RSSNOW, a new rss plasmoid... requesting feedback.

[Sven Burmeister]

On Saturday 15 March 2008 04:05:21 Rob Scheepmaker wrote:
> The applet is still young, and there's still a lot to improve. Some
> ideas for features include:
> - at the moment each scroller presents one feed... i want to be able to
>   make the grouping completely custimizable, so you can for example
>   assign 3 feeds to one scroller (usefull for feeds which are low on
>   traffic). I'm still thinking about a nice way to implement this. How
>   could you give grouping functionality in the configuration interface?

This would be very useful indeed. To begin with, you could simply show a 
number representing the scroller when clicking on the feed in the settings. 
That way users can pick the same number for feeds they want in the same 
scroller.

> - adept nicely to existing in the panel, probably grouping all feeds on
>   one scroller.

The problem I see with this is that if you only show one item, the user has to 
keep watching the applet to not miss an item. You would increase the chances 
of viewing an item and reduce the frequency needed to spot it at the same 
time, if you would show more than one item.

This would involve scrolling down rather sidewards, i.e. show e.g. three 
items, a row each, after one interval, scrolling one item up. That way one 
item is visible for three intervals while it moves from top to bottom or the 
other way around. If you place a small feed-icon in front of each item, you 
can even mix several feeds and still have a distinction. 

For panels I would cut off the headlines after a certain width and wrap the 
lines if the applet's width is smaller than the average width of three/four 
words, which I think might be sensible for vertical panels.

I doubt that users care about what source an item comes from and are more 
likely interested in the content. So maybe one should not show the feed-
heading (KDE dot news) at all in panels, since space is limited in those. The 
latter would save you one whole line per scroller. The RSSNOW line currently 
uses the complete height the applet gets in a default panel, so it would have 
to go for panel use too.

Another thing I noticed is that the feed-headline, e.g. KDE Dot news, is 
replaced everytime, although it stays the same. Also, if there is only one 
line of text and that line is replaced sideards, without any gap between the 
two items, it is hard for the eye to spot whether there is a difference. Two 
lines of text look pretty similar if you do not actually read them and lack 
uppercase letters as most English sentences do. Upwards scrolling as described 
above would solve this as well, maybe even combin it with a slight difference 
in background transparency that moves with the item.

Finally I noticed that even if I chose a desktop-theme with a transparent 
background, the applet still uses a black background for the scollers.

I like this applet a lot more than the older one since it is smaller and does 
not waste that much space for things I have seen already and thus might even 
fit into a panel/sidebar.

Sven