Topic: Generic RSS Reader App

I have an 8" Insignia Infocast and a Sony Dash and the one thing which (in my opinion) keeps these devices from being (close to) perfect is is the lack of a good, generic RSS reader. I know a bit of flash and if someone could get me the source for the Generic Chumby RSS Reader (which is VERY limited) I would love to work on a reader for the community which would:

- Allow MANY RSS feeds to be configured in a single app
- Show only scrolling headlines with article summaries from each RSS feed along with a thumbnail and indication which RSS feed the article was posted in
- Allow you to click on any of them to expose the full article
- Have a black background with light gray text so it is not overwhelmning on larger displays such as Dash or Infocast
- Allow configuration to set the feeds to update once every X hours

The generic Chumby RSS is pretty crappy and all the others are feed specific and therefore displays in different formats, colours, etc. (Engadget, ESPN, etc).  Hopefully this will stimulate some conversation on the topic.

Thoughts???

2 (edited by kristen 2011-01-02 23:49:18)

Re: Generic RSS Reader App

Thanks for your comments. We are already in progress trying to improve the very-relevant RSS experience for chumby. Stay tuned.

Re: Generic RSS Reader App

Can you please provide any additional information on this?  When do you expect it to be available?  Will it properly support these larger display units and aspects such as the Infocast and the Dash?  In the meantime, would it be possible to get the source code to the Chumby Generic RSS reader?

Please let me know!

Thanks!

4 (edited by mwr 2011-01-13 09:09:18)

Re: Generic RSS Reader App

Seconded. I'd just like to be able to set my own refresh time, rather than stick with what appears to be the default 15 minute interval.

EDIT: fixed. Through some combination of setting a 1 minute Expires: header on the web server and adding an extra app to the channel, I've got my reader refreshing at 1 minute intervals (45 seconds showing the reader, 15 seconds showing the other app).

Re: Generic RSS Reader App

I might have missed something, but after setting up multiple RSS addresses on a single app, I was unable to figure out how to delete an individual address and had to delete the app and re-enter the addresses.  Again, I might be doing something wrong, but if not, this would be a useful feature.

Re: Generic RSS Reader App

I can't believe we are still waiting for a valid RSS reader for Chumby!!!  I have a crappy cell phone which has a great RSS reader and Chumby's have been around for MANY YEARS!

I did manage to take the chumby RSS reader sample code and was able to modify it to look great on my unit (black background, proper aspect ratio, larger text, graphics, etc.) but then ran into the dreaded crossdomains.xml issue. I did a bunch of reading and aside from asking EVERY RSS FEED SITE to include a crossdomains.xml file on their server I couldn't find a solution. The weird thing is that using the generic RSS Reader app, I can configure any RSS feed and it works, but I have to have 15 versions of the app loaded to see all the feeds I want. I don't know why these work and when I try my app accessing the same sites I can't get it to work. As per usual, it works fine within my flash development environment but not on my unit itself.

Come on Chumby!  When will we get a full featured RSS reader???

Brian

Re: Generic RSS Reader App

also one that can just show an image slideshow from an RSS feed would be FANTASTIC-O!