Where did RSS go in Safari 6???

ubernaut wrote:

when you say you added notifications, safari already has the ability to notify you and in a better way then any other browser

I was referring to notifications in Mountain Lion. Safari supports HTML5 notifications, but other than one demo site, I've never seen any web site use it. At first I thought Apple was trying to push people to using that service, but after getting a little feedback from users, I changed my mind. It turns out that there are way too many hand-coded, unique RSS feeds out there. Now I think Apple just doesn't want to bother anymore.

im curious what other features you might be referring to.

I'm just referring to everything else that might be in an RSS feed other than title and description. Some feeds provide much more than this. Some feeds don't even supply those two fields. Since you've been using Safari, you might not have known all of this other stuff existed.

i dont think being constantly notified is good thing for most feeds i think the whole point is that the updates are on your own terms waiting for you to tell you how many updates have transpired since your last chance to check but maybe thats just me and the amount of rss feeds i follow.

i dont see where it's really apple problem as i said before they only responsible when it hits a certain threshold such as twitter or youtube it is very rare to find a site feed that safari isnt compatible with so i dont think that point has much merit either. normally its the site owners responsility to make sure their site functions and looks correct on all the makor browsers i dont see why you dont think that same logic applies to the http and feed protocols.

regarding the other features your description makes me think you really never used safari's rss feed feature. i get images attached files what else would there be that safari doesnt see already?

ubernaut wrote:

i dont think being constantly notified is good thing for most feeds i think the whole point is that the updates are on your own terms waiting for you to tell you how many updates have transpired since your last chance to check but maybe thats just me and the amount of rss feeds i follow.

Is that a lot or a few? I find that when I have all my feeds running with notifications I surf the web a lot less. It is kind of strange. It is almost like EtreFeed (I guess I'll need the disclaimer now) is a SPAM filter for the web. It is easier to ignore notifications than to switch to another application (Safari or any other RSS reader) and see if there are feed updates.

i dont see where it's really apple problem as i said before they only responsible when it hits a certain threshold such as twitter or youtube it is very rare to find a site feed that safari isnt compatible with so i dont think that point has much merit either. normally its the site owners responsility to make sure their site functions and looks correct on all the makor browsers i dont see why you dont think that same logic applies to the http and feed protocols.

Perhaps you just aren't looking hard enough. I made the same mistake with EtreFeed 1.0. It worked perfectly on every feed I could find. But it turns out that different people are interested in different topics and in some areas, RSS feeds are pretty much standards-free. People make up the format as they go. Safari may well have had support for more variants than my 1.0 build, but Safari still only displayed title and description. My 1.2 build will have customizable support for any fields. There is no way Apple would have ever done that. I don't think there is any single smoking gun that caused Apple to remove RSS support. There are just too many gotchyas coming from all sides and Apple decided it just wasn't worth the effort. Both Safari and Mail relied on Apple's old PubSub framework and that framework really isn't compatible with modern Mac App Store-friendly application development practices.

regarding the other features your description makes me think you really never used safari's rss feed feature. i get images attached files what else would there be that safari doesnt see already?

Those images are just part of the HTML code inside the description field. There are many other fields that may, or may not, be present.

I did use Safari's RSS feed feature, but not too much. I found it kind of awkard. I had to switch to Safari just to see if there were updates, look for the feed bookmark, see if it had a number, then click to see which feeds were updated, then click again to see the feed. Then I had to scroll through to see the new articles and look at umpteen ad images. Why should I have to do all of that work? Now, my Mac alerts me when there is a new article posted and most of the time I can see by the title in the notification that I don't really care. If the notification looks interesting I can either click it to read the article right away or know that the next time I go to check, there will be an interesting article waiting for me.

Apple often gets criticised when it adds some feature to the operating system and essentially puts some 3rd party developer out of business. Only big, cross-platform products like Google, Microsoft, or Mozilla can compete with that. I think this is a situation where Apple thought Safari's limited RSS features were holding people back and it was a big hassle to keep maintaining it. This time, Apple did the opposite and created an opportunity for 3rd party developers like myself. If you don't like my program, there are many more RSS feed readers to choose from.

Disclaimer: I may receive some form of compensation, financial or otherwise, from my content.

oh please. of course u defend apple cause you advertise your app here. -.-

safaris rss implementation was perfectly usable for many years. i never felt like i missed anything. i tried all sorts of rss readers from time to time (around 5) and the extra features were useless to me. besides...they are clunky. all of them.

paul1@mac.com wrote:

oh please. of course u defend apple cause you advertise your app here. -.-

I've been defending Apple here for a lot longer than I've been trying to sell an RSS reader 🙂

safaris rss implementation was perfectly usable for many years. i never felt like i missed anything. i tried all sorts of rss readers from time to time (around 5) and the extra features were useless to me. besides...they are clunky. all of them.

OK. But Safari's RSS reader is gone now. I understand your goal of petitioning Apple to bring it back, but this is not the appropriate venue for that. This is a user-to-user discussion forum. Some users have suggested their favourite RSS readers to use instead. Others users have created new ones to exploit new capabilities in Mountain Lion. The only thing none of us can do is make Apple bring back the old functionality in Safari.

Yes - before you say it - I know what you are thinking. If we can just get this thread to 100,000 views and 1000 replies then Apple will be FORCED to take action. Sorry, but there is no guarantee of that. You are free to keep trying, but it sure seems like a waste of time.

"Eventually, Safari would only be able to display headings and paragraphs and hide everything else. That is exactly what Safari's RSS reader does."

