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Newsfeeds

Prologue
The fact that I chose newsfeeds for the first part of the wish-list doesn't mean that I find these features to be more important than others. It just means I had to start somewhere
I use feeds a lot, so a good feed client is an important feature to me.
Opera's client is, IMO, good enough for my needs, but there are a few points that I think would improve its usefulness to me.
Oh, and don't forget to let me know about some good ideas that I missed


Feeds panel
It has been mentioned several times, including by myself, but here it goes again: a separate panel for feeds would be great!

Joining the mail and the feeds in only one panel might have some advantages, but I don't see any... On the other hand, I can think of several advantages in a separate feeds panel:

• We can have the panel even if we don't have a mail account. The creation of a bogus, not checkable, mail account is one of the most bizarre workarounds I can think of.
  
• I have lots of feeds, so I have a vertical scrollbar. In my screen, if I keep the first line of the panel visible (to check unread messages) I can see around 25 feeds. In a separate panel, I could see around 40 without a scrollbar.
  
• In the mail window, I want to have columns for status and attachments. I don't need that in newsfeeds. Right now, the columns are necessarily the same in both windows.
  
• Having totally different uses, I'd like to be able to define a CSS for emails and another for feeds. Now, if I want to highlight some information in mail headers (for example, the sender) I also have that information highlighted in feeds, which is useless to me.
  
• If I right-click a feed in the panel, I have many options that relate to mail only. With a separate panel, those options could be much more meaningful.
  
• If I right-click the feed text, I have options like "reply" or "add contact". I have no use for options like that, so why shouldn't I be able to remove them without removing them from the emails?
  
• I don't need a quick reply field in feeds...
  
• I'd like to be able to define different labels for mails and feeds.
  
• Now, I have to do some weird workarounds do know how many received mails I have, because the total always includes newsfeeds.
  

I won't link to any thread in the forums, because there are too many to choose from. A search in the forums returns many threads about users wishing the same, so I know I'm not alone in this one


Groups/types of feeds
My feeds can be divided in a few different groups (news, science, Opera, technology, ...). Sometimes, I like to see the BBC feed or the CNN feed, but usually what I really want is to read the news. So, I'd like to have the ability to group feeds together.
Currently, the only way I know of doing this is through filters, and, AFAIK, there are some situations where even that is not possible. For example, BBC news, BBC science and BBC technology only differ in the feed address. I'm not sure about this, but I didn't find a way to filter feeds in this case.

An alternative to folders would be "types", or "tags", that could be filtered themselves. If the feeds panel was also implemented, we could have filters that were especially adapted to newsfeeds.

Here's a mock-up:

• Clicking on the plus/minus sign (1) would expand/collapse the group
  
• Clicking the group name (2) would show all the feeds in it
  
• Double-clicking the group name (2) would show all the feeds in it and expand/collapse the group
  
• Clicking a feed (3) would show the feeds as it does now
  

There are also many threads about this one, but these two are the ones that I find most informative:
http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=93307
http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=111521


Information about the feeds
I'd like to able to view and define more information about the feeds.

User-defined information:

• Name (already done)
  
• Address (already done)
  
• Update interval (already done)
  
• Description
  
• Group
  
• Tags
  

Viewable information (on right-click option, on hover, ...):

• All the user-defined information
  
• Last update
  
• Format (RSS/Atom)
  
• Total size
  

Viewing some feeds directly
In many feed readers, if you click the individual feed, the reader automatically opens the page with the contents. Opera just provides the link and, sometimes, some information about it. Many users would like Opera to behave like the former. I'm not one of them. I prefer the Opera way Anyway, I have to assume that, in some cases, I'd like to be able to view the content right away.
The best way would be, of course, if that was configurable for each feed. I'd love to be able to maintain to current setting for most feeds, but having Opera opening photo feeds and mp3 feeds (like podcasts) directly


Delete after x days
I'd like to be able to tell Opera to delete individual feeds older than a specified number of days. Preferably, this setting could be different for each feed.


"Update all" option
Don't need to explain, right?


Better notifications
I think the feed notifications could be made a little more useful with a few changes.

• If I receive messages from more than one feed at once, clicking a particular feed name would take me to its message window
  
• If I receive messages from more than one feed at once, clicking the first line ("New newsfeeds...") would take me to an unread feeds list (or go to the first feed, as it does now)
  
• Right-clicking the notification could make it disappear
  
• I'd like to able to configure some settings (these could be common to mail and transfers notifications):
  _____- Text size (possibly different for feeds and notification title)
  _____- The notification duration, in seconds
  _____- Location of the notification (left, right, center, top, ...)
  

Define feed icons
AFAIK, the feeds use the favicon that is passed to them (just like bookmarks). I'd like to be able to define the icon for each feed.


Update at specific time
Now, I can define update intervals. Let's say I know that a feed is updated daily. I can tell Opera to update that feed every 24 hours. But now let's say I know that the feed is updated at 10 a.m. It could be nice to have the ability to define specific times (and maybe other parameters, like days of the week) to update feeds.
Not very important though...


Export / import
Even though I have never needed to export or import feeds, it would be useful for many users to be able to import and export feeds (the information and/or the actual messages) from/to several formats.
There are several threads in the forums about this, including requests about specific format (OPML seems to be recurrent)


The weird wireless sound thingy
Last but not least...

behold the monster:
Many people like it, many people don't. I surely don't...

For what I heard, people point a few advantages to this new icon:

• Stardandization
  
• Absence of "geek" speak (like "RSS" or "feed")
  

Now my view of it:

• I can surely agree that standardization is important. In HTML, in CSS, in ports, in wall plugs, in bra sizes... But in icons? I'm not so sure, but I have no problem with that.
  The point is: is this how a standard is made? A browser creates an icon, another says it's OK and suddenly it's a standard?
  
  
• Many people don't know what RSS means. Many people don't know what a feed is. So, someone has the idea to create a symbol that is universal and meaningful. I think it's a great idea...
  Now, does an orange square with a point and two curved lines qualify as meaningful? Has any study about that been made? Did someone ask "non-techies"?
  
  
• Many complain about the orange color. Actually, I like that. My skin even uses an orange button
  
• Let's pretend I'm a newbie here. I see a symbol that says RSS. I don't know what it means, so I don't click it.
  One day, though, I'm browsing around and I see a page that says "What is RSS?". Hey, that rings a bell, so I read it. Wow, it sounds great. Let me try it!
  ...and they lived happily ever after
  
  Let's now pretend I'm a newbie of the future. I see an orange square on my address bar. I don't know what that is, so I don't click it.
  One day, though, I'm browsing around and I see a page that says "What is RSS?". So I say: "Yuck, geek speak" and I go back to my happy browsing, looking for news every 5 minutes.
  The end.
  

I know this is a bit... well, pathetic, but I honestly think that removing weird words is not always a good solution.
I know that feed or subscribe are not universal. I know that RSS doesn't take Atom in account. I know that XML is too vague.
So, I assume I have no "magic solution" for a great button, but I don't dislike some of the proposals that were made in the forums, although I'm planning to keep my good old icon in the future.
http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=118321