Replacing NewsFox
I am using Firefox 52 ESR. I have been using NewsFox for a couple of years to manage and read RSS feeds. I read articles within the Firefox web browser. Using a Firefox extension helped with that goal. Despite some quirks, more or less the extension does what I need.
Like many Firefox extensions, there has been no hint that NewsFox will be updated to the newer Web Extensions interface. Not really surprising because there has been no updates to NewsFox in a long time with the older XUL interface. After recently losing the NoSquint Plus extension, I found no way to adjust the nonsense tiny font sizes in NewsFox. Reading feeds had become hurtful to my eyes.
Time to look for a feed reader replacement.
I moved to NewsFox because I wanted some kind of centralization. To accomplish this with NewsFox I created a sym link from $HOME to a network share. That worked well for me.
Browsing the Firefox extensions web site I found no compelling replacement for NewsFox. Feedbro seemed like a potential candidate. The add-on does not appeal to me because of using IndexedDB. I decided first to try familiar territory.
Before moving to NewsFox I was using QuiteRSS. I used a similar approach of using sym links to keep the folders centrally located on a network share.
Not having used QuiteRSS in a couple of years I gambled with trying the most recent version. By gambled I mean that the newest version of software is not always the best.
I imported the OPML from NewsFox. Next I configured QuiteRSS as best I could with the GUI options.
The QuiteRSS defaults enable the bane of the web and cookies. Easy enough to disable but irritating presumptions. The defaults do not show the menu bar. I do not understand the general developer hostility to menu bars.
I was unable to configure QuiteRSS to store how I wanted to display and order the news feed columns.
I still had backups from two years ago. I compared and adjusted the INI file. That did not store the feed column configuration. Eventually I found an option through the menu bar to map feed columns. For some reason the software does not store changes in the columns when using the column options button on the far right of the header.
As I open articles in Firefox, an external browser. The default QuiteRSS keyboard shortcut for that option is Ctrl+O. I changed the shortcut to Return. That keeps the keyboard reasonably efficient for me. I use the Right and Left arrows to move through the feed titles. I use the Up and Down arrows to scroll the article lead before deciding I want to read the full article. When I want to read the full article I now press the Enter key.
In short order I had migrated to QuiteRSS. I prefer the integration of NewsFox but for now QuiteRSS will suffice as a NewsFox replacement.
Posted: Category: Usability Tagged: Firefox, General
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