spacecowboy
Enhancement request for an indication that shows if an article is an excerpt/summary or the full article.
Checklist
- [x] I have used the search function for OPEN issues to see if someone else has already submitted the same feature request.
- [x] I have also used the search function for CLOSED issues to see if the feature was already implemented and is just waiting to be released, or if the feature was rejected.
- [x] I will describe the problem with as much detail as possible.
- [x] This request contains only one single feature, not a list of multiple (related) features.
App version
2.9.1
Where did you get the app from
Google Play
Feature or improvement you want
When viewing an article I would like to see an indication of whether it is a summary/excerpt or the full article.
Why should this be added?
Some feeds supply the entire article and others supply a summary or excerpt. I don't want to use the setting to fetch full articles by default. But some feeds have many very short articles and even though they are providing the full article, it looks like a summary - so when I am using the app and checking on multiple feeds, I never know if a short article is the full article or just a summary. I waste time needlessly pressing the button to fetch the full article when I already have it, and I look at too many feeds to remember which have summary articles and which don't. So I would like to see some indication on whether an article I am viewing is the full article or just an summary or excerpt and I can fetch the full article. This indication could be a highlight of the button that fetches the full article or preferably a button at the end of the article that says something like "fetch full article" when there is more to fetch.
Screenshots / Drawings / Technical details
No response
There is no way for the app to know this.
The solution is that when you identify that this feed is onöy excerpts, then you edit the feed and enable "parse full article by default"
https://www.w3schools.com/tags/ref_httpmethods.asp
"A HEAD request is useful for checking what a GET request will return before actually making a GET request - a HEAD request can read the Content-Length header to check the size of the file, without actually downloading the file."
When does "parse full article by default" happen? When the feed is updated (ie for every article) or when the article is viewed (ie only for viewed articles)? If the full article is parsed for every article when the feed is updated, then there would be an advantage if one didn't have to resort to using that feature.
There can be N kilobytes or irrelevant markup driving the content-size up. It can't be used reliably to determine anything.
If you feel otherwise, please show a proof of concept
When does "parse full article by default" happen?
When a feed is checked for updates. If there is an update, then articles which have not been fetched yet are downloaded
How about a setting next to "fetch full article by default" that says "fetch full article when displayed" and you could choose one or the other or neither?
How about a setting next to "fetch full article by default" that says "fetch full article when displayed" and you could choose one or the other or neither?
Why would you not want to have it done automatically in the background?
This is especially true in case you only want to sync on WiFi, and then are reading the articles without WiFi (or even in airplane mode)
I don't read articles off line, but I see your point - many people would do that.
But I don't want to use memory to store a full article unless I am about read it. And after I look at a summary/excerpt I might not want to fetch the full article.... ... So what about an option, near "fetch full article by default" that would say "show the fetch button at the end of articles" I would set that for feeds I know are summary/excerpts - and when I saw the fetch button at the end I would know I am looking at a summary/excerpt and I could decide if I want to fetch the full article.
I just want some way to know if an article I'm looking at is from a feed that only displays summary/excerpts, and I can indicate it some way in the settings for that feed, I don't need the software to figure that out for each feed since you say that is not practical. So even a setting like, "remind me articles are summary/excerpts" would be fine if it led to a message like that at the end of an article. I would use that setting for feeds I know are summary/excerpts. It is just annoying to have to try to figure out if I should try fetching the full article.
What you are asking for seems impossible to me. There is no way of determining this given the information available in a feed.
But regarding your desire not to waste memory:
Your phone has several gigabytes of storage. Potentially more than 100GB deoending on your model.
A parsed full article takes up around 1-10KB.
So you can store about a million articles before consuming 1% of your phone's storage. Just saying...