Spacemacs layer: elfeed

This post is about the good old way to follow websites and blogs: RSS feeds. For Emacs the package elfeed provides a fully integrated feed reader. The configuration layer for Spacemacs comes with an integration of elfeed-org, so that the feeds can be managed in one or multiple Org files.

Installing the layer

I have set it up with Org integration according to the readme from the Spacemacs repository:

;; Inside of dotspacemacs-configuration-layers

(elfeed :variables
        rmh-elfeed-org-files (list "~/n/rssfeeds.org"))

After hitting SPC f e R to sync up the configuration everything is already functional.

Adding the first feed

I created a simple Org file with only one entry pointing to my own blog to verify that everything is working. Here is the source of it:

* Blogs                                                              :elfeed:
** https://www.johbo.com/feeds/all.atom.xml

Once the file is prepared, just hit SPC a f to get the feed overview. In my case it took a few seconds until the recent posts appeared.

I found that using RET for looking into the item under the cursor is quite nice, but quite often I prefer to open the article in a browser by pressing b.

Have a look

Installing the layer

Adding the first feed

Have a look

Comments