filum 0.0.5

A tool to create a local archive of discussion threads

filum

filum saves discussion threads to your local machine.

It's like a bookmark manager but it saves actual content rather than just the link pointing to it.

It's like Pocket or Instapaper but for Reddit, Hacker News and Stack Exchange.

Installation

1. Create a virtual environment for filum (optional but recommended).

Linux:

$ python3 -m venv /path/to/new/venv

Windows:

$ c:\Python35\python -m venv c:\path\to\new\venv

For more details click here.

2. Install from PyPI.

python3 -m pip install filum

Usage

Save a new thread

$ filum add <url>

Example:

$ filum add https://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/v1rde4/whats_a_python_feature_that_is_very_powerful_but/ianzrfp/

You may supply a permalink to a child node of the thread to save only a specific section of the thread.

The following platforms are supported: Reddit, Hacker News, Stack Exchange.

View information about currently saved threads

$ filum all

The left-most column of the table contains values to be used as selectors (in place of <label>) for the subsequent commands.

View a specific thread

$ filum show <label>

Example:

$ filum show 2 for the thread in the table with '2' in the # column.

Note that the values in the # column are dynamic. Run $ filum all after modifying the database to see all changes.

The thread is piped through a terminal pager by default. To disable this, run $ filum config and edit pager = true to pager = false.

If you use a pager, you can navigate between nodes in the thread by searching for the ¬ symbol (yes very hacky).

Delete a thread

$ filum delete <label>

Example:

$ filum delete 2 for the thread in the table with '2' in the # column.

Update a thread

$ filum update <label>

Example:

$ filum update 2 for the thread in the table with '2' in the # column.

filum will offer to update a thread if you try to add a thread that's already saved in the database.

Add tags to a saved thread

$ filum tags <label> <tag 1> <tag 2> ...

Example:

$ filum tags 2 python webdev to add the tags "python" and "webdev" to the thread in the table with '2' in the # column.

Delete tags from a saved thread

$ filum tags <label> <tag 1> <tag 2> ... --delete

Example:

$ filum tags 2 webdev --delete to remove the tag "webdev" from the thread in the table with '2' in the # column.

Search for a thread

Full-text search of saved threads is currently unavailable. However, you can filter the threads by tags or by source.

$ filum search --tags <tag>

$ filum search --source <source>

To select a thread based on the table returned by the search command, pass in the flag that was used as the filter.

$ filum show <label> --tags <tag>

$ filum show <label> --source <source>

Known limitations

These limitations are on my to-do list to improve.

• Reddit comment sub-threads that are hidden under a comment fold (with a "load more comments" link) are ignored
• Hyperlinks in HN threads are not rendered in full
• The search command only takes in one search string at a time
• Filters for searching cannot be combined, e.g. you can search either by a tag or by source

Contributing

I'm not currently accepting any pull requests, but questions and suggestions are more than welcome.

Disclaimer

filum is alpha software and far from stable. Please do not rely solely on filum for archival—at the very least bookmark the page or use the save feature on the respective platforms.