inessential by Brent Simmons

NetNewsWire Display Hacks

In the full version of NetNewsWire 2.0 are a couple display hacks. One is documented by Jon Hicks. Another is a hack to add indenting to the datelines and summaries display in the headlines table.

We added the ability to show datelines in the headlines table mainly for the benefit of people using the widescreen layout. (Choose View > Layout > Show Datelines in Table.) This removes the columns and puts a dateline below each title. (Thanks go to Alex King for suggesting this feature.)

There is no exposed preference for adding indenting to the datelines—but you can add it manually via the Terminal.

Indent pixels hack

  1. Quit NetNewsWire if it’s running.
  2. Launch /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.
  3. Type the below and hit return.
    defaults write com.ranchero.NetNewsWire summaryTableIndentPixels 15
    (Make the number the number of pixels you want to indent.)
  4. Launch NetNewsWire. (Be sure that showing datelines and/or summaries is turned on, or you won’t see any effect.)

You end up with something like in the screen shot above (click for a larger version).

Another hack, similar to the above, allows you to set the number of summary lines when showing summaries is on. The key is summaryLinesToInclude.

We call these hacks because you have to use the Terminal to change the settings and also because they’re unsupported. But I couldn’t resist telling you about them.