Friday, November 11, 2005

What style do you like your feeds?

Okay, here's a question for the few of you out there who use desktop-based feed readers (like Thunderbird). Do you prefer your feeds to come in text form or html form?

Here's a quick illustration of what I mean:

Thunderbird displays my feed like this:


While T's feed is displayed like this:


Hope you don't mind me using your feed as an example, T; it was the most recent one I got. ^^

Now, notice how my feed is displayed in plain text format, while T's loads the original webpage and displays the full html.

Feeds in plain text format obviously download a lot faster than those in html format (BTW, images are loaded as well, where applicable); it's basically like looking at another email. The downside is exactly that: it looks like normal email. All your cool CSS and layering and what-have-you doesn't actually show up. Also, only the actual post content is loaded, which means comments, trackbacks and the like are not shown at all. The opposite is true for feeds in html format.

So, my question is: which do you guys prefer?

Having asked that question, I have to confess I have no idea how to control which format the feed is displayed in. Unfortunately, I'm not that well read up on the implementation of RSS and/or Atom, so if any of you guys know more about this, please do leave a comment and let me know.

Oh, and I might be changing my feed broadcaster to Feedburner, so I'll post again if I do.

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8 comments:

Scott said...

Man, does no one use a feed reader? Maybe I should write a post about that first...hmm...

Anonymous said...

I'd prefer it in text format... A lot simpler, and I see only what I am interested to read anyway..

If I'd like to see the actual layout of the whole site, I might as well go to the website itself...

But then again, it's just my liking for it to be plain and simple...

Me! said...

oh oh .... that was Me! by the way... Ryan.. Not too sure my name didn't come up.

Scott said...

That's true, and I do prefer it that way, especially when my connection starts to drag its feet. The only thing I don't like is that it doesn't show comments, or whether there even are comments, so it sometimes feels like I'm only reading half the discussion. Then I feel inclined to click on the link and load up the original post anyway...

Janz said...

i prefer html...able to appreciate the hard work and efforts of those who change their blog layout/template. for me, the purpose of a feed reader is to notify me of new posts of a particular blog, so yeah...

and in my opinon, bloxor.com feed reader is da best!

:p

Anonymous said...

hur? Dunnoe~ a blog is a blog. duno anything abt the layout etc... i jus type.. As long as it looks kute! and i knoe u hate the blinking stars on my blog !

Theresa said...

dude... that T sure does have a lovely blog. :D

Scott said...

Haha, T!
"When you blow your own trumpet, nobody listens." :P

I like Wonder Woman, but she's no Batman. :P