New release (M2.2) – on the final stretch to 1.0

We’re nearly there! The new release is now available to download. This is the last planned beta release before we make it to the 1.0.

We didn’t add many new features this time around, but we do have an About box. Not the most attractive ever, but at least you now know what version you’re trying out (thanks to Tore for pointing that out!).

Probably more significantly we’ve added a new Preferences dialog, with options to enter your web proxy settings (for those poor souls at Strathclyde Uni and elsewhere that need them – thanks John!) You can also tune how quickly FeedForward scans your feeds:
ffprefs

(Note that as we use a feedcache it won’t actually impact the sites too much if you crank it up.)

Hopefully if there are no new bugs, we can have the 1.0 launch in the next couple of months.

FeedForward M2.1 released

The releases are coming thick and fast as we get close to – finally – the 1.0 launch. We only plan one more beta build – M2.2, next month possibly – before we reach that target.

Milestone 2.1 adds the ability to locate and add feeds directly from Jopml (see the previous blog post), improved OPML import, and the ability to export collections in RSS, Atom, BibTex and RIS (EndNote) formats. It also closes a number of bugs. (Amongst other things we’ve used a zip format for the download that even Windows Vista understands!)

You can download the new release here.

The M2.2 release will add web proxy support, a preferences dialog, and an About box, and close the remaining small bugs ready for the 1.0 launch.

New release looms closer…

We’re steadily working closer to the next release. Its been a long time coming, but I think is worth it. We’ve actually removed a lot of features for this release, as we get a better idea of what works and what’s useful, and focus on improving the usability core features – we’ll put features back in if anyone requests them, but I think a “less is more” approach is better at this point.

We’ve moved to a new version of Eclipse (Ganymede) which is a lot faster and supports more platform specific features which caused some headaches in M1 (drag and drop in particular had some quirks). We’ve also been improving the UI in various ways, as you can see in this screenshot:

ff_m2_screen

We’ve got a bit more testing to do before the release, but feel free to check out the code from Subversion if you’re keen!

New website!

Well, not really a “new” website, but its had a bit of an overhaul, and we’ve put in a feedback widget so you can tell us what you’d like to see in FeedForward. You can also now access the site from a slightly less naff URL – its now http://getfeedforward.org

The M2 release is finally nearing completion after a pretty chaotic last half of 2008, and should be up on the site as soon as we’re sure that this time it really, really will work on XP and Vista!