I would like to hear opinions on the best RSS reader for flyertalk.

I'm not very experienced with RSS, but here are the features I would like to have in a reader:

1. offline ability. I should be able to download everything I want from FT and have it stored on my disk, so I can catch up on all the forums while flying. It would be even better if I could write a message to post in offline mode and have it upload once I connect up again.

2. forum hierarchy. I would like to see everything in a similar forum structure as I see it on FT.com, and be able to see all threads within the forum. I should see new threads and have the ability to subscribe to them (mark them for download). Even better if new threads are automatically subscribed by default, but I can "unsubscribe" them. That way I can suck down everything new (including all new threads), store it for reading offline, and then on an airplane I can read through them and unsubscribe from the threads that are no interesting.

3. some ability to sync between the desktop and a Windows Mobile device would be nice. the idea is that whether I use the desktop or the handheld device, I would be able to download the new/subscribed threads, and as long as sync I could switch between either reader without even "losing my place" in the threads. (I mention Win Mobile and not Palm because I am Win Mobile based).

... I guess many of you with more RSS experience can add more requirements. So let us know what you think is important, and also which RSS readers you recommend.

Thanks
Ron

Does flyertalk.com have RSS feeds?
I guess I never looked!

I like the Sage plug-in for Firefox...i've also used some plug-ins for outlook (hey, its already bloated, whats a little more going to do?).

For windows mobile, search Digg.com there was an article early this week about an RSS browser for WM5.0


If there is no forum RSS (b/c I still dont see a link) then you might be able to make your own with feedburner.com

Try the stuff at newsgator.com

I use thunderbird for mail and RSS in general. Its excellent in IMHO
and its from Mozilla.

The new Opera Mail has built in RSS compatibility. Fantastic and well worth the download

I still wanna know if there is an RSS feed for FT...
I'm gonna feel really dumb when somone points out a huge icon on the main page...

I also use t-bird for email and rss feeds. Simple and works great.

-David

Here's the link for the Travel Tech forum rss feed.
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/exter...2&forumids=169
I've never seen a link, but the FF Sage extension has a discover feed button that'll find them.

thanks to those of you who suggested a few different readers.

but it is not clear to me (without going and researching each one) whether they support the features I think would be great for FT, like offline reading. Does anyone know? Is that a standard feature that virtually all th readers support?

Thanks
Ron

Let me see if I can answer some of these questions:

First, here's how you can access the RSS feeds. From within the forum level, click Quick Links on the navigation bar. You'll see items for RSS 1.0 and RSS 2.0 at the bottom. Click one of those (I use 2.0). You'll then get the RSS feed displayed and the URL in your web browser address bar. You can use that URL to subscribe to the RSS feed in your preferred RSS reader.

The RSS feed (I've only looked at the 2.0 one) does contain the full text of the post, so you should be able to see the entire post.

I haven't seen this happen yet. I'll see if a couple of the readers I use allow me to view this thread as a thread.

UPDATE: It looks like only the original post is in the RSS feed. Bummer.

Both NewsGator and Attensa support this. You can access NewsGator via its web client, FeedDemon, or NewsGator Inbox (for Outlook). There's also a beta for a Windows Mobile client (http://www.newsgator.com/NGOLMobileBeta.aspx )

RSS is designed for syndication and not forum subscription. As a result, it's not really into forum features. Also, it's not designed to be an interactive forum or offline posting. Posting would be done through a blogging client, but that's not supported in forums.

I hope that helps some.

Thanks, that was a very useful post.

Did I understand it correctly that the full thread is not available in RSS?

I do understand about syndication vs. forums, and why RSS is probably not geared to forums. But more and more forums I use offer RSS, so I hope there may be a reader out there (or if not, someone will make it) which is oriented on using RSS for keeping up to date with forums...

Is there a reader that will work with Safari? If not, are there any Mac compatible readers?

The full thread text isn't available in the RSS feed. This is more as issue with the RSS implementation by the forum software than RSS itself. It's great at providing notification for new threads (ideal in something like the MR forum), but not so great at seeing the entire thread.

Some RSS readers for Safari would include NewsGator (I think), Google Reader, and Bloglines. NetNewsWire is often regarded as the "best" standalone RSS reader for Mac. Of course, Firefox for Mac is also going to support the RSS extensions...

Here's a nice roundup of Mac RSS readers. Safari has built in RSS suport, but it's pretty rudimentary. I use NetNewsWire.

so do I understand this correctly: using RSS to keep up to date with Flyertalk is not really feasible?