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docs: update README
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README.md
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README.md
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@ -12,9 +12,9 @@ That's right, using an innovative technology known as "plain files", Feather all
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Note however that Feather is meant to be used alongside a RSS reader server, meaning:
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Note that Feather is intended to be used alongside a RSS reader server, meaning:
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* no grabbing feeds on its own, requiring a server to connect to :(
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* no grabbing feeds on its own, a separate feed reader server is required :(
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* no feed management interface; Feather only support reading articles and marking them as read/unread :(
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## Usage
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@ -25,19 +25,19 @@ All demonstrations are done under Linux with GNOME Files, but a file manager is
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#### Navigating articles
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Feed categories are directories, and each file in these directories is an article.
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Feed categories are directories, and each file in a category directory is an article.
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#### Sorting articles
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An article file's modification time is the article publication time; you can sort by publication date by sorting the files by modification time, or sort by feed by sorting by filename.
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Each article file's modification time is set to the article publication time; you can sort by publication date by sorting the files by modification time, or sort by feed by sorting by filename.
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#### Searching
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Tip: if you have nested categories, search "html" to list all the articles in the category and its sub-categories in the same view.
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@ -45,11 +45,11 @@ Tip: if you have nested categories, search "html" to list all the articles in th
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Deleting an article will toggle their read status (will take effect on the next synchronization to the server).
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#### Handling read articles
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Surprisingly, the read articles can be found in the trash. If you restore them before the next synchronization, it's be as if nothing happened. However, restoring the file after synchronization will not work if you want to mark the article as unread.
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The now read articles can (surprisingly) be found in the trash. If you're fast and restore them before the next synchronization, it's be as if nothing happened. However, restoring the file after synchronization will otherwise not work and the article won't be marked as unread.
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Instead, if you want Feather to also track read articles, you could add to your configuration file:
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@ -60,22 +60,22 @@ server.only_sync_unread_articles = false
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html.filename_template = "{% if unread %}☐{% else %}☑{% endif %} [{{ feed_title }}]\t{{ title }} ({{ published }}).html"
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```
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Now both read and unread articles will be stored in the Feather reader directory, and if you delete a read article file, the article will be marked as unread and the file will be recreated during the next synchronization.
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Now both read and unread articles will be stored in the Feather reader directory, and if you delete a read article file, the article will be marked as unread (and the deleted file will be recreated during the next synchronization, but marked as unread).
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### Updating with the server
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### Synchronizing with the server
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Run `feather sync` to synchronize all local data with the server. The synchronization is done in two parts:
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Run `feather sync` to synchronize all local data with the server. The synchronization is done in two parts, which you can perform separately using:
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- `feather sync-up` which upload local changes to the server (e.g. update read status of local articles);
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- `feather sync-down` which download all articles from the server into the local state. This might be a lot of data depending on how many articles you have on the server.
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- `feather sync-up`, which upload local changes to the server (e.g. update read status of local articles);
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- `feather sync-down`, which download & update all articles from the server into the local state. This might be a lot of network requests, depending on how many articles you have on the server.
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If you don't want to bother running `feather sync` manually, you can also start the Feather update daemon using `feather daemon`. The daemon will periodically call `sync-up` and `sync-down` for as long as it runs.
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#### If you are offline
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Nothing change, but all the synchronization commands will wait until the server become reachable again.
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Nothing changes, but all the synchronization commands will wait until the server become reachable again.
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### Configuration
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@ -89,7 +89,7 @@ If you changed to another remote server or if you somehow messed up your local f
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Since, as the kids say, everything is a file, Feather can be easily integrated with any other program which operate on files (and there's a lot of those). A couple examples:
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- you can use Syncthing to synchronize the reader directory with other computer without having to install Feather on each one. You'd still have to install Syncthing on each one, but if for some unknown reason you prefer installing Syncthing to Feather, it works. Note that Syncthing real-time change detection can sometime miss changes when there's a lot of small files like with Feather, so you may want to reduce the _Full Rescan Interval_ in the share settings unless you're fine with some of your feeds taking a whole hour to update;
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- you can use Syncthing to synchronize the reader directory with other computer without having to install Feather on each device. You'd still have to install Syncthing on each one, but if for some unknown reason you prefer installing Syncthing to Feather, it works. Note that Syncthing real-time change detection can sometime miss changes when there's a lot of small files like with Feather, so you may want to reduce the _Full Rescan Interval_ in the share settings unless you're fine with some of your feeds taking a whole hour to update;
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- you can process your feeds easily with regular scripts: `find reader/ -iname 'trump' -delete` will mark all feeds containing "Trump" in their filename as read; which I think is easier than messing around with your feed reader API or convoluted filtering rules directly, but that's just my opinion.
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## Installation
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@ -98,7 +98,7 @@ Since, as the kids say, everything is a file, Feather can be easily integrated w
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If use Docker or Podman, an image is available at `codeberg.org/reuh/feather:1`.
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For example, to start a new container with the Feather daemon running, using the `config.yml` (see [basic configuration](#basic-configuration)) in the current directory and exposing the feeds in the `reader` directory:
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For example, to start a new container running the Feather daemon, using the configuration file `config.yml` (see [basic configuration](#basic-configuration)) from the current directory, and putting the articles in the `reader` directory:
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```sh
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docker run -d -v ./config.toml:/feather/config.toml:ro -v ./reader:/feather/reader -v feather-data:/feather/data --name feather codeberg.org/reuh/feather:1 daemon
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@ -108,7 +108,7 @@ Instead of using a configuration file, you may also use environment variables; s
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If you need to run Feather commands in a running container, run for example `docker exec feather feather regenerate`. Otherwise you could also start a new container as described above but using a command other than `daemon`.
