Hello SharpReader
Comments(0) I consider myself a rather patient person when software bugs are concerned but Feedreader finally managed to piss me off completely this weekend…
I loved using Feedreader because it’s a very efficient, no nonsense, bare bones aggregator that did what I wanted and the way I wanted.
Because of that I was willing to work arround all those error messages (error saving feeds, error saving headlines etc) by exporting OPML files to Bloglines and another machine on a regular basis. Not pretty but at least I got to “revert” to a fresh instalation when it decided to clear my subscription list entirely (and it did several times).
Yesterday it went one step too far…
Once again I found out all the feeds were gone, once again I tried to make a fresh instalation (version 2.9 this time) only to find out it doesn’t support its own OPML file?!
It simpyl wouldn’t import my feeds from an OPML exported from ver. 2.7
I also found out it didn’t include all the feeds in the OPML, some were clearly missing.
Then I tried to import from Bloglines and it would take forever to grind through the list and freeze several times in the process. I had to import feeds in packages of about 20 so it hopefully wouldn’t freeze yet after one hour of doing so and seeing it crash repeatedly I gave up and downloaded SharpReader.
SharpReader told me that the Feedreader OPML is corrupt so I decided to take a peek with XMLSpy… the rest is history
It found an error in every line (if you can imagine that) while the one generated by SharpReader and Bloglines were perfectly valid.
Importing feeds into SharpReader takes a second or two, it can establish several connections at a time so refreshing for new content is a lot faster, it’s got these useful expanding links within the headlines… but that’s it. I don’t really like using it for what it’s supposed to be doing.
If anyone can tell me how to turn off the stupid (unread/total) headlines indicator next to every feed I’d be eternaly grateful. It’s simply confusing. I don’t care how many items (total) are in the feed. I want it to tell me when and how many new ones there are but that’s all. The way it is currently implemented is misleading, unclear, cluttered… There should only be a number if something new arrives.
Nothing is perfect, I’d better accept the fact sooner rather than later
