Feature Request: Implement Offpunk-like Web Page Input in Elfeed for Enhanced Offline Browsing

[xmailla]

Bug Report: Request for Offpunk-like Behavior in Elfeed

Description

Currently, Elfeed primarily relies on RSS feeds to fetch and display content. However, there is a need to extend its functionality to allow users to pass web pages directly to Elfeed without relying on RSS feeds. This feature would mimic the behavior of Offpunk, which allows users to browse and organize web content while offline.

Expected Behavior

Elfeed should provide an option to input or pass web pages directly, similar to how Offpunk handles web content. This would enable users to:

1. Manually add web pages to their Elfeed database.
2. Browse and organize these pages offline.
3. Synchronize content periodically (e.g., daily, weekly, monthly) and browse/organize it while staying disconnected.

Actual Behavior

As of now, Elfeed does not support the direct input of web pages. Users are limited to adding content via RSS feeds, which restricts the flexibility of content management.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Open Elfeed in Emacs.
2. Attempt to add a web page directly to the Elfeed database.
3. Observe that there is no option to input web pages manually.

Proposed Solution

Implement a feature in Elfeed that allows users to:

1. Input web pages directly into the Elfeed database.
2. Browse and organize these pages offline.
3. Synchronize content periodically, similar to Offpunk's offline-first approach.

Additional Information

• Offpunk Behavior: Offpunk allows users to browse the Web, Gemini, Gopher, and subscribe to RSS feeds without leaving the terminal and while being offline . It assigns numerical indices to links in pages and displays content in a pager like less .
• Elfeed Configuration: Currently, Elfeed configurations focus on functions and bindings to copy and link to web pages, but do not support direct web page input .

This feature would significantly enhance Elfeed's usability by providing more flexibility in content management and offline browsing capabilities.

[minad]

Converted to discussion, since this issue is quite far reaching and does not fit into the current scope of Elfeed. As a suggestion - you could use wallabag and then import websites there and then make them accessible to Elfeed via RSS. Note that there is also wombag.el.

[zabe40]

elfeed-time has this function already as elfeed-time-make-html-readable, which just uses eww's readability algorithm

[minad]

@zabe40 Yes, I've seen that. We could add such a preprocess html hook and then include a function elfeed-eww-readable which could be added to the hook list.

[minad]

@arouene @zabe40 See c4af832 where I added the hook elfeed-transform-html-functions. The hook runs at insertion time, since there mistakes won't have a big impact, since they don't mutate the database.

We could also add a hook like elfeed-transform-fetch-functions which transforms the fetched content before it is stored in the database. elfeed-apply-hooks-now could also trigger this hook for existing content, but then the hooks would have to be idempotent which is a strong restriction. Therefore I'd prefer if we stick to the transformation when the html is inserted for now.

EDIT: Added elfeed-show-readable command bound to key R and :readable feed option in 0eacb0f. I think one could do better than Eww, but it is also kind of nice to reuse existing functionality.

[arouene]

@minad I didn't test, but c4af832 looks great, thanks!

EDIT: Added elfeed-show-readable command bound to key R and :readable feed option in 0eacb0f. I think one could do better than Eww, but it is also kind of nice to reuse existing functionality.

It's ok as long as it's configurable, users can configure the option that best meets their needs!

[arouene]

Ok, I tested elfeed-show-fetch-link on phoronix, works great!