An arXiv Reading App (aara)

A super simple Textual application for reading the latest posts on the arXiv in the terminal. This scrapes the arXiv "new" page from the category you specify. I found the arXiv search API to be lacking in functionality and the RSS feeds are blank if there was no update that day (e.g. like on a Saturday or Sunday). So, I wrote my own terminal app to read the arXiv.

Installation

To install:

pip install aara

For development only (using uv):

git clone https://github.com/jsnguyen/aara
cd aara
uv run aara astro-ph

Usage

Just run:

# For astro-ph
aara astro-ph

More generally:

aara <arXiv category>

Config

Configs are stored at ~/.config/aara/aara.ini.

You can change the save name parameter by changing num_words, which currently takes the first 4 words of the title by default.

You can also change the save directory by modifying the downloads_folder variable to a valid path.

Bindings

Basic vim bindings are implemented, hjkl, g, G, and {}. The arrow keys can also be used for navigation. Note that scrolling in abstract window using the vim bindings doesn't work quite yet, but this is a pretty rare occurrence.

a opens the abstract of the article using your web browser

s will save the pdf to the location specified in the config, but if you haven't set anything it goes to ~/Downloads by default. The naming scheme is <arxiv id>_<year>_<first author last name>_<first four words title>.pdf.

d will open the pdf of the article directly

q to quit

Misc

There is also a state file stored at ~/.config/aara/state.ini that tracks what pdf files you have already saved. This is not designed to be human-editable and is automatically loaded if it exists. It will overwrite every time you close the application.