SharpReader wishlist

I have been using SharpReader for more than a month now. It is a rather simple app (at least UI-wise), but it does the job well. I wonder if the "backend" RSS work is difficult, given the multiple versions of RSS and the interop problems in RSS (that motivated necho).

As with all applications you use quite a bit and enjoy, there is always little additions you'd enjoy. So here is my wishlist:

- let me modify SharpReader: I'd love to see some of the code and be able to modify some of it to implement some of my wishes myself. Alternatively, a plugin system might be enough to implement the features listed below.

- sync over the web: I use multiple computers, one at work, one at home and one laptop, but I can only use SharpReader on one of them because it doesn't support synchronization. I don't know if there is existing frameworks (maybe Jabber) to make this easier.

- fix the Back button on the mouse: this button works in other instances of IE, but not in the "mini-browser" in SharpReader. Although SharpReader is not meant to be a full-fledged browser, it is sometimes useful to navigate a couple links and back.

- have an Undo Delete feature: I am sometimes too hasty when deleting a post, and I'd love to be able to undo one deletion. This feature should be bound to the Ctrl-Z shortcut.

- integrate in the browser's handling of the RSS mime type: when I open an RSS file in IE or Mozilla, it'd be nice to have it loaded into SharpReader. This would make subscribing to feeds even easier.

- allow flagging entries: it is sometimes useful to flag entries, besides marking them read or unread.

Also, I have noticed that some entries don't display correctly, instead of loading the description from the feed, it loads on of the urls of the entry. I am not sure yet whether this is a bug or just a problem with the feed itself.

Luke actually has a plugin model. I haven't written one yet, though i plan to do this soon to write a ink blogger plugin.

There is no RSS mime type for most things. It's usually text/xml.

As to your second point - agreed. I'm working on something that will help this, but it would be better if it were integrated - and the UI could be decoupled from the backend, specifically subscriptions.

The current plugin system appears to support IBlogThis and IBlogExtension interfaces, which are meant for blogging about an RSS entry listed by the feed reader, but not general purpose extensions.
I may be missing something though: would you have specific pointers for more information on the interfaces your were considering?

About the second point (having multiple readers synchronize): thinking some more about it, it seems a really general problem (also applies to bookmarks, contacts, notes,...). I have a post in preparation with some reflections/suggestions for a possible framework for handling this.

http://www.tallent.us/weblogx/PermaLink.aspx/8ae24518-f229-4ef1-ac67-04d6906eef26
Richard listed some SharpReader requests of his own. I'm happy to see I'm not the only one with the multiple machines problem.

I wish we didn't have to use a central server to handle these synchronization problems every time (for bookmarks, notes, email,...), but it still is the easiest solution today even if P2P getting lots of interest.

There has been some more discussions on one-click feed subscription (check out http://www.tallent.us/PermaLink.aspx?guid=6d03b762-9867-4786-8c33-b649efe3160d ).

Pete Hopkins is proposing a new URI scheme (feed:) for this. He also posted an interesting comment (http://pirate.typepad.com/blog/2003/09/problems_with_m.html ) on the conceptual problem of using a mime type to do the job: mime types allow the browser to download the content and pass it to another app, while subscribing would actually require the url itself to be handed to the app.

Re: "integrate in the browser's handling of the RSS mime type: when I open an RSS file in IE or Mozilla, it'd be nice to have it loaded into SharpReader. This would make subscribing to feeds even easier"
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as for mime type handling, i have this problem myself, but then not all feeds are served with the correct type anyway ;)

something i found useful, was the Launchy extension (for firefox at least) you can add your own apps using an XML file (ie sharpreader, add it as type 1 (browser)) then you can "open with sharpreader" :)