inessential by Brent Simmons

NetNewsWire Lite 2.0b22: user interface makeover

NetNewsWire Lite screen shot

NetNewsWire Lite 2.0b22 has been posted to the NetNewsWire Betas page.

We hadn’t done a beta of the Lite version since 2.0b6—which meant, among other things, that Lite users didn’t have the user interface changes that were in recent betas of the full version.

The idea was in part to make the interface more attractive, give it a more modern look—but the main reasons have to do with usability.

In Pushing the Edge, Jonathan “Wolf” Rentzsch wrote: “The controls have been pushed to the absolute bottom. The lists abut the left and right sides of the window. Not a pixel of margin. The new UI looks simpler but actually does more.”

Just for jazz, here a couple more screen shots: one with the toolbar hidden and one using the Graphite appearance.

This release of NetNewsWire Lite gets some other new features too, such as per-feed refresh settings, datelines, and subscriptions sorting. See the change notes for more details.