Cream - Like To Have Features...
Hello,
I installed Cream this morning, imported my OPML and definitely see the appeal of it.
After using it for a bit, I either cannot find "features" that I would like or they do not exist. Therefore, I'd like to put some suggestions out there.
- Ability to mark a story as "not interested". Right now if I click on a story it marks it as "read", even if I did not mean to "read" it.
- Ability to mark multiple stories as "not interested".
- Ability to "group" my feeds in some manner. Could be folder, tag, category, whatever, I'd just like the ability to see all of my cocoa feeds or photography feeds together
- If "grouping" is enabled, Ability to mark a "group" as "not interested". Life gets in the way, and sometimes I do not have time to cull my feeds. Hence the hope that Cream will help with that. Therefore, sometimes I'd like to say, I don't care about what a "group" or feed has, just mark them as "not interested" and do not count that against my "creaminess" rankings.
I'm looking forward to seeing how Cream grows over time.
Take care,
-Jamie
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1 Posted by support on 10 Oct, 2012 10:30 PM
Hi Jamie,
Thanks for getting in touch with us! I’ve submitted this as a feature request for you. Please bear in mind that while we consider all ideas, not every suggestion will ultimately be implemented.
We love feedback! Let us know if you have any other suggestions or questions.
Thank you for using Cream!
Sincerely,
Jason W. -- The Mental Faculty Support
support closed this discussion on 10 Oct, 2012 10:30 PM.
support re-opened this discussion on 10 Oct, 2012 10:30 PM
Support Staff 2 Posted by drewmccormack on 11 Oct, 2012 07:18 AM
Hi Jamie,
Hi Jamie,
One of our goals with Cream was to make a very low maintenance feedreader, one that you don't have to fiddle with and maintain the whole time. The feedreader should just do it as automatically as possible.
We considered adding a button to change the read/unread status, but decided it didn't make that much sense. If you click a story, you were interested enough to open it, even if you decide afterwards it was not so good. We train on that initial interest: was the summary enough to make you want to look further?
You don't really need to mark several stories as 'not interested', because the app does it for you. Any story that appears on screen, and which doesn't get opened, is considered uninteresting.
I know this system isn't perfect, but the training algorithm is also not perfect, so it probably doesn't matter too much if there are some false interesting/uninteresting data points. The real objective is to take it out of the hands of the user, and do it as automatically as possible.
I'm afraid 'grouping' feeds again falls under the organization/fiddling category. Cream is designed to avoid exactly that. There are many readers out there that do allow that sort of fiddling. You could use one of those, or use Cream alongside one of those readers, just for quick scans during the day. A sort of chart of news.
> - If "grouping" is enabled, Ability to mark a "group" as "not interested". Life gets in the way, and sometimes I do not have time to cull my feeds. Hence the hope that Cream will help with that. Therefore, sometimes I'd like to say, I don't care about what a "group" or feed has, just mark them as "not interested" and do not count that against my "creaminess" rankings.
We really want to avoid you having to even think about marking things interesting or not. If you skim over a particular feed, because it is not interesting, all the stories that pass by will automatically be considered not interesting. You shouldn't have to manually tell the app that.
Good feedback. Thanks!
Kind regards,
Drew
3 Posted by Jamie Wallingfo... on 11 Oct, 2012 12:26 PM
Drew,
Thank you for the response. The Cream summary was enough, and I truly understand the intent/purpose of Cream and hope that I can rely on it do my filtering as the app learns. I guess the issues I have may just be the way I am using it.
After installing Cream, I loaded my full OMPL into Cream. Cream then churned through all of my feeds and the next thing you know I have a list of 500+ (depending on my Limit on Stories setting).
I am used to browsing my feeds by "category". I have a "daily category" that are my quick hits in the morning. With the 500+ list it is cumbersome to find a feed that would have fit in that category. I also have several feeds that I just don't care about a lot of the information that is coming in. I care about one or two stories every week. Here is another area where I hope that Cream will assist me going forward. But in the "training phase" of using Cream, I now have 100+ Stories that I don't care about. It'd be nice to tell Cream that so it could learn faster, like marking an email or group of emails as Junk. With so many stories showing up initially that I do not have an interest in, it would be nice to have a way to be able to mark them so they are no longer showing in my list of stories. If there is a way to do this, I've yet to find it.
After writing the above, I went back to Cream to run through the app again and I've now noticed what the "Unseen" segmented control is doing for me. I've been using Cream with "Unread" selected. And that wasn't cutting it because I was always having 500+ stories showing until I read one… however I am now seeing that the "Unseen" will remove stories that I scroll through. This should work for me as I am training Cream.
Thoughts?
-Jamie
P.S., I'm attaching my OPML, ignore it if you don't find any value in it.
Support Staff 4 Posted by drewmccormack on 11 Oct, 2012 12:38 PM
Hi Jamie,
Yes, it is a different way of working. It sounds like you already had a bunch of strategies for cutting through the information. Cream is designed to do that for you, but it does require a mind shift, especially if you are used to micromanaging feeds.
