README ¶
rssole (aka rissole)
An RSS Reader inspired by the late Google Reader. Runs on your local machine or local network serving your RSS feeds via a clean responsive web interface.
A single executable with a single config file that can largely be configured within the web UI.
Its greatest feature is the lack of excess features. It tries to do a simple job well and not get in the way.
Background
I really miss Google Reader. Recently I noticed I'd gone back to an old habbit of jumping between various sites to scan their headlines, maintaining that sitelist purely in my head. So I looked at a few of the well knows RSS readers out there and nothing really grabbed me, either I didn't like the UI, or the install process seemed overly complicated, or there were just too many features, or ads. I like things simple.
So I made this non-SaaS ode to Google Reader so I can triage my incoming information in one place with one interface in a way I like. At heart this is a very self serving project solely based around my needs, and because of that it's something I use constantly. Hopefully it's of use to some other people, or you can build upon it (MIT license, do what you want to it - make it comfortable for you).
The name is supposed to be a pun on 'rissole'. As well as 'rissole' containing the letters R S and S, a rissole is a "a compressed mixture of meat and spices, coated in breadcrumbs and fried" and that struck me as similar to the role of an RSS reader (compressing the mixed meat of the internet into a handy faceful).
Pre-Built Binaries and Packages
Check out the Releases section in github, there should be a good selection of pre-built binaries and packages for various platforms.
Installing via Brew
$ brew install themightygit/rssole/rssole
Installing via Go
You can install the binary with go install:
$ go install github.com/TheMightyGit/rssole/cmd/rssole@latest
Building
NOTE: You can ignore the Makefile
, that's really just a helper for me during development.
To build for your local architecture/OS...
$ go build ./cmd/...
It should also cross build for all the usual golang targets fine as well (as no CGO is used)...
$ GOOS=linux GOARCH=amd64 go build ./cmd/...
$ GOOS=linux GOARCH=arm64 go build ./cmd/...
$ GOOS=darwin GOARCH=amd64 go build ./cmd/...
$ GOOS=darwin GOARCH=arm64 go build ./cmd/...
$ GOOS=windows GOARCH=amd64 go build ./cmd/...
$ GOOS=windows GOARCH=arm64 go build ./cmd/...
...but I only regularly test on darwin/amd64
and linux/amd64
.
I've seen it run on windows/amd64
, but it's not something I try regularly.
Smallest Binary
Go binaries can be a tad chunky, so if you're really space constrained then...
$ go build -ldflags "-s -w" ./cmd/...
$ upx rssole
Running
Command Line
If you built locally then it should be in the current directory:
$ ./rssole
If you used go install
or brew then it should be on your path already:
$ rssole
GUI
Double click on the file, I guess.
If your system has restrictions on which binaries it will run then try compiling locally instead of using the pre-built binaries.
Now read your feeds with your browser
Now open your browser on <hostname/ip>:8090
e.g. http://localhost:8090
Network Options
By default it binds to 0.0.0.0:8090
, so it will be available on all network adaptors
on your host. You can change this in the rssole.json
config file.
I run rssole within a private network so this is good enough for me so that I can run it once but
access it from all my devices. If you run this on an alien network then someone else can mess with
the UI (there's no protection at all on it) - change the listen
value in rssole.json
to
127.0.0.1:8090
if you only want it to serve locally.
If you want to protect rssole behind a username and password or encryption (because you want rssole wide open on the net so you can use it from anywhere) then you'll need a web proxy that can be configured to sit in front of it to provide that protection. I'm highly unlikely to add username/password or encryption directly to rssole as I don't need it. Maybe someone will create a docker image that autoconfigures all of that... maybe that someone is you?
Config
Arguments
$ ./rssole -h
Usage of ./rssole:
-c string
config filename (default "rssole.json")
-r string
readcache location (default "rssole_readcache.json")
rssole.json
There are two types of feed definition...
- Regular RSS URLs.
- Scrape from website (for those pesky sites that have no RSS feed).
- Scraping uses css selectors and is not well documented yet.
Use category
to group similar feeds together.
{
"config": {
"listen": "0.0.0.0:8090",
"update_seconds": 300
},
"feeds": [
{"url":"https://github.com/TheMightyGit/rssole/releases.atom", "category":"Github Releases"},
{"url":"https://news.ycombinator.com/rss", "category":"Nerd"},
{"url":"http://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/rss.xml", "category":"News"},
{
"url":"https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/news/", "category":"Games",
"name":"PCGamer News",
"scrape": {
"urls": [
"https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/news/",
"https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/news/page/2/",
"https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/news/page/3/"
],
"item": ".listingResult",
"title": ".article-name",
"link": ".article-link"
}
}
]
}
Key Dependencies
I haven't had to implement anything actually difficult, I just do a bit of plumbing. All the difficult stuff has been done for me by these projects...
- github.com/mmcdole/gofeed - for reading all sorts of RSS formats.
- github.com/andybalholm/cascadia - for css selectors during website scrapes.
- github.com/k3a/html2text - for making a plain text summary of html.
- HTMX - for the javascript framework (a b/e engineers delight).
- Bootstrap 5 - for HTML niceness because I know it slightly better than the alternatives.