I have been thinking of creating a similar app; however I wanted to do a "Sunday paper". This look nice and I like the minimalist design, but I would prefer to have solution that I can self-host.
The tool actually is open source, so you could self-host it if you wish. MIT license, in Python. The repository [1] is linked in the blog post the author wrote about the project [2].
The open source version is a bit different from the hosted one: the open source code involves running the polling script, then building a static site (which is how I run the site for several months as a single-user project).
I am planning to move the polling changes upstream soon and then figure out a plan for open sourcing the full project.
I've been thinking of it, too. And, I've created one a few years ago. It's been running 100% uptime and for free since then - lenns.io. I'd be happy if you give it a go and let me know what you think.
This would be interesting as a project using the Miniflux API (https://github.com/miniflux/v2). That way it would already use my existing feeds and I don't have a separate "reading tool".
I created something similar a few years ago. It's been running fine for me and several other people. Its free, too. It's calm too, although it updates as often as 1-5 minutes.
I'd be happy if someone gives it a go and shares some feedback. I'd say it's quite similar to Artemis; however - you can set different priorities to the sources and the relevant topics.
A newspaper-like projects always gather interest of tinkerers. People love to do things like that for eink devices, export that to pdf to be displayed offline and so on
This could be a nice way to provide clean content, prefiltered.
Thank you for the email. The OPML import is a bit of a newer feature so it hasn't had as much testing. I'll take a look to see what's going on and get back to you.
I love the idea of a simple, digest-style, mode. Might make some version of this for Instagram. There's nothing so important on Instagram that it can't wait for the next day.
Can you recommend a tool that could check an Instagram feed once a day for the current photos? I found a command line tool, but it tries to download the whole account, rather than just the daily updates.
Actually, I made a mistake. That tool I haven't got working yet because of the necessary authentication. I've been using this one without auth, but it downloads everything.
Isn't updating once a day a bit too rare for content heavy websites, like HN? I use online RSS reader just to keep up with all updates when I am not online. With updates once a day I'd probably be using desktop RSS reader app.
It is actually open source, though I'm not sure if it's linked directly on the site. (It is linked in his blog post.) The repository: https://github.com/capjamesg/web-reader
Message the authors about this. Most website owners don't know their cms is also creating a rss/atom feed. Sometimes it took awhile, but I had moderate success with it.
For reference, and not implying it's better or worse than your work OP, I've pleasantly used Fraidycat (https://fraidyc.at/) in the past. It's a webextension, so completely local, and also incorporates the idea of having a "calmer" experience: no infinite list of links to check, different update rates, ...
Thank you! I think how something is made, and the decisions that got it to where it is, is just as important as the thing itself.
One of the delightful things about the web is we can all bring our own ideas and designs to problems.
I haven't written about this yet, but one thing on my mind is the importance of good import/export features. With good import/export features, we can all move around and try different softwares to see which ones we like!
Indeed, import/export is one of the most important design point centering control back to the user, and even better is abstracted storage of data: if I had a single OPML file accessible from everywhere (with auth, of course) and all tools took the universally accessible path, I could change feeds in one tool and automatically see the result in another without fussing out import/export buttons and procedures.
Do you mean to subscribe to the whole collection, one RSS feed for all the blogs in my list? I mean, I guess I can build that feature, but it's gonna be quite a firehose.
Not sure what parent meant, but the right way should be an opml file with the feeds, which the feed reader then can import. But maybe you are offering that already?
One tip: Every Substack has a feed, which is a nice alternative to having everything dropped in your email in-box. You just append "/feed" to the end of a newsletter URL, e.g. https://simonw.substack.com/feed.
I've been doing adjacent work for my search engine[1], and found substack to annoyingly be one of the sites that employ bot mitigation for its RSS endpoints. If you fetch at a very low rate it works fine, but for these types of bulk retrieval.
Substack is also a bit of a pain to integrate with because they have zero useful contact information and direct all inquiries to a chatbot that is beyond useless, makes it so you have to guess how they want you to interact with their servers since there is nobody to answer questions.
I am working on a site, which is very pre-beta at this point, that works to help solve this problem using bluesky's "starter pack" model. Basically sharing curated lists of good follows. Give it a look at https://feed.computer if that seems interesting!
I think OP’s project is a nice place to potentially have some default feeds. Both for purposes but also because it’s nice to see some interesting content once you sign up. Maybe even just major news items.
I think this is a really interesting area. I wrote a command line took for web reading with some similar motivations. In my case, you queue up the articles to read the next day.
[1]: https://github.com/capjamesg/web-reader
[2]: https://jamesg.blog/2024/11/30/designing-a-calm-web-reader/
I am planning to move the polling changes upstream soon and then figure out a plan for open sourcing the full project.
I'd be happy if someone gives it a go and shares some feedback. I'd say it's quite similar to Artemis; however - you can set different priorities to the sources and the relevant topics.
Cheers - lenns.io
You know how we are with creating accounts just to have a glance...
The description looks solid to me, though.
A newspaper-like projects always gather interest of tinkerers. People love to do things like that for eink devices, export that to pdf to be displayed offline and so on
This could be a nice way to provide clean content, prefiltered.
Really like this.
Edit: just managed to find the support email. I'll send you the OPML file through it~
https://instaloader.github.io/
https://instaloader.github.io/cli-options.html#which-posts-t...
https://instaloader.github.io/basic-usage.html#filter-posts
https://github.com/mikf/gallery-dl
It's not unlike one service that I saw where you'd get email once per day in your inbox, at a specific time.
Have you considered open sourcing it? I would rather self-host something like this.
With that said, I can't guarantee this is not an issue. There are a few feeds that return errors that I need to investigate.
I love your philosophy page, OP ! (https://jamesg.blog/2024/11/30/designing-a-calm-web-reader/)
One of the delightful things about the web is we can all bring our own ideas and designs to problems.
I haven't written about this yet, but one thing on my mind is the importance of good import/export features. With good import/export features, we can all move around and try different softwares to see which ones we like!
But I could be wrong
Substack is also a bit of a pain to integrate with because they have zero useful contact information and direct all inquiries to a chatbot that is beyond useless, makes it so you have to guess how they want you to interact with their servers since there is nobody to answer questions.
[1] Preview of my take of the idea: https://mastodon.social/@marginalia/113670235590972416
I think OP’s project is a nice place to potentially have some default feeds. Both for purposes but also because it’s nice to see some interesting content once you sign up. Maybe even just major news items.
I believe you can RSS most of them. certainly all the substacks.
https://muxup.com/pwr
P.S. I love the colour choices and the colour stripe interactions on your website. So cool!