Can Live Bookmarks Evolve Into a Full Feed Reader?
sabret00the
in tabs, you have to think about some of the other functionality,
namely the Feed Reading capabilities of Firefox. Right now, it does
the job in it's most basic of abilities and you have to think that
this ability can be extended.
I don't have too much to add as I believe that Google have gone the
correct route in terms of design. Google Reader does everything that
you'd want from a feed reader. A summary instead of just titles and
categorised to boot. That's everything that I'd want from a feed
reader and believe it should be a part of the browser.
There is a place for the existing system, after all, some people are
happy to have the bare minimum, however some people don't Feeds can
cause a lag on the browser and so adding extra functionality could
actually promote the feature getting it's own exe or run it within the
plugin container. This could simply be made a preference.
Also, with such a feature you open up Firefox to more innovation. Not
only would this provide a good foothold for the share aspects of the
Social Agent mentioned as part of the Online Identity Labs project,
but it could allow many other extensions and innovations to hook in.
Off the top of my head I'm able to think of adding Share buttons to
content on the fly.
This would also tie in fantastically with Firefox Sync/Firefox Home.
As [the users that would migrate to this from services like Google
Reader) would still be able to access their feeds on the fly and avoid
missing out on the up to the minute goings on in the world.
Thanks for listening.
x-posted to the Labs mailing list.
Tiago Sá
On Jun 3, 12:39 am, sabret00the <sabret00...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> With the advent of App Tabs and the decision to open the AOM and DLM
> in tabs, you have to think about some of the other functionality,
> namely the Feed Reading capabilities of Firefox.
I just wanted to say that opening feeds in an AppTab (chromeless or
not, but particularly if it's chromeless) is definitively counter
producive. The reason being most users open feeds from a site their
browsing. If the site suddenly becomes an AppTab, it's chaos.
If you're thinking of using subscribed to feeds in AppTabs, that's a
reasonably good idea, but it needs to be worked on. I'll keep replying
to your post and think about it in the end.
On Jun 3, 12:39 am, sabret00the <sabret00...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> I don't have too much to add as I believe that Google have gone the
> correct route in terms of design. Google Reader does everything that
> you'd want from a feed reader. A summary instead of just titles and
> categorised to boot. That's everything that I'd want from a feed
> reader and believe it should be a part of the browser.
I think it should be pointed out that Firefox's RSS reader does read
all the information of the feeds, just like Google Reader. The
difference here is that Firefox handles the live bookmarks in a
different way. Basically, if you subscribe, you get a live bookmark (a
folder, basically) in your bookmarks. Great. But if you open the feed
in a tab (like so [ http://news.google.com/news?output=rss ] ), it
reads the whole info.
At the end of the day, I think the only thing we need is an easy way
to open a Live Bookmark in a new tab. As we have it now, we need to
right click the live bookmark, copy the feed location, and open in a
new tab. Aka totally not implemented. I'll look for a bug in bugzilla
and request this feature, as it should be simple to implement (if not
so simple to design).
Tiago Sá
mockup:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=569816
As pointed out (there), it should be mighty simple to implement, and I
think it should be included for Firefox 4.
Patrick Cloke
in-content type tab that is a full RSS reader. In other words, not
simply opening a live bookmark, but a page where all subscribed RSS
feeds are shown in a list and can be clicked on to view their content,
etc. (i.e. like Google Reader, as was mentioned). Perhaps something
along the lines of Feedly [1], which I've never used but from the
description offered I'd imagine this is similar to what the user is
asking for.
Maybe an RSS tab (if we have a home tab, why not an RSS one?), the
icon can notify if new feed items are available (i.e. like Feed
Sidebar) and there would be a "Google Reader" like interface in the
tab [3].
If that's not clear I may be able to make a mock up after work.
-Patrick Cloke
[1] https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/8538/
[2] https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/4869/
[3] http://lifesatrip.files.wordpress.com/2007/12/google-reader-update-290906-full.png
sabret00the
won't get time to do a mockup until the end of the weekend. Mike
Hanson over in the Labs group[1] had some good ideas regarding
implementation on a larger scale.
