Would Sunrise viewer be worth $19.95 to you? - Page 2

chrishawn · 04-11-2005, 11:36 PM

yes, if and only if it can update my feeds from my treo over the net

Bob Russell · 04-17-2005, 10:10 AM

I think everyone would want this program even for $20 if it can cleanly and easily convert the average rss feed into a nice full article with the right links followed for each site, and if the viewer has similar capabilities to Vade Mecum or eReader or iSilo.

The real trick seems to be getting content isolated, which in my opinion is what would drive sales. An RSS feed usually gives a tibit teaser, and the link is an offline nightmare. The link usually has a lot of worthless header and left column stuff that you have to scroll past to get to the article text. Not only is it in the way, but it leads to a lot of extraneous links that waste space and clipping time. And in some cases, the articles linked to from the RSS feed are multiple page articles of unknown number of pages.

I think any tool that can isolate the real article on the majority of sites for clipping and reading would become the primary reader of most PDA users. Even if the value-added from the integrated reader software is minimal, it will be a hot item. (Assuming it's not a pain to read with, of course.)

Even if that content can't be trimmed, it would probably be sufficient if link control could focus somehow on the heart of the articles and then when the article opens it jumps directly to the text of the article (i.e. past the left hand column and top of page "garbage").

But at any rate, I want to support Laurens and this sort of development activity, so I'll buy it at anything <$25 if it's a program that I could make use of at all.

If it is a reader that I can use to consolidate and read all my web content and rss feed content, and it works for most sites without too much garbage or long conversion times or huge file sizes, then it would not only be nice, but revolutionary!

Look forward to seeing the "real deal" this summer. I'm on the edge of my seat. Best of luck with the project, Laurens!

Alexander Turcic · 04-17-2005, 10:15 AM

Bob, Sunrise does support url-rewriting for RSS feeds! I think Laurens has already proved what he is capable of by writing Sunrise Desktop.

As Bob said, it now comes down to the viewer application to see if $20 is justified when comparing it to other offline viewer applications.

hacker · 04-17-2005, 10:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alexander

Bob, Sunrise does support url-rewriting for RSS feeds!

Unfortunately URL rewriting is a dead-end, because it requires constant management of the feeds and feed "templates" (SDL files). Because of that, it doesn't scale, its not self-healing, and it always requires a human being at the wheel to fix things when the upstream site changes their layout or design.

Look at Sitescooper for a great example of this. They've been doing exactly this for several years now, and they have a huge collection of .site files that are used to cut, prune, and rewrite website content to give you a slimmer, no-fat, lean useful version of the site. Unfortunately, it requires someone to go through every .site file and check to make sure they're still working. Many aren't. There are thousands of them.

Great idea, but in the end, a dead-end.

Don't get me wrong, I think Laurens has created a great tool and suite for users to use, and it will no-doubt be successful. I just hope his community of users is willing to help him maintain the SDL templates for the next few years. Its not a trivial amount of work.

Bob Russell · 04-17-2005, 12:08 PM

I'm not sure if link rewrites for RSS will solve the content isolation issue completely, Alex, but yes it would be plenty for me if it's included in the viewer. I'm really excited to see the "real thing", and hope it keeps a lot of what Sunrise has provided.

That's also true as Hacker says, that the site interfaces each have to be maintained. But if it's not too complicated, I don't mind that. I wouldn't want to maintain a library of hundreds or thousands of sites, but for the feeds that I want, I'm willing to do some simple tweaking if I don't have to be a tech guru to do it. Heck, I have almost as much fun setting stuff like that up as I do using it

The problem with Sitescooper for me wasn't the out-of-date .site files, it was the out-of-date Sitescooper community. No support or active forums. Versions were incompatible between Sitescooper and iSiloX. I was prepared to invest a little time to learn about Sitescooper, but it got too messy for my taste to make it work, and I wasn't willing to dig in one more layer down. Besides, I guess I'm really in consumer mode now, so I prefer something that is packaged up nicely and just works, even if I give up a little functionality.

