Features for future rss2book?

geekraver · 01-26-2007, 01:52 PM

Hi all

I'm trying to come up with features for future versions of rss2book and would welcome suggestions, both for new features and for the desirability of the various items listed below. What I have on my list so far:

Low Hanging Fruit

msi installer. Not sure if this is really much better than the current .zip file approach.

help file

categories for published feeds (news, opinion, blogs, tech, software development, etc), with a tree view when subscribing

Medium Difficulty

make rss2book clean up the html before passing it to the back end converters. Amongst other things it would be good to normalise header levels (so that all top level headers are <h1>, etc)

support for tables

table of contents support

auto-updater for new versions of rss2book

cookies and login support for sites that need that

sync plugins, so Sony Reader synching is a plugin and potentially can sync to other devices - but are there any others that matter and which are open enough to be implemented?

Big Fish (either big jobs or jobs I'm unsure of difficulty)

output plugin for .chm and .lit

output plugin for BBeB

output plugin for FB

input plugins - make the whole RSS front end a plugin, which the possibility of other plugins that produce HTML (wikipedia, Gutenberg, etc)

jbresee · 02-01-2007, 11:41 AM

It almost works under Vista....
It gets about 80% of the way there, then Vista complains that it has crashed, and kills it.

I would love to see a vista stable version...
Thanks for all of your work, it is a very cool app.
Jim

geekraver · 02-01-2007, 12:03 PM

I hope to have Vista support very soon - maybe even tonight - assuming the problems are mine and not with the Sony DLLs. I just set up Vista with VS.Net on my laptop yesterday so I'm ready to start testing.

Mr. Goodbar · 02-01-2007, 05:39 PM

This is not rss related, but more focused on regular web pages. What about a link depth setting. What I'm looking for is something similar to what iSilo did on the palm and pocket pc. There are a number of journal websites/webzines etc that would be great to package up like this. Just a thought.

Bob Russell · 02-01-2007, 05:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr. Goodbar

This is not rss related, but more focused on regular web pages. What about a link depth setting. What I'm looking for is something similar to what iSilo did on the palm and pocket pc. There are a number of journal websites/webzines etc that would be great to package up like this. Just a thought.

To be effective, wouldn't this probably also require some sort of inclusion/exclusion sets of wildcarded URLs also?

geekraver · 02-01-2007, 08:06 PM

Soemtimes you just need a rule that you only follow links that are relative or point to the same site.

Alexander Turcic · 02-02-2007, 03:47 AM

geekraver, how hard would it be to write a non-dot.net port?

Hadrien · 02-02-2007, 05:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alexander Turcic

geekraver, how hard would it be to write a non-dot.net port?

I guess the point here is that using .net, the developpment is much much faster. Another high level language (a more portable one) would be the right choice for a port, but usually this is no easy task, and if you're not skilled with both languages it can take quite a lot of time.

ashkulz · 02-02-2007, 08:33 AM

Well, .NET is pretty portable because of Mono -- I use Linux, and it is very easy to get Mono installed (almost all distributions have it as a package).

What would really help is if it could run on .NET 1.1 -- Mono has a rock-solid 1.1 implementation, but the 2.0 implementation is not as polished and is not available in most distros (yet).

jbresee · 02-02-2007, 03:39 PM

Actually, whatever was broke in 1.9 was fixed in 2.0!
I'm running it on Vista and it is behaving nicely - thanks geekraver!
Jim

geekraver · 02-03-2007, 01:13 AM

Glad to know it works - I'm still struggling with getting the VS.Net service pack 1 downloaded and installed so I hadn't tested it yet.

As far as other languages go, I might sometime do a native version with wxWindows, but its pretty unlikely; .Net works for me and if you want to sync directly you need Windows anyway, so it shouldn't be that big a deal. Vista ships with .Net 3.0, and 2.0 is available to XP users via Windows update. The only reason I might do wxWindows is that it is years since I used wxWindows (I wrote a Scrabble game back in the 80's) and it would be good to pick it up again.

