Feedr v0.8.0 – a TUI RSS reader, now read the full article from your terminal

Feedr is a feature-rich terminal-based RSS feed reader written in Rust. It provides a clean, intuitive TUI interface for managing and reading RSS feeds with elegant visuals and smooth keyboard navigation. Demo Features Dashboard View: See the latest articles across all your feeds, sorted chronologically Feed Management: Subscribe to and organize multiple RSS/Atom feeds Feed Auto-Discovery: Paste any webpage URL and Feedr will detect and offer to subscribe to its RSS/Atom feeds Starred Articles: Save articles for later with a dedicated starred view Categories: Organize feeds into custom categories with create, rename, and delete support Tree View: Browse feeds in a hierarchical tree grouped by category Advanced Filtering: Filter articles by category, age, author, read status, starred status, and content length Dual Themes: Switch between a dark cyberpunk theme and a light zen theme with t Live Search: Instantly search across all feed titles and article content Summary View: "What's New" screen shows articles added since your last session with per-feed stats Read/Unread Tracking: Persistent read state tracking across sessions Mark All Read: Quickly mark all visible items as read with m Article Preview: Toggle an inline preview pane in the dashboard view Link Extraction: Extract and browse all links from an article with l Full-Text Extraction: Strip away summaries and read the actual article content inline via Mozilla Readability — manual on Shift+F, or auto-extract on refresh per feed with fulltext = true Help Overlay: Press ? for a scrollable keybinding reference overlay OPML Import: Bulk import feeds from OPML files via feedr --import Browser Integration: Open articles in your default browser Mouse Support: Click to select items and scroll with the mouse wheel Background Refresh: Automatic feed updates with configurable intervals and smart rate limiting Rate Limiting: Per-domain request throttling prevents "too many requests" errors (ideal for Reddit feeds) Vim-Style Navigation: Use j/k alongside arrow keys for navigation Rich Content Display: HTML-to-text conversion with clean article formatting Authenticated Feeds: Support for custom HTTP headers per feed (e.g., Authorization: Bearer ...) for private/authenticated RSS feeds Compact Mode: Automatic compact layout for small terminals (≤30 rows), with manual always/never override in config CLI Config Management: Get, set, and list configuration from the command line (feedr config), or use the interactive TUI config editor (feedr config --tui) Configurable Keybindings: Remap any key action via the [keybindings] section in config.toml External-Command Hooks: Newsboat-style macros (pipe-to, exec) bound to keys, plus exec_on_new notifications fired per new item — all with shell-free argument templating Configurable: Customize timeouts, themes, UI behavior, and default feeds via TOML config XDG Compliant: Follows standard directory specifications for configuration and data storage Installation Prerequisites Rust and Cargo (install from https://rustup.rs/) Using Cargo Install (Recommended) Arch Linux (AUR) Feedr is available on the AUR. Install it using your preferred AUR helper: paru -S feedr # or yay -S feedr Build from Source git clone https://github.com/bahdotsh/feedr.git cd feedr cargo build --release The binary will be available at target/release/feedr. Usage Run the application: OPML Import Import feeds from an OPML file: feedr --import feeds.opml Configuration Management View and modify settings from the command line: feedr config list # List all settings with current values feedr config get ui.theme # Get a single value feedr config set ui.theme light # Set a value (with validation) feedr config --tui # Open interactive TUI config editor Available config keys use dot-notation (e.g. general.max_dashboard_items, network.http_timeout, ui.theme, ui.compact_mode). Run feedr config list to see all keys. Feed management (default_feeds) is only available through the TUI editor. Quick Start When you open Feedr for the first time, press a to add a feed Enter a valid RSS feed URL (e.g., https://news.ycombinator.com/rss) You can also press 1, 2, or 3 to quickly add Hacker News, TechCrunch, or BBC News Use arrow keys (or j/k) to navigate and Enter to view items Press o to open the current article in your browser Press t to toggle between dark and light themes Keyboard Controls All keybindings below show their defaults. You can remap any action via the [keybindings] section in your config file — see Configurable Keybindings. General Navigation Key Action Tab Cycle forward through views Shift+Tab Cycle backward through views q Go back (quit from Dashboard) h / Esc / Backspace Go back one view Home Return to Dashboard Ctrl+Q Quit from any view r Refresh all feeds t Toggle dark/light theme / Search mode ? Help overlay (scrollable keybinding reference) Dashboard View Key Action ↑/↓ or k/j Navigate items g / G or End Jump to top / bottom Enter View selected item f Filter articles c Cycle category filter Ctrl+C Open category management a Add a new feed s Toggle starred Space Toggle read/unread m Mark all items as read p Toggle preview pane Shift+J / Shift+K Scroll preview down / up o Open link in browser 1/2/3 Quick-add demo feeds (HN, TechCrunch, BBC) Feed List View Key Action q / h / Esc Go to dashboard ↑/↓ or k/j Navigate feeds Enter View feed items Space Expand/collapse category (tree view) a Add a new feed d Delete selected feed c Assign category to feed Feed Items View Key Action q / h / Esc / Backspace Back to feeds list Home Go to dashboard ↑/↓ or k/j Navigate items g / G or End Jump to top / bottom Enter View item details s Toggle starred Space Toggle read/unread m Mark all items as read o Open item in browser Item Detail View Key Action q / h / Esc / Backspace Back to feed items ↑/↓ or k/j Scroll content Ctrl+U / Ctrl+D Scroll content (page) Page Up / Page Down Scroll content (page) g Jump to top G / End Jump to bottom s Toggle starred o Open item in browser l Extract and show all links Shift+F Toggle/fetch full-text (Readability) Starred View Key Action ↑/↓ or k/j Navigate items Enter View item details s Remove from starred o Open item in browser Categories View Key Action n Create new category e Rename category d Delete category Space Expand/collapse category Enter Select category r Refresh ? Help h / Esc / q Back Filter Mode (press f on Dashboard) Key Action c Filter by category t Filter by time/age a Filter by author r Filter by read status s Filter by starred status l Filter by content length x Clear all filters Mouse Support Action Effect Left click Select item Scroll up/down Navigate items Configuration Feedr supports customization through a TOML configuration file that follows XDG Base Directory specifications. You can edit the file directly, use feedr config get/set from the command line, or use feedr config --tui for an interactive editor. Configuration File Location Linux/macOS: ~/.config/feedr/config.toml Windows: %APPDATA%\feedr\config.toml The configuration file is automatically generated with default values on first run if it doesn't exist. Available Settings # Feedr Configuration File [general] max_dashboard_items = 100 # Maximum number of items shown on dashboard auto_refresh_interval = 0 # Auto-refresh interval in seconds (0 = disabled) refresh_enabled = false # Enable automatic background refresh refresh_rate_limit_delay = 2000 # Delay in milliseconds between requests to same domain [network] http_timeout = 15 # HTTP request timeout in seconds user_agent = "Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Feedr/1.0; +https://github.com/bahdotsh/feedr)" [ui] tick_rate = 100 # UI update rate in milliseconds error_display_timeout = 3000 # Error message duration in milliseconds theme = "dark" # Theme: "dark" (cyberpunk) or "light" (zen) compact_mode = "auto" # Compact layout: "auto", "always", or "never" # Optional: Define default feeds to load on first run [[default_feeds]] url = "https://example.com/feed.xml" category = "News" # Authenticated feed with custom HTTP headers [[default_feeds]] url = "https://private.example.com/feed.xml" [default_feeds.headers] Authorization = "Bearer your_token_here" Configuration Options Explained General Settings max_dashboard_items: Controls how many items are displayed on the dashboard (default: 100) auto_refresh_interval: Automatically refresh feeds at specified interval in seconds (0 disables auto-refresh) refresh_enabled: Master switch to enable/disable automatic background refresh (default: false) refresh_rate_limit_delay: Delay in milliseconds between requests to the same domain to prevent "too many requests" errors (default: 2000ms). This is especially useful for Reddit feeds and other rate-limited services. Network Settings http_timeout: Timeout for HTTP requests when fetching feeds (useful for slow connections) user_agent: Custom User-Agent string for HTTP requests UI Settings tick_rate: How frequently the UI updates in milliseconds (lower = more responsive, higher = less CPU usage) error_display_timeout: How long error messages are displayed in milliseconds theme: Choose between "dark" (cyberpunk aesthetic with neon colors) or "light" (zen minimalist with organic colors). Can also be toggled at runtime with t. compact_mode: Controls the compact layout for small terminals. "auto" (default) enables compact mode when terminal height is ≤30 rows, "always" forces compact mode, and "never" disables it. Compact mode uses single-line items, a minimal title bar, and an abbreviated help bar to maximize screen real estate. Background Refresh Example To enable automatic refresh every 5 minutes with rate limiting: [general] refresh_enabled = true auto_refresh_interval = 300 # 5 minutes refresh_rate_limit_delay = 2000 # 2 seconds between requests to same domain Note: Rate limiting groups feeds by domain and staggers requests to prevent hitting API limits. For example, if you have multiple Reddit feeds, they will be fetched with a 2-second delay between each request to avoid getting blocked. Default Feeds You can define feeds to be automatically loaded on first run: [[default_feeds]] url = "https://news.ycombinator.com/rss" category = "Tech" [[default_feeds]] url = "https://example.com/feed.xml" category = "News" # Optional per-feed refresh threshold (seconds). When this elapses since # the last refresh, the next auto-refresh tick is triggered — currently # all feeds are refreshed together (no true selective per-feed refresh). # Requires `general.refresh_enabled = true`. [[default_feeds]] url = "https://example.com/fast-feed.xml" refresh_interval = 60 Authenticated Feeds Some RSS feeds require authentication or custom HTTP headers. You can configure per-feed headers: [[default_feeds]] url = "https://private.example.com/feed.xml" [default_feeds.headers] Authorization = "Bearer your_api_token" [[default_feeds]] url = "https://another-api.example.com/rss" [default_feeds.headers] X-API-Key = "your_api_key" Cookie = "session=abc123" Headers are sent with every request for that feed, including refreshes. Full-Text Extraction Most RSS feeds ship only short summaries. Feedr can fetch the linked article URL and run Mozilla Readability (via the dom_smoothie crate) to extract the actual article body and render it inline. Manual: in the article detail view, press Shift+F to extract the focused article. Press Shift+F again to toggle back to the original summary, or after a failure to retry. Auto on refresh: set fulltext = true on a feed and Feedr will auto-extract newly-seen items on each refresh (same "no firehose" rule as exec_on_new — the first observation of a feed seeds silently). [[default_feeds]] url = "https://example.com/summary-only-feed.xml" fulltext = true Notes: Extracted content is in-memory only — it is not persisted to disk. A restart re-extracts on demand. Per-feed auth headers are not sent to the article URL (article URLs are typically third-party hosts; forwarding Authorization would leak credentials). Pages with very short extracted bodies (likely JS-rendered or behind a wall) fail gracefully and fall back to showing the original summary. External-Command Hooks Feedr supports newsboat-style external commands for two workflows: macros (key-triggered chains that act on the focused article) and exec_on_new (a notification hook fired per newly-seen item after each refresh). Commands are not run through a shell. Templates are tokenized once at config load, and %X placeholders are substituted into individual argv tokens — feed content can never break out of an argument. For pipes, redirection, or globbing, write a small shell script and invoke that. Template Variables Expanded in every argv token of macro and hook commands: Variable Expands to %t Article title %u Article URL %a Author %d Formatted publish date %f Feed title %F Feed URL %% Literal % Macros A macro binds a key to an ordered chain of steps. Trigger with (default prefix is ,). Steps are separated by ;. An optional trailing -- "description" overrides the help-overlay label. [macros] y = 'open-in-browser ; pipe-to "yt-dlp %u"' w = 'pipe-to "wallabag-cli add %u" -- "Save to Wallabag"' n = 'pipe-to "tee /tmp/out.txt" stdin=metadata' [macro_options] prefix = "," # the macro-prefix key pipe_default_stdin = "body" # body | title | url | metadata | none Step kinds: — invoke a built-in action. Supported in macros: open-in-browser, toggle-star, toggle-read, mark-all-read, refresh, toggle-theme, extract-links, fetch-full-text, help. pipe-to "cmd %u" [stdin=…] — suspend the TUI, run the command, and