How to force Safari 5 to display the RSS button instead of Reader

Question

Since Safari 5 introduced the "Reader" feature, the "RSS" button has become very inaccessible for users. (Holding down the mouse button brings up the feed subscription popup if a site provides feeds).
For some pages of my blog (index and archive) I would like to display the "RSS" button as default for two reasons:

Feed subscription makes more sense for those pages
My design is already "readable" (it almost looks identical to the page Safari Reader renders)

There is already a SO question that deals with that topic, but I want to achieve the opposite of the OP so I opened a new question.

Note: e.g. stackoverflow.com shows the RSS icon and does not trigger the Reader feature but I couldn't figure out why.

I thought the Reader and RSS buttons were independent? The RSS button appears for me everywhere it appeared before, I thought... Now I'll have to go check! I certainly frequently subscribe using the RSS button in the URL bar, and I've never heard of the technique of having to hold a mouse button down. — Matt Gibson, Mar 24 '11 at 10:50
No they aren't. Safari displays "Reader" per default if both are available. Holding down the mouse displays "Reader" & "RSS" on sites that provide feeds. (at least on Mac OS X) — Thomas Zoechling, Mar 24 '11 at 14:59

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 22 '11 at 19:33

After further investigation it turned out that Safari automatically does the right thing.
It displays the RSS button if a page has the typical structure of an index page:

<div>
     <div>
       <h1>A</h1>
       <p>Lorem ipsum...</p>
     </div>
     <div>
       <h1>B</h1>
       <p>Lorem ipsum...</p>
     </div>
     <div>
       <h1>C</h1>
       <p>Lorem ipsum...</p>
     </div>
  </div>

and the Reader button if it has the structure of a single entry:

<div>
   <h1>A</h1>
   <p>Lorem ipsum...</p>
</div>

The problem with my index testpage was, that it didn't contain enough entries and not enough text.
This is a blog post, that sums up the elements that trigger Safaris Reader button: http://mathiasbynens.be/notes/safari-reader

How to force Safari 5 to display the RSS button instead of Reader

1 Answers1