NewsFire, a Versatile RSS Reader
Posted by Kiro on 07/5/07 in Internet, Productivity, Web
For a while now I’ve been searching for a great RSS reader. In the time since Safari RSS was introduced, I’ve jumped on the RSS bandwagon and have collected feeds using Safari’s talents and clippings feature. Though with Safari RSS, the more feeds I collected, the harder and more of a pain it was to read them all. Then I stumbled on NewsFire.
NewsFire is built on the solid principle of being invisible, yet letting the core features and abilities shine through. All you have to focus on is the content and let NewsFire do the rest.
In the Beginning
When you first open NewsFire, you’ll get a small greeting and a yellow register slip at the bottom of the window. NewsFire is shareware, however, you can use it in all of it’s extent without registering. You’ll just have to deal with the annoying, yellow strip at the bottom which forces you to increase the window size to view more of your content…oh and there’s a limit to how many feeds you can have. To jump the gun, NewsFire is definitely worth the small $20 - but let’s backtrack and look at why.
NewsFire automatically comes with a few popular feeds in it’s collection. What you do with these feeds is up to you. If you want to start fresh, feel free to select and delete them; however, I think you’ll want to keep the one located at the top. This one’s a Smart Feed (more on them in a bit). What it does is compile a list of all the unread articles so that you can view them easily.
After a few seconds of NewsFire refreshing, it will show you how many new articles there are per feed, and display that number beside the feed title. The dock icon also displays how many unread articles there are in total. Feel free to click on a feed and browse a few articles.
How to Add a Feed
When you want to add a feed, simply click on the big “+” button located in the bottom left hand corner of NewsFire’s main window. Either type in the main url of the site you want a feed from, or paste in a direct link to the file. A great feature of NewsFire is that it when you copy a feed URL, it is automatically added to the address field when you click the “+.” An “Add feed to NewsFire” service is also installed in the Services menu for quickly adding feeds.
NewsFire automatically detects the title and author of the feed. Click “Add” or hit “Return” on your keyboard to add the feed to your collection. NewsFire will go out and find all of the latest articles from that feed and bring them to your attention. If you’ve already read these articles, you can hit the “Mark All Read” button at the top to….well…..mark all of those articles from that particular feed as read.
Organization
Now that you have your feeds, a good idea is to organizing them into groups so that you can access your feeds and articles quickly and efficiently. To make a group, click the “+” button again but this time, choose “Group” at the top. Then, give your group a name and click add. Now, all you have to do is drag the feeds into the group to organize them. To change the color of a group, click it and got to the “Feeds” menu, then “Edit Selected Feed,” or hit Cmd + “I”. Then click on the color box to change the color.
Now that you’ve created a group, you might want to make a Smart Feed or two. Much like Mac OS X’s Smart Folders, a Smart Feed does exactly the same thing. Simply add rules that the Smart Feed looks at, and it will only show articles that meet that criteria. To make a Smart Feed, once again click the “+” button and click “Smart Feed” at the top. For example, if I want to make a feed that shows all of the captured iPhone news, I’ll call my Smart Feed “iPhone News” and say “Item Content” “Contains” then enter “iPhone”. You can make as many conditions and requirements as you want. Then click “Add”. NewsFire automatically searches and shows all of the iPhone related articles in my collection, in my new Smart Feed.
Other Features
NewsFire also has a bunch of other tools as well. Features like del.icio.us integration, Blog forwarding, as well as a built-in download manager for podcast episodes and appcast files are just some of the gems you’ll find.
In the End
NewsFire is an amazing RSS reader. It’s got many great features built-in, and has an extremely sleek and streamlined interface that blends in with the rest of the OS. You can find NewsFire at newsfirex.com. There’s a free demo but the full app is $20 (US). $20 (US) is a small price to pay for this great app. It’s well worth it.
Guest 
Article Author 
Contributor
+1 
Subscribe to MacApper's Full Page Feeds
Subscribe to MacApper's Podcast
18 Comment(s)