7 ms·

I turned my RSS feeds into an e-ink newspaper to stop reading on my phone

228 points by speckx 2mo ago

Eric_WVGG 2mo ago
Lack of a decent RSS client is one of the major things keeping me on an iPad over an e-ink tablet. I wish manufacturers like Remarkable would get serious about having software platforms.
- yitchelle 2mo ago
  https://github.com/wowitsjack/freeMarkable https://github.com/wowitsjack/freeMarkable
- adhamsalama 2mo ago
  I think I might have what you want. I built a web-based RSS reader for the Kindle browser (but it should work on other e-ink devices too). You can read feeds online or download them directly on your device. Please try it and let me know what you think! https://inkfeed.xyz https://inkfeed.xyz
  - bityard 2mo ago
    https://reader.inkfeed.xyz/ https://reader.inkfeed.xyz/ seems to be returning "Error loading feed: Fetch failed: 0" for every feed
    - adhamsalama 2mo ago
      Can you tell me which feeds you tried and whether or not you're logged in?
- tomodachi94 2mo ago
  KOReader (https://koreader.rocks/ https://koreader.rocks/) is supported on many e-readers and has a news downloader that can do this: https://github.com/koreader/koreader/wiki/News-downloader https://github.com/koreader/koreader/wiki/News-downloader (n.b. haven't tried it, but I'm a happy user of KOReader for a couple of years now.)
TFNA 2mo ago
This doesn't work for me in spite of over 10 years of trying. I am currently eating lunch and wasting time on HN on my phone, but my ebook reader full of edifying material is sitting there ignored on the table, right in front of me. I need some way of leaving the phone at home completely, but in my country so much basic everyday stuff relies on a phone (and strong bank authentication through a phone).
- dewey 2mo ago
  For me it’s about building a routine. I go to a coffee shop every morning with my kindle and phone. Phone in my pocket on do not disturb and just read for an hour. It’s not that hard to disconnect if you really want to.
  - TFNA 2mo ago
    I am an academic and do the same reading of books for hours each day without phone distractions. The problem is precisely the less formal environments where, instead of a serious book, I'm going to be reading news or other light content. Hard to go for the ereader then instead of the phone.
    - al_borland 2mo ago
      What about adding some lighter content to the e-reader, even some fiction, to match the vibe you’re looking for in those less formal environments? If your e-reader is only associated with serious book, I can see where that would be a lot for a casual lunch that you want to feel like a break.
- mswphd 2mo ago
  I've found having draconian phone blocking rules helps. I use Jomo https://jomo.so https://jomo.so but I'm sure there are other competing products. Roughly, you can classify apps in your phone to things that 1. are fundamentally fine (various bank/payment apps, messaging app, map apps), and 2. are known time wasters (social media) you then just block the time wasters. you can configure it so that to edit the settings of the app, you have to enter some 150 character randomized code. it is very annoying to do. this is the point though. there are other ways you can add friction to using your phone. setting its display to be black and white makes it much less enjoyable to use, for example. if you add in enough friction (and stick with it over an initial "hump"), you'll findi yourself reaching for other options.
phelm 2mo ago
I use Instapaper on my kobo for this, ifttt or zappier can subscribe an rss feed to Instapaper, also the browser extension is nice. See some article whilst I'm at work, click the browser extension, and when I'm on the train home Its there on my e-reader.
ynac 2mo ago
I like to read a physical dirty (ink dust, not content) finger newspapers whenever I can get them. At a bakery / cafe a few weeks ago, sitting outside having cherry Danish and an Americano (the international special), I was reading the NYT and the SeaTimes section by section. It was awesome. Comics, international, regional beats, magazines. I realized somewhere in the middle of the caffeine and sugar rush, just what a huge effort it takes to put out a DAILY newspaper. It's incedible, even without considering the cheap price. There was a couple nearby looking at the mess of papers on my table. I realized I needed to tidy my donnage pile of sections, and impulsively offered them to the couple. They almost jumped. If I didn't know better I swear they were living out some fantasy of holding a newspaper for the first time.
- kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 2mo ago
  I had this feeling recently at a local fair when a local online-only news site produced thier first-ever physical edition. It was great, I read through the entire thing while waiting for the parade.
  - ynac 2mo ago
    What paper - if you don't mind sharing. That's pretty interesting!
- KellyCriterion 2mo ago
  same here! Also for Airports, trains etc... sometimes I even buy one, which is often around 6 - 7 bucks, esp. weekend issues (haha, 6 - 7 bucks for a printed mag on paper - seems somehow surreal these days? Esp since its "a one day useable product" mainly, while you can get some of these news app subscriptions for 10 bucks and you get every stuff tons of stuff)
- ilamont 2mo ago
