5 ms·

The funny thing about feed readers is that we actually only care about the UI, not the underlying feed fetching and parsing and whatever else happens on the ser

The funny thing about feed readers is that we actually only care about the UI, not the underlying feed fetching and parsing and whatever else happens on the server. So, when I made my feed reader — this has got to be the most popular pastime of the last few months around here — I ended up taking the lazy approach and made a UI that sat on top of the NewsBlur API. Thus, I now have a NewsBlur account, all the messy date parsing and everything else gets done on NewsBlur's servers, and I access it through my own much prettier interface that works just how I want it to work (http://www.altfeedreader.com http://www.altfeedreader.com). For anybody still thinking about making a feed reader, I definitely recommend this approach.

j_s 13y ago
Looks nice! On your landing page I'd recommend auto-cycling through the features on a slow timer until mouse-over.
bonaldi 13y ago
It's not really funny — because when you actually do care about the underlying feed parsing, you end up searching in vain for a replacement among readers that are, as you say, lazy prettification on top of bad fetch/parse engines. Google Reader had become amazing at getting updates virtually as soon as they were published. I've been comparing how well the competitors do, and some of them are more than 30 minutes later than Reader at finding and showing stories.
- simcop2387 13y ago
  This is likely because Google had such a large userbase that they were able to update more people's feeds at the same time than a lot of other places like newsblur and feedly can right now. I also imagine it's because google was requesting the feeds more often than others, or leveraging the feedburner system to know when they were updated and other such things.
  - sergiosgc 13y ago
    Google Reader implemented PuSH:Pubsubhubbub (worst protocol name ever!). Most blog platforms ping using PuSH, so the update needs no polling and is thus almost instantaneous.
    - edavis 13y ago
      If anyone is looking to play around with PuSH, http://superfeedr.com/ http://superfeedr.com/ has been a joy to work with. There's also a reference implementation available at https://pubsubhubbub.appspot.com/ https://pubsubhubbub.appspot.com/. It handles all the "dirty" parts of feed reading (checking for new items, normalizing fields) and adds near instant updates for sites that ping hubs. When I finally get around to writing my own feed reader, I definitely plan on using it.
      - newman314 13y ago
        Does anyone know which of the new replacement readers, feebly etc. support pubsubhubbub?
        vmialik 13y ago
        This is a question I have been wanting an answer myself for a while. Especially I am interested if Feedly, Newsblur, Inoreader, is using PUSH method
    - caycep 13y ago
      Some protocol developer had a sick sense of humor
      - bradfitz 13y ago
        You're welcome. :)
    - simcop2387 13y ago
      Neat. I had no idea that such a protocol existed let alone that it'd have such a ... colorful ... name that makes it hard to find :) I wonder how hard this would be to get it implemented in some of the other readers.
- cpeterso 13y ago
  The Google Reader blog (back in 2005!) had a great post detailing many of the XML validation errors their feed crawler found and must workaround: http://googlereader.blogspot.com/2005/12/xml-errors-in-feeds.html http://googlereader.blogspot.com/2005/12/xml-errors-in-feeds...
- davidjohnstone 13y ago
