News Explorer 1.9.11 for macOS: Apple Silicon support
Version 1.9.11 of News Explorer for macOS is the first Betamagic app that runs natively on Apple Silicon Macs. The app is compiled as a so called Universal App, which means that the app runs natively on both Apple Silicon and Intel Macs.
Big Sur changes
The following changes are specific for macOS 11 users:
- Notification Center widgets: Widgets are very popular on iOS 14, and are also available in macOS 11 Big Sur. The impact on macOS 11 will likely be less, because the widgets are located in the Notification Center which is not, and cannot be made, permanently visible. The new News Explorer widgets in macOS 11 are nearly identical to the widgets that will be introduced in the next update of the iOS edition of News Explorer.
- New toolbar icons: Most toolbar icons are now replaced by variants of the SF Symbols collection. This is the standardized icon family designed by Apple, and with the introduction of Big Sur it′s now also available for macOS apps.
- Visual adjustments: A lot of other small changes have been made to make the user interface more compatible with the visual Big Sur changes. More dramatic changes are planned for News Explorer 2.0, which will use the full design language of Big Sur.
Common changes
The following changes are applicable to all macOS versions supported by this update:
- Twitter Card support in Twitter feeds: Some Twitter accounts produce Tweets with links pointing to web pages containing Twitter Card metadata. In the previous version of News Explorer, you saw only the link to the web page. Now you see a fully rendered Twitter Card, including image, title and description. Clicking the card will open the linked web page.
- Custom font selection: You can now select a custom font in the Reading section of the News Explorer Preferences. Just pull down the Font family dropdown, and choose Select custom font in the list. A special popup window will be presented with all local installed fonts. Selecting a font will immediately update the Article viewer.
- Delete notifications of read items: This is a new option in the General section of the News Explorer Preferences. When you mark an item as read in News Explorer, the related notification in the Notification Center will be removed, when this new setting is enabled.
- Group By Feed menu option lets you group articles in folders and filters on feed title, instead of publication or download date. This menu option is a sub item of the View menu.