Fixed

  • Fixed settings icon not showing up on iOS 13 [iOS]
  • Fixed alternate app icons not showing up in selection screen [iOS]
  • Keep all labels available on device, even empty labels (TTRSS)
  • Fixed issue reloading feed titles after renaming a feeds (Feedly)
  • Fixed today feeds counts

Changes

  • Removed default browser setting
  • Expanding the today folder works again
  • Changes to the article list layout
  • Separate show date / show feed title settings
  • Option to exclude feeds from Hot Links
  • Using more SF Symbols as icons
  • New expert setting “article view overlay”
  • Option to completely remove header image from text (native rendering)
  • Improved article list performance

Fixed

  • Expanding the today folder works again
  • Fixed screen not turning off after sync has finished (if set to disable screen sleep while syncing) [iOS]
  • Fixed saved searches in specific feeds or folder (you may have to re-create those searches)
  • Fixed layout issue after rotating while Safari was open
  • Fixed no feeds displayed when searching read articles
  • Fixed saved searches in specific feeds or folder (you may have to re-create those searches) [macOS]
  • Saved searches now also search the author and feed title fields

This is the third of my yearly roadmap blog posts. You can find the last year’s post here.

Looking back

2020 was a complicated year for everyone, but I still managed to release 16 updates for Fiery Feeds iOS and macOS in total.

Mac Trial

It was the first thing on my list for 2020, and you can download it here: Fiery Feeds Trial

Full Text Search

Search everywhere. Full text search for articles. Search for settings, including otherwise hidden expert settings.

Also in version 2.4 a simple implementation of saved searches. It’s not yet the advanced iTunes smart playlist style saved searches, but a lot of things required are now in place for this to happen.

Native Article View

I’m still working on the native article renderer and fixing some edge cases here and there, but it is officially an option, and will become the default renderer in the next major update.

Performance

There were some performance fixes since 2.4 has been released and I am currently working on a few different more, as well as general code cleanup. Those changes will be part of the coming 2.4.x updates, that is, I want all of the known bottlenecks fixed before I start on the next feature release.

Planned 2021

The major features I’m planning to work on this year, roughly sorted by priority. As always, this is just a rough plan, not a guarantee that I’ll actually manage to implement all of them.

New Widget

iOS 14 and Big Sure brought support for new SwiftUI based widgets. Fiery Feeds already has a today widget, but the new widgets, while more limited in features, can be put on the Home Screen, which people seem to enjoy. I have some ideas for different kinds of widgets I want to support, but I do have to learn SwiftUI first, which feels like a big thing (most of Fiery Feeds is still Objective-C). Still, this is something for version 2.5.

New Services

Miniflux, Raindrop, Feeder.io, full FreshRSS (including feed management, i.e. using their Google Reader API) support. There’s a lot to do on the syncing side, even if it doesn’t sound like exciting new features.

Theming Improvements

A better (read native, instead of a website) in-app browser for themes, an in-app theme editor and a user directory of themes where anyone can submit their own creations.

General Design Refresh

While I don’t want to completely redesign Fiery Feeds, I do want to bring it a bit closer to the look of iOS 14 and Big Sur.

Also the new OS versions brought support for a lot of things I want to use. Native sidebar, native 3-pane-mode, the new window toolbar on macOS, more use of SF Symbols,… you get the idea. Some of those do require iOS 14/Big Sur as target, that means I’m going to release this after the next iOS/macOS versions are available so I can keep supporting to my usual current + 1 OS versions.

Drag and Drop / Multi Selection

One of the more macOS centered improvements. Selecting multiple article to mark read or tag at once, or simply dragging feeds / articles to folders / tags to assign them is something I’d expect from a Mac app. I’ve caught myself trying to do this and getting annoyed that it doesn’t work multiple times. Interestingly I’ve never missed those features on iOS – I still plan on supporting it on both platforms.

I think this is going to fit well with the updated design, since I have to completely re-do at least the feeds and folders list anyway.

Advanced Saved Searches

Like I said above, the foundation is already in place, but I still need to build the UI to create more complex saved searches. I like iTunes’ UI for smart playlists, and I hope that Smart Searches will end up looking and working like that.

Per Feed Settings

Over the time people have asked for different settings they want only on a per feed basis, not for the entire app. Showing Preview Images for example, or notifications only for specific feeds. Alongside that I also want to support automatically marked articles read after a certain time (for specific feeds), and some more.
Those will be ‘override’ settings, that is, if you never look into the feed settings view, the app should continue to behave exactly as it does today.

Changes

  • Improved log file viewer
  • Updated included themes for Big Sur [macOS]
  • Send Feedback now uses third party email apps if possible

Fixed

  • Fixed alert button colors
  • Fixed/removed “Expand section” text from cells that can’t actually be expanded (VoiceOver)
  • Expert setting to prevent display sleep while syncing [iOS]
  • Fixed unstarring articles (NewsBlur)

Changes

  • Added Expert Setting “Force Fullscreen Video” [iOS]

Fixed

  • Counts not being updated for feeds in special folders like Today
  • Fixed issue syncing with the latest version of NextCloud News
  • Fixed possible crash when marking articles read
  • Fixed Newsblur sync after an API change
  • Fixed open in external app dialog

Changes

  • Removed the “prevent incremental web rendering” expert setting
  • New App Icon to better fit Big Sur [macOS]
  • Native Rendering: Copy/select paragraph context menu entries
  • Native Rendering: Copy title context menu entry on article header

Fixed

  • Smart searches in iCloud read later accounts
  • Fix for read counts not being updated after “mark all read above/below”
  • Removed existing accounts sections from account selection if empty
  • Fixed animation in article list when switch to next article [iOS]v

Changes

  • Global search now also searches feed title and author
  • Support for Apple Silicon [macOS]

Fixed

  • Fixed changing presets
  • Minor performance improvements in feed list [iOS]
  • No longer syncs the hide toolbars on scroll setting from iOS (if importing settings from iCloud) [macOS]
  • Minimum sync interval setting is no longer an expert setting
  • Minor performance improvements in feed list [macOS]
  • Fixed duplicate date label in article view
  • Fixed “Save page” safari extension
  • Fixed potential low res images in image viewer
  • Fixed saved searches in specific folders
  • Fix for potentially getting stuck downloading Hot Links
  • VoiceOver: Removed unnecessary expand button from lists
  • VoiceOver: Removed “unread” label from unread articles (but kept “read” for read articles)
  • VoiceOver: Removed double actions from feed and article list item actions

Fixes

  • Adjusted design for Big Sur [macOS]
  • No more alerts when trying to open about:blank links in web view [macOS]
  • Better performance while typing in search field
  • Minor iCloud changes (Feed / Read Later)
  • Search in settings also finds the english settings names (in addition to the localized names)
  • Improved article list performance
  • Added “Open Articles in Browser” expert setting [macOS]
  • Feeds without any articles show up in the all feed list again
  • j and k shortcuts now work regardless of if the article view is already open
  • Fixed colors in alert views for themes that haven’t been updated [iOS]

Fixes

  • Article context text size is no longer an expert setting
  • Added “Share Combined URL and Title” expert setting [iOS]
  • Fixed article counts in feeds in recent articles folder [iOS]
  • Add new tags during adding (Wallabag)
  • Search field in setting no longer looses focus when typing [macOS]
  • Fixed article counts in feeds in recent articles folder [macOS]
  • Support email now opens default email app [macOS]
  • Change text parser button no longer missing in native view / text mode
  • Feeds in streams now show the correct articles (TTRSS, Feedwrangler)
  • Previewing links no longer launches the corresponding app [iOS]
  • Fixed new articles notifications
  • Allows smaller sidebar widths [macOS]
  • Fixed handling of feed: links from Safari [macOS]

New Features

  • Fulltext Search & Saved Searches
  • Native Rendering is available for the article view as an option
  • Full Trackpad Support [macOS]

New

  • Option to swipe in feed and folders list to mark all read, or mark all read by date
  • Shows selected hotlink’s articles in the list view, if article is opened from feed list directly (only 3 pane mode)
  • Action to report a rendering issue in an article
  • Searching in settings views
  • Filtering in move feeds, tag article views
  • Filtering in subscribe and read later extensions
  • Full mouse / trackpad support [macOS]
  • Left swipe gestures in feed, article and hotlinks lists (on trackpads) [iOS]
  • Add new tags / folders during subscribe / save (depending on service)
  • Create/Delete Saved Searches directly in Fiery Feeds
  • Create/Delete Saved Searches (Feedbin, Inoreader)
  • Rename Saved Searches (Feedbin)
  • Text Selection in native article view
  • Added “Floating toolbars” setting (Expert)
  • Adding new account view is now displayed in a separate window
  • Reorganized, and cleaned up settings
  • Removed image drop shadow setting
  • Remove columns in article view setting
  • Fixed issue with selection in feed list, if a feed is visible twice
  • Added small star indicator in meta label
  • Shows assigned tags in the article meta label
  • Tag buttons now shows if any tags are already assigned
  • Moved meta label above title in article list, to be consistent with the article view
  • Removed automatic settings syncing in favor of manually backups to iCloud
  • Cleaned up settings, expert settings (after enabling them) show up in the regular settings view
  • Fixed possible invalid limit message (Feed Wrangler)
  • Incremental web rendering now optional
  • Added russian localisation

Full Text Search & Saved Searches

The most requested feature is finally here, full text search for all your articles.

