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Show HN: Artemis, a Calm Web Reader

(artemis.jamesg.blog)
294 points zerojames | 1 comments | 20 Dec 24 15:28 UTC | HN request time: 0.2s | source

Earlier this year, I made a web reader that only showed a list of post titles, author domains, and links. The reader only updated once per day, so I wouldn't feel compelled to keep checking for new posts.

I have been using the tool, which I called Artemis, for several months. Every morning, I looked forward to my "morning paper" of blogs I love reading.

There are no notifications, read vs. unread states, counts of posts, etc. Only the last seven days of posts are available. The colour scheme is changeable. Dark mode is supported. All popular feed formats are supported.

There is no reading interface to read blog posts; rather, the links take you to the authors' websites. Many of my favourite bloggers put a lot of effort into the design of their blogs and like to change things up; I wanted an experience that embraced that.

The reader is now available for anyone to use (with invite code "hn").

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rakoo ◴[20 Dec 24 16:52 UTC] No.42472647[source]▶
For reference, and not implying it's better or worse than your work OP, I've pleasantly used Fraidycat (https://fraidyc.at/) in the past. It's a webextension, so completely local, and also incorporates the idea of having a "calmer" experience: no infinite list of links to check, different update rates, ...

I love your philosophy page, OP ! (https://jamesg.blog/2024/11/30/designing-a-calm-web-reader/)

replies(2): >>42472863 #>>42473119 #
zerojames ◴[20 Dec 24 17:15 UTC] No.42472863[source]▶
Thank you! I think how something is made, and the decisions that got it to where it is, is just as important as the thing itself.

One of the delightful things about the web is we can all bring our own ideas and designs to problems.

I haven't written about this yet, but one thing on my mind is the importance of good import/export features. With good import/export features, we can all move around and try different softwares to see which ones we like!

replies(1): >>42473868 #
1. rakoo ◴[20 Dec 24 19:07 UTC] No.42473868[source]▶
Indeed, import/export is one of the most important design point centering control back to the user, and even better is abstracted storage of data: if I had a single OPML file accessible from everywhere (with auth, of course) and all tools took the universally accessible path, I could change feeds in one tool and automatically see the result in another without fussing out import/export buttons and procedures.