NetNewsWire Betas

NetNewsWire 5.1b1

Tue, 08 Sep 2020 21:00:00 -0700

Articles with non-ASCII URLs can now open in browser

Adding feeds with non-ASCII URLs now works

Feeds view, timeline: fixed bug where multiple selection could result in showing only unread articles

Help menu: NetNewsWire Help now links to the 5.1 help book

Inspector: window title now matches name of thing being inspected

VoiceOver: fix bug navigating into the Add Account table

Fixed crash that could happen when adding an account

Preferences: Removed non-working (due to sandboxing) feature for setting the default RSS reader

NetNewsWire 5.1a2

NetNewsWire 5.1d2

Tue, 29 Oct 2019 22:35:00 -0700

Testing Sparkle. Does it work?

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NetNewsWire 5.0.4

Sat, 08 Aug 2020 11:40:00 -0700

Same as 5.0.4b1, except now it’s the official 5.0.4 release. :)

NetNewsWire 5.0.4b1

Mon, 03 Aug 2020 18:50:00 -0700

Changed the retention policy to match iOS

Performance enhancement: fetching articles is faster and uses less memory

NetNewsWire 5.0.4d2

Fri, 10 Jul 2020 18:00:00 -0700

Feeds view: fixed bug where multiple sequential deletes could mess up the current selection index

Article view: dealt with Twitter change that caused Twitter embeds to get cut off

Article view: properly size emojis that are actually graphics (from Wordpress, for instance)

Article view: stop playing any audio if the window is closed

Article view: don’t let line lengths get too long

Article view: fixed display of BandCamp widgets

OPML export: use an accessory view instead of an intermediate sheet

Add Folder: disable Add Folder button when text field is empty

Feed icons: get more icons from Feedbin; get favicons from some tricky cases

Add Feed: now allows IPv6 literal URLs

Feed discovery: give less weight to feeds with the word “podcast” in them, because they’re probably not what we want

Refreshing: fixed bug where automatic refreshing might not happening after the computer wakes from sleep

Preferences > Accounts: Renamed “Create” account button to “Add Account”

Fixed bug where a Feedbin article could stay unread right after you select it

Fixed bug where folder names with double quotes would have the quotes replaced with the HTML entity for quote

When importing from NNW 3, the app now ignores script feeds (since we don’t have that feature yet)

Fixed bug where, right after initial launch, the spacebar might not work to go to next unread article

Pressing return now opens the selected article in your browser

NetNewsWire 5.0.3

Tue, 22 Oct 2019 13:00:00 -0700

Same as 5.0.3b2 — just bumped the version number to 5.0.3.

NetNewsWire 5.0.3b2

Sat, 19 Oct 2019 10:20:00 -0700

Significantly enhanced performance during syncs and refreshes.

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When running for the first time, and the user previously used NetNewsWire 3, it will automatically import NetNewsWire 3 subscriptions instead of the defaults for new users.

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You can also import NetNewsWire 3 subscriptions via the new File > Import NNW3 Subscriptions… command.

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Fixed the space bar when running on Catalina. It wouldn’t advance to the next unread — now it will. (This was due to a change in JavaScript in Catalina.)

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Fixed a crashing bug having to do with async database fetches for the timeline.

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Periodically empties the articles cache that was added in 5.0.3b1, so its memory use doesn’t just keep expanding.

NetNewsWire 5.0.3b1

Mon, 30 Sep 2019 13:56:00 -0700

Performance enhancement: fetching articles from the database is faster, and sometimes much faster.

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Performance enhancement: syncing could block the main thread more than it should. We moved JSON decoding to a background thread, which fixes this. This is particularly noticeable during an initial sync.

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Keyboard shortcuts: the 's' key toggles starred status. The 'r' and 'u' keys now both toggle read status (instead of setting read and unread status, respectively).

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Articles view: articles where the feed icon is quite large would be slow to render — now they render as fast as other articles.

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Articles view: a bug where keyboard shortcuts wouldn’t work after giving the articles view focus has been fixed.

