akregator-interview

Akregator Overview

Akregator is an RSS reader featuring KDE's usual high level of integration. RSS feeds contain news and updates from websites and web logs.

Akregator has been recently added to KDE and will be included in KDE 3.4 due in March but in the mean time it may well be part of your distribution, otherwise you can get the source code or Debian packages from <a href="http://akregator.sourceforge.net/download.php">the akregator website</a>. As with compiling any KDE programme you will need the KDE libs development files, but you should also install the KDE PIM development files or the Kontact integration described below will not be compiled.

<a href="">http://muse.19inch.net/~jr/tmp/akregator/en/akregator1.png</a>

Once installed you will find akregator under Feed Reader in the K-Menu's Internet category. On first startup akregator comes with some feeds from KDE websites pre-installed. Click the middle button on the toolbar to download all the feeds. You can now read the latest news from all these websites quickly and easily.

<a href="">http://muse.19inch.net/~jr/tmp/akregator/en/akregator2.png</a>

By default akregator's layout is similar to KMail with subjects at the top and the articles below. You may prefer the combined view which shows all articles from a feed in the same page. Choose Combined View from the Settings menu to try it out.

<a href="">http://muse.19inch.net/~jr/tmp/akregator/en/akregator3.png</a>

By now you may be bored with reading KDE news and want to add some feeds from other websites, this is where KDE's integration really shines. Most blog and news sites have RSS feeds. If you visit a site with an RSS feed in Konqueror a wee icon appears in the corner of Konqueror indicating this. Clicking on this icon and choose Add Feed to akregator means you can now read news from the website through akregator.

<a href="">http://muse.19inch.net/~jr/tmp/akregator/en/akregator4.png</a>

When you close akregator a window pops up telling you that akregator will keep sitting in your system tray. As a clever usability feature this dialogue window captures and shows a screenshot of your system tray with the akregator icon. Your reviewer <a href="http://www.kdedevelopers.org/node/view/545">does not like extraneous system tray icons</a> so it would be good if this dialogue also had a button to really quit akregator.

<a href="">http://muse.19inch.net/~jr/tmp/akregator/en/akregator5.png</a>

Unfortunately not all RSS feeds contain all the information in an article, this is a shame as it defeats much of their purpose. akregator has a clever way around this, an embedded web browser. Clicking on any link in a feed will open a new tab with the web page.

<a href="">http://muse.19inch.net/~jr/tmp/akregator/en/akregator6.png</a>

In Configure akregator under the Settings menu you can tell it to download all feeds at regular intervals. If you turn on notifications it will pop up a bubble showing any new articles it has downloaded.

<a href="">http://muse.19inch.net/~jr/tmp/akregator/en/akregator7.png</a>

So akregator integrates into Konqueror for adding feeds and Konqueror integrates in akregator for browsing web pages, you may think KDE could not get any more integrated. Kontact users will be familiar with having all their personal information applications in one place and akregator also features a Kontact plugin so your news feeds are available right next to your e-mail, calendar and other distractions.

<a href="">http://muse.19inch.net/~jr/tmp/akregator/en/akregator8.png</a>

One final feature from akregator which marks it above the competition is the Juk style search bar which lets you quickly filter articles on given words.

So what is the future for akregator? As already mentioned it will be included in KDE 3.4. The <a href="http://bugs.kde.org/buglist.cgi?product=akregator&bug_status=UNCONFIRMED&bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED">beasties list</a> has wishes for KNewStuff integration, more advanced searching and various problems to be fixed. As with all Free Software projects any help would be appreciated, you can find the developers to ask for or offer help on <a href="irc://irc.kde.org/#akregator">#akregator on freenode</a> or their <a href="http://akregator.sourceforge.net/contact.php">mailing lists</a>.