You can either search all articles in the feeds and folders list, and see the number of results in each feed or folder, or you can filter the article list directly within a feed or folder.

You can create saved searches directly from the article list, which will then appear like folders in the main feeds & folders list. The saved searches run locally on device for your articles, but where it’s supported (Inoreader on a paid plan or Feedbin) you’ll also have the option to create a server side search that is synced across your devices. Saved searches are also synced for iCloud feed and iCloud read later accounts.

Local saved searches even store and respect the current feed or folder where they are created and only show matching articles from these sources. You can of course create a saved search from the “All Articles” feed to get all of them too.

Cursor Support

This feature is a bit overdue, but since I was already well into 2.4 when Apple released cursor support for the iPad, I decided to do it right and release it together with the rest of the new features. Most of the app was already working reasonably. because of Catalyst, but I’ve added some animations and hover states that are only available on iOS.

Plus some of the improved cursor support, like displaying URLs while hovering links, in the article view is only available with the new native rendering, that’s also officially supported now.

Native Rendering

Native Rendering is a new option to display the article. I’ve been working on it for the past year or so, and it will replace the WKWebView based rendering at some point. Instead of just throwing the article’s HTML content simply into a WebView, Fiery Feeds parses the HTML itself and displays it using native labels, images and so forth.

This is not only much faster – not that I’m better at rendering HTML than the Safari team, but since it’s only used for articles, I can completely ignore any javascript, any CSS, any more advanced layouts, and only implement the elements commonly used in articles – it also gives me more control over the individual elements. You’ll notice context menus with more options, better drag and drop, images can be downloaded really on demand and use the same cache regardless of if they’re loaded during sync or when viewed in an article, iframes can be set to only load when needed, and much more.

The new native article viewer has also an updated design for most elements, giving it a more modern look.

Updated Roadmap

I had to push back some of the features planned for version 2.4, to be able to release if before iOS 14 / Big Sur hits. Now that 2.4 is done, I’m going to focus on version 2.5 with initial support for iOS 14 and Big Sur, that is enough changes to make it run well on the new operating systems, but not much in terms of updated UI for Big Sur. Plus some of the smaller features I had to drop from version 2.4, depending on how much time is left until the public release. Version 2.5 should be available around the time iOS 14 / Big Sur drops.

Of the big features originally planned in the roadmap for 2020, four (Mac Trial, Full Text Search, Saved Searches and native rendering) are now released. I’m going to continue to work on Performance improvements, but I’m pushing per feed settings and drag and drop/Multi Selection to next year.

Instead, for the rest of the year, I’m going to work on replacing as much of the Fiery Feeds’ custom UI elements with some of the new system elements (like the collapsible sidebars on iPads, the new 3 pane mode for SplitViews, Big Sur’s new window toolbar, using SF Symbols instead of custom icons more and more …) to get version 2.6 to fit in to Big Sur as much as possible.

Changes

  • Fixed getting stuck while syncing (Inoreader)
  • Fixed article list not being updated automatically, even if the setting is enabled
  • Enabled three pane mode in 2/3 splitview if sidebar width is set to small (12.9″ iPads only) [iOS]
  • Fixed your browers is not supported message on twitter (inline web view)
  • Prevents the screen flashing white while loading a website in the inline web view [iOS]
  • Improved next/prev account/folder animations
  • Fixed sharing custom URL actions [iOS]
  • Less jumping in the article list [iOS]
  • Improved OPML Import

New

  • Added ⌘⇧S shortcut to share the article url only (which enables a different set of actions and apps in the share sheet than sharing url and title)
  • Support for attachments in feeds, i.e. podcasts (Local, iCloud)
  • Added readability to available parser algorithms
  • Added integrated support for Evernote

Changes

  • Updated mac dark/light theme colors [macOS]
  • Rewritting and migrated support server
  • Improved adding new account flow [macOS]
  • Fixed update list button contrast
  • Hot Links without extracted content no longer open in Safari directly
  • Properly deselects Hot Link on closing article viewer
  • Add Link or Subscription is now properly disabled in the menubar, if it’s not supported by the current account [macOS]
  • Waiting for iCloud sync status, if the app is waiting because of an iCloud error (iCloud Read Later, iCloud Feeds)
  • Fixed an issue after marking all read if both “Autohide Feed List” and “Show Feedlist after mark read” were enabled
  • Context menu to copy feed url from feed selection view during subscribe
  • Fixed potential error when syncing account settings
  • Workaround for some feeds not linking to articles (iCloud, Local)
  • Fix for favicons after importing incomplete OPML files
  • Added tags to HTML list exports for pocket
  • Pulling down to sync in feed list no longer leaves out caching articles
  • Cancels sync with error if there’s a required iCloud timeout > 60s
  • Fixed an issue downloading articles read elsewhere (Inoreader)
  • Fixed an issue with umlauts in image urls
  • Added new account button to accounts list
  • Fixed export data in settings > backup
  • Improved favicon handling

New

  • Option to limit the today widget to the must read folder (Expert setting) [iOS]

Changes

  • Limited active searches to the last 100 articles (Inoreader)
  • Fixed unread articles in active searches (Inoreader)
  • Fixed layout issue with article counter in the article list
  • Support for finding reddit rss feeds

New

  • Enabled safari reading list quick action (macOS 10.15.4+)

Changes

  • Improved link handling when subscribing to a twitter feed (Feedbin, Inoreader)
  • Keyboard shortcuts to open the settings views [iOS]
  • You can open theme files directly from the files app [iOS]
  • Now caches full text before images
  • Fixed possible crash while syncing (Fever)
  • Improved support for global active searches (Inoreader)
  • Fixed article content if the feed only contains a summary (Local, iCloud)
  • Fixed not hiding unavailable preview images
  • Fixed Web View bottom toolbar layout issue [iOS]
  • Fixed dark/light mode in share extensions
  • Improved vimeo / youtube link detection

New

  • Double tap article view action to trigger read later [iOS]
  • Close image view with esc key [macOS]
  • Shows account title in main window [macOS]

Changes

  • Fixed full page screenshot with native view [iOS]
  • Fixed external monitor mirroring [iOS]
  • Fixed VoiceOver selection in folder selection
  • Improved menubar handling [macOS]
  • Fixed an issue fetching the title in read later accounts
  • Closes article view after marking all read (three pane mode)
  • Fixed an issue causing iCloud feed accounts keeping too many articles on the device
  • Better YouTube rss link finding (channel / user pages)
  • Better YouTube feed handling (now shows inline video)
  • Free users are now limited to two syncing accounts
  • Changed article view mode icon to an rss icon
  • Translated save/subscribe extension names
  • Translated pre-installed mail and url actions
  • Improved Vimeo feed handling
  • Improved app translations

Native Rendering

  • Native view respects the “enlarge images if possible” setting
  • Implemented saving/restoring reading progress for native rendering
  • Displays a download button if an image was not loaded because of disabled automatic loading
  • Displays a show image button where the header image would have been
  • Fixed image alt text showing initially
  • Fixed newlines in preformatted text
  • Implemented footnote tooltips
  • Support for ordered lists
  • Improved link detection
  • Better link tooltips

Changes

  • Removed the in-app (not the system-wide) read later and subscribe action from share sheets [iOS]
  • Reopens first account main window, if no other window is available [macOS]
  • Removed the in-app (not the system-wide) read later and subscribe action from share sheets [macOS]
  • Allows three pane mode on smaller iPads in portrait, if autohide sidebar is enabled
  • Fix for items not disappearing from the feeds and folders list after marking all read
  • Removed Evernote sharing due to their SDK no longer being maintained
  • No longer allows future dates for article published dates
  • Installed themes are now sorted alphabetically
  • Fixed a layout issue with the feed list toolbar
  • Fixed selection after changing article order
  • Moved all service conntections to https
  • Fixed potentially wrong new article count in notification
  • Fixed selection after changing article order [macOS]
  • Fixed crash in subscribe extension [macOS]
  • Fixed sidebar toolbar color [macOS]

New

  • Support for saving pages to Feedbin
  • Support for moving feeds in TTRSS. (Due to API limitations this resets the article counters for the moved feed)
  • Links clicked in the web article mode now open in a in-app browser window, so cookies are shared with the article view. (To allow login to paywalled sites)

Changes

  • Opening the correct article in two pane mode with keyboard shortcuts [iOS]
  • Fixed selection flashing on going back to the feed list (iPhone) [iOS]
  • Fixed sort order switch in article list showing the wrong selection
  • Fixed header image in native view in context menu preview
  • Fixed iframes issue with TTRSS
  • Fixed tags list/move feed selection (VoiceOver)
  • Opening the correct article in two pane mode with keyboard shortcuts [macOS]
  • Increased new window default size [macOS]
  • Moved solarized themes to the theme directory [macOS]
  • Adding new account view is now displayed in a separate window [macOS]
  • Article design now opens in a separate window [macOS]
  • Now uses the correct default browser name for “Open in …” labels [macOS]
  • Fixed quick share button size for some services
  • Fixed slowing down over time [iOS]
  • Possible fix for showing the wrong article in the article view [iOS]
  • Fixed an issue with marking read on scroll
  • Fixed slowing down over time [macOS]
  • Allows to select any file for OPML import
  • Improved issues in High Contrast theme
  • Removed background color from code elements
  • Fixed quick-sharing articles to Instapaper via context menu

Native Rendering

  • Paragraphs spacing setting
  • Support hyphenation
  • Support label tags
  • Support tables
  • Updated blockquote style
  • Better code/preformatted handling
  • Better lists/quotes handling
  • Fixed a new line issue
  • Fixed image sizing issue
  • Reduced minium line height

New

  • Context menu action to open article in browser in article list
  • You can tap the context menu preview to open [iOS]

Changed

  • Removed Cache on LTE settings [iOS]
  • Fixes for feed:// protocol

Keyboard shortcuts changes

  • Updated keyboard shortcuts to automatically show contents (3 Pane mode only)
  • Toggle [M]ark read / [S]tarred shortcuts are again single key shortcuts
  • Reenabled [J] and [K] for next/previous article
  • ⌘1, ⌘2, ⌘3 for starred/unread/all article filters
  • ⌘4, ⌘5 for oldest first / newest first
  • ⌘⌥1, ⌘⌥2, ⌘⌥3 for article view modes
  • ⌘⌥↑, ⌘⌥↓ for marking above / below as read
  • [V] to open open current article in browser
  • ⌘B to toggle Bionic Reading
  • ⌘⇧D to toggle sidebar
  • ⌘T to tag item
  • ⌘⌫ delete item

New

  • Rename tags in iCloud and local feed accounts
  • Added click action setting for feeds and folders list [macOS]
  • Expert setting to completely hide counts in feeds and folders list
  • Expert setting to open links in alternative browsers (Chrome, Brave, Firefox)
  • Expert setting to disable delete article confirmation
  • You can delete a “feed” from read later service to remove all articles of this domain
  • Updated keyboard shortcuts to automatically show contents (3 Pane mode only)

Changes

  • Improved keyboard shortcuts
  • “Delete Theme” in context menu in theme selection list
  • Read indicator is now tappable to toggle the read status
  • Opens accounts from menubar in new window [macOS]
  • Edit options in feed list now displayed inline in context menu [macOS]
  • Pull up to mark all read are now separate options for the feed and article list
  • “Delete Theme” in context menu in theme selection list [macOS]
  • Read indicator is now clickable to toggle the read status [macOS]
  • Improved keyboard shortcuts [macOS]
  • Improved inline frame load button (native view)
  • Context menu and tap actions on header image (native view)

Fixed

  • Fix for slowing interface over time
  • Improved article list loading and scrolling performance
  • Fixed wrong corner radius on images (native view) [iOS]
  • Fixed an issue with high and low frequency folders, if a feed contained articles without published date
  • Fixed large title layout issue [iOS]
  • Fixed pull up/down gestures in lists [macOS]
  • Fixed wrong corner radius on images (native view) [macOS]
  • Improved alert button order consistency [macOS]
  • Fixed potential crashes
  • Fixed autohide sidebar setting [macOS]
  • Fixed background color in footnote popups
  • Removed Read Later / Subscribe action extensions, keeping only the Read Later / Subscribe share extensions. [macOS]
  • Fixed UI issues with extremly large font sizes
  • Bazqux now downloads tagged articles if enabled
  • Fixed menubar in fullscreen mode [macOS]
  • Added page up/down keyboard commands
  • Workaround for horizontal swiping getting stuck between articles
  • Fixed initial article filter selection in article list
  • Fixed keyboard hiding textfields at the bottom of long lists of settings [iOS]

This is the second of my now yearly roadmap blog posts. You can find the last year’s post here.

Looking back

Looking at my commit history for the last few years, 2019 was actually the busiest year so far.
All in all there were 19 updates for iOS and 3 for macOS. As always you can find the entire changelog here.

3 Pane View

In preparation for the Catalyst Mac app, I’ve started the year implementing the three pane view on iPads.
Looking back this was a good idea, there were more than enough other things to do to get the macOS app ready in time for Catalina, so it was nice to have this out of the way early.

Sync Services

One of the more requested features was a way to use Fiery Feeds without having to signup for a third party service.

Version 2.2 added an integrated RSS parser that allows you to subscribe to feeds without having to rely on any server or service. The feeds are downloaded and parsed on device (the way traditional RSS readers work).
Because I noticed that a lot of the things needed for a read later service, from text extraction to database code, were already in place, version 2.2 also added an integrated read later account.

I didn’t stop with local accounts, instead if added iCloud syncing to both the RSS and read later accounts. Since the database structure is shared between all account types, I can even use the same iCloud sync code for both types of accounts. And, while I was at it, I’ve added support for syncing the app and account settings through iCloud as well.

Later I’ve also added support for syncing with NextCloud News.

Article tags

New is also support for article tags, creating new tags and adding tags to an article. It’s only supported by some services, but it made sense to implement it now, since they’re now also used it in local/iCloud accounts.

Siri Shortcuts

Fiery Feeds learned Siri Shortcuts with parameters, allowing you scripting access to your feeds and articles. You could search for articles or save all starred article from a particular folder to your notes, or whatever you want. (Do let me know if you’re doing something interesting!)

Bionic Reading

This year also brought Bionic Reading to Fiery Feeds. It highlights parts of words to guide the eye through the text.

Full Page Screenshots

Another new feature in iOS 13 are full page screenshots. When you take a screenshot of an article, you’ll now have the option to save or annotate a PDF of the entire articles (even if it’s longer than what’s on the screen). Just take a screenshot, and then choose Full Page in the system’s screenshot UI.

Mac App & iOS 13 Update

After iOS 12 which required nearly no changes to the code, iOS 13 brought (mostly due to Catalyst – most of the new features in the iOS version were required for the Mac) some massive changes.

  • Context Menus
  • Multiple Window Support
  • System Dark Mode
  • New Keyboard Shortcuts API
  • New Background Sync API

But at least there is now a working, and fairly usable macOS version of Fiery Feeds. It’s not perfect yet, and there are still lots of bigger and smaller improvements planned for it, but if you like your RSS app configurable, it might already be the option out there.

Planned 2020

Both the Mac app and the iOS 13 update were much more work then expected, so I had to push some of the planned features to 2020. Full text search and saved searches in particular.

Here are the things planned for 2020, in no particular order. (And I want to emphasise that they are only planned. Plans change sometimes.)

Mac Trial

Fiery Feeds for macOS is sold separately from the iOS as a €35 one time purchase. I understand that you might want to try the app before buying it, so the first thing in 2020 will be a trial version.

Full Text Search

As mentioned before, full text search was originally planned for 2019. It’s been pushed to 2020 and should be in the first feature update for iOS and macOS this year.

Saved Searches

Once it’s possible to search for text, it’d be nice to save those searches for quick access. I’m thinking of something along the lines of iTunes’ smart playlists to create powerful smart views, possibly even across multiple accounts.

Native Article View

Another big feature that’s coming sooner than later. Instead of relying on an embedded web view to render the article content, I’m parsing the content myself, and drawing it with standard UIKit labels and images to the screen. This is not only a lot faster, it also gives me much more control over the content (think useful context menus, or loading images only when needed, to save bandwidth).

You can even try it out already, if you want. Just open the Expert Settings by tapping and holding the settings button, then look into the ‘Experimental’ settings. There are still a few things missing, most notably text selection, but it’s coming along.

Drag and Drop / Multi Selection

One of the more macOS centered improvements. Selecting multiple article to mark read or tag at once, or simply dragging feeds / articles to folders / tags to assign them is something I’d expect from a Mac app. I’ve caught myself trying to do this and getting annoyed that it doesn’t work multiple times. Interestingly I’ve never missed those features on iOS – I still plan on supporting it on both platforms.

Per Feed Settings

Over the time people have asked for different settings they want only on a per feed basis, not for the entire app. Showing Preview Images for example, or notifications only for specific feeds. Alongside that I also want to support automatically marked articles read after a certain time (for specific feeds), and some more.
Those will be ‘override’ settings, that is, if you never look into the feed settings view, the app should continue to behave exactly as it does today.

Performance

And lastly, 2019 had some massive features and changes (and you might notice that the features planned for 2020 are quite a bit smaller in scope), this year I want to focus more on general performance and stability. Sound boring, I know, but I have quite the backlog of smaller issues, and ideas of where I could make the app a bit faster.

New

  • Added Spanish localization
  • Proper blurred sidebar in Mac Dark and Mac Light themes [macOS]
  • Freely resizable columns in two and three pane mode [macOS]
  • Improved navigation in two pane mode [macOS]
  • Removed “push in single pane” setting to simplify layout [macOS]
  • Option to open links in background [macOS]
  • Updated look of selections in settings [macOS]
  • Standard drop down for marking articles by date [macOS]
  • Now uses proper modal alerts as alerts [macOS]
  • Bionic Reading is now works in native view
  • Improved image alt text background (native view, hover) [macOS]
  • Setting to turn off link previews on hover (native view) [macOS]
  • Expert setting: Sharing only the article url
  • Next / Previous article now works when opening an article in a new window
  • Added image drop shadows to centered images (native article view)
  • Shorter timeout for app and account settings sync

Fixed

  • Empty screen in read later extension when there are no read later accounts set up [iOS]
  • Added command key to all single key keyboard shortcuts, to work around an issue with entering text [iOS]
  • Displays a few pixels more of the preview image, if parallax is disabled
  • Fixed some text clipping issues in settings headers
  • Standard drop down for account Switcher [macOS]
  • Fixed low/high frequency threshold setting step value
  • Removed “in app notifications” setting, since it’s not applicable on the mac [macOS]
  • Fixed article dates for some device regions (Feedbin)
  • Fixed timing issue when switching between article view modes
  • Fixed mark read / starred keyboard shortcut selecting the wrong article

Changes

  • Added 48hr to mark all read options
  • Showing the unread count in the article list and article view are now separate settings
  • Added support for the feed:// protocol to subscribe to a new feed
  • Changed action extensions to share extensions (since that seems to be more widely supported in other 3rd party apps) [macOS]
  • On demand image loading setting now functional (native view)
  • Paragraph context menu setting (native view)
  • Now includes system dark and system light themes [iOS]
  • Now uses a context menu for changing text parsers [macOS]
  • Automatically synchronises main app after subscribing or adding a link in any of the extensions
  • Entered URL in feed selection view is now editable

Fixed

  • Fixed downloading text and title for saved articles (Cloud and local read later)
  • Fixed updating article font immediately
  • Fixed opening sharing action settings
  • Fixed password field for sharing extension showing text instead of dots while entering
  • Fixed app badge number after launch
  • Fixed zooming in native view
  • Improved the included themes
  • Improved sync with Fever
  • Improved performance with many images (native view)
  • Fixed an issue with missing line breaks (native view)
  • Fixed “Mark articles read” context menu title (hotlinks list)
  • Fix for issue with preview images above the article title
  • Fixed an issue that would create an invalid OPML for some characters
  • Empty screen in read later extension when there are no read later accounts set up
  • Added command key to all single key keyboard shortcuts, to work around an issue with entering text

Changes

  • Switch to native menus for selections in settings [macOS]
  • Increased default size for new windows [macOS]
  • Support for mark tag (Native view)
  • Dragging/Context Menus only on links (Native view) [iOS]
  • Removes empty feeds/folders from list only when switching away [macOS]
  • Added some additional themes to the preinstalled themes [macOS]
  • Added Mac Dark and Mac Light system themes [macOS]
  • Support for the system wide selected tint color in themes [macOS]
  • Enabled toolbar double click to zoom window [macOS]
  • Now uses proper expand buttons in front of folders [macOS]
  • Saves / restores main window size regardless of if restore windows is enabled globally. [macOS]
  • Disabled drag gestures on article and feed list. (They didn’t work properly anyway). [macOS]
  • Manually switching themes now disables automatic theme switch, instead of reseting on the next app launch.
  • Added BCC option to email actions
  • Delete item and tag item keyboard shortcuts
  • Increase/Decrease article text size keyboard shortcuts
  • Automatically dismissing sharing extensions immediately [iOS]
  • Added subscribe / read later share extensions [macOS]
  • Added toggle dark mode keyboard shortcut
  • Now uses the correct link when sharing image (Native view)

Fixed

  • Fixed updating counts in feed list
  • Hides the App Icon section in the appearance settings (since it’s not supported yet) [macOS]
  • Fixed “Open In Safari” context menu action in Hotlinks View [macOS]
  • Fixed preview theme colors in article design picker [macOS]
  • iCloud App Settings sync now excludes font sizes
  • Fixed crash when moving spacer from or to toolbar
  • Empty toolbar in article list and toolbar settings hidden
  • Prevented article view to move past the last article with keyboard shortcuts
  • Fixed issue where article view would get stuck
  • Fixed html in titles (Native view)
  • Improved loading speed for very long articles (Native View)
  • Improved scrolling performance in article list [macOS]
  • Improved loading state of share extensions
  • Fixed an issue importing opml [macOS]
  • Fixed articles per feed in long articles folder
  • Fixed first manual theme switch sometimes not working
  • Fixed issue where share extension would get stuck
  • Improved caching performance in some situations

Changes

  • Mark read by date in feed list is now part of the context menu
  • Cleaned up article view presentation setting
  • Removes empty feeds/folders from list only when switching away

Fixed

  • Fixed updating counts in feed list
  • Fixed “Open In Safari” context menu action in Hotlinks View
  • Fixed preview theme colors in article design pickers
  • Prevented article view to move past the last article with keyboard shortcuts
  • Fixed article view toolbar animation
  • Fixed issue where article view would get stuck
  • Possible fix for most background crashes
  • Fixed pushing changes automatically on app exit
  • Improved scrolling performance in article list
  • Fixed an issue importing opml
  • Fixed articles per feed in long articles folder

Fiery Feeds for Mac offers the same customisability as you’re used to. It’s build using Catalyst and on the same code base as the iOS version. I’ve written some more about it here.

It offers the same customisability as you’re used to in the iOS version, including multiple article list styles, custom themes, custom URL and Email actions, iCloud synchronisation, smart views, automatic full text extraction and all the rest.

The system wide action extension to subscribe or read later is coming in one of the next updates. It’s already working in my development builds, but I haven’t managed to convince the App Store servers to accept uploads with the extensions embedded. Let’s see if that changes after the official Catalina release, wouldn’t be the first time that the App Store isn’t quite up to date.

The new Bionic Reading feature from version 2.3 is also available on the Mac.

Pricing

I’ve thought long about how to price the Mac version. The most obvious option would be to make it part of the subscription that already exists on iOS, but this comes with some technical issues. The Mac and the iOS/iPadOS apps are two separate apps on the App Store (since universal apps between iOS and Mac are not supported). Apple allows syncing the subscription between separate apps, but doesn’t provide any help in doing so.

Right now there is only a single subscription (group) available in Fiery Feeds. That means, no matter what, a single Apple ID can not subscribe more than once. If I wanted to do subscription syncing, I’d have to at least offer a separate (because it’s separate app) subscription in the Mac app (for people who do not use the iOS app), which means users might subscribe twice by accident (if they didn’t follow the steps to synchronise the subscription from the iOS app exactly step by step). Together, with the fact that I can’t refund subscriptions (or purchases) even if I wanted to, that sounds like a support nightmare in the making. So a shared subscription is out, at least until it’s properly supported by the App Store.

Generally requiring a second subscription for the Mac app for everyone… feels just wrong. So that’s out too.

That leaves me with probably the most straightforward option. Fiery Feeds for Mac will be a single, paid upfront, onetime purchase, as Mac apps have been for a long time. It’s going to be $35 and I expect to support it with new updates and features for the next 3-5 years, before doing some sort of paid upgrade, be that a move to a subscription (if supported by Apple), or another paid version.

You can find Fiery Feeds on the Mac App Store.

I’ve posted a few things here and there about the progress on the Mac app during development on twitter. I’ll try to add a few more words here.

Getting an initial version of the iPad app to run on macOS was relatively straightforward. It did not look particularly good (or mac like) though. Luckily I’ve started working towards the Mac app, when Apple announced Catalyst last year, and the 3 pane view was already done.

After adding a stretching mode the the toolbars, and disabling the large titles, it’s getting a little bit better. Both navigation bar and toolbar are custom implementations, since I’ve had far too many issues with the standard classes in iOS over the years. I’m quite happy I did it this way.


Multi window support is also a must on macOS, even more so than on iPad. It’s nice that implementing windows for the Catalyst app, also gave me multi window support on iPad for free, basically. But on macOS I’m using it a bit more, by default. For example the settings above are always opened in a separate window (as they should be), or if the main window with the article list is too small to show the three pane mode, it defaults to opening articles in separate windows as well (although this can be changed in the settings).

And of course menus. I’ve spend a lot of time switch everything to the new context menus (which are weirdly similar to my own long press menu from version 2.2), except of course, that they get translated to actually context menus on the Mac. And the menu bar, of course, it wouldn’t be a Mac app without it. While at it, I’ve completely rewritten the handling of keyboard shortcuts, which were kind of hacky before.

Additionally to the keyboard shortcuts, I’ve also completely rewritten the background sync using the newest APIs. You probably shouldn’t notice any change on iOS, but it was still necessary to get background sync working on Mac as well.

Finally, I’m using an AppKit bundle for some of the smaller details. Like the nice and entered traffic lights on the (custom) window titlebar wouldn’t be possible without AppKit. Or setting the window size for the image viewer correctly. Or even the web view wouldn’t show the click pointer on links without doing that manually (though this might have been fixed in one of the later Catalina betas. Haven’t checked).

All in all, I see this first release more as the beginning of a journey than the final step.

Fixed

  • Fixed article count color when cell is selected (feeds and folders list)
  • Fixed HTML body flag not being saved (custom mail actions)
  • Fixed issue not saving custom actions
  • Fixed space scrolling up/down
  • Updated german localisation
  • Fixed Article Counts updating on marking articles
  • Fixed alert view colors (light/dark mode)
  • Fixed “Click to show more message”
  • Fixed escaped characters in VoiceOver article titles
  • Marks article as read, when it gets VoiceOver focus (if mark read on scroll is active)
  • Improved VoiceOver in purchase screen and feature list
  • Fixed an issue caching some images
  • Improved Bionic Reading settings

New Features

Fiery Feeds 2.3 brings support for all the new iOS 13 features and some more.

Context Menus

I’ve completely replaced the old custom long press menu with the new context menus everywhere (and added menus in lots of new places).

Bionic Reading

First off, the article view now supports Bionic Reading. It allows you to read long texts with more
 focus, awareness, and sustainability. You can read more details on how Bionic Reading works here.

Nextcloud News

Fiery Feeds now supports two way syncing with selfhosted Nextcloud News installations.

Multi Window Support

Fiery Feeds now fully supports multiple windows on iPad running iOS 13 or later. You can open different accounts in different windows, you can also drag individual articles to open them in separate windows.

Siri Shortcuts

Siri Shortcuts with parameters are an extremely cool feature. I’m not thinking about them as much as things to say to Siri, and more like a bridge to allow scripting with Fiery Feeds. I’ve added shortcuts to fetch article ids from certain feeds or folders and to fetch article attributes (like title, body, author and so forth) for an article. And shortcuts to tag articles or mark them starred/read. I’m really looking forward to seeing what you all do with this.

As an example, here’s a short script that searches the “Must Read” folder for any article that contains “Apple” and tags the article.

System Dark Mode

You can still select your preferred dark and light mode, but now you have the option for the app to follow the selected systemwide mode, instead of following the screen brightness.

Even more

Version 2.3 also includes completely rewritten (and streamlined) keyboard shortcuts code and background sync using the newest APIs (which should reduce background battery usage), but you should not notice too much of these changes.

Some of my favourite little changes are the new two column settings view on iPads and that you can tap and hold any of the bottom toolbars to quickly customise them.

One more thing

There is one other thing hidden in this version. I’ve been working on the next generation of my article viewer for the past few months. With this new article view, I’m parsing the HTML for the article myself, and render the content using native elements, instead of throwing everything into a web view. It’s far from finished, but what’s there is already so much better (and much faster!) than the web view based rendering that’s currently on by default.

If you want to give it a shot, you can open the Expert Settings by tapping and holding the settings button, then look into the ‘Experimental’ settings. Let me know what you think :)

Everything New

  • Full iOS 13 support
  • Context menus for long presses
  • Option for the light/dark mode to follow the system setting
  • Support for full page screenshots
  • Multi window support (iPad)
  • Two pane settings view (iPad)
  • Expert option: Previews in context menus
  • Added support for system colors in themes
  • Support for syncing with Nextcloud News
  • Completely rewritten and streamllined keyboard shortcuts
  • Support for syncing with Nextcloud News
  • Option for next / previous account buttons in feed list view
  • Siri Shortcuts for subscribing / saving links (especially useful in the Shortcuts app)
  • Shortcut for fetching article IDs from specific feeds/folders/…
  • Shortcut for fetching articles attributes from specific articles
  • Siri Shortcut for marking an article read/unread/starred/unstarred
  • Siri Shortcut for tagging an article
  • Added Support for Bionic Reading (WKWeb Article View)
  • Removed Reduce visual effects setting
  • You tap and hold / force press any (bottom) toolbar to quickly customize it

Changed

  • Removed “Allow drag and drop” setting
  • Non-floating toolbars (Expert Options)
  • App Icon shortcuts now show the number of unread articles in an account
  • Delete account context menu item in accounts list
  • Now shows “Uncategorized” feeds as not in a folder (TTRSS)
  • Removed Reduce visual effects setting
  • Replaced reduce motion setting with animation style settings (Full / Reduce Motion / None)
  • Moved Subscribe / Read Later extension to action extension (bottom list in share sheet)
  • Fixed an issue downloading articles (Instapaper)
  • Notification once an OPML file was imported
  • Fixed settings section in local/cloud read later accounts

Changed

  • Possible fix for reappearing articles (iCloud feeds)
  • Removed “feeds” from the main list. They’re still available when expanding “All Articles”. (iCloud and local read later accounts)
  • Fixed feedlist article counts while “mark read on scroll” is active
  • Fixed an issue with article lengths in Pocket
  • Fixed disabling caching of Hot Links
  • A couple of really minor bug fixes

New

  • Expert option to always keep the header image in the article text
  • Option to automatically hide/show the feed list in 3 pane mode
  • Option for a custom server address (Newsblur)

Changed

  • Improved FeedHQ sync speed
  • Fixed a potential app freeze during sync
  • Fixed an issue with non english characters in urls (web view mode)
  • FIxed a potential app freeze after opening an article from the today widget
  • Fixed a crash when saving photos in web mode
  • Fixed an issue with duplicate articles, if the article view was opened directly from the feeds and folders list
  • Fixed an issue with assigning new tags or removing tags (Feedly)
  • Fixed an issue with assigning tags (TTRSS)
  • Slightly decreased vertical spacing between elements
  • Slighly decreased the minimum vertical article size
  • Improved popover target when using a large article list style
  • Displays the list of unlocked premium features in the active subscription view
  • Fixed issues exporting OPML files

New

  • Option to import html lists (as exported by Pocket or Instapaper) into Read Later accounts.

Changed

  • Fixed potential crahes
  • Fixed “Must Read” folder in local / iCloud feed accounts
  • Separate vertical / horizontal spacing settings for article list
  • Fixed layout issue in the article list
  • Fixed adding feed to folder while subscribing (iCloud feeds)
  • Improved tap to zoom in image viewer
  • Trims whitespaces when entering a new url

Changed

  • Fixed an issue with Feedbin accounts created before version 2.1.8

Changed

  • Fixed issue with refreshing fever servers and self signed certificates
  • Fixed 3D Touch article appear animation
  • Fixed sorting issue with articles without title
  • Slightly improved preview text generation
  • Fixed relative urls in rss feeds (Local/iCloud Feeds)
  • Fixed incorrect counts after marking all read in a feed
  • Fixed an issue with subscribing to new feeds (Feedbin)
  • Properly downloads all available tags (Wallabag)
  • Properly download the number of alread read articles (Wallabag)
  • Enabled Must Read Smart View (Wallabag)
  • Fixed tags when adding a new link (Wallabag)
  • Improved translations
  • Fixed Image Zoom

Fiery Feeds has lots of settings. There are the Expert Settings I’ve written about previously, there are the general app settings. And there are also the often overlooked account settings.

The account settings not include the login information, but also some additional operations like importing or exporting OPML files (in iCloud or local accounts).

Caching

You can how many and which of your articles should be downloaded to your device, and how many and which articles should cache additional data. You can choose whether you want all starred articles, and how many already read articles you want to have available on your device.

You can also choose which (unread, read or starred) and how many, at most, of your articles should be cached. Fiery Feeds always keeps the selected number of the newest articles with the selected states cached, and removes older articles, even if still unread from it’s cache.
Note that caching the article here is different from downloading the article. A downloaded articles shows up in the app, and has the in the RSS feed included article text available offline. For a cached article, the extracted article text (for text mode) as well as any image included in the article is downloaded and available offline. Both are downloaded on demand for any downloaded, but not cached article.

Notifications

Here you can choose whether to include the unread count in the app icon badge. (The unread counts of all accounts with this setting enabled are added together).
You can also choose if you want to receive detailed notifications for each new article (and wether you want to receive them inside the app, or only in the Notification Center. Note that the notifications inside the app only show for at most 5 articles, as to not block the UI for too long).
You can also choose to receive a sync summary (“6 new articles found”) as notification.

Smart Views

Here you can enable or disable any of the smart views, as well as setting the threshold for the long and short article folders, for the high and low frequency folders, and the number of days to be shown in the recents folder.

Mark Read

Choose when articles should be automatically marked read. Available options are on opening in the article view, on scrolling past them in the article list, or on triggering the quick share action.

Interface Settings

In the account interface settings, you can fully configure the bottom toolbars for the feed list, the article list, the Hot Links and article view. Additionally you can turn or or off showing word counts in the article list, as well as left/right swiping and saving the reading progress in the article view.

Changed

  • Improved FreshRSS URL handling
  • Removed keep starred, tagged settings from iCloud and local accounts (it’s now permanently enabled)
  • Fixed an issue where the content for a newly added article was not downloaded (iCloud Read Later)
  • Increased maxium zoom in image view
  • Tweaked article list layout
  • (Possibly) fixed an issue that could cause read articles to reappear (iCloud Feeds)
  • Fixed mark article read/unread VoiceOver rotor item
  • Fixed a few potential crashes

App Settings

Synching the general app settings is easy, you just need to enable “Sync App Settings” in Settings > iCloud and Backup. Note the selected color theme setting is exclude (since any custom theme file is not part of the settings, and might not be installed on other devices), as well as the selected layout (1, 2 or 3 panes), since that is very device depended.

If you find that any of your settings are not synchronised (this can happen after initially turning on “Sync App Settings”), you can try toggling them on one device. Since Fiery Feeds only synchronises settings when they’re changed, editing the setting, even if you set it back to its original value, will cause it to be synced to other devices again.

Alternatively, you can also use the “Rebuild iCloud Database” button in Settings > iCloud & Backup, to delete and reupload everything to iCloud, including all settings. Afterwards, use the “Replace Local Settings” button on your other devices to make sure all of the settings from iCloud are downloaded.

The app settings are synchronised with iCloud whenever you tap the “Synchronise Now” button in Settings > iCloud & Backup, when you manually trigger a sync in either the feed, article or accounts list, or when a background sync happens.

Account Settings

Synchronising account settings is a little bit more involved, since Fiery Feeds supports more than one account of the same type, and the settings should obviously only sync to the corresponding account.

To start you need to add your account on one, and only one device. Make sure to enable “Sync Accounts” in iCloud & Backup, and tap the “Synchronise Now” button, in case your account isn’t already listed under “Accounts in iCloud”. Then, on your other devices, remove all previously set up accounts, and import the account you’ve added to iCloud either in Settings > iCloud & Backup, or by adding a new account from the accounts list (the accounts found in iCloud are displayed at the top of the list).
After that, the account settings will be synchronised with iCloud, every time the account is synced, as long as “Sync Accounts” is enabled.

If you are experiencing issues, you can also use the “Rebuild iCloud Database” to reupload all data from one device to iCloud. Make sure to synchronise the account on the device, with the data you want to use, before synchronising on your other devices.

Note that purely local accounts do not support synchronising settings, and are not added to iCloud, to avoid confusion (when the account is listed in iCloud, but the feeds and articles are not synchronised).

If you want to delete an account, and all associated data from iCloud, delete it first from all of your devices (so it isn’t reuploaded automatically), then delete it from iCloud by swiping left on the account in iCloud & Backup.

Changed

  • Slightly improved iCloud sync performance
  • Moved “Reduce motion” setting to apperance settings
  • Improved next/previous folder animations in article list
  • Limited in app notifications for new articles to 3 notifications at most. The notification center will still show all notifications.
  • Fixed an issue where articles from some feeds would not be marked read using the mark all read button
  • Saves at least the link if text extraction failed while saving an article in iCloud read later
  • The article list no longer refreshes automatically, if reload after sync is disabled
  • Better positioning for the confirmation dialog when pulling up to mark all read
  • Improved VoiceOver focus when opening/closing an article
  • Improved switching between 1/2/3 pane layouts
  • Improved handling of feeds without article dates
  • Improved sliding in the feedlist overlay (iPad)
  • Fixed parsing links in some feeds
  • Improved wallabag syncing
  • Increased iframe size

New

  • Article reading progress is now synced between devices (iCloud accounts)
  • Added the internal {article-id} and {feed-id} to url schemes
  • Minimum press duration setting for the long press menu
  • Added an option to rebuild the database in iCloud
  • Added an option to replace all local settings with settings from iCloud

Changed

  • Fixed fiery://add_link/url url scheme
  • Fixed a possible crash when saving articles to a local read later account from within the app
  • Shows the login screen if needed, after importing an account from the iCloud & Backup settings
  • Performance improvements
  • Fixed a crash when adding articles with long urls
  • Fixed a crash when articles in feeds contained long urls
  • Fixed freezing safari after canceling subscribing during folder selection (share extension)
  • Tags and folders are now sorted alphabetically (when moving or adding tags)
  • Fixed issue that could cause Fiery Feeds getting stuck during refreshing feeds
  • Fixed possiblity to reach a state without sidebar and show sidebar button
  • Removed left and right inset for figure html elements
  • Fixed delay on tapping buttons in the navigation bar
  • Fixed an issue that could cause TTRSS to not login
  • Fixed editing custom url and email actions

Headline Feature

  • iCloud RSS Account
  • iCloud Read Later Account
  • Local RSS and Read Later Accounts
  • Three Pane Layout on iPads
  • Improved navigation: Long press menu (on articles and folders) and full screen swipe to go back
  • Configurable short / long swipe actions in article list
  • Completely redesigned subscribe and read later Safari Extensions
  • Support for deleting and tagging articles, if supported by your service
  • Backup and Restore local data and settings
  • iCloud sync for app and account settings
  • Saves reading progress in long articles

Everything New

  • Three Pane Layout on iPads
  • Local RSS and Read Later Accounts
  • Option to keep home indicator visible
  • Account setting to mark article read after quick sharing an article
  • Select folders when subscribing to a new feeds (both in app and in safari extension)
  • Ability to delete articles (Instapaper, Pocket, Wallabag, Local Reads, Local Feeds)
  • Ability to move/tag articles (Instapaper, Pocket, Wallabag, Inoreader, Feedly, TTRSS, Local Read Later, Local Feeds)
  • Ability to rename existing tags (Local Read Later, Local Feeds, Pocket, Feedly)
  • Long press articles, feeds, folders, and hotlinks for additional options (instead of right swipe)
  • You can now use the subscribe and unsubscribe from feeds without premium
  • Configurable short / long swipe actions in article list
  • Swipe anywhere on the screen to go back
  • Added “Default Mixed” theme
  • Folder selection in the subscribe extension
  • Extra, second safari read later extension
  • Subscribe and read later extension now auto select your account (if you only have one matching account)
  • Subscribe and Read Later actions now available inside the app (and as quick actions)
  • You can now swipe back anywhere in the article, if swiping to change articles is disabled
  • Optional button to tag the current article in article view toolbar
  • Optional button to delete the current article in article view toolbar
  • Freely configurable article list toolbar (account settings)
  • Freely configurable feed list toolbar (account settings)
  • Freely configurable hotlinks toolbar (account settings)
  • Optional sync button in the article list toolbar
  • Optional next / previous folder button in the article list toolbar
  • Optional article filter (unread / starred / all) switch in article list toolbar
  • Add tags when saving a web page using the read later extension
  • Fiery Feeds can now store the reading progress for every article
  • Reading Progress on / off setting in account > article view
  • Two way sync reading progress with Instapaper
  • A ton of new alternate app icon versions
  • Expert setting: Image radius
  • Now tries to open universal links instead of safari view first
  • Better iframe sizing
  • Smart Invert colors for header image
  • Localized preinstalled emails sharing actions
  • Link to Slack Group in About Screen
  • Backup and Restore local data and settings
  • Much improved Feed Search (for a given url)
  • Delete Articles (Pinboard)
  • Tag Articles (Pinboard)
  • Support for Must Read Smart Folder (Pinboard)
  • Delete Tag (Local Feeds, Local Read Later, Pinboard, Instapaper, Feedly)
  • Confirmation dialog on deleting an account
  • Added simple url for adding links to read later
  • Fully featured x-callback-url to subscribe (including success and failure callbacks)
  • Fully featured x-callback-url to add links to read later (including success and failure callbacks)
  • iCloud sync for app settings
  • Import accounts from other devices
  • iCloud sync for account settings
  • iCloud sync for feed settings
  • Expert option to skip tags/folders selection in adding extension
  • New expert setting debug log level (info / warning / error)
  • Tag support in BazQux
  • Shows Archive folder (Instapaper)
  • Maximum articles per folder to download option (Instapaper)
  • Expert option to prevent universal links opening in the corresponding app

Changes

  • Moved show author to expert settings (now defaults to yes)
  • Improved layout with single title line and no other elements
  • Improved left image layout with status icons
  • Changed sort feeds by urnead to sort by number of articles of current mode to improve performance
  • Moved reduce motion setting to expert settings (defaults to the system wide setting)
  • Not longer analyzses or downloads hotlinks if they are hidden
  • Better text encoding guesses when subscribing to a feed
  • Removed adding accounts and account settings from account switcher (they’re still accessible in the settings view)
  • URL Scheme to reset reading progress for an account fiery://resetReadingProgress/1
  • Allow drag and drop setting is now in settings > more
  • Themes now allow colors to start with “#”
  • Reorganized Settings View
  • Adjusted some icons
  • Improved Image Chaching
  • Fix crash on sharing log file
  • Fixed issue that could cause too many article text downloads
  • Escape long and short date strings in urls
  • Fixed Issue with text extraction in read later service
  • Some Article View Improvements
  • Minor feedlist improvements
  • Fallback to system alert view in some cases (to avoid weird placements of the custom alert)
  • Fixed must read folder (Pocket)
  • Fixed statusbar not appearing after dismissing article view
  • Fixed deleting accounts in accounts list block by ongoing sync of any account
  • Fixed layout issue when switching to split view while settings are open
  • Fixed layout issue with long meta (feed title, time, word count) labels
  • Fixed single line layout
  • Increased max pinboard title length to 255
  • Throttled Inoreader API requests
  • Fixed visual glitch when zooming out of a website (single, two pane mode)
  • Moved AMP Setting to non expert settings
  • Moved font size setting to font settings
  • Shows full days for future days
  • Updated favicon style in article list
  • Reorganized add account view
  • Fixed an issue with relative links in rss finder
  • Toolbars are now scrollable if there are more buttons selected the fit into the layout
  • Updated default buttons in article view toolbar
  • Added one more preview size setting between the medium and largest option
  • Shows rss feed in selection list as well when adding the rss url directly
  • Fixed bazqux url too long error
  • Share animated gif from image view
  • Fixed an issue where the first sync after adding an account might fail
  • Improved pushing changes to The Old Reader
  • Improvements for network cancelled errors

Three Pane View

The new 3 pane view is not only a preparation for the eventual Mac app, but only works really great on the large iPads. There’s also the option to hide the feed list, to get the much requested view with the article list on one side, and the detailed article view on the other.

In addition to the three pane view for iPads, there’s also a big change in the interface for all devices: I’ve switched to a long press to open the menu for any items, instead of the right swipe it was before.
Not only is there more space to properly show all options, but it also free the right swipe gesture everywhere on the screen. And now that the swipe right action is free on all screens, I’ve used it to allow swiping back to the previous screen anywhere, not just from the screen edge.

As you can there are now two more actions available on articles (if supported by the sync service), namely tag article and delete article. That means full tagging support in Feedly, Bazqux as well as in Fiery Feed accounts.

Fiery Feed Accounts

The second new feature, and probably most requested feature so far, is also finally here: Completely local accounts. There is no longer a need for a third party sync service, just to use Fiery Feeds.
There are two types of local accounts, first there’s the feed account, which let’s you subscribe to to rss and atom feeds. And there’s also a read later account which let’s you save articles for a later date. Fiery Feeds will use its text extraction service to automatically download the text version of every added article.

You can add articles not only from within Fiery Feeds (with a swipe action for example), but also using the completely redesigned share extension from any other app, including Safari.

iCloud Sync

Since you might be using more than one device, you can also create iCloud based accounts, instead of just local accounts. Both feed and read later accounts are also available in an iCloud syncing variant, which synchronise your content between all of your iOS devices.

In addition to synching your content, version 2.2 also adds the option to synchronise all app settings, as well as account and feed settings (like the selected view mode for each feed). When you launch Fiery Feeds the first time on a new device you can also import your existing accounts from other devices with a single tap.

New

  • Expert option to disable the “displayed incorrectly” link below the text mode (you can switch the selected parser by tapping and holding the mode selection at the top)
  • The Today smart view is now called “Recent Articles”, and the number of days considered is configurable.
  • New option to download all tagged articles (TT-RSS)
  • In app article notifications are can now be disabled
  • Added Heiti SC and Heiti TC fonts

Improved

  • Fixed headers in move feed view
  • Increased the max cache size to 10000 articles
  • Fixed a possible issue syncing unread articles (TT-RSS)
  • Improved syncing speed with a large number of starred articles (Feedly)
  • Fixed status messages during sync
  • Fixed an issue calculating word counts
  • Improved chinese word counts

New

  • “Next article” option for double tap action in article view
  • Added support for must read smart folder (Pocket)
  • Dropped support for article tags in favor for labels (TT-RSS)
  • Downloads full text for all articles regardless of feed if caching full text is enabled (Pinboard)
  • Option to mark articles as private when saving to Pinboard

Improved

  • Fixed potential issue with word counts (wallabag)
  • Added shortcuts icon for custom url actions to the shortcuts app
  • No longer shows the (empty) special and label folders (TT-RSS)
  • Toggle text and toggle web mode double tap actions now remember the previous view mode
  • Fixed an issue where opening an article could take longer than expected
  • Fixed images not appearing in articles (Pocket)
  • Improved dragging cached images to YoinkApp
  • Improved pushing changes to server (Inoreader)
  • Fixed disabling downloading of hot link contents
  • Fixed toolbar disappearing with no feeds

New

  • Reorderable toolbar icons for article view (in account settings > article view)
  • Option to disable checking existing articles, if the extracted text needs to be downloaded
  • Option to cycle through all view modes with double tap in article view
  • You can double tap your Apple Pencil 2 instead of the article view
  • Header Image Size Option

Improved

  • More reliable word counts
  • Workaround for malformated article titles
  • Fixed adding links using the plus button (Instapaper, Pocket, Wallabag)
  • Fixed adding links using the swipe menu in feed list (Instapaper, Pocket, Wallabag)
  • Fixed the switched around lables for long and short articles in the account settings
  • Improved handling of instapaper text parser errors
  • Hide “www” from titles in read-it-later services
  • Fixed statusbar not appearing again after dismissing article view
  • Fixed “update list” button not appearing in some situations
  • Improved long pressing in articles (especially header images)
  • Improved caching in preview images
  • Support for popups in web mode (since some websites insist on opening some links in popups, can be enabled in the expert settings)

New

  • Option to toggle web mode with double tap in article
  • Wider images, if the image is large enough (can be disabled in the expert settings)

Improved

  • Updated navigation arrow icon
  • Fixed pull up distance with fewer articles
  • Aligned table headers to text
  • Improved french localisation
  • Haptic feedback on gesture account switching
  • Better article length calculation for chinese articles
  • Possibly fixed random crash
  • Removed 1Password buttons (since you can now use the integrated autofill function)
  • Fixed possible crash when subscribing to a feed
  • Fixed possible crash on tapping titles
  • Minor interface improvements
  • Article header image now scales with device width
  • Hides article toolbar in peek / pop preview
  • Fix for downloading too many text versions

As a new year begins I want to pause for a moment and reflect on the past year’s accomplishments and to share a roadmap of the plans for the new year.

Looking Back

2018 was a big year for Fiery Feeds. Two major updates and its fifth birthday (it’s really been already 5 years since version 1.0, I can’t believe how fast that went). I’ve added a ton of new features this year, you can see them in the entire changelog, but I’m going to highlight the biggest features here.

Subscriptions

First there was the big 2.0 update, which completed the transition to a free app with a $9.99 per year subscription for additional features.
The subscription is working really well, even if the first year isn’t up yet, and the yearly subscriptions not renewing yet. It’s almost as if letting users try the app first is a good thing.

Smart Views

Maybe the biggest feature this year are the so called Smart Views.
There is the Hot Links Smart View, which highlights the most linked to websites in your Feeds (a first in iOS RSS Readers), there are Smart Views based on the posting frequency, Smart Views for particularly long or short articles, a view for articles published today, and a specially highlighted Must Read folder, for the most important feeds.

Modern App

I’ve also brought the app up to speed with all of the new features in iOS that have been missing before 2.0. This included 3D Touch, Drag and Drop on iPad, Continuity to quickly open articles on other devices, Haptic Feedback and State Restoration.
But the most important thing was cleaning up the code base and bringing it to a state, I can build upon for the next few years. This allowed features link 3D Touch or the new layout, and some of the coming features.

Updated Design

It started in version 2.0 with an improved layout, and was completed in 2.1 with completely redrawn icons and a ton of smaller interface improvements and polish across the entire app.

Automatic Dark and Light Themes

One of the most requested feature is automatic switching between a light and a dark theme. You can now select the dark and light themes of your choice, and switch between them either based on the screen brightness, or with a double tap on the navigationbar.

Folder Groups

A rather hidden features, but maybe my personal favourite are folder groups. By naming feeds or folders in the form of “group/name”, they are grouped together in the feed list in Fiery Feeds, and because that name is synced to all your devices, these groups are automatically available everywhere.

New Services

Additionally I’ve added full two way syncing for FreshRSS, a self hosted RSS reader, and Pinboard, as a new Read-It-Later Service in Fiery Feeds.

Roadmap for 2019

Future plans are always subject to change, of course, but here’s the biggest feature I would like to add to Fiery Feeds next year (throughout two or three feature updates).

3 Pane Layout

More layout options, including a 3 pane layout, on larger iPads. This a more desktop-like layout, and it’s also a bit of preparation for an eventual Marzipan Mac app.

Standalone RSS Account

Exactly what it says. An RSS account that’s not tied to any sync service or server. The app already supports the required feed management, but since that is a Premium feature, and a standalone account without the ability to add new feeds is rather pointless, the standalone account is likely going to be a Premium feature as well.

Standalone Read It Later Account

Fiery Feeds already offers text extraction for any website, building upon that, a standalone read it later account shouldn’t be too hard to implement. Given that it also requires feed management, as well as text extraction, this is also going to be a Premium feature.

iCloud Sync

Fiery Feeds has a lot of settings. To make it easier to manage them across multiple device, I’m planning to add iCloud sync for settings. This includes all app-wide settings, as well as accounts (without login information though) and per-account settings, including article states in RSS accounts and saved links and states in read later accounts.

Search Everything

Full Text search for articles in feeds, folders or the entire account. Search for options in settings. Support for searching articles using Spotlight.

Saved Searches

By saved searches I don’t mean just simple search strings, instead I’m planning something powerful enough to replace all current Smart Views (except Hot Links). That is, multiple parameters to include or exclude certain articles based on search strings, published date, article length and so forth.

Marzipan Mac App

And finally, I’m waiting for Apple to release more information on UIKit on Mac, codenamed ‘Marzipan’. I’ve been meaning to do a Mac app for a while, but given that I’m a solo developer and time constraints, it’s simply not feasible to rebuild the entire UI in App Kit, but if I can reuse parts of the existing UI, that calculation changes. And I’m quite hopeful that it’s going to be possible to build a good Mac app using Marzipan, it is publicly available (after all, that’s more than a year of work on UIKit / Mac, compared to the current News and Home apps).

Fiery Feeds is known to be very configurable, and there a quite a few settings to be found in the settings view. What is maybe less known, is that you can long press the settings icon, to open the Expert Settings, instead of the regular Settings view.

The Expert Settings screen contains a bunch of settings, that are not important enough to make it into the regular Settings view, since I don’t want to the settings screen to become unwieldy, with too many options, that hardly anyone uses. It also contains some more experimental options, that I might remove at some point later.

The All Settings group simply lists all available settings in the app, unless you know what you’re looking for, this is probably not very useful to you.

I want to highlight some of the more interesting options in the Expert Settings view.

Sharing & Dragging

Share Full Text : This option allows you to share the full article text, instead of just the title, when using the system share sheet. Note that not all apps support this, and some apps will not show up in the share sheet, if this option is enabled.

Article View

Open Web View Links in Safari View : Opens links clicked in an article in web mode in Safari View. Links opened from article or text mode are always opened in Safari View. This setting is disabled by default, since the web view and Safari View do not share their cookies, and it would be impossible to login to a paywalled website, if the login link opened in Safari.

Article View Web Mode Reset Cookies : Automatically clears the cookies whenever an article is opened in web mode. Useful for some websites that only allow to view a limited number of articles.

Zooming in Article View : Zooming in web mode is always enabled, this settings allows you to zoom in article or text mode as well.

Article View Presentation : Open the article view fullscreen (default on iPhone) or small spaces left and right (default on iPad).

Article List

Dynamic Height in Articles : Disabling this causes each article to use the exact same height in the article list. This increases performance, and might be easier to read for some, but it can leave empty spaces, if there is not enough preview text for some articles.

Show Micro Blog Titles : Displays the blog name instead of the post title for titleless posts. This makes a list of microblog posts feel more like Twitter. On by default.

General

Reduce Visual Effects : Removes a couple of animations, and visual effects like the blurred background in lots of places. Disabling can increase the performance, especially on older devices.

Prefer AMP Pages : Shows the AMP page in web mode, if available. AMP pages are a lot faster to load, but this requires a call to Google’s repository of AMP sites before opening a website, which has privacy implications (it’s off by default).

New

  • Expert option to hide the title for microblog posts
  • Premium subscription status screen (if subscription is active)
  • Option to change the app language in expert settings > debug
  • Option to keep tagged articles on device (Feedly, Inoreader)
  • Added a tip jar in the app

Improved

  • Improved Localisations
  • Increased image download performance
  • Improved smart view settings
  • Improved article list sort options
  • Improved syncing (Feedbin)
  • Fixed translation issues in status messages
  • Fixed tap outside article view to dismiss gesture
  • Fixed swipe from right edge to dismiss article view gesture
  • Fixed issues with article toolbar animations
  • Improved rss feed search when subscribing via an url
  • Hides Smart Views header if there are no smart views.
  • Improved UI when there are no accounts set up
  • Fixed footnote icon colors
  • Fixed tagged articles (Inoreader)
  • Improved syncing (Feedly)

New

  • Added French, Chinese localizations
  • Button to clear to log file (in the log file viewer)
  • Now downloads full text for downloaded before switching the display mode automatically too
  • The account switch gesture (swipe left / right on the navbar) now also works in the article list
  • Swipe left / right on the bottom toolbar in feed or article list to switch between saved / unread / all articles
  • Option for mark all read confirmation only above 100 articles
  • Support folder groups when renaming feeds and folders
  • Option to display the author in the article list
  • Keyboard short cuts for alert views
  • Improved keyboard navigation in main view
  • Improved German localisation
  • New iPad support

Fixed

  • Improved keyboard shortcuts
  • Retries failing instapaper articles
  • Always shows the toolbar after launching the app
  • Parallel downloading favicons, hotlinks and full text versions
  • Fixed an issue with downloading full text while downloading images was disabled
  • Fixed reloading article list after mark all read below or above an article without confirmation
  • Only shows notifications for newly found unread articles
  • Fixed keyboard shortcuts in accounts list
  • No longer treats feeds or folder with more then one slash as folder groups
  • Maps “/” to ” — ” in feed and folder names to make folder groups work properly (Inoreader)
  • No longer download images for already read articles in some situations
  • Fixed URL label dismiss animation in sharing sheet
  • Fixed 0 days ago instead of x hours ago
  • Performance Improvements