BottomFeeder Wish List

See the Scripting Page for access to scripts usable with the scripting plugin.

This page is an open-ended wish list for changes and enhancements to the BottomFeeder RSS aggregator. BottomFeeder Implemented Wishes lists the ones that were incorporated, but there are still many more. There is no guarantee any of these wishes on this page will ever be developed, but with a bit of encouragement, some might be. Feel free to edit this page to comment on these ideas and to add new ones.

Please annotate your changes to this page with the date and your name or initials.
JR: James Robertson
RD: Rich Demers

RD: Add a property to feeds for the number of days until the subscription to an unread feed expires. There is no point in continuing to poll for changes to a feed that the user never reads. For more on this idea, see radio.weblogs.com/0103807/2002/11/02.html#a870

1/18/03 RD: The inverse of this would be to expire subscriptions to feeds that have not been updated (by the source website) for a specified number of days - as controlled by a different property of the feed.

4/3/05 JR: On the "Feeds" property page, you already have this. There's a number of days (without updates) before a feed gets marked inactive. To turn that on, check the "Keep track of feeds w/o updates" option. Any feed that has no new content after the specified number of days will be marked inactive (and Bf will stop checking it).

RD: Display Google search results the same as "feed items," and not just as txt in the Item Pane. BF would have to parse the results of the search to build create what looks like a feed and its items.

Allow users to keep useful results with the originating query in the tree.

4/3/05 JR: You can accomplish this already. Under the search menu, Google is one of the options you can pick for building search feeds.

RD: The BottomFeeder User's Guide provides a detailed description of BottomFeeder and its use, but it is only available as a separate, browseable document. It would be more valuable to users if its sections could be directly accessed based on context. For example, if the user positioned the cursor in the Item List pane and requested help, BottomFeeder could display the User's Guide section on the Item List. The User's Guide is cleanly divided into fragments to support this capability.

RD: The user can easily subscribe to individual feeds in a feedlist, by popup menu or by dragging the feed into a subscription folder. The feed remains in the feedlist, but there is no visual clue in the feedlist to indicate a subscription exists. One possibility is to add an annotation to the feed's icon (like the bell for notifiers).

RD: Most feeds have items on many subjects, only some of which are of interest to a user. One possibility would be to allow the user to specify filters based on categories or text values. Another possibility would be to combine the selected items from multiple feeds into "cross-feeds" - pseudo-feeds generated by BottomFeeder from the union of items on the same subject (Smalltalk, quilting, whatever) in different feeds.

• Tabbed trees would be a help to manage the cross-feeds.
• It would also be interesting if different users could share cross-feeds.

4/3/05 JR: Under the "Search" menu, you have this capability. You can build pseudo-feeds that are aggregated across all BottomFeeder feeds according to the selected search criteria

RD: When BottomFeeder is running, it could act as a mini page server for entries from the user's own blog or pages from the user's own web site. There are some interesting possibilities in this. Needs more thought.

4/3/05 JR: This capability exists. Browse: http://localhost:8666/btf (make sure that the local server is on under settings). You'll get all feeds, and the latest 5 items for each feed.

RD: BottomFeeder's focus has been on presenting feeds, as they change over time, to its users. Each item is just a temporary snapshot. If the client sees an interesting item, all he can do is browse it and go on to the next item. Right now, there is no way, outside of copy and paste, that the user can save a copy of an item.

At the risk of seeming "tab crazy" perhaps BottomFeeder could provide another tab whose contents is a tree of folders of items saved from various feeds, sort of like the folders of an email client like Outlook Express. We would probably want to keep track of the feed that originated an item, and the timestamp of its arrival, but it shouldn't be too much work to implement.

4/3/05 JR: You can spawn independent panes, and you can print/save the contents

RD: Enhance "Search/Load Examples from BottomFeeder Home" to also provide an example of a feedlist.

RD: Provide a list of syndicators the user can click on. This would be best handled through the Favorites tree previously requested.

RD: This entry consolidates and expands on other entries (now deleted) that relate to tree usability.

• Auto-collapse tree folders. It would be better to have the trees operate the way IE Favorites do; that is, when a folder is expanded, any other expanded folder is automatically collapsed. This keeps the size of the tree that needs to be scrolled to a minimum - along with the screen real estate occupied by BottomFeeder. It is appropriate for BottomFeeder (and Favorites) because the user is only working with the contents of one folder at a time.

• Multiple-feed selection and operation.
• Allow multiple feeds in a folder to be selected (click plus Shift+click for a range of adjacent feeds, and click plus Ctrl+click for nonadjacent feeds).
• Do not display feed information if multiple feeds are selected.
• Allow drag-and-drop of the group to a different folder.
• Enable popup menu options for only those operations that could be performed on multiple feeds (Add notifier, Remove notifier, Make All Feed Items Old, Make All Feed Items New, Update Feed, Remove Feed).

RD: The Search tool needs radio buttons for "Restart" and "Resume" to allow user control of searching. "Restart" would search from the first or last feed (depending on the direction of search check-box). "Resume" would search from the position of the last item found. Now, "Find Next" always starts at the current position, making it impossible to go back to the top for either the same search string or a new search string.

