Build 368 and GreatNews road map
Despite of usual distraction of spring time Build 368 is out on time! Thanks to the fine folks from Zountry, GreatNews BlogThis tool now supports generic external tools for various tasks. To setup Zountry with GreatNews, please follow these simple steps. There are also many small usability enhancements like marking read/unread directly on reading pane, using quoted keyword in news watch, etc. This version has been released as nightly build for a while. I’m quite confident in its stability.
I spent some time early this month reviewing GreatNews issue tracking database. As you can imagine there are numerous feature requests and bug fixes. To prioritize tasks a little bit, I feel new functions in the following 3 categories should be implemented first:
- Prioritize channels both automatically and manually
- RSS enclosure(like podcasting) download and management
- Offline reading and archiving capacity.
Stay tuned. GreaterNews is coming!
May 1st, 2006 at 12:27 am
I’m having a hard time with the bloglines to greatnews transfer. I vaguely understand OPML, and haven’t had a problem creating an OPML feed in other cases but bloglines has made it exceedingly difficult. Any suggestions?
May 1st, 2006 at 8:24 pm
You don’t need OPML file to integrate with Bloglines. Use Feed->Add->Bloglines Sync Feed, then fill in your Bloglines account and select all feeds. Later if you want to stop syncing with Bloglines, go to Feed->Organize Feeds, select all feeds then click “Detach from Bloglines”, GreatNews will take over those feeds.
May 14th, 2006 at 11:31 am
I really like GreatNews and have it loaded on my USB flashdrive. The short roadmap definitely keeps me with GreatNews.
The one feature I am really looking forward to is podcasting. To be able to subscribe to a podcast, have it downloaded automatically to a folder on my harddrive and have it automatically sync up my MP3 player when I connect it.
This last feature could easily set a new standard for RSS readers and get the attention of all users around the world. Today there are a few good podcast receivers. But they do not do well in reading general RSS feeds. And a lot of people have a mixed feed. Sometimes there are enclosures and sometimes not.
But what do you do when the podcast is downloaded? I would prefer to have this software running on a PC that is always on. And when I come home, I just connect my MP3 player to it and it automatically get the new podcasts transferred. Also, I would love to be able to set a preference per podcast that say “Only keep the 2(or whatever you choose) latest podcasts on the MP3 device” . And a different setting for how many podcasts should be kept on the harddrive etc.
I have not yet found what I would consider a real mature podcast receiver/RSS reader. You need to think about the whole process. From getting it down through to a ready to play from player file.
GreatNews does a perfect job on RSS feeds. I am looking forward to see the same level of features on the podcast part!
Keep up the good work! I for one is very happy so far. And make sure you do not force us to keep the feeds a place we can not change. I am happy to have it on my USB flashdrive so far.
May 14th, 2006 at 3:06 pm
Oceanwatcher, thanks for the suggestions. Podcasting enhancement is in the design phase. I haven’t figured out how to send something to a MP3 player. What I plan to do is to download enclosures automatically into specified folders. Probably generate play list at the same time.
September 3rd, 2006 at 4:24 am
Hi GreatNews! I installed RSS reader just recently, and it’s really good!
It is easier and extremely faster than my previous reader (I used RSS owl before).
But I have noticed couple of annoying things:
a) It can’t move to next message by “arrow down” key press (actually,it can but only once, because after that focus will switch to message body, not to messages list).
b) messages tend to be too easily marked as “read”. For example, if you press F7 on message, the whole feed will be marked as read. Also there is lack “Mark as unread feature” (you can mark one message as unread, but you cannot select many of them and mark as unread).
c) Lack of multiselect feature(as addition to previous)
Offline reading and archiving capacity - just a couple of words. In RSS owl it seems that nothing can make this reader to store old rss messages. In GreatNews I can store history of messages for previous 6 months ,and it’s really great! But I dream of rss reader which will allow me to store complete local history of news, possibly allowing me to atchive them or export to external database in any known format.
Thank you for great reader, and forgive my criticism!
Regards, Andrey.
December 31st, 2006 at 3:32 pm
hello friends! I want to felicitate you on New Year and wish a lot of health and happiness, korn coming undone
to the real love and understanding. Happy new year.
January 23rd, 2007 at 2:31 pm
Hi! Why I can’t fill my info in profile? Can somebody help me?
My login is Kisakookoo!
January 23rd, 2007 at 11:50 pm
You mean you cannot register at GreatNews forum?
March 3rd, 2007 at 2:33 pm
I think I’m quite addicted to RSS and Podcasts, but I haven’t yet found any good RSS readers. I usually use Bloglines and I like the fact that it is web-based because I travel a lot, but the limitation is also very obvious, the interface is retarded.
After trying some other readers, I found GreatNews the one that I like most, but as OceanWatcher said, I really hope you can implement a more mature Podcasts manager into this great RSS reader. I am sure it would become one of the best (or simply the best) RSS/Pod managers.
Best regards,
Pazu
April 7th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
Want to see a native x64 version of GN.
Also Office 2007 interface would be good.
November 7th, 2008 at 10:06 pm
Dear Sirs/Ladies:
Thanks for downloading GreatNews 1.0 beta!
Your faithfully!
C.C.Chen 2008/11/8