RSS Part 17: QuiteRSS Update

This is an update to the QuiