Reeder OS X Tip: Set the ESC key to close browser
When you follow an article’s link to its full content, or use Instapaper Mobilizer, or follow a link when reading something in Reeder the application hides its feed list on the left and opens a browser in the right column (where the feed’s article content usually is).
There’s a couple ways to close the browser and return to Reeder’s default view of feed list on the left and article on the right:
- Click the close button (an “x” in a dark circle) in the upper left corner of the browser column.
- Use the mouse to select a different feed item in the left column.
- Hit the “j” or “k” key to select a different feed item
- Select “Close Browser” from the file menu or hit cmd-shift-w for its keyboard shortcut.
I find myself trying to close the browser quite a lot (because I use Instapaper Mobilizer a ton) and wanted to set the escape key to do all this, since that seems much more in line with standard OS X behavior (and so is what my hands’ muscle memory wants to do).
It’s not terribly difficult to do, but does require a plist editor such as Property List Editor (which is one of the Developer tools you can install from your OS X install DVD) or PListEditPro. There are a lot of steps, and it might seem hacky (because we’re manually editing a plist), but it works fine. Here’s how to do it:
- Quit Reeder if its open.
- Open System Preferences
- Click the Keyboard icon
- Click the Keyboard Shortcuts tab
- Select “Application Shortcuts” in the left column
- Click the plus-sign button below the right column
- Select Reeder from the drop down list (or navigate to it by selecting “other…”)
- Type “Close Browser” (case sensitive) into the Menu Title field
- Select the field next to Keyboard Shortcut and hit cmd-shift-escape
- Close Preferences.
- Navigate to ~/Library/Preferences/ folder and find “com.reederapp.mac.Reeder.plist”
- Open that with a plist editor.
- Look for the NSUserKeyEquivalents, which should have a drop-down arrow next it and click that.
- You should see the Close Browser key on the left and something like “@⎋” on the right.
- Double click the field on the right and delete the “@” so its just the escape key icon.
- Save and close the plist.
- Open Reeder and try it out (or check by clicking the File menu and looking at the keyboard shortcut listed next to Close Browser”)
Thoughts on Reeder for Mac
Reeder for Mac draft 1 was released last night, and I’ve been testing it out. You can download it here. You can read more about it here. The UI is beautiful and interesting, and Reeder shows a lot of promise. As a long-time NetNewsWire user/fan I have to say this is the first Mac RSS client that has me considering switching in years. That said there are some annoyances with the UI I thought I’d write up in the hope it might spark a conversation about Reeder’s usability (particularly its keyboard based navigation) and could inform its talented developer, Silvio Rizzi. Since this is one of the first applications I can think of that has moved from iOS to OS X, its definitely interesting to see how the developer considers keyboard and mouse based interaction. There are elements in Reeder that feel like they ought to be touched (not clicked) and many (seemingly) obvious keyboard-based navigation actions that (to my mind) are missing.
All that said, I’m very excited about Reeder and hope it sparks some renewed competition among desktop RSS clients. While much has been written about RSS clients being dead or moved to the browser, I (for one) am a huge fan of having an application that does one thing well: aggregate and read the news.
Here’s some of what seems off/missing to me:
- Love the way reading an article hides the feed list, but I wish there was a keyboard-based way to navigate back to the feed list and out of the article (the escape key sounds right).
- Article content should (reasonably) reflow to stay visible when a window/column is too small. Currently you have to use the mouse to resize the window.
- I wish some of the great toolbar items could have keyboard shortcuts. Instapaper Mobilizer, Instapaper, opening an article in the browser are all key.
- Wish you could send an article to the browser in the background.
- I’m not sure the logic/reasoning behind having some items in the toolbar at the top of the window and some (the refresh button, the mark as read button) at the button.
- Better overall keyboard navigation. Left-Right Arrow keys (and the tab key) should move focus between feed list, feed items, and article views. It would also be nice if the focused view was hightlighted in some way.
- A proper “River of News” view, combining a list of feed items and all/a large chunk of the feed’s article into one column.
