erudite VS Tiny-Tiny-RSS

Related: I command-line tool I wrote a while ago that pulls articles from Instapaper or Pocket and converts them to an ebook format (uses Calibre as the conversion tool).

(It even has Hacker News integration that includes URLs for corresponding posts!)

https://github.com/evmcl/erudite

A few that I've written to scratch my own itch or fill a need. Some of which I ended up sprucing up a bit and publishing publicly.

sitesync - Program that could sync files and folders on local file system and remote (FTP or SFTP). Mainly used to help maintain a web site that other people were also modifying. It allowed me to develop on my local copy and push changes without clobbering anything someone else had changed. (Unpublished)

erudite - [0] - Pull articles from Instapaper or Pocket and add to your ebook library (including Hacker News integration that includes URLs for corresponding posts!)

bday - [1] - The super simple birthday and anniversary reminder program. Wrote for myself but several family members also like it. Originally on Windows and then ported to Linux as well.

moviesschedule - [2] - Tracks Australian movie release dates and can even maintain a Google calendar of the movies you are interested in.

coffeegrinder - Java program to help fold automation of coffeescript compilation to javascript. Included optional GUI for viewing javascript version updates whenever the .coffee file was saved. (Unpublished)

bom - A little web-site and FTP scraper to retrieve local weather info from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology. (Unpublished)

bgdicecalc - Little GUI program to easily figure out probabilities for various dice rolls in Backgammon. Want to convert this to a web-page some time. (Unpublished)

feedme - Web-site scraper to create RSS feeds of various comic strips (e.g. Dilbert) with the image directly in the feed. (Unpublished)

[0] https://github.com/evmcl/erudite

[1] https://github.com/evmcl/bday

[2] https://github.com/evmcl/movieschedule

I just want to vent here a bit:

Feedly is the only app I ditched because I did not understand the interface. AT ALL. I tried multiple times, like really hard, over the course of 2-3 years, and all it delivered was a feeling of being insanely stupid.

I started my attempts around 2012 (kind of around Google killing Reader). I could not understand if that app even deliver that same functionality as Reader, could not understand if it allows to just add custom RSS url. I was not sure which title-description was an actual pair. I struggled to find article boundaries - I scrolled while reading and it suddenly just closed that and opened another unrelated thing. I struggled to use categories. I struggled to stabilize the layout - every week or so it switched from a list, to two-pane thumbnails, then some other weird view. I tried to set up my custom view but it just toyed with me. It took me an embarrassing amount of time to figure out how to actually browse my feeds by publish time (instead of some random metric app thrown them at me).

Dark theme just made it even harder - I had no idea what I'm looking at. I felt that I have more control over watching commercials on TV, than actually using Feedly.

It made me start hosting TinyTinyRSS [0] app on public internet for me and friends for many years. When I finally turned off tt-rss instance (due to my servers going down permanently) I came back to feedly... to just realize I don't even try to use it any more. A decade old frustration ended up with simply uninstalling.

[0] https://tt-rss.org/

> I want to host my own RSS server though and then maybe use a native reader to view it, like an RSS of RSS feeds.

I've been using Tiny Tiny RSS to do this for years. It works very well. https://tt-rss.org/

Tiny Tiny RSS (TT-RSS) https://tt-rss.org/ is a self-hosted, open-source RSS feed reader that provides a lightweight and customizable solution for managing and reading RSS feeds. It offers a simple web-based interface, allowing users to aggregate, organize, and access their favorite content from various sources in one centralized location. With its extensibility and robust feature set, TT-RSS offers a powerful tool for individuals who prefer to have full control over their RSS reading experience. As a dedicated programmer and avid user of Tiny Tiny RSS (TT-RSS), I can confidently say that it is an exceptional self-hosted, open-source RSS feed reader. With TT-RSS, I have the freedom to personalize and fine-tune my RSS reading experience to perfection. Its lightweight web-based interface offers a seamless way to aggregate, organize, and access all my favorite content from a multitude of sources. TT-RSS has become an indispensable tool in my daily routine, empowering me to stay informed, discover new insights, and effortlessly manage my RSS feeds with ease. If you're a fellow developer seeking a powerful, customizable RSS reader, TT-RSS is an absolute game-changer.

I would recommend Tiny Tiny RSS or FreshRSS as examples but you can use anything you want, there's plenty of them. Why would you want to pay for something like this?

Tiny Tiny RSS

Back when I was using Tiny Tiny RSS I've developed af_feedmod to download the article from the linked webpage so you'd end up with a full feed. This was later forked into FeedIron and seems to be somewhat popular by now.

TinyTinyRSS feed aggregator

Have you seen https://tt-rss.org/