commit 80d342e324e4dcf8d7284ea92b8cc0a2f297f97a
parent 521e0d6cfc59ad4b40fb3cc764a77dc7687705cf
Author: Luke S <55237178+luke8086@users.noreply.github.com>
Date: Tue, 3 Sep 2024 14:28:20 +0200
Minor updates to README
Diffstat:
1 file changed, 9 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-)
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
@@ -1,10 +1,14 @@
# retronews
A Python script for browsing [Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com/)
-and [Lobsters](https://lobste.rs/) discussions with an interface emulating
+and [Lobsters](https://lobste.rs/) discussions with a nostalgic interface emulating
classical usenet and mail readers, like slrn and mutt.
-It only requires Python 3.9 and doesn't need installation, you can run it with:
+It was primarily written so I could highlight interesting threads and keep
+track of read / unread messages (see [blog post](https://luke8086.dev/retronews.html)).
+The UI showing one message at a time also encourages slower, more focused reading.
+
+It only depends on Python 3.9 and doesn't require installation, you can run it with:
```bash
$ curl -LO https://raw.githubusercontent.com/luke8086/retronews/main/retronews.py
@@ -13,8 +17,6 @@ $ python3 ./retronews.py
Press `?` to see available keybindings.
-For rationale, see the corresponding [blog post](https://luke8086.dev/retronews.html)
-
<img src="screenshot.png" width="600" />
@@ -23,17 +25,17 @@ For rationale, see the corresponding [blog post](https://luke8086.dev/retronews.
- The reader is read-only, there are no plans to support voting and posting
- Message formatting is not perfect, but works well enough most of the time
- Detecting if threads contain unread responses works by only checking their
- amount, it's not reliable if any responses were deleted
+ count, it's not reliable if any responses were deleted
- No config file is planned, since the code is in Python, it's simpler to
treat it as its own config and customize directly
-## Why not a NNTP gateway?
+## Why not an NNTP gateway?
NNTP doesn't support browsing threads by title (let alone paginated) and requesting
their messages on demand. Clients need to fetch metadata of all available messages
in all available threads in advance. Given the volume of messages on HN, synchronizing
them to the gateway is not practical. Even when attempted, some clients struggle
-with the amount of data in a single group.
+with the sheer number of messages in a single group.
## Related projects
