📝MDRSS

MDRSS is a markdown to RSS converter written in GO. With this tool, you can write articles in a local folder and have them automatically formatted to an RSS compliant XML file. As a result, you don't have to write articles on your website first and have them be read by an RSS reader. Moreover, MDRSS automatically takes care of publication dates, categories (next update), formatting, etc.

Getting started

You can install the binary using go install github.com/TimoKats/mdrss@latest (make sure your GOPATH is set correctly!). After this you can add your configuration in ~/.mdrss/config.json. This is a JSON file with a number of settings. You can use this template to setup your configuration.

  {
    "Author": "Timo Kats",
    "Description": "Timo's weblog",
    "InputFolder": "/path/to/articles/", # This will contain your markdown files
    "OutputFile": "/path/to/webserver/index.xml",
    "Link": "index.xml" # can be anything, might be deprecated
  }

Note, since the last update (credit to @varphi-online) you can also run mdrss init to enter an interactive prompt that will fill in this config for you. Finally, you can also specify your own config path like so.

mdrss --config other/path/to/config update

Basic usage

In your input folder, you can add an article by creating a .md file. Note, if your filename is prefixed with draft- it will not be included in the RSS file. Finally, you can type mdrss ls to view the articles ready for publishing and mdrss update to create the RSS feed. Note, the title of the RSS articles are based on markdown headers. E.g. format the first line of the markdown articles as so: # this is a title.

For podcasters

Mdrss also supports the usage of RSS enclosures. To create an enclosure link: create a regular markdown link to the audio file with the identifier as "audio/mpeg".

[audio/mpeg](https://link.to.mp3/file.mp3)

Publishing the RSS file

You can submit your RSS file to a public website, or put it somewhere easily available on a public drive, apache server, etc. Note, there is a chance I will make a function for this on my website so that people who can't host RSS feeds themselves can still publish their feeds. Please let me know if you're interested in such a service.

TODO

List of features that are on the planning. Feel free to send suggestions here.

• For non textual RSS readers: render images.

Why RSS?

• No ads/trackers/cookies.
• No distractions when reading (it's just text).
• Many great RSS readers available (newsboat!) that can create custom feeds.
• Doesn't require a strong internet connection.
• Amazing scene of personal blogs!

Support/requesting features

You can always request fixes and features by opening an issue. If you want to support my work you can also sponsor this project through the button on the top right. Thank you!