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Articles view: YouTube videos could end up small. Fixed.

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Articles view: fixed a bug scaling images to fit in the view.

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Feedbin syncing: fixed a bug where renaming a tag on the Feedbin site would result in feeds in NNW ending up at the top level.

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Help menu: fixed the expired Slack link.

NetNewsWire 5.0.2

Sat, 14 Sep 2019 11:20:00 -0700

The app movement monitor has been updated to handle quarantined apps and translocation.

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Normally we wouldn’t have pushed out a new release for a single bug fix, but this one is important — we were getting false positives on app movement, which was affecting some users negatively.

NetNewsWire 5.0.1

Fri, 13 Sep 2019 13:40:00 -0700

This is the final version of 5.0.1. Thanks for your help by running test builds!

NetNewsWire 5.0.1b1

Tue, 10 Sep 2019 20:50:00 -0700

Timeline: reload the timeline when show-feed-names is toggled. This fixes a bug where switching between a folder and a feed with the exact same list of articles to appear in the timeline would result in display glitches.

NetNewsWire 5.0.1d2

Sat, 07 Sep 2019 21:00:00 -0700

Crash fix: when the app is renamed or moved on disk while running, alert the user and quit the app. This prevents crashes that will happen due to renaming/moving. See Daniel Jalkut on App Movement Monitoring for more info.

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Timeline: update UI more quickly when a feed icon is downloaded.

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Article pane: stop blocking links containing the string “feedburner” — there are legitimate cases where that string appears.

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Timeline and article pane: make sure the link for an article isn’t an empty string.

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RSS parser: check for bad permalinks more aggressively. If they don’t contain a / character, then do not consider them permalinks.

NetNewsWire 5.0.1d1

Wed, 04 Sep 2019 21:30:00 -0700

(Probably) fix a crashing bug having to do with a callback being called more than once, when it was designed to be called just once.

Preferences > General: add checkbox to hide the unread count in the Dock.

Article pane: handle figures and iframes as we do images, so they fit in the view.

Article pane: fix white flash on first article load while in Dark Mode.

Enable the Open in Browser command only when a single article is selected.

Detect RDF (RSS 1.0) feeds that lack an XML header.

Parse Atom-style dates that are missing a T character in the middle.

About window: add link to NetNewsWire website.

RSS parser: don’t let author/title overwrite item/title.

Deleting an empty Feedbin folder no longer makes the sidebar non-responsive.

Updated the UI when a Feedbin user with an expired trial creates an account in NetNewsWire.

Feedbin syncing: fixed a bug where starred articles could appear as unread.

Microblog Mac app sharing: when it has to launch the app first, it waits a little longer before sending it content, which should fix a bug where sometimes you get no content in that case.

NetNewsWire 5.0

Sun, 25 Aug 2019 11:40:00 -0700

This is the shipping version of NetNewsWire 5.0.

NetNewsWire 5.0b6

Fri, 23 Aug 2019 18:50:00 -0700

Okay — one last beta! Pretty sure, at least.

Fixes a bug with undoing deleting feeds or folders. The sidebar wouldn’t update afterward to show that the feed is back. Now it does.

Opens preferences window in center of screen.

Centers main window on first launch.

NetNewsWire 5.0b5

Wed, 21 Aug 2019 22:05:00 -0700

This is probably the last beta before the 5.0 release.

Preferences > Advanced now has app updating options — you can follow test builds or release builds. Release builds is the default. If you want to continue to get test builds, you’ll have to check the box next to “Test builds.”

Fixed a bug where smart feeds and folders wouldn’t re-fetch after a feed or folder was deleted, and so they might contain articles that should have been removed.

NetNewsWire 5.0b4

Wed, 14 Aug 2019 00:30:00 -0700

Fixed a bug showing the unread count for the selected feed, smart feed, or folder.

NetNewsWire 5.0b2

Mon, 12 Aug 2019 09:45:00 -0700

Fixed a crashing bug doing mark-all-as-read from the contextual menu on a feed.

