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After you've installed Newsboat, you can run it for the first time by typing
`newsboat` on your command prompt. This will bring you the following message:
----
Error: no URLs configured. Please fill the file /home/ak/.newsboat/urls with RSS feed URLs or import an OPML file.
newsboat 2.22
usage: ./newsboat [-i <file>|-e] [-u <urlfile>] [-c <cachefile>] [-x <command> ...] [-h]
-e, --export-to-opml export OPML feed to stdout
-r, --refresh-on-start refresh feeds on start
-i, --import-from-opml=<file> import OPML file
-u, --url-file=<urlfile> read RSS feed URLs from <urlfile>
-c, --cache-file=<cachefile> use <cachefile> as cache file
-C, --config-file=<configfile> read configuration from <configfile>
-X, --vacuum compact the cache
-x, --execute=<command>... execute list of commands
-q, --quiet quiet startup
-v, --version get version information
-l, --log-level=<loglevel> write a log with a certain loglevel (valid values: 1 to 6)
-d, --log-file=<logfile> use <logfile> as output log file
-E, --export-to-file=<file> export list of read articles to <file>
-I, --import-from-file=<file> import list of read articles from <file>
-h, --help this help
--cleanup remove unreferenced items from cache
----
This means that Newsboat can't start without any configured feeds. To add
feeds to Newsboat, you can either add URLs to the configuration file
_$HOME/.newsboat/urls_ or you can import an OPML file by running `newsboat -i
blogroll.opml`. To manually add URLs, open the file with your favorite text
editor and add the URLs, one per line:
http://rss.cnn.com/rss/cnn_topstories.rss
http://newsrss.bbc.co.uk/rss/newsonline_world_edition/front_page/rss.xml
If you need to add URLs that have restricted access via username/password, simply
provide the username/password in the following way:
https://username:password@hostname.domain.tld/feed.rss
In order to protect username and password, make sure that
_$HOME/.newsboat/urls_ is only readable by you and, optionally, your group:
$ chmod u=rw,g=r,o= ~/.newsboat/urls
Newsboat also makes sure that usernames and passwords within URLs aren't
displayed in its user interface. In case there is a _@_ in the username, you
need to write it as _%40_ instead so that it can be distinguished from the _@_
that separates the username/password part from the hostname part.
You can also configure local files as feeds, by prefixing the local path with
`file://` and adding it to the _urls_ file:
file:///var/log/rss_eventlog.xml
Now you can run Newsboat again, and it will present you with a controllable
list of the URLs that you configured previously. You can now start downloading
the feeds, either by pressing "R" to download all feeds, or by pressing "r" to
download the currently selected feed. You can then select a feed you want to
read, and by pressing "Enter", you can go to the article list for this feed.
This works even while the downloading is still in progress.
You can now see the list of available articles by their title. A "N" on the
left indicates that an article wasn't read yet. Pressing "Enter" brings you to
the content of the article. You can scroll through this text, and also run
a browser (default: lynx) to view the complete article if the content is empty
or just an abstract or a short description. Each URL in the article has
a number next to it; to open it, type `#` and then the number, then press
"Enter". For single-digit links, like 3, you can just press that number on the
keyboard.
Pressing "q" brings you back to the article list, and pressing "q" again brings
you back to the feed list. Pressing "q" a third time then closes Newsboat.
Newsboat caches the article that it downloads. This means that when you start
Newsboat again and reload a feed, the old articles can still be read even if
they aren't in the current RSS feeds anymore. Optionally you can configure how
many articles shall be preserved by feed so that the article backlog doesn't
grow endlessly (see <<max-items,`max-items`>> below).
Newsboat also uses a number of measures to preserve the users' and feed
providers' bandwidth, by trying to avoid unnecessary feed downloads through the
use of conditional HTTP downloading. It saves every feed's "Last-Modified" and
"ETag" response header values (if present) and advises the feed's HTTP server
to only send data if the feed has been updated by modification date/time or
"ETag" header. This doesn't only make feed downloads for RSS feeds with no new
updates faster, it also reduces the amount of transferred data per request.
Conditional HTTP downloading can be optionally disabled per feed by using the
<<always-download,`always-download`>> configuration command.
Several aspects of Newsboat's behaviour can be configured via a configuration
file _config_, which is stored next to the _urls_ file. This configuration file
contains lines in the form `<config-command> <arg1> ...`. The configuration
file can also contain comments, which start with the `+#+` character and go as
far as the end of line. If you need to enter a configuration argument that
contains spaces, use quotes (`"`) around the whole argument. It's even possible
to integrate the output of external commands into the configuration. The text
between two backticks (`{backtick}`) is evaluated as shell command, and its
output is put on its place instead. This works like backtick evaluation in
Bourne-compatible shells and allows users to use external information from the
system within the configuration. Backticks and `+#+` characters can be escaped
with a backslash (e.g. `{backslash}{backtick}` and `{backslash}#`); in that
case, they'll be replaced with literal `{backtick}` or `+#+` in the
configuration.
Searching for articles is possible in Newsboat, too. Just press the "/" key,
enter your search phrase, and the title and content of all articles are
searched for it. When you do a search from the list of feeds, all articles of
all feeds will be searched. When you do a search from the article list of a
feed, only the articles of the currently viewed feed are searched. When opening
an article from a search result dialog, the search phrase is highlighted.
The history of all your searches is saved to the filesystem, to the
_history.search_ file (stored next to the _cache.db_ file). By default, the
last 100 search phrases are stored, but this limited can be influenced through
the <<history-limit,`history-limit`>> configuration variable. To disable search
history saving, simply set the `history-limit` to `0`.
Keys, as used in the bind-key configuration command, use a special syntax.
Lowercase keys, uppercase keys and special characters are written literally.
The "Enter" key is written as `ENTER`, "Tab" key as `TAB`, and the "Esc" key is
written as `ESC`. The function keys "F1" to "F12" are written as `F1` to `F12`.
The "Space" key is written as `SPACE`. Key combinations with the "Ctrl" key,
such as "Ctrl-R", are written as `^R`. Please be aware that all Ctrl-related
key combinations need to be written in uppercase. The following identifiers for
keys are supported:
- `ENTER` (Enter key)
- `BACKSPACE` (backspace key)
- `LEFT` (left cursor)
- `RIGHT` (right cursor)
- `UP` (up cursor)
- `DOWN` (down cursor)
- `PPAGE` (page up cursor)
- `NPAGE` (page down cursor)
- `HOME` (cursor to beginning of list/article)
- `END` (cursor to end of list/article)
- `ESC` (Esc key)
- `TAB` (Tab key)
Newsboat also comes with user contributed content like scripts and color
themes. The user contributed content can be found in
`/usr/share/doc/newsboat/contrib/`. End users are encouraged to take a look as
they may find something useful.
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