Nick Bradbury

ANN: FeedDemon 2.6.1 Beta 2

The first beta of FeedDemon 2.6.1 was kept fairly quiet, but I'm done keeping quiet now that beta 2 is out :)

Version 2.6.1 is primarily a bugfix release, but it also contains some nice improvements:

• "Find Feeds" now enables subscribing to multiple feeds at once
• Clippings folders that have an RSS feed now have an RSS icon overlaid on them
• Lots of optimizations, especially with the embedded browser, favicons and synchronization

The biggest change in this release is that I've switched to SQLite for storing popular topics and feed history data.  This change should have little impact on regular usage - it's really just a first step towards moving all data (including your subscriptions) to SQLite in a future version (v3.0, most likely).

Download details and release notes can be found on the FeedDemon Beta Site.  As always, simply install this pre-release directly on top of your existing version - there's no need to uninstall first.

SQL Virgin Again

I've been in the coding dungeon lately, which explains why I haven't posted for a while.  One of the things I'm working on is moving some of FeedDemon's data out of XML and into SQLite, which I didn't think would be a big deal since I spent a few years working with SQL before I entered the world of indie development.  I wouldn't claim that I was ever a SQL guru, but I used to be pretty good at it.

It turns out, though, that I've forgotten SQL since then.  And I don't mean that I'm just rusty at it: I mean it's like a foreign language to me now.  Sure, I can throw together a simple SELECT statement, but I've completely forgotten the syntax for GROUP BY, HAVING, and pretty much everything else.  So rather than tackling the move to SQLite with ease, instead I've been stumbling through it like a drunk bishop trying to remember where he left his hat.

Anyway...

So far I'm liking SQLite a lot.  It's fast, compact, simple and - most importantly - reliable.  For now I'm only converting a few features to use SQLite for storage (specifically, the "Popular Topics" and "Feed History" reports), since that way I can get an idea of the potential pitfalls before trusting it with more valuable data (such as the customer's subscriptions).  The end goal is to enable easily querying downloaded content without the substantial performance hit and overhead of an XML parser.

BTW, if you consider yourself a SQLite wizard, please feel free to share any tips here.  I'm sure I could use them at this point!

This Post Belongs on Techmeme

Back in Skinny Jeans: The real reason I left my career in tech.

Can Mozilla Be Easily Embedded in a Windows App?

Among the most frequent requests we receive from FeedDemon customers is to enable using Mozilla/Firefox as the embedded browser, and this is something I would love to offer.  Unfortunately, I don't see how this is possible.

Some history is required here.

Several years ago, Adam Lock created an ActiveX control wrapper for the Mozilla rendering engine (AKA: "Gecko"), and TopStyle was one of the first applications to use it.  This enabled TopStyle customers to preview their web pages in Internet Explorer side-by-side with Mozilla - a very popular feature, despite its problems.

Unfortunately, the ActiveX project hasn't been updated since 2005, and appears to have been discontinued entirely.  Although TopStyle customers can still use this ActiveX control, it's woefully outdated.  This is a big problem because the ActiveX control doesn't embed the version of Mozilla/Firefox that's installed on the customer's computer - instead, it relies on the version of the Mozilla engine that's included with the control.  This makes it practically useless, since customers want to know what their web pages look like in the most recent version of Firefox, not one from 2005.

Fast forward a couple of years, when the Mozilla team introduced a new way to embed the Mozilla engine.  It's great that this is available, but it's far more complex than the easily-embedded ActiveX control (especially for applications that also embed Internet Explorer).  And if I'm reading the docs correctly, it suffers from the same problem as that disbanded project: it requires third-party applications to bundle the rendering engine.  Meaning, of course, that it won't automatically be up-to-date with the version of the rendering engine the customer already has installed.  So every time a new Firefox build is released, customers will want a new version of our software that includes the updated rendering engine.  That's not a sustainable path for popular third-party applications like FeedDemon and TopStyle.

Which brings me to my question: am I missing something?  Is there actually a way to easily embed Mozilla in a Windows application, and can it be done in a way that uses the version of the rendering engine that's already on the customer's computer?

