Zmarties

Bloglines have made a number of interface changes, perhaps prompted by last week's introduction of Google Reader.

• The ability to step through posts using the keyboard (j - next article k - previous article s - next sub f - next folder A - read all r - refresh left pane)
• The "unread" count associated with each folder is now a two part number - the number of new messages, plus the number of "pinned" messages

The keyboard hotkeys are certainly one feature Google pushes hard, but not one I actually use. In many areas I'm a keyboard junkie - using a command prompt in preference to flashier but ultimately less useful visual tools most of the time, but for me, feed reading is an entirely mouse driven experience. This is where Bloglines, with its plain HTML rather than AJAX interface wins massively for me - the mouse wheel lets me scan through lots of posts very quickly since Bloglines presents the data in a long pane, with a standard scroll bar.

I pin a lot of messages, so the change to the way of presenting the count I find very useful. I'd like to take it a stage further, and have a way to just show me real new messages, without the pinned messages.

Update: The new features are now mentioned on the Bloglines About page.