NetNewsWire Turns 23

netnewswire.blog

robin_reala

yesterday

327points

93 comments

Comments

buchanae•18 hours ago

I love the philosophy page: https://netnewswire.com/philosophy.html

"""

We believe that apps should never crash. They should be free of bugs. They should be fast — they should feel lighter-than-air.

We believe that quality is more important than just piling on features; we believe that quality is the most important feature. And we believe that high quality is transformative — it makes for an app you never hesitate to reach for. You can rely on it, and you do, again and again.

This makes us slow to add features. We are adding features — but never at the expense of how it feels. Never at the expense of reliability and speed.

eviks•11 hours ago

Their new version 7 implements the lower quality design of liquid glass while also blocking all ios versions below the latest (so you can't get bug fixes and slow features with the better design). How does that fit the philosophy?

jxdxbx•8 hours ago

I think it looks better (on Mac and iOS) than any other Liquid Glass app. And I can’t blame Brent for adopting it. One of the standout features of the app is just being native, not trying to re-invent the wheel with custom GUI, and taking advantage of built-in platform features.

My favorite NNW feature is iCloud syncing: Not needing a separate RSS back-end (but of course you can use one if you want to sync with other clients).

eviks•7 hours ago

> think it looks better (on Mac and iOS) than any other Liquid Glass app

what a weird comparison, the baseline is the previous version of the app

> standout features of the app is just being native, not trying to re-invent the wheel with custom GUI, and taking advantage of built-in platform features

Since the previous GUI isn't custom you don't lose your standout features

jxdxbx•3 hours ago

Well I think the iOS version is better! I don't like Liquid Glass on Mac though.

eviks•2 hours ago

Ok, to get back to the original point: does making one of your platforms worse jibe with the quality philosophy?

brailsafe•11 hours ago

That's a tough one, but considering it's only the 7th major version to come out in 23 years, I'd say that's a fairly safe place to demarcate backwards compatibility, considering that it's (probably) a fairly major UI overhaul on both iOS and Mac. Despite the poor quality of the OSes themselves, it's just a small studio, gotta pick your battles carefully. You can still use the version you're using, and if you ever upgrade to the new OS you can get the new version, seems reasonable enough to me

eviks•10 hours ago

> gotta pick your battles carefully

Ok, and how is wasting time making the design worse to follow the OS instead of spending that time implementing missing features a carefully picked battle? I thought the philosophy was prioritizing quality

> You can still use the version you're using

Which would be missing bug fixes and those slow features the may be added next year

sherry-sherry•7 hours ago

The app has always followed the masOS design language, because the app is built using the native macOS tools. It makes sense for it to match the OS it's on, apps built with stand UI components migrated to 'Liquid glass' much easier.

The app is open source (https://github.com/Ranchero-Software/NetNewsWire), feel free to back-port any features or bug-fixes you would like to spend your time on.

eviks•7 hours ago

It doesn't make sense because the previous version also matches the OS it's on, liquid glass degradation isn't mandatory and "much easier" is still harder than doing the better nothing.

Your suggestion is just as senseless: among the many things wrong with such a "write the app yourself" approach, you forgot about iOS, even though it's mentioned in the original comment, where you can't freely backport anything due to distribution being locked down

sherry-sherry•3 hours ago

It makes sense. Like you said, previous versions used the macOS design language at the time, and the current version does the same. The developer has chosen to no longer support older versions of macOS, they aren't required to. The old app still works, and anyone else can work on it if they want.

> you forgot about iOS, even though it's mentioned in the original comment, where you can't freely backport anything due to distribution being locked down

Yes you can. You can create an app today that is compatible with iOS 15.

eviks•2 hours ago

> You can create an app today that is compatible with iOS 15.

You forgot to address the point, which was about distribution, not creation

The previous paragraph is similarly irrelevant, for example, "aren't required to" - who said anything about requirements??

jamespo•38 minutes ago

We get it, you don't like liquid glass, neither do I. But the source is available and there are alternatives to both MacOS and netnewswire.

eviks•33 minutes ago

No, you don't get it, otherwise you wouldn't repeat/add irrelevant points to a thread filled with them

cosmic_cheese•yesterday

Hands down the best RSS reader I've used. It's fast, tiny, built extremely well, and has no flab. It sits in a certain class of application along with Alfred and a handful of others in being a standout example of craftsmanship that's reminiscent of the golden era of OS X. More apps should strive for this standard.

leokennis•5 hours ago

With so many apps introducing either paywalls (requiring either login or circumvention measures) or terrible RSS feeds (with content missing, images missing etc.) I have found it necessary to use a feed reader that you can configure per-feed to open either:

- The feed item (read the XML)

- The site fulltext

- The original site (in case of login required)

For me that app is https://www.lireapp.com/

geoffeg•3 hours ago

Is there some way to create this kind of experience without having to change RSS readers? Is there a service that allows you to easily create RSS feeds for websites without them? I'd rather go with a more unix "do one thing and do it well" philosophy for something like this.

jamespo•2 hours ago

There’s rss-bridge which is in the ballpark

pavel_lishin•yesterday

I wish it had a more accessible scripting API - I use it locally, and back up saved stories, but I have to directly hit their sqlite database to extract data out of it :/

Dracophoenix•15 hours ago

That's the issue with most RSS client I've used. The feeds are portable but the data and metadata aren't. I wish there was a permanent solution to this problem.

xmok•yesterday

Speaking of Alfred, there’s also a Raycast[0] extension for NetNewsWire allowing one to combine the two[1].

