Sources

A modern macOS RSS Reader app built with SwiftUI

Features

Phase 1 - MVP ✅

✅ Three-Panel Layout

• Left panel: Feed list with unread counts
• Middle panel: Article list with sorting and filtering
• Right panel: Article viewer with integrated WebKit

✅ Feed Management

• Add feeds by URL with auto-discovery
• Refresh individual or all feeds
• Delete feeds with context menu
• Visual feed icons and unread badges
• Folder organization for feeds
• Multi-select for bulk operations (move, delete)

✅ Article Reading

• Clean WebKit-based article rendering
• Automatic read status tracking
• Manual mark as read/unread
• Share and open in browser
• Dark mode support

✅ Data Persistence

• SwiftData for local storage
• Efficient relationship management
• Automatic cascading deletes

✅ User Experience

• Keyboard shortcuts (⌘N, ⌘R, ⌘O, j/k/u)
• Context menus for quick actions
• Sorting (newest/oldest/title)
• Filter by unread status
• Relative timestamps

Phase 2 - Core Features ✅

✅ Smart Folders

• All Feeds - View all articles across feeds
• Unread - Quick access to unread articles
• Starred - Saved articles for later reference
• Recent - Articles from last 1 day, 7 days, or custom date range

✅ Full-Text Search

• Search across article titles, content, summaries, and authors
• Real-time filtering as you type
• Works with all views (feeds, smart folders)

✅ Auto-Refresh

• Configurable automatic refresh intervals
• Settings window with enable/disable toggle
• Choose refresh frequency (5, 15, 30, 60 minutes)
• Background timer-based refresh

✅ Enhanced Menu Bar & Keyboard Shortcuts

• File Menu: ⌘N (Add Feed), ⇧⌘N (Add Folder), ⌥⌘I (Import OPML), ⌥⌘E (Export OPML)
• Edit Menu: ⌘A (Select All), ⌘D (Deselect All)
• View Menu: ⌘1-4 (Smart Folders), ⌘F (Focus Search)
• Article Menu: ⌘U (Toggle Read), ⌘S (Toggle Star), ⇧⌘M (Mark All Read), ⌘O (Open in Browser), ⇧⌘C (Copy Link), ⇧⌘S (Share)
• Feed Menu: ⌘R (Refresh All), ⇧⌘R (Refresh Selected), ⌘E (Edit Feed), ⌘⌫ (Delete Feed)
• Full native macOS menu bar with keyboard-driven navigation
• Arrow keys for article navigation

✅ OPML Import/Export

• Import feeds from other RSS readers
• Export your feed collection
• Preserves folder structure
• Non-blocking background import
• Security-scoped file access

Project Structure

Sources/
├── SourcesApp.swift              # App entry point
├── Models/
│   ├── Feed.swift                # RSS feed model
│   ├── Article.swift             # Article model with starred status
│   ├── Folder.swift              # Feed folder organization
│   ├── AppSettings.swift         # User preferences & cache settings
│   └── OPMLDocument.swift        # OPML file document
├── ViewModels/
│   ├── FeedListViewModel.swift   # Feed management, OPML, folders
│   └── ArticleListViewModel.swift # Article list, search, smart folders
├── Views/
│   ├── ContentView.swift         # Main 3-panel layout
│   ├── SidebarView.swift         # Feed list with smart folders
│   ├── ArticleListView.swift     # Article list with search
│   ├── ArticleDetailView.swift   # Article viewer (Panel 3)
│   └── SettingsView.swift        # App preferences window
└── Services/
    ├── FeedParser.swift          # RSS/Atom XML parsing
    ├── FeedFetcher.swift         # Network fetching
    ├── OPMLParser.swift          # OPML import parser
    ├── OPMLExporter.swift        # OPML export generator
    └── CacheManager.swift        # Article cache with LRU eviction

Requirements

• macOS 14.0 or later
• Xcode 15.0 or later
• Swift 5.9 or later

Getting Started

1. Open Sources.xcodeproj in Xcode
2. Select your development team in the project settings (if needed)
3. Build and run (⌘R)

Usage

Adding Feeds

1. Click the + button in the sidebar or press ⌘N
2. Enter a feed URL or website URL (auto-discovery will find the feed)
3. Click Add

Example feeds to try:

• https://daringfireball.net/feeds/main
• https://blog.swift.org/feed.xml
• https://www.theverge.com/rss/index.xml

Managing Feeds & Folders

• Add Folder: Click + → Add Folder or press ⇧⌘N
• View Folder Contents: Click on folder name to see unified list of all articles from contained feeds
• Move to Folder: Right-click feed → Move to Folder
• Collapse Folders: Click disclosure triangle to collapse/expand folders (state persists across app launches)
• Multi-Select: Click + → Select Feeds, then ⌘-click to select multiple
• Bulk Move/Delete: Select multiple feeds, right-click for bulk actions
• Mark All as Read: Right-click on folders, feeds, or smart folders for bulk mark as read
• Refresh: Right-click feed → Refresh, or ⌘R for all feeds
• Delete: Right-click → Delete

Smart Folders

• All Feeds: View all articles from all feeds
• Unread: Quick access to unread articles
• Starred: View all starred/saved articles
• Recent: Filter by date range with segmented tabs (1 day, 7 days, or custom date range)

Starring Articles

• Star/Unstar: Click star button in toolbar or press s
• Starred Folder: Access all starred articles from smart folders
• Star Badge: Yellow star indicator on starred articles in list
• Starred status is independent of read/unread

Searching

• Use the search bar at the top of the article list
• Searches across titles, content, summaries, and authors
• Works with feeds and smart folders
• Debounced search (300ms) for optimal performance

Reading Articles

• Click on any article in the middle panel to view it
• Articles are automatically marked as read when viewed
• Use toolbar buttons to toggle read/unread, star, share, or open in browser
• Navigate with arrow keys or use keyboard shortcuts: ⌘U (toggle read), ⌘S (toggle star)

Filtering & Sorting

• Sort: Click sort icon in toolbar to choose newest first, oldest first, or by title
• Unread Filter: Click circle icon in toolbar to toggle unread-only view (turns blue when active)
• Mark All Read: Click checkmark icon in toolbar
• Date Grouping: Articles automatically grouped by "Today", "Yesterday", and specific dates

OPML Import/Export

• Import: Click + → Import OPML (⌘O)
• Export: Click + → Export OPML
• Preserves folder structure and organization

Settings

• Access via Sources → Settings or ⌘,
• Auto-Refresh: Enable auto-refresh and set interval (5-60 minutes)
• Cache Management:
  • Set cache size limits (50MB - 1GB or unlimited)
  • Set cache age limits (7-90 days or never expire)
  • View cache statistics (size, article count, last cleanup)
  • Clear cache manually with confirmation
  • Automatic cache cleanup on app startup and settings changes
• Article List Appearance:
  • Set excerpt length (None, 1 line, or 2 lines of preview text)
• Settings persist across app launches

Architecture

SwiftUI + SwiftData: Modern declarative UI with efficient data persistence

MVVM Pattern: Clear separation between views and business logic

Async/Await: Native Swift concurrency for network operations

RSS/Atom Support: Custom XML parser supporting both feed formats

Performance Optimizations: Database-level predicates, search debouncing, query limits, optimized image loading

Roadmap

Phase 3 - Polish & Enhancements

• Starred/favorite articles
• Article cache management
• Enhanced macOS Menu Bar support
• Performance optimizations for large feeds
• Collapsible folders with persistent state
• Clickable folders for unified article view
• Mark All as Read (folders, feeds, smart folders)
• Enhanced article list UI (date grouping, exposed filters, feed names)
• Customizable excerpt length
• Feed update notifications
• Custom themes and appearance options
• macOS integration (Spotlight, Handoff)
• iCloud sync

Performance

• Database-level predicate filtering for efficient queries
• 300ms search debouncing to reduce query load while typing
• Fetch limit of 1000 articles per view for optimal memory usage
• Optimized image loading with proper phase handling and fallbacks
• Unique constraint on Article IDs to prevent duplicates

Known Limitations

• No podcast/audio enclosure support yet
• No iCloud sync
• Article images still require network (only HTML content is cached)
• Smart folder counts update on app restart
• Text search uses in-memory filtering (database can't efficiently do case-insensitive contains)

License

See LICENSE file for details.