rss-reader

2 min read

Three-pane desktop RSS reader: sources sidebar, posts list, 60% reading pane. Successor to the Python/blessed prototype (preserved in git history under bdebc00..3d5b407).

Stack

• Tauri v2 - system webview + Rust shell (~10MB binary, ~50MB RAM vs ~200MB+ on Electron)
• Svelte 5 + Vite frontend
• tauri-plugin-sql - sqlite storage, same schema as the prototype (rss.db files are interchangeable)
• tauri-plugin-http - feed + article downloads (bypasses feed CORS restrictions)
• @mozilla/readability - full-text article extraction

Prerequisites

# system webview (Arch) - required to compile the Rust shell
sudo pacman -S webkit2gtk-4.1

# toolchains: Rust (rustup or pacman) + bun

Run

bun install
bun run tauri dev      # dev window with hot reload
bun run tauri build    # release bundle

Frontend-only check (no Rust needed):

bun run build

Sharing data with the old TUI

Database.load("sqlite:rss.db") resolves inside Tauri’s app-data dir. To reuse an existing database, copy it there:

cp /path/to/old/rss.db ~/.local/share/com.rssreader.app/rss.db

Keys (mirrors the TUI)

1/2/3 panes · h/l panes · j/k move · enter open · F full-text · r/R refresh one/all · a add feed · d delete source · M mark source read · u toggle unread. Everything is also clickable.