Disclaimer: I authored the extension but like most Raycast extensions, it’s open-source[2].

[0]: https://raycast.com [1]: https://raycast.com/xmok/netnewswire [2]: https://github.com/raycast/extensions/tree/main/extensions/n...

tomaskafka•yesterday

I love it too, but I would still like some concept of folders, so that I could sort my feeds into eg. programming, design, hobbies, and then have a feed to match the mood.

dallen33•yesterday

Are you talking about NetNewsWire? There are folders, I have a bunch setup.

k2enemy•20 hours ago

I love NNW, especially the new iteration since Brent got it back. Mac-assed software at its best.

The other day I was searching for how to turn a youtube channel into an RSS feed and tried all sorts of convoluted instructions for finding channel IDs, etc. At some point I thought this is the kind of user-centric thing that NNW has probably already thought of, and sure enough, if you just paste in a youtube channel URL as the feed, NNW sorts it out and creates a feed for you.

kevincox•19 hours ago

> if you just paste in a youtube channel URL as the feed, NNW sorts it out and creates a feed for you.

While I don't doubt that NNW has great UX, feed auto-discovery is a table stakes feature for any RSS client.

navanchauhan•19 hours ago

I thought YouTube had native RSS feeds for channels?

xp84•18 hours ago

It does - I think the praise being sung was just that you don't need to know how to construct them. YouTube doesn't have a little orange rectangle "RSS" link to click, or anything.

k2enemy•16 hours ago

At one point (when I first tried this) I'm pretty sure youtube didn't have a link to an rss feed in the source. I had grown used to going to source and searching for "rss" and "xml." However, I just checked and they definitely do have a link now!

onli•11 hours ago

Oh, thanks for the hint! I might be able to remove some code from my feed detection code (on pipes) then.

But on a first glance, it seems like alternate links for channels are back, but playlists are missing. Still, that might be a step forward.

trekz•7 hours ago

I think openrss.org has YouTube playlist feeds

onli•7 hours ago

Yeah, quite possible. You can construct the feed by some rules, mine are here: https://github.com/pipes-digital/pipes/blob/4243c9234ddab6a3... - but then you have to monitor whether it still works periodically. Being able to replace that by proper meta tags would be nice.

Using openrss.org as an intermediary might work as well, but not ideal to rely on a third party for that.

htk•1 hour ago

This is THE reader of RSS feeds if you're in the Apple ecosystem.

It's so good to still find new feeds to subscribe to now and then.

My latest is the newsletter from Retro Game Corps. Pure nostalgia fun right on my NetNewsWire apps.

chmaynard•19 hours ago

I'm staying away from macOS Tahoe for now. NetNewsWire has already announced that they will no longer support the earlier 6.x release that I use. I assume that means no bug fixes or back-porting of new features. Sad.

jjtheblunt•1 hour ago

how could it be reasonable for them to indefinitely maintain an older version?

you didn't say why you prefer use of the earlier version, but i'm curious.

josh64•15 hours ago

Vienna will support older MacOS releases for longer. Our development has been slow the past couple of years due to maintainers having big life changes. Things are about to pick up so keep an eye out!

yougotwill•13 hours ago

Love Vienna! Been using it for years. Looking forward to updates

brailsafe•11 hours ago

I'm staying away from Tahoe for now as well, but are there any bugs in the 6.x release?

chmaynard•9 hours ago

GitHub reports that there are 242 open issues labeled "Bug".

https://github.com/Ranchero-Software/NetNewsWire/issues?q=is...

username223•15 hours ago

Don't be sad! NetNewsWire has been my newsreader for well over a decade, and I only consider "upgrading" out of idle curiosity, because the version I have now does what I want, and does it well. The version treadmill is a machine producing only sadness.

trumpdong•7 hours ago

[dead]

sharkjacobs•yesterday

NNW is like a river stone tumbled smooth and with enough weight that it feels good in your hand

dan_m2k•11 hours ago

This makes me really happy to see this non social media, non algo part of the internet going from strength to strength.

Having deleted my socials and regained some time, I’ve just got a small skeleton of the sites I used to read left in my phone’s favourites.

Despite all the wrongs of Facebook, et al, I have lost some channels and stories that I used to consume there.

How do users of readers like NNW discover new stuff? Just picking stuff up or do the apps support discovery?

geoffeg•yesterday

I started out with NNW and am back on it now. After Google killed Reader I went to Feedly, then tried a few self-hosted solutions and, in the end, NNW is just the easiest solution for me since I'm in the Apple ecosystem.

nntwozz•yesterday

NNW is my happy place.

Every time I open the app I feel like I'm back in the era of Mac OS X Snow Leopard and Steve Jobs is about to reveal one more thing.

pantulis•8 hours ago

When we got notifications through Growl.

arjunbajaj•yesterday

A truly great piece of software! Been using it for 5+ years.

I think NetNewsWire is a great example of what software should strive for: a useful set of features, while being fast and smooth.