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An easy way to import NetNewsWire feeds into Safari
Well color me surprised - after trying a few convoluted methods for exporting some of my NetNewsWire feeds in a format that Safari could import (as RSS, not HTML links to real sites), I finally realized that either Brent Simmons and/or Apple have already done some of the heavy lifting. If you toggle Safari's Show All Bookmarks view from the Bookmarks menu (or simply use ??????B), you can simply drag and drop one or multiple selected feeds from NetNewsWire into Safari's bookmark editing window. Unfortunately, you can't drop a Group of feeds from NetNewsWire, but this trick should satisfy most users who need to get some feeds into Apple's browser. When you import feeds into Safari like this, it won't recognize them as true RSS feeds (or begin downloading headlines and displaying unread counts) until you visit them at least once. After that you're all ready to roll with a few (or all?) of your favorite NetNewsWire feeds in Safari.If you use a desktop-based RSS reader other than NetNewsWire, be sure to let us know if this same trick works for your reader.
TUAW Automator App: Export NetNewsWire feeds
Not many people are familiar with how flexible and shareable your NetNewsWire / NewsGator subscriptions are, so I thought it was time to elaborate a little and play with Automator again. First on our sharing list: the ability to embed an automatically updating list of your NetNewsWire / NewsGator subscriptions into your website or blog. To enable this, simply sign into your NewsGator account (if you're using NetNewsWire 2.1.x or 3.x I believe you automatically get at least a 1-year NewsGator subscription) and go to Settings > Edit Locations. Assuming you have syncing with NewsGator enabled, you should see at least one location related to your NetNewsWire feeds which should have a 'Blogroll' option listed. Clicking on that will give you all the options you need to embed a small snippet of code in your site to create a list of the subscriptions you want to share publicly. There is another way to share your NetNewsWire subscriptions in a handy-dandy file format, easy for friends, family and visitors to download and import into just about any newsreader they use, including NetNewsWire, Google Reader and even Vienna (this is technically referred to as an OPML file, with the extension .OPML). NetNewsWire offers a File > Export Subscriptions command, but there are a few options involved and this isn't very automation-friendly. If you want to make your subscriptions available to, for example, website visitors or simply back them up on a regular basis, I put together two very basic, two-step Automator apps (packaged as zip files) that can work fine on their own or easily be incorporated into larger workflows.
5 questions with Brent Simmons, creator of NetNewsWire
Hot on the heels of releasing NetNewsWire 3 Brent Simmons, developer and creator of said program, sat down with me in the virtual HQ of TUAW (a.k.a. the Internet) and answered my questions five. Read on to hear what Brent has to say about NNW's new UI, the feature he would have liked to have included, and what apps are most often in his Dock.
NetNewsWire 3.0 now available
The NetNewsWire 3.0 beta is now over. That's right, RSS junkies, NNW 3.0 is now publicly available. I've been using NetNewsWire 3.0 since Macworld 2007, and it has really come together in the last few months. There are lots of new features, including: Growl support Spotlight integration Twitterific support A New UI Performance enhancement (this sucker screams on Intel Macs) Improved Tabbed browsing Microformat support That's just the tip of the iceberg in regards of to new features. Check out Newsgator's website for all the details.NetNewsWire 3.0 is available now and costs $29.95. Upgrading is free, if you have the NewsGator Online Premium Package. NetNewsWire Lite, the free version of NNW, is still a work in progress.
TUAW Podcast #21 - the NetNewsWire 3 beta screencast
The TUAW Podcast is upon us, and for #21 I decided on a screencast of that NetNewsWire 3 beta sneak peek released a couple weeks ago. The new version is a slick piece of work with a lot of nice new features, and I go over all the good stuff in just under 8 minutes. This H264/AAC podcast weighs in at 800 x 450 and 42MB, and can be had from our iTunes Store Podcast directory, this direct link or our own podcast rss feed. Enjoy!P.S. - don't forget to digg us in the digg podcast directory as well![Update: It seems we had some problems with properly linking the podcast directly and for the iTS, but things should be good to go now. The direct link is now working, and our iTS podcast directory should refresh at least within an hour or two, but likely within 30 minutes.]