Google searches would be better supported by a separate tool. Now, Google searches cannot take advantage of the full Google capability. Google results are shown in the Item pane, leaving the Item List Pane untouched - and unrelated to the search.

05/05/03 New setting for item sorting order.

RD: Add a new setting to control the order in which items are presented - by either increasing timestamp order (to be like OE presents email) or decreasing timestamp order (like blog entries). (Continue to allow users to resort by clicking on column headings.)

RD: Whenever a Google or Feedster search is done the results are shown in the Item Pane. Great except that the Item List that was being displayed at the time of the search continues to be displayed, even though it has nothing to do with the search that was done. It would be better to blank out the Item List or to zoom the Item Pane so the Item List doesn't show. (Actually, I would prefer to see the results of a search converted into a pseudo-feed, with each result as an item of the new feed, but I realize this is probably a lot more work.)

RD: Here are some thoughts about how BF could support feedlists more completely and provide some real added value.

1. Folders are just a way to organize things, and feedlists are one of the things that can be in a folder along with feeds and favorites. That gives feedlists first-class status in BF - the same as feeds.
2. A feedlist is directory that contains the names and URLs of feeds. It provides a way to communicate lists of related feeds
3. Syndic8 and other syndicators can create them and keep them up to date with registered feeds on some topic defined by either the syndicator or by a Syndic8 user.
4. Today, BottomFeeder can create a feedlist of the feeds in its cache and export it as a file. We've talked about making this a folder function - creating and exporting a feedlist file from the feeds in a folder. This could be generalized to allow the user to create a new feedlist in a folder and then move (or dnd) feeds into it. The new folder could then be sent as an email attachment or exported as a file.
5. Conversely, BF could support importing a feedlist from either a file or an email attachment. When you import a feedlist, today, BF adds a new feed to the Subscriptions folder for each feed identified by the feedlist. Wouldn't it be better to simply import a feedlist into a folder (as BF does today)?
6. Going further, BF could take over some of Syndic8's function and provide support for updating feedlists automatically from Syndic8 categories or from Feedster searches.

How about putting a few hot keys in for the most common operations (mark feed items as old, update feed etc.).

Also, since some blog writers work at a slower pace than others (Joel on Software vs. Slashdot, for example), how about being able to configure the update frequency on a individual basis. - JosephPelrine

4/3/05 JR: There are hotkeys for all those things - check the docs

Wired had an interesting piece talking about the integration of Radio with BitTorrent for automatic downloading of RSS enclosures. More here. Would be nice to have something similar in BottomFeeder.

JR: How hard would BitTorrent support be to implement? Any ideas? Any volunteers?

Import should ignore already subscribed feeds. I've made a mess of my subscriptions list by importing my feeds from another program multiple times. - Jeff Sparkes (jsparkes@databeacon.com)

While trying to fix the mess mentioned above, I wanted to delete or move groups of feeds, but multiple select doesn't seem to be implemented.

The behaviour is also different from windows, where right-click also selects. Since this is in other parts of VW, I doubt that will change. :-)

There is also a highlighting vs. selection bug. Select a feed and then delete it. The following feed in the tree is highlighted, but not selected. It's only really selected if the item list also appears.

- Jeff Sparkes (jsparkes@databeacon.com)

RD: Drop support for Favorites, or make it something useful. I confess that this was my idea originally; it was an attempt to make BF an "Internet Console," supporting a variety of ways to interact with the Internet. Instead, BF has evolved into a high-function aggregator. In any case, Favorites was implemented as a type of pseudo-feed that isn't very useful, instead of being something like the Favorites of M$'s Internet Explorer.

RD: Instead of having separate tree roots for Subscriptions, Feedlists and Searches, rework trees as simply a way for users to organize their feeds.

• Make "subscribed" a user-specifiable property of a feed, rather than something it gets from the folder it is in.

RD: Instead, allow folders to act as feedlists:

• Allow a folder to be imported/exported as an OPML file; that is, with items that are just links to feeds.
• Allow a folder to "subscribe" to a syndicator (eg., Syndic8) so that its list of feeds can be updated more automatically.
• Allow users to act as syndicators for each other.

RD: Handle the pseudo-feeds created by Searches and "Build" commands as dynamic feeds whose contents are defined by a query to a specified server; said query to be executed on-demand or on some schedule.

4/3/05 JR: They are dynamic - the query is executed upon selection

RD: Support tabs for easy navigation to alternate, concurrently available, user-defined views of feeds and their items; for example, one tab to a view of an item in Jim's Blog, a second tab to a newsfeed item, and a third tab to a query feed item.

RD: Handle the tree as a separate sub-window that is shown on user-demand (by a toolbar tool), regardless of how the items of a feed are being shown.

RD: Better integration of BottomFeeder's documentation into its user interface. Currently there are links to the User's Guide and Tutorial through the Help menu. These links open browser pages to the documents, but users then need to search their Tables of Contents to find specific information. It would be better if the user interface supported context-sensative links to the correct information.

