Zeno's Paradox
July 31, 2003 - Shootout in the RSS Corral

David Donald just sent me a link to another MacOS X RSS feed reader, Shrook. I've been a die-hard NetNewsWire Lite user for some months now, so it's interesting to see how the two clients differ.

NetNewsWire Lite (NNWL) is the epitome of a simple, easy to use application. It displays the links and when the links are clicked, they open in Safari. Shrook is similar, but has opted to incorporate Apple WebFoundation rendering within the application, allowing users to read the entries within Shrook. Shrook also provides more preferences, allowing users to do different things with updating feeds politely (aka. not hosing the provider's feeds by constantly reloading). Shrook also deviates from NNWL's three pane layout by using a drawer instead to contain the lists of links. It's functionally the same, though it also includes a tab in the drawer that allows users to see the lists of feeds in the order in which they have been last updated (hour ago, yesterday, tuesday ...). Where available, Shrook also manages to use the favicon.ico files that are common on many sites.

So, given this initial quick look, here are my initial impressions:

- Kudos to the Shrook team for embracing the WebFoundation kit so quickly. Shrook uses it well.

- One turnoff with Shrook (and this may just be the whining of a NNWL user) is that the drawers and the tabs make the GUI look overly busy. I like what Shrook has done with the feed lists, but I would have liked it better in a three-pane layout as in NNWL.

- Integrating a browser in Shrook is a neat idea, but I doubt that I would use that feature much. I like reading web pages in a web browser. One idea is to give users the option of turning off the browser tabs and only viewing the feed summaries. This would cut down on the "busyness" of the GUI.

- Shrook should allow users to rename the title of the feeds. The site and title may be "Instapundit", but I like seeing it as "Glenn Reynolds".

- Shrook should release a "Lite" version. I'm not going to pay twenty dollars for something I can get for free.

Overall, I think Shrook is a solid implementation of the RSS feed-reader idea. I still like NNWL due to its simplicity and elegance, but I think that the release of Shrook is a loud shot over the bow of the NNWL ship. Here's to hoping that a bit of friendly competition will spur innovation.

Posted by br284 at 01:51 PM

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Useful and thought prevoking review - I am going to use Shrook for a short while before deciding.

Posted by David Donald on August 1, 2003 07:47 AM
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