Read it to Me

Read it to Me “creates a playlist of MP3 files in iTunes from your unread items in NetNewsWire using Apple’s Text-to-Speech that you can sync to your iPod.”

This means you can listen to your NetNewsWire news in your iPod.

One of the things I like about this—other than its coolness—is that it gives me a good excuse to mention NetNewsWire’s scriptability.

I get email from people sometimes who they say they’re using NetNewsWire Lite instead of the full version because they either don’t have a weblog or they’re editing it some other way.

But weblog editing is not the only feature that separates the full version from the Lite version.

Another of the differences is scriptability. The full version of NetNewsWire is not only scriptable, it also includes a Scripts menu where you can add your own commands just by dropping a script into a folder. (You’ve probably seen this same feature in BBEdit, Eudora, and so on.)

Scriptability is important because it makes things like Read it to Me possible. I would never have thought of adding a feature where you can listen to your news on your iPod.

But someone else could think of it—and do it—because NetNewsWire is scriptable.

And I’m sure there are other good ideas too, ideas that I myself would never think of. That’s the beauty of scripting.