zombified / slicerss

Very minimal RSS fetcher/reader.

SliceRSS

2013/10/29 The project is in the process of being changed radically. It's being transformed into a tool that pulls down and manages more static content. The goal is to remove the need for a database to store content, and to have better utilities for managing feeds from the command line. All of the points about what this project tries to do is mostly going to stay the same -- just the mechanism by which it does so is changing.

This is a really basic, personal RSS/Atom fetcher + reader. It is not intended to have a lot of features, or have multiple users.

Here are a few things that this project tries to adhere to:

• Minimal Javascript -- IE no jquery or other libraries. If a library would make a feature significantly easier to implement, the feature probably doesn't belong in this project
• Minimal CSS -- rendering should be accomplished as fast as possible. There's no need for overly flashy GUI when all this project is intended to do is help you read text. Certainly a good looking project is intended, but not an overly flashy one.
• Minimal use of Async -- It complicates things, and doesn't add much to the experience this project is intending.
• Mobile Friendly -- The mobile reading experience should be a first class consideration in addition to desktop. This means either responsive design, or a design that works well regardless of viewing size.
• Ease of installation -- Anyone should be able to install this project with a minimal of configuration and commands. However, this project isn't aimed at users that just want to run an install script and get using the app.

Installation

1. Clone https://github.com/zombified/slicerss.git
2. run python setup.py develop to install all dependencies for the project
3. edit slice/settings.py
   • set the DATABASES values -- if you'd like to use a sqlite3 database, just set the 'NAME' value under the 'default' database to an absolute path for the database
   • set the OPML_PATH value to an absolute path to your OPML file. There is an example OPML file in the OPML directory of the project.
4. run python manage.py syncdb to create and configure the database

Fetching RSS/Atom feeds

The command python manage.py fetch will download all feeds into the configured database. This command could be setup in a cron job (or similar). Be careful not to run it to often, as you don't want your IP blacklisted or some such from a feed provider.

Viewing Feeds

The command python manage.py runserver will start a server on localhost:8080.

To view the feeds, go to http://localhost:8000/feeds