Well, the summer’s here and it’s time for the silly season to start - sorting out software to use which I really should have made a decision about earlier.
Investigating PHP IDEs was the first task, now it’s RSS Readers. I’ve been using Opera 8’s built-in reader, but since “going back to Firefox”:http://peter.mapledesign.co.uk/weblog/archives/opera_lover_concedes_defeat.html it’s been getting annoying to fire up this browser just to read my feeds (another footprint in my memory)
So… stand-alone program time. Rule 1 is that the program must be free. So I’ve been testing:
# “RSSBandit”:http://www.rssbandit.org 1.3.0.29
# “GreatNews”:http://www.curiostudio.com 1.0 Beta (Build 315)
# “Sauce Reader”:http://www.synop.com/Products/SauceReader/ 2.0.1(Beta)
“RSSBandit”:http://www.rssbandit.orgis definitely free; I am unsure about GreatNews, it’s still in beta form and no mention of a price at present.
Rule 2 is that it has to fit in with my use of a RSS reader: I use it as a way to keep and archive articles of interest. Any I don’t want (lots) I delete, so this deleting process needs to be as easy as possible. This means using and to select items.
I like the newspaper display of items, but if this is present and I’m deleting items, I want the display to update, not change to a single-item display.
A lot of problems come about because RSS readers treat items as if they were email, a metaphor I can never understand. A different approach is clearly needed IMO.
h3. Day 1.
“GreatNews”:http://www.curiostudio.comhas the attraction of synching with “Bloglines”:http://www.bloglines.com which allows you to read the RSS feeds whether on the move or at your computer. I love this feature, although I’ve never been ecstatic about the Bloglines interface. Now honestly, why I like it so much I’m not sure as I’ve usually got my laptop with me, but there you go… I guess the biggest advantage is that my blogroll on this website is always up-to-date.
and don’t select multiple items in GreatNews, so you have to delete items
In a way it’s an unfair comparison as “GreatNews”:http://www.curiostudio.comis still in beta before the release of the first version, while the other two programs are mature. However life isn’t fair and I’m testing now 
RSSBandit, like all the other programs, has a cool interface. I’ve done most of my reading in it so far, mainly because I didn’t get round to installing “Sauce Reader”:http://www.synop.com/Products/SauceReader/until later on.
“Sauce Reader”:http://www.synop.com/Products/SauceReader/has a cool “Show in Groups” feature which groups the items by date. It also has an integrated weblog editor (to write a post in) which would be fine if I didn’t care about the HTML produced at the end. The other feature I really liked is the way you can delete items from the newspaper view - hello, anyone else think this is a good idea? This feature alone is putting it strides ahead of the others.
I’ll keep you posted as I progress with using them. If there’s any others you think I should play with, post a comment to this entry and I’ll install them.