Add Miniflux Feed on-the-go with Shortcuts
date
Aug 11, 2023
slug
rss-shortcuts
status
Published
tags
self-hosted
shortcuts
lang-eng
summary
No more switching Apps! With Shortcuts, the automation app for Apple devices, you can create a feed on-the-go, either using a share sheet or simply pasting the link.
type
Post
Translation
TL;DR
With Shortcuts, the automation app for Apple devices, you can create a feed on-the-go, either using a share sheet or simply pasting the link.
Miniflux’s Workflow
If you don’t know Miniflux, it’s a slight bit sad. According to its official page, Miniflux is a minimalist and opinionated feed reader, which offers the flexibility of being self-hosted on the cloud or or even at home.
It supports a wide range of integrations, such as the widely-used API standard for RSS readers, Fever API, as well as many other services like Pocket, Wallabag, and Notion.
Why does the author categorize it as opinionated? Because it stays on the web as a PWA (Progressive Web Application), and this means you can access it anywhere with a browser. Sure, that’s convenient, but what next?
Say you adhered to the opinion of PWA, and one day you stumble across a remarkable blog that you wish to subscribe to. How would you add the blog to your feed to stay updated? Typically, with Miniflux, you would do this:
which can disrupt your reading flow and makes you nostalgic for the pre-computer era, when you had to send a written letter with payment to a newspaper just to subscribe for the next month.
So how do I simplify this workflow? Use a Shortcuts!
Shortcuts is an automation app developed by Apple for iOS, iPadOS, macOS and even on your watch.
Here is how you would do with a Shortcuts:
All you need to use an API key with this Shortcuts. You can find your API key at your
https://<your-miniflux>/keys.Explain a little bit
The Shortcuts does the following things:
(1) Retrieve the existing categories,
(2) Display these categories in a menu, and
(3) Create a feed with provided URL and selected category.
It appears straightforward, yet we all know that Apple Shortcuts is powerful but dumb. There are often numerous features to remember, e.g.
set key to dictionary returns a new dictionary, while dictionary type is generally mutable. What a great feature 🤦♂️!Essentially, this is comparable to the cURL requests:
If the RSS cannot be found automatically, it will prompt you for permission to copy the URL to the system clipboard and redirect you to
https://<your-miniflux>/subscribe/ .Start using it today and you will thank me.