UPDATE: A few folks have written (see the comments for the kind contributors) to indicate the path has changed:

file:///Users/USERNAME/Library/Application Support/Feedly/feedly/safari.htm

This post will demonstrate how to make a Fluid app for Feedly (for Safari) and includes a handy application that will make getting Feedly and keeping up with Feedly updates much easier for the average Mac user. Everything has been tested on OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) but it all should work on OS X 10.5 (Leopard) (I did not deliberately build anything 64-bit only).

What is Feedly?

If you are not familiar with Feedly, it is a clever bit of HTML, Javascript and graphic design that turns your Google Reader & Twitter browsing activities into more of a magazine-reading experience. Their site does a great job explaining and presenting the experience, so head there first if you aren't familiar with it. If you agree that makes those two services much easier on the eyes, read on to make it easier on the workflow.

Why Go Through All This Trouble?

The Feedly crew have built a great Firefox add-on that does all the heavy-lifting for that browser. The same cannot be said for their Safari or Chrome experimental ports. As I still use Safari (WebKit nightlies, actually) as my primary browser and really like keeping web-apps like Google Reader in a Fluid application it only made sense to build a way to keep the Safari version updated regularly and make building a Fluid version dirt-simple.

Step 1

You'll first need to grab Feedly Updater which will help you setup your Feedly environment so you can build your Fluid app. It is just an Automator app-wrapper around this shell script. More advanced users can follow the launchd example in a recent blog post to make updates automatic.

Once you download the app, launch it and — if you have Growl installed — you will see a notification that Feedly has been downloaded. The app/script performs the following actions:

• Creates a Feedly directory under ~/Library/Application Support
• Downloads the Feedly for Safari archive and uncompresses it
• Grabs an app-icon I threw together for the Fluid app you will be building (I could really use a prettier one :-)

Here's what your Application Support directory should contain after the update has been run:

Whenever the Feedly team (follow @feedly_safari for notifications) team updates their code, just run the Feedly Updater app to replace the files with the most current version.

Without this helper app, you'd need to download and expand/overwrite the files by hand.

Step 2

If you do not have Fluid, grab a copy and install/run it. Here are the initial parameters for the main Fluid dialog:

Replace URL with file:///Users/USERNAME/Library/Application Support/Feedly/safari/safari.html where USERNAME is the short version of your OS X login name. To use my icon, built from the @fluid_safari avatar, instead of the generic Fluid one, select the icon popup, choose "Other...", navigate to the /Users/USERNAME/Library/Application Support/Feedly/ directory and select Feedly.icns:

Let Fluid work it's magic and then run the new Feedly app, located in your /Applications folder. You should see Feedly running as a Fluid app with your Google Reader & Twitter content (provided you have logged in recently):

(click to enlarge)

Enhancements

As stated previously, the experience can be further enhanced by automating the updates. The script is intelligent and will not download a new version if it has not changed since the last update, so if you schedule updates either via launchd or through iCal you won't be wasting the bandwidth of the Feedly team.

The app icon really needs work and I have no graphic abilities whatsoever. So, if you like this, want to help and are graphically inclined, just shoot an e-mail to bob at rudis dot net.

Feel free to use the comments for suggestions, accolades or fixes since this was yet-another quick hack and no doubt has much room for improvement. Keep watching the blog or my twitter updates (@hrbrmstr) if you want to keep abreast of changes/updates.