https://gitlab.com/microo8/photon

Fast RSS reader as light as a photon
https://gitlab.com/microo8/photon

rss

Last synced: 27 days ago
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Fast RSS reader as light as a photon

• Host: gitlab.com
• URL: https://gitlab.com/microo8/photon
• Owner: microo8
• License: gpl-3.0+
• Archived: true
• Created: 2021-03-07T10:21:49.152Z (almost 4 years ago)
• Default Branch: master
• Last Synced: 2024-05-22T12:32:32.070Z (7 months ago)
• Topics: rss
• Stars: 17
• Forks: 1
• Open Issues: 0
• Metadata Files:
  • Readme: README.md
  • License: LICENSE

Awesome Lists containing this project

• awesome-gio - photon

README

        
# photon

## project moved to [sourcehut](https://git.sr.ht/~ghost08/photon)

![photon logo](icons/res/mipmap-xxxhdpi/ic_launcher.png)

photon is a RSS/Atom reader with the focus on speed, usability and a bit of unix philosophy.

![photon screenshot](screenshot.png)

With the current state of rss readers, which are archaic, or use electron for rendering, photon wants to bring a "fresh look" withing a lightweight package.

## Installation

### linux

    $ go install gitlab.com/microo8/photon@latest

and for the wayland master race:

    $ go install -tags nox11 gitlab.com/microo8/photon@latest

AUR: [photon-rss-git](https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/photon-rss-git/)

    $ yay -S photon-rss-git

AUR for x11 peasants: [photon-rss-x11-git](https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/photon-rss-x11-git/)

    $ yay -S photon-rss-x11-git

### windows

The easiest would be to install needed things trough [chocolatey](https://chocolatey.org/):

    choco install golang git youtube-dl mpv

and then install photon:

    go install gitlab.com/microo8/photon@latest

## Usage

photon's philosophy is to be a some kind of rss viewer. So it doesn't have features like adding or managing feeds. photon can be started with a list of urls:

    $ photon https://static.fsf.org/fsforg/rss/news.xml https://itsfoss.com/feed/ https://blog.golang.org/feed.atom\?format\=xml

Or it can be directly fed with the feed data:

    $ wget -O - https://www.reddit.com/r/pics.rss | photon -

Or using [ratt](https://gitlab.com/microo8/ratt) and playing magnet links directly with mpv:

    $ ratt auto https://1337x.to/top-100 | photon -

Or searching youtube using [ratt](https://gitlab.com/microo8/ratt):

    $ ratt auto https://www.youtube.com/results --data-urlencode="search_query=MyQuery" | photon -

Or it can parse a file with feed urls separated by new line (and comments too):

    $ echo "#youtube - LunusTechTips" > mychannels.txt

    $ echo "https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?user=LinusTechTips" > mychannels.txt

    $ echo "#youtube - Rob Braxman Tech" > mychannels.txt

    $ echo "https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=UCYVU6rModlGxvJbszCclGGw" > mychannels.txt

    $ echo "#odysee - Lunduke on Tech" > mychannels.txt

    $ echo "https://lbryfeed.melroy.org/channel/odysee/@Lunduke:e" >> mychannels.txt

    $ photon mychannels.txt

Or it can call a external command, must be specified with the `cmd://` prefix:

    $ echo "cmd://ratt auto https://videoportal.joj.sk/slovania" >> mychannels.txt

    $ photon mychannels.txt

By default running photon with no arguments will try to read `~/.config/photon/config` (on windows it is `C:\Users\\.config\photon\config`).

So the feed management is up to the user with arguments, text files and creating scripts like:

    $ cat photon-reddit.sh

    photon mysubreddits.conf

    $ cat mysubreddits.conf

    https://www.reddit.com/r/popular.rss

    https://www.reddit.com/r/news.rss

    https://www.reddit.com/r/funny.rss

    https://www.reddit.com/r/memes.rss

Because photon is a "viewer" (like an image viewer, video player, ...) it doesn't have a refresh feature. photon just shows the contents of the feed(s).