And this is exactly what I need. And nothing else.

BTW I find it a little bit troubling, somebody defending vigorously a very poor decision of Apple and trying to make money selling his/her application, and this on a supposedly user/user forum.

etresoft wrote:

I was referring to notifications in Mountain Lion. Safari supports HTML5 notifications, but other than one demo site, I've never seen any web site use it. At first I thought Apple was trying to push people to using that service, but after getting a little feedback from users, I changed my mind. It turns out that there are way too many hand-coded, unique RSS feeds out there. Now I think Apple just doesn't want to bother anymore.

im curious what other features you might be referring to.

I'm just referring to everything else that might be in an RSS feed other than title and description. Some feeds provide much more than this. Some feeds don't even supply those two fields. Since you've been using Safari, you might not have known all of this other stuff existed.

Your logic that just because "Safari's RSS functionality is not feature complete (lacks features that are there in other readers) or that there are lots of competing standards within the RSS umbrella that Apple made the right decision to abandon it" is a logic that warrants killing off a lot of other features and applications on Mac just because A. those applications are not as feature-complete as other third-party apps; B. there are so many standards to translate/parse in that app (though this logic doesn't stand for Safari RSS because it was already able to parse the most used RSS XML formats). Some of the apps that come to mind:

* Calendar (vs other calendar apps available for Mac, which have more 'features')

* Mail (vs Outlook and other full-blown email clients)

* Pages (vs Word; plus, there are many 'document' standards out there - if you had a problem understanding a bunch of XML standards for RSS then imagine parsing through a plethora of binary formats for a document)

Feature-incompleteness or multiple-standards-to-adhere-to have never kept Apple from creating applications and features for its OSes. Safari RSS had always worked (it was not broken); if someone wants more features they can choose a 'better' RSS reader (that has more features that is) from the app eco-system just like one can for Mail and Calendar for example. But forcing the customers, rather than letting them make the choice, is not the right way.

etresoft wrote:

I did use Safari's RSS feed feature, but not too much. I found it kind of awkard. I had to switch to Safari just to see if there were updates, look for the feed bookmark, see if it had a number, then click to see which feeds were updated, then click again to see the feed. Then I had to scroll through to see the new articles and look at umpteen ad images. Why should I have to do all of that work? Now, my Mac alerts me when there is a new article posted and most of the time I can see by the title in the notification that I don't really care. If the notification looks interesting I can either click it to read the article right away or know that the next time I go to check, there will be an interesting article waiting for me.

Exactly. You made a choice to use another application that fit your needs. What part of that do you not get for others for whom Safari's RSS functionality fulfilled their needs? That those who prefer Safari's RSS do only want the title and description? That those who wish to go beyond that are free to choose a full-featured RSS?

I posted previously and was pis#ed off about the lack of Safari RSS functionality. My gripe is only that Apple removed the feature without explanation, presumably to sell more RSS readers in their app store. Previously, on the rare occasions that I wanted to click on an RSS feed, Safari would simply let me see the feed contents. Admittedly I never used RSS that much, but removing the feature seemed too abrupt.

However, given the possible reasons for removal of the feature, I don't care anymore. I installed Vienna and use it the few times I want to inspect an RSS feed. If I don't want to keep the feed in Vienna, I delete it. It's not a bad solution for someone like myself.

etresoft: Ok,

A question to you, is it possible to build an extension that works the same way as Safaris built-in? I will buy it in a second.

For me RSS belongs to the browser. I don't want to switch between apps or have it in notification center. To have the feeds in the toolbar with notifications is a very nice and clean way to have it.

Thanks..

The extension "Foxis Live RSS" in Chrome let you have the feeds in the toolbar. When you click it you get a drop down with the feeds, you also get the notification on the bookmark, thats what i'm using when i'm on a Pc. And FF has that by default i think?

Safaris way though is slicker and with more options.

etresoft wrote:

Perhaps you just aren't looking hard enough. I made the same mistake with EtreFeed 1.0. It worked perfectly on every feed I could find. But it turns out that different people are interested in different topics and in some areas, RSS feeds are pretty much standards-free.

That is not your or Apple's problem, just put up a window that says the feed does not adhere to a standard and suggest they notifiy the web site owner and leave it at that. People will sort it out. There are 5 or 6 standards and the differences are for the most part stupid. But that does not mean we should throw the technology away. For most people any of them work well enough.

well obviously somebody is paying attention to this thread cause they just deleted that borderline flaming rant almost instantly. although i dont agree with his choice of words i can certanly understand his frustration as do many others who are still watching this thread and waiting for apple to reticfy the issue in some way shape or form.

Well, I just looked up PSFeed.h in OS X 10.8 developer tools and PSFeed.h is not yet deprecated.

There is also a system guide in Core Servies Layer -> Publication Subscriptions -> Publication Subscription Programming Guide -> Understanding Feeds, in the 10.8 documentation that talks about Supporting RSS 0.9, RSS 1.0, RSS 2.0, and Atom Syndication Format. It shows examples of Safari and RSS feeds. Again not deprecated.

So who knows, but obviously someone got really ****** at RSS feeds and just yanked them out of Safari with no notice.

well be that as it may apple sorta put a bunch of people in a corner with this decision so either they gonna realize the error of their ways which i agree seems unlikely at this point or somebody will really fill the gap by building a plugin that can resotre the full functionality we are all used to or the slow bleed begins for hard core users that have always looked to apple because its the best platform to use for many professional computer users.