XplanaZine

Thanks for the news aggregator suggestions! Since I am a happy Syndirella user, I knew that what I was looking for is a three-paned viewer to run on my desktop (Windows). This pane-based presentation can organize a lot (A LOT) of content into differently functioning panes: a pane listing subscriptions, pane with headlines, pane for viewing individual items. And it is a very familiar interface because it is so commonly used for email programs. So, since I wanted a three-pane viewer, Amphetadesk was out, even though I really like their website (check out this nice overview of finding more content sources).
But what I also wanted was the ability to group my subscriptions into categories. This is not a feature that Syndirella has. I believe that SharpReader is supposed to have this feature. But I downloaded and installed SharpReader and still couldn’t get it to run, even though I have dutifully installed the latest version of .NET on which both Syndirella and SharpReader depend.
So… what to do next? I went to google and searched on “.net aggregator” - and the top result was an entry in the Reflective Surface weblog, containing a reference to “Wildgrape NewsDesk is yet another .NET news aggregator.”
Within ten minutes, I was completely sold on Wildgrape NewsDesk . Here’s why:

• Panes and categories. Wildgrape is a 3-paned system, with user-defined categories - basically folders into which you can sort your feeds. This is good!
• Spacebar takes you to next unread item. I got addicted to that with Syndirella - Wildgrape does the same thing (although in Wildgrape it’s a feature you can turn off if it bugs you).
• Search features, something I knew I wanted but did not dare to hope for. Nice.
• NewsIsFree. Wildgrape is very plugged into NewsIsFree, a great way to add new subscriptions (although I cannot keep up with all the ones I’ve got…). When you install Wildgrape it comes with a lot of NewsIsFree subscriptions installed - you can just delete those categories and start from scratch of course (which is what I did).
• Smart website. The website for this product is excellent - it is informative, helpful, with tutorials and suggestions for how to make best use of the software. If only every software website were this good!

The one thing that put me off Wildgrape NewsDesk just a bit was the really weird yellow background color that it installs with - some people might call it straw yellow or yellow ochre or something, I don’t know - but it scared me. Until… I found the option that lets me change the background and font to whatever I want (options under the View menu).
Now my Wildgrape NewsDesk is grape-colored. As it should be!

This is great stuff. I guess I will have to stop talking about evil Microsoft if they helped make this possible - apparently David Peckham built this as part of his .NET certification. Awesome. Certification as a force for good in the world!