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+#+TITLE: The 98% perfect RSS solution
+#+DATE: 2012-11-30 10:00
+#+TAGS: rss emacs gnus gwene tt-rss avandu
+
+* Test
+
+ I've been looking for the "perfect" RSS reading solution for a while
+ and I just got this idea for a setup that has to be about 98% of all
+ I'm looking for.
+
+ The things I'm looking for are:
+
+ - Emacs interface. This isn't that big a problem since anything
+ with an API can be made to have such an interface, and I feel
+ comfortable enough with Emacs Lisp to write it myself if I have
+ to, like I was doing with [[http://code.ryuslash.org/cgit.cgi/emacs/avandu/][avandu]], but then it /does/ need a(n/ good)
+ API.
+
+ - Unbound to a single computer. It's a hassle to have to remember
+ what you have and haven't read. If it was easy your RSS reader
+ wouldn't care about (un)read items, everything would just be
+ "items". So sharing that state between computers is pretty
+ important.
+
+ - A server. Something that keeps running 24/7. Or at least the
+ closest possible approximation of that. It's no good to miss
+ everything that happens between 11pm and 9am just because you
+ don't have your feed reader running. Of course this is only a
+ problem if you're following some high-traffic feeds, but they
+ exist too.
+
+ - Runs locally. The nice thing about having shell access to a
+ server somewhere that someone else keeps online for you is the
+ possibility to run something like [[http://newsbeuter.org/][newsbeuter]] and just
+ (de/reat)tach from whichever computer you're working on. The
+ downside is, though, that this breaks pretty much all integration
+ with your desktop. Opening URLs becomes a reliance on your
+ terminal emulator's ability to parse and open them. Viewing media
+ such as images, or audio files from a podcast, turns into ~Save,
+ Transfer, Open~ instead of just the ~Open~.
+
+ - Handles big feed lists. Even if you only read five feeds, the day
+ may come you'll be reading fifty, or even much more. A piece of
+ software that handles this well is a must. This is the problem I
+ had with [[http://codezen.org/canto/][canto]] and Emacs' [[http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/NewsTicker][newsticker]]. *canto* looked awesome, the
+ most interesting interface to RSS feeds I have come across so far,
+ but back when I tried it trying to read my collection of feeds
+ would lock-up my computer. *newsticker* would lock-up my emacs
+ session for 10-20 minutes.
+
+ Now though I have found something that does it all. It is actually
+ a twist on something I used some time ago.
+
+ *Emacs* + [[http://gnus.org/][Gnus]] + [[http://gwene.org/][Gwene]] + [[http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/][unison]]. Not the easiest thing to set-up
+ perhaps, but once *Emacs* + *Gnus* is in place the rest is a piece of
+ cake.
+
+ *Gwene* is an awesome service that turns RSS feeds into
+ newsgroups. *unison* is an awesome piece of software for
+ synchronising files between different computers. *Gnus* is a real
+ newsreader. *Emacs* is what *Gnus* runs on.
+
+ So it's kind-of like cheating. *Gnus* is not unbound to a single
+ computer and *Gwene* doesn't offer server-side state tracking either.
+ But because *Gnus* uses a single file to store state about all of its
+ subscribed groups, this makes it a good candidate for sharing that
+ one file. This is not something unique to *Gnus*, at least [[http://www.slrn.org/][slrn]] uses
+ the same kind of file, the ~.newsrc~ file (or in *Gnus*' case
+ ~.newsrc.eld~).
+
+ So I register the feeds I want to follow with *Gwene*, if they aren't
+ already registered. I subscribe to the resulting newsgroups on
+ ~news.gwene.org~ with *Gnus* and when I switch over to another computer
+ I use *unison* to synchronise the ~.newsrc.eld~ file.
+
+ An example configuration of *Gnus* could just be as simple as:
+
+ #+BEGIN_SRC emacs-lisp
+ (setq gnus-select-method '(nntp "news.gwene.org"))
+ #+END_SRC
+
+ *unison* just needs:
+
+ #+BEGIN_EXAMPLE
+ root=/your/home/dir/
+ root=/your/server/root/
+ path=.newsrc.eld
+ #+END_EXAMPLE
+
+ And that's about it.
+
+ Now it's still not 100% perfect. I've seen that *Gwene* can't handle
+ 100% of the feeds I throw at it, but these can be fixed either by
+ contacting the people publishing them or by improving *Gwene*'s
+ parser. It also doesn't automatically check periodicaly, though I
+ think *Gnus* can be set-up to do that, but since I also use it to read
+ my mail (again) that's not really an issue. It also isn't
+ accessible without *Emacs*, *Gnus* and *Unison*, but I hate web-interfaces
+ anyway.
+
+ So that's it. My 98% perfect RSS reading solution.