RD: Add a way for users to write Smalltalk scripts against the objects of the BottomFeeder domain model. There are several aspects to this:

1. Writing scripts. Smalltalk programmers write scripts all the time -- usually in a Workspace, but often in any convenient editing pane. It's how a lot of Smalltalk code gets tested. Workspaces provide convenient facilities for writing, managing and executing scripts, but they are not usually included with shipped applications. This is mostly a matter of application configuration.
2. Connecting scripts in a Workspace with the occurrence of events in the user interface. For example, it should be possible to invoke a specific script when a user removes a feed from a folder. Many such events are now handled by BottomFeeder without any possibility of intervention by a user script, including menu, toolbar and keyboard events. The Smalltalk event triggering and handling mechanisms could be used to do this. It is also desirable for a user to be able to define additional menu actions. The section of the BottomFeeder User's Guide on plugins already says how to do this.
3. Access to the BottomFeeder domain model. Internal to BottomFeeder is a domain model consisting of objects for folders, feeds, items, filters, queries, etc. Their "API" is in the form of Smalltalk messages, but this would have to be simplified and formalized to be usable by user scripts.
4. Error containment. User written scripts are, after all, just code; and therefore subject to bugs. It would be necessary to contain the execution of scripts in an error detection environment that protects the main program while still leaving open to script writers Smalltalk's powerful debugging facilities.

Eric

Jim

I currently use NTLM Authorization Proxy Server (aps098) to get around this issue, but it means the BF's internal browser is very slow, everything must be browsed using Firefox instead.

I think the original source is gone now, but I found a mirror here: http://www.innovation.ch/java/ntlm.html

JR: Do you have a pointer to the NTLM spec?

11/11/04 SteveK: BF worked for me behind Proxy Server 2.0. I didn't have to do anything special for it, and I think I had BF's proxy settings off. I guess it thus used the WinSock Proxy client, but it could also have been the HTTP proxy. When we moved to ISA Server 2003, BF wouldn't work anymore. I had to allow basic authentication in ISA (select the server in MMC, Properties, Outgoing requests, select your ISA Server IP, Edit, check Basic Authentication (you probably already have Integrated)). Enter your user name, password, ISA server and port (normally 8080) in the BF User Settings. This will send your password in clear text, but this may be OK provided your client and ISA Server are within the company firewall, or connected via a VPN. For more details on authentication, see www.isaserver.org/tutorials/Troubleshooting_ISA_authentication_issues.html

Not sure if it's worth it, but I have some Feedster subscriptions within BottomFeeder and sometimes I get links in foreign languages. Maybe a "send to babel" menu option would be nice.

4/3/05 JR: Will investigate for the 4.0 version (after 3.9 is released)

It would be good to be able to detect new podcasts which are syndicated by RSS and to have some nicer looking graphic buttons.

4/3/05 JR: Not perfect, but in the Workspace (under the system menu), execute this code:

RSS.Enclosure allInstances inspect.

I'll add actual support in 4.0

UW: An arrow button Go to the next new item in item list (or next item in a new feed) would be fine.

26-March-05 News and Other Styles Incomplete

Scenario: All browsing within BottomFeeder Platform: Windows/XP

1. There is currently no way to get at the item's link (The Full Story link) if the page style is not News. I see a description but then I can't browse to the Item from there.

2. In News View, if I follow a Full Story link , there is no way to go back to the News Page.

3. Older Items are not shown. That means that if I clicked a feed, the items get marked Read. Now if I click a full story link and come back, the other items are Gone!

For a good implementation of News style, please see ActiveRefresh's News implementation.

This is the only bug stopping me from switching over from ActiveRefresh completely (or use BF at all :( ).

4/3/05 JR: Added next/Prev navigation - see the items on the toolbar

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05/02/2007 AA: Remove the taskbar button when I minimize the main window ("Toggle slim mode" when minimized).

04/03/2008 Start without network access

Michael Voß: Add capability to start BF without updating any feed (or even accessing anything on the network) on startup, at least when using a authenticated proxy. Usually, I'd want BF to update all feeds when I start it, but right after changing my network password, this leads to my account becoming locked because I cannot stop BF fast enough from trying to connect to the network with my old credentials. I'd like to be able to change the proxy server password in the settings dialog before BF trying to connect to something.

Michael: Edit the file btfSettings.ini. In that file, set isOnline to false, and the app will start offline

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13/06/2008 Can't change the update frequency under 30 minutes ! (would like to refresh every minute)

Platform: win XP

Tried thru btfSettings.ini as well, putted back to 30 at relaunching app. If I try thru settings/networks I can't apply changes...Bug or bad using ? Regards, Nicolas

Many sites will ban your IP (or even block the tool based on the name) if you do something like that. Bf won't let you for that reason.

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02/07/2009 JW As a user of a non-supported operating system, how hard would porting to use an opensource smalltalk VM (like Squeak) be? Its all Smalltalk, after all.

James Robertson - well, the UI would be a complete rewrite. The network layer is all based on the VW network libraries. It could be done, but it wasn't written with that in mind at all. What OS are you on? You can run the Linux VM on FreeBSD, for instance.