I would love either a Chrome or Firefox “unread” extension. There are quite a few for Google Reader, and it’s the only thing I’m missing now that I’ve switched to NewsBlur.
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How would the unread count work? There are three separate unread counts, and I can’t color the unread numbers in the tab title. Now, a browser extension would offer a bit more flexibility. If somebody were to build it, I’d be all ears and more than willing to help out in terms of adding selectors, offering an api endpoint for these counts, or something along those lines.
Not sure if this is the correct topic to post this on, but…
I’ve begun working on an extension using the API that shows an ‘unread feed’ count for the ‘total’ unread of all 3 types (positive, neutral, negative). And then opens the site when clicked on.
May add a popup later that shows links and descriptions of the feeds and ‘Mark Read’ buttons if possible.
I would be OK with a counter that would add positive and neutral counts. The main purpose would be to check if there are any new stories. Maybe an option could be added to switch between positive+neutral or just positive.
This extension can do this:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/newsblur-notifier/nnbhbdncokmmjheldobdfbmfpamelojh
Is there an equivalent for Firefox as well?
Maybe, but I don’t know. I only use chrome.
You can have a tab notifier for firefox, it shows an alert when the page changes. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tab-notifier/
Do you leave Newsblur open in a tab? Pinned or not, doesn’t matter. If you do you can use Tab badge
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tab-badge
Once installed you need to open about:config (type in URL bar), then right-click and create a new string. Name the string extensions.tabbadge.custom and set the value to {“newsblur.com”:"^(([0-9]{1,5})"} (if you use www. you need to add that).
This will give you an red badge on the tab if there are regular unread items, however, it will not count “important” items, since the addon will take any string it finds and and then convert it to an integer (number) which makes the / dividing regular and important number as well as the important number go away.
If you care for the important number you can use my modified version of it instead. I’ve modded it to work with Newsblur with not additional work, basically just allowed it to match a parenthesis with numbers and / inside and to not convert them to a number. Simple but effective.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/yju1xqhowm5yquf/tab_badge-1.21-fx-modded.xpi?dl=0
I’ll see about putting it up as a fork of the original addon on GitHub, makes it easier for people to see what exactly has been changed and to get updated version.
No, sorry, that’s mainly the point: I don’t want to open NewsBlur all the time or even have an open tab for it. I’m looking for an addon that adds just a button indicating how many unread items there are.
I wrote an extension for Firefox, based on the one I was using with the old Opera for years:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/newsblurcom-notifier/?src=search
It adds a toolbar button with the total-unread-count as a badge and neutral/positive-count in the tooltip.
That’s awesome! I installed it immediately and it works just as intended! Great job!