Beta Beat: NetNewsWire 3.0 sneak peek
Brent Simmons has released the first public 'sneak peek' (note: it isn't even a beta) of NetNewsWire 3.0, a much-anticipated new version of his immensely popular RSS client which NewsGator acquired in 2005. Brent has made a brief announcement on his blog, reminding everyone that there's still a lot to do, but he also mentions he'll be writing more in-depth about what has changed in the coming days.Adventurous users - remember: this isn't even a beta - can check out the change notes for this public sneak peek, and head over to the download page to give it a go. For a tasty primer, a lot is new: Spotlight searching, a much-requested new Combined View, a Full Screen mode, a tab bar on the right with page thumbnails (which can be condensed to mere text titles), the ability to chose a folder when subscribing (a lá Safari bookmarking) and much, much more. As a personal side note, it's great to see even that FeedLight style Brent found recently to make its way onto the built-in styles list.A few words of caution from a blogger who's been testing this version for around a month (hint - that's me): back up your existing NNW support folder if testing software like this makes you queasy. NetNewsWire 3 makes significant changes to the way your data is stored, and you won't be able to run version 2.x without its old support folder after firing up v3. Surfing to ~/Library/Application Support, selecting the NetNewsWire folder and pressing cmd + d is a simple enough backup.With that said, go enjoy a sneak peek of NetNewsWire 3.
NetNewsWire style: FeedLight
These NetNewsWire styles just keep getting better, especially since this one is designed for both NetNewsWire and Vienna. Not long ago I found a couple of really slick NNW styles, one of them taking a crack at a Spotlight look + headline wrapping, and now Brent Simmons via the Ranchero blog has highlighted FeedLight, a style based heavily on Mac OS X's Spotlight searchbar. While it bears resemblance to other Tiger styles available (including NNW's own built-in style), I really enjoy FeedLight's approach of displaying all the important data like a properly wrapping headline, feed, date and author in a concise, static top bar that remains in place (only on NNW, not Vienna) even as you scroll through a long article. Of course, the fact that it comes in two sexy gradient-ific versions, one for Aqua and another for Graphite, doesn't hurt either. All FeedLight styles and versions are available from Alex at BrokenLogic.
AppleScripts for integrating Safari, NetNewsWire, del.icio.us and Yojimbo - oh my!
I don't know how I missed this post at Hawk Wings a few weeks ago, but I am glad I found it at least sooner or later: Tim Gaden has been keeping a watchful eye on the Yojimbo mailing list, and he caught a set of scripts written by Dylan Damian that can take a link from either Safari or NetNewsWire, bookmark it on del.icio.us with Pukka (which I highly recommend as a paid user) and then archive the link in Yojimbo using the same tags you used on del.icio.us. I completely agree with Tim: after testing these scripts out with NetNewsWire, they work like a charm and have just been added to my toolbelt.You can score the scripts by checking the Yojimbo mailing list archives (they're online here if you aren't subscribed), or simply by heading over to Tim's post at Hawk Wings, as he is hosting the files himself.
NetNewsWire styles: Reflex and Spotlight+wrap
It's been a couple of months since I switched from NetNewsWire to Google Reader, but I am happy to announce that I saw the light and have returned to greener pastures. While Google Reader is still roughly 3000 times as functional as NewsGator Online, I simply could no longer resist the torture of no search (in a Google product, no less), and no support for authenticated feeds. Aside from those two setbacks, however, I still recommend gReader as the best web-based reader that is easily head and shoulders above the rest.Since I'm back to NetNewsWire though, I have once again gone kookoo for styles and have come across two that impressed me quite a bit. First up is Reflex for NetNewsWire from Oliver Boermans (pictured above), which is the most functional and optimized style I have ever seen, and has quite possibly usurped my previous favorite: Tiger style by Jon Hicks (sorry Jon!).First, Reflex offers a two column design by default (which can be slimmed to one if/when you prefer) that places metadata (author, blog, date, categories, etc.) in a non-scrolling column on the right of the post body. This is really handy if you don't want to keep scrolling up and down posts just to snag all the info you might need to, say, write about the post or the site you're referencing. Speaking of scrolling, Reflex will fade in a slick overlay headline at the top of the post if - and only if - you wind up having to scroll down so far as to knock the post's headline above the fold. Last but not least, Reflex offers two color styles (white/black) and layouts (single or double column) via a button at the top right of the reading pane.This most excellent Reflex style can be had from Oliver's blog, and I'd like to tip my hat to the man himself for his fantastic work.The second style hails from Jonathan 'Wolf' Rentzsch, of Mac OS X development and C4 fame. Jon's Spotlight+wrap style is a modification of NetNewsWire 2.0's built-in Spotlight style in the name of functionality. First, and most noticeably, he added a wrap to the headline so long'uns will display in their entirety. The other big change is that he borrowed from Takaaki Kato's Samurai Style and eliminated the Feedburner footer that's catching on with so many bloggers these days (the ugly 'digg this, del.icio.us that' standard links appearing in many RSS feeds). Jon also mentions some stylistic battles he had to wage, but at the end of it all is a very functional improvement to a beloved default NNW style. You can grab Spotlight+wrap from Jon Rentzsch's blog.[via Ranchero's blog]
NetNewsWire 2.1 released
After all the beta releases, the testing and the blood sweat and tears, NetNewsWire 2.1 has gone official. In case you've been living under a rock the past few months, this long-anticipated release of the most.popular.newsreader.evar includes major new features like syncing with NewsGator, posting to del.icio.us, emailing articles, printing and an interesting new sorting paradigm: by attention (has anyone heard anything about how well that one's actually working?).With this release, NNW is also now a Universal Binary and has received some major performance boosts on both Intel and PowerPC-based Macs. This is a free upgrade for owners of NNW 2.0, so what are you waiting for? Go get a copy.Ranchero notes that NetNewsWire Lite 2.1 is still in beta. Also, from what I remember, now that NetNewsWire 2.1 has gone official, I'm pretty sure that sale they had running is over.
