site/posts/98_perfect_rss_solution.mdwn

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
  [avandu](http://code.ryuslash.org/cgit.cgi/emacs/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 [newsbeuter](http://newsbeuter.org/) 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 [canto](http://codezen.org/canto/) and Emacs'
  [newsticker](http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/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* + [Gnus](http://gnus.org/) + [Gwene](http://gwene.org/) +
[unison](http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/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
[slrn](http://www.slrn.org/) 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:

[[!format el """
(setq gnus-select-method '(nntp "news.gwene.org"))
"""]]

*unison* just needs:

    root=/your/home/dir/
    root=/your/server/root/
    path=.newsrc.eld

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.

[[!meta title="The 98% perfect RSS solution"]]
[[!tag rss emacs gnus gwene tt-rss avandu]]