The only way to effectively keep up with RSS feeds is to use a feed manager and reader. Google Reader is one of the most widely used online apps for managing and reading feeds, but there are also popular desktop clients like NetNewsWire.
A free alternative to NetNewsWires however, is Gruml. Both local clients sync with your Google Reader account so that any changes you make in one reader will be applied in the other. This means you can easily turn Gruml into a Google Reader desktop client on your Mac
Gruml is currently in its beta version, so it may not be as stable as NetNewsWire, both of which have similar features and user interface. If you”˜re not currently using a RSS feed reader, you might want to give Gruml a try. It contains some useful features not found in NetNewsWire or Google Reader itself.
After downloading Gruml, you will be directed to add your Google Reader account to manage your Google Reader feeds. You can also click on Gruml”˜s preferences and add your account. Gruml will download your feeds the way they are organized in your Google Reader account, so both will be in sync.
Reading and navigating Gruml is pretty similar to how you use Google Reader, so I’m going to point to features and preferences in Gruml that you might possibly overlook.
Preference Settings
As with all new applications you download and use a few times, you will want to check out its Preference settings to customize the app for your particular needs. For example, the default font size of Gruml is little small, in my view. So you will definitely want to click on Preferences>Appearance>Fonts and change the font size to your liking.
Below the Fonts settings, you might also want to click off (disable) some of the sidebar items, such as Notes or Shared items which you might not be using. This makes the application a little less cluttered in that area. If you don’t plan on tagging items, you might to click that item off as well.
You can also view your latest feeds in Gruml by clicking on its icon in the menu bar. This is set by default. If you prefer it doesn’t appear there, simply click on Preferences>Advanced and disable it. However, if you do plan to use it, you might consider having selected articles open in your default browser instead of in Gruml, which is its default setting.
I suggest this because accessing articles in the menu bar means that you probably don’t want to open Gruml, but just want to check your latest feeds for anything interesting. If you double-click on an article, it will open in your web browser. It would be great if accessing articles in the menu bar would give you a preview of say the first paragraph instead of just the titles.
Customize Toolbar
Next, Gruml”˜s toolbar has icons and buttons for nearly all its features. For those who prefer navigating and activating items with your mouse instead of shortcut keys, you should click on View>Customize Toolbar and add icons that you think you might be using on a regular basis. You might also add your favorite web-based bookmarking account, such Diigo or Instapaper to the toolbar.
By the way, Gruml adds many more ways to share articles than what is available in Google Reader or NetNewsReader. When right-clicking on an article, you can share it on Delicious, Reddit, StumbleUpon, your Evernote account, and so on. Each of these sites also has its own icon that you can put in the toolbar.
Change The Layout
The default setup for Gruml is that when you click on a feed, the list of its articles will appear, and then when you click on the article it will appear under the list. But you might want to use the three-column view which puts a selected article in a third column instead of below, which might make for better reading.
Opening Links
When you click on the titles of articles, you might only get the lead paragraph for that selection. If you want to read more of the article, right-clicking on it you will give you options for how you want to view the linked page. If you want to view it in Gruml, simply select Open Link. If you prefer to view it in your default browser, select Open Link in Safari. Again, in Preferences>Advanced>URL handling, you can set how you want links to open by default.
Marking All Read
If you have lots of feeds like I do, you no doubt can”˜t keep up with them all, and often times you just want to mark them as All Read. Gruml provides a way to do that outside the app. Just right-click on the app’s icon in the dock and select “Mark all articles as read.”
I have been a NetNewsWire user for a long while, and I can’t say that Gruml is much better than NNW at managing Google Reader feeds, but in its current beta stage, it is a free application and offers many more features. It currently doesn’t have a mobile app counterpart, but I’m sure one is in the works.
Let us know what you think of Gruml or any if there any other Google Reader desktop client for Mac that you prefer.
Tagged: feedreader • feeds • google reader • reading • RSS