  > I realized somewhere in the middle of the caffeine and sugar rush, just what a huge effort it takes to put out a DAILY newspaper. It's incredible, even without considering the cheap price. Former newspaper editor here. We took it for granted at the time, but the orchestration of different teams on a daily basis, with all kinds of cascading workflows and triggers, was something to behold. Editorial, design, special sections, ads, production, printing ... plus all of the smaller teams (copy desk, sports, etc.) and ad-hoc collaborations for instance involving a special event or major news story. You'd go home late (or more often than not in those days, to the bar) feeling good about what your team had just shipped and looking forward to getting the hard copy early the next morning (sometimes when leaving said bar!). And then you'd start all over again around 11 am. It was far more intense than magazine or book publishing, which I got into later. And this was in the 90s. Technology was making things faster, but there were still a lot of older analog systems in place including photography darkrooms. Once I even had to call in a breaking late story over a pay phone, dictating it to the editor on duty. Laptops were rare and expensive, and even the people who used them typically saved to a floppy which would be brought in to the newsroom later to be edited. We had primitive terminal-based word processors (we called it "CText" but I can't locate any reference to it now) and I got started just as Quark Xpress entered the design workflow, replacing xacto knives and bits of paper and opaque plastic that was somehow imaged and sent to the printers. If you went back 30 years earlier, they were still using linotype.
teroshan 2mo ago
The issue with RSS on my e-reader is 1. the amount of feeds I'm subscribed to and 2. I'm often using my e-reader when I'm offline. 1. is not an issue on my computer/smartphone as I can scroll through the feeds and go through interesting links quickly, the keybindings help me do that quickly. 2. Can either be fixed by downloading all links when online (not practical in my case), or by picking and choosing which articles I want to read later. I used to use Wallabag for this, but right now my setup is a self-hosted Readeck [0] instance with the associated KOReader plugin [1]. I really like Readeck because contrary to Wallaback (which I also used because there is a KOReader plugin for it) it captures the content from a page from the client-side through the browser extension [2]. That helps with paywalled articles which don't expose the full feed through RSS typically. [0] https://codeberg.org/readeck/readeck https://codeberg.org/readeck/readeck [1] https://github.com/iceyear/readeck.koplugin https://github.com/iceyear/readeck.koplugin [2] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/readeck/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/readeck/
dewey 2mo ago
In my regular RSS reader I often have the problem that some feeds are not full feeds, or some images are missing (In case they have some gallery) and I have to click out to the page, even just to verify I got the full text. That always kinda stops me from going the eink route where I don’t have a proper browser. Depends on which feeds you subscribe to I guess, probably works really well for long form, reliable feeds.
- MattTheRealOne 2mo ago
  A majority of the feeds I subscribe to do not include the full text in the feed themselves which is one of the main reasons I use Miniflux which has an option to fetch the full article text and works very reliably. Of the more than 150 feeds I am subscribed to, I think there are fewer than 5 that Miniflux is unable to fetch the text for. Miniflux can also connect to Wallabag to quickly save pages to it using the full text. That is great because Wallabag is often unable to fetch text directly on its own.
  - dewey 2mo ago
    I’m also a happy user of Miniflux and that specific feature. I still sometimes want to click out to the article easily to double check if it feels like something didn’t parse correctly. Rare but happens.
- nimih 2mo ago
  One way to get around this in some cases is to subscribe to the feed's associated email newsletter, which, IME, is more likely to have the full text of the article. This, of course, introduces other problems[1], but if your goal is to remove reasons to habitually look at your phone, it's worth investigating. [1] The feed needs to have a newsletter in the first place, you probably need to clean up the markdown a bit before shoving it into an epub (I've noticed that table-based layouts are much more common, for instance), and your email provider probably doesn't provide an RSS feed of your inbox. The latter two are straightforward to fix but do require a bit of programming elbow grease.
- 8by3 2mo ago
danlitt 2mo ago
Perhaps this is sufficient reason to connect my KOreader to the internet for the first time...
- slau 2mo ago
  The only thing attracting me to KOReader for my PocketBook is OPDS. The few presentations I've seen show a UI so bloated (as in, the main view for reading pages crammed full of widgets on the bottom of the screen to display wifi signal, battery percentages, and progression counters) that it makes me wonder why some people use an ereader at all. If my PocketBook had OPDS out of the box it would be the perfect device. What has your experience been? Why are you using KOReader?
  - danlitt 2mo ago
    I jailbroke my kindle and this was what the guide I followed installed. I don't know what else is available! My experience has been "fine" - I don't use anything fancy like dictionary lookup or OCR, I just put epubs/pdfs on it and browse. I find the menu UI pretty good, it's a little unintuitive but there is a short guide that covers everything I need. There is no easy way to browse your library (there is a file browser but I don't like that). Ditto I don't find browsing through a book particularly intuitive, but it has page seeking and you can scroll through pages. For casual reading, I think it's just fine.
jeromechoo 2mo ago
I have an X4 as well and tried going down this path but it's just a bit too much friction for me to set my X4 to hotspot mode and run the calibre sync every time I want to refresh my feed. Absolutely love the idea though. Just wish Crosspoint/X4 had the ability to schedule push/pull, but that would likely burn through the battery.
- etra0 2mo ago
  Same, I think there's too much friction yet. Maybe at some point it could become a crosspoint feature I hope! EDIT: Just checking on the crosspoint site they say such thing is not planned: https://crosspointreader.com/roadmap https://crosspointreader.com/roadmap (section Out of roadmap: Active connectivity (RSS, news, browsers))