NetNewsWire 5.0b1

Sun, 11 Aug 2019 22:20:00 -0700

Beta! This is the first beta release. This means that we think the app is ready to ship — but it should get more testing to be sure.

There is now a Help Book on the web. We’ll continue to update it up until we ship.

Unread counts: for the sidebar unread count, get the unread count for the selected feed/folder from the timeline.

Today feed: now shows last 24 hours. This way articles don’t just disappear at midnight. This kind of stretches the meaning of “Today,” but we think it’s fine.

Fixed a few AppleScript bugs, including a crashing bug that could happen when adding a feed that already exists.

Finalized the AppleScript scripting dictionary.

Performance: do async fetches for the timeline when an event triggers a need for a refresh. This way the main thread isn’t blocked.

Performance: reload the sidebar outline less often. Only when actually needed.

Performance: remove some unneeded drawing behind the timeline. This makes resizing the timeline horizontally faster.

Performance: make some additional database operations async that could be made so.

About box: add additional credits.

Fix typos in some error messages — they were using a foot mark instead of a curly quote.

NetNewsWire 5.0a4

Sat, 15 Jun 2019 19:00:00 -0700

Sidebar: fixed a bug where a drag-and-drop that triggers an error could make the app unresponsive.

Timeline: fixed sorting when two items have the same publication date. Added additional criteria so the sort is stable and predictable.

Timeline: small avatars (16 x 16 favicons, for instance) are now centered on a gray background. Looks a bit better.

Added How to Support NetNewsWire help menu item.

AppleScript: read/unread and starred status are now read/write via scripts.

Updated to the latest Sparkle — the thing that does these in-app version upgrades — which has better support Dark Mode. Also, it might fix a bug where Check for Updates… is sometimes not available when it should be. (Maybe.)

Status note: At this point we have no known bugs to fix before 5.0 beta. No crashing bugs. All that remains is documentation. So, please keep looking for bugs! :)

NetNewsWire 5.0a3

Mon, 10 Jun 2019 21:45:00 -0700

Fixed crash happening only on macOS 10.15 beta. We owe Apple a bug report for this one.

Fixed a crash that could happen when finding a feed.

Skip showing error dialogs on automatic refreshes.

Immediately show the refresh progress bar when an OPML import to Feedbin starts.

Add ellipsis to Import from OPML and Export to OPML buttons.

NetNewsWire 5.0a2

Sat, 08 Jun 2019 16:00:00 -0700

Escape HTML in the title in the article view — if there’s HTML in the title, the tags should actually be displayed.

The Mark as Read command in the Article menu now turns into Mark as Unread at the appropriate times.

Feedbin syncing: send locally changed statuses before downloading statuses from the server.

Feedbin syncing: fix bug renaming a folder that has no feeds.

Feedbin syncing: fixed a bunch of accuracy and reliability issues, and a crashing bug.

Fixed issue where local account feed finder could lock UI in the case of an error.

NetNewsWire 5.0a1

Fri, 31 May 2019 20:30:00 -0700

NetNewsWire 5.0 has reached alpha stage! This means it has no known bugs. It surely does have bugs, though. Now it’s time for testing. (And writing the Help book. And making the website better.)

Fixed a crashing bug with parsing a response from Feedbin. (Totally our fault, not Feedbin’s fault.)

Show avatars from Micro.blog feeds with multiple authors (such as your personal timeline feed).

Made OPML import to the On My Mac account way faster.

The Today smart feed now updates when the day changes.

You can now drag and drop in the sidebar between accounts.

Made the default file name for OPML exports “Subscriptions-[accountName].opml”

Add explanation text to Account preferences for the Name field. (It’s just a display name and doesn’t affect authentication.)

Fixed several bugs with Feedbin syncing — it’s now more reliable. (We know of no remaining sync bugs, though of course there might be some.)

Added a placeholder web page for the Help book.

New app icon! But it might take a while for your Mac to notice and put in the Dock. (I wish we could speed that up, but it’s out of our control.)