We will think about an option for marking things read, but a simple approach now is simply to scroll through them at a steady pace. Any story that appears on screen for 2 seconds will be marked as 'seen'. Any story that 30 minutes after being seen has not been opened, will be considered 'junk'. So to mark stuff as junk, just scroll through it, but ignore it.
With so many feeds, I do think the Unseen filter should be useful.
Good luck, and if you have other insights, let me know.
Kind regards,
Drew
5 Posted by Jamie Wallingfo... on 11 Oct, 2012 06:33 PM
Drew,
I know this message is diverging a bit from the initial topic, so please bear with me…
Now that I am using "Unseen", I am noticing several duplicate stories show up. I do not think this intended. I am attaching a screenshot that shows what I am seeing.
Thank you,
-Jamie
Support Staff 6 Posted by drewmccormack on 11 Oct, 2012 07:02 PM
Hmm, indeed, that should not happen.
Is it possible you have the same feed several times? There is a bug which allows duplicate feeds.
Drew
7 Posted by Jamie Wallingfo... on 11 Oct, 2012 07:16 PM
I may but i do not recall, on of my previous emails has a copy of my OPML. Even if I did have a duplicate feed I don't think that I would have the feed duplicated 9 times like what I am seeing… I check my OPML and get back w/ you though.
-Jamie
Support Staff 8 Posted by drewmccormack on 11 Oct, 2012 07:36 PM
You could also just look in the feeds window.
Drew
9 Posted by Jamie Wallingfo... on 11 Oct, 2012 07:38 PM
Drew,
I looked at my OPML and I do not see where I have the same feed, however I do have several feeds from Bike Forums but the story in the screen shot is not showing up in all of those feeds… Okay, I just checked Cream, and I'm pretty sure I found the problem…
My bike forum feeds look like this in the OPML…
<outline
text="Bike Forums - Clydesdales/Athenas (200+ lb / 91+ kg)"
title="Bike Forums - Clydesdales/Athenas (200+ lb / 91+ kg)"
type="rss"
xmlUrl="http://www.bikeforums.net/external.php?type=RSS2&forumids=248" htmlUrl="http://www.bikeforums.net/"/>
<outline text="Bike Forums - Commuting"
title="Bike Forums - Commuting" type="rss"
xmlUrl="http://www.bikeforums.net/external.php?type=RSS2&forumids=20" htmlUrl="http://www.bikeforums.net/"/>
<outline text="Bike Forums - Cyclocross"
title="Bike Forums - Cyclocross" type="rss"
xmlUrl="http://www.bikeforums.net/external.php?type=RSS2&forumids=23" htmlUrl="http://www.bikeforums.net/"/>
<outline text="Bike Forums - General Cycling Discussion"
title="Bike Forums - General Cycling Discussion"
type="rss"
xmlUrl="http://www.bikeforums.net/external.php?type=RSS2&forumids=7" htmlUrl="http://www.bikeforums.net/"/>
<outline
text="Bike Forums - Long Distance Competition/Ultracycling, Randonneuring and Endurance Cycling"
title="Bike Forums - Long Distance Competition/Ultracycling, Randonneuring and Endurance Cycling"
type="rss"
xmlUrl="http://www.bikeforums.net/external.php?type=RSS2&forumids=231" htmlUrl="http://www.bikeforums.net/"/>
<outline text="Bike Forums - Plains"
title="Bike Forums - Plains" type="rss"
xmlUrl="http://www.bikeforums.net/external.php?type=RSS2&forumids=238" htmlUrl="http://www.bikeforums.net/"/>
<outline text="Bike Forums - Recreational & Family"
title="Bike Forums - Recreational & Family"
type="rss"
xmlUrl="http://www.bikeforums.net/external.php?type=RSS2&forumids=182" htmlUrl="http://www.bikeforums.net/"/>
<outline text="Bike Forums - Touring"
title="Bike Forums - Touring" type="rss"
xmlUrl="http://www.bikeforums.net/external.php?type=RSS2&forumids=47" htmlUrl="http://www.bikeforums.net/"/>
<outline text="Bike Forums - Utility Cycling"
title="Bike Forums - Utility Cycling" type="rss"
xmlUrl="http://www.bikeforums.net/external.php?type=RSS2&forumids=261" htmlUrl="http://www.bikeforums.net/"/>
However when they were imported into Cream, cream drops everything after the .php. Therefore in Cream, I have 9 feeds that are http://www.bikeforums.net/external.php . So I think there are two bugs. One being what you mentioned earlier about having the same feed show up twice, but the second being Cream does not recognize my feeds appropriately.
Make sense?
-Jamie
Support Staff 10 Posted by drewmccormack on 11 Oct, 2012 07:47 PM
Yep. Thanks. We'll look into this.
Drew
11 Posted by Jamie Wallingfo... on 11 Oct, 2012 07:50 PM
My pleasure.
drewmccormack closed this discussion on 11 Oct, 2012 07:53 PM.