Tuesday, March 19, 2013
My Plan for FeedDemon
Since announcing the end of FeedDemon last week, I've been overwhelmed by the number of people who say they're sad to see it go. Many of these people have told me they want to keep using it.So here's what I'm going to do: sometime before the demise of Google Reader, I'll release a new version of FeedDemon which no longer syncs with Google Reader. This version will be free, won't contain any ads, and will have all of the features of the Pro version. You can use it free of charge for as long as you like - but it will be the last version of FeedDemon.
It's been impossible to respond to the many tweets asking me about open-sourcing FeedDemon, or making it sync with another service. So I'd like to address those questions here.
First, open-sourcing FeedDemon sounds nice, but I don't see it working. I use a number of commercial third-party components which can't be open-sourced, and some of them are older versions that I've modified quite a bit. Perhaps more importantly, FeedDemon was developed in Delphi 7, which is very out of date. Delphi geeks will recall that version was released before the product supported Unicode, so all the Unicode support you see in FeedDemon was added by me (using owner draw, custom string routines, etc.). Long story short: it would be easier to write a new RSS reader than it would be to upgrade FeedDemon's code to the latest Delphi version (which would need to be done).
Second, switching to another sync service isn't practical. It's not as simple as just using a different set of endpoints for API calls, as some have suggested. No matter how close the new sync API is to Reader's, there will be differences that require a lot of attention. Reliably syncing RSS feeds is a ton of work, and as I mentioned in my previous post, I already have a full-time job as an Android developer and just wouldn't be able to devote extra time to switching sync platforms.
I don't take the end of FeedDemon lightly - after all, it has occupied a huge chunk of my life since I created it back in 2003. But I haven't been able to give it any attention for quite some time, and it has earned very little for the past few years. Really, it's time for me to let it go.
PS: As expected, the end of both Google Reader and FeedDemon have brought a fresh round of articles saying "RSS is dead," which is way off-base. Google Reader and FeedDemon represent the "old school" of RSS readers: they were designed for geeks and held little mass-market appeal as a result. There are plenty of popular "new school" feed readers with new approaches, and most of them don't even call themselves RSS readers or even mention that they rely on RSS (which is a good thing, since most customers don't care about the plumbing).
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Monday, January 14, 2013
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
TopStyle 5 is Here - and it's Fantastic
Stefan van As - the gifted developer who took over TopStyle after I stopped working on it - just announced the release of TopStyle 5.0, and wow is it good.Take a look at some of what's new:
- HTML5 and CSS3 support
- CSS gradient generator
- Text shadow generator
- Use Google Chrome as the internal browser (!)
- XRAY (love this feature - here's a screenshot)
- Secure FTP
- Image map editor
- Color contrast analyzer
...and a ton of other oft-requested, much-appreciated additions. Stop by the TopStyle download page to give it a try or buy the upgrade (it's worth it).
Excellent work, Stefan - this is the TopStyle I never had time to create, and I'm thrilled to be using it.
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Glassboard for Your Kindle
When my Kindle Fire HD arrived, I was impressed - it's a slick tablet. But like many people, I was disappointed by the limited selection of apps. Some of my favorite Android apps don't work on the Kindle.
Luckily, Glassboard isn't one of them. Glassboard is now available in the Amazon App Store, and it looks great on the new Kindles. It takes advantage of the larger screen and hardware acceleration to provide a fast, fluid experience.
Note: This is the same exact version that's in Google Play, but it does have one limitation: due to device differences, push notifications aren't available on the Kindle. We're looking into ways to address this in a future release.
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Glassboard Now Supports Deletions
In this release, we've added our most requested feature: the ability to delete messages. If you want to delete something you posted, simply long-press it and choose "Delete message." You can also delete any message posted in a board you chair.
The way we've done deletes may seem unusual, so I'll explain our thinking behind it.
When we first built Glassboard, we decided against deletes because we felt "we need to own what we say." We wanted people to be more accountable when they post to Glassboard than when they post in some other places, so we intentionally didn't permit deleting messages.
That was a mistake, because it meant you couldn't delete something you posted to the wrong board, or get rid of something obnoxious someone said in one of your boards, or remove that photo of yourself in drag you uploaded when you meant to share a picture of your cat, etc.
So now you can delete, but we've done deletes in a way that still shows you posted something. Rather than remove a message entirely, we replace its text with "Message deleted by..." and get rid of any attachments. If you delete a message that has comments, the comments aren't deleted because those comments could have valuable information (but you can still delete comments you posted).
The way we've enabled people to delete any message posted in a board they chair reminds me of how a lot of newspaper sites handle comment threads. If someone posts a rude comment, the site's moderator can delete it and have it replaced with, "Comment deleted by the moderator." That way the actual comment is gone but there's still a record that so-and-so posted something offensive. You see that happen enough with the same person, and you learn to ignore stuff they post in the future.
