October 28, 2003
@ 08:33 PM
Comments [16]
RSS Bandit 1.2.0.43 Released

Get it here

Differences between v1.2.0.43 and v1.2.0.42 below

  • This primarily fixes complaints by Roy Osherove about the responsiveness of RSS Bandit. Eliminated a number of places where GUI locks up when performing tasks by using background threads. Also reduced number of threads used by thread pool when downloading feeds.

  • Added missing source files to installer package, enabling one to compile RSS Bandit from source if so desired.

  • Reverted to behavior where links are opened in a new tabbed browser pane as opposed to the feed display pane

  • Fixed: ArgumentNullException when attempt made to "Refresh Feed" when the top most 'My Feeds' node is selected in the tree view.

 


 

Categories: RSS Bandit

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Wednesday, October 29, 2003 2:11:10 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
I just installed it, and.. yes. It's much better. Still a couple of *snags* tho.
1. CTRL+M won't set the unread items count on the feed name (but it does reset it in the post list) and you have to move to a nother feed and then back to the same feed for the count to reset.
2. Closing a category still hangs the GUI (while the post list refills with all the sub-posts)
3. there's no option to set how many threads you want scanning for new feeds on update (a-la SharpReader)
4.If you want to view a post while some other category is filling up (item #2) you have to wait for it.... and wait.. and wait..

overall I think it's a lot closer now, and it's usable today, but the responsivness could be better.
Thanks for all the great effort and listening. This *will* be the UberAggregator in time :)
royo@iserializable.com (Roy Osherove)
Wednesday, October 29, 2003 4:27:37 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
1. I can't reproduce this error on my end. Ctrl+M resets the unread count on the feed name when I try it.

2. Yes it does, but the time should be drastically reduced from several seconds to a second or two at the most. I just tried this on the RSS Bandit with the list of 144 Microsoft nbloggers on Joshua Allen's blog and it took about 2.5 seconds which seems reasonable to me. SharpReader does it in about a second so we are still over twice as slow but the performance is something I think is reasonable.

3. This is a really geeky feature and something I wouldn't like to add to RSS Bandit. However it is trivial to add it if you think that being able to control this value is that important.

4. I'm not sure I follow here. You can click on an item then click on a category and by the time you finish reading the item the category should have loaded into the list view (1 - 2 seconds).

By the way, I seem to have gotten more feedback on RSS Bandit from reading your blog comments than from any of my posts here. If you like the changes so far I'd appreciate a follow up post on your blog so I can see what others think as well.

Thanks.
Dare Obasanjo
Wednesday, October 29, 2003 5:57:47 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
btw, "Read On" link in comment's view points to someting like about:blank8a5f43e7-feb0-4877-a9e2-b3d14b441804.
Oleg Tkachenko
Wednesday, October 29, 2003 6:06:54 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
Oleg,
This is a bug in dasBlog. I've just filed it in the workspace.
kpako@yahoo.com (Dare Obasanjo)
Wednesday, October 29, 2003 6:30:59 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
1. Yeah. After I closed and re-opened it I can't repro it too. Og wel..

2. I mean that the post list itself does not appear (i.e white blank screen in the viewer pane) until the category is filled. And, on my machine SR closes the category and fills the list almost immediately. The thing is, I think the thread that fills the list is also a separate thread, so the list is immediately responsive even if the posts are still filling up. And no. I don't think 2 seconds is reasonable IMHO (and it could be a lot more)

3. I think with the current responsivness of RB, it would be nice to be able to play with this factor and see if tweaking it produces a better ratio of responsive GUI vs. work.

4. Meaning if I close the currnt category I'm looking at and click on a different feed in a different category, that feed's post list won't show until that category I just closed finished refreshing it' s post list.


I'll post about the new version on the blog.
One more thing that's missing IMO is a filter function (like in SR) or something similar.
Roy Osherove
Wednesday, October 29, 2003 6:48:21 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
2. I could fill this in a progressive manner so it isn't obvious that the list is still being updated.