NetNewsWire 2.1b36 fixes server/network, news updating issues
As if Ranchero employed hundreds of little coder gnomes who work around the clock, the company has cranked out yet another beta release of NetNewsWire 2.1 to fix news updating issues. Turns out NNW's ability to grab news might experience some quirks if NewsGator syncing became flaky, so this release is targeted at fixing the issue.By now you probably know the drill; you can grab your copy at their beta page.
Shrook now free
Shrook, a full featured RSS reader for OS X, is now freeware according to Shrook developer Graham Parks. In an email to TUAW he assures us that development of Shrook will continue, the only thing that has changed is the price. Why the sudden change to freeware? To quote Graham, 'to piss off Brent Simmons if nothing else.'Hey, I'm all for spite creating freeware, though I think I'll stick with NetNewsWire myself.
NetNewsWire 2.1b23
The NetNewsWire 2.1 beta rolls on with the release of 2.1b23. This release sees improvements in NewsGator Syncing (which you don't have to use, but it is awesome), better password support, proxies, and much more.Read the changelog, or get all the details on the NewNewsWire beta page.
Is the Mail.app look being copied too much?
Fraser Speirs, developer of apps like FlickrExport and Xjournal, posed an interesting issue on his blog the other day: is the general look and UI of Mail.app being duplicated by too many other developers? Fraser doesn't necessarily dislike the Mail.app look and feel, nor is he taking a jab at developers, but since he's running Mail.app, NetNewsWire and Yojimbo, he's making a few errors in Exposé simply because these three app windows (not to mention others like Ecto) look very similar.Fraser poses a valid point, and it's a good question I thought worthy of mentioning for you TUAW readers. What do you think? Are too many apps using the same (handy) UI and cluttering up your desktop and Exposé views? Sound off.[via Hawk Wings]
NetNewsWire to iWeb applescript
I think I've finally found the last reason I need to move my personal blog over to iWeb, thanks to a Ranchero blog post. The NetNewsWire to iWeb Applescript app bundle is pretty simple to set up: download the script and place it wherever you want. In NNW, simply chose this script (NOT iWeb) as your external weblog editor, and *bam* - you can now use Apple's slick new WYSIWYG iLife web app to blog NNW headlines to your heart's content.At the bottom of the post, the script's author mentions the possibility of creating similar scripts for Blogger.com and iBlog, just in case iWeb isn't your blog tool of choice.
Ask TUAW: What would you change about NetNewsWire?
I just realized it's been a while since we've done a "what would you change" post. In the past we've covered a lot of Apple's big hitters like Safari, Mail and iMovie, so I thought we'd delve into one of the more popular 3rd party apps out there: NetNewsWire.Since NNW can boast the largest newsreader app user base whether on Windows or OS X, I figured it would make great fodder for feature requests, changes, improvements and bug complaints. What's even better is the fact that I myself, and most of the other NNW users I know, practically live in the app; in fact I know that I now spend far less time in a browser than I do in NNW.With all that said, however, it certainly isn't without its issues. A new feature I'm dying for is a far more robust flagging and labelling system, like I think NewsMac Pro does. The ability to assign (and organize by) different kinds and colors of labels would be a thing sent from code-ninja-heaven in my book. I would also love more customizable icons of feeds and groups, much like how BlogBridge allows for group icons. This would help a lot with finding *that one* feed or group in lists of 250 feeds and groups, like I have.But enough about me and my NetNewsWire wishes - what about you, valiant TUAW (news) readers? What are your feature requests, fixes and bug complaints for the web's most popular newsreader?
