Questions and Answers

This is the Questions and Answers document. This should not be confused with a FAQ. These questions have not been asked at all, let alone frequently. They're just things that users may find interesting, but that didn't fit in on the other pages.

Platforms

1. Question: Will R3R run on Linux?
   Answer: Yes, it will. Check the Linux-specific questions if you have any trouble.
2. Question: Will R3R run on Windows?
   Answer: R3R should run on any NT-based version of Windows (including 2000, XP, Vista, and 7). However, I've been unsuccessful in getting it to work in 95/98/Millenium (if you have success stories or ways to make it work, please let me know).
3. Question: Will R3R run on MacOS X?
   Answer: I don't have access to MacOS X, but it should.
4. Question: How about FreeBSD, Macintosh, BeOS, etc?
   Answer: It should work with any *nix (I've only tested it on Linux and FreeBSD). The other two might have to wait until I get more portability (I don't think it will ever work with pre-OS X versions of Macintosh, since neither Free Pascal nor GNU Pascal support those versions).
5. Question: How do I subscribe to feeds in the TUI version?
   Answer: If the feed format supports a way to identify its resource (e.g. Atom and RSS 1.0 feeds do), you can just go to the feed and press the button bound to subscribing to feeds (by default, a). If not, go into your settings directory (~/.config/r3r on Linux; %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Application Data\r3r on Windows) and add the web address of any feed to which you wish to subscribe (one per line) to the subscriptions.txt file, and then go into your options and enable the load-subscriptions-on-startup option.

Linux Specific

1. Question: How do I open more than one item link with Mozilla?
   Answer: Use a startup script, such as the one below.

   #!/bin/sh
   
   NAME=mozilla-bin
   DIR=/usr/local/mozilla
   BIN=$DIR/$NAME
   
   export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$DIR:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
   
   cd $DIR
   
   if [ "`ps -e | grep $NAME`" ]
   then
     $BIN -remote "openURL($1, new-tab)"
   else
     $BIN $1 &
   fi

   (Note: Recent Mozilla browsers (like Firefox and SeaMonkey) will open up a window or tab (depending on your settings) automatically when invoked, making this script no longer necessary.)

Windows Specific

1. Question: Can I minimize R3R to the system tray?
   Answer: You can use something like RBTray or Trayer to do that.
2. Question: How do I uninstall R3R?
   Answer: Use the uninstall program (as via the Add/Remove Programs applet), then delete your settings. (Note: Don't uninstall it if you are upgrading, because the uninstaller will delete your settings from the registry.)

Features

1. Question: What feed formats does R3R support?
   Answer: See Choosing a Feed Format.
2. Question: When will R3R support a cool feature that I want?
   Answer: As soon as you code it. See the helping out document for more information about how to do this.
3. Question: Will R3R ever support secure HTTP, authentication, caching, and other HTTP features?
   Answer: Caching is supported. For the other things, see the previous question. But it's doubtful that any feeds require such things.
4. Question: RSS 3.0 is a joke (literally), so why does R3R support it?
   Answer: Where is it written that what free software does has to be useful? In fact, most software licenses disclaim obligatory usefulness. However, I like the idea of RSS 3.0, and its emergence inspired me to develop a unique piece of software. Later, I added support for other formats, which a working RSS 3.0 parser made relatively easy to implement.

Project General

1. What does R3R stand for?
   Answer: Originally, it was an admittedly uncreative abbreviation for "RSS 3 Reader." Though, in post-1.1.4, I decided to change the meaning to "Really Radical Reader for RSS" due to its support for XML-based RSS. Now that ESF and Atom formats are supported, starting with version 1.2.4 it doesn't mean anything.
2. Question: What's required to run R3R?
   Answer: Read the included documentation.
3. Question: Under which license is R3R distributed?
   Answer: It's released in the public domain (but it will soon be relicensed under GPLv3, due to using GPLv3-licensed libraries).