news.rb quick starter script - build your own facebook newsfeed in 1-2-3 steps in 5 minutes

• home :: github.com/feedreader/news.rb
• bugs :: github.com/feedreader/news.rb/issues
• forum :: groups.google.com/group/wwwmake

Usage

Let's use the News module that offers easy to (re)use "porcelain" helpers /methods that hide the "plumbing" for building your own newsreader or newsfeeds in minutes.

Step 0 - Install

Install the News module packaged up in the newscast gem / library with ruby's gem package manager. Example:

$ gem install newscast

Step 1 - Subscribe

Use the News.subscribe( *feeds ) method to subscribe to news feeds / channels. Example:

News.subscribe(
  'http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/feeds/news.rss',     # Ruby Lang News
  'http://www.jruby.org/atom.xml',                  # JRuby Lang News
  'http://blog.rubygems.org/atom.xml',              # RubyGems News
  'http://bundler.io/blog/feed.xml',                # Bundler News
  'http://weblog.rubyonrails.org/feed/atom.xml',    # Ruby on Rails News
  'http://sinatrarb.com/feed.xml',                  # Sinatra News
  'https://hanamirb.org/atom.xml',                  # Hanami News
  'http://jekyllrb.com/feed.xml',                   # Jekyll News
  'http://feeds.feedburner.com/jetbrains_rubymine?format=xml',  # RubyMine IDE News
  'https://blog.phusion.nl/rss/',                   # Phusion News
  'https://rubyinstaller.org/feed.xml',             # Ruby Installer for Windows News
  'http://planetruby.github.io/calendar/feed.xml',  # Ruby Conferences & Camps News
  'https://rubytogether.org/news.xml',              # Ruby Together News
  'https://foundation.travis-ci.org/feed.xml',      # Travis Foundation News
  'https://railsgirlssummerofcode.org/blog.xml',    # Rails Girls Summer of Code News

  'http://blog.zenspider.com/atom.xml',          # Ryan Davis @ Seattle › Washington › United States
  'http://tenderlovemaking.com/atom.xml',        # Aaron Patterson @ Seattle › Washington › United States
  'http://blog.headius.com/feed.xml',            # Charles Nutter @ Richfield › Minnesota › United States
  'http://www.schneems.com/feed.xml',            # Richard Schneeman @ Austin › Texas › United States
  'https://eregon.me/blog/feed.xml',             # Benoit Daloze @ Zurich › Switzerland
  'http://samsaffron.com/posts.rss',             # Sam Saffron @ Sydney › Australia
  )

Note: If you call News.subscribe the method will setup a single-file SQLite database, that is, ./news.db and auto-migrate the schema, that is, database tables and so on.

Step 2 - Update

Use the News.update method to fetch from the internets all news feeds / channels and update the ./news.db database. Example:

News.update

Step 3 - Query and Remix the News Items

Profit! Now you can query the ./news.db database with any of the many pre-made / ready-to-use query helpers. Example:

puts ":::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::"
puts ":: #{News.items.count} news items from #{News.channels.count} channels:"
puts
puts "100 Latest News Items"
News.latest.limit( 100 ).each do |item|
  print "%4dd " % (Date.today.jd-item.updated.to_date.jd)
  print "  #{item.updated}"
  print " - #{item.title}"
  print " - #{URI(item.feed.feed_url).host}"
  print "\n"
end

Let's Run

Use the news.rb sample script:

$ ruby ./news.rb

This will result in:

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
:: 793 news items from 21 channels:

100 Latest News Items
   0d   2020-02-04 00:00:00 - RubyNess @ Inverness, Scotland, United Kingdom - planetruby.github.io
   0d   2020-02-04 00:00:00 - Ruby by the Bay (Ruby for Good, West Coast Edition) @ Marin Headlands (near San Francisco), California, United States - planetruby.github.io
   8d   2020-01-27 14:44:38 - RubyMine 2020.1 EAP is Open!  - jetbrains.com
  11d   2020-01-24 00:00:00 - Crowdfunding for 2020 scholarships has commenced - railsgirlssummerofcode.org
  15d   2020-01-20 00:00:00 - Alumni Interview with Keziah Naggita - railsgirlssummerofcode.org
  16d   2020-01-19 00:00:00 - This week in Rails - Rack 2.1 released, disallowed deprecations, and more! - weblog.rubyonrails.org
  19d   2020-01-16 00:00:00 - RubyConf Belarus (BY) @ Minsk, Belarus - planetruby.github.io
  22d   2020-01-13 14:00:39 - Guide to String Encoding in Ruby - tenderlovemaking.com
  23d   2020-01-12 23:00:00 - A Migration Path to Bundler 2+ - eregon.me
  24d   2020-01-11 00:00:00 - This week in Rails - Deprecations, bugfixes and improvements! - weblog.rubyonrails.org
  30d   2020-01-05 00:00:00 - This week in Rails - The 2019 edition - weblog.rubyonrails.org
  30d   2020-01-05 00:00:00 - RubyInstaller 2.7.0-1 released - rubyinstaller.org
  32d   2020-01-03 00:00:00 - Submit Your Open Source Projects - railsgirlssummerofcode.org
  34d   2020-01-01 00:00:00 - Happy new year & Sinatra 2.0.8! - sinatrarb.com
  39d   2019-12-27 00:00:00 - Ruby 2.7.0, Rails 6.0.2.1 and more - weblog.rubyonrails.org
  41d   2019-12-25 00:00:00 - Ruby 2.7.0 Released - ruby-lang.org
  ...

References

• Pluto Newscast Gem / Library - Official Documentation
• Talk Notes - New Horizons - Build Your Own (Static) Planet News Site w/ Pluto (and Ruby)

License

The news.rb scripts are dedicated to the public domain. Use it as you please with no restrictions whatsoever.

Questions? Comments?

Send them along to the wwwmake Forum. Thanks!