Recently Roy Osherove mentioned that regardless of how much people love Google Reader he won’t use it, citing the lack of search functionality. Which is funny, really, because I mean it’s Google, for crying out loud. Why can’t I search my feeds?? I feel you, Roy. Of course, I still use it anyway, and here’s why:
- Online - I demand a reader that is available everywhere. I want to install as little software as I can.
- Keyboard support - if I want to quickly skim through my feeds, I don’t want to click around. I use the j/k keys to jump between posts, and the space bar (pages down) to read a particular post further.
- Online - did I already mention this? This is huge.
Well, yesterday Google released some new Google Reader features, including Search. You can read about them on the official Google Reader blog.
- Search - you can search within All Items, Starred Items, Shared Items, folders, or individual subscriptions. One word: nice! I like the type-ahead feature to let you quickly find a folder or subscription you want to search in.
- Collapsible splitter - hide your folders for maximum reading real estate.
- Unread counts to 1000 - previously it only showed a maximum of 100 unread items in the subscription/folder name.
- Forward and Back browser buttons work as intended - this was a pain for me, I’m glad they’ve “fixed” it. I am trained (less so these days, thanks to AJAX) to click “Back” to go back. Go figure!
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