  - mateioo7 2mo ago
    They do support however OPDS libraries and I happily use it for news where each file is a daily epub consisting of the articles I subscribe to
    - jeromechoo 2mo ago
      Ohhh this could just work!!
    - timurlenk 2mo ago
      Would you be kind to explain what is your exact workflow? I'm unable to find a software or service that would to this for me, but it's the exact thing I want.
      - mateioo7 2mo ago
        My pleasure. I'm also unaware of a software or service since it seems a bit of a too specific usecase. I'm doing all this (with no cost) using an AWS Lambda function written in Java which is scheduled to be called daily at 7 am. It basically parses some RSS feeds[1] (or parses html[2] when RSS is non-existent), extracts each article content using readability and packages them all in a daily epub[3] (with a TOC) which is stored in a S3 folder. Then a separate endpoint (the one I use in my X4) is taking most recent N S3 objects from that S3 folder and exposes the OPDS. The only downside of this is that the response time takes about 3 extra seconds since it uses a cold start, but response speed is not important to me. Using 'OPDS as a news library' works incredibly well with my X4, it takes me under 10 seconds to download and open the epub and should work with any e-ink device that can install KOReader (or any other software with OPDS support). And I love that all articles are inside a single epub and I can easily go to another one from the TOC. It's probably my most useful personal project and I like that by now it follows the 'set it and forget it' principle but in need, since it's written by hand, it's very easy to customize it: filter out AI/war/finance/local-gibberish/whatever articles, add new 'bridges' to websites without RSS, some articles don't respect html guidelines and need some tinkering, etc. [1] https://github.com/rometools/rome https://github.com/rometools/rome [2] https://github.com/jhy/jsoup https://github.com/jhy/jsoup [3] https://github.com/psiegman/epublib https://github.com/psiegman/epublib
zackify 2mo ago
I have crossink which is awesome on the x3. I find it better with more features on top of crossink. And then setup home assistant and picture rendering so when a package or person is detected while I'm reading on a jailbroke kindle, it pops up in the corner automatically with the feed so I can see who it is. Tailscale too. Having full control of these devices is awesome.
8by3 2mo ago
I had a similar idea on https://tuhat.net/ https://tuhat.net/ You can browse it on your ereader and any post can be downloaded as epub. Also for people who serialize books and put them in a collection, you can get the whole collection as a single epub. I've been thinking about turning your /reading list into one as well but not got ten round to it.
joshgachnang 2mo ago
I've been working on the same thing for my ReMarkable, but I get it uploaded as a newspaper doc every morning since you can't install apps on it. Overall it's been working reasonably well!
- adhamsalama 2mo ago
  I really like the idea of reading blogs on my Kindle, so I built https://inkfeed.xyz https://inkfeed.xyz It's a web-based RSS reader optimized for e-ink devices (especially Kindles) that allows you to read blogs online via the Kindle browser, and download the blogs (directly on your Kindle or email it to your Kindle email). I only tried it on my Kindle, can you try it on your ReMarkable and give me feedback?
podgietaru 2mo ago
I still use Omnivore, just self-hosted now. I recently added a better RSS Reader to it, so now I can get my rss feeds, and save them to my read it later list - and then read them on my Supernote using the android app or web app.
ratio53 2mo ago
I have a similar automated setup: article -> ePub -> Kavita -> OPDS -> e-reader. That way there’s no friction of getting new articles on my device and I can even sync progress across devices.
adhamsalama 2mo ago
I really like the idea of reading blogs on my Kindle, so I built https://inkfeed.xyz https://inkfeed.xyz It's a web-based RSS reader optimized for e-ink devices (especially Kindles) that allows you to read blogs online via the Kindle browser, and download the blogs (directly on your Kindle or email it to your Kindle email). I would love to get the feedback of fellow e-ink devices enjoyers!
- aryehof 2mo ago
  I really like the UI. That I prefer to keep my Kindle “books only” is the only reason I might not use inkfeed.
  - adhamsalama 2mo ago
    But you can read the blogs online without downloading them, with full control over font settings. Is that not good enough?
Damjanski 2mo ago
<3
orishlez 2mo ago
[flagged]
alsanan 2mo ago
Nxtpaper products of tcl are almost as good as eink but without losing the color and screen speed of normal phones. Just change the mode with a switch and you have an ereader. Mate screen and colors and light like an eink device.
- inatreecrown2 2mo ago
  Are you using one of their products? which one? What are you using it for?
zemike 2mo ago
I have an X3 and it’s great! I think this idea is really cool but like others have said it’s the friction of syncing that stops me. I would love for CrossPoint to have a nightly sync :)
runjake 2mo ago
This is wonderful. About the only good thing to come out of the open web dying is a revitalization of open and accessible computing hobbies.
tmjwid 2mo ago
I'll throw my 2 cents into the mix of "what works for me" posts. FreshRSS (share to Wallabag enabled) + Wallabag + KOReader (on kobo). I've been toying with the idea of trying to add Wallabag sync into Crosspoint, as I have an x4 but it's pretty much just sat doing nothing. I have a Mudita Kompact though, which I use with the Wallabag app and my best mate Alan from RHVoice to read out articles for me. I remember barely anything with this setup but I do like it...
zie 2mo ago
Calibre does this for you and has for a long time. Docs: https://manual.calibre-ebook.com/news.html https://manual.calibre-ebook.com/news.html I used to read lwn.net from my e-reader, worked great.
