193 lines
6.6 KiB
YAML
193 lines
6.6 KiB
YAML
title: How I read things on the Internet now (no, of course I don't leave the terminal!)
|
|
description: >-
|
|
I've been sprucing up how I follow what's happening on the Internet. I can
|
|
now read all the things I want to read pretty efficiently, and enjoy doing
|
|
it, which is exciting.
|
|
pubDate: 2025-01-19
|
|
|
|
content: |
|
|
## The problem
|
|
|
|
I like to read things on the Internet sometimes. Or listen to things. Or watch
|
|
things.
|
|
|
|
Some interesting people write blog posts. Some beautiful people make music. Some
|
|
silly people make comedy sketches. Sometimes my friends are sharing stuff with
|
|
their friends, which means me (WIP on that front: I'll get back to that).
|
|
|
|
I want to know about it. I want to read interesting things that will educate
|
|
me. I want to hear beautiful music. I want to hear about what my friends are up
|
|
to.
|
|
|
|
I can't read everything as it comes in, it's too much: I'll need to sift a lot
|
|
of it out quickly. I'll need to sift through it regularly to stay on top of it:
|
|
like, several times a week, if not daily. And sometimes, while I'm doing my
|
|
daily sifting, I'll find something I really want to read, but I haven't got
|
|
time right now: I'll save this for the weekend.
|
|
|
|
For a while, I've been hosting [CommaFeed][commafeed] on [PikaPods][pikapods].
|
|
This has been OK ([OMG, RSS is cool][rss]), but the interface is just clunky
|
|
enough to make it a chore to use. That means I don't sift through stuff
|
|
regularly, and that means my feed piles hundreds of unread posts high.
|
|
|
|
It also hasn't been any good for distinguishing between stuff I don't want to
|
|
read *ever*, and stuff I don't want to read *right now* but will get round to
|
|
later. I could in theory use the bookmarking feature built-in to my browser,
|
|
but removing things after I've read them is too clunky, so I don't do it.
|
|
|
|
## The solution
|
|
|
|
Every morning, I open my terminal and run [newsboat][newsboat].
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I know the unread count is pretty fresh, because I've set up a systemd service
|
|
to run newsboat at startup to fetch the feeds.
|
|
|
|
I press `l` twice to open a post. Then I press `n` to navigate to the next
|
|
unread post until I run out of unread posts.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
If I encounter something I want to read later, but don't have time right now, I
|
|
press `b`, which runs a home-made bookmarking script. Here it is:
|
|
|
|
```bash
|
|
### readlater.sh ###
|
|
|
|
# newsboat passes a few arguments:
|
|
# the first one is the post URL
|
|
url="$1"
|
|
|
|
# I turn the URL into a suitable filename
|
|
filename=$( \
|
|
echo $url | \
|
|
sed "s/.*:\/\///" | \
|
|
sed "s/\//./g" | \
|
|
sed "s/\.html\$//g" \
|
|
)
|
|
filename="$filename".html
|
|
|
|
# If I've already got this in my reading list,
|
|
# I don't add it again
|
|
if [[ -a "$HOME/readlist/unread/$filename" ]]
|
|
then
|
|
exit 0
|
|
fi
|
|
|
|
# Otherwise, I download the post with curl
|
|
# and pipe it to a file in my reading list
|
|
# folder, ~/readlist/unread
|
|
curl "$url" > "$HOME/readlist/unread/$filename"
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
I can also run this script manually and pass it a URL of my choice at any time,
|
|
say, if I find an interesting article while browsing the Web.
|
|
|
|
When I want to read from my reading list, I run `readnow.sh`, which simply
|
|
opens my reading list folder, `~/readlist/unread`, in my terminal file browser
|
|
of choice: namely, [ranger][ranger].
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Although ranger has a preview, I'll typically open the file up in my terminal
|
|
web browser of choice, which is [w3m][w3m] (plus a couple of custom
|
|
key-bindings). I've configured this to be my preferred web browser in ranger by
|
|
shifting it to the top of the list of HTML browsers in
|
|
`~/.config/ranger/rifle.conf`.
|
|
|
|
```conf
|
|
### ~/.config/ranger/rifle.conf ###
|
|
|
|
...
|
|
|
|
ext x?html?, has w3m, terminal = w3m "$@"
|
|
ext x?html?, ...
|
|
|
|
...
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
Having configured my default web browser in my ranger config, all
|
|
I need to do is press `l`.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
No ads, no cookie popups, no giant banner images taking 2 seconds to load and
|
|
shifting the content all over the place: just the text I want to read. Isn't it
|
|
beautiful?
|
|
|
|
Once I'm finished reading the post, I'll press `q` to quit w3m and return to
|
|
ranger. Assuming I don't need to read it again, I'll press `dm` to move the
|
|
post to `~/readlist/read` - my way of marking a post as 'read'.
|
|
|
|
I've done this by writing a super simple script, `markread.sh`:
|
|
|
|
```bash
|
|
### markread.sh ###
|
|
|
|
filename="$(basename $1)"
|
|
|
|
if [[ -a "$HOME/readlist/unread/$filename" ]]
|
|
then
|
|
mv "$HOME/readlist/unread/$filename" "$HOME/readlist/read/$filename"
|
|
echo "Marked $filename as read."
|
|
else
|
|
echo "I couldn't find a file in ~/readlist/unread with the name: $filename"
|
|
fi
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
...and hooking it onto the custom keybinding, `dm`, in ranger:
|
|
|
|
```conf
|
|
### ~/.config/ranger/rc.conf ###
|
|
|
|
...
|
|
|
|
# map `dm` to run markread.sh in the shell, providing the active filename
|
|
# as the first and only argument
|
|
map dm shell markread.sh %f
|
|
|
|
...
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
## The result
|
|
|
|
I can now keep up to date, and I enjoy doing it.
|
|
|
|
I get not everyone likes to live in the terminal. I think the key takeaways
|
|
are:
|
|
|
|
- Make it really easy to sift through new posts
|
|
- When you sift, sift through every post, and for each one, either read it
|
|
straight away, or add it to your reading list
|
|
- Sift daily
|
|
- Make it really easy to add things to your reading list
|
|
- Make it really easy to browse, read things, and mark things read in your
|
|
reading list
|
|
- Set aside time to catch up on your reading list
|
|
- Make the whole thing joyful (both because joy is good, and because you won't
|
|
do it otherwise)
|
|
|
|
## Next steps
|
|
|
|
I still haven't really figured out social media. I'd like to stay up to date
|
|
with what my friends are doing, especially the ones I don't see very often. If
|
|
my friends are posting stuff on the Internet, I'd love to see it.
|
|
|
|
I still need to know:
|
|
|
|
- Are my friends posting stuff on the Internet?
|
|
- If so, where?
|
|
- What's the best way of subscribing to their posts - even if they live on
|
|
different websites and in different formats?
|
|
- What's the best way of sending and receiving comments/replies/reactions?
|
|
|
|
TBC. Answers on a postcard please.
|
|
|
|
[commafeed]: https://www.commafeed.com
|
|
[pikapods]: https://www.pikapods.com
|
|
[newsboat]: https://newsboat.org
|
|
[ranger]: https://ranger.github.io
|
|
[rss]: /blog/2024/05/02/no_more_youtube
|
|
[w3m]: https://w3m.sourceforge.net
|