Awesome

Polybar Module - News & Podcasts

Description

This polybar module displays news and podcast titles, so you can read/listen to them in your browser/audio|video player with a simple click on the bar. You can also search/choose a specific news/podcast through a menu (via rofi) opened by a keyboard shortcut.

Screenshot

<figure> <img alt="Animated gif of the menu with all news" src="screenshots/polybar-module-news-menu.gif" width="860"> <figcaption>The menu with all news opened above the bar</figcaption> </figure>

Installation/Update

Clone (or download) this repository:

git clone https://github.com/nivit/polybar-module-news.git

then run the following commands:

$ cd polybar-module-news  # directory where you cloned the repository or unzipped the release file
$ sh install.sh

Add links of your favorite news/podcast sites to

~/.config/.polybar/scripts/news/conf/feeds_list

and/or to

~/.config/.polybar/scripts/news/conf/feeds_list_breaking_news

Enable this module in your bar, e.g:


[bar/mybar]
...
modules-left = news ...

(It is advisable to use a whole bar for this module only).

Configure the module (see below) and then restart polybar.

Dependencies

This script requires

python 3;
python module feedparser (install it with pip3 install --user feedparser or with your package manager);
xdg-open (to open news link);
rofi (optional dependency to show a menu with all news);
an audio/video player (optional dependency) to open podcast files.

N.B. After installing Python 3 and the other dependencies you need to wait about 10 seconds before the error message of missing requirement disappears.

Configuration

Edit the file ~/.config/polybar/scripts/news/conf/news.conf and set up the right Python 3 interpreter.

All available options:

name	description	default value
quiet_mode	no output if there are no news/podcasts titles	no
show_site	show the name of the site as prefix to the title	yes
show_date	show the news date, if available	yes
date_as_prefix	show the date before the title (otherwise as suffix), if show_date=yes	yes
date_format	see manpage strftime(3) for the conversation specs.	%d %b. %R -
show_prefix	show icon, date and site name	yes
news_prefix	the prefix to show before the title	the character U+F09E
use_colors	for news/podcast title and diagnostic messages	yes
colors	a list of colors, separated by spaces or commas, to use for the news titles	#28FFBF #FFEF78 #49FF00
error_bg_color	background color for error messages	#F44336
error_fg_color	foreground color for error messages	#FFFFFF
warning_bg_color	background color for warning messages	#FFC107
warning_fg_color	foreground color for the warning messages	#212121
reverse_order	reverse the order of the news in the search list	yes
show_menu	display a menu with all news (via rofi, right click)	yes
menu_lines	number of news to show in the menu, definible also in config.rasi, (height of menu)	20
media_links	use link to a multimedial file if available	yes
audio_player	program to open audio files of podcast	gmplayer
video_player	program to open video files of podcast	mpv
audio_prefix	prefix for the audio titles	 U+F2CE (audio)
video_prefix	prefix for the video titles	 U+F144 (video)
search_prompt	string to use as search prompt	"Search"
max_news	max number of news per feed (a whole number or 0 for all news). It takes effect with the next download.	0
length	number of characters for the output to the bar; zero means no limit	0
use_ellipsis	add ... where the title length is > 0	yes
open_cmd	program for opening URLs	xdg-open
breaking_news	enable breaking news (see below)	yes
rofi_config	path to the rofi configuration file	${HOME}/.config/polybar/scripts/news/conf/config.rasi
rofi_width	width of the rofi menu (see rofi(1))	auto
python_cmd	a python 3 interpreter	python3

You can change the interval between two headlines by editing the relative option in the following file:

~/.config/polybar/scripts/news/conf/module.conf

To configure the menu you can edit the file ~/.config/polybar/scripts/news/conf/config.rasi.

Breaking News Configuration

Add the feed URL of the breaking news sites to

~/.config/polybar/scripts/news/conf/feeds_list_breaking_news

then, in your terminal, run the command:

crontab -e

and add the following line:

*/5 * * * * /usr/bin/python3 $HOME/.config/polybar/scripts/news/download_feeds.py -c '#0cffc8,#cae970' -l 5 $HOME/.config/polybar/scripts/news/data

then save and exit the editor.

Change the list of colors after the -c option, and the number of minutes after the first slash and the option -l, if you want.

Change the value of the variable breaking_news to "yes" in the configuration file:

~/.config/polybar/scripts/news/conf/news.conf

When the headlines are available, they take immediately precedence over other news.

Running

Click on the news headline on the bar to open the relative web page in your browser. With a right click on the bar you can open a menu with all news. You may also show that menu by defining a key shortcut. The command to bind is:

~/.config/polybar/scripts/news/news.sh show_menu

For example, for bspwm/sxhkd, you can add these lines to ~/.config/sxhkd/sxhkdrc:

super + ctrl + shift + r
    $HOME/.config/polybar/scripts/news/news.sh show_menu

or for i3wm this line to ~/.config/i3/config:

bindsym Mod4 + Control + Shift + r exec --no-startup-id ~/.config/polybar/scripts/news/news.sh show_menu

You can also open the current news with a keyboard shortcut by binding the following command:

$HOME/.config/polybar/scripts/news/news.sh open

To select the feeds at runtime, you can bind the following command to a keyboard shortcut or run it from a terminal:

$HOME/.config/polybar/scripts/news/news.sh select

You can always force a download with the command:

$HOME/.config/polybar/scripts/news/news.sh download

Notes

The feed URL of a site is generally available at /feed/ address, but you can also find it by searching for an RSS icon in the page or viewing its HTML page source. You may also use the Ukora news search engine;
in the feed title the tag [BN] marks a breaking news site;
see the site https://colorhunt.co/palettes or https://colorswall.com/ for some hint of colors;
to see icons you need to install a suitable font like Font Awesome;
as video player you could consider the program umpv.

License

This software is licensed under the MIT license. See LICENSE.