README.md

elfeed-protocol

Provide extra protocols to make self-hosting RSS readers works with elfeed, including Nextcloud/ownCloud News, Tiny Tiny RSS, NewsBlur and even more.

Installation through MELPA

;; Install through package manager
M-x package-install <ENTER>
elfeed-protocol <ENTER>

Initialization

Setup elfeed-protocol, then switch to search view and and press G to update entries:

;; curl recommend
(setq elfeed-use-curl t)
(elfeed-set-timeout 36000)
(setq elfeed-curl-extra-arguments '("--insecure")) ;necessary for https without a trust certificate

;; setup extra protocol feeds
(setq elfeed-feeds '(
                     ;; format 1
                     "owncloud+https://user1:[email protected]"

                     ;; format 2, for password with special characters
                     ("owncloud+https://[email protected]"
                      :password "password/with|special@characters:")

                     ;; format 3, for password in file
                     ("owncloud+https://[email protected]"
                      :password-file "~/.password")

                     ;; format 4, for password in .authinfo, ensure (auth-source-search :host "myhost.com" :port "443" :user "user4") exists
                     ("owncloud+https://[email protected]"
                      :use-authinfo t)

                     ;; format 5, for password in gnome-keyring
                     ("owncloud+https://[email protected]"
                      :password (shell-command-to-string "secret-tool lookup attribute value"))

                     ;; format 5, for password in pass(1), using password-store.el
                     ("owncloud+https://[email protected]"
                      :password (password-store-get "owncloud/app-pass"))

                     ;; use autotags
                     ("owncloud+https://[email protected]"
                      :password "password"
                      :autotags '(("example.com" comic)))))
(elfeed-protocol-enable)

To make elfeed-org tag rules works together with elfeed-protocol, just add a after advice for elfeed:

(defadvice elfeed (after configure-elfeed-feeds activate)
  "Make elfeed-org autotags rules works with elfeed-protocol."
  (setq elfeed-protocol-tags elfeed-feeds)
  (setq elfeed-feeds (list
                      (list "owncloud+https://[email protected]"
                            :password '(password-store-get "owncloud/app-pass")
                            :autotags elfeed-protocol-tags))))

Protocol Details

owncloud (ownCloud News)

1. Fetch articles with the modified time by default
2. Support sync unread and starred tags, the starred tag name defined in elfeed-protocol-owncloud-star-tag which default value is star. For example, if user add star tag to one article, the star stat will be sync to server, too
3. Support multiple fetching methods:
   • elfeed-protocol-owncloud-update-since-timestamp
   • elfeed-protocol-owncloud-update-since-id
   • elfeed-protocol-owncloud-update-older

Example:

(setq elfeed-protocol-owncloud-maxsize 1000)
(setq elfeed-feeds (list
                    "owncloud+https://user1:[email protected]"
                    (list "owncloud+https://[email protected]"
                          :password "password/with|special@characters:"
                          :autotags '(("example.com" comic)))))

ttrss (Tiny Tiny RSS, requires version: 1.7.6)

1. Fetch articles by the entry ID
2. Fetch tags in remote
3. Support sync unread, starred and published tags, the starred tag name defined in elfeed-protocol-ttrss-star-tag which default value is star, and the published tag name defined in elfeed-protocol-ttrss-publish-tag which default value is publish
4. Support multiple fetching methods:
   • elfeed-protocol-ttrss-update-older
   • elfeed-protocol-ttrss-update-star

NOTE: For Tiny Tiny RSS only allow fetch Maximize 200 entries each time, so if your own much more starred entries, just run elfeed-protocol-ttrss-update-star manually to fetch them all

Example:

(setq elfeed-protocol-ttrss-maxsize 200) ; bigger than 200 is invalid
(setq elfeed-feeds (list
                    "ttrss+https://user1:[email protected]"
                    (list "ttrss+https://[email protected]"
                          :password "password/with|special@characters:"
                          :autotags '(("example.com" comic)))))

newsblur (NewsBlur)

1. Fetch articles from recent pages
2. Fetch tags in remote
3. Support sync unread, starred(saved) tags, the starred tag name defined in elfeed-protocol-ttrss-star-tag which default value is star

NOTE: For elfeed don't provide cookie argument for curl request, user must setup elfeed-curl-extra-arguments like the following example.

Example:

(setq elfeed-protocol-newsblur-maxpages 20)
(setq elfeed-curl-extra-arguments '("-c" "/tmp/newsblur-cookie"
                                    "-b" "/tmp/newsblur-cookie"))
(setq elfeed-feeds (list
                    "newsblur+https://user1:[email protected]"
                    (list "newsblur+https://[email protected]"
                          :password "password/with|special@characters:"
                          :autotags '(("example.com" comic)))))

Run Unit-Tests

Install cask system package firstly, and then run following commands

make init
make test
make checkdoc
make elint
make package-lint

Deploy Services for Testing

Nextcloud/ownCloud News

1. Fetch docker image and run it

   docker pull nextcloud
   docker run --rm -p 80:80 nextcloud
   

2. Open http://127.0.0.1 in browser to setup Nextcloud

   1. Create admin user and select database to SQLite, then press "Finish setup"
   2. Press left top popup menu and select "+Apps", select "Multimedia", and enable the "News" app
   3. Press left top popup menu and switch to "News" app, then subscribe some feeds

3. Setup elfeed-protocol

   (setq elfeed-feeds '("owncloud+http://<admin>:<password>@localhost"))

Tiny Tiny RSS

1. Fetch related docker images and run them

   docker pull clue/ttrss
   docker pull nornagon/postgres
   docker run --rm -d --name ttrssdb nornagon/postgres
   docker run --rm --link ttrssdb:db -p 80:80 clue/ttrss
   

2. Open http://127.0.0.1 in browser to setup Tiny Tiny RSS

   1. Use the default admin:password authorization info to login
   2. Enter "Preferences" page to enable "Enable API access" and save configuration

3. Setup elfeed-protocol

   (setq elfeed-feeds '("ttrss+http://admin:password@localhost"))

Problems

1. Sometimes emacs may be blocked if the parsing downloaded articles is too large, for example >50MB. This is caused by the known emacs bug that CPU will be in high usage if a text line is too long. There three methods to workaround this:

   1. Method 1, limit the download size, for example:

      (setq elfeed-protocol-owncloud-maxsize 1000)
      

   2. Method 2, for ownCloud, just update articles since special entry ID instead the modified time, this could run multiple times to keep up to date to avoid download too large entries once time

      M-x elfeed-protocol-owncloud-update-since-id
      

   3. Method 3, some protocol provide update method to reset the last modified time to skip some data, for example:

      M-x elfeed-protocol-owncloud-update-since-timestamp
      

License

Released under the terms of the GNU GPLv3+.