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February 27th, 2008
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Read It Later’s Future

Nate Weiner - Posted in Blog, , ,

I wanted to brief everyone on what my plans are for the Read It Later extension as it’s now been two months since the last update. I’ve been ignoring you while I was working on Tail Report. Tail Report is happily cranking away so now it’s time for Read It Later again.

The next update (0.9) will only be for Firefox 3. The bookmarking service built into Firefox has been completely revamped between FF 2 and 3. It’s great because they finally have a solid bookmark API that will make the Read It Later extension much more stable. Before I literally had to pour through thousands of lines of the Firefox source code to figure out how to make it do the simplest tasks.

But this also means that Read It Later will have to be rebuilt to work on Firefox 3. This gives me the opportunity to make some decisions about which features will carry over, which won’t, and what new features will be added.

So I’m asking you dudes and dudines for two things:

1. Suggestions - If you have any suggestions on features you wish it had, now is the time to voice them. If you see a suggestion from someone in the comments and you like it, second it.

2. What You Like Now - In addition to telling me what you want, tell me what you like about it the way it is now. I want to know what features people are using.

One more thing:

I also wanted to gauge how you feel about the current method of storing/retrieving your list. Are you happy with the way it is working now? Do you prefer having the list stored locally on your computer or would you like a way to access it online? I originally tried to keep things simple without requiring you to sign up for another service but perhaps you are interested in having your list hosted with an RSS feed.

Timeline

The timeline for this new release hasn’t been decided upon yet. I’m still waiting to see how things are shaping up with the official release of Firefox 3 out of Beta. But I promise you this update is coming and hopefully soon.

What Next?

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Comments (17)


  1. I actually love the way it works right now. I like the way that RIL just uses a folder in my bookmarks. Because I keep my bookmarks synced with the Foxmarks extension; my read it later choices are available on all my machines. In addition, I can get to my bookmarks through *any* computer, so I could still see what’s left to read.

    February 27th, 2008 GTD Wannabe

  2. I also love Read It Later in its current state as it is simple to use and above all useful. It is great that you are upgrading it for Firefox 3 (although it sounds painful) as there has been a growing trend of many upgraders that are let down when their favorite add-ons don’t work anymore.

    I’m glad that you are able to balance between this and the Tail Report as many developers get lost in one project and forget their past projects. If you need any other feedback or support, I’m there for ya!

    Looking forward to the new release!

    February 27th, 2008 Kevin Xu

  3. As I mentioned in my MakeUseOf article on RIL, the biggest bug (and one I encountered several times today in fact) is that sometimes the extension doesn’t capture the correct URL that has been saved. If I bookmark say CNN.com and then I immediately go to google.com, it will bookmark Google.com with CNN’s details. Later on, when I go back to that link in the list, I realise what has happened and I may have lost the original link forever. So I really do think you need to investigate that one. Another bug is that when you click the button to remove a link from the list, the link isn’t removed. It either sits there still or a duplicate link is added to the bottom of the list!

    In general, the extension is excellent but here are some things I would love to see in future releases :

    1. Favicons for each link.
    2. Better toolbar icons for the extension. The icons are rather dull and unimaginative!
    3. Perhaps the ability to generate a HTML list of the links for backup purposes. I have at the moment about 150 links in the RIL extension and if I lost them all due to some glitch, I would be crying in my cornflakes!! Or perhaps a backup feature where the extension uses a SMTP server to email the user a zipped file with the links inside. Perhaps something like this - http://emailer.zapto.org/
    4. The ability to rearrange the links, perhaps by dragging a link with the mouse up and down the list or right-clicking on a link and choose “sort by name”
    5. Each bookmark to be time-stamped to show when it was added to the list - so I can see the oldest links and read them first. Going briefly back to the previous suggestion, you could also do a “sort by date added” option.
    6. A RSS feed so others can subscribe to my links (maybe also with a privacy option if that isnt too difficult to do)

    Hope these suggestions help. Keep up the good work and the great tools!

    February 27th, 2008 Mark O'Neill

  4. I have a ~readlater folder in my bookmarks for this extension, it would be nice to be able to choose (by clicking on arrow next to icon) in wich (predefined)folder the page will be saved. Example: I stumble upon some interesting link and by clicking on a button i save it for later, but when i do a research on sth. i open a sidemenu and click: “save in -research-”.

    Sorry for this messy message :)

    February 27th, 2008 Sre?ko

  5. The R+Click is an awkward hotkey that doesn’t seem to work in Google Reader for me. I like everything else. I use it every day when going through the feeds in Google Reader. It makes it easier to mark everything LATER and then read it like a magazine.

    February 27th, 2008 Sgtret

  6. Yes, there’s no substitute for cubic inches, but…….it’s SO NICE to have an app that takes little resource, does what it says it will, and when you come back your stuff is still there. If you just make this ready for the next upgrade of Firefox, i would be one happy camper. Thank you for this simple but very useful application.

    February 27th, 2008 David Gray

  7. I agree with the first few comments. ReadItLater is great for instantly storing pages into a category for which you will read later. I used to have so many tabs open and would lose them using IE when it crashed. When I went to Firefox, it would recover the tabs in case of a crash but there were some cases in which they still got lost. Now I typically scan through google reader and open articles I find interesting in tabs and then mark them with ReadItLater.

    If you were looking for another unique bookmarking tool to create I would suggest one which expands on del.ici.ous like 6pli.com does. I usually store my bookmarks in a hierarchy of folders. Then when I import into del.ici.ous the folders become tags. Finally, I use 6pli.com to turn the del.ici.ous bookmarks into a 3D visualization but there are many improvements that could be made to the 6pli.com tool or one like it. See my example at http://www.6pli.com/harleycw.

    February 27th, 2008 Harley Witt

  8. Please make read it later available for firefox 3’s new bookmarking system soon.

    February 28th, 2008 spz

  9. I love Read It Later as it is, and I would be happy for you to leave it. The only thing I could think to add would be a way to sort the sites I’ve added into folders or to tag them in some way so they are more organized than a list. For example, I’d like to be able to separate my list out into categories like tech news items, blogs, just for fun, top 10 lists to bookmark, etc. But, like I said, I would be perfectly happy as well if it stays the same. Keep up the great work!

    February 28th, 2008 Courtney M.

  10. I like RIL right now, but there are some things that can make it better.

    Categories, for example. I find that when I choose things to be read later, it’s because I’m in a hurry to get to the tab three tabs down (and go back to the original thing I was searching). Or, it’s because I want to look at a site again later and then download something from it.

    Sometimes I put links under RIL because I have something to do with that link, like reply back to a LJ comment or figure out where I’m going to put this link when I put it in my real bookmarks. Or, I use it to bookmark things I’m probably never going to read, but I may want access to later (damn packratism!).

    That’s about the only thing I require. As for the syncing and accessing bookmarks off my computer, I’d love to have some kind of integration with FoxMarks.

    If that can’t be done (or no one else wants it, or not enough people want it), I’d be happy with transporting a .html file from my computer to my flash drive and back. I’d prefer this file to be easy to find though (maybe under the same directory as the bookmarks.html file is in the profile folder?).

    Anyways. Those are my suggestions. I love the work you’re doing so far! Though, I do have one question. When you make this for Firefox 3 only, will that be when Firefox 3 is first released as an actual product (and not a beta), or will it be released before Firefox 3 is ready for the public?

    March 1st, 2008 Heidi

  11. PS: I’d also like to see a way of removing links from RIL. I’d prefer they didn’t get removed automatically, but I’d like something easier than keeping the “Organize Bookmarks” window open. Please and thank you!

    March 1st, 2008 Heidi

  12. I love ReadItLater as it is. I experience the same bug issues that Mark O’Neill mentioned about bookmarks not saving properly sometimes so if you were able to direct attention to that, that would rock. But I disagree with his other suggestions. The icons are fine as is. Definitely keep storing the ReadItLater bookmarks in the bookmark folder, I like that I can tag something to be read later at work and it’ll sync up for me at home when I have the time. Also, I like that I can manually add or remove or fix things in the ReadItLater folder when the plugin is experiencing buggy behavior.

    March 2nd, 2008 John D. Mort

  13. Hey Heidi,

    Thanks for the comments/suggestions, I did want to clarify a few things though.

    Read It Later does in fact work with sync plugins like Foxmarks.  Take a look at the section labeled ‘How to sync with other computers’ on the main Read It Later page.

    Also, regarding your comment about removing links, the ‘read later’ button should change to ‘mark as read’ when you are on a page in your list.  Clicking ‘mark as read’ will remove the item from you list.  If this button is not working for you, expect this to be corrected in 0.9

    Finally, yes I plan on releasing 0.9 before Firefox 3 is offically released. 

    Thanks!

    Nate 

    March 3rd, 2008 Nate Weiner

  14. I love Read It Later.
    The only thing I would like to see is the ability to delete listings from the drop down button instead of opening my bookmarks.

    Thanks

    March 9th, 2008 Fxman

  15. 1)save all tabs, and no doubles of same URL

    2) ease of use and open/close options

    All in all you guys have done a great job, I live off this one.

    March 17th, 2008 DJ

  16. I’d love to test the 3.0 extension. I’m running firefox 3.0 in Ubuntu 8.04-64, which is an environment I haven’t seen listed here yet.

    April 11th, 2008 John D. Mort

  17. storing in the book mark file works for me. the integration with google sync and foxmarks is just great.

    the R-click doesn’t work for me; the “r” key brings up the “find” dialogue. how about a function key, or backspace key, etc, that doesn’t bring up Find?

    categorize or subfolders would be good to organize links.

    sorting links by date entered or alphabetically would be useful. if duplicate links could be avoided that would be good; i sometimes forget what i’ve already added.

    this is a must-have extension already for me. thanks!

    June 14th, 2008 ken

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