Christopher Finke writes about software, woodworking, and other creative endeavors.

Feed Sidebar Update

Feed Sidebar is an extension for the Mozilla Firefox web browser that displays the items from your newsfeeds in a sidebar. It can be downloaded for free from Mozilla Add-ons.

I just uploaded an update for Feed Sidebar to Mozilla Add-ons. Changes since version 3.0.1 include:

New Features

  • Added an option to always have new items open in tabs
  • Added a button to the search bar to quickly show all items, both read and unread
  • Removed “Mark All as Read” and “Mark All as Unread” from feed and item context menus

Bug Fixes

  • Sidebar now shows the name you gave the feed, not the feed’s default title.
  • Marking a feed (or all items) as read is now much faster. In my tests, it only took about 5% of the time it used to.
  • Clicking on a feed name in the preview pane now opens the homepage, not a useless blank page.

The update can be installed from Mozilla Add-ons, or you can wait for Firefox to notify you of the available update. If you’re not using Feed Sidebar, give it a try; it has seen a lot of improvements in the past few months.

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Comments

19 responses to “Feed Sidebar Update”

  1. Kevin Avatar
    Kevin

    Why did you remove mark all as read? That was a great feature, please bring it back.

    Reply
  2. Pat Avatar
    Pat

    I second what Kevin said, why have you removed the mark all as read/unread ? That was a great feature indeed. Another point, I have issue with the color of the preview tab in the feeds. Under linux, when using a dark theme, the preview pane is using a white background and a white font, resulting in a non-vieweable area. What I had to do to make it work is to edit the xpi file to change the background color of the preview pane, quite annoying if you ask me ! Other than that, great extension and a must have for any rss reader ! Congrats !

    Reply
  3. Christopher Finke Avatar
    Christopher Finke

    Kevin and Pat: You can still Mark All as Read using the second toolbar button in the sidebar, or by right-clicking in the blank area below the feed items and choosing “Mark All as Read.” The option was removed from the other context menus due to a large number of complaints that it was too easy to accidentally click, or that it was confusing.

    Reply
  4. GoodThings2Life Avatar
    GoodThings2Life

    I just installed 3.1… well– THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!! for the addition of the “Always open in new tab” option! :) Thanks for leaving the toolbar button for “Mark All as Read”, although it took a minute for me to realize it was there. Finally, yes, it is MUCH FASTER now when marking feeds as read, so again– THANK YOU!

    It’s great to find a plugin developer who is both active AND listens to user feedback… I hope you keep it up! :)

    Reply
  5. Pat Avatar
    Pat

    Found it !! It was a bit confusing at first but now I understand why you did those changes. Were you aware about the bug under linux vs dark themes for the preview pane ?

    Reply
  6. Kevin Avatar
    Kevin

    hey thanks, I found it too. I love this reader btw.

    Reply
  7. Multi-Monitor Computer Avatar
    Multi-Monitor Computer

    Cool, I think I’m going to try this out!

    Reply
  8. Apu Avatar
    Apu

    First of all, thanks for producing such a great add-on. It is my primary source for getting updates for feeds, and I enjoy the good integration with Firefox and its simplicity.

    One problem that nags me is the top few icons. As the reader updates, the “update” icon disappears. In addition, the quick icons are not in line; some are higher or lower then others.

    Thanks again for developing such a great piece of software.

    Reply
  9. Pat Avatar
    Pat

    Hi there, same Pat that posted before ! ;)

    I realized that a simple, yet useful feature is missing from this wonderful extension. How about a “sort feeds by name” when right-clicking in an empty space ?? I like to set the feeds by name and when adding new feeds, it doesn’t get reordered automatically.

    Thanks and continue your good work !

    Reply
  10. Heather Avatar
    Heather

    This is exactly what I’ve been looking for – a notifier that lets me open them in their home windows with one click – but I’m having problems with this sidebar. When I select open all in Tabs, it just marks them as read and doesn’t open them- all I want is all the unread items to be opened in a tab each. I also cannot figure out to only have it show the unread items. Also is there a way (other then manually) to sort the feeds into alphabetical order? HELP please.

    Thanks

    Reply
  11. Holger Avatar
    Holger

    I agree, this is really a helpful extension. Many thanks! I would like to add two feature requests for one of the following releases:

    1. Grouping of feeds (by using the groups of the firefox favorites or adding folders manually)
    2. Individual settings for feeds (e.g. some feed should be updated each 15 minutes, maybe anotherone once per day).

    btw: all the best for your collaboration project ;-)

    Best regards
    Holger

    Reply
  12. Yaara Avatar
    Yaara

    I agree with Holger – I have over than 50 feeds, I definitely need a grouping option.

    Best Regards.

    Reply
  13. Björn Avatar
    Björn

    Well, after the update to 3.1.3 the feedbar does not work anymore. I only see this error message:
    Not defined entity
    adress: chrome://feedbar/content/sidebar.xul
    line Nr. 91, row 5:

    ——————————–^

    Reinstalling does not help

    Reply
  14. Christopher Finke Avatar
    Christopher Finke

    Bjorn: Sorry about that. Version 3.1.4 will be available shortly to fix this problem.

    Reply
  15. Philip Avatar
    Philip

    I have been using this add-on for about half a year now and I can’t imagine life without it! That being said… I have been wondering why there is no way to change the sorting within a feed. Currently it is newest at the top, oldest at the bottom… I would like to see the ability to change that to oldest at the top, newest at the bottom.

    Thanks for such a great add-on.

    Reply
  16. theymos Avatar
    theymos

    Thanks for the awesome extension. Since 3.1.3, though, Firefox hangs really bad whenever Feed Sidebar updates feeds. It has always caused Firefox to hang a bit, but it’s much worse now.

    Reply
  17. rascal Avatar
    rascal

    It’s sad, but feed sidebar seems worse with every release.
    I installed 3.1.4 but firefox has very high HDD I/O when checking for feed updates, after EACH feed. In my case of 43 feeds, it takes a lot of time and a lot of HDD work to make an update.
    Had to revert to 3.1.
    Anyway, I was most satisfied with latest 2.x version of feed sidebar, 3.x introduced many problems.
    I still use it, but I am forced to stay with 3.1. I was waiting anxiously for an update to remove some bugs, but instead it introduced more :/

    Reply
  18. JR Avatar
    JR

    I am having a problem with this add-on an two requests.
    I have to log on to my ISP via Firefox. But I think Feed Sidebar is checking for new items as soon as Firefox starts. None of the feeds will be updated. After that I have to log on to my ISP for each feed.
    I think it would be great if the pop-up notification and the starred feed icon worked when the feeds are closed. (You only see the folders not the items).

    Reply
  19. Steve Avatar
    Steve

    Two feature request:
    -support folders in the sidebar.
    -show the website immediately, when selecting a article. There should be no need for a doubleclick.
    -show the number of unread articles in brackets.

    Thanks.

    Reply

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