Newsboat
========

Web browsers are a black hole of productivity. I try to use them as little as possible when it is time to focus. I try to use , , or with ipython, or --help...

Date: January 2, 2021

Web browsers are a black hole of productivity. I try to use them as little as
possible when it is time to focus. I try to use `help`, `?`, or `??` with
ipython, or --help at the command line as much as possible. What about that
time I am trying to see what my online friends are posting on their sites? I
used to used google reader quite heavily before that was taken down.

## Newsboat

I am going to give a terminal rss reader a try for a bit and see how that goes
for me. I have really struggled to get into an rss reader since google reader
died.

## installation

I installed with the reccomended snap for Ubuntu.

``` bash
sudo snap install newsboat
```

## Adding feeds

_super simple_

Running help for newsboat directed me towards their config files at the bottom.

``` bash
❯ newsboat --help
newsboat r2.22
usage: /snap/newsboat/3849/usr/local/bin/newsboat [-i |-e] [-u ] [-c ] [-x ...] [-h]
 -e, --export-to-opml export OPML feed to stdout
 -r, --refresh-on-start refresh feeds on start
 -i, --import-from-opml= import OPML file
 -u, --url-file= read RSS feed URLs from
 -c, --cache-file= use as cache file
 -C, --config-file= read configuration from
 -X, --vacuum compact the cache
 -x, --execute=... execute list of commands
 -q, --quiet quiet startup
 -v, --version get version information
 -l, --log-level= write a log with a certain loglevel (valid values: 1 to 6)
 -d, --log-file= use as output log file
 -E, --export-to-file= export list of read articles to
 -I, --import-from-file= import list of read articles from
 -h, --help this help
 --cleanup remove unreferenced items from cache

Files:
 - configuration: /home/nic/snap/newsboat/3849/.newsboat/config
 - feed URLs: /home/nic/snap/newsboat/3849/.newsboat/urls
 - cache: /home/nic/snap/newsboat/3849/.newsboat/cache.db

Support at #newsboat at https://freenode.net or on our mailing list https://groups.google.com/g/newsboat
For more information, check out https://newsboat.org/
```

I just need to edit its urls file.

``` bash
nvim ~/snap/newsboat/3849/.newsboat/urls
```

The Urls file is just a list of urls to rss feeds. Adding mine in allowed me to see all of my posts.

``` bash
https://waylonwalker.com/rss.xml
```

## Config

I took most of my config from a [blog
post](https://evantravers.com/articles/2020/04/15/reworking-my-rss-reading/)
that I found by Evan Travers. It set some sane defaults to the reading width
and vim keys.

``` bash
# https://evantravers.com/articles/2020/04/15/reworking-my-rss-reading/
# Hide feeds where all the items are read.
show-read-feeds no

# Make the text width readable
text-width 50

# Use multiple threads to download all the news faster.
reload-threads 11

# browser ~/bin/newsboat-browser.sh
# browser "/usr/bin/brave-browser %u"

# unbind keys
unbind-key ENTER
unbind-key j
unbind-key k
unbind-key J
unbind-key K
unbind-key ^D
unbind-key ^U
unbind-key o
unbind-key g
unbind-key G

# bind keys - vim style
bind-key j down
bind-key k up
bind-key l open
bind-key h quit
bind-key ^D pagedown
bind-key ^U pageup
bind-key b toggle-source-view
bind-key U toggle-show-read-feeds
bind-key u show-urls
bind-key g home
bind-key G end
bind-key b open-in-browser-and-mark-read
bind-key B open-in-browser
bind-key i sort
bind-key I rev-sort
```

## GUI Browser

No matter how many different guides I tried I keedp getting `error code 127`
when trying to `open-in-browser`. Please let me know if you know how to fix
this. For now I am just going to roll with it.

## Here's how it looks

![newsboat feed](https://images.waylonwalker.com/newsboat-feed-waylonwalker-com.png)

> browsing a feed in newsboat

![newsboat article](https://images.waylonwalker.com/newsboat-article.png)

> reading an article in newsboat