Make the Web Readable Again: Deliver Article and News Digests to Your Favourite e-reader

Configuring your Kindle account

• Head to the Amazon content and device portal and login with your account.
• Click on the second tab (“Your Devices”) and click on the context menu next to the device where your content should be delivered.
• You’ll see the email address associated to your device. Copy it or click on “Edit” to change it.
• Click on the third tab (“Settings”) and scroll to the bottom to the section titled “Personal Document Settings”.
• Scroll to the bottom to the section named “Approved Personal Document E-mail List” and add your Gmail address as a trusted source.

Install platypush with the required dependencies

• Periodically checks a list of RSS sources for new content;
• Pre-processes the new items by simplifying the web page (through the Mercury parser or Instapaper) and optionally exporting them to PDF;
• Programmatically sends emails to your device(s) with the new content.

pip install 'platypush[http,pdf,rss,google]'

# Supposing you're on Debian or Debian-derived OS
apt-get install nodejs npm
npm install @postlight/mercury-parser

• Create a new project on the Google developers console;
• Click on “Credentials” from the context menu -> OAuth Client ID;
• Once generated you can see your new credentials in the “OAuth 2.0 client IDs” section. Click on the “Download” icon to save them to a JSON file;
• Copy the file to your platypush device/server under e.g.

  ~/.credentials/client_secret.json

  ;
• Run the following command on the device to authorize the application:

python -m platypush.plugins.google.credentials \
    "https://www.googleapis.com/auth/gmail.modify" \
    ~/.credentials/client_secret.json \
    --noauth_local_webserver

• Copy the link in your browser, login with your Google account if required and authorize the application.

Create a rule to automatically send articles to your Kindle

~/.config/platypush/config.yaml

backend.http.poll:
    requests:
        -
            # This poll will handle an RSS feed
            type: platypush.backend.http.request.rss.RssUpdates
            # RSS feed URL and title
            url: http://feeds.podtrac.com/zKq6WZZLTlbM
            title: NYT - The Daily
            # How often we want to check for updates
            # 12h = 43200 secs
            poll_seconds: 43200
            # We want to convert content to PDF
            digest_format: pdf
            # We want to parse and extract the content from
            # the web page using Mercury Parser
            extract_content: True

event.hook.OnPdfDigest:
    if:
        type: platypush.message.event.http.rss.NewFeedEvent
        digest_format: pdf
    then:
        action: google.mail.compose
        args:
            sender: [email protected]
            to: [email protected]
            subject: ${title} feed digest
            body: Your ${title} RSS feeds delivered directly to your Kindle
            files:
                - ${digest_filename}

http.poll

Sending content to your e-reader on the fly

• Install Tasker, AutoShare and Pushbullet on your Android device;
• Go to your Pushbullet account page and click “Create Access Token” to create a new access token that will be used by platypush to listen for the messages sent to your account. Enable the Pushbullet backend on platypush by adding these lines to

  ~/.config/platypush/config.yaml

  :

backend.pushbullet:
    token: YOUR-TOKEN
    device: platypush-device

• Also add a procedure to your config.yaml that given a URL as input extracts the content, converts it to PDF and sends it to your Kindle:

procedure.send_web_page_to_kindle:
    # Some apps don't share only the link, but also some
    # text such as "I've found this interesting article
    # on XXX". The following action strips out extra content
    # from the input and only extracts the URL.
    - action: variable.mset
      args:
          url: '${__import__("re").sub(r"^.*(https?://[^\s]*).*", r"\1", ${url})}'
    # Extract the content and generate a PDF
    - action: http.webpage.simplify
      args:
          url: ${url}
          outfile: ~/outfile.pdf
    # Use the parsed title as a name for the PDF
    - action: variable.mset
      args:
          OUTFILE: /home/user/${title}.pdf
    - action: shell.exec
      args:
          cmd: 'mv ~/outfile.pdf "${OUTFILE}"'
    # Send the file to your Kindle email address
    - action: google.mail.compose
      args:
          sender: [email protected]
          to: [email protected]
          subject: ${title}
          body: 'Original URL: ${url}'
          files:
              - ${OUTFILE}
    # Remove the temporary PDF
    - action: shell.exec
      args:
          cmd: 'rm "${OUTFILE}"'

• Restart platypush and check from Pushbullet that your new virtual device, “platypush-device” in the example above, has been created;
• On your mobile open AutoShare, select “Manage Commands” and create a new command named e.g. “Send to Kindle”;
• Open Tasker and create a new profile; select Event -> AutoShare -> Configuration -> Command -> Command Filter -> “Send to Kindle”. It means that this profile will be triggered whenever you select “Send to Kindle” from a share link dialog;
• In the task associated to this trigger tap the “plus” icon to add a new action and select “Push a notification” (the action with the green Pushbullet icon next to it);
• Select “platypush-device” as a target device and paste the following JSON as message:

{"type":"request", "action":"procedure.send_web_page_to_kindle", "args": {"url":"%astext"}}

• In the example above

  %astext

  is a special variable in Tasker that contains the text shared by the source app (in this case the link sent to AutoShare);
• Open your browser and go to the web link of an article that you’d like to send to your Kindle, select “Share” -> AutoShare command -> Send to Kindle;
• The parsed article should be delivered to your e-reader in optimized PDF format within seconds.

Using Instapaper on other Android-based e-readers

procedure.instapaper_add:
    - action: http.request.get
      args:
          url: https://www.instapaper.com/api/add
          params:
              url: ${url}
              username: your_instapaper_username
              password: your_instapaper_password

{"type":"request", "action":"procedure.instapaper_add", "args": {"url":"https://custom-url/article"}}

Conclusions