Fugubot · 02-04-2007, 09:30 AM

Thanks for adding the the select all/deselect all functions in 20. It works great! I'm really happy with the program as is and will be sending you a donation this week out of gratitude.

I don't know if others would find this helpful. Its just a usability suggestion to reduce clicking. How about the ability to drag an RSS/link to the program and this opens the customize dialog with the URL box filled in with the RSS/link?

Instead of clicking in the URL column and pasting in the link, the clicking in the name and naming the link, and then clicking on the customize button to test the link, drag-and-drop link would get you to the customize screen immediately. I suppose you'd have to include a field for the NAME column but it would streamline inputting new links.

Again, great program. Thanks for being so open to suggestions from users.

Much gratitude.

geekraver · 02-04-2007, 05:46 PM

I can look into that. Right now I'm trying to add better support for Gutenberg and Wikipedia stuff (and I've renamed the app "web2book" as a result :-) ).

lhilden · 02-13-2007, 10:09 AM

GeekRaver,

After using rssbook for a couple of weeks now and publishing several feeds, I have two suggestions:

1. Give us the ability to edit previously published feeds. Sites change, pages break...
2. Provide an option to create the TOC entries based upon h1 entries only. That is ignore h2, h3, etc. when creating the TOC so I don't have to navigate a through several levels of TOC entries to get to the article.

Other than that, thanks for a great tool!

-Lou

geekraver · 02-14-2007, 12:07 AM

Hi Lou

You can do (2) by editing the htmldoc options. There is a --toclevels option that can be adjusted.

Good point on (1).

01-26-2007, 01:52 PM	#1
geekraver Addict Posts: 364 Karma: 1035291 Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Redmond, WA Device: iPad Mini,Kindle Paperwhite	Features for future rss2book? Hi all I'm trying to come up with features for future versions of rss2book and would welcome suggestions, both for new features and for the desirability of the various items listed below. What I have on my list so far: Low Hanging Fruit msi installer. Not sure if this is really much better than the current .zip file approach. help file categories for published feeds (news, opinion, blogs, tech, software development, etc), with a tree view when subscribing Medium Difficulty make rss2book clean up the html before passing it to the back end converters. Amongst other things it would be good to normalise header levels (so that all top level headers are <h1>, etc) support for tables table of contents support auto-updater for new versions of rss2book cookies and login support for sites that need that sync plugins, so Sony Reader synching is a plugin and potentially can sync to other devices - but are there any others that matter and which are open enough to be implemented? Big Fish (either big jobs or jobs I'm unsure of difficulty) output plugin for .chm and .lit output plugin for BBeB output plugin for FB input plugins - make the whole RSS front end a plugin, which the possibility of other plugins that produce HTML (wikipedia, Gutenberg, etc)

02-01-2007, 11:41 AM	#2
jbresee Junior Member Posts: 8 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jan 2007 Device: (802) 373-9060	Vista support? It almost works under Vista.... It gets about 80% of the way there, then Vista complains that it has crashed, and kills it. I would love to see a vista stable version... Thanks for all of your work, it is a very cool app. Jim

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02-01-2007, 12:03 PM	#3
geekraver Addict Posts: 364 Karma: 1035291 Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Redmond, WA Device: iPad Mini,Kindle Paperwhite	I hope to have Vista support very soon - maybe even tonight - assuming the problems are mine and not with the Sony DLLs. I just set up Vista with VS.Net on my laptop yesterday so I'm ready to start testing.

02-01-2007, 05:39 PM	#4
Mr. Goodbar Wizard Posts: 1,005 Karma: 98078 Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Atlanta, GA Device: iPad Mini 4	This is not rss related, but more focused on regular web pages. What about a link depth setting. What I'm looking for is something similar to what iSilo did on the palm and pocket pc. There are a number of journal websites/webzines etc that would be great to package up like this. Just a thought.

