= fastreader

* Project homepage: http://danielchoi.com/software/fastreader.html
* Contact the author: mailto:[email protected]

== DESCRIPTION:

FastReader is a terminal-based RSS and Atom feed reader. It sports vi-style
keybindings for fast navigation and a simple interface.

FastReader is a mashup of Ruby, Curses, ActiveRecord, FeedNormalizer, Hpricot,
and SQLite3.

== SYNOPSIS:

=== Command Line Usage

% fastreader

launches the FastReader terminal interface. When you launch it for the first
time, It will create a sqlite3 database in your home directory to hold the
data for your feeds. This database will be named 'fastreader.sqlite3' and it
will already contain a few example feed subscriptions and items. Feel free
to delete them.

To subscribe to a feed:

% fastreader <url>

FastReader can try to autodiscover feeds:

% fastreader http://nytimes.com

This will cause the program to try to autodiscover a feed at the URL, subscribe
to it, and import the entries. If you give FastReader a feed URL directly, e.g.,

% fastreader http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/HomePage.xml

it will subscribe to it.

You can also import OPML feed lists:

% fastreader <opml file>

Just make sure the OPML file has the suffix *.opml, e.g.,

% fastreader myfeeds.opml

FastReader will then subscribe to all the feeds in the OPML
document.

To update all subscribed feeds, type

% fastreader update

FastReader will output information as the update progresses.

It's a good idea to call "fastreader update" from a cron job so you don't
have to keep updating feeds manually. Make sure you redirect the output to
/dev/null. E.g.,

21 * * * * /usr/local/bin/fastreader update >/dev/null 2>&1

This makes fastreader automatically update the feeds every hour, 21 minutes into
the hour. It's good to pick a random number of minutes so you don't update your
feeds when feed reader traffic is at a peak.

Adjust the path of the command to the location of your fastreader executable.
You can find out the path by typing

% which fastreader


=== Console Mode

There are three screens in console mode:

* the feed menu screen, which lists the feeds
* the feed items screen, which lists the items in a feed or a search
* the item screen, which shows the text content of an item

FastReader uses vi-style keybindings to allow fast navigation between
screens, feeds, items, and linked web pages. The interface is pretty intuitive.

You can see screenshots of the console mode
here[http://danielchoi.com/software/fastreader.html].

For more documentation about FastReader commands in interactive console mode,
please consult the console mode help pages.


== REQUIREMENTS:

* Hpricot
* ActiveRecord
* ruby-sqlite3
* Some other gems that are registered as dependencies in the gemspec

== INSTALL:

* sudo gem install fastreader

== UPDATES:

* sudo gem update fastreader

Updates will be released as bugs get fixed and features added.

== LICENSE:

(The MIT License)

Copyright (c) 2008 Daniel Choi

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining
a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the
'Software'), to deal in the Software without restriction, including
without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish,
distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to
permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to
the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be
included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED 'AS IS', WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,
EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT.
IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY
CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT,
TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE
SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.