Faster Than a Speeding Bullet...
As mentioned before, I have been using the FeedDemon feed reader for over 3 years. There have been lots of changes in the software over these years, some of which were evolutionary (switching from a group to a tree paradigm) and some were revolutionary (FeedStation, one of the earliest podcast aggregators for Windows systems). When the next version of FeedDemon comes out, it will include a feature that is both.
One of the biggest weaknesses of FeedDemon was it's handling of large amounts of data at one time on its newspaper. In the past if I were to accidentally change my filter from "Unread" to "Show All", especially when I'm looking at all the feeds in one folder, FeedDemon would be essentially unusable for a couple of minutes while it rendered the massive newspaper. Also, when viewing a large newspaper, I would get tired fingers from scrolling through it :).
Recently I had the privilege of trying out one of FeedDemon's newest upcoming features, pagination. This solves both problems above in one fell swoop. Since it doesn't have to render as many posts at one time, it is quicker rendering pages and I don't have to scroll near as much.
Now I'm probably (OK, OK, not probably - I am) a FeedDemon fanboy, but when I say the speed improvements are astonishing, I cannot stress how much this is not fanboy-speak. Right now I have over 4000 individual posts, both read and unread, in my "Entertainment" folder - and I know that's peanuts compared to some people. In the past, if I were to switch from showing unread only to showing all, my system would be essentially unusable for the next 2.5 minutes or so while the newspaper rendered. Now it takes about 3 to 5 SECONDS. The first time I started zipping through pages, it felt like I was using a new application, it was that extraordinary. Because of the performance issues, I pretty much never used any filter but unread - even switching to "Today" or "This Week" was a pain. Now if I want to see a post I had just marked as read, I can select "Today" and re-read the post.
This also makes the search feed function a lot more usable as well, and with the addition of highlighting capabilites in the search, it's a snap to find that post on Tuva Throat Singing you were looking for :).
If you had tried FD but stopped because of the performance issue, I would really suggest that once the new version comes out as final you give it a try again. I think you will be pleasently surprised. And if you are a current user that doesn't mind using beta software, as soon as Nick announced that 2.1 beta 2 is available for download I suggest you snap it up. Good things await!
One of the biggest weaknesses of FeedDemon was it's handling of large amounts of data at one time on its newspaper. In the past if I were to accidentally change my filter from "Unread" to "Show All", especially when I'm looking at all the feeds in one folder, FeedDemon would be essentially unusable for a couple of minutes while it rendered the massive newspaper. Also, when viewing a large newspaper, I would get tired fingers from scrolling through it :).
Recently I had the privilege of trying out one of FeedDemon's newest upcoming features, pagination. This solves both problems above in one fell swoop. Since it doesn't have to render as many posts at one time, it is quicker rendering pages and I don't have to scroll near as much.
Now I'm probably (OK, OK, not probably - I am) a FeedDemon fanboy, but when I say the speed improvements are astonishing, I cannot stress how much this is not fanboy-speak. Right now I have over 4000 individual posts, both read and unread, in my "Entertainment" folder - and I know that's peanuts compared to some people. In the past, if I were to switch from showing unread only to showing all, my system would be essentially unusable for the next 2.5 minutes or so while the newspaper rendered. Now it takes about 3 to 5 SECONDS. The first time I started zipping through pages, it felt like I was using a new application, it was that extraordinary. Because of the performance issues, I pretty much never used any filter but unread - even switching to "Today" or "This Week" was a pain. Now if I want to see a post I had just marked as read, I can select "Today" and re-read the post.
This also makes the search feed function a lot more usable as well, and with the addition of highlighting capabilites in the search, it's a snap to find that post on Tuva Throat Singing you were looking for :).
If you had tried FD but stopped because of the performance issue, I would really suggest that once the new version comes out as final you give it a try again. I think you will be pleasently surprised. And if you are a current user that doesn't mind using beta software, as soon as Nick announced that 2.1 beta 2 is available for download I suggest you snap it up. Good things await!