

Alt is a simpler and prettier interface to NewsBlur - davidjohnstone
http://davidjohnstone.net/blog/2013/06/alt-is-a-simpler-and-prettier-interface-to-newsblur

======
mscala
I like the look of this _much_ better than Newsblur, but I also want to be
able to filter by feed. I didn't see that this is possible on Alt. Did I miss
something?

edit: ah, i see what i missed.... Still, I'd like not to have to do that
mouse-over to get to the list.

~~~
zipperhead
Yes. IMO that list is core and shouldn't be hidden away. Maybe a good
compromise would be to allow it to be expanded, and not block the underlying
text when expanded. i.e. an option to tuck it off to the side an leave it in
place.

~~~
davidjohnstone
For my purposes, it works well with the list hidden, since I vary rarely use
it. However, in developing this, I have found that having to open and close it
as much as is currently required if you do use it (unless your monitor is very
wide) is annoying, so I'll probably change it soon.

------
dochtman
Cool! I've been thinking about doing a similar thing, since I think NewsBlur's
main web UI is still way too noisy (although I'd keep much more of the actual
functionality).

Was it easy to use the NewsBlur API? I'm assuming it isn't documented.

~~~
davidjohnstone
It is actually: [http://www.newsblur.com/api](http://www.newsblur.com/api)

What exactly is being returned by the API calls isn't documented, like which
field is the unread count, but I didn't have any issues with what I did. I
have a feeling it might have timing issues when fetching items one page at a
time. Each page contains 12 items (I think), and you request each page with a
page=n query parameter, which probably means you'll see duplicated items if
new items come in as you're reading.

I might put the code for this up on GitHub, although it's a bit messy (since
most of it was written for a backend that I was making, which worked in a
somewhat different way).

------
quanticle
Does NewsBlur offer an authentication API? I'm leery of giving you the
password to my NewsBlur account, since that's like handing you the keys to the
castle.

~~~
davidjohnstone
Unfortunately not. I completely understand your reluctance at entering your
password, although I can assure you that I'm neither looking at nor saving
passwords (and the same goes for emails/usernames, for that matter).

~~~
flipchart
Would be great if you offered an SSL version of the site. Then I wouldn't feel
so bad having my password sent in plain text.

Are you considering open sourcing this? People could then run it locally
without the fear of having their passwords exposed to 3rd parties

~~~
davidjohnstone
I wish Heroku didn't charge $20/month for SSL...

Yes, I'm planning on open sourcing it. I just have a couple of things to do,
and a couple of comments to add.

~~~
flipchart
No worries, it's a pity about the charges. I really love the what you've done
and for me, my RSS readings are not that big a deal to secure. Thanks very
much for putting in the effort and (when you do) open sourcing it!

~~~
davidjohnstone
Here's the source:
[https://github.com/davidjohnstone/alt](https://github.com/davidjohnstone/alt)

------
throwawayyyz
I like the way you preview the features with the mouse over and image
highlights.

~~~
davidjohnstone
Thanks. I made it for another website last week, and decided to reuse here.