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If you're wondering how monstrous the resources required by Feather are, with my ~600 feeds on my Tiny Tiny RSS, Feather stays at ~50MB RAM usage and take ~4KB of disk space per article. The docker image is ~120MB, which does not fit on a floppy disk but does easily on a CD.
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If you're wondering how monstrous the resources required by Feather are, with my ~600 feeds on my Tiny Tiny RSS server, Feather stays at ~50MB RAM usage and take ~4KB of disk space per article. The docker image is ~120MB, which does not fit on a floppy disk but does easily on a CD.
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#### Quadlet
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@ -152,7 +152,7 @@ systemctl --user start feather
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Feather should be able to run on anything that can run Python 3.12 or newer (you might need to change `html.max_filename_length` and `html.filename_replacement` in the configuration if your filesystem has exotic limitations).
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Once you have Python installed, download this repository and pip it up by running `pip install` inside it. You should be able to run `feather sync` or whatever command you want to run according to the [usage chapter](#usage). Although I personally use uv, so I'd just run `uv sync` and then `uv run feather sync` to run Feather.
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Once you have Python installed, download this repository and pip it up by running `pip install` inside it. You should be able to run `feather sync` or whatever command you want to run according to the [usage chapter](#synchronizing-with-the-server). If you use uv, skip the pip and run directly `uv run feather sync`.
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### Basic configuration
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@ -192,28 +192,21 @@ I mean nobody asked them yet but I think I have a pretty good grasp on what peop
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### Why?
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I rely on RSS a lot to keep in touch with outside my room, and I've been using Tiny Tiny RSS to do that for years at this point. Unfortunately, the historical developer decided to stop development this October 2025, and after trying other RSS readers I was unsatisfied and decided to make my own. As I was contemplating how to design the RSS reader of my dreams, I had a epiphany: a RSS reader is nothing more than directories and files. This was great because it meant I didn't have to make a GUI, as like most people, I find working more than necessary generally unpleasant. But then, it turned out that as far as personal effort go, something even better happened: the Tiny Tiny RSS community is continuing its development. Relieved but at the same time dejected that my epiphany went to waste, I thus decided to make only the directories and files part of my RSS reader, and let Tiny Tiny RSS do the rest. And here we are.
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I rely on RSS a lot to keep in touch with outside my room, and I've been using Tiny Tiny RSS to do that for years at this point. Unfortunately, the historical developer decided to stop development this October 2025, and after trying other RSS readers I was unsatisfied and decided to make my own. As I was contemplating how to design the RSS reader of my dreams, I had a epiphany: a RSS reader is nothing more than directories and files. This was great because it meant I didn't have to make a GUI, and like most people, I find working more than necessary generally unpleasant. But then, it turned out that as far as personal effort go, something even better happened: the Tiny Tiny RSS community is continuing development! Relieved but at the same time dejected that my epiphany went to waste, I thus decided to make only the directories and files part of my RSS reader, and let Tiny Tiny RSS do the rest. And here we are.
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### Why the name "feather"?
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My mom taught me that if all my friends jump off a bridge I should too, and since most popular open-source projects are named after a common English noun I decided to do the same. If you're looking for a set of icons, a JavaScript framework, ML libraries, data analytics libraries, a game server, a smartphone application, or a lot of other things that aren't a RSS reader client, I regret to inform you that you have unfortunately found the wrong Feather.
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My mom taught me that if all my friends jump off a bridge I should too, and since most popular open-source projects are named after a common English noun these days I decided to do the same. If you're looking for a set of icons, a JavaScript framework, ML libraries, data analytics libraries, a game server, a smartphone application, or a lot of other things that aren't a RSS reader client, I regret to inform you that you have unfortunately found the wrong Feather.
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### What should I eat tonight?
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Spaghetti alla carbonara is often a safe choice; even if you substitutes all of the ingredients you'll likely still end up with something decent. It still counts as carbonara if you use cream and mushrooms, trust me, I know how to say hello in Italian.
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Spaghetti alla carbonara is often a safe choice; even if you substitute all the ingredients you'll likely still end up with something decent. It still counts as carbonara if you use cream and mushrooms, trust me, I know how to say hello in Italian.
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## Future improvements
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While I mostly started this project for fun, it ended up actually quite usable, so I'm at least going to maintain it. As for new features, unless an incredible idea comes I'd like to keep this project simple (try your luck in the issue tracker!). But still, here's still some things that I wrote down during development that _may_ be done at some point:
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While I mostly started this project for fun, it ended up actually quite usable, so I'm at least going to maintain it. As for new features, unless an incredible idea comes I'd like to keep this project simple (but if you think it falls within the scope of a "file-based RSS reader client", try your luck in the issue tracker!). But still, here's still some things that I wrote down during development that _may_ be done at some point:
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- [ ] Store & expose article attachments in the templates
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- [ ] Partial synchronization (using since_id for ttrss (article updates?) and start_time for googlereader)
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- [ ] Think of a third one, two is a bit sad
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- [ ] Think of a third future improvement, two is a bit sad
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# TODO before publishing
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- [x] Write documentation
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- [ ] Re-read
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- [x] Tag v1.0 in git & container
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- [ ] Publish
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