NewsGator right-click-subscribe for Firefox

Get the extension here. (You'll have to right-click -> Save Link to Disk... then execute.)

The thing that's finally got me off my arse and registered with SixApart's fancy blogging tool is Greg Reinacker's NewsGator. It's a fantastic tool, perfect for wasting less time loading blogs and more time reading them. It lacks, however, in the area of Mozilla integration.

I use Firefox as my primary browser (heh, what self-respecting wannabe geek doesn't these days?) but I still want the super-slick context-sensitive menu subscribe functionality available to those luddite Internet Explorer users. So I built it.

At some point I'll get approval for a new project on mozdev and will post the package to the Firefox extensions site, but in the meantime you can save it from here.

Feedback will be appreciated. Probably.

Comments

[Mike Strock]

I installed this extension tonight, but when I try to subscribe to a newsfeed, I get a message that says 'Unable to add subscription to Newsgator'. I did restart Firebird after I installed it.

I'm using Firefox vGecko/20040314 Firefox/0.8

Thoughts?

Thanks for this extension!

[stuandgravy]

Mike,

That sounds like a NewsGator error, which means that the extension is working and calling NGFeedExt.exe correctly.

NgSubscribe doesn't do any checking to see whether the link you've highlighted is actually an RSS feed: if it's not, then NewsGator will throw the error you've described.

An easy way to confirm if it's the extension would be to right-click copy the link location, then try to subscribe manually in NewsGator. If you don't see the same error there then we have an issue!

Let me know how you go.

[TorstenR]

Hey, cool! Just started to build in IE context menu extensions to support Rss Bandit users (http://www.rssbandit.org), then read your post, good timing :-)
One question: is it possible to make the extension working more general? Mean: instead calling a specific feed handler application, it would be cool if it just calles the default "feed:" protocol handler. This would make the extension more popular and re-usable.
If you don't like to modify it this way, can I do so?

[TorstenR]

Anyone considering problems with this implementation, may have a look at http://gemal.dk/archives/000497.html#comments

[Steve Harrington]

Sorry, I don't do "Right Click"

and

I don't speak Chinese without translation,
register centagrade readings without translation,
compute square roots without a calculator

or Windows bling-bling

[Brad Wilson]

This rocks!

How about a version for us NGOS (only) users? Instead of shelling out to NewsGator, it would open a new tab to the proper URL to initiate the subscription process. :-D

[stuandgravy]

TorstenR - it's a nice idea! I'll have a look into it.

Brad - sounds feasible. I'm not a NGOS subscriber, so I'm not sure what format the URL would have to take. I'll see if Greg's got any docs...

[David Belson]

Left-clicking on it in FireFox 0.8 (WinXP) gets me a screen full of gibberish characters. If I right-click and save to disk, and then double-click the file, Windows tells me it doesn't know what program created it. Am I missing something in order to get it to install properly? Thanks...

[David Belson]

Never mind -- I was able to drag the file onto the browser and get it to install. Looking forward to using it!

[Mike Strock]

I was able to right click on the link, say 'copy link location' and paste into Newsgator's dialog and get the feed added no problem.

I still can't get it to work from Firebird.

Windows XP Home, same version of Firebird as before. Outlook 2000.

Thoughts?

Thanks. Sorry to be a pain.

[stuandgravy]

Mike,

Another test: right-click copy the link location, then do Start -> Run -> "\NGFeedExt.exe" "

This is pretty much what the command the extension runs, so let me know the result.

[Greg Reinacker]

The NGOS subscription URL is:

http://services.newsgator.com/subscriber/subext.aspx?url=URL_GOES_HERE

Where "URL_GOES_HERE" is the actual feed URL.

[Mike strock]

I have some good news, and some bad news.

I got it to work.

How? I reformatted the drive and installed XP Pro.

Previously, I had been running XP Home (Windows 98 v3).

I was never able to get it to work under XP Home.

Im running the same version of Firefox that I was on XP Home.

I appreciate your help on this.

[Ferg]

Sheesh... This is a suprise stu.
Amazing what you can find on the web when you are not relly looking for anything. ;-)

[Tom]

This was working great prior to installing the 0.9 version of Firefox. Any ideas?

[Mark]

I can't get it to install under 0.9 either :-(

[Jason]

This doesn't seem to work for me. I get the same "unable to add..." error.

How do I uninstall?

Thanks much!

[stuandgravy]

I need to rebuild this for the new 0.9 extension engine. Will do so as soon as I get a chance...

Not sure what the problem you're having is Jason - which version of Firefox are you running?

[Marc Orchant]

Same problem here on Tablet PC 2005 (Win XP SP2 RC2) and Firefox 0.92. Feeds I know to be valid refuse to load. I do not see this extension listed in the Extensions manager to unload it.

What's your ETA on a 0.9x-compatible version?

[Marc Orchant]

Grant Carpenter has posted a modified version of the extension that does work in Forefox 0.92. Apparently only a minor tweak was required. I'm so glad to have this capability in Firefox. Thnaks to both Stu and Grant for making this happen!

Get the modifed version here:

http://xl8.net/blog/posts/907.aspx

[Brad Weslake]

The fix still doesn't work, at least for me, with 0.9. Will see what happens once upgraded to 0.92...

[Brad Weslake]

Well, seems to work fine with 0.92, though the error you get if NewsGator isn't already running is inelegant.

[Grant Carpenter]

What's the error you get when not running NG?

When you start the script, it actually executes a helper app that's separate from the main NG add-in. Not sure why running NG+Outlook would make a difference actually.

I just tried it after closing Outlook and it subscribed.

The thing could use some extensions menu support for install and uppdate.

[stuandgravy]

The extension could definitely do with more polish. If somebody else has more time than I do and wants to add 'proper' 0.9 extensions support, please go ahead. It'll be a while before I get to it.

[David Belson]

Does the extension support the new 1.0 release of Firefox? It's one of my most-used extensions, and I'm hesitant to upgrade to FF1.0 if I can't continue to use this extension. Thanks...