[HN Gopher] Show HN: Newser, utility written in go to generate a...
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Show HN: Newser, utility written in go to generate a pdf with news
content
I've gotten myself a Supernote A5X (awesome device btw) and since
it doesn't have a web browser or anything I've wanted to have a way
to read news on it. I've hacked together this utility in a couple
of days and it works wonders for me personally so I thought it
might be interesting to others. It can also be used as a noise free
newspaper generator as it removes images/ads/links and other noisy
stuff. https://github.com/lnenad/newser (there is a screenshot of
the first page of the generated pdf) It scrapes (news) websites
for content and puts it into a pdf. For me the pdf location is my
dropbox supernote directory so my setup is to run this thing daily
and have a fresh pdf with news whenever I want it. It's rough
around the edges probably (currently added crawl support for verge,
ars, engadget) but I think it's a good base so if anyone wants to
contribute feel free. Some of the stuff I want to add is pictures
(maybe), maybe parse the text html to include font styling and
other stuff. I've tried to generalize it as much as possible so
the crawling is pretty much automatic and is controlled by a config
file where you define "rules" on how to parse the website.
Author : lnenad
Score : 23 points
Date : 2022-02-20 18:58 UTC (4 hours ago)
| alessioalex wrote:
| A bit off-topic, but I'm thinking of buying a Supernote A5X
| myself. What do you like most about it, any tips and tricks? Tnx
| lnenad wrote:
| Pretty on topic considering I built this because of the device
| lol.
|
| I love it, with the latest update extremely low latency pen,
| excellent battery life, helped me finally to start being
| disciplined about notes (couldn't do it with just notebooks),
| pretty. I also like to draw so it scratches that itch. IMHO the
| downsides (other than no web browser) are pretty much the
| regular eink stuff - no backlight, fairly slow UI, some
| artifacts until you refresh the screen etc... But I like it,
| imho it's worth the money, and the Supernote team is excellent
| and responsive to user feedback, which is what I want my money
| to support in the day and age of closed vaults of idiotic
| products.
| k1m wrote:
| This is great!
|
| If it's useful, I work on a project where we maintain a
| repository of XPath selectors for extracting article content from
| many different sites: https://github.com/fivefilters/ftr-site-
| config - they're based on the original public Instapaper rules.
|
| We also have PDF generation, but it's not really for crawling,
| and wasn't created for reading on a device like the Supernote,
| more for printing and reading:
| https://pdf.fivefilters.org/simple-print/
| lnenad wrote:
| Looks cool, I might steal a few configs lol.
| enw wrote:
| Cool idea! With the user-hostile modern web, there's something
| appealing to having a visibly finite, static, and focused piece
| of content.
| lnenad wrote:
| Thanks, here's how it looks on my device
|
| https://i.imgur.com/ZlfwKQj.jpg
| TheFreim wrote:
| Is the amount of words per line / margins controlled by the
| config? Configuration was a bit messy (to me) so I figured
| I'd ask. If I used this I know I'd like to have large margins
| and less words per line since it's easier to read and mark
| up.
| lnenad wrote:
| Not for now, but I plan on adding more styling
| customizations, margins are pretty simple to add so I'll do
| it probably tomorrow. I also plan on doing some more
| complex stuff when I get to it (maybe column layout for two
| articles per page when the article words is < limit words)
| TheFreim wrote:
| > I've gotten myself a Supernote A5X (awesome device btw) and
| since it doesn't have a web browser or anything I've wanted to
| have a way to read news on it.
|
| I've ordered one of these, consistently have seen good reviews.
| I'll keep this software in mind since it might come in handy for
| automating some blog feeds I might want to read.
|
| What was the reason you originally got the device? For a lot of
| people it seems to be a way to "disconnect", gaining the power of
| traditional note taking/reading/writing combined with
| indexability and less distractions. Reading news seems like it
| could just turn it into another gizmo. What do you think?
| lnenad wrote:
| For me it was the fact that I wanted to manage myself better
| and be more organized/structured. I couldn't do this with
| notebooks as there is a lack of "something" for me that doesn't
| quite allow me to be as disciplined as I am with the device
| right now. Templates are awesome, you get 50 different
| notebooks by just using a different template, and you can
| create your own in a couple of minutes (a png image with preset
| dimensions).
|
| Regarding it being another gizmo by adding news, I think that
| since I didn't get it for the "disconnection" it doesn't feel
| like corrupting it. Especially in this format (clean, no
| images, just information at glance). At least imho.
| TheFreim wrote:
| > I couldn't do this with notebooks as there is a lack of
| "something" for me that doesn't quite allow me to be as
| disciplined as I am with the device right now.
|
| I understand this. I prefer notebooks for certain tasks and
| have some good systems I can use to organize it but having a
| centralized device is very powerful for maintaing what you
| call discipline.
|
| > Regarding it being another gizmo by adding news, I think
| that since I didn't get it for the "disconnection" it doesn't
| feel like corrupting it. Especially in this format (clean, no
| images, just information at glance).
|
| Yeah, part of it is the philosophy you bring to it (it's a
| tool, after all). Also depends on your view of "the news". I
| have a generally negative view, avoid most of it, so that
| leads me to having a different outlook.
| lnenad wrote:
| > having a centralized device is very powerful for
| maintaing what you call discipline.
|
| You hit the nail on the head with this. I've got a
| searchable database of all of my notes and suddenly it
| feels much less like a waste of time just dumping random
| stuff into a piece of paper.
|
| > I have a generally negative view, avoid most of it, so
| that leads me to having a different outlook.
|
| You and me both, but it keeps the mind occupied sometimes
| and I love reading about new gadgets. World news, economy
| et cetera not so much.
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(page generated 2022-02-20 23:00 UTC)