It’s been a little while since we last heard anything about News, a GTK RSS reader app for the GNOME desktop.
But, a few weeks ago, the feed reader app’s developer shared a short video of how the app is looking — and it’s fair to say there’s little else like it currently available on the GNOME desktop.
The gridded, boxy “newspaper” layout is pretty novel. It certainly makes browsing through unread items a more eye-catching affair. I’m not sure how practical it would be for managing lots of content pulled from lots of different sites, though.
A more traditional headline list view is also available, as is an optional sidebar to select a publication to see articles from. The search toggle lets you quickly find posts containing a specific term or wor
“Project is Unmaintained”
According to the GNOME News Github page the project is ‘currently unmaintained’. It’s not clear when, or if, a formal stable release will be made.
News is not currently available to install on Ubuntu (or other Linux distributions) without building it from source. This may change in the near future, with a number of packaging requests open on News’ Github issues section.
One To Watch
With many of us now using a third-party feed reading service like Feedly as the ‘glue’ between platforms, it’s unlikely that News is going to attract power users.
The developer behind News says he’s “aware […] that for most folks a rss reader without online sync support is mandatory”. .
But as a simple, standalone feed reader it looks like it could become a solid alternative to Liferea in the short term — so long as development continues.
To learn more, head over to the News Github page.