[1] http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla-labs/browse_thread/thread/1356c6545ab6f063
Tiago Sá
It's a good idea, in my opinion, but without being in the team(s), I
can say it's likely not seeing the light of day anytime soon in the
main trunk. Maybe over at labs...
As much as I'd love the feature, I don't know if copying Google Reader
into Firefox is particularly relevant. After all, we'll still be able
to use google reader in an App Tab, no problem... That's the beauty of
App Tabs, and they should fix many hollow points in the browser,
including this one.
Alexander Limi
Exactly. A lot of applications have their best implementations online (in my
personal opinion, obviously — I think both Gmail and Reader are still
unmatched on any platform, for instance), and if anything, Firefox has been
moving in the opposite direction — make the open web more powerful, and let
the applications live there.
The other interesting thing (cue hate mail here ;) is that RSS and feed
readers are used by an incredibly small amount of the general internet
audience. It's easy to forget, since we live in a tech environment ourselves
— but although I can't disclose any numbers; the number of people using
Google Reader vs. the any of the other Google apps while I was working at
Google was vanishingly small. It's very much a niche application.
(And for the record, I love my RSS reader — but I don't think that's what
Mozilla should spend its resources on :)
--
Alexander Limi · Firefox User Experience Team · http://limi.net
Calum Benson
> although I can't disclose any numbers; the number of people using
> Google Reader vs. the any of the other Google apps while I was working at
> Google was vanishingly small. It's very much a niche application.
That could also because Reader has a horrid UI that isn't nearly as nice
to use as even the worst native RSS apps I've used on my Mac, though :)
Cheeri,
Calum.
--
CALUM BENSON, Usability Engineer Oracle Corporation Ireland
mailto:calum....@sun.com Solaris Desktop Group
http://ie.sun.com +353 1 819 9771
Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Oracle Corp.
sabret00the
A version compatible with 4.0 is available within the forums.
Paul [sabret00the]
Peter Lairo
> Is there any chance this can be re-reviewed for both usability and
> parity across desktop and mobile?
The sweet-spot between simplicity and feature-rich is IMO the *Sage*
add-on: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/sage/
It would be awesome if Sage were integrated into Firefox. It would
finally make feeds come alive in Firefox.
The Sage code and bug tracker is here:
http://code.google.com/p/sage/issues/list
BTW: The best display style for Sage is here:
http://code.google.com/p/sage/issues/detail?id=22
--
Regards,
Peter Lairo
Bugs I think are important:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=250539
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=391057
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=436259
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=446444
Islam: http://www.jihadwatch.org/islam101/
Israel: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/myths2/
Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster: http://www.venganza.org/
Anthropogenic Global Warming skepsis: http://tinyurl.com/AGW-Skepsis
Paul [sabret00the]
martin©
of my extension too.
Boox add some great improvements to the Livemarks, and intent to be
highly integrated with the Firefox UI.
http://joliclic.free.fr/mozilla/boox/en/
- The number of unread items of a Feed is displayed, and these entries
are styled (bold).
- a summary of the content of the Feed item is displayed on a tooltip.
- the raw view of a Feed is improved too, with several stylesheets
available, and the possibilty to use a custom one.
This extension was a winner of the Extend Firefox 2 Contest, and is
still alive, I've just released a version for Firefox 4 (in approval
phase on AMO, and can be downloaded on my site).
There's another similar extension for Firefox Mobile, Yummy, with some
similar feature, but the last version is for Fennec 2 (not updated yet
for the version 4).
http://joliclic.free.fr/mozilla/yummy/en/
Peter Lairo
> Hope this will not be seen as a spam, I suggest to take a look at one
> of my extension too.
>
> Boox add some great improvements to the Livemarks, and intent to be
> highly integrated with the Firefox UI.
> http://joliclic.free.fr/mozilla/boox/en/
That web page could *really* use a screenshot. I'm a heavy feed reader
user (I use Sage [1]) and would be interested in your add-on; but
without a screenshot... no way.
[1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/sage/
martin©
> That web page could *really* use a screenshot. I'm a heavy feed reader
> user (I use Sage [1]) and would be interested in your add-on; but
> without a screenshot... no way.
You're right. Corrected, I have justed added some screenshot on this
page ;)