socalgal2 2mo ago
Now if only it was newspaper sized!
second_brain2 2mo ago
dude this is actually kinda cool ngl
dredmorbius 2mo ago
I'm still reasonably pleased with my CNN-to-newspaper scripts. Discussed / screenshots: <https://toot.cat/@dredmorbius/114356066459105122 https://toot.cat/@dredmorbius/114356066459105122> Unfortunately nonsubstantive HN discussion: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43723661 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43723661> Works quite well on an e-ink tablet, as well as on desktop.
rga5321 2mo ago
In case it is useful for anybody. I forked the old Pocket-Plus-Calibre-Plugin recipe when Pocket died, so it run with Todoist: https://github.com/rga5321/todoist2ebook https://github.com/rga5321/todoist2ebook My workflow is: (1) Browse my favorite sites and rss feeds. Save the urls I want to read to a specific Todoist list. I coded a little extension for firefox to do it using a keyboard shortcut https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/todoist-quick-save/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/todoist-quick.... But in some sites, every feed is added to the list automatically using IFTTT (2) Every day at a given hour, a cronjob runs on my raspberry pi executing the script, which builds a epub, mark the articles (tasks in todoist) as completed, and sends the ebook to my kindle email address. In general it works well, although as more web sites implements anti bot measures, some articles are not downloaded correctly. What I do in those cases is add the domain to the exception list, and every week or so browse the articles manually, use https://dotepub.com https://dotepub.com to download every article in a given folder, and run another script that joins them in a single file and sends it to my kindle email address. I'd like to find time to code that the main script todoist2ebook detects when an article has not been correctly processed so it can automate that fallback logic using chrome headless or something like that. Final note, I used todoist to store the articles because I was already using it for task management and have a simple rest api, but the script could be easily modified to store the articles somewhere else.
neo1 2mo ago
Seems like a good place to plug: https://codeberg.org/neo1/mkebook https://codeberg.org/neo1/mkebook it's a bash script front end for curl-cffi -> pandoc i.e. impersonate web-browser to download url, then convert to epub. There is also the option to use chromium for the scraper or ebook-convert for the converter. Some config and you have a (rss reader) newsboat -> calibre with a hotkey.
penchant 2mo ago
I did this for a while when I was learning Spanish! I used Calibre's CLI on my Raspi which generated the epubs from RSS feeds I'd chosen (Spanish-language media like El País, ABC — I speak in the Peninsular variety) and sent it to my Kindle via e-mail. It did this every morning. Can't stress how much this has helped me with the language. Unfortunately, my Rapsi died some months ago and I haven't gotten around to somehow replicate this workflow without it.
- iacutone 2mo ago
  You can modify my code here a bit and run everything in GitHub actions: https://github.com/iacutone/elpais_rss/ https://github.com/iacutone/elpais_rss/
rodolphoarruda 2mo ago
It's interesting to see in the post that the reading experience in the web page highly contrasts with the one in the eReader. The website shows 15 words in the first line (10 in mobile). The eReader shows 6 words in the first line. In my own experience, I found that 6 word per line is the optimal number for comfort. (age thing? maybe)
jordanscales 2mo ago
I love my Xteink, it's such an intentional way of consuming content. I have a similar setup to OP. Here's my codex automation: > Find three diverse, substantive Hacker News articles submitted within the previous 24 hours. Prefer readable linked articles rather than discussion-only, video, paywalled, or repository pages. For each selection, extract a clean UTF-8 XHTML-compatible article fragment and use dotepub's API to create an EPUB under public/books/ with a descriptive `Title - Author.epub` filename. Fix any EPUB 2 packaging or markup problems, including an invalid `xml:lang` on the OPF package element, and require every file to pass `epubcheck` with no errors before upload. Avoid duplicates already present locally or in the production OPDS catalog. Upload only the three newly created EPUB files to `hetzner:/opt/opds/public/books/`; never sync or delete the whole directory. Then verify production `/up` returns 200, unauthenticated `/opds.xml` returns 401, authenticated `/opds.xml` returns 200 and includes all three titles, each download returns `Content-Type: application/epub+zip`, and deployed copies pass `epubcheck`. Report the selected article titles and URLs, filenames, and verification results. Follow the repository AGENTS.md instructions and keep production credentials secret.
rcarmo 2mo ago
I’ve got an X4 as well, and https://rcarmo.github.io/projects/bun-readlater-epub/ https://rcarmo.github.io/projects/bun-readlater-epub/ and https://rcarmo.github.io/projects/bun-opds-server/ https://rcarmo.github.io/projects/bun-opds-server/ were created for it. I have also added an e-ink theme to https://rcarmo.github.io/projects/picoflux/ https://rcarmo.github.io/projects/picoflux/ so I can use the browser on my Nomad instead of my iPad, for those trips where I want to read “live” news but not be suckered in by it (and picoflux is how I deal with title-only feeds as well)
janandonly 2mo ago
My wife bought a large PocketBook (almost A4 size screen) e-reader and just last night I discovered it has a built in RSS reader. No function to import or export OPML, unfortunately. But adding a few high value feeds would be worth our time I guess.
cykros 2mo ago
This looks almost as cool as what we were promised in the late 90s on Discovery Channel's "Beyond 2000." Except that instead of a small hard handheld device, it was something flexible, and more the size of an actual newspaper.