PS: Glassboard 2.3 has a bunch of other changes, too. The Android app has been given a fresh coat of paint, and everything should feel even faster now.
Friday, September 07, 2012
Thursday, August 23, 2012
Glassboard Shines on Nexus 7
Earlier this week I announced a new version of Glassboard for Android which supports Glassboard premium. What I didn't mention is that this new version is also optimized for tablets like the Nexus 7.
If you used an earlier version of Glassboard on your new tablet, chances are you were disappointed by how photos didn't resize to fill the larger display. And if your eyes are like mine, you probably squinted to read anything. You may also have noticed that scrolling wasn't as smooth as it should be.
The latest version changes all that. Photos are now big and bold, text is much more readable, and scrolling is buttery smooth.
If you're one of the many folks who bought a Nexus 7 and are annoyed by how few apps take advantage of it, give the latest version of Glassboard a try. It's a much better experience than before.
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Glassboard Premium
Perhaps the question we hear the most about Glassboard is, "if it's free and you don't do ads, then how do you make money?"
The answer is with a premium subscription, which is supported by new versions of the app that are now live in Google Play, the App Store and on the web.
For an overview of the goodies our premium version has to offer, head over to the Glassboard Blog. But I will give a shout-out to what has become my favorite premium feature: bookmarks.
At Sepia Labs, we use Glassboard to build Glassboard. Every feature, fix and improvement is discussed on Glassboard itself. Being able to bookmark messages and comments is a big help - bookmarks are my to-do list of things I need to act upon. I also bookmark photos I really like, as you can see in the screenshot below this post.
If you're a Glassboard customer and you want more out of it, I hope you'll sign up for Glassboard Premium. But even if you don't, be sure to get the latest version of the app because there are a lot of improvements for non-premium customers as well.
PS: We'll be adding some great new premium features over the next few months - there's much more to come!
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Glassboard ICS
Update: This build is now live on Google Play.
When I built the Android version of Glassboard, I decided not to do anything specific for Android 4. Based on Google's stats, it looked like it would be a very long time before enough people were running ICS for it to make sense spending any time supporting it.
But Google has made some smart moves lately that should speed up the adoption of Android 4. I think it'll become the leading Android version much sooner than expected.
So I decided we needed to support ICS in Glassboard as soon as possible. Now, in fact.
If you're running ICS and would like to test drive a Glassboard build that takes advantage of ICS features like the ActionBar and hardware acceleration, you can download the APK here. If all goes well, this build will be uploaded to Google Play in a few days.
If you run into any problems with it, I hope you'll let me know by posting in my "Android Testers" board (you can join using the invitation code
ckanq).
PS: This build still supports every version of Android from 2.2 upwards - it just takes advantage of ICS features when running on Android 4.
Sunday, June 17, 2012
Friday, June 08, 2012
Android Developers Need to Speak Up
I was really glad to see this post from the good folks at Pocket. They're saying what I've said a couple oftimes: Android is far easier to develop for than the tech press leads people to believe. Android's supposed "fragmentation" problem is a myth for most developers.
I'd like to see more Android developers do as Pocket did and help lay to rest this crazy notion that developing for Android means having to purchase dozens - or even hundreds - of Android phones to test with.
If you're an Android developer, you already know most of the "fragmentation" headlines are bogus. But people who don't develop for Android may actually believe these articles and think Android apps are impossibly hard to create because there are so many different screen sizes to deal with.
Yes, there are some really annoying things you have to deal with when developing for Android, but that's true of any platform.
So if you're an Android developer, write about your experience. Tweet about it. Tell your geeky Facebook friends that creating Android apps isn't really that hard. When you see some tech site trying to drive traffic with a BS fragmentation article, post a respectful comment about how different your experience has been.
While you're here I hope you'll check out Glassboard, an app designed for private sharing. I write the Android version of Glassboard.Tuesday, June 05, 2012
Android's Overblown Fragmentation Problem, Part 2
A couple of weeks ago I said that while Android's fragmentation problem is real, it's smaller than some make it out to be. That post generated a good discussion on Hacker News, and I was really glad to see that since I've recently had to disable comments here.
One thing that was pointed out is that fragmentation is a very real problem for game developers, and I certainly concede that. There are plenty of other legitimate reasons to complain about fragmentation.
But most of the time when I see someone complaining about Android fragmentation, it's either because they're struggling to get their app to look good on the many different sizes of Android displays, or they're upset about having to support so many versions of Android.
I came to Android development after years of creating Windows software, so to me those just aren't a big deal. I've always had to support multiple OS versions and a wide number of screen sizes. Web developers are in the same boat - they have to make their apps work on an almost baffling array of devices, browsers, operating systems and screen sizes.
