GreatNews is a good alternative for reading news (RSS/Atom feeds)
Good:
- list of feeds are maintained
- automatic refresh of feeds
- different styles available for showing feeds
- search over Feed Group
- import & export in OPML format (XML)
- possibility to open feed text in external browser for better reading
The figure below shows the condensed view when using “Brief” style.
Automatic updates makes it possible to use this tool to display latest news on “newsboard”.
The figure below shows the handy search function applied to Feed Group Security.
OPML Example
The text below is created by exporting the BBC Feed Group from GreatNews tool.
Advanced
One can extend GreatNews functionality for a “newsboard” display by using a simple autoit script for automating the looping through all the feeds. See autoit script below; key F7 is send regularly into GreatNews tool.
While 1
WinActivate(“GreatNews”, “”)
WinWaitActive(“GreatNews”, “”, 30)
Send(“{F7}”)
Sleep(10000)
WEnd
With wine tool, one can run GreatNews (and autoit) also in linux environment.
Alternatives
- Sage is a light Firefox add-on. However, it still lacks the automatic updates. Although it does updates feeds when clicked. Condensed view can be achieved by using custom css called StealthCSS, which is available from their wiki pages.
- Readefine is capable of showing feeds in a condensed way (in newspaper style). In addition, it can be runned in Linux. However, it does not “really” maintain list of feeds.