NetNewsWire 5.0d17

Sat, 25 May 2019 11:00:00 -0700

NetNewsWire 5.0 is now feature-complete. It has bugs, though, so we can’t call it alpha just yet. Getting close!

NetNewsWire now requires macOS 10.14.4 or greater. It no longer includes the Swift libraries, which makes for a much smaller download, which means it takes up less space on disk.

You can now sync using FeedBin. See Preferences > Accounts to add a FeedBin account. Note: the initial import from FeedBin is likely to take a while, but keeping up should be quite fast.

You can create additional “On My Mac” accounts, via Preferences > Accounts.

Accounts can be made inactive.

Sidebar: fixed a bug updating unread counts in the sidebar when you have duplicates of a feed.

Timeline: scrolling has been made faster.

Timeline: avatars are now on the left instead of on the right. There’s a default globe avatar for when no feed icon or favicon can be found. The default avatar is tinted. Each feed gets its own tint.

Detail view: worked around a new WebKit bug that affected the detail view. It would flash empty between articles sometimes. Now it won’t.

Help menu: a new command takes you to the signup page for the Slack Group.

Help menu: removed command to donate to App Camp for Girls, since the donation page has been removed. Once we know how we can continue to support their mission, we’ll do so.

OPML Export: asks for the account first.

NetNewsWire 5.0d16

Mon, 25 Feb 2019 21:50:00 -0800

Searching now works.

NetNewsWire 5.0d15

Sat, 09 Feb 2019 21:25:00 -0800

Sidebar: the drag images are no longer terrible. They’re good — they’re what you expect.

NetNewsWire 5.0d14

Fri, 08 Feb 2019 22:00:00 -0800

Bogus future dates are now discarded when updating the database.

Fixed a bug where updating changed dates in articles didn’t work.

Fixed bug fetching unread count for the Today feed — it was skipping items without a pubDate but that were logically part of Today because they arrived today.

Timeline: do ever-so-slightly less work in the cells, which should result in an imperceptible performance increase with scrolling.

Sidebar: make rows a little taller. Adds a little breathing room.

NetNewsWire 5.0d13

Wed, 06 Feb 2019 22:00:00 -0800

Sidebar: you can now drag feeds into and out of folders. It’s rough still — the drag images are a mess, and spring-loaded folders don’t close. (Those bugs have been filed and will get fixed.)

Fixed a bug where a feed’s title could get set to “Untitled” in the database — it should just be nil or empty.

NetNewsWire 5.0d12

Sun, 03 Feb 2019 12:00:00 -0800

Timeline: refresh smart feeds when new articles are downloaded.

Sidebar: re-sort after renaming a feed or folder.

Fixed a bug importing OPML where the OPML file doesn’t have title attributes.

Simplified user-agent to “NetNewsWire (RSS Reader; https://ranchero.com/netnewswire/)”.

NetNewsWire 5.0d11

Fri, 01 Feb 2019 22:00:00 -0800

Probably fixed a crashing bug (with three reports) that could happen when using a single-letter keyboard shortcut.

Sidebar: removed gear menu — the trend these days is a clean look at the bottom of the window. (See Mail and other apps.)

Sidebar: during refresh, animate in the refresh-status view. Animate out when done. (A la Mail.)

Fixed bug where the ATP feed would have empty articles. The fix was for the parser to ignore empty content:encoded elements. (This bug won’t automatically fix any already-downloaded articles in that feed. You’ll see the fix in action the next time the feed updates.)

NetNewsWire 5.0d10

Wed, 30 Jan 2019 22:05:00 -0800

Restored 10.13 compatibility. (Figured out how to get it building for 10.13 again.)

Timeline: tightened it up. Increased information density. Uses small margins, smaller avatar, and smaller title font size.

Notarized the app, as Apple wants us to do.

NetNewsWire 5.0d9

Mon, 28 Jan 2019 20:30:00 -0800

Refresh automatically based on your settings in the General preferences pane.

Crashing bug: possible fix for the SidebarViewController.viewDidLoad() crash. (I couldn’t reproduce it. We’ll just have to watch and see if the crashes stop.)