  The funny thing about Hacker News (and most other places) is that if you explain everything you end up writing a tome that nobody ends up reading. That is to say, I completely agree with you. Google Reader had an excellent backend (being used by 90%+ of people meant there was a virtuous cycle happening), and I especially noticed this when I developed a prototype backend that I never actually used. Deciding how frequently to check feeds is complicated. In the end, given that this is a side project, I'm never going to be able to compete with the big players, especially at scale, and to be frank, I don't find this side of it as interesting or enjoyable to develop. The good news is that this frontend could be modified to work with another backend if there was a good reason to do so.
  - readme 13y ago
    A lot of the major feeds out there don't even return valid RSS or atom. So, the problem begins when you have to start adding heuristics to your parser just to get it right.
barista 13y ago
Looks nice a few bugs when trying out with IE 10 though. Filters at the top don't work. Also a way to scope down to only a single RSS source would be nice.
- davidjohnstone 13y ago
  It seems to work fine for me in IE10... I'm not sure what's going on there. Also, it is possible to view the feed for a single source: clicking on a feed label in the subscriptions list shows just the items from that feed. If you have folders (like there are on the "try" page), clicking on the folder label shows items from all feeds inside the folder, but clicking on the folder icon expands the folder.
  - barista 13y ago
    hmmm odd didn't for me. works on IE 11 though. Nice work. Love the layout. I might switch to newsblur just because of this :)
jacoblyles 13y ago
That's actually brilliant. I've been waiting for someone to come out with a UI like this.
taeric 13y ago
Not sure how true the UI concern is. I finally got around to setting up emacs to fetch rss stuff through gwene.org. I suppose I'll miss the social aspect of reader, but I'm not sure. Now... what I do like is having something that is very very easy to control with a keyboard. Even better, it plays well with muscle memory that I've already been building up. So... if that is included in the UI department, I guess I'm ultimately agreeing.
- davidjohnstone 13y ago
  Yes, we agree — the graphical interface is just part of the interface that is presented to the user. It's a shame UI often means GUI.
  - taeric 13y ago
    Makes sense. And, honestly, I should know better. I just have gotten kind of annoyed with the graphical obsession that most sites have taken to getting this sort of stuff running. The single most annoying part of switching solutions has always been modifications to my interactions, more so than any glitz. I think my defence against worrying about what different icons did/meant was just learning how to type what I wanted. Sorta sad it took me as long as it did to get to that level of using the computer. (I initially rejected vim/emacs because of how difficult they felt...) Reader and gmail had hit a sweet spot of playing off my muscle memory rather well. To the point that I honestly forget about all of the extra graphical stuff they add around what I'm focusing on. Anyway... feels like I should give this area a run. I think I agree with you regarding the backend stuff. I would probably just sit on top of gwene.org. But regardless of the source, making your own backend seems... unnecessary.
tta 13y ago
Love the way this looks. Do you have any support for keyboard shortcuts?
- davidjohnstone 13y ago
  There's j/k for next/previous, but that's it. (Oh, and escape hides things.) Other than that, not yet. I should have mentioned that I've also released the source code: https://github.com/davidjohnstone/alt https://github.com/davidjohnstone/alt
  - tta 13y ago
    Oops, j/k didn't work for me because I had Vimium enabled. facepalm

