4 ms·

Subscribing to RSS Feeds on your E-Reader

23 points by akirk 5y ago

akirk 5y ago
The title of the submission originally continued: "using your own WordPress blog." This is kind of important, since one of the goals of the plugin is to reduce dependency on third parties. The dependency on external feeds remains of course but you have control over your own blog, where you host it and what software you install there. While one of the main goals of the plugin is to provide an infrastructure to connect to your friends' blogs and potentially exchange private posts with them, an important aspect is that it is a versatile RSS Reader (see https://wpfriends.at/consume-the-web-your-way/ https://wpfriends.at/consume-the-web-your-way/) that can be used with another plugin (like demo-ed) to then send new articles to your E-Reader (converted to .mobi or .epub).
AdmiralAsshat 5y ago
The article is very careful to say "E-Reader" every time like this is a generic solution, but the whole workflow depends on sending the articles to an email address associated with your e-reader, which is only natively supported on the Kindle. You can't do this natively on a Kobo, Nook, etc. I do wish the article would be more upfront about that.
- akirk 5y ago
  > You can't do this natively on a Kobo, Nook, etc. That's correct but there are other e-readers that support a similar technology, such as Pocketbook, or the Arta Tech Inkbooks. While not supported by the plugin (yet), many readers support syncing new content via services like Dropbox, therefore you could use a service that uploads file via e-mail to Dropbox. Overall the workflow part of converting an RSS feed item to an E-Reader format (i.e. ePub or Mobi) is covered, it seems viable to add more delivery mechanisms. Due to the market I am in (Europe) I've investigated the possibility to deliver to the Tolino platform via libraries like https://github.com/hzulla/tolino-python https://github.com/hzulla/tolino-python, but also adding Dropbox might be a possibility.
falcolas 5y ago
FWIW, if the WordPress or email address requirements for this turn you away from it, the Calibre OSS ebook management software supports pushing RSS feeds on your ebook reader as well.
- akirk 5y ago
  Indeed! Although the beauty when using a reader that supports this is continous individual delivery of new posts to your e-reader.
  - falcolas 5y ago
    Since Calibre also supports delivery via email, it can do the same. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to downplay what was built here, I just want to point out an alternative for those who can't/won't use it.
ajot 5y ago
KOReader has a built-in RSS/Atom reader. https://github.com/koreader/koreader/wiki/News-downloader https://github.com/koreader/koreader/wiki/News-downloader
krono 5y ago
Alternatively you could use some automation platform (e.g. IFTTT, Zappier) to sync an RSS account with a natively supported Pocket account. Seems rather trivial to accomplish in whichever way you want: https://zapier.com/apps/feedly/integrations/pocket https://ifttt.com/applets/QfKPm8rx https://pipedream.com/apps/feedbin/integrations/pocket
Koiwai 5y ago
I don't think that's practical, reading RSS feeds usually involves clicking links a lot, on e-ink devices that experience is awful.

23 points by akirk 5y ago

The title of the submission originally continued: "using your own WordPress blog." This is kind of important, since one of the goals of the plugin is to reduce dependency on third parties. The dependency on external feeds remains of course but you have control over your own blog, where you host it and what software you install there. While one of the main goals of the plugin is to provide an infrastructure to connect to your friends' blogs and potentially exchange private posts with them, an important aspect is that it is a versatile RSS Reader (see https://wpfriends.at/consume-the-web-your-way/ https://wpfriends.at/consume-the-web-your-way/) that can be used with another plugin (like demo-ed) to then send new articles to your E-Reader (converted to .mobi or .epub).

AdmiralAsshat 5y ago

The article is very careful to say "E-Reader" every time like this is a generic solution, but the whole workflow depends on sending the articles to an email address associated with your e-reader, which is only natively supported on the Kindle. You can't do this natively on a Kobo, Nook, etc. I do wish the article would be more upfront about that.

akirk 5y ago
> You can't do this natively on a Kobo, Nook, etc. That's correct but there are other e-readers that support a similar technology, such as Pocketbook, or the Arta Tech Inkbooks. While not supported by the plugin (yet), many readers support syncing new content via services like Dropbox, therefore you could use a service that uploads file via e-mail to Dropbox. Overall the workflow part of converting an RSS feed item to an E-Reader format (i.e. ePub or Mobi) is covered, it seems viable to add more delivery mechanisms. Due to the market I am in (Europe) I've investigated the possibility to deliver to the Tolino platform via libraries like https://github.com/hzulla/tolino-python https://github.com/hzulla/tolino-python, but also adding Dropbox might be a possibility.

falcolas 5y ago

FWIW, if the WordPress or email address requirements for this turn you away from it, the Calibre OSS ebook management software supports pushing RSS feeds on your ebook reader as well.

akirk 5y ago
Indeed! Although the beauty when using a reader that supports this is continous individual delivery of new posts to your e-reader.
- falcolas 5y ago
  Since Calibre also supports delivery via email, it can do the same. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to downplay what was built here, I just want to point out an alternative for those who can't/won't use it.

ajot 5y ago

KOReader has a built-in RSS/Atom reader. https://github.com/koreader/koreader/wiki/News-downloader https://github.com/koreader/koreader/wiki/News-downloader

krono 5y ago

Alternatively you could use some automation platform (e.g. IFTTT, Zappier) to sync an RSS account with a natively supported Pocket account. Seems rather trivial to accomplish in whichever way you want: https://zapier.com/apps/feedly/integrations/pocket https://ifttt.com/applets/QfKPm8rx https://pipedream.com/apps/feedbin/integrations/pocket

Koiwai 5y ago

I don't think that's practical, reading RSS feeds usually involves clicking links a lot, on e-ink devices that experience is awful.