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Show HN: Twine – Open source multiplatform RSS app
- mytlogos 3y agoThe title is a bit misleading, I expected a desktop app or similar, but it is a mobile-only app (android+ios).
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- riddley 3y agoI was hoping for a self hosted copy of The Old Reader.
- its_sasikanth 3y agoIt’s technically entirely possible to do this with Kotlin WASM support. I was thinking about it a couple days ago. Maybe a fun experiment to try out.
- BadHumans 3y agoI wouldn't call it misleading because you made an assumption. It is multi-platform as advertised.
- its_sasikanth 3y agoI do plan to support desktop environments eventually. But the current plan is to work on features and large screen layout support.
- zeraphy 3y agoI would change to "Gorgeous"
- samstave 3y agoJust installed on iOS - also, dont forget that almost any subreddit is an RSS with /.rss SO http://old.reddit.com/r/hackernews/.rss http://old.reddit.com/r/hackernews/.rss works. And yes, it looks great. = I'd like the ability to turn off thumbnails, select smaller thumbnails, and select font size in settings. Would be great to have more control over the view, for some sites/feeds I want large thumbnails, for others I want zero thumbnails. When I click on the feed's : menu, for share, open website, mark all as read - a check box for display thumbnails would be nice - myabe allow for feed labels, so I can show all "tech" labeled feeds for example....
- thegeekpirate 3y ago> also, dont forget that almost any subreddit is an RSS with /.rss You can just add .rss to the end, you don't need the slash ;)
- samstave 3y agoHomage to /. OG :-)
- KoftaBob 3y agoTwine is my new favorite RSS Feed app, only thing missing is feed folders!
- its_sasikanth 3y agoI am working on labels, hopefully soon
- tamimio 3y agoNetnewswire works great for me, folders included too
- nntwozz 3y agoYeah plus it syncs with iCloud (no third party RSS service required) and has a mac app. Twine looks nice but I feel it comes at the cost of information density compared to NNW.
- its_sasikanth 3y agoOh yeah, Net News Wire is amazing. It’s one of the inspiration for me when working on Twine. A fully featured open source project. I just wanted to try out the new multiplatform technology and build a app I would want to use fwiw, I do have plans to support integrations/3rd party services this year.
- Hamuko 3y agoI tried it out briefly on my Mac but I didn't like it as much as I like Reeder. Granted, Reeder costs $10 to NetNewsWire's $0, but I still consider it excellent value for the money.
- matt3210 3y ago[flagged]
- parasti 3y agoAlso not to be confused with the interactive fiction creation tool.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- dewey 3y agoAnd like with most multiplatform apps, it doesn't look native at all on iOS. I prefer my current combination of: https://netnewswire.com https://netnewswire.com + https://miniflux.app https://miniflux.app Both open source too.
- darrmit 3y agoAgreed. Miniflux is rock solid and I use Reeder on my iOS devices, which actually is gorgeous and looks native on iOS. Have used NetNewsWire as well.
- ghostpepper 3y agoI think I just got unlucky trying Miniflux when there happened to be a bug that prevents the sync frequency from being respected. Once that’s fixed I plan to give it another try.
- monocularvision 3y agoFor me, “beautiful” and “multi-platform” are opposites.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- its_sasikanth 3y agoI was initially debating whether to use native UI or not. But Compose Multiplatform offered the flexibility to provide UI for multiple platforms, so decided to try that out instead.
- e_carra 3y agoThe UI has Tidal vibes, neat.
- tetrisgm 3y agoWish it would connect with feedbin. I don't wanna import opml and have feedbin filled with unreads
- its_sasikanth 3y agoI do have plans to support integrations/3rd party services.
- tetrisgm 3y agoHopefully feedbin soon! Anywhere I can get notified?
- its_sasikanth 3y agoI currently don’t have a separate task on GitHub. But GitHub releases are one place to keep track or need to create a new issue or discussion separate for feedbin.
- tetrisgm 3y agoMaybe have a Twitter or email notifs?
- rmdes 3y agoDoes it also import folders when importing from a OPML file?
- its_sasikanth 3y agoNot at the moment. I am currently working on labels/folders support. So, hopefully I can finish it in next couple of weeks
- gnatolf 3y agoNot having folders is a deal-breaker, all other things look great. I'm ready to give feedly the boot.
- wahnfrieden 3y agoI’m building a free RSS reader with iCloud sync for iOS and macOS, Manabi Reader: https://reader.manabi.io https://reader.manabi.io Currently it’s targeted at Japanese learners and has some optional paid features on top for flashcards/Anki integration and tracking vocab/kanji. But I’m working on “zooming out” the product for general use (including more languages and general knowledge retention) because it has a solid RSS system, readability mode, offline support, web browser functionality etc. I built it in native SwiftUI.
- sureglymop 3y agoLooks very cool but unfortunately iOS only.
- wahnfrieden 3y agoYes iOS and macOS
- smcleod 3y agoJust tried it out and it doesn’t feel quite right on iOS. Almost like the app is just a website loading in a browser. It’s very flat and the UI feels too “thin” (I know that doesn’t really make sense but it’s the best description I of how it feels to me right now). I guess it just doesn’t feel very native - more of a web wrapper?
- its_sasikanth 3y agoI used Kotlin and Compose Multiplatform for iOS. So not entirely native app and uses Material components. Not a web wrapper though, well, except for the reader view which uses webview of the platform.
- seabass-labrax 3y agoIt's indeed not a fully native application except on Android. It uses JetBrain's 'Compose Multiplatform' framework for the Kotlin programming language. Without having written code in it myself, it's difficult for me to work out exactly what its architecture is, but it seems closer to Flutter's approach than a web wrapper. My educated guess is that it renders the application inside an OpenGL/Metal graphics context. On Android, however, it looks like it uses Google's Jetpack Compose components directly.
- CharlesW 3y agohttps://blog.jetbrains.com/kotlin/2023/05/compose-multiplatform-for-ios-is-in-alpha/ https://blog.jetbrains.com/kotlin/2023/05/compose-multiplatf... "On iOS, Compose Multiplatform user interfaces are rendered via a canvas implementation based on the graphics library Skiko [Skia for Kotlin]." So yes — it foregoes native controls for a canvas implementation that leverages the same 2D graphics library used for Chrome and Flutter.
- fyzix 3y ago> https://blog.jetbrains.com/kotlin/2023/05/compose-multiplatform-for-ios-is-in-alpha/ https://blog.jetbrains.com/kotlin/2023/05/compose-multiplatf... > > "On iOS, Compose Multiplatform user interfaces are rendered via a canvas implementation based on the graphics library Skiko [Skia for Kotlin]." > > So yes — it foregoes native controls for a canvas implementation that leverages the same 2D graphics library used for Chrome and Flutter. fyi, flutter now uses a new graphics lib called impeller. It's not yet stable for Android though. https://docs.flutter.dev/perf/impeller https://docs.flutter.dev/perf/impeller
- brailsafe 3y agoIt looks pretty nice, but would seem a bit cringe to call your own app "Gorgeous" in a Show HN, like calling yourself a 10 on a dating profile, or introducing your kid as beautiful. I'd personally just leave it out and use something like "Open Source RSS app for Android/iOS"
- mixmastamyk 3y agoIndeed. Was curious, took a look, and it uses the same widgets as everything else.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- its_sasikanth 3y agoYeah, I wasn’t sure if I should include that or not. But some users did highlight that before with the app. So went with it, but yeah fair point. Looks like the title is modified already.
- MayeulC 3y agoI think I'll wait for an F-Droid release before trying this: https://github.com/msasikanth/twine/issues/38 https://github.com/msasikanth/twine/issues/38 I currently use Nextcloud News, but it's a bit slow (especially with my 50k+ unread items), and doesn't support dynamically ranked feeds, only chronological ones. It's nice having read status synced across devices, though.
- Zufriedenheit 3y agoCan Nextcloud News scrape the full article text if its not included in the feed?
- dugite-code 3y agoIt Technically could as it has plugin support but as far as I am aware it doesn't. Some alternatives: - TT-RSS¹ has multiple plugins, including the one I currently support Feediron² - FressRSS³ has CSS selector support out of the box and has a readability extension⁴ that supports Readability or Mercury I've been dreaming of porting Feediron to both FreshRSS and Nextcloud news. But I barely have any free time as is... one day [1] https://tt-rss.org https://tt-rss.org [2] https://github.com/feediron/ttrss_plugin-feediron https://github.com/feediron/ttrss_plugin-feediron [3] https://github.com/FreshRSS/FreshRSS/ https://github.com/FreshRSS/FreshRSS/ [4] https://github.com/FreshRSS/Extensions?tab=readme-ov-file#by-printfuck https://github.com/FreshRSS/Extensions?tab=readme-ov-file#by...
- MayeulC 3y agoIt supports it, it's pretty hit-or-miss though. You need to right-click on the feed in the web interface → "full text". The library it uses is a port of Mozilla's "reader mode" (readability.js) feature in Firefox: https://github.com/nextcloud/news/pull/563 https://github.com/nextcloud/news/pull/563
- the_third_wave 3y agoNo, it doesn't. What you can do is use an RSS proxy to create your own feeds of any site and read that through Nextcloud News. I do this for a few specific sites and purposes - e.g. custom searches on auction sites. As to Nextcloud News being slow with 50K unread items I wonder whether there's something else amiss as I have close to 600K unread items without undue slowdowns. The only real slowdown I notice in Nextcloud News is caused by a dog-slow piece of javascript in news/templates/part.content.php which causes a delay any time an item is clicked in the feed. This can be solved by removing everything related to 'sharing' (i.o.w. everything after </time> in the list div (class=utils), make sure to balance those tags...). News is much faster in use that way and since I never use the 'sharing' related stuff - if anything needs to be shared I can just share a link instead - nothing of value is lost.
- sureglymop 3y agoThat feels very good! I've messed with Kotlin multiplatform recently and it's interesting. I wonder why there is no desktop version.
- its_sasikanth 3y agoIt’s entirely possible to create a desktop target with Kotlin and Compose Multiplatform. I do have plan to improve the large screen layout support and do the desktop version. My initial priority is to first work on features.
- esafak 3y agoA Compose Multiplatform app. Neat!
- jeffrallen 3y agoLook, I know beggars can't be choosers, but with the impending demise of Google podcasts, I'm looking for a new podcast player. I don't understand why RSS readers in 2024 don't turn podcast items into little embedded me player widgets.
- Hamuko 3y agoI've been happy with Pocket Casts on both Android and iOS. There's also a web player, but I rarely use it these days.
- pivic 3y agoI went from Pocket Casts to open-sourced AntennaPod, and I highly recommend it. It's available on F-Droid.
- MrDresden 3y agoCould you describe what it was that made you switch?
- dugite-code 3y agoNot the OP but for me I switched before they went opensource and I was having issues with how Patreon feeds were imported into Pocketcasts. Can't really remember the specifics but if I remember correctly their server was doing some episode caching and it was going all funky. I stay with Antennapod now because it's very actively maintained and because of the Nextcloud gpodder¹ app and the Nextcloud Repod app². Lets me have a web player and sync entirely within my own infrastructure. [1] https://apps.nextcloud.com/apps/gpoddersync https://apps.nextcloud.com/apps/gpoddersync [2] https://apps.nextcloud.com/apps/repod https://apps.nextcloud.com/apps/repod
- cxr 3y agoPocket Casts is open source. (I know you didn't say otherwise, but there's potential for misunderstanding given the wording.)
- fuddle 3y agoI think you should be more specific what multiplatform means in the project description. i.e iOS and Android
- mrec 3y agoYes, I had the exact same reaction. Strong "We got both kinds, we got country and western!" energy here.
- Naac 3y agoFor a long time I've been a happy user of rss2email, originally written by Aaron Swartz. https://github.com/rss2email/rss2email https://github.com/rss2email/rss2email It periodically fetches the rss feeds, and sends the content to a specified email address where you can use your email reader to sort them into folders. Assuming you have a "good" email client, this takes care of most of my RSS requirements: Free software, offline availability, and the ability to read anywhere. The only missing feature I think it could use is a nice GUI to manage feeds.
- adr1an 3y agoInteresting, I use kill-the-newsletter to go the other way around. But your approach would give a good search and archiving functionality, something that rss clients (mostly) lack. I'm using feedbro (Firefox extension) as RSS client only because I can assign points to keywords to prioritize the huge info volume. The only other client that has such functionality is on Emacs, afaik. Had not tried it.. anyway, it would be cool to find an email client that allows me to add scores to emails based on keywords in the subject and/ or content. E.g. if it says hacker +10, if it says python +5. Oh. Negative values would be cool too. Ok I should go to bed. I'm daydreaming xdd
- hammyhavoc 3y agoYes, I much prefer the idea of comms via email, but news via RSS. Email being bidirectional makes more sense to just stick to comms for, especially with `noreply@` for most newsletters.
- ghostpepper 3y agoI also can’t believe that this feature doesn't exist in any other rss client. I’m almost at the point of writing one myself.
- trinsic2 3y agoI use a non-rss solution. Obsidian note taking app with a plugin called ReadItLater. I use it to clip pages I want to read later. Obsidian has really good fuzzy search capabilities and everything is saved in Markdown format with YAML headers.
- ChicagoDave 3y agoA little weird its named “twine” since that name has been in use for years by a JavaScript interactive fiction development platform. https://github.com/klembot/twinejs https://github.com/klembot/twinejs https://twinery.org https://twinery.org
- ebb_earl_co 3y agoAlso the recommended Python tool to upload Python packages to PyPi: https://pypi.org/project/twine/ https://pypi.org/project/twine/
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- soylentcola 3y agoFirst thing I thought of as well. Actually used to work with the guy who developed and maintains it. AFAIK they trademarked the name as well.
- ChicagoDave 3y agoIndeed. It is a registered trademark.
- ho4 3y agoI'm using it every day. I wish you could turn off title truncating, as my style of using the app is to skim through the feeds and only click the interesting articles. Also it would be nice to be able to filter out future items from the feeds, as some feeds use future dates as a way to schedule or announce something, and I would like to see just the immediate news. If it weren't for these two points, I'd say a 10/10 app.
- carlosjobim 3y ago[flagged]
- its_sasikanth 3y agoThanks, people are entitled to their opinions, so I am fine with it. I am building to learn and play around with Kotlin and Compose Multiplatform and want to have an RSS app I like to use. So, I will continue working on it. I did experiment with light mode a while back. I didn't end up implementing it. But maybe in future, I will add it as an option . Here is the sample of it https://x.com/its_sasikanth/status/1737280450127704222?s=20 https://x.com/its_sasikanth/status/1737280450127704222?s=20
- carlosjobim 3y agoI think the sample looks great.
- ilrwbwrkhv 3y agoSuper cool. I really want to try out Kotlin multiplatform and see how good the app feels. Flutter so far feels "off". So excited to try this out.
- trinsic2 3y agoCan you adjust the text size on the IOS app? And can you load images in a RSS viewer?