+++
title = "Read RSS with Elfeed"
author = ["Michał Sapka"]
date = 2023-05-19T23:00:00+02:00
categories = ["emacs"]
draft = false
weight = 3001
image_dir = "cool-emacs"
image_max_width = 480
primary_menu = "cool-emacs-ways"
abstract = "Setting up config inside an org file"
aliases = ["/2023/moving-my-rss-reading-to-emacs-with-elfeed/", "/emacs/moving-my-rss-reading-to-emacs-with-elfeed/", "/emacs/elfeed-literate-config/"]
[menu]
  [menu.cool-emacs-ways]
    weight = 3001
    identifier = "read-rss-with-elfeed"
+++

Since Emacs became my shell of choice[^fn:1], I am abandoning more and more dedicated applications in favor of different packages.
As it turns out, Emacs packages are very feature rich.
This time: I moved my RSS reading from newsboat[^fn:2] to elfeed[^fn:3].

Elfeed has very simple keybindings:

-   g will refresh the items list
-   G will refresh the items list and fetch new items
-   r will mark currently selected item is read (remove unread tag)[^4]
-   b will open item in the browser

One huge upside of elfeed compared to newsboat is image support.
Emacs is a GUI application, so all images are present in their glory!

{{< image class="centered" alt="An Emacs screenshot showing a list using a dark mode" file="elfeed-list.png" >}}
List of articles
{{< /image >}}

{{< image class="centered" alt="An Emacs screenshot showing Elfeed in a dark mode with a vintage PC case in the middle" file="elfeed-details.png" >}}
Images!
{{< /image >}}

My setup is near stock.
I have a few dozen feeds that are auto-tagged.
Three essential tags are "important", "news", and "company".
I want to read each "important", then I want to see all normal, and finally I can just skim "news" and "company".
Adding auto-tagging is very simple: just define the tag when defining the RSS feed list:

```emacs-lisp
("https://rubenerd.com/feed/" blog important)
("https://www.pine64.org/feed/" company)
```

Now, each new article will be tagged with matching tags.
Elfeed allows to define of custom faces that will be applied to items matching tag[^fn:4]:

```emacs-lisp
(defface important-elfeed-entry
  '((t :foreground "#f77"))
  "Marks an important Elfeed entry."
  :group 'elfeed)

(defface nonimportant-elfeed-entry
  '((t :foreground "#C0C0C0"))
  "Marks an nonimportant Elfeed entry."
  :group 'elfeed)

(push '(important important-elfeed-entry)
       elfeed-search-face-alist)
(push '(company nonimportant-elfeed-entry)
      elfeed-search-face-alist)
(push '(news nonimportant-elfeed-entry)
      elfeed-search-face-alist)
```

Now important items will be dark red, while company &amp; news will be dark gray

<div class="img-c">

No important things to read at this moment.

</div>

Elfeed has a few packages expanding its functionality, but I found the default behavior to be exactly right.


## Elfeed-org {#elfeed-org}

One of the packages expanding capabilities of elfeed is elfeed-org[^fn:5].
It allows configuring the list of feeds with a standard org tree.
Since my config is now also an org file, nothing stops me from adding the list as an org-tree inside my config org-file! I set it up via:

{{&lt;highlight lisp "linenos=table,linenostart=199,hl_lines=7"&gt;}}

```org
*** elfeed-org

#+BEGIN_SRC emacs-lisp
(use-package elfeed-org
  :ensure t
  :config
  (setq rmh-elfeed-org-files (list "~/.emacs.d/config.org"))
  (elfeed-org))
#+END_SRC
```

Therefore, I am now pointing at the same file to become the data source for elfeed-org as the rest of my config.
Just a few lines down, I start to define my list of subscriptions:

```org
*** Feeds :elfeed:

**** Blogs

***** https://gideonwolfe.com/index.xml      :important:
***** https://fabiensanglard.net/rss.xml.    :important:

**** Emacs

***** https://protesilaos.com/master.xml     :important:
```

Much more readable! Elfeed-org will ignore the entire outer tree and extract the feeds from leaves under the `:elfeed:` tag.

[^fn:1]: [Emacs as a Shell](/2023/emacs-as-a-shell/)
[^fn:2]: [Newsboat homepage](https://newsboat.org/)
[^fn:3]: [Elfeed repository on Github](https://github.com/skeeto/elfeed)
[^fn:4]: my elisp-fu not good
[^fn:5]: <https://github.com/remyhonig/elfeed-org>