pipe article content to its stdin. stdin is one of body (default), title, url, metadata, or none. exec "cmd %u" — spawn the command detached (no stdin, no terminal takeover). Chains halt on the first step error. Press Esc after the prefix to cancel; an unbound follow-up surfaces a "No macro bound" error. Macros are also rendered in the help overlay (?). exec_on_new Notifications Fire a command once per newly-seen item after each refresh. The first successful fetch of each feed seeds the seen-set silently — you do not get a firehose on initial load or first run. [hooks] exec_on_new = 'notify-send "New: %t" "%f"' Children are spawned detached so the TUI never blocks on them. Crash semantics are at-most-once: feedr persists the seen-set before spawning, so a kill mid-fire loses a notification rather than re-firing on the next launch. Prefer idempotent commands (e.g. wallabag-cli add is safe; mail-me is not). Security Notes The shell is never invoked, so feed content in %t / %a / etc. cannot escape an argument. Do not wrap your command in sh -c "... %t ..." — that reintroduces shell injection through item titles. Write a script file and invoke it instead. ~ / $HOME / $VAR are not expanded — use absolute paths. If a macro's command template has unbalanced quotes or names an unknown action, feedr surfaces a startup warning rather than failing silently at trigger time. Configurable Keybindings Remap any action by adding a [keybindings] section to your config file. Each action can be bound to a single key string or an array of keys: [keybindings] quit = "x" # Single key move_up = ["Up", "k", "w"] # Multiple keys force_quit = "Ctrl+x" # Modifier keys toggle_theme = "F5" # Function keys Available actions: Action Default Description quit q Go back / quit from Dashboard force_quit Ctrl+q Quit from any view back h, Esc, Backspace Go back one view home Home Return to Dashboard toggle_theme t Switch dark/light theme refresh r Refresh all feeds help ? Show help overlay open_search / Enter search mode move_up Up, k Navigate up move_down Down, j Navigate down page_up PageUp, Ctrl+u Page up page_down PageDown, Ctrl+d Page down jump_top g Jump to top jump_bottom G, End Jump to bottom select Enter Select / open add_feed a Add new feed delete_feed d Delete selected feed toggle_read Space Toggle read/unread toggle_star s Toggle starred mark_all_read m Mark all items as read open_in_browser o Open in browser toggle_preview p Toggle preview pane open_filter f Open filter mode cycle_category c Cycle category filter open_category_management Ctrl+c Category management assign_category c Assign category to feed extract_links l Extract links from article fetch_full_text Shift+F Toggle/fetch full-text (Readability) scroll_preview_up Shift+K, Shift+Up Scroll preview up scroll_preview_down Shift+J, Shift+Down Scroll preview down toggle_expand Space Expand/collapse in tree view next_tab Tab Next view prev_tab Shift+Tab Previous view Supported key formats: Single characters (q, ?, /), special keys (Enter, Space, Tab, Esc, Backspace, Up, Down, Left, Right, Home, End, PageUp, PageDown, Delete, F1–F5), and modifier combos (Ctrl+q, Shift+Tab, Alt+x). Data Storage Feedr stores your bookmarks, categories, read/unread state, and starred articles in: Linux/macOS: ~/.local/share/feedr/feedr_data.json Windows: %LOCALAPPDATA%\feedr\feedr_data.json Backwards Compatibility Feedr automatically migrates data from older versions to the new XDG-compliant locations. Your existing data will be preserved and automatically moved to the correct location on first run. Dependencies ratatui: Terminal UI framework crossterm: Terminal manipulation reqwest: HTTP client (with gzip/deflate/brotli support) feed-rs: RSS and Atom feed parsing html2text: HTML to text conversion chrono: Date and time handling serde: Serialization/deserialization clap: Command-line argument parsing opml: OPML import support toml: Configuration file parsing scraper: HTML parsing for feed auto-discovery url: URL parsing and manipulation dom_smoothie: Mozilla Readability port for full-text extraction encoding_rs: Charset detection for non-UTF-8 article pages shlex: Shell-style tokenization for macro/hook command templates License MIT Contributing Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request. Fork the repository Create your feature branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature) Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add some amazing feature') Push to the branch (git push origin feature/amazing-feature) Open a Pull Request