This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Ruby Buzz by Jeremy Voorhis. Original Post: Trying Out NewsFire Feed Title: JVoorhis Feed URL: http://feeds.feedburner.com/jvoorhis Feed Description: JVoorhis is a Rubyist in northeast Ohio. He rambles about Ruby on Rails, development practices, other frameworks such as Django, and on other days he is just full of snark. Latest Ruby Buzz Posts Latest Ruby Buzz Posts by Jeremy Voorhis Latest Posts From JVoorhis

Today, Brian Ford and I evaluated NewsFire. I had heard about NewsFire from Phill Ryu’s post about 10 beautiful OS X apps and noticed NewsFire ranking high on the list. Visually, NewsFire certainly earns its title. Its two-pane view is easier and faster to use than NetNewsWire’s three-pane view inherited from Outlook. The two panes afford a much larger viewing area, which solves my frustration with NetNewsWire’s summary pane; I resize the pane every time I start the app, but it never remembers my preference.

My biggest frustrations with NewsFire so far are related to its OPML import. If you do not buy a license, and I have not just yet, NewsFire only allows you to subscribe to 15 feeds. This is fine for evaluating, but I did not know the limit and I attempted to import a 45-feed OPML file I exported from NetNewsWire. First, NewsFire ignored the OPML groups, so I will be forced to organize my feeds again if I make the switch. It also gave me a modal dialog with only one path forward: register NewsFire. I helplessly clicked the register button so I could move forward, but the application promptly crashed. NewsFire loses points for its sloppy shareware behavior, but the application is a joy to use otherwise.