When you visit 100+ news sites to get your daily fix, you quickly realize what a boon RSS is. It saves your time, it brings the news to you and you can skim quickly through the articles to open the ones which interest you. To keep track of all your RSS feeds, you need an RSS reader (web or desktop versions).
As far as desktop RSS readers go, I’ve been a fan of NetNewsWire ‘Lite’ on the mac for a while now. Its free (the commercial version costs USD $30) and the interface is very aqua. It gets my job done. But after some heavy duty usage, I’m left craving for some of its high end features like 3-pane wide view, interface customization options, search and in-built browsing amongst others.
Typically, users are expected to upgrade to the ‘full’ featured version by dishing out 30 dollars. But I chose otherwise. After a bit of googling, R&D on various tools and few hours later, I settled on Vienna. I’ve now been using Vienna extensively for a week and I can honestly say that this is a great piece of software. It has most of the features you’d expect in a commercial grade app and if a few minor bugs can be ironed out, it could really be a winner.
Here’s my list of LIKES and DISLIKES…
LIKES:
- First of all, Vienna is freeware and open source. The app as well as the source code is freely available to download.
- Open source free ware:
Just like most open source offerings, this means a dedicated community of users and fans of vienna adding custom scripts, suggestions, inputs constantly to improve this product. Their user forums are quite active.
- Fast launch:
The first thing I noticed was the almost instant app launch! It started in no time on my iBook (512 MB ram). Considering that Vienna 2.04 is now universal, I’m really curious to see it launch on an Intel Mac machine!
- UI:
The interface is spartan. Almost bare bone. The developer has clearly chosen functionality and speed over cosmetic effects, multiple colored icons and animated lists (which is a great thing). I need an app to load, read, search and manage news articles.
Thats what this does at the primary level. Yet all the power to customize the reading experience lies within the menus.
- OPML:
Migration to Vienna took a few seconds as I simply had to import my OPML file created from NetNewsWire Lite. The OPML file contains all your feed names/link information so you can easily switch to different RSS readers whenever you want. I also make a habit of exporting an updated OPML file every week as a backup.
- Web Browser:
Vienna has a built-in browser which opens multiple article links in tabs… similar to what you get in your regular browsing software. This is quite convenient for a quick look at the website without depending on a dedicated browser app. Of course in all probability you’ll want to open the web links in an external browser as you can bookmark them besides seeing them in a wider screen area. Opening browser tabs within vienna barely gives you any viewing space (unless you have a bigger screen). You also have the option of copying the web link to the clipboard or opening it in Safari.
- Fully integrated search:
The search feature is awesome. It’s lightning fast and easy to access from the bottom right of the interface. It works like Apple’s spotlight….. results start appearing as you type. You can search within a selected feed channel or search in all unread feeds for the day. Sweeeet.
- Reading Layouts:
One of the reasons why I shifted to Vienna. 3 Pane reading! While this feature is available in the paid for version of NetNewsWire, its a standard in Vienna. In fact one can choose from three layout styles: Report, Condensed and Unified. The Report layout is your default “Apple Mail” types (left column has the feed names, top right row has the headlines and the bottom right row has the expanded article). The Condensed layout has the 3 pane widescreen view (which is what I currently use). The Unified layout has a column approach.. all the feeds on the left and the full text articles on the right. This layout doesn’t work for me as skimming through headlines is a slower process.
- BIGGER Typefaces:
I hate squinting at small sized text on the screen. Even when browsing websites, I typically super size the text as its easier on the eyes. It does help reduce eye strain if you read a lot online over extended periods of time.
One good thing about Vienna is that you can increase both the headline fonts AND the full news article fonts. So you can choose what reading experience works best for you. This is really useful for 12″ iBook/PB users!
- Download Now. Read later:
Vienna allows you to ‘Flag’ interesting headlines for reading later. They get auto-sorted into a “Marked Articles” folder for quick reference later. That way you never lose track of the headlines you liked or wish to revisit.
- Eye Candy anyone?
Open source free-ware doesn’t have to mean boring reading styles. The Styles option allows you to choose from various reading styles like broadcast, tyger, felix, vienna pride etc. My current favorite is Prague.
- Organizing your feeds:
You can create folders and subfolders to sort/organize all your feeds for easy reference. The exported OPML file retains the entire hierarchy as well which is cool.
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DONT LIKE:
- When 100’s of feeds are getting refreshed at once, vienna tends to be unresponsive for a few seconds. I can’t click anything in the app. Not even the feeds which have been refreshed. I can of course wait for a few seconds to let Vienna refresh all the feeds before I start reading but I’m hoping this problem will be resolved soon.
- Once I enter the trash folder in Vienna, the app stalls for three seconds before i can proceed upwards to other feed channels. This has been happening from day one. I’ve re-installed the app, rebooted and even tried this without too many feeds. same problem.
- Vienna should have a wider selection of in-built channels to help get first time news readers get started. NetNewsWire Lite has a neat sites drawer which comes packed with loads of channels in categories like fun, health, entertainment, sports, news, religion, technology, travel, science etc. It’s also got local news feeds like romanian, french, portuguese which is cool.
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Overall, Vienna is my current RSS reader of choice on OSX. It’s fast, packed with customization features, 100% free and well supported.
Cheers to the developer!
