RSS is a wonderful invention. But what it often means is that you try to read ten times the content that you used to. Because, of course, it’s so easy to slip through feeds in your RSS reader, and so whenever you find a new website with an interesting article you hit the orange button. (By the way, if you haven’t already, do hit the orange button).
And Google Reader is a great product. It really is. But then you wake up one morning, hit the link and there are 11,000 unread items. Plus Google has been a bit naughty recently with its interface design. What once looked cool and clean is now a bit of a mess.
I present, m’lord, item one:
What is all that stuff? I quite liked it when sharing came along, but now – ugh too much.
Solution 1: It’s Not a List; It’s a Magazine
So I was delighted to discover Feedly last year (via. Drew Benvie). It distils your web feeds, does some magic sorting and displays the stuff you should read on a single page.
I like this a lot. It doesn’t tell you that you’ve got 11,000 unread items; it doesn’t have a ton of possibly important but inscrutable menu links. Like Reader, the content is lazy-loaded in the background, so you can click on links and read the item’s content without reloading the site.
It also doesn’t show you everything. You won’t ‘get-through’ all your feeds this way. But that’s kind of the point. Once you’ve stopped enjoying reading updates, you can move away without feeling guilty.
In case you do feel guilty about this approach to reading RSS feeds, I’d suggest that it’s close to the original ‘river of news’ idea that Dave Winer suggested, except there’s been some clever manipulation of the items so you’re less likely to miss popular news.
Solution 2: Health and Efficiency and Helvetica
So what if you are a bit more conscientious or hard-working? Find that whole magazine idea a bit strange. Or have a keen sense of design offended by so-called web friendly fonts? The solution for you, my benighted friend, is Helvetireader.
Helvetireader is a CSS rework of Google reader that hides extraneous elements and makes the rest look plainer and more beautiful. It’s a two-step installation process. You need to install Greasemonkey for Firefox or Chrome. It’s a scripting add-on that you’ll find lots of other uses for if you look into it.
Then go over to the Helvetireader website, where you can install it from the button. Version 2 has just been released, which is prettier than Version 1, which was awesome. The next time you visit Google Reader, it will be beautified. And minified – the plugin hides a lot of stuff, so you won’t like it if you are addicted to features.
Helvetireader can be used in exactly the same way as normal Google Reader, but works as its best if you know the short-cut keys. There are loads of these. The important ones are:
- j/k – next / previous item
- space – scroll down / next folder
- s – star this item
- shift+s – share this item
It seems as though ‘n’ and ‘p’ do something similar to ‘j’ and ‘k’, but I couldn’t work out the difference.
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That was useful post — at least now I get all this Google reader