Option to update only outdated feeds

[mgorny]

(I'm sorry if this is reported already but I couldn't find a bug using keywords I can think of)

Right now Liferea can either update all feeds on start (apparently ignoring refresh interval) or none. It has 'update all' option but not 'update outdated'. This is problematic for me for two reasons:

1. As I mentioned in #819, updating large number of feeds results in a number of failures. I'd use an option to retry just these feeds rather than bomb server with everything again, or have to request updates one by one.
2. I generally want to refresh my feeds once a day but sometimes run Liferea again and again just to add a single feed. In the latter case, it is entirely undesirable and inconvenient for it to update all feeds at startup (and delay adding the feed as a result). I could disable automatic feed updates at startup but then it'd be inconvenient for the former case (and Liferea really doesn't tell me 'you haven't updated your feeds yet', so if I forget...).

[lwindolf]

Hmmm there are multiple issues at work here

1.) I think the preference option needs rewording. The option is about catching up all out-dated feeds. 2.) The GUI shouldn't be so unresponsive that you cannot add a feed shortly after startup.

About 1.) I think you should enable the option because it does exactly what you intend to do (if I understand your use case correctly). It does catch up all outdated feed (outdated = now-last update time > update interval). Actually having the option disabled causes a reset of the last update time to avoid those feeds updating several seconds later when Liferea does the first peridioc update check (and would trigger all those feeds due to their missed update).

I believe this to be an UX issue. Please help me about what would need to be different to intuitively understand the underlying mechanism!

[mgorny]

Hmmm there are multiple issues at work here

1.) I think the preference option needs rewording. The option is about catching up all out-dated feeds. 2.) The GUI shouldn't be so unresponsive that you cannot add a feed shortly after startup.

Well, just to be clear, it isn't the GUI being unresponsive but that the feed seems to be queued for updating last. This means it won't be updated until all other feeds are updated (which I know 99% not to be outdated because I've closed Liferea 5 minutes earlier), and if others start erring out, it will not be updated correctly and won't get the feed title right.

About 1.) I think you should enable the option because it does exactly what you intend to do (if I understand your use case correctly). It does catch up all outdated feed (outdated = now-last update time > update interval).

I don't think so. I have it set to 6 hours. If I close Liferea after it updates all the feeds and start it again, it updates all the feeds again though 6 hours haven't passed. Furthermore, if I click 'update all' at least some of the feeds get 'has not changed' status while on exit/start they always get updated.

[lwindolf]

Thanks for the additional info. So it is a latency problem from the UX side and there might be a problem with update on startup also...

[rambit]

I have some comments for this rather old, but still open issue.

I too would like the Update all button to respect the individual settings you set per feed as Feed specific update interval of (X) (minutes|hours|days)

I do understand that the above option is an automatic update setting, as selecting the option below Don't update this feed automatically disables it, but I think it should be respected for all updates, including manual ones.

In my general options I have Update all subscriptions at startup disabled, and it is unclear to me if this option also disables the daemon that updates intervals while the app is open?

I still would like a Force update all option of course, so I don't know if that can be solved by 2 buttons (perhaps a drop-down button).

There are 2 reason why I prefer it this way. Number one is to limit bandwidth (many github feeds at once can cause throttling), and the second is that I check my feeds once per day, and most of them have just 1 or 2 posts, and each time I switch feed I need to adjust my mind to reading about a completely new topic. I would prefer for some feeds to accumulate maybe 5-10 posts before I dedicate time to reading them. I also open the app when I want to check feeds, and close it again after.

The last thing I want to add is that the Update all button should be disabled while an update is running. I don't know what happens if I click it multiple times, but i do it occasionally.