228 points by speckx 2mo ago

Lack of a decent RSS client is one of the major things keeping me on an iPad over an e-ink tablet. I wish manufacturers like Remarkable would get serious about having software platforms.

yitchelle 2mo ago
https://github.com/wowitsjack/freeMarkable https://github.com/wowitsjack/freeMarkable
adhamsalama 2mo ago
I think I might have what you want. I built a web-based RSS reader for the Kindle browser (but it should work on other e-ink devices too). You can read feeds online or download them directly on your device. Please try it and let me know what you think! https://inkfeed.xyz https://inkfeed.xyz
- bityard 2mo ago
  https://reader.inkfeed.xyz/ https://reader.inkfeed.xyz/ seems to be returning "Error loading feed: Fetch failed: 0" for every feed
  - adhamsalama 2mo ago
    Can you tell me which feeds you tried and whether or not you're logged in?
tomodachi94 2mo ago
KOReader (https://koreader.rocks/ https://koreader.rocks/) is supported on many e-readers and has a news downloader that can do this: https://github.com/koreader/koreader/wiki/News-downloader https://github.com/koreader/koreader/wiki/News-downloader (n.b. haven't tried it, but I'm a happy user of KOReader for a couple of years now.)

TFNA 2mo ago

This doesn't work for me in spite of over 10 years of trying. I am currently eating lunch and wasting time on HN on my phone, but my ebook reader full of edifying material is sitting there ignored on the table, right in front of me. I need some way of leaving the phone at home completely, but in my country so much basic everyday stuff relies on a phone (and strong bank authentication through a phone).

dewey 2mo ago
For me it’s about building a routine. I go to a coffee shop every morning with my kindle and phone. Phone in my pocket on do not disturb and just read for an hour. It’s not that hard to disconnect if you really want to.
- TFNA 2mo ago
  I am an academic and do the same reading of books for hours each day without phone distractions. The problem is precisely the less formal environments where, instead of a serious book, I'm going to be reading news or other light content. Hard to go for the ereader then instead of the phone.
  - al_borland 2mo ago
    What about adding some lighter content to the e-reader, even some fiction, to match the vibe you’re looking for in those less formal environments? If your e-reader is only associated with serious book, I can see where that would be a lot for a casual lunch that you want to feel like a break.
mswphd 2mo ago
I've found having draconian phone blocking rules helps. I use Jomo https://jomo.so https://jomo.so but I'm sure there are other competing products. Roughly, you can classify apps in your phone to things that 1. are fundamentally fine (various bank/payment apps, messaging app, map apps), and 2. are known time wasters (social media) you then just block the time wasters. you can configure it so that to edit the settings of the app, you have to enter some 150 character randomized code. it is very annoying to do. this is the point though. there are other ways you can add friction to using your phone. setting its display to be black and white makes it much less enjoyable to use, for example. if you add in enough friction (and stick with it over an initial "hump"), you'll findi yourself reaching for other options.

phelm 2mo ago

I use Instapaper on my kobo for this, ifttt or zappier can subscribe an rss feed to Instapaper, also the browser extension is nice. See some article whilst I'm at work, click the browser extension, and when I'm on the train home Its there on my e-reader.

ynac 2mo ago

I like to read a physical dirty (ink dust, not content) finger newspapers whenever I can get them. At a bakery / cafe a few weeks ago, sitting outside having cherry Danish and an Americano (the international special), I was reading the NYT and the SeaTimes section by section. It was awesome. Comics, international, regional beats, magazines. I realized somewhere in the middle of the caffeine and sugar rush, just what a huge effort it takes to put out a DAILY newspaper. It's incedible, even without considering the cheap price. There was a couple nearby looking at the mess of papers on my table. I realized I needed to tidy my donnage pile of sections, and impulsively offered them to the couple. They almost jumped. If I didn't know better I swear they were living out some fantasy of holding a newspaper for the first time.

kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 2mo ago
I had this feeling recently at a local fair when a local online-only news site produced thier first-ever physical edition. It was great, I read through the entire thing while waiting for the parade.
- ynac 2mo ago
  What paper - if you don't mind sharing. That's pretty interesting!
KellyCriterion 2mo ago
same here! Also for Airports, trains etc... sometimes I even buy one, which is often around 6 - 7 bucks, esp. weekend issues (haha, 6 - 7 bucks for a printed mag on paper - seems somehow surreal these days? Esp since its "a one day useable product" mainly, while you can get some of these news app subscriptions for 10 bucks and you get every stuff tons of stuff)
ilamont 2mo ago
> I realized somewhere in the middle of the caffeine and sugar rush, just what a huge effort it takes to put out a DAILY newspaper. It's incredible, even without considering the cheap price. Former newspaper editor here. We took it for granted at the time, but the orchestration of different teams on a daily basis, with all kinds of cascading workflows and triggers, was something to behold. Editorial, design, special sections, ads, production, printing ... plus all of the smaller teams (copy desk, sports, etc.) and ad-hoc collaborations for instance involving a special event or major news story. You'd go home late (or more often than not in those days, to the bar) feeling good about what your team had just shipped and looking forward to getting the hard copy early the next morning (sometimes when leaving said bar!). And then you'd start all over again around 11 am. It was far more intense than magazine or book publishing, which I got into later. And this was in the 90s. Technology was making things faster, but there were still a lot of older analog systems in place including photography darkrooms. Once I even had to call in a breaking late story over a pay phone, dictating it to the editor on duty. Laptops were rare and expensive, and even the people who used them typically saved to a floppy which would be brought in to the newsroom later to be edited. We had primitive terminal-based word processors (we called it "CText" but I can't locate any reference to it now) and I got started just as Quark Xpress entered the design workflow, replacing xacto knives and bits of paper and opaque plastic that was somehow imaged and sent to the printers. If you went back 30 years earlier, they were still using linotype.

