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