Add feed window: fixed bug where Add button would be disabled sometimes.

Sidebar: fixed bug where empty folders would be lost between runs.

Crash reporter: close the window after sending the crash log.

NetNewsWire 5.0d8

Sun, 27 Jan 2019 10:00:00 -0800

Important compatibility note! NetNewsWire now requires macOS 10.14 (Mojave). Don’t update if you’re running an older macOS.

Sidebar: you can drag a feed from an external app to subscribe to that feed.

Crash log catcher opens a window on next launch after a crash. It offers to send the crash log to us. (Crash logs are kept confidential.)

Wrote a privacy policy because it was needed for crash log collection. ranchero.com/netnewswire/privacypolicy

Removed the Feed Directory. The current plan is to have it return some time after 5.0 ships.

Preferences: you can set the default aggregator now.

Preferences: added Advanced pane. Right now it has just one pref — you can have crash logs sent automatically.

Added credits to About window.

Fixed bug where contextual menu for article might not have Share menu filled in properly.

Fixed bug where text in the sidebar was too gray most of the time.

Made the Star toolbar button static, because any other solution was confusing. (Show the current state? Or show the state it would have if you clicked? Both answers are good, and they’re mutually exclusive.)

Disabled inline editing in the sidebar. You can still edit feed and folder names, just not by clicking in the sidebar in just the right way. (It’s a relatively rare thing to want to do, so having text sometimes appear as editable was more confusing than useful.)

Default feeds: added Xcoders.org feed.

Enabled the hardened runtime.

NetNewsWire 5.0d7

Wed, 26 Sep 2018 22:10:00 -0800

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Multiple significant performance improvements that will be especially noticeable with high feed counts.

Sidebar: Delete command now in contextual menu and in gear menu.

Sidebar: scrolls to show feed or folder, when needed, when going to the next unread article.

Timeline: contextual menu command to select feed in sidebar.

Detail view: fixed — at least mostly — an issue where the detail view’s web view might flash white while in dark mode.

Detail view: give URL status bar a dark background color when in Dark Mode.

Sharing: sort articles by publication date on sharing.

Sharing: set email subject when sharing to Mail.

Window title now reflects sidebar selection. (Which will only be noticeable in the Window menu, but will be meaningful when we add support for tabs.)

Dock icon menu now includes Refresh command.

Subscriptions are now stored as an OPML file instead of a plist, which means you don’t even have to export to OPML to get an OPML version of your feeds. Feed metadata is now stored in Settings.odb.

Toolbar: Mark As Read toggles back and forth between states.

Feed Directory: Add to Feeds button now works, though we want to revisit the UI.

NetNewsWire 5.0d6

Mon, 10 Sep 2018 13:15:00 -0800

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Supports Mojave dark mode in the detail view, which should complete dark mode support.

Sidebar: feed and folder names can be edited inline.

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NetNewsWire 5.0d5

Sun, 09 Sep 2018 12:30:00 -0800

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Major bandwidth-use bug fixed — sometimes it would request the home page of a site multiple times all at once. Now it just does one request.

Sharing: lightboxed the share sheet.

Sharing: added subject to Mail message.

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NetNewsWire 5.0d3

Tue, 04 Sep 2018 21:00:00 -0800

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Fixed appearance of timeline cell when highlighted (in High Sierra) — text now turns white, as expected.

Reduced size of download by several MB by not including Swift libraries in Safari extension.

Made the Safari extension preserve https scheme, for better security.

Added Share submenu to timeline contextual menu.

Detail view doesn’t make date a link when it would be to the same URL as the title link.

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NetNewsWire 5.0d2

Sun, 02 Sep 2018 12:30:00 -0800

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Fixed a performance issue when fetching articles — it’s much faster now. You’ll especially notice when you select something with hundreds of articles.

Handle bad home page URLs in a feed. (AppleInsider, for instance.)

Allow .xml as an extension when importing an OPML file.

Hide cursor when paging via the space bar.