RSSOwl does lots of things I don’t really know about, so I won’t give it a thorough review, but I will say it’s a pretty sweet newsreader. It’s the first (or second) one I’ve ever tried, and it does what I want it to do. I have my friends’ blogs bookmarked, as well as my favorite news sources, and it’s nice to to have all those sources readily available. It also displays a reminder when a new post, comment, or article is posted.
It’s relatively easy to figure out, although adding additional features leaves a bit to be desired. I tried installing a component that integrates the Mozilla browser into the program and it was a nightmare. I never did get it to work. The documentation seems a bit disorganized and random as well. Like, for instance, what the heck are news bins and where do I find information on it?
But forget all that. Just download it, install it, set the preferences, and start adding news sources. It’s simple and fun. And I’m finding it’s a program I can’t live without, because I check many blogs regularly, and now I can check them in half the time. I can check posts and comments easily; they’re all listed in an easy-to-read format. And now, thanks to the auto-reminder, I never miss a post or a comment.
One more thing I like; it integrates easily into Firefox. Anytime you click on an RSS feed link, it automatically opens RSSOwl and adds the source for you.
Oh, and one more thing . . . being Java-based, this program runs on all platforms. It’s yet another gift for you Microsoft-haters.
Hi,
Thanks for the review
, some comments below.
“I tried installing a component that integrates the Mozilla browser into the program and it was a nightmare. I never did get it to work.”
I am unsure what component this is. Do you have a link?
“The documentation seems a bit disorganized and random as well.”
There isn’t much documentation in text form for RSSOwl 2, that’s true. However, if you go here[1] you can see flash videos that show most of the interesting features. Look under “Watch and Hear the flash demo”.
“Like, for instance, what the heck are news bins and where do I find information on it?”
News bins were added in the latest milestone (2.0M8) and they allow you to store a news from a feed in them. This is useful if you need it for reference or just for organisational purposes. The flash video[2] for that milestone shows how it’s used.
Hope this helps,
Ismael
[1] http://boreal.rssowl.org/
[2] http://boreal.rssowl.org/demos/m8/rssowl_m8.html
Hi Ismael,
I’m getting to know RSSOwl a bit better. Thanks for the links to the flash videos. That will surely be helpful.
I have figured out what news bins are useful for (at least for me). I have RSSOwl pick up craigslist searches for me (I collect pocket knives so I have it feed in every craigslist post that has the word “knife” in it) and when I find a CL post I’m particularly interested in, I throw it into a “knife” news bin. Very useful. I’m liking it.
As far as what I was trying to install, it was for using the Mozilla browser within the program. The link to what I was trying to do is here . . . http://boreal.rssowl.org/#20 . . . it’s called xulrunner. My thought was that it was going to make it possible to use Firefox within RSSOwl, which I thought would be pretty cool. But apparently I’m misunderstanding something. I simply gave up on it. Maybe you can enlighten me as to what xulrunner is all about.
Thanks for your comment.
Hi,
Sorry for the late reply, but I forgot to check it again. It would be nice if WordPress was configured to allow notification by email. Anyway, Ben forwarded your email to him so here I am.
Regarding xulrunner, your thought is correct. It allows you to use the same rendering engine as Firefox in Windows, Linux and Mac inside RSSOwl. You can also use Internet Explorer on Windows and Safari on the Mac. On Linux, you sometimes can use Firefox without installing xulrunner if you use distribution packages (e.g. in Fedora).
It’s unclear why you could not get it to work, but we’d need more information, particularly the version of xulrunner used, your operating system and the exact error messages. If you can, show up in our IRC channel[1] and we can then work through it.
Hope this helps,
Ismael
[1] irc://irc.freenode.net/rssowl
OK Ismael, thanks for responding (you could subscribe to the feed, you know!).
Anyway, I went to this page . . .
http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/XULRunner_1.8.0.4_Release_Notes#Installing_XULRunner
and tried following the instructions. I did everything I was told, even unpacking xulrunner to the weird directory they suggested (1.8.0.4???) but when I ran the command prompt (xulrunner.exe –register-global), nothing seemed to happen. RSSOwl didn’t run any differently.
Then I scrolled down the page and it says to type the following into the command prompt: “C:Program FilesMozilla XULRunner1.8.0.4xulrunnerxulrunner.exe” –install-app “C:Documents and SettingsUserDesktopmyapplication.xpi”
I guess that’s supposed to install xulrunner or something. But seriously, Ismael, if you expect people to have to go through all this to be able to use the Firefox rendering engine as the internal browser (that’s what’s supposed to be happening here, right?) you’re expecting too much from them! I play with my computer all the time but this is too much for me. It just gets a little too weird and involved for my tastes.
The internal browser for RSSOwl seems to work fine for my purposes at this time. Let me ask . . . does the internal browser not render things as Firefox would? Does having Firefox installed on my system mean anything? Is there really any significant reason for even trying to do this? Why not have this functionality built into the program?
Hi,
We don’t expect people to do all that. After all, you get Internet Explorer as the internal browser without doing anything (on Windows). If you want to use Firefox, you have to do more, but blame Mozilla for that.
I don’t use Windows, so I’m not the best person to answer these questions, but many people do use XULRunner and it seems to work fine for them.
If you’re happy with the way it works without Firefox, just use it like that. The Firefox option is for people who asked for it and for one reason or another prefer it over the Internet Explorer rendering engine.
Building it into the program would mean that people would have a much larger download even if they were happy to simply use the default browser for the platform. Not to mention the work to make that happen.
Hope it helps,
Ismael
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