I3 News

I3 News let's you create interactive news headline snippets compatible with various i3/sway bar plugins, based on user defined RSS/Atom feeds.

Compatibility list:

i3blocks
polybar
i3status
waybar

Installation
- Building from source
Usage
- i3blocks
- i3status
- Polybar
- Waybar
Scrolling headlines
- Polybar/Waybar
- i3blocks
Configuration

Installation

NOTE i3 news requires fuse/libfuse libraries installed in the system

I3 news ships with 2 versions available:

Light - Includes only i3 news binary and supplementary scripts, it does not contain Newsboat RSS reader required for retrieval of RSS data, you will need to install Newsboat package system wide (Note: Snapcraft version is not supported) (Recommended)

To install this version execute:

sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/exaroth/i3-news/master/install.sh)"

Self Contained - this is the same as above but ships with Newsboat app and all required shared libraries included. To install run:

sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/exaroth/i3-news/master/install_full.sh)"

You can also download i3_news executables from releases page.

Following the installation update your crontab to set up regular RSS feed reloads , eg to update feeds every 20 minutes:

crontab -e

*/20 * * * * /usr/local/bin/i3_news reload

Building from source

Note: Supported zig versions - 0.14.1/0.15.0

Clone the repository and run make build-appimage to compile the source and build AppImage for the executable.

Usage

Usage: i3news ?<command> <options>

Commands: open|reload|zscroll|bscroll|version

Options:
  -c, --configs       Snippet configuration or configurations to use
  -s, --i3status      I3status output
  -b, --i3blocks      I3blocks output
  -p, --polybar       Polybar output
  -w, --waybar        Waybar output
  -a, --add-config    Add new i3-news configuration
  -r, --rm-config     Remove existing configuration
  -e, --edit-config   Edit urls for given configuration
      --get-url       Retrieve url for currently displayed headline
      --plain         Plain output
      --random        Retrieve headlines using random strategy
      --latest        Retrieve headlines prioritising latest articles
      --debug         Print debug info
  -h, --help          Print help

Creating new snippet

In order to create new I3 news snippet execute:

i3_news -a <snippet_name>

You will be prompted to enter list of RSS/Atom urls which will be tracked by the snippet.

Use

i3_news -e <snippet_name>

To edit snippet urls, or

i3_news -r <snippet_name>

to remove existing one.

Snippet configurations are stored at $HOME/.config/i3_news/.

Integration with i3 bar plugins.

i3blocks

In order to add i3 news snippet to i3blocks bar edit existing configuration (typically stored at ~/.i3blocks) adding following entry:

[News]
command=/usr/local/bin/i3_news -b -c <snippet_name>
interval=30

(interval value will determine how often headlines will be refreshed)

Additionally in order to customize browser command to use when opening headline url you can use I3_NEWS_BROWSER_CMD env variable, for example to open url in new firefox tab use:

command=I3_NEWS_BROWSER_CMD="/usr/bin/firefox --new-tab" /usr/local/bin/i3_news -b -c <snippet_name>

i3status

NOTE i3status plugin is non-interactive, thus clicking on headline wont result in opening of the url in the browser

Edit i3 configuration (typically stored at ~/.config/i3/config) and locate bar { ... } block containing

status_command  i3status

entry, replace it with:

status_command  i3status | /usr/local/bin/i3_news -s -c <snippet_name>

You can also output more than 1 snippet by passing comma delimited list of snippet names as part of -c parameter.

polybar

Edit polybar configuration file (usually stored at ~/.config/polybar/config.ini), add following entry:

    [module/i3-news]
    type = custom/script
    exec = /usr/local/bin/i3_news -p -c <snippet_name>
    tail = true
    interval = 10
    click-left = /usr/local/bin/i3_news open -c <snippet_name>

then update either modules-left or modules-right entry with i3-news.

Similarly to i3blocks integration you can customize browser used for opening headline urls by adding I3_NEWS_BROWSER_CMD env when executing click-left handler.

waybar

Edit waybar configuraton (typically stored at ~/.config/waybar/config), add following entry

    "custom/i3-news": {
        "exec": "/usr/local/bin/i3_news -w -c <snippet_name>",
        "return-type": "json",
        "interval": 10,
        "tooltip": false,
        "on-click": "/usr/local/bin/i3_news open -c <snippet_name>"
    }

and update modules-right, modules-left or modules-center with custom/i3-news entry.

You can customize color rendering by editing ~/.config/waybar/style.css and adding

#custom-i3-news.<snippet_name> {
    color: white;
}

Scrolling text headlines

Polybar/Waybar

i3-news ships with zscroll script which allows for easy incorporation of scrolling text headlines, this feature is only compatible with polybar and waybar plugins. In order to output headline snippet run:

i3_news zscroll -c <snippet_name>

Parameters of the scrolling snippets can be configured via environment variables:

ZSCROLL_INTERVAL - how often to refresh news headlines
ZSCROLL_DELAY - Controls scroll speed
ZSCROLL_WIDTH - Width of the snippet

Scrolling plugins work best with monotype fonts.

Polybar integration

Reference configuration, note there's no need to include interval field for scrolling snippets.

    [module/i3-news-scroll]
    type = custom/script
    exec = ZSCROLL_DELAY=0.3 /usr/local/bin/i3_news zscroll -c <snippet_name>
    click-left = /usr/local/bin/i3_news open -c <snippet_name>
    tail = true
    label = %output:0:40:...%

Waybar integration

    "custom/i3-news-scroll": {
        "escape": "true",
        "exec": "ZSCROLL_WIDTH=50 /usr/local/bin/i3_news zscroll -c <snippet_name>",
        "max-length": 50,
        "min-length": 50,
        "on-click": "/usr/local/bin/i3_news open -c <snippet_name>"
    }

I3blocks

I3 news comes supplied with dedicated command bscroll to handle scrolling headlines for i3bar, to use it execute:

i3_news bscroll -c <snippet_name>

Command defaults can be overriden using following env vars:

BSCROLL_INTERVAL - Refresh rate for the headlines
BSCROLL_DELAY - Scroll speed
BSCROLL_WIDTH - Width of the snippet

Example usage in i3blocks config (markup=pango and interval=persist settings are required)

[News]
command=BSCROLL_INTERVAL=20 /usr/local/bin/i3_news bscroll -c <snippet_name>
markup=pango
color=#FEC925
interval=persist

Configuration

Configuration for each snippet is stored at ~/.config/i3_news/<snippet_name>/config with following options available:

max-article-age - amount of hours in the past for which to display headlines for
output-color - text color for given snippet (hex based)
refresh-interval - (i3status only) refresh rate when displaying the headlines

License

See LICENSE file for details

Dependencies

README