Vote on a New Name for FeedDemon's "Next" Button

In my previous post, I asked for recommendations on a new name for FeedDemon's "Next" button.  A lot of great suggestions were made in the 40+ comments to that post, so I've created a poll in the FeedDemon forums where you can vote for the name you like best.

If you have a preference for the new name, please cast your vote!

Can You Think of a Better Name for FeedDemon's "Next" Button?

A few weeks ago, I blogged about how FeedDemon's "Next" button helps you quickly blast through your unread items:

"This unassuming button marks every article on the current page as read, and then moves to the next page that contains unread articles.  If there aren't anymore unread articles in the current feed, this button automatically moves to the next feed that has unread articles."

I get the impression that few FeedDemon customers know about this extremely useful feature, and I think a big reason for that is because it has such a poor name.  "Next" really doesn't describe what it does, but I can't think of another name that would be short enough to use as a simple toolbutton caption.

Can anyone think of a better name that's not too long for a toolbutton caption?

What, You Want 10 More Tiny FeedDemon Tips?

OK, but this is it!  You can...

1. ...in the address bar, type define: followed by a keyword to get a definition of that keyword (ex: define:spam)
2. ...toggle which actions to confirm by clicking the "Confirmations" button in FeedDemon's options
3. ...move between browser tabs by pressing CTRL+TAB and SHIFT+CTRL+TAB
4. ...copy a feed URL to the clipboard by right-clicking the feed, then selecting Copy > Copy Feed Address
5. ...import your feeds from Bloglines by selecting File > Import Feeds, then choosing "Import from an external source" and selecting Bloglines
6. ...move the mouse over a hyperlink to show its URL in the status bar
7. ...move the mouse over a browser tab to show the full title and address of the page
8. ...drop down the address bar to revisit a page you've already browsed
9. ...print a newspaper page by right-clicking in it and selecting "Print"
10. ...decrease the amount of memory and storage space FeedDemon uses by right-clicking the root "Subscriptions" folder, selecting Folder Properties, adjusting the "Archiving" setting (try 100 instead of 200), then choosing "Apply to ALL feeds in ALL folders" after pressing OK.

PS: If you missed them, be sure to read part 1, part 2 and part 3 of this series.

Son of 10 More Tiny FeedDemon Tips

Yes, there are still more!  In addition to the FeedDemon tips listed in part 1 and part 2 of this series, you can also:

1. ...hide your subscriptions by pressing Ctrl+F11
2. ...assign keyboard shortcuts to many features by pressing Ctrl+K
3. ...prevent older articles from appearing in a feed by enabling the "Ignore new items older than" setting on the Advanced tab of the feed's properties
4. ...see how many total feeds, items, unread items and flagged items you have by right-clicking the root Subscriptions folder, choosing "Folder Properties," then switching to the Statistics tab
5. ...click the feed icon at the top left of a newspaper to mark every article in it as read
6. ...move a feed by drag-and-dropping it between folders
7. ...prevent a feed from showing up in the attention report and popular topics by disabling "Collect attention data" in the feed's properties
8. ...re-arrange browser tabs by drag-and-dropping them
9. ...clear a watch and run it again by right-clicking it and selecting "Rerun Watch"
10. ...add a minus sign to a watch keyword to exclude articles which contain that keyword

10 More Tiny FeedDemon Tips

In the previous post I shared 10 Tiny FeedDemon Tips, but there are plenty more.  For example, you can:

1. ...find any feed you're subscribed to by selecting "Keyword View" from the Views drop-down above your subscriptions
2. ...find new feeds by clicking "Subscribe" and then typing a keyword instead of a feed URL
3. ...change the search provider by clicking the arrow to the right of the search toolbutton (above the browser)
4. ...change the sounds used for specific events by clicking the "Sounds" button in FeedDemon's options
5. ...change the number of articles to show in a newspaper page by going to the Reading tab in FeedDemon's options
6. ...disable a FeedDemon watch by right-clicking it and removing the "Enabled" checkmark
7. ...visit your browser's home page by pressing ALT+HOME
8. ...visit the home page of the current feed by clicking its title in the newspaper
9. ...change the sorting of articles in the newspaper by selecting View > Newspaper > Sort in Reverse
10. ...focus FeedDemon's address bar by pressing ALT+D

PS: Check back tomorrow for even more tips.