02-01-2007, 08:06 PM	#6
geekraver Addict Posts: 364 Karma: 1035291 Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Redmond, WA Device: iPad Mini,Kindle Paperwhite	Soemtimes you just need a rule that you only follow links that are relative or point to the same site.

02-02-2007, 03:47 AM	#7
Alexander Turcic Fully Converged Posts: 18,163 Karma: 14021202 Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Switzerland Device: Too many to count here.	geekraver, how hard would it be to write a non-dot.net port?

02-02-2007, 08:33 AM	#9
ashkulz Addict Posts: 350 Karma: 705 Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Kindle 1/REB 1200	Well, .NET is pretty portable because of Mono -- I use Linux, and it is very easy to get Mono installed (almost all distributions have it as a package). What would really help is if it could run on .NET 1.1 -- Mono has a rock-solid 1.1 implementation, but the 2.0 implementation is not as polished and is not available in most distros (yet).

02-02-2007, 03:39 PM	#10
jbresee Junior Member Posts: 8 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jan 2007 Device: (802) 373-9060	Actually, whatever was broke in 1.9 was fixed in 2.0! I'm running it on Vista and it is behaving nicely - thanks geekraver! Jim

02-03-2007, 01:13 AM	#11
geekraver Addict Posts: 364 Karma: 1035291 Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Redmond, WA Device: iPad Mini,Kindle Paperwhite	Glad to know it works - I'm still struggling with getting the VS.Net service pack 1 downloaded and installed so I hadn't tested it yet. As far as other languages go, I might sometime do a native version with wxWindows, but its pretty unlikely; .Net works for me and if you want to sync directly you need Windows anyway, so it shouldn't be that big a deal. Vista ships with .Net 3.0, and 2.0 is available to XP users via Windows update. The only reason I might do wxWindows is that it is years since I used wxWindows (I wrote a Scrabble game back in the 80's) and it would be good to pick it up again.

02-04-2007, 09:30 AM	#12
Fugubot Connoisseur Posts: 64 Karma: 10558 Join Date: Nov 2006 Device: Sony Reader	Thanks for adding the the select all/deselect all functions in 20. It works great! I'm really happy with the program as is and will be sending you a donation this week out of gratitude. I don't know if others would find this helpful. Its just a usability suggestion to reduce clicking. How about the ability to drag an RSS/link to the program and this opens the customize dialog with the URL box filled in with the RSS/link? Instead of clicking in the URL column and pasting in the link, the clicking in the name and naming the link, and then clicking on the customize button to test the link, drag-and-drop link would get you to the customize screen immediately. I suppose you'd have to include a field for the NAME column but it would streamline inputting new links. Again, great program. Thanks for being so open to suggestions from users. Much gratitude.

02-04-2007, 05:46 PM	#13
geekraver Addict Posts: 364 Karma: 1035291 Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Redmond, WA Device: iPad Mini,Kindle Paperwhite	I can look into that. Right now I'm trying to add better support for Gutenberg and Wikipedia stuff (and I've renamed the app "web2book" as a result :-) ).

02-13-2007, 10:09 AM	#14
lhilden Junior Mint Posts: 5 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Oakland, CA Device: Sony Reader PRS-500	GeekRaver, After using rssbook for a couple of weeks now and publishing several feeds, I have two suggestions: 1. Give us the ability to edit previously published feeds. Sites change, pages break... 2. Provide an option to create the TOC entries based upon h1 entries only. That is ignore h2, h3, etc. when creating the TOC so I don't have to navigate a through several levels of TOC entries to get to the article. Other than that, thanks for a great tool! -Lou

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02-14-2007, 12:07 AM	#15
geekraver Addict Posts: 364 Karma: 1035291 Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Redmond, WA Device: iPad Mini,Kindle Paperwhite	Hi Lou You can do (2) by editing the htmldoc options. There is a --toclevels option that can be adjusted. Good point on (1).