I'm looking for an RSS reader

[chunkit]

Hello all, I'm pretty new to linux and I'm using kubuntu 7.10.

I want to use an RSS reader that has the following features:
-ability to view in full page (not just the titles)
-ability to show only unread feeds

I've tried Thunderbird and Akregator but they seem to fall short. Thunderbird does not have full page view, while for Akregator, I can toggle "show all" to "show unread" but I've to do this manually every time I change the channel/folders.

I wonder if anyone here has any suggestions.
On windows I was using Great News and I'm still using as windows is still my main platform, though I'm trying to change this and I'm doing this one bit at a time, starting from newsfeeds, email, IM (shouldn't be a problem with kopete and pidgin).

Thanks in advance.

[bmccosar]

Re: I'm looking for an RSS reader

Well, this is my first day here, but I've been running Linux for some time. Only recently did I shift over to Kubuntu.

I sort of wondered if there were any questions I was capable of answering -- I'm more of a musician than a computer expert -- but I use my computer for so many different tasks I guess I'm a 'computer use' expert by default ;-)

Anyway, I use a program called rawdog. First the links:

Homepage: http://offog.org/code/rawdog.html

Debian package: http://packages.debian.org/rawdog

It's available through synaptic, at least on Gutsy.

Now, I'm suggesting this because:

1. It's highly configurable.

2. It's not a viewer or GUI in itself. It reads the feeds and writes an actual HTML page you can view with your browser of choice.

3. If you're new to Linux, it might be a good way to learn to control something fairly powerful and feature-filled with a single text configuration file. Plus, it's not exactly something system critical. Any mistakes would be 'learning experiences'

4. I've been using it regularly to backup my Wordpress blog.

Just a suggestion. And if you get comfortable with the whole idea of config files, then a whole world of really amazing software is open to you.

Oddly, I'm doing the reverse right now -- I've been a command line guy for years, and all of a sudden discovered KDE (thanks to Rosegarden). Life changing experience, there.

Sort of reminds me of that old joke. This guy jumps out of a plane, but his parachute won't open. On the way down, he passes someone coming up. "Do you know anything about parachutes?" he asks. "Nope!" the other guy says, "Do you know anything about gas stoves?"

[monte48lowes]

Re: I'm looking for an RSS reader

I do use akregator only because it is integrated with kontact. To me this is just easier. I am not finding a way to keep it set to unread either. I will keep looking.

Mike

[bmccosar]

Re: I'm looking for an RSS reader

OK, in just that amount of time, I worked out a complete basic setup tutorial, just for you

1. In synaptic, search for 'rawdog' and install that package. There aren't too many packages with that name!

2. Now it's on your system, but here's how to set it up just for you, the user. Any other user could do the same thing in their home directory, and you'd all be able to customize it to do whatever whenever. First step:

a.) Open up a terminal window, make sure you're in your home directory ( ~ , it's called.)

b.) Make the rawdog directory by entering mkdir .rawdog (the dot is important, it makes it invisible to the casual observer. Sorry if you knew that already, just padding the walls a bit.)

c.) You need a default config file. The one packaged with the Ubuntu package works fine right out of the box. Trick is to get it out of said box. Your next command:

cp /usr/share/doc/rawdog/examples/config.gz .rawdog/

d.) Now you can find a brand new copy of the original config file in your .rawdog directory. Go there with the command cd .rawdog and then ls to see the directory contents.

e.) It's packaged as a gzipped file, config.gz, but you can zap it up to normal size with gunzip config.gz

3. Apollo 13 is ready for launch! You can add a feed to rawdog using the command

rawdog -a (and then whatever RSS feed URL you want)

4. Update the database (downloads the entire feed):

rawdog -u

5. Blam! Write the whole thing out to a nice, clean webpage

rawdog -w

There should be a new file in .rawdog, called output.html. Every time you update and write, it will make a new version.

There are a ton of useful options and controls to fiddle with -- try man rawdog to read the installed documentation. But you'll probably be hooked when you point your web browser to (your home directory)/.rawdog/output.html and have a look at the output. I believe it's just what you asked for.

[Snowhog]

Re: I'm looking for an RSS reader

Well, this is my first day here, but I've been running Linux for some time. Only recently did I shift over to Kubuntu.

I sort of wondered if there were any questions I was capable of answering -- I'm more of a musician than a computer expert -- but I use my computer for so many different tasks I guess I'm a 'computer use' expert by default ;-)

Well, for a 'first timer' here (and by the way, Welcome to the Kubuntu Forums!), you did pretty good! Very nice set of instructions you've posted. I'm sure that chunkit will find it useful, assuming he goes with rawdog.

[chunkit]

Re: I'm looking for an RSS reader

Thanks for your suggestion and for making the tutorial. I really appreciate it.

Indeed rawdog appears to satisfy my feature request but I realised that I actually do need a lot more out of an RSS reader and it is my fault for not listing out exactly what I need. Basically I subscribe to my modules' announcement, forum and file-update services and what I am doing with Great News is that I mark as read the feeds that I've processed (I've downloaded the files, read the forum post) but I leave as unread the feeds that still need further actions (I'm read the forum post and would like to reply but at a later date, need to keep track of an important date in the announcement etc..). For non-school related feeds I usually just read slashdot, digg and some assorted comics so I usually clear them in one go. Since rawdog generates a static page, I don't think it has a read/unread feature?

Anyway, I'm glad that I started this thread and got your replies. I feel that my method of keeping things as unread is just a form of procrastination. I guess I should just transfer the important dates to calendar, reply to forum posts immediately, and take notes of other stuff elsewhere instead of leaving it in the RSS reader. I might give rawdog a try after all.

Just for information, I've tried Great News on wine. As it requires iexplorer by default (one could change its config file to make it use mozilla but I figure that I'll have to install firefox in wine first [or can programs running under wine actually access non-wine programs?].. actually I think I'll probably try this tomorrow and will report on its success/failure), wine prompts me to download the gecko engine which I did and Great News appears to work fine. I could access the options and it even updates the feeds and renders the full page. However, it just becomes unresponsive the moment I click on the full page and I've to terminate it. So you can say that the current version of Great News does not work on the current version of wine.

[monte48lowes]

Re: I'm looking for an RSS reader

Here's something that might help out. If the something you need to take action on will require less than two minutes to complete, do it as soon as you get it. If you don't have time or it will take longer than two minutes, create a task in kontact.

Mike