j_s 13y ago

Looks nice! On your landing page I'd recommend auto-cycling through the features on a slow timer until mouse-over.

bonaldi 13y ago

It's not really funny — because when you actually do care about the underlying feed parsing, you end up searching in vain for a replacement among readers that are, as you say, lazy prettification on top of bad fetch/parse engines. Google Reader had become amazing at getting updates virtually as soon as they were published. I've been comparing how well the competitors do, and some of them are more than 30 minutes later than Reader at finding and showing stories.

simcop2387 13y ago
This is likely because Google had such a large userbase that they were able to update more people's feeds at the same time than a lot of other places like newsblur and feedly can right now. I also imagine it's because google was requesting the feeds more often than others, or leveraging the feedburner system to know when they were updated and other such things.
- sergiosgc 13y ago
  Google Reader implemented PuSH:Pubsubhubbub (worst protocol name ever!). Most blog platforms ping using PuSH, so the update needs no polling and is thus almost instantaneous.
  - edavis 13y ago
    If anyone is looking to play around with PuSH, http://superfeedr.com/ http://superfeedr.com/ has been a joy to work with. There's also a reference implementation available at https://pubsubhubbub.appspot.com/ https://pubsubhubbub.appspot.com/. It handles all the "dirty" parts of feed reading (checking for new items, normalizing fields) and adds near instant updates for sites that ping hubs. When I finally get around to writing my own feed reader, I definitely plan on using it.
    - newman314 13y ago
      Does anyone know which of the new replacement readers, feebly etc. support pubsubhubbub?
      - vmialik 13y ago
        This is a question I have been wanting an answer myself for a while. Especially I am interested if Feedly, Newsblur, Inoreader, is using PUSH method
  - caycep 13y ago
    Some protocol developer had a sick sense of humor
    - bradfitz 13y ago
      You're welcome. :)
  - simcop2387 13y ago
    Neat. I had no idea that such a protocol existed let alone that it'd have such a ... colorful ... name that makes it hard to find :) I wonder how hard this would be to get it implemented in some of the other readers.
cpeterso 13y ago
The Google Reader blog (back in 2005!) had a great post detailing many of the XML validation errors their feed crawler found and must workaround: http://googlereader.blogspot.com/2005/12/xml-errors-in-feeds.html http://googlereader.blogspot.com/2005/12/xml-errors-in-feeds...
davidjohnstone 13y ago
The funny thing about Hacker News (and most other places) is that if you explain everything you end up writing a tome that nobody ends up reading. That is to say, I completely agree with you. Google Reader had an excellent backend (being used by 90%+ of people meant there was a virtuous cycle happening), and I especially noticed this when I developed a prototype backend that I never actually used. Deciding how frequently to check feeds is complicated. In the end, given that this is a side project, I'm never going to be able to compete with the big players, especially at scale, and to be frank, I don't find this side of it as interesting or enjoyable to develop. The good news is that this frontend could be modified to work with another backend if there was a good reason to do so.
- readme 13y ago
  A lot of the major feeds out there don't even return valid RSS or atom. So, the problem begins when you have to start adding heuristics to your parser just to get it right.

barista 13y ago

Looks nice a few bugs when trying out with IE 10 though. Filters at the top don't work. Also a way to scope down to only a single RSS source would be nice.

davidjohnstone 13y ago
It seems to work fine for me in IE10... I'm not sure what's going on there. Also, it is possible to view the feed for a single source: clicking on a feed label in the subscriptions list shows just the items from that feed. If you have folders (like there are on the "try" page), clicking on the folder label shows items from all feeds inside the folder, but clicking on the folder icon expands the folder.
- barista 13y ago
  hmmm odd didn't for me. works on IE 11 though. Nice work. Love the layout. I might switch to newsblur just because of this :)

jacoblyles 13y ago

That's actually brilliant. I've been waiting for someone to come out with a UI like this.

taeric 13y ago

Not sure how true the UI concern is. I finally got around to setting up emacs to fetch rss stuff through gwene.org. I suppose I'll miss the social aspect of reader, but I'm not sure. Now... what I do like is having something that is very very easy to control with a keyboard. Even better, it plays well with muscle memory that I've already been building up. So... if that is included in the UI department, I guess I'm ultimately agreeing.

davidjohnstone 13y ago
Yes, we agree — the graphical interface is just part of the interface that is presented to the user. It's a shame UI often means GUI.
- taeric 13y ago
  Makes sense. And, honestly, I should know better. I just have gotten kind of annoyed with the graphical obsession that most sites have taken to getting this sort of stuff running. The single most annoying part of switching solutions has always been modifications to my interactions, more so than any glitz. I think my defence against worrying about what different icons did/meant was just learning how to type what I wanted. Sorta sad it took me as long as it did to get to that level of using the computer. (I initially rejected vim/emacs because of how difficult they felt...) Reader and gmail had hit a sweet spot of playing off my muscle memory rather well. To the point that I honestly forget about all of the extra graphical stuff they add around what I'm focusing on. Anyway... feels like I should give this area a run. I think I agree with you regarding the backend stuff. I would probably just sit on top of gwene.org. But regardless of the source, making your own backend seems... unnecessary.

tta 13y ago

Love the way this looks. Do you have any support for keyboard shortcuts?

davidjohnstone 13y ago
There's j/k for next/previous, but that's it. (Oh, and escape hides things.) Other than that, not yet. I should have mentioned that I've also released the source code: https://github.com/davidjohnstone/alt https://github.com/davidjohnstone/alt
- tta 13y ago
  Oops, j/k didn't work for me because I had Vimium enabled. facepalm