Filed under: Software
Vienna 2.1 preview

Some people have given us flack for focusing too much on one particular RSS reader, so I thought I would help the Vienna 2.1 preview. Vienna is a full featured open source RSS reader for OS X (and you know what means, it is free).
2.1 brings with it a host of new features including:
- A new 'Unified' layout
- Filter articles by various criteria
- Manual folder reordering
Thanks, Dave Jeffery.

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Kent Pribbernow said 8:32AM on 6-06-2006
I prefer NewsMac Pro myself. It works beautifully features Palm and iPod sync as well. This Vienna app looks decent, but it's far too bare bones for my tastes.
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K said 8:42AM on 6-06-2006
I quite like Shrook, and it's free. Nice, simple and very mac.
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Herv S. said 8:43AM on 6-06-2006
Contrarily to that RSS-reader-you-talk-too-much-about, Vienna can also export your locked posts to any text editor just by drag and drop (and you get pictures and links as well).
Yours only allows this one post at a time (read: you'll never do it) and is not Spotlight-searchable...
I'll never insist enough on this capability to export your data to other, open formats, for the day you may LEAVE the software you use. Without this you definitely sign blindly, AND (not 'or') still risk loosing just everything the day you learn that oh, the passage to Intel code was very complex, so the related upgrade will be a paying one, etc.
Indeed, this does not apply only to text editors.
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Kdraggy said 8:58AM on 6-06-2006
NewsMac Pro is too buggy IMHO. I used it for a while - as for now I'm happy with NewsFire. Mostly for it's speed and slick appearance.
PulpFiction (NetNewsWire too) looks to be a little outdated in terms of UI. In my opinion.
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Matt Sephton said 9:55AM on 6-06-2006
I swapped to Vienna from NetNewsWire earlier this year, for one reason: smart folders. I can set up a smart folder to show today's unread posts. Duplicating that set up it's really easy to spot posts that were posted after any time of day. Who needs a subscription to Newsgator to keep track of what they've already read?
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henrrrik said 10:02AM on 6-06-2006
I use Vienna 2.1. I try to use open source when possible.
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Geoff Wozniak said 1:32PM on 6-06-2006
I just tried it out and was rather disappointed. Every time I started it up, all the articles I marked as read would become unread again. Also, renaming the titles of feeds resulted in a tiny text-entry area that gave me about 10 characters of context.
Maybe I'll try it again in the future, but this time it got dragged to AppZapper.
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Jeremy said 5:01PM on 6-06-2006
I'm "shopping" for a new RSS reader to replace NetNewsWire, mainly because of the whole "required NewsGator nonsense" thing. This one looks like a pretty good candidate; I'll be trying it for a while.
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Reg said 8:41PM on 6-06-2006
#8, NetNewsWire doesn't require a NewsGator account.
It uses one if you have one, and you get a free one when you purchase NetNewsWire, but it can operate completely independent of it.
Even for syncing if you sync between multiple computers: if you don't want to use NewsGator you can have NetNewsWire use .Mac or even FTP.
(Syncing works so well, that I copied the NetNewsWire app to my new MacBook and it had my feeds in far less time than Apple's .Mac Safari syncing got my bookmarks.)
Give criticism where it's due, but at least get the facts right.
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sjk said 12:56AM on 6-07-2006
Re: This Vienna app looks decent, but it's far too bare bones for my tastes. (#1)
That's my impression of it. Still seems closer to NNW Lite than NNW.
Re: NewsMac Pro is too buggy IMHO. (#4)
It crashed during my first usage so I didn't bother testing it any further. Same with endo, plus performance-wise it was unusable on my iBook G3.
Surprisingly, the only news feed reader I've tried that could potentially replace NNW (non-Lite) for me is MacReporter (2.5), but not for $24.95 (and more bugs than NNW). Still, the performance and bugs were more acceptable than with other products.
I want an exit strategy from NNW/NewsGator if I get dissatisfied. I'm not intending to use NG synching, which is still too unreliable and feature-sparse anyway.
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Billifer said 2:11AM on 6-07-2006
I've been a fan of Vienna since I first started using an RSS reader. It's definitely my reader of choice, and until something major changes with the other contenders, it likely will be for a long time coming.
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starwxrwx said 3:30AM on 6-07-2006
wow, this is great news - I tried to switch to Vienna from Safari a while ago, but I hated it - but my biggest gripes were no view-all and no reordering of folders - which they have fixed :) so I'll be giving it another try!
I defiantely prefer to have a stand alone reader for feeds where I dont read everything at once, but I find most news feeds are great in Safari
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Tom (dB) said 3:32AM on 6-07-2006
I just swapped to Vienna afgter using NetNewsWire Lite, and I love it. The main feature that I wanted was to flag articles that I wantto refer back to that NNWL didn't do and I didn't feel I needed the other features to go ahead and buy the full version.
Vienna looks better, has smart folders, and an integrated web browser. Very pleased with it. Also had no toruble importing my subscriptions.
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