Filed under: Software, Cool tools, Internet Tools
NNW booted from my Dock, long live endo!
Scott posted on endo yesterday, and today I am happy to report that NNW has gone to that giant "poof" in the ex-Dock sky. Sure, endo has some minor "it's a 1.0 release" quirks, but this is the newsreader I've been waiting for. After putting it through its paces last night I was happy to dethrone NetNewsWire's place in my Dock, and here's why.
First and foremost is NetNewWire's age. Version 2.x is old, and it's starting to feel like it hasn't been touched in a while, possibly due to it's dominance in the newsreading market or the NewsGator buyout. Now I don't mean any disrespect; Ranchero is a great company and NetNewsWire both initiated me into and carried me through the newsreading market for a couple of years now. endo simply feels like it pays a little more attention to the market and is aiming to evolve with it, as it offers some really slick integration and headline organizing options. Headlines can be added to a del.icio.us account right from within endo, without the need for snarky applescripts that make me leave the app to do the actual bookmarking in a browser.
On the topic of feed management, endo is very customizable, with the ability to set refresh rates for each group and/or feed (and disabling them altogether) and even the ability to colorize particular feed's headlines so they're easier to pick out in a crowd. endo also offers a Growl-like notification system, toggled per feed, that allows you to sift through snippets of new headlines and short summaries while leaving endo minimized or even hidden. The headline column on the left is also quite tweakable, as summaries and tags can be displayed in-line with the headlines, or you can completely turn off both of those items as I have in my screenshot. To round up the feed management angle: for all those times when you can't get online, endo has the ever-obvious "offline" option.
Another key endo feature is the endoBot, an optional stand-alone download manager that's actually a manager. It doesn't just show a list of what enclosures, podcasts and apps I am presently downloading, it sifts through all the feeds and presents a list of everything that is downloadable. This lets me grab what I'm looking for a lot more quickly than sifting through 250 feeds for that one appcast update or the podcast I've been waiting for all week.
Honestly I could go on and on about features like selecting feed groups simply by typing a few letters of their name or the ability to sync subscriptions with Kula's servers or .Mac, but if any of this praise for endo is piquing your interest I recommend simply taking the plunge and playing with a 21-day demo. No, Kula didn't pay me to say all this, but once I finish this post I'm heading off to register a copy.
Sorry NetNewsWire, you are now the weakest link. Goodbye.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Neil Christie said 2:06PM on 3-08-2006
Have you ever heard of Newsfire? It's a much nicer looking app and I swear by it.
http://www.newsfirerss.com/
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Andy Lee said 2:14PM on 3-08-2006
The "taking the plunge" link is broken. It should be http://kula.jp/software/endo/ .
I'm off now to give it a try.
P.S. I sure would like a preview mode for comments.
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Mark said 2:15PM on 3-08-2006
Unfortuantely i can't even TRY this app. My company has me stuck at 10.3.9 (plus security updates) and i can't run endo becuase it was compiled for 10.4+ only.
I'm happy with NNW... in fact, i'm typing in NNW right now :)
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andy said 2:17PM on 3-08-2006
Yeah, I never understood why NetNewsWire was so popular I've always thought NewsFire was far superior. I guess I'll check out endo though...
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Paul Carroll said 2:23PM on 3-08-2006
I too just dropped NNW for Endo, and I'm never going back. Endo is really amazing, and I am going to go by my license right now as well. :)
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Sam said 2:32PM on 3-08-2006
Here's another vote for NewsFire.
I tried endo last night, and honestly I don't see what all the fuss is about. Everything that garners endo praise over NNW, I've been happily enjoying for months with NewsFire.
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Ryan Cerbus said 2:33PM on 3-08-2006
Why did the busted "take the plunge" link take me to http://www.microsoft.com ? is that something the kula.jp server does?
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Will said 3:14PM on 3-08-2006
Looks like it has some nice features, but I'm very attached to the view and interface functionality of NNW that I can't work with Endo (or NewsFire for that matter). I agree that it seems like NNW is not being very actively developed, and that there are numerous features they could be adding to NNW -- I wish they'd get busy on that. Growl, in particular. And why does Endo implement a "growl-like" interface rather than just using growl already? Sheesh.
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James Fee said 3:17PM on 3-08-2006
I'm holding out for full Newsgator online syncing in NNW. I'm using FeedDemon at work and NNW at home. The ability to sync between both will be well worth the wait.
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Joel said 3:19PM on 3-08-2006
endo is my new favorite RSS aggregator. It has replaced Newsfire (which I thought was never going to happen).
Why? All my favorite features in the other aggregators are all successfully (and elegantly) merged in endo. It's the RSS experience done right!
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Justin said 3:19PM on 3-08-2006
As far as posting to del.icio.us from NNW, you might want to check out my app, Pukka. It handles multiple accounts as well.
Also, am I missing something about the custom refresh settings? NNW seems to do this as well.
I will check out endo, though -- sounds interesting.
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Tom said 3:21PM on 3-08-2006
Hah! Who uses their dock anymore?
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LD said 3:26PM on 3-08-2006
I've just never understood the fascination with RSS over the past year or so. It's not new and it's not even that friendly if you ask me.
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MILE said 3:30PM on 3-08-2006
Well, then I guess I was just too plain stupid to get endo...!? It pretty much confused the heck out of me...
What's with all these new RSS readers anyway...!?! Here's another candidate, released today:
http://www.coladia.com/postino/
At least it looks cleaner and simpler than endo...!? ;)
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Brandon Jones said 4:03PM on 3-08-2006
My favorite is still Vienna. It's open source and actively developed right now and is coming along quite nicely. Goto http://www.opencommunity.co.uk for more details.
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Justin said 4:46PM on 3-08-2006
I think the problem I have with NewsFire and endo is that they pool everything into one big unread bin. I change the settings around a bit, but I find it hard to understand what feed things are from. NNW's source list is perfect for the way I use my RSS reader.
NewsFire isn't as bad as endo, but NNW works great for me atm. I would love to switch but I really get annoyed at some of the other readers.
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Jeremy said 5:24PM on 3-08-2006
Wow. I'm glad someone likes it, I guess. I tried Endo, found it utterly and completely unusable, and ran screaming back to NetNewsWire. It looks like Endo is designed for someone with only a few feeds who always just reads everything "unread" in all of them as they come in. Used any other way, or with any significant number of feeds, it's just impossible to find anything.
And having the toolbar icons move when you select them has to be on the Master List of Worst UI Ideas Ever.
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Anatoli Papirovski said 5:31PM on 3-08-2006
On the matter of NetNewsWire not being updatedthere's a private beta right now and there's going to be a public one soon. It's supposed to be really, really good... I'm sticking with NNW. Plus Endo is really bad in terms of GUI, if you have a lot of feeds you're subscribing to, in a lot of categories than endo sucks. It's also a huge hog compared to NNW.
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Scott McNulty said 5:51PM on 3-08-2006
LD, I can't imagine using my Mac without some sort of RSS reader (NNW is still my choice). If you read hundreds of blogs a day, then RSS suddenly makes sense. :)
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Paul Carroll said 6:06PM on 3-08-2006
no! what happened?! They just updated to 1.0.4 and now there are a whole bunch of problems with the icons :( Why do this to me endo?
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