forked from notBrad/bubo-rss
84 lines
5.1 KiB
Markdown
84 lines
5.1 KiB
Markdown
# 🦉 Bubo Reader
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Bubo Reader is a hyper-minimalist <acronym title="Really Simple Syndication">RSS</acronym> and <acronym title="JavaScript Object Notation">JSON</acronym> feed reader you can deploy on your own server, [Netlify](https://netlify.com) in a few steps or [Glitch](https://glitch.com) in even fewer steps! The goal of the project is to generate a webpage that shows a list of links from a collection of feeds organized by category and website. That's it.
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It is named after this [silly robot owl](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYSeCfo9-NI) from Clash of the Titans (1981).
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You can read more about how this project came about in my blog post '[Introducing Bubo RSS: An Absurdly Minimalist RSS Feed Reader](https://george.mand.is/2019/11/introducing-bubo-rss-an-absurdly-minimalist-rss-feed-reader/)'
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## Anatomy of Bubo Reader
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- `src/index.html` - a [Nunjucks](https://mozilla.github.io/nunjucks/) template that lets you change how the feeds are displayed
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- `output/style.css` - a CSS file to stylize your feed output
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- `src/feeds.json` - a JSON file containing the URLs for various site's feeds separated into categories
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- `src/index.js` - the script that loads the feeds and does the actual parsing and rendering
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## Demos
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You can view live demos here:
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- [https://bubo-rss-demo.netlify.com/](https://bubo-rss-demo.netlify.com/)
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- [http://bubo-rss.glitch.me/](http://bubo-rss.glitch.me/)
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Not the most exciting-looking demos, I'll admit, but they work!
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**Getting Started**
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- [Deploying to Glitch](#glitch)
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- [Deploying to Netlify](#netlify)
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- [Keeping feeds updated](#updated)
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<a id="glitch"></a>
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## Deploying to Glitch
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The quickest way is to remix the project on Glitch:
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[https://glitch.com/edit/#!/bubo-rss](https://glitch.com/edit/#!/bubo-rss)
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Just changed some feeds in `./src/feeds.json` file and you're set! If you'd like to modify the style or the template you can changed `./output/style.css` file or the `./src/template.html` file respectively.
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There is also a special `glitch` branch you can clone if you prefer:
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[https://github.com/georgemandis/bubo-rss/tree/glitch](https://github.com/georgemandis/bubo-rss/tree/glitch)
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The only difference between this branch and `master` is that it spins up a server using [Express](https://expressjs.com/) to serve your `./output/index.html` file on Glitch. Everything else is the same.
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<a id="netlify"></a>
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## Deploying to Netlify
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- [Fork the repository](https://github.com/georgemandis/bubo-rss/fork)
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- From your forked repository go to and edit `src/feeds.json` to manage your feeds and categories
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- [Create a new site](https://app.netlify.com/start) on Netlify from GitHub
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The deploy settings should automatically import from the `netlify.toml` file. All you'll need to do is confirm and you're ready to go!
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<a id="updated"></a>
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### Keeping Feeds Updated
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#### Using Netlify Webhooks
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To keep your feeds up to date you'll want to [setup a Build Hook](https://www.netlify.com/docs/webhooks/#incoming-webhooks) for your Netlify site and use another service to ping it every so often to trigger a rebuild. I'd suggest looking into:
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- [IFTTT](https://ifttt.com/)
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- [Zapier](https://zapier.com/)
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- [EasyCron](https://www.easycron.com/)
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If you already have a server running Linux and some command-line experience it might be simpler to setup a [cron job](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cron).
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#### Using GitHub Actions
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This approach is a little different and requires some modifications to the repository. Netlify started billing for [build minutes](https://www.netlify.com/pricing/faq/) very shortly after I published this project. Running `npm build` and downloading all of the RSS feeds took up a substantial number of these, particularly if you had a process pinging the webhook and triggering a build every 15 minutes or so.
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How is the The GitHub Action-based approach different? The same build process runs, but this time it's on GitHub's servers via the Action. It then **commits** the newly created file generated at `./output/index.html` back into the repository. Netlify still gets pinged when the repository is updated, but skips the `npm run build` step on their end. This significantly reduces the number of build minutes required.
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**TLDR**: use the [`github-action-publishing`](https://github.com/georgemandis/bubo-rss/tree/github-action-publishing) branch for now if you'd prefer to use GitHub Actions.
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**Note:** The GitHub Action is setup to build and commit directly to the `master` branch, which is not the best practice. I'd suggest creating a separate branch to checkout and commit changes to in the action. You could then specify that same branch as the one to checkout and publish on Netlify.
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## Support
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If you found this useful please consider sponsoring me or this project. If you'd rather run this on your own server please consider using one of these affiliate links to setup a micro instance on [Linode](https://www.linode.com/?r=8729957ab02b50a695dcea12a5ca55570979d8b9), [Digital Ocean](https://m.do.co/c/31f58d367777) or [Vultr](https://www.vultr.com/?ref=8403978).
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## Showcase
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Here are some websites using Bubo Reader:
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- [Kevin Fiol](https://kevinfiol.com/reader/) ([repo](https://github.com/kevinfiol/reader))
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