September 5, 2007

Google Reader Adds Search

As mentioned in the previous post, Google Reader is now mature. But how could it mature be without having a search feature? The wait is over: Google Reader finally added search.


You can search all your feeds, the feeds from a folder or the posts from a single feed. In fact, you can perform two searches: one for a folder or feed and another search for the posts that contain some keywords and are from the folder or feed you've previously selected. The results are sorted by date and it takes a couple of seconds for them to show up.


It's easy to navigate using keyboard shortcuts: j for the next item, k for the previous item, Enter to read the full post and to go back to the search results, v to go to the original site.

Some small complaints: it would be nice to search the current folder or feed without having to manually select it from the list; there's a noticeable lag so search is anything but fast; when restricting the search to starred items you can't find the post you've starred one minute ago; some advanced search features would be useful (restricting to an author, a date range, posts that have enclosures). Ranking search results by relevance (with a slight bit of personalization) and clustering them à la Google News would dramatically improve the search experience, but I'm probably a nitpicker. What's important is that Google Reader has a way to search your feeds.

Update: For about a day, Opera users saw new Google Reader interface, specially designed for their innovative-but-not-very-popular browser:

24 comments:

  1. how do you do to have colour in Google reader (see the first photo) ? Greasemonkey + Script
    thank you for the answer

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  2. thank you for the link ;-)

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  3. You got a feed-list of ex-googlers ! LoL ! Would love get that OPML file.

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  4. Wonderful! Now it's definitively the best choice for reading feeds... ;)

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  5. I thank GOD for these changes coming into Google Reader. Probably got jolted by the new, superfast and feature rich bloglines beta. Even Google needs a dose of competitionomicine.

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  6. @Anjanesh:

    There aren't too many Xooglers in my folder, but here's the OPML.

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  7. To bad that all junk-feeds I already deleted, shows up in searches. How do I delete it this time?

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  8. I'm surprised there's no option to search the web from that box. Not complaining, there's just usually a Google Search box with any other search box in a Google product (see: GMail, GCal, GDocs, etc).

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  9. Phew. It's about stinkin time. Wonder if they will throw that as a option to Google's main search (i.e. reader:new messages)

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  10. "Search for '' has no items."
    "Oops...an error occurred. Please try again in a few seconds."

    Looks like if I try to search nothing a bit later, everything will be alright :)

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  11. We've now fixed the Opera bug, Reader should be usable again in that browser.

    Mihai Parparita
    Google Reader Engineer

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  12. Opera 9.5 still doesn't work with new Google Reader. There is only narrow blue line (see screen picture

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  13. The search does not work offline w/ Gears. I guess you can't have everything. Will have to use that old hack which ran sqlite queries on the database.

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  14. This is a great addition! If you can now come up with a way for me to sync my iGoogle feeds (about 100) with my Reader feeds (about 200) - then it's a perfect product!

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  15. I'm glad Matt Cutts (Is he the chief of GReader?) took note of that Opera post on your blog. It sure went a long way in Google stopping people from using Opera.

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  16. I have been waiting so long for the add on...it is Christmas having come early.

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  17. sighs, why don't they integrate the google reader into gmail?

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  18. I'm surfing with Opera Browser, and here crach again. Are your thinking nice this? Not is important my browser. The Google MUST function in everys. Get this to function!

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  19. So? Any news about Opera 9.5?
    If it wouldn't be supported I would like to have sincere answer.

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  20. It's crash on opera 9.23 so, before these great new feature the reader works perfectly with opera.

    Thanks!

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  21. completely off-topic here, *but* does anybody know if there is a way to rename the tags in gReader?? thanx :)

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  22. sir tell me about this info how to add more adds in my site

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  23. How to search by date? I mean, I need to see all my feeds in my Greader from 20 of may till 19 of July. Unfortunately gReader archives some feeds. For example. I didn't check my gReader for 1 month (20/05 - 19/07)and some of my feeds show that they have only 1000+, but when i finished reading that 1000+ I discovered that they end with 15/06(date) that means that gReader archived older feeds from 20/05 till 15/06 (even though they were unread). SO I want to catch up with that and is it possible to disable to archive new messages????

    Thanks in advance....

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