## Features

### navigation

Always one card is highlighted, we call it 'selectedCard'. To navigate to other card you can use `h`,`j`,`k`,`l` (which means: left, down, up, right).

`CTRL+d` - scroll half screen down

`CTRL+u` - scroll half screen up

`CTRL+f` - scroll full screen down

`CTRL+b` - scroll full screen up

`gg` - go to the first line

`G` - go to the last line

`yy` - copy card link to clipboard

`yi` - copy the card image

`dm` - download media

`dl` - download link content

`di` - download image

All downloads are saved automatically to the default downloads folder `$HOME/Downloads`. This can be changed with the `--download-dir` argument.

Any keybinding can be prepended with a numeric value, like in vim. So you can type `10j` and the selectedCard will move 10 rows down.

### view

By clicking on a card, or pressing `ENTER`, photon will show the article view, where it scraps the card's link and extracts the title, top image and main text content.

![article view](article.png)

`ALT+click` or `ALT+ENTER` will open the card's link in the default web browser.

### cards

`CTRL+-` will decrease the number of columns of cards.

`CTRL+=` will increase the number of columns of cards.

### search

Searching is done with pressing `/` and then typing the query. photon will filter the visible cards by finding the query in either the card's title, description, feed's title.

### media extraction

photon is designed strongly for media viewing/playing. `CTRL+click` or `CTRL+ENTER` will try to extract the direct media link of the card. By following the unix philosophy, [Do One Thing and Do It Well](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_philosophy#Do_One_Thing_and_Do_It_Well), photon want's to be just a feed viewer, so media extraction is done by external tools. By default [youtube-dl](https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl) is used. This can be changed with the `--extractor` argument or `PHOTON_EXTRACTOR` environment variable.

By the content type of the media, photon will run it in either a video player (default [mpv](https://mpv.io/)) or a image viewer (default [imv](https://github.com/eXeC64/imv)).

If the link is a magnet link, or a torrent file, photon will run it in a torrent downloader/player (default [mpv](https://mpv.io/) with the [mpv-webtorrent-hook](https://github.com/noctuid/mpv-webtorrent-hook) script).

So you can play torrent videos directly from photon. Try: `photon https://nyaa.si/?page=rss` (and install the [mpv-webtorrent-hook](https://github.com/noctuid/mpv-webtorrent-hook) it's awesome!).

`--image-cmd`, `--video-cmd` and `--torrent-cmd` arguments, or `PHOTON_IMAGECMD`, `PHOTON_VIDEOCMD` and `PHOTON_TORRENTCMD` environment variables, are used to change the default behavior.

### Lua plugins

photon will automatically load lua scripts from `~/.config/photon/plugins/*.lua` (on windows it is `C:\Users\\.config\photon\plugins\*.lua`).

These plugins help to extend the functionality and make photon do whatever the user needs (for now it's just 'beta'). Lua plugins can subscribe for events or register new keybindings and modify the state. Take a look at some [user scripts](https://gitlab.com/microo8/photon/-/tree/master/plugins).

example plugin:

```lua

--import the photon events module for subscribing on events

events = require("photon.events")

--subscribe to the Init event

events.subscribe(events.Init, function()

	print("Hello photon!")

end)

```

### HTTP Settings

Sometimes you need a little cookie to get the data that you want :P

For this photon has some http setting for every request that will be send:

`--cookie="KEY=VALUE;KEY=VALUE;..."` for setting cookies for all outgoing http requests

`--header="KEY=VALUE;KEY=VALUE;..."` for setting headers for all outgoing http requests

`--user-agent="myphoton"` for setting the User-Agent header for all outgoing http requests

`--insecure` ignore the ssl cert

## TODO

-   article scrolling with hjkl and ctrl+d,ctrl+u,...

-   lua plugins - cards maniputation (del, sort, add, create card)

-   lua plugins - http request with HTTP Settings

-   lua plugins - Docs

-   automatic column count by the screen width

Contribution of all kind is welcome :)