tekArtist

parseMe is an extra light, browser-based, RSS/Atom feed reader you can use on truly any web-enabled device.

The emphasis is on usability with small screen devices, with a usually much slower connection speed, and altogether universal access. The main targets are mobile phones, PDAs, speech-to-text-to-speech engines, etc.

Download

• parseMe-v2.1-20070727.tar.gz: 21KB - Full app, tar/gzip archive.
• parseMe-v2.1-20070727.zip - 22KB - Full app, zip archive.
• parseMe-v2.1-20070727-SHA1SUM: File integrity signature.

Download location gracefully provided by Google Code Project Hosting.

All historical parseMe releases can be found at http://labs.tekartist.org/parseme/releases/, or starting with v2.1, on the related Google Code project page. You can also find detailed information about each release in the release log section.

Top 10 features

• Uses PHP (5.1+), XML, XHTML and CSS (no DB, Javascript, et al.).
• K.I.S.S.: typing-free user interface, selection-only user input.
• Outputs valid XHTML and CSS for maximum accessibility and portability.
• Uses server-side caching for the remote feeds, with an admin-defined refresh interval.
• Cleans and truncates the entries’ description when feeds publish full articles.
• User-defined page navigation to keep the output light for low memory devices.
• Offers multiple admin-defined source selections.
• Optionally integrates with the Google Mobile Gateway for remote links.
• Aims for advanced security in regards to user input, caching, etc.
• Cookie-based user preferences, dealt with on the server-side to not rely on Javascript.

Back story

Commuting by public transit, I enjoy spending some of that time catching up with the latest news. After trying a slew of options to do just that, what I found really fits my needs best is a simple news feed reader that I can easily access, and interact with, from my mobile phone’s browser. So I wrote and released my own take on it.

In parallel, I am also using the project as an exercise in universal accessibility and hyper-simplified user interaction, while reminding myself that in our days of broadband connections and ubiquitous net access, there are still countless contexts in which simplicity is truly better.

License

General Public License

parseMe: A lightweight RSS/Atom feed reader for mobile and accessibility devices.
Copyright (C) 2007 Stephane Daury http://stephane.daury.org/

parseMe is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

parseMe is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.