I don't know what the the new Sunrise viewer will be, but it seems like it will be a simpler version of sitescooper functionality combining RSS feeds and web clipping, as well as a viewer. If so, that's just what I want, so I'm very excited about it. I look forward to seeing it this summer if it's still on track for that timeframe.

View Poll Results: Would Sunrise viewer be worth $19.95 to you?
YES!	8	36.36%
No, because...	14	63.64%
Voters: 22. You may not vote on this poll

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04-11-2005, 11:36 PM	#16
chrishawn Junior Member Posts: 2 Karma: 10 Join Date: Mar 2005 Device: tero 650	yes, if and only if it can update my feeds from my treo over the net

04-17-2005, 10:10 AM	#17
Bob Russell Recovering Gadget Addict Posts: 5,381 Karma: 676161 Join Date: May 2004 Location: Pittsburgh, PA Device: iPad	I think everyone would want this program even for $20 if it can cleanly and easily convert the average rss feed into a nice full article with the right links followed for each site, and if the viewer has similar capabilities to Vade Mecum or eReader or iSilo. The real trick seems to be getting content isolated, which in my opinion is what would drive sales. An RSS feed usually gives a tibit teaser, and the link is an offline nightmare. The link usually has a lot of worthless header and left column stuff that you have to scroll past to get to the article text. Not only is it in the way, but it leads to a lot of extraneous links that waste space and clipping time. And in some cases, the articles linked to from the RSS feed are multiple page articles of unknown number of pages. I think any tool that can isolate the real article on the majority of sites for clipping and reading would become the primary reader of most PDA users. Even if the value-added from the integrated reader software is minimal, it will be a hot item. (Assuming it's not a pain to read with, of course.) Even if that content can't be trimmed, it would probably be sufficient if link control could focus somehow on the heart of the articles and then when the article opens it jumps directly to the text of the article (i.e. past the left hand column and top of page "garbage"). But at any rate, I want to support Laurens and this sort of development activity, so I'll buy it at anything <$25 if it's a program that I could make use of at all. If it is a reader that I can use to consolidate and read all my web content and rss feed content, and it works for most sites without too much garbage or long conversion times or huge file sizes, then it would not only be nice, but revolutionary! Look forward to seeing the "real deal" this summer. I'm on the edge of my seat. Best of luck with the project, Laurens!

04-17-2005, 10:15 AM	#18
Alexander Turcic Fully Converged Posts: 18,175 Karma: 14021202 Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Switzerland Device: Too many to count here.	Bob, Sunrise does support url-rewriting for RSS feeds! I think Laurens has already proved what he is capable of by writing Sunrise Desktop. As Bob said, it now comes down to the viewer application to see if $20 is justified when comparing it to other offline viewer applications.

04-17-2005, 12:08 PM	#20
Bob Russell Recovering Gadget Addict Posts: 5,381 Karma: 676161 Join Date: May 2004 Location: Pittsburgh, PA Device: iPad	I'm not sure if link rewrites for RSS will solve the content isolation issue completely, Alex, but yes it would be plenty for me if it's included in the viewer. I'm really excited to see the "real thing", and hope it keeps a lot of what Sunrise has provided. That's also true as Hacker says, that the site interfaces each have to be maintained. But if it's not too complicated, I don't mind that. I wouldn't want to maintain a library of hundreds or thousands of sites, but for the feeds that I want, I'm willing to do some simple tweaking if I don't have to be a tech guru to do it. Heck, I have almost as much fun setting stuff like that up as I do using it The problem with Sitescooper for me wasn't the out-of-date .site files, it was the out-of-date Sitescooper community. No support or active forums. Versions were incompatible between Sitescooper and iSiloX. I was prepared to invest a little time to learn about Sitescooper, but it got too messy for my taste to make it work, and I wasn't willing to dig in one more layer down. Besides, I guess I'm really in consumer mode now, so I prefer something that is packaged up nicely and just works, even if I give up a little functionality. I don't know what the the new Sunrise viewer will be, but it seems like it will be a simpler version of sitescooper functionality combining RSS feeds and web clipping, as well as a viewer. If so, that's just what I want, so I'm very excited about it. I look forward to seeing it this summer if it's still on track for that timeframe.

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