teroshan 2mo ago

The issue with RSS on my e-reader is 1. the amount of feeds I'm subscribed to and 2. I'm often using my e-reader when I'm offline. 1. is not an issue on my computer/smartphone as I can scroll through the feeds and go through interesting links quickly, the keybindings help me do that quickly. 2. Can either be fixed by downloading all links when online (not practical in my case), or by picking and choosing which articles I want to read later. I used to use Wallabag for this, but right now my setup is a self-hosted Readeck [0] instance with the associated KOReader plugin [1]. I really like Readeck because contrary to Wallaback (which I also used because there is a KOReader plugin for it) it captures the content from a page from the client-side through the browser extension [2]. That helps with paywalled articles which don't expose the full feed through RSS typically. [0] https://codeberg.org/readeck/readeck https://codeberg.org/readeck/readeck [1] https://github.com/iceyear/readeck.koplugin https://github.com/iceyear/readeck.koplugin [2] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/readeck/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/readeck/

dewey 2mo ago

In my regular RSS reader I often have the problem that some feeds are not full feeds, or some images are missing (In case they have some gallery) and I have to click out to the page, even just to verify I got the full text. That always kinda stops me from going the eink route where I don’t have a proper browser. Depends on which feeds you subscribe to I guess, probably works really well for long form, reliable feeds.

MattTheRealOne 2mo ago
A majority of the feeds I subscribe to do not include the full text in the feed themselves which is one of the main reasons I use Miniflux which has an option to fetch the full article text and works very reliably. Of the more than 150 feeds I am subscribed to, I think there are fewer than 5 that Miniflux is unable to fetch the text for. Miniflux can also connect to Wallabag to quickly save pages to it using the full text. That is great because Wallabag is often unable to fetch text directly on its own.
- dewey 2mo ago
  I’m also a happy user of Miniflux and that specific feature. I still sometimes want to click out to the article easily to double check if it feels like something didn’t parse correctly. Rare but happens.
nimih 2mo ago
One way to get around this in some cases is to subscribe to the feed's associated email newsletter, which, IME, is more likely to have the full text of the article. This, of course, introduces other problems[1], but if your goal is to remove reasons to habitually look at your phone, it's worth investigating. [1] The feed needs to have a newsletter in the first place, you probably need to clean up the markdown a bit before shoving it into an epub (I've noticed that table-based layouts are much more common, for instance), and your email provider probably doesn't provide an RSS feed of your inbox. The latter two are straightforward to fix but do require a bit of programming elbow grease.
8by3 2mo ago

danlitt 2mo ago

Perhaps this is sufficient reason to connect my KOreader to the internet for the first time...

slau 2mo ago
The only thing attracting me to KOReader for my PocketBook is OPDS. The few presentations I've seen show a UI so bloated (as in, the main view for reading pages crammed full of widgets on the bottom of the screen to display wifi signal, battery percentages, and progression counters) that it makes me wonder why some people use an ereader at all. If my PocketBook had OPDS out of the box it would be the perfect device. What has your experience been? Why are you using KOReader?
- danlitt 2mo ago
  I jailbroke my kindle and this was what the guide I followed installed. I don't know what else is available! My experience has been "fine" - I don't use anything fancy like dictionary lookup or OCR, I just put epubs/pdfs on it and browse. I find the menu UI pretty good, it's a little unintuitive but there is a short guide that covers everything I need. There is no easy way to browse your library (there is a file browser but I don't like that). Ditto I don't find browsing through a book particularly intuitive, but it has page seeking and you can scroll through pages. For casual reading, I think it's just fine.

jeromechoo 2mo ago

I have an X4 as well and tried going down this path but it's just a bit too much friction for me to set my X4 to hotspot mode and run the calibre sync every time I want to refresh my feed. Absolutely love the idea though. Just wish Crosspoint/X4 had the ability to schedule push/pull, but that would likely burn through the battery.