4. This causes a problem with the above request because I now have to know to kill the thread that is filling the list view progressively since that category is no longer selected. I'll think about how best to deliver this.

The next feature to add to RSS Bandit is 'Structured Search' which should allow the user to run canned queries over the feeds. SharpReader allows you to apply such filters on dates and the text of titles and content (combined). I was originally considering supplying more than that but given recent thoughts I've had about how to make it perform well it seems best to hold off on such ideas or have a different search feature from actual filters.
Dare Obasanjo
Wednesday, October 29, 2003 8:05:15 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
Dare...I really appreciate the effort you put into trying to answer the comments on Roy's post.
I reloaded RSS Bandit this morning and I do see improvements but for the most part agree with Roy's comments above especially number 4.
In addition, what's up with trying to delete a post? If I right click on a post "Delete selected item" is dimmed. if I flag it and then go to the Flagged Items folder I can then select "Delete selected item" and it goes away but if I leave the folder and come back it's there again. Delete it second time and it doesn't seem to come back. Why couldn't I just delete from either the category view or the feed view?
Ron Green
Wednesday, October 29, 2003 8:29:41 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
A way to move multiple feeds at a time into a category would also be essential for me. Maybe there is a way to do this, or at least a way to import an OPML into a category but I dont see it.

Also, a very personal thing but I really dislike the smiley face icon :)
Dave Verwer
Wednesday, October 29, 2003 8:40:30 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
Dave,
You can import an OPML into a category if it is hierarchical OPML. Here is an example of importing a list of feeds into the "Microsoft Bloggers" category

<opml>
<head>
<title>Bloggers Who Work at Microsoft</title>
</head>
<body>
<outline title="Microsoft Bloggers">
<outline title="Adam Nathan" xmlUrl="http://blogs.gotdotnet.com/anathan/blogxbrowsing.asmx/GetRss?" />
<outline title="Amar Gandhi" xmlUrl="http://blogs.gotdotnet.com/amarg/blogxbrowsing.asmx/GetRss?" />
</outline>
</body>
</opml>
Dare Obasanjo
Wednesday, October 29, 2003 8:49:01 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
Ron,
Deleting from category or feed view isn't implemented yet. In fact it dropped of our radar. I'll add this back to the future feature list
Dare Obasanjo
Wednesday, October 29, 2003 9:38:22 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
Installed 1.2.0.43...

Opened this article and lot of things doesn't work:

1) Links (including 'Read on...' and '10 Comments') in feed details pane don't work (I can click on them and nothing happens)
2) Expanding article in Feed Details upper pane sometimes gives all comments in duplicate.
Srdjan
Wednesday, October 29, 2003 9:42:11 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
Almost forgot...

Where is drag and drop of RSS feed? I want to drag [RSS] or [XML] link to RSS Bandit. I expect 'New Feed' to pop up...
Srdjan
Wednesday, October 29, 2003 10:51:38 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
Thanks Dare.
Ron Green
Wednesday, October 29, 2003 12:16:36 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
Srdjan,
1.) Links work fine in my version. If you are viewing a comment in my blog and the "Read on..." links don't work, then this is the fault of a bug in the blog software I use (dasBlog) which I've filed in their bug database.
2.) If you click the '+' multiple times this may cause it to fetch the comments twice. It's a bug that we don't trim duplicates when this happens.

As for drag & drop, this works fine in my version. If you drag the [RSS] icon at the bottom of my weblog onto the tree view in RSS Bandit then the New Feed dialog pops up.
Dare Obasanjo
Wednesday, October 29, 2003 10:34:46 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
Links doesn't work with any feed I have. Not only 'Read on...', but any link appearing in the body of an article is dead (external links, 'Comments...', whatever...)

Can you send me the feed which works for you?

For drag & drop, I kept droping on title bar :)
Srdjan
Friday, October 31, 2003 5:25:24 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
Srdjan,
All links work for me. Can you tell me what versions of Internet Explorer and Windows you are using? I have seen this problem surface before.
Dare Obasanjo
Comments are closed.