Applications /

A better RSS reader

By Mark Gibbs
Network World, 06/03/02

Recently we discussed Rich Site Summary and followed that with a piece on RSS tools.

We've been looking for a better RSS reader (also called a news aggregator) than the one discussed in the second article, but there's not a lot from which to choose.

That said, one that is rather impressive is called AmphetaDesk from Disobey.com.

AmphetaDesk (so named because "creating a memorable and fun project name brings me immense joy") is described by the author as "a news aggregator - it sits on your desktop, downloads the latest news that interests you, and displays it in a quick and easy-to-use (and customizable) Web page. With thousands of channels for selection, AmphetaDesk can shave hours off your day - and you'll look smart to all your friends! Egotism never had it better!"

AmphetaDesk's architecture is interesting: "AmphetaDesk is developed with Perl and XML. All GUI functions are done in Perl using libraries from the specific operating system as well (since forcing the user to download Tk is a bad thing). Run-time versions are built with Perl2EXE (for Windows, a command line utility for converting Perl scripts to executable files; and MacPerl (for Macs, www. macperl.com).

"The latest source code is available from SourceForge CVS and is designed to figure out what operating system you're using at the time and load in the correct libraries (although you'll probably need to download and install various modules from CPAN). Besides the module dependency, the source code should work without modification."

AmphetaDesk polls (via HTTP) the list of RSS feeds you have chosen (each feed is described by a URL) and downloads the RSS content. To view the headlines you need a Web browser because AmphetaDesk has a built-in Web server to deliver the headlines.

Installation is fast and simple, and on first launch AmphetaDesk creates all its configuration files. AmphetaDesk is simple: Its user interface consists of a display of status messages and a bar that offers exit; copy; select all; open window (that is, a browser display); and refresh channels (which downloads a new copy of the RSS file from each selected site and then opens a browser display).

The only configuration options for AmphetaDesk are whether to open a new window when a headline is clicked on and the full path to your preferred browser (in case your browser isn't launched automatically or you want to use a different browser - such as K-Meleon. K-Meleon is "a lite Web browser based on Gecko - the Mozilla rendering engine. It's fast, has a minimal interface, and it is fully standards-compliant. To make it simple, K-Meleon may be considered the unbloated Mozilla for Windows."

You can select RSS feeds from the enormous list provided (a total of 1,646 feeds for the release we downloaded) and therein is our only complaint: We would like to search this list and ideally do so by category (news, science, vitally important and so on).

And partly to bait our editor and partly because we really like this feature, one of the cool things about AmphetaDesk is that it is designed to be "skinned." Now, in the case of AmphetaDesk, skinning is done by editing the HTML templates that are used to format its output or, if you want to modify the control application, you can change the logo and Windows or Mac icons.

Even better, AmphetaDesk comes with a set of highly commented templates and an uncommented working set. This makes the use of the gazillion template variables understandable. These variables are included in the templates and are replaced on the fly. They cover channel data, channel contents, system attributes, settings and just about anything else you might want to display.

In our testing, AmphetaDesk ran flawlessly and it is reasonably fast (Internet access speed not withstanding). Way, way cool and (drums please) it's free! Ten gearteeth out of 10!

Your comments to gearhead@gibbs.com.