etra0 2mo ago
Same, I think there's too much friction yet. Maybe at some point it could become a crosspoint feature I hope! EDIT: Just checking on the crosspoint site they say such thing is not planned: https://crosspointreader.com/roadmap https://crosspointreader.com/roadmap (section Out of roadmap: Active connectivity (RSS, news, browsers))
- mateioo7 2mo ago
  They do support however OPDS libraries and I happily use it for news where each file is a daily epub consisting of the articles I subscribe to
  - jeromechoo 2mo ago
    Ohhh this could just work!!
  - timurlenk 2mo ago
    Would you be kind to explain what is your exact workflow? I'm unable to find a software or service that would to this for me, but it's the exact thing I want.
    - mateioo7 2mo ago
      My pleasure. I'm also unaware of a software or service since it seems a bit of a too specific usecase. I'm doing all this (with no cost) using an AWS Lambda function written in Java which is scheduled to be called daily at 7 am. It basically parses some RSS feeds[1] (or parses html[2] when RSS is non-existent), extracts each article content using readability and packages them all in a daily epub[3] (with a TOC) which is stored in a S3 folder. Then a separate endpoint (the one I use in my X4) is taking most recent N S3 objects from that S3 folder and exposes the OPDS. The only downside of this is that the response time takes about 3 extra seconds since it uses a cold start, but response speed is not important to me. Using 'OPDS as a news library' works incredibly well with my X4, it takes me under 10 seconds to download and open the epub and should work with any e-ink device that can install KOReader (or any other software with OPDS support). And I love that all articles are inside a single epub and I can easily go to another one from the TOC. It's probably my most useful personal project and I like that by now it follows the 'set it and forget it' principle but in need, since it's written by hand, it's very easy to customize it: filter out AI/war/finance/local-gibberish/whatever articles, add new 'bridges' to websites without RSS, some articles don't respect html guidelines and need some tinkering, etc. [1] https://github.com/rometools/rome https://github.com/rometools/rome [2] https://github.com/jhy/jsoup https://github.com/jhy/jsoup [3] https://github.com/psiegman/epublib https://github.com/psiegman/epublib

zackify 2mo ago

I have crossink which is awesome on the x3. I find it better with more features on top of crossink. And then setup home assistant and picture rendering so when a package or person is detected while I'm reading on a jailbroke kindle, it pops up in the corner automatically with the feed so I can see who it is. Tailscale too. Having full control of these devices is awesome.

8by3 2mo ago

I had a similar idea on https://tuhat.net/ https://tuhat.net/ You can browse it on your ereader and any post can be downloaded as epub. Also for people who serialize books and put them in a collection, you can get the whole collection as a single epub. I've been thinking about turning your /reading list into one as well but not got ten round to it.

joshgachnang 2mo ago

I've been working on the same thing for my ReMarkable, but I get it uploaded as a newspaper doc every morning since you can't install apps on it. Overall it's been working reasonably well!

adhamsalama 2mo ago
I really like the idea of reading blogs on my Kindle, so I built https://inkfeed.xyz https://inkfeed.xyz It's a web-based RSS reader optimized for e-ink devices (especially Kindles) that allows you to read blogs online via the Kindle browser, and download the blogs (directly on your Kindle or email it to your Kindle email). I only tried it on my Kindle, can you try it on your ReMarkable and give me feedback?

podgietaru 2mo ago

I still use Omnivore, just self-hosted now. I recently added a better RSS Reader to it, so now I can get my rss feeds, and save them to my read it later list - and then read them on my Supernote using the android app or web app.

ratio53 2mo ago

I have a similar automated setup: article -> ePub -> Kavita -> OPDS -> e-reader. That way there’s no friction of getting new articles on my device and I can even sync progress across devices.

adhamsalama 2mo ago

I really like the idea of reading blogs on my Kindle, so I built https://inkfeed.xyz https://inkfeed.xyz It's a web-based RSS reader optimized for e-ink devices (especially Kindles) that allows you to read blogs online via the Kindle browser, and download the blogs (directly on your Kindle or email it to your Kindle email). I would love to get the feedback of fellow e-ink devices enjoyers!

aryehof 2mo ago
I really like the UI. That I prefer to keep my Kindle “books only” is the only reason I might not use inkfeed.
- adhamsalama 2mo ago
  But you can read the blogs online without downloading them, with full control over font settings. Is that not good enough?

Damjanski 2mo ago

orishlez 2mo ago

[flagged]

alsanan 2mo ago

Nxtpaper products of tcl are almost as good as eink but without losing the color and screen speed of normal phones. Just change the mode with a switch and you have an ereader. Mate screen and colors and light like an eink device.

inatreecrown2 2mo ago
Are you using one of their products? which one? What are you using it for?

zemike 2mo ago

I have an X3 and it’s great! I think this idea is really cool but like others have said it’s the friction of syncing that stops me. I would love for CrossPoint to have a nightly sync :)

runjake 2mo ago

This is wonderful. About the only good thing to come out of the open web dying is a revitalization of open and accessible computing hobbies.

tmjwid 2mo ago

I'll throw my 2 cents into the mix of "what works for me" posts. FreshRSS (share to Wallabag enabled) + Wallabag + KOReader (on kobo). I've been toying with the idea of trying to add Wallabag sync into Crosspoint, as I have an x4 but it's pretty much just sat doing nothing. I have a Mudita Kompact though, which I use with the Wallabag app and my best mate Alan from RHVoice to read out articles for me. I remember barely anything with this setup but I do like it...

zie 2mo ago

Calibre does this for you and has for a long time. Docs: https://manual.calibre-ebook.com/news.html https://manual.calibre-ebook.com/news.html I used to read lwn.net from my e-reader, worked great.

socalgal2 2mo ago

Now if only it was newspaper sized!

