HTML differences
I’m going to be writing about new NetNewsWire features for the next few days... Here’s another one: HTML differences.

It’s off by default. You turn it on via the General prefs panel, where it asks if you want to highlight differences for updated items.

Deleted text is struck through and red; new text is green and underlined.

This is another one of those features that I didn’t think I’d like, but NetNewsWire users asked me for it. Aaron Swartz, in particular, wanted this feature—and he said we could use his script in NetNewsWire. (So if you look inside NetNewsWire’s bundle, in the Resources directory you’ll find htmlDiff.py, Aaron’s Python script for showing HTML differences.)

So, if you like this feature, be sure to thank Aaron.

Now, as I said, I didn’t think that I personally would like this feature—but it turns out that I totally like it.

That leads to a little advice for app developers—your users are smart. The list of features I didn’t think I’d like, but that I did anyway because people asked for, is pretty much the list of cool features in NetNewsWire. (Groups, for one thing. The Combined View is another big one. And so on.)
10:23 pm #

Gzip compression and RSS
The new version of NetNewsWire supports gzip compression—which sounds like a really boring thing.

And it is. Unless you’re looking for ways to save bandwidth.

It works like this: when downloading a feed, NetNewsWire tells the server that it supports compression. If the server also supports compression, it returns a compressed version of the feed. This means less actual bytes are transferred, which saves bandwidth.

This is such a good idea that Ted Leung has been keeping track of which aggregators support compression. (I’ll have to email him about NetNewsWire.)

But here’s the thing—it looks like hardly any servers support compression. Here’s a screen shot of my bandwidth stats window. Note the new gzips column, and note how there are only four (out of 99) feeds that have returned compressed data. (Even my own feeds don’t support compression yet.)

So—I wish I had a cool pitch of some kind, something to say besides, “Hey, server admin, please support compression.”

But I don’t, so I just say hey, server admin, please support compression.
09:55 pm #

NetNewsWire 1.0.4b3
NetNewsWire 1.0.4b3 has been posted. This is the first public beta in the 1.0.4 series.

(Note to VersionTracker and MacUpdate: please don’t list this beta. Thank you.)

The change notes go into detail about what’s new and different. Some highlights: it uses Web Kit now to display HTML, it’s faster, you can highlight differences in updated items, gzip compression is supported, and there’s a new Delete Read Items command.
05:02 pm #