I think part of the problem with Android is that wasn't until relatively recently that it was deemed popular enough to develop for. That resulted in a boat load of iOS developers and designers having to create Android versions of their apps.
These folks were used to developing for a very limited number of OS versions, and most of their customers upgraded to the latest OS very quickly. They also had to design for a small number of display sizes, which often meant they simply created 1x and 2x fixed-size graphics for their apps.
Suddenly they were faced with developing an Android app, where 1x and 2x graphics just don't cut it. And they could no longer assume that customers were using a recent version of the OS.
To these people, fragmentation must certainly be an enormous issue - especially if they continued trying to design Android apps the same way they designed iOS apps.
The obvious answer is that they should stop doing that. Just like developing for iOS had an initial adjustment period, it takes time to learn the Android way of doing things. Developers and designers who are unwilling to invest that time just end up creating crappy clones of their iPhone apps.
To those folks, I can only say: remember when you bristled at seeing second-rate Mac ports of popular Windows apps? Remember how you felt about companies that treated your choice of OS as an also-ran?
That's how you're making Android customers feel. It doesn't endear you to them, so they'll seek out alternatives. They'll switch to competitors who treat their iOS apps and Android apps as equal citizens.
But regardless of whether you're willing to do that, can you at least stop complaining about "Android's fragmentation problem" just because you have to support different screen sizes and OS versions?
There are legitimate reasons to complain about fragmentation, but those two issues are something developers have faced for many years with other platforms (and continue to do so). The fact that we have to do so with Android shouldn't be that big a deal.
While you're here I hope you'll check out Glassboard, an app designed for private sharing. I write the Android version of Glassboard.Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Screw the Power Users
I designed HomeSite and TopStyle for power users. Only power users would want to edit HTML & CSS by hand, so I made sure to cater to them.
Those products were filled with features and tool buttons, and their settings dialogs contained dozens of geeky options. Customers liked them that way. I liked them that way, too.
But then I made FeedDemon. It's still a pretty geeky product, but it's not just for power users. FeedDemon users range from hardcore developers to computer newbies.
At first I built FeedDemon as though my customers were geeks like me, since that was what I was used to. Power users were happy with all the features and all the options, but the extra baggage made it harder for less technical people to use the product. It scared them away.
So with each new version I tried to simplify the user interface, and dropped features & options that complicated the product. FeedDemon became more popular as a result, but you’d never know it if you visited my online support forums.
I’d come out with new versions that I thought dramatically improved the product, only to find my forums filled with complaints from power users who wanted the return of some obscure option, or were upset that I wasn't adding the geeky features they wanted.
Sales went up, but positive feedback went down. I had built FeedDemon with the wrong customer in mind, and I paid for it by spending a ton of time defending each release.
Sure, if you're building a product for power users, make sure to cater to them. Give them everything they need. Despite the rude title of this post, I actually love building stuff for power users because they make great customers.
But if you're building a mainstream consumer product, then from day one you need to tell yourself, “screw the power users.”
That’s hard to do - after all, you’re a developer, so you’re one of the power users. You want to make people like yourself happy.
But I’d argue that’s one of the biggest problems that has plagued the software industry. We’ve all built stuff for ourselves, even though the vast majority of software users aren’t like us.
We're the ones who made computers so hard to use. And we’ve done it by catering to power users - by building software for people like us instead of for people who don’t know and don’t care about all the geeky little details.
So if you’re just starting to build something, make your mantra “screw the power users.” Unless power users are your primary customers, catering to them will only hurt your product.
While you're here I hope you'll check out Glassboard, an app designed for private sharing. I write the Android version of Glassboard.Thursday, May 24, 2012
Old Farts Know How to Code
I turned 45 this month. In many professions that's the prime age to be - and in others it's considered young - but in my line of work, some people think middle-aged coders are old farts. That's especially true when it comes to startups.
The startup culture is similar to professional sports in that it requires a fleet of fresh-out-of-college kids to trade their lives and their health for the potential of short-term glory.
"Old farts" are often excluded from that culture, not because we're lousy coders but because we won't put up with that shit. We have lives, we have families, we have other things that are important to us. We're not about to sleep at our desks and trade watching our kids grow up for the promise of striking it rich. Especially when the people who really strike it rich aren't the ones writing code.
So many developers my age have had plenty of chances to ditch coding and move into management, but we've stuck with coding because it's what we love to do. We'd earn more in management, but writing software is in our blood. We wouldn't stop doing it for anything.
And because of the years we've spent creating software, we've learned what works and what doesn't, regardless of the language or the platform. Operating systems rise and fall, development tools come and go, but through it all, old farts know how to write solid code.
While you're here I hope you'll check out Glassboard, an app designed for private sharing. I write the Android version of Glassboard.
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