second_brain2 2mo ago

dude this is actually kinda cool ngl

dredmorbius 2mo ago

I'm still reasonably pleased with my CNN-to-newspaper scripts. Discussed / screenshots: <https://toot.cat/@dredmorbius/114356066459105122 https://toot.cat/@dredmorbius/114356066459105122> Unfortunately nonsubstantive HN discussion: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43723661 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43723661> Works quite well on an e-ink tablet, as well as on desktop.

rga5321 2mo ago

In case it is useful for anybody. I forked the old Pocket-Plus-Calibre-Plugin recipe when Pocket died, so it run with Todoist: https://github.com/rga5321/todoist2ebook https://github.com/rga5321/todoist2ebook My workflow is: (1) Browse my favorite sites and rss feeds. Save the urls I want to read to a specific Todoist list. I coded a little extension for firefox to do it using a keyboard shortcut https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/todoist-quick-save/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/todoist-quick.... But in some sites, every feed is added to the list automatically using IFTTT (2) Every day at a given hour, a cronjob runs on my raspberry pi executing the script, which builds a epub, mark the articles (tasks in todoist) as completed, and sends the ebook to my kindle email address. In general it works well, although as more web sites implements anti bot measures, some articles are not downloaded correctly. What I do in those cases is add the domain to the exception list, and every week or so browse the articles manually, use https://dotepub.com https://dotepub.com to download every article in a given folder, and run another script that joins them in a single file and sends it to my kindle email address. I'd like to find time to code that the main script todoist2ebook detects when an article has not been correctly processed so it can automate that fallback logic using chrome headless or something like that. Final note, I used todoist to store the articles because I was already using it for task management and have a simple rest api, but the script could be easily modified to store the articles somewhere else.

neo1 2mo ago

Seems like a good place to plug: https://codeberg.org/neo1/mkebook https://codeberg.org/neo1/mkebook it's a bash script front end for curl-cffi -> pandoc i.e. impersonate web-browser to download url, then convert to epub. There is also the option to use chromium for the scraper or ebook-convert for the converter. Some config and you have a (rss reader) newsboat -> calibre with a hotkey.

penchant 2mo ago

I did this for a while when I was learning Spanish! I used Calibre's CLI on my Raspi which generated the epubs from RSS feeds I'd chosen (Spanish-language media like El País, ABC — I speak in the Peninsular variety) and sent it to my Kindle via e-mail. It did this every morning. Can't stress how much this has helped me with the language. Unfortunately, my Rapsi died some months ago and I haven't gotten around to somehow replicate this workflow without it.

iacutone 2mo ago
You can modify my code here a bit and run everything in GitHub actions: https://github.com/iacutone/elpais_rss/ https://github.com/iacutone/elpais_rss/

rodolphoarruda 2mo ago

It's interesting to see in the post that the reading experience in the web page highly contrasts with the one in the eReader. The website shows 15 words in the first line (10 in mobile). The eReader shows 6 words in the first line. In my own experience, I found that 6 word per line is the optimal number for comfort. (age thing? maybe)

jordanscales 2mo ago

I love my Xteink, it's such an intentional way of consuming content. I have a similar setup to OP. Here's my codex automation: > Find three diverse, substantive Hacker News articles submitted within the previous 24 hours. Prefer readable linked articles rather than discussion-only, video, paywalled, or repository pages. For each selection, extract a clean UTF-8 XHTML-compatible article fragment and use dotepub's API to create an EPUB under public/books/ with a descriptive `Title - Author.epub` filename. Fix any EPUB 2 packaging or markup problems, including an invalid `xml:lang` on the OPF package element, and require every file to pass `epubcheck` with no errors before upload. Avoid duplicates already present locally or in the production OPDS catalog. Upload only the three newly created EPUB files to `hetzner:/opt/opds/public/books/`; never sync or delete the whole directory. Then verify production `/up` returns 200, unauthenticated `/opds.xml` returns 401, authenticated `/opds.xml` returns 200 and includes all three titles, each download returns `Content-Type: application/epub+zip`, and deployed copies pass `epubcheck`. Report the selected article titles and URLs, filenames, and verification results. Follow the repository AGENTS.md instructions and keep production credentials secret.

rcarmo 2mo ago

I’ve got an X4 as well, and https://rcarmo.github.io/projects/bun-readlater-epub/ https://rcarmo.github.io/projects/bun-readlater-epub/ and https://rcarmo.github.io/projects/bun-opds-server/ https://rcarmo.github.io/projects/bun-opds-server/ were created for it. I have also added an e-ink theme to https://rcarmo.github.io/projects/picoflux/ https://rcarmo.github.io/projects/picoflux/ so I can use the browser on my Nomad instead of my iPad, for those trips where I want to read “live” news but not be suckered in by it (and picoflux is how I deal with title-only feeds as well)

janandonly 2mo ago

My wife bought a large PocketBook (almost A4 size screen) e-reader and just last night I discovered it has a built in RSS reader. No function to import or export OPML, unfortunately. But adding a few high value feeds would be worth our time I guess.

cykros 2mo ago

This looks almost as cool as what we were promised in the late 90s on Discovery Channel's "Beyond 2000." Except that instead of a small hard handheld device, it was something flexible, and more the size of an actual newspaper.