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RSS Menu 1.11 - RSS News Feed Reader

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RSS Menu

RSS Menu

e dot studios

The Bottom Line

RSS Menu turns the Mac OS X menu bar into a versatile RSS feed reader that not only displays headlines but also complete stories, lets you group feeds and integrates with both Safari and iTunes. Apart from the obvious shortcomings of a menu-based RSS feed reader, it would be nice if RSS Menu could hide read items and integrate with Google Reader and other web-based aggregators.

Pros

  • RSS Menu notifies you about and lets you read RSS feeds via the Mac OS X menu bar
  • You can group feeds in custom sub-menus, and RSS Menu can show iTunes podcasts and Safari RSS feeds
  • RSS Menu supports Growl for notifications and lets you open articles swiftly

Cons

  • RSS Menu does not integrate or synchronize with web-based RSS feed readers
  • You cannot hide read items or feeds with no unread news in RSS Menu
  • RSS Menu cannot filter or organize new items using a learning algorithm

Description

  • RSS Menu is an RSS and Atom feed reader for the Mac OS X menu bar.
  • Headlines are displayed by RSS Menu as menu items. A click opens the corresponding article.
  • You can group your feeds in sub-menus of RSS Menu.
  • RSS Menu can pick up RSS feed and podcast subscriptions from Safari and iTunes, respectively.
  • New items can be announced in the RSS Menu menu bar item, via Growl, and by speaking them.
  • RSS Menu supports OPML for importing or exporting subscriptions.
  • RSS Menu supports Mac OS X 10.4+.

Guide Review - RSS Menu 1.11 - RSS News Feed Reader

Challenged to find the perfect environment for an RSS feed reader, the OS X menu bar was probably not your very first thought. And thinking of things to do with or in the menu, reading news stories was likely not one of them. Yet the two go together well.

RSS Menu is the expanding, linking and accessible proof. Not only does RSS Menu display the latest headlines from your favorite RSS feeds, not only can you open the corresponding articles in your default browser with a simple click, but you can also group your feeds freely in sub-menus and hovering with the mouse over a headline will even display the item's blurb or the complete article (depending on the feed).

Naturally, RSS Menu is not suited perfectly to the efficient consumption of hundreds of blogs and web sites (the option to hide unread items and feeds that contain no new articles might help to free up space), but for a few important feeds it does a great job.

In addition to menu bar notification, you can have RSS Menu alert you about new news via Growl and your Mac's voice.

While RSS Menu does support the importing and exporting of subscriptions using OPML files and can fetch the RSS feed and podcast subscriptions from Safari and iTunes, respectively, integration with web-based aggregators such as Google Reader would be nice.

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