Monday, August 13, 2007

Top 5 Requests for Google Reader

  1. Collapsible Header

    Just like when pressing u collapses the left-hand links. Why can't we press h, for example, to collapse the space-wasting headers and give us more reading room? We don't need to stare all the time at Google Reader's logo, my email address, settings, help, and expanded/list views.

  2. More than 2000 items for offline Reader

    You knew this was coming. You do not actually read all items in all the feeds you're subscribed to. I usually scan my feeds for interesting items to read so I skip a lot of items. Therefore, having 2000 items limit is somehow low and forces me to use some services like Yahoo Pipes to filter my feeds. However, automatic filtering is not a good idea because it may filter out things that you might find interesting.

  3. Pre-fetch in offline Reader

    There is a noticeable delay when you try to open the next item in Google Reader offline mode. Prefetching next unopened item (or next five items even) and storing it in cache would totally eliminate this problem. And add an option in the settings page for prefetching while you're at it.

  4. Podcasts in offline Reader

    When downloading the 2000 items to switch Reader offline, add a parallel progress bar to download enclosed mp3 files found in the downloaded items. This parallel bar can be canceled by the user and with a check box for "never download mp3 files again." Google's flash mp3 player can be configured to read from the locally stored mp3 file. This can be extended to video podcasts as well. Options to enable offline podcasts can be added to the settings page.

  5. Enough with this Beta talk

    Google redefined "Beta" recently. So many Google services are so popular and stable yet they are marked as beta. I move to remove beta from Google Reader. It's perfectly stable and ready for prime time, folks, take my word for it!