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Show HN: Miniflux-CLI – offline-first Miniflux client

23 points by xylogen 6y ago

Hey Hacker News, miniflux-cli developer here. I use miniflux as primary source of things to read (including hacker news, of course), but in my case I don't have stable internet connection most of the time, so I did offline-first console client for miniflux, check it out: https://sr.ht/~xn/miniflux-cli/ https://sr.ht/~xn/miniflux-cli/ It syncs all feeds and entries on start and after that you can read all the content offline (including "mark as read"/"mark as unread"). The project built on go, using bbolt db, tview and official miniflux api client. Some neat features - you can set text and background colors of each ui element and hide/show sidebar, statusbar and hotkeybar. Custom hotkeys will be available later, for now "vim-like" is used.

encryptluks2 6y ago
I didn't even know what Miniflux was. I checked out the website and the more I learn the more intrigued I am to try it out, but the website is pretty basic and aside from the features section is seriously lacking. Hope if you also develop Miniflux you can help explain what it is, and if you don't you can help contribute to get more people interested in it cause it seems really neat but doesn't present itself as so.
- xylogen 6y ago
  I'm not developer of miniflux itself, just regular user. The miniflux idea is minimalism. It's a feed reader that has one job and it does it good. So the client to such server should be minimalistic, too. At least, that's what I think about it
  - encryptluks2 6y ago
    Agreed but the website or Miniflux itself is what I was referring to.
- luxpir 6y ago
  Ah yeah, I tried Miniflux among the handful suggested back when Reader was shut down. Very slick client, I just lost the appetite for setting up local web apps with their own databases. Stuck with newsbeuter for a while, now newsboat. I set up the latter recently, specifically to track YouTube updates from certain channels, it works very nicely, but for news and blogs you don't tend to get full posts anymore. So it's constantly clicking through to browser and back again. Not ideal. Something like w3m and newsboat crossed, basically a browsable bookmarks list, might be a good compromise. This project looks clean, as per Miniflux, I just worry about all the overhead of the setup and then not getting full posts to read...
  - xylogen 6y ago
    May be you missing something, but miniflux can get full content automatically, you just need to set mark "fetch original content" [0] when creating or editing feed. By the way, it allows you to set custom grabbing rules [1] for original content, very useful when website has ad blocks or useless elements in article body [0] https://miniflux.app/docs/ui.html#edit-feed https://miniflux.app/docs/ui.html#edit-feed [1] https://miniflux.app/docs/rules.html https://miniflux.app/docs/rules.html
    - luxpir 6y ago
      Appreciate that. Think you missed the main part about the overhead though.
      - xylogen 6y ago
        If I understand correctly, you don't want to setup it yourself and maintain the server, correct? In that case, you can use hosting, provided by miniflux developer: https://miniflux.app/hosting.html https://miniflux.app/hosting.html
        luxpir 6y ago
        Or I can use newsboat... If you really want minimal, integrated into the terminal etc. that's the way to go. I've had a bunch of self hosted stuff setup in the past and it's just too much maintenance to keep adding services. Plaintext config-based software is much easier to manage.
  - mrzool 6y ago
    > Very slick client, I just lost the appetite for setting up local web apps with their own databases. Miniflux has a too little known hosted option that costs only 15$ a year: https://miniflux.app/hosting.html https://miniflux.app/hosting.html I've been using it for years and I'm super happy with it. Highly recommended.
- GekkePrutser 6y ago
  Same here, never heard of miniflux. I checked out the website but I don't like the look of it very much, it uses too much screen space (judging by the screenshots). I'd prefer a much denser view like hacker news (even though the site says miniflux was inspired by it!). I love the CLI client though, but I assume it doesn't stand alone.
  - xylogen 6y ago
    You can try https://miniflux.app/hosting.html https://miniflux.app/hosting.html to check how it works in real life (screenshots are outdated a bit and don't show dark theme or other useful stuff)
dewey 6y ago
I'm a big fan of Miniflux and I'm using it for a couple of years already, this looks like a neat project. Thanks for sharing it.
captn3m0 6y ago
Are you using the Fever API? That makes it compatible with other servers as well.
- xylogen 6y ago
  Nope, right now only miniflux api implemented. I think about fever and some other providers, but for now only miniflux is available

23 points by xylogen 6y ago

encryptluks2 6y ago

I didn't even know what Miniflux was. I checked out the website and the more I learn the more intrigued I am to try it out, but the website is pretty basic and aside from the features section is seriously lacking. Hope if you also develop Miniflux you can help explain what it is, and if you don't you can help contribute to get more people interested in it cause it seems really neat but doesn't present itself as so.

xylogen 6y ago
I'm not developer of miniflux itself, just regular user. The miniflux idea is minimalism. It's a feed reader that has one job and it does it good. So the client to such server should be minimalistic, too. At least, that's what I think about it
- encryptluks2 6y ago
  Agreed but the website or Miniflux itself is what I was referring to.
luxpir 6y ago
Ah yeah, I tried Miniflux among the handful suggested back when Reader was shut down. Very slick client, I just lost the appetite for setting up local web apps with their own databases. Stuck with newsbeuter for a while, now newsboat. I set up the latter recently, specifically to track YouTube updates from certain channels, it works very nicely, but for news and blogs you don't tend to get full posts anymore. So it's constantly clicking through to browser and back again. Not ideal. Something like w3m and newsboat crossed, basically a browsable bookmarks list, might be a good compromise. This project looks clean, as per Miniflux, I just worry about all the overhead of the setup and then not getting full posts to read...
- xylogen 6y ago
  May be you missing something, but miniflux can get full content automatically, you just need to set mark "fetch original content" [0] when creating or editing feed. By the way, it allows you to set custom grabbing rules [1] for original content, very useful when website has ad blocks or useless elements in article body [0] https://miniflux.app/docs/ui.html#edit-feed https://miniflux.app/docs/ui.html#edit-feed [1] https://miniflux.app/docs/rules.html https://miniflux.app/docs/rules.html
  - luxpir 6y ago
    Appreciate that. Think you missed the main part about the overhead though.
    - xylogen 6y ago
      If I understand correctly, you don't want to setup it yourself and maintain the server, correct? In that case, you can use hosting, provided by miniflux developer: https://miniflux.app/hosting.html https://miniflux.app/hosting.html
      - luxpir 6y ago
        Or I can use newsboat... If you really want minimal, integrated into the terminal etc. that's the way to go. I've had a bunch of self hosted stuff setup in the past and it's just too much maintenance to keep adding services. Plaintext config-based software is much easier to manage.
- mrzool 6y ago
  > Very slick client, I just lost the appetite for setting up local web apps with their own databases. Miniflux has a too little known hosted option that costs only 15$ a year: https://miniflux.app/hosting.html https://miniflux.app/hosting.html I've been using it for years and I'm super happy with it. Highly recommended.
GekkePrutser 6y ago
Same here, never heard of miniflux. I checked out the website but I don't like the look of it very much, it uses too much screen space (judging by the screenshots). I'd prefer a much denser view like hacker news (even though the site says miniflux was inspired by it!). I love the CLI client though, but I assume it doesn't stand alone.
- xylogen 6y ago
  You can try https://miniflux.app/hosting.html https://miniflux.app/hosting.html to check how it works in real life (screenshots are outdated a bit and don't show dark theme or other useful stuff)

dewey 6y ago

I'm a big fan of Miniflux and I'm using it for a couple of years already, this looks like a neat project. Thanks for sharing it.

captn3m0 6y ago

Are you using the Fever API? That makes it compatible with other servers as well.

xylogen 6y ago
Nope, right now only miniflux api implemented. I think about fever and some other providers, but for now only miniflux is available