

azkevman · 10/13/2009, 01:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by squeff

(5) Worse, when you tap "Load More," it simply re-loads the same articles, so that they appear multiple times.

(6) Not a bug, but a request: I'd like to have an easier way to "mark all read." Personally, I'd rather have the "all/unread only" selection be via menu and have that space used for a "mark all read" button. With a confirmation, of course.

(7) "Mark unread" is critical, although I realize that this is not a bug.

(8) Highly desireable: "Star" or "Mark Later"

Thanks!

+1

BlueC · 10/16/2009, 07:36 PM

Great app, the Pre really needs a good RSS reader and I hope this will be it - looks very promising so far!

Need to have a play with it for a few days and will provide detailed feedback, but meanwhile good luck with the development!

icesalmon · 10/17/2009, 04:05 AM

Great application. Much better than mobile google reader.
How about Hot key support just like the browser patch? space for page down, shift for page up, back space for top of page...

When I first log in with my google reader user id and password, main page won't refresh. I have to close the app and open it again.

mk3 · 10/17/2009, 02:26 PM

Thanks for the great reader app and thanks for the email help the other day. One thing I was thinking of was add a button to the top of the screen next to the reload button to mark all as read. It would be easier than having to use the drop-down menu. Honestly I think those two are backwards, I hardly ever use the reload button, but always use the mark as read. Another idea is add option in preferences to automatically mark all as read when exiting feed.

Thanks.

lordbah · 10/17/2009, 11:58 PM

Installed this, entered my Google info, and the screen did nothing for a half hour. (I left it on while watching TV). It did not display anything and it would not respond when I tried to open the menu. Eventually I tossed the card and restarted the app, and it immediately showed my feeds.

> (1) The folder-level list doesn't sync with the individual feeds. It's unread count doesn't update.

+1

icesalmon · 10/23/2009, 02:35 AM

Suggestions:
Larger font size in Landscape mode just like the browser.

squeff · 10/23/2009, 11:00 AM

I went and tried NewsRoom. While it's pretty and does download locally (meaning that it can be used where there is no data connection), it's lacking when compared to even this beta of Feeds.

For those of you that don't want to spend the $5 (I actually was able to get my money back) to try it, here's some basic information especially for users of Feeds:

* It's currently limited to 9 feeds. However, the developer says that they have expanded this, but are waiting for Palm to release the new version to the catalog.

* You have to enter your feeds by hand. There is no OPML import or the ability to sync with Google Reader. However, it does have a nifty "search" tool that can find feeds.

* It's Pre-only. No web or desktop client. Which means that if you see something that you want to look at on your computer, you'll have to e-mail a link to yourself.

* It does allow you to e-mail yourself links, however, which Feeds does not. This is useful for (as I mentioned) being able to look at something on your computer, sharing with someone else, keeping track of things that interest you (sort of a "read later" or "star" kind of thing), sending to Evernote or other similar service.

* The interface is pretty, but very awkward. Within a feed, you swipe left and right to see full screen "first pages" (one article per page). If you want to read more, you swipe up and the the whole article comes up. To go to the next article, however, you need to back-swipe to get back to to "first page." I prefer Feed because (a) I can see a list of article titles and jump to ones of interest and (b) it has the next/previous buttons, which saves a ton of swiping.

* Once you enter a feed, everything is marked as read. Which means that if you open a feed and then don't read everything, you have no idea what you've read or not. This was the reason that I asked for a refund. According to the developer, they did this to give a different experience from an RSS reader. In other words, they are catering to magazine readers, who want to have the material, but want to keep track of what they've read/not in their head. They also admitted to not having a clue as to how to design a UI to support having individual articles marked read/unread.

* I've found that Feeds tends to render pages with images better. Which is interesting, since NewsRoom's real strength is supposed to be how attractive it is.

So, in the end, it seems like Feeds and NewsRoom are for different markets.

That said, I'm itching for a new version of Feeds (no pressure... I know that life gets in the way of coding) that includes "mark unread," e-mail, and "mark later/star" (not to mention the more complex issue of offline sync). I currently have the $5 I got back from NewsRoom and, to be honest, would pay a lot more for a product that actually did all these things. Feeds looks to be on its way!

diomark · 10/29/2009, 05:59 PM

has anyone picked up scoops in the app catalog? Am I the only one that thinks its very similar to feeds? Would love to hear from someone that's purchased it.

azkevman · 10/29/2009, 06:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by diomark

has anyone picked up scoops in the app catalog? Am I the only one that thinks its very similar to feeds? Would love to hear from someone that's purchased it.

I have picked it up. Of course there are some similarities, which there will be in any app that links to Google Reader.
So far it appears to have most of the features that have been posted here as requests for Feeds, including offline reading.

Hopefully Feeds is still in progress and eventually makes it to the catalog with the same functionality.

squeff · 10/29/2009, 07:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by diomark

has anyone picked up scoops in the app catalog? Am I the only one that thinks its very similar to feeds? Would love to hear from someone that's purchased it.

I did.

It's not bad. It does everything that Feeds does, except for two things. First, Scoop does not allow you to go to the full article (the "i" button in Feeds). Second, it doesn't do folders. Based on the reputation of the developer (they did one of the Twitter apps), I'd expect both to be fixes at some point.

Where this is better than Feeds is in it's inclusion of "star" so that you can flag things for later. Plus, it seems to work slightly better it low data environments (such as the DC Metro subway). It's not a full offline sync, however.

It has a slightly different user interaction in that it uses swipes instead of buttons to move between articles. I find Scoop slightly less attractive, but that's minor.

It's 99 cents. Which sets the bar for an app catalog version of Feeds (will there be such a thing) at 99 cents, unless it includes a real offline sync. Once Scoop adds the ability to go to links and open full articles in the browser, there will be no need to use Feeds. That is, unless Feeds catches up (with things like star, people following, like).

If you're happy with Feeds, stick with it. It's free. Otherwise, 99 cents is a small price to pay to try something else that might work better for you.

squeff · 10/29/2009, 07:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by azkevman

I have picked it up. Of course there are some similarities, which there will be in any app that links to Google Reader.
So far it appears to have most of the features that have been posted here as requests for Feeds, including offline reading.

Hopefully Feeds is still in progress and eventually makes it to the catalog with the same functionality.

Offline reading? Not in my tests. It kind of looks like it does, but I keep getting timeouts and what I do while "offline" doesn't sync back.

It's a bit better than Feeds in sketchy data environments, but it's not a full offline sync.

antiphon · 10/29/2009, 07:06 PM

I picked up Scoops today. It does have some nice feaures like searching within feeds and being able to star articles. However, the application takes such a long time to load the feeds that I rebooted my Pre because I thought I had too many apps open. It's that slow. Unless they improve performance I'm gonna stick with Feeds.