Tom Coates details some of the things that drive him insane in other people’s RSS feeds. I agree whole heartedly with the number one, I too know about all the points others are bound to mention against such a request but, well, things change and now it makes sense to have the complete text. It is especially annoying when the complete text is only a few words longer than the excerpt, I dont like to have to switch to the browser for four missing words.
As for the visual context, I might be the exception but for longer posts I go to the actual page anyway, at least I know how long it is, I can get a feel for what it is about and then I can then decide to read it “in context”. Some feeds dont include any formatting so you might lose paragraph separation, block quotes, etc. making it easier to read in their properly designed format.
Also related to how I read my feeds, I’ll often click 7-8 feeds to have them in tabs within Safari and then switch to the browser when I know I have a few to read. Two problems arise with this, actually one problem and a nice to have.
The problem is that if for whatever reason the browser is closed, could be because it “exploded”; something that doesn’t happen often (especially considering it’s still a beta) but does sometimes happen. Might be because I need to reboot or I could just need to do a shutdown. If it explodes I’m simply screwed, if I’m aware I have to close it down then I have to bookmark all pages in a folder I have for that purpose and then reopen all of them when I’m back. I’m told Opera has a “open as previous session” or something like that, I want that for Safari. Please.
The nice to have as to do with priorities I guess. Sometimes I have things I want to read but for whatever reason I only want or can get to them later. Why is it that I cant move the tabs around? A nice drag and drop feature would be fantastic, I could order them by priority or when working on a site I could have references on the left, pages I’m previewing and need to swap between I would keep on the right. Pretty anal but hey, I’d still like to have it.