It's simple because it doesn't actually interact with Hacker News. It uses a HTTP API to get the data.
Version 0.7.0 of the hackernews package is able to fetch stories
from six different Hacker News feeds, namely top, new, best, ask, show
and job stories. The default feed is top stories, which corresponds
to the Hacker News homepage.
The score, title, and comments count of each story is presented on a line of its own (see screenshot below), though this format is customizable. Both the title and comments count strings are hyperlinked to the Hacker News page for the item (the one with the comments), unless the story links to an external page, in which case the title is hyperlinked to that instead.
Clicking or typing RET on a link opens it with the command
browse-url,
which selects a browser based on the user option
browse-url-browser-function. This defaults to the system's default
browser.
Typing t on a link first tries to open it in
eww,
if available, and otherwise passes it to the command
browse-url-text-emacs, which consults the user option
browse-url-text-browser. This defaults to running lynx within
Emacs. Keep in mind that some websites do not render well in text
mode.
A future hackernews version may support upvoting and interacting
with comments.
| Key | Description |
|---|---|
| RET | Open link in default (external) browser |
| t | Open link in text-based browser within Emacs |
| r | Mark link as visited |
| R | Mark link as unvisited |
| n | Move to next title link |
| p | Move to previous title link |
| TAB | Move to next comments count link |
| S-TAB | Move to previous comments count link |
| m | Load more stories |
| g | Reload stories |
| f | Prompt user for a feed to switch to |
| q | Quit |
All feed re/loading commands accept an optional numeric prefix
argument
denoting how many stories to act on. For example,
M-50g refreshes the feed of the
current hackernews buffer and fetches its top 50 stories. With no
prefix argument, the value of the user option
hackernews-items-per-page is used instead.
Those who like the built-in package manager package.el need only
point it to a MELPA repository, which can be
achieved by adding the following code to your user-init-file:
(require 'package)
(add-to-list 'package-archives '("melpa" . "https://melpa.org/packages/"))
(package-initialize)Note that this will follow the bleeding edge of hackernews
development. Though hackernews contributors make every effort to
keep the latest snapshot usable and bug-free, to err is human. If
this thought scares you, a more stable experience can be achieved by
replacing:
'("melpa" . "https://melpa.org/packages/")in the example above with:
'("melpa-stable" . "https://stable.melpa.org/packages/")or equivalent. See https://melpa.org/#/getting-started/ for more on this.
Once package.el is configured, you can run
M-xpackage-installREThackernewsRET.
Place the hackernews.el file into a directory on your load-path
and add the following code to your user-init-file:
(autoload 'hackernews "hackernews" nil t)Alternatively, if you always want the package loaded at startup (this slows down startup):
(require 'hackernews)Just run M-xhackernewsRET. This reads the
feed specified by the user option hackernews-default-feed, which
defaults to top stories, i.e. the Hacker News homepage. A direct
command for each supported feed is also supported, e.g.
M-xhackernews-top-storiesRET or
M-xhackernews-ask-storiesRET. These direct
commands are not autoloaded, however, so to use them before
hackernews has been loaded, you should autoload them yourself, e.g.
by adding the following to your user-init-file:
(autoload 'hackernews-ask-stories "hackernews" nil t)You can list and modify all custom faces and variables by typing
M-xcustomize-groupREThackernewsRET.
All hackernews buffers are displayed using the pop-to-buffer
function for increased compatibility and customizability in how
windows and frames are re/used. This function displays buffers in a
new window by default. The simplest way to instead reuse the current
window for hackernews buffers is to customize one of the user
options same-window-buffer-names, same-window-regexp or in Emacs
24 and subsequent versions, display-buffer-alist via
M-xcustomize-groupRETwindowsRET.
If you prefer to roll out your own Elisp, you could add to your
user-init-file something as simple as:
(push '("\\`\\*hackernews .*\\*\\'" display-buffer-same-window)
display-buffer-alist)
;; ...or equivalently, starting with Emacs 30:
(push '((category . hackernews) display-buffer-same-window)
display-buffer-alist)In general, errors and misbehavior pertaining to network retrieval and
JSON parsing are probably due to bugs in older Emacsen. The minimum
recommended Emacs version for hackernews is 25. Emacs 24 should
work, but suffers from network security vulnerabilities that were
fixed in version 25. Emacs 23 is no longer officially supported as of
2018-06-08,
i.e. since hackernews version 0.5.0.
In any case, please report any problems on the project's issue tracker, so that the possibility for mitigation can be investigated.
Copyright (C) 2012-2024 The Hackernews.el Authors
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see https://www.gnu.org/licenses/.
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