Reeder for Mac Released | Hacker News Reader

Reeder for Mac Released

madeatgloria.com

49 pointslox39 comments

Two very important things you should fix:

1.) Stop that animation! It gives headache while reading your app summary.

2.) Screenshots should be there. EDIT: Specially because after download, all I see is a login box. So even after downloading the app, I have no clue what I'm getting at.

EDIT: The animation also gives my Mac a stroke.

EDIT: After trying to use your app. Where do I register? I tried putting random stuff and it says "Google Reader login failed". So is this about Google Reader by any chance?

You sir are correct! I didn't download because the animation don't inspire confidence and the lack of screenshots meant I wasn't even sure what I was getting into.

I very much doubt that this will be the website for the finished app. This is just a place where you can for now download the completely unfinished beta. The app is not really out yet.

As you can see on the website for his iPhone app [1] and iPad app [2] the developer is very capable of creating informative and practical websites to present his products.

[1] http://reederapp.com/2/

[2] http://reederapp.com/ipad/

Those are good pages.

However, the point of HN and beta versions is to have meaningful feedback. We would do a serious disservice to the community if we don't be honest about what exactly sucked.

I think he might be willing to do a similar homepage for his final app. It would hurt him if he goes off beta with the present animated feel. Maybe he's willing to try something new. I seriously vote against it if he is.

The point of HN is also to have people with a little more sense than the average Joe tester.

You're giving feedback about the wrong thing. The point of this beta is clearly to improve the app, not his website. In fact, that's not even the app's own website (which is http://reederapp.com/). He's using his studio's.

I was quite curious what this whole made@gloria website is all about and searched around for a bit because the website doesn’t provide any context. Gloria is apparently a cafe in Zürich and the website was put up by a otherwise unrelated group of developers who meet there. It looks like it’s merely supposed to link to the different projects of the different developers. It doesn’t look like it will ever be the actual website for any project.

You're probably right. The reederapp.com website actually mentions made@gloria at the bottom. But the made@gloria website has a very club like feel. So I figure it's a hacker group.

Also, the link has "brewery". So yeah, the hackers at the cafe it is, probably. :)

There's a difference between "Hey, HN! Check out what I made! Thoughts, please?" and "Hey, HN! Theres this awesome app that I really like that has a new beta out."

I second your points and add...

Not being an iPhone user, I am confused that I cannot tell whether this will have any relevance to me on my Mac. Nor can I find any indication of how I may register in order to log in (or whether registration is free).

I agree. I'm not downloading a random app that doesn't give me any sense of what it does, or is for.

It's easy and respectful to your prospective users to at least include a screenshot and maybe a paragraph describing an app.

I agree. I'm not downloading a random app that doesn't give me any sense of what it does, or is for.

Indeed: I still have no idea what it does. I figured that it's an RSS reader, based on the name, but I could easily be wrong.

This looks like some kind of beta release. Presumably the people who are interested in it are those who already use Reeder on the iPhone or iPad (Reeder is generally considered the best RSS client on those platforms) so I wouldn't be too harsh on the author.

I'd guess that most people who want this app have been waiting for it for a while, and will have known exactly what it was – this isn't the finished build, it's just a draft for us to get excited about!

It would be nicer if the download page has some screenshots of the features listed.

EDIT: I also had to download to realise that it wouldn't work on my 32-bit OSX 10.5.8. Could you please add more info to the site? Thanks.

I'm assuming a feed reader here, but someone really needs to work on their copy and not assume I have any idea what your product is.

It should be noted that this is still a relatively early beta, and not fully the "Reeder for Mac" that people may be expecting.

The app is really nice, the only thing that bothers me is the sidebar when you have many grouped feeds and most of them don't have an icon. I wish it had something more similar to the iPad version (that I really really love)

You can drag the leftmost column wider to get a more traditional list.

Thanks. That should definitely be the default, though.

THANK YOU for mentioning this. I didn't realize it and the Tweetie style block list was one of the only things bugging me.

Wow - that site rapes my CPU. What is it with sites doing this? Do people not realise that it's really annoying/

What browser are you using? Safari is at 20% on my four year old MBP.

(I’m also not sure whether comments like this are necessary. This submission is not in any way about the website, your remark seems wildly off-topic to me.)

It doesn't seem off topic to me. People post their projects or other people's projects they feel excited about on HN to gain publicity and receive criticism.

While the original intent is about the actual application, Reeder, everyone needs to navigate their website to obtain the application. If the website is unusable for some, it is fair criticism to tell them so since it can portray the project in a negative light. I personally think the scrolling "bubbles", or whatever it may be, is completely unnecessary. Other sites that have intensive scripts that do peg my CPU to the point it makes my fans spin up on my laptop tend to be show stoppers for me as well. I would categorize these sites, which aren't designed to show off the latest browser technology, in the same group as sites that download large, unoptimized images and unneeded assets. They become un-accessible to certain demographics.

disclaimer: I only spent a few seconds on the site before closing the tab due to the site's colors clashing with my morning eyes and being very flashy without providing any immediate description of what it was about.

I don’t think this was posted here by the developer of the app.

"Do people not realise that it's really annoying"

Annoying like the decision to use "rape" for your issue.

Yes, please think about what that word actually means before you chuck it into a sentence.

I'm not saying by any means that it cannot be used outside of its dictionary-defined context, but sub-optimal CPU utilization probably does not warrant a sexual violence metaphor.

It's quite nice, aesthetically. A few things:

1. Using it a bit, it seems I just keep typing "j v space space space j v space j v..." If there was some sort of flow where it would automatically open the web link in the preview pane instead of showing you the RSS feed item (and if you could advance to the next one by spacing to the end of it), I could just press "space space space space..." to read my whole RSS list, top-to-bottom, even when some of them just say something like "new page up! click to go there." That would be amazing, and totally worth ditching Google Reader.

2. It currently doesn't have a Menu Extra (a system tray item). I'm used to using Reader Notifier Reloaded, which has a nice workflow if there are some items you want to immediately act on when they appear: you get a Growl notification on each newly-synched item, which you can click on to open its permalink + mark it as read automatically. If you miss the notification, you can click on the Menu Extra to see a list of the 25 most recent unread items, to do the same from there. I imagine this would piss someone off who has thousands of feeds, but if it could be filtered to only apply to certain feeds, or feeds with a certain tag applied in Google Reader—and if it could do something clever with them, like automatically opening them in Safari without giving it focus—that would be exceptional.

For point 1., Shift-J and Shift-K will go between the next item and load the page, so your flow would be:

  ⇧J ␠ ␠ ␠ ⇧J ␠

You could contact him about a preference to change the spacebar behavior between using "j" and "J", though.

This site style always struck me as "what's wrong" with a lot of design heavy or "trendy design" heavy websites.

This approach to copy/design is OK when your business is primarily achieved through networking and you just need to establish a rudimentary web presence. When it involves selling a product, the minimal copy and lack of context is highly ineffective.

Regarding the App, I've never used Reeder for any app, I like what I see. I think I'm too used to Google Reader's web interface though.

The app is really nice. It has already dethroned NNW in my dock. It’d be useful to have an indicator of what’s happening when fetching feeds — like the one on the iPhone. There’s a lag between creating the note, and having it listed in the notes pane. Are notes synchronized to a server or stored locally?

Reeder is my favorite iPhone app and I can’t wait to buy reeder for Mac. Great job.

edit: notes are synced with Google reader.

If anyone's still wondering what a Mac App Store app might look like, I'd say this is a pretty good candidate.

It would be really nice if the website said or showed what it is you're actually looking at.

And the initial login screen? If it wasn't for HN comments, I wouldn't even know you're supposed to put in your Google credentials.

Good times.

Needs some kind of feedback when it's talking to the google servers. The way it is now, you don't even know if you just didn't have any new items or if it failed to connect.

I just wish it didn't sync with Google.

Except that that is the main point of the app.

Well, the main point is the beautiful interface that makes reading RSS fields hugely pleasurable. That Reeder syncs with Google is because the author doesn't want to maintain an RSS aggregation/syncing service himself (and who can blame him?) I just don't like using Google's services, so I am bemoaning the fact not that the author isn't HOPPING TO MY PERSONAL DEMANDS but rather that I don't get to use Reeder.

It looks good, but I have no idea what it does.

Does it support oAuth? It doesn't seem to.

So beautiful.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com