Unread 3.7.2 is available through the App Store. This update fixes a bug that prevented images from loading in kottke.org articles. This fix will apply to kottke.org articles downloaded after installing this update.

Unread Cloud had an outage beginning at roughly 8:15 PM today, Boston time. The system is now back to normal. The outage, including time to catch up with new articles from feeds, lasted about one hour. I am sorry about this.

Technical Details

The Linode instance running the database server that powers Unread Cloud became unavailable. I use Postgresql replication to keep a warm standby server. After determining that I could not reboot the Linode instance I began the process of making Unread Cloud servers use the backup database as the primary. No data was lost. Unread Cloud servers are up and running, and feed retrieval tasks are up-to-date.

Plinky is a wonderful new app for saving, organizing, and sharing links. Plinky’s release was announced today.

Unread is ready with a Plinky article action. The Plinky article action lets you save a link to any article or any link inside an article directly to Plinky. The Plinky article action is available through the swipe left menu of an article, the context menu of an article in an article list, or the context menu of a link inside an article. You can also use the ⌘Y keyboard shortcut when using an iPad with a hardware keyboard.

I have been working with Plinky’s developer, Joe Fabisevich, on this integration since August. I had already been beta testing Plinky when I learned that he was building an API that might make this feasible. I immediately wanted to implement an article action for Plinky.

Like other premium article actions, the Plinky article action requires a subscription to Unread’s premium features. It also requires installing Plinky and setting up it up to sync between devices. To enable the article action, open Unread’s Settings screen, select Article Actions under the Premium Options header, and then turn on Plinky under Save Article Actions. You will be prompted for a Plinky ID. You can copy and paste your Plinky ID from Plinky’s Settings screen.

The Plinky article action is also available in the Unread for macOS beta. You can enable the Plinky article action under the Article Actions pane of the Settings window. There is an optional toolbar button for Plinky as well. Like other premium article actions, the Plinky article action will require a subscription to Unread’s premium features when Unread for macOS is released.

Check out Plinky. It is a great app.

Unread 3.7.1 is available from the App Store. This update fixes a crash that would sometimes occur after invoking the Readwise article action.

A new build (400211) of the Unread for macOS beta is also available with this fix, and with a fix to another bug that sometimes caused crashes.

I posted a new beta of Unread for macOS: build 400208. This build adds Unread’s widgets and more. You can join the beta now if you have not already done so.

Widgets

This build incorporates Unread’s widgets into Unread for macOS. They can be added to the desktop or to Notification Center. Some widget configuration options will require a subscription, just as they do on iPhone and iPad, when Unread for macOS is released through the Mac App Store.

Other Improvements

• When viewing an image fullscreen, Unread will retrieve and display a higher resolution of that image when one is available. This change applies to articles downloaded after installing this build.
• The Font Sizes pane of the Settings window now has a setting letting you control the article content width.
• This build adds performance improvements around loading and caching images.
• Article list thumbnails are smaller when the article list is particularly narrow. This is primarily intended to use less screen real estate on 13-inch MacBook Air displays.
• This build adds minor changes to alerts asking for confirmation around deleting Local accounts, unsubscribing from feeds, and deleting tags or folders.
• Section headers no longer appear in article lists by default. You can add them by turning on a “Show section headers” setting in the General pane of the Settings window.
• This update adds a Plinky article action. Plinky is a bookmarking app that is launching soon. I will post more about this after Plinky is released and announced.
• This build adds minor layout tweaks to Settings window panels.

Additional Note

I removed “Mark All Read by scrolling beyond the last article in an article list” from the “To Be Implemented Before Release” help page. I no longer believe that makes sense on macOS, so I am not planning to implement that.

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This build is available now from TestFlight. You can join the beta now if you have not already done so.

Unread 3.7 is available from the App Store.

Performance Improvements

This update adds significant article list performance improvements. In service of this, the first time you open Unread after installing this update the app will take up to a minute to optimize its article database.

Plinky Article Action

This update adds a Plinky article action. Plinky is a bookmarking app that is launching soon. I updated the Unread Privacy Policy, adding a link to Plinky’s privacy policy. I will post more about this after Plinky is released and announced.

I posted a new beta of Unread for macOS (build 400192) with this modest set of improvements:

• This update adds significant article list performance improvements. In service of this, the first time you open Unread after installing this update the app will take up to a minute to optimize its article database.
• You can now expand the Saved Articles sidebar item to get a list of saved articles by feed. (This sidebar item might be called Starred Articles or Read Later, depending on the type of account.)
• The “Next Pane” and “Previous Pane” menu items now flash a border around the newly focused pane.
• This update fixes some bugs around subscribing to and unsubscribing from feeds in Inoreader accounts.
• The account-specific area of the Accounts pane in the Settings window now has a “Show Account” button. I also made some layout adjustments in that area.
• This update changes the order of menu items in the “View” menu.
• This update adds a setting to open links in the background. This setting works with Safari and Firefox, but it does not work with all browsers – most notably Chrome. The setting is available in the Advanced pane of the Settings window.

This update is available now from TestFlight. You can join the beta now if you have not already done so.

A new beta version of Unread for macOS is available: build 400191. This update focuses on article list improvements, functionality pertaining to images, and font size settings. If you are not already beta testing Unread for macOS, I invite you to join the beta now.

Article List Improvements

Article lists now have section headings, dividing articles into sections based on date or feed. To change the grouping of an article list, select Group by Date or Group by Feed under the View menu.

Images in article lists are larger. Their size is based in part by the width of the article list pane in the window. This makes better use of space when using a large screen.

When flicking quickly through an article list using a trackpad the current section title will appear at the top or bottom, depending on the direction in which you are scrolling.

Images

Clicking an image now opens that image fullscreen. When an image is open fullscreen you can zoom further in or back out using the trackpad or the ⌘+ and ⌘- keyboard shortcuts.

Each image in an article has a context menu with these items: View Fullscreen, Share Image…, Save to Photo Library, Save Image As…, Copy Image, Copy Image Link, and (when available) View Alt Text.

Font Size Settings

The article list font size and article font size settings are now in a Font Sizes tab in the Settings window.

The Font Sizes tab also has a source list font size setting. The default value of this is System. When set to System, the source list font size setting is based on the sidebar icon size setting from System Preferences. You can set this to Small, Medium, Large, or System.

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This update is available now from TestFlight. You can join the beta now if you have not already done so.

It is easy to subscribe to more feeds than you have time to read, or more content than you even have time to scroll through. I subscribe to an inordinate number of feeds myself. I want to share a trick for managing this.

I subscribe to 475 feeds. About half of the new articles I see each day comes from 8 of those feeds. And while I often enjoy articles from those 8 high-volume feeds, they generate a disproportionate number of articles that I am not interested in reading. I have a tag called “High Volume” containing just those 8 feeds. When I fall behind and my number of unread articles is more than I want to go through, I first mark all articles with the High Volume tag read. I do that by long-pressing the “High-Volume” tag and selecting “Mark All Read” from the resulting menu. This trick helps me quickly focus on the articles I am more likely to read.