ViennaRSS / vienna-rss

Vienna is a free and open-source RSS/Atom newsreader for macOS.
https://www.vienna-rss.com
Apache License 2.0
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updated dates taking precendence over published even when setting is turned off #1749

Open minusf opened 4 months ago

minusf commented 4 months ago

Describe the bug updated dates taking precendence over published even when setting is turned off

To Reproduce

  1. Mark updated articles as new setting turned off, set order by date descdencing
  2. get a youtube feed
  3. get updated content sorted in front of later published content.

Screenshots

xml to test: https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?playlist_id=UULF21uZkfXpT8rPY-gPgMiCwA

Screenshot 2024-05-06 at 17 40 44

Please complete the following information:

Additional information: In which version of Vienna does the problem not occur, if applicable.

barijaona commented 3 months ago

I acknowledge the problem. RSS specifications do not differentiate between publication date and modification/update date. Atom and JSON Feed specifications have the distinction, but Vienna's architecture hasn't changed to handle the distinction. Vienna just takes the most recent date, which is likely to be the <updated> date.

I am undecided on what to do: is the distinction important enough to justify an increase of database size?

TAKeanice commented 3 months ago

I think one additional date value can't hurt any proper database

Eitot commented 3 months ago

I think it makes sense to have both fields.

minusf commented 3 months ago

Some creators go back and keep changing their content. It is debatable if this should result in bumping the content to the front again, but for exactly this reason if the RSS feed provides the distinction, the app should too...

barijaona commented 3 months ago

I think one additional date value can't hurt any proper database

It's not just an additional field in the database, I am also thinking about how this should affect the user interface.

In fact, since 2006 😱 (commit ad60f21 for version 2.1.0), the messages table includes a createddate field, but this is barely used and its only impact for end users is the existence of the "Last Refresh" filter.

Let's take an analogy : since OS X, Apple's filesystem handles multiple dates for files : creation date, date added, last modification date, last access date… However, for a long time, Apple's Finder only displayed the 'last modification' date. As far as I remember, display of the other dates or use of them for sorting has been added relatively recently and these features are only discreetly put forth in the user interface.

In my opinion, Vienna's philosophy is similar to Apple's one : hide complexity as much as possible. I am therefore tempted to add a "sort by created date" option, but continue to display only the "last update date" in the article list. Apart from the "keep it simple and stupid" philosophy, there are other reasons behind this:

Eitot commented 3 months ago

I am concerned that users might not understand what "created date" means in this context (maybe "date added" or "date fetched" instead?) and that they cannot see that date anywhere. What would be the harm of adding another column that is not visible by default?

Maybe Vienna should be clearer about which date it shows, e.g. by changing the label from simply "date" to "date published/modified"?