Optimizing Your Site for NetNewsWire 4
On September 3, Black Pixel released NetNewsWire 4 for Mac and iOS. It’s proving popular with both existing and new users alike. If your site doesn’t yet work in NetNewsWire, or looks less than ideal in the application, we’re here to help you out.
Feed Format
Consider supporting the RSS or Atom publishing standards on your site if you don’t already. These are the formats NetNewsWire depends on to access a site. You can choose either, but you must support at least one or NetNewsWire will refuse to add your site when requested. Most content management systems offer ways to automatically populate an RSS or Atom feed for you; for example, WordPress supports them by default.
Favicon
Make sure your site’s favicon (the favorite or bookmark icon that a browser displays for your site) has a resolution of at least 64-by-64 pixels. This will keep your site’s visuals looking as sharp as possible on retina devices — even when seen outside of NetNewsWire — and presents a more professional impression.
Markup
Use basic, “semantic” markup in your RSS or Atom feed if you can. “Semantic” means using HTML tags to describe components for what they are. If part of your article is a list, wrap it in a list tag (<ul> or <ol>). If you’re using a quote, wrap it in <blockquote>. Most importantly, do not attempt to use the line break element (<br> or <br />) to enforce page layout. Some site authors get very carried away with this element, performing tricks which translate badly to NetNewsWire’s display. For that reason, it has proved necessary not to honor line breaks at all.
Instead, wrap paragraphs with the paragraph tag (<p>). We’ll make your site look great, we promise.
Styles
Be aware that inline styling will be ignored. NetNewsWire takes a very opinionated approach to article presentation, with a strong focus on readability. Any CSS attributes applied directly to page elements will not show in the app.
It’s a good idea to review how your site’s articles look in NetNewsWire. You can download a free trial of NetNewsWire for Mac today and use it to subscribe to your own site.
