NetNewsWire Efficiency Tips

If you’re not already aware, NetNewsWire is an excellent program to read RSS feeds on a Mac. Below are just a few tips I’ve come across that have really helped change the way I read feeds.

Use The Spacebar To Read Items

When reading a feed, press the spacebar to skip to the next unread item or read more of the current item. This really allows you to jump through your feeds using one key.

Use “Mark All as Read”

When scanning through a group, if you hit , all unread items will be marked as read. This makes it easier to just forget about the items you know you’re never going to read. All they’re doing by being left unread is building stress and taking away attention from more valuable feed items.

Use Enter To Visit Permalinks

Use the enter key to visit a feed item’s permalink. If the feed is summary only or you want to view the actual webpage, hitting enter opens the page in a new tab and marks the feed item with a special color signifying the extra attention.

Group Feeds By Topic Or Priority

I prefer to group my feeds by topic, but many people have good results with grouping feeds by priority. Either way, grouping your feeds helps you stay organized and on top of your feeds. You can see how I’ve grouped my feeds below:

Use Flags

Flags are a way to mark a feed item signifying it needs special attention. To flag a feed item, hit F. To unflag a feed item, hit F again. You can even enable a special “Flag items” group (View -> Show Flagged Items Subscription), which displays all of your currently flagged items.

AppleScript To Post To del.icio.us

If you’re looking for a quick and easy way to post NetNewsWire feed items into your del.icio.us account, look no further than the following AppleScript:

tell application "NetNewsWire"
set u to (URL of selectedHeadline) & ¬
"&title=" & (title of selectedHeadline) & ¬
"&extended=" & (text 1 thru 50 of (get description of selectedHeadline)) & ¬
"…" & "&tags=" & (subject of selectedHeadline)
end tell

tell application "System Events"
activate
open location "http://del.icio.us/USERNAME_HERE?noui=yes&jump=close&url=" & u
end tell

Place the following script in your NetNewsWire scripts directory (Scripts -> Open Scripts Folder). Don’t forget to replace USERNAME_HERE with your del.icio.us username.

Post to Weblog

Hit to post feed items directly into your weblog editor. You can change your default weblog editor in NetNewsWire preferences (NetNewsWire -> Preferences -> Weblog Editor).

If you’re looking for a weblog editor, check out MarsEdit. It’s from Ranchero, the same company that makes NetNewsWire.

You can also check out ecto. It’s a great little application and I actually prefer it over MarsEdit.

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Submitted on July 29, 2005 at 1:27 pm - NetNewsWire Efficiency Tips was written by Brad Jasper - There have been 13 comments - Categorized in Easy Tips, NetNewsWire Tips

13 Responses to “NetNewsWire Efficiency Tips”

1. 
   Jesper
   Actually, instead of command+K you can just hit K.
   Easy :D August 3rd, 2005 at 3:55 am
   
   
2. 
   Brad
   Hey Jesper, thanks for reminding me ;) August 3rd, 2005 at 4:08 am
   
   
3. 
   Melao
   You could avoid using applescript at all by running cocoalicious and then chosing Post to weblog.
   
   It will go directly to your del.icio.us account
   
   ps:look 4 cocoalicius on versiontracker.com August 3rd, 2005 at 12:11 pm
   
   
4. 
   Brad
   Melao,
   
   You are correct, however by doing that I would loose the functionality to post to a weblog with ecto, which I use more than del.icio.us.
   
   Cocoalicious looks great, but for me it would just be another application open. August 3rd, 2005 at 12:21 pm
   
   
5. 
   Greg
   You can use the arrow keys too. I you're in the list of sites, right-arrow goes to the first item listed for that site. Another right-arrow puts up the article in your browser. Down-arrow, you got it. Left-arrow back to the site list. And of course down-arrow in the list goes down to the next item. And now that I know it's just K, it's one handed browsing. (If someone cleans this up using the correct descriptions for these thing, I won't be offended. August 3rd, 2005 at 12:22 pm
   
   
6. 
   Ericka
   If only NNW would flesh out the flag feature and add a notes feature where you could keep comments. I'd love to be able to flag with different colors or tags, i.e. to read, somedaymaybe, etc. witout having to put them in del.icio.us, although I do love delicious. They should sync. August 3rd, 2005 at 2:03 pm
   
   
7. 
   corbin
   why don't you use Safari in os 10.5??? August 3rd, 2005 at 6:08 pm
   
   
8. 
   Brad
   Sorry corbin,
   
   NetNewsWire is a much better feed reader than Safari in my opinion. August 4th, 2005 at 3:20 am
   
   
9. 
   JV
   What I'd really like to see is a scoring system like the old Gravity Usenet reader had. You add keywords or other rules that raise (or lower) an article's score, then you sort and color all the articles by score. It's an extremely efficient way of boosting signal-to-noise ratio. So far I've found no news aggregator that provides that sort of flexibility. Yes, NNW has its smart lists, but it's not quite the same. August 4th, 2005 at 11:11 pm
   
   
10. 
    Brad
    JV,
    
    What kind of rules would raise or lower an article's score?
    
    That's actually kind of interesting, might be something to look into suggesting to NNW?
    
    - Brad August 5th, 2005 at 1:24 am
    
    
11. 
    Kathy Coates
    And this would be easier than clicking on del.icio.us on my bookmark bar how? August 7th, 2005 at 3:52 pm
    
    
12. 
    Brad
    Kathy,
    
    I wasn't aware that NetNewsWire had a bookmarks bar. Care to share?
    
    Also, if you have a suggestion or a better way to do something, share it. There's no reason to get cynical. We're all here to learn.
    
    - Brad August 8th, 2005 at 12:47 pm
    
    
13. 
    Stephen
    Brad, you use OS X now, you don't need to worry about having "another application open" the more the merrier in my book heh. If you have a new machine and 1GB or more of RAM, you'll still be flyin.
    
    I normally have around 13-17 applications open. August 18th, 2005 at 2:08 pm
    
    

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