Josh’s Windows Weblog has posted a screenshot of the new RSS reader added to the beta photo-sharing app Microsoft Max. The interface is really clean, really shiny:

That being said, how does that interface scale? The title boxes on the left, at that size, will run off the screen after 8 or 9 items. I had about 70 items in NewsGator this morning. Is there a folder paradigm or at least a feed view (instead of an item view) for the left column?

Cats aside, curiosity got the best of me. I downloaded Max (and the .NET 3.0 framework with it) to see for myself. The download page declares “One step to happiness”, so I had high hopes. The installer informed me I needed to restart my system, so I guess happiness is restarting Windows XP.

That accomplished, I fired up Max, chanting to myself: “Remember It’s A Beta, Remember It’s A Beta. (RIAB)” Next step: Use my long-forgotten Passport ID, or sign up for a new one. Maybe the restart was an oversight, and the real happiness is in using my Passport account?

Managing Feeds

There it was, the shiny RSS reader. Pretty.

Default feeds? I don’t need no stinkin’ default feeds. Oops, you can only delete them one at a time. (No multi-select) For as volatile as my reading list can be, this didn’t bode well. Then again: RIAB.

I didn’t want to import my feeds one URL at a time, so I gave Max an OPML instead. Any RSS reader that takes itself seriously has to be able to import OPML so people can make an easy switch from another reader.

Sadly, Max didn’t like the OPML. Sadly as in: Now I have to test whether it scales, one cut-n-paste at a time. Life can feel so short sometimes.

RIAB.

Okay, I’ll give it a website address that has a <link rel=”alternate” type=”application/rss+xml” … />. This is commonly used by RSS readers to detect the related feed. Sigh, that doesn’t work either. RIAB and breathe deep.

Fine, I will enter the exact RSS 2.0 url, Max: “http://feeds.feedburner.com/woodman/inkblots.” That worked.

Now here’s the interesting bit. The title box on the left displayed the most recent item title (underneath a smaller feed title.) That feed item got its own “page”, as though the front page of a newspaper. Like so:

The second “page” was a compilation of older feed items, this time in a nifty-looking multi-column newspaper format:

The feed I’m using has an item summary in the RSS item/description elements, and the full content in item/content:encoded elements. It would appear that the latter isn’t being utilized, which is a shame. Millions of WordPress users have full content out there that will be ignored by Max. RIAB, Mark, RIAB.

Feed Me

Moving on, I added an Atom 1.0 feed, which loses most of the content altogether. This particular feed is rich with content, so it looks like the Max team hasn’t spent much time supporting Atom yet. (RIAB again.)

Then came a couple of RSS 2.0 podcast feeds. I wasn’t sure if an app meant for photo sharing would be geared for multimedia enclosures, but one can hope. Nope. I couldn’t spot anything that would even hint at there being a podcast, much less a link, much less an embedded player. This is arguably not a Beta drawback necessarily… perhaps they aren’t interested in supportin the Cali Lewis wardrobe fund.

A dozen feeds later, and I confirmed my initial suspicions… the interface doesn’t scale well to any more than a handful of feeds, unless you call scrollbars scaling:

Am I missing something?

Note that the interface doesn’t tell you what you’ve read, doesn’t provide a way to mark something as read (or delete an item), and doesn’t tell you how many items are in a given feed. The latest headline boxes on the left don’t shrink or squish to make room for others, and never go away unless you delete them. They cannot be organized or reordered. I was really expecting some sort of Picasa-ish or Apple-esque GUI scaling, so this was a big disappointment.

I Remember Its A Beta, but did the Max team remember to try it with more than 4 feeds? Is this intended to be used as a real contender to the likes of NewsGator, Bloglines, Google Reader, RSSOwl? Or even as a casual RSS reader? I can’t even mark something as read, for crying out loud. Think of the children!

I’ll keep an eye on it, but for now Max is just a one-trick, shiny newspaper-format-looking pony.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 13th, 2006 at 20:49 and is filed under syndication. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.