archnews

Python utility for displaying Arch news feed in console.

I was looking for an utility that would quickly show the Arch Linux news feed in command line before upgrading my system. Unfortunately I did not find any program that would suit my needs. So I wrote my own and I took it also as a practice in Python programming.

Features:

• It is written in pure Python 3, no extra dependencies are needed.
• It wraps feed description to improve readability and tries to interpret HTML as nicely as possible.
• It uses colors. (Can be turned off.)
• Time is formatted according locale.
• Supports tracking of unread messages.
• Comes with a transparent pacman wrapper (called archnews_wrap), so one will never miss a news when doing pacman -Syu. (See section Pacman wrapper or a manual page.)
• Many command line options! (See --help or manual page.)

Installation

Because this is a tool specifically for Arch Linux, install it via AUR: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/archnews2/

Pacman wrapper

Utility archnews comes with a shell script called archnews_wrap. It just passes all its parameters to pacman unless parameters are -Syu (or its variant like e.g. -Syyu). In this case it invokes archnews with --unread option (and then pacman on user input).

archnews_wrap is designed to be used as shell alias for pacman like this:

alias sudo='sudo '  # This enables aliases for commands inside sudo.
alias pacman=archnews_wrap  # This invokes wrapper whenever pacman is called.

Thus you will never miss a news when doing system upgrade!

How it looks in action

Contribution

I am willing to maintain and further develop the project, so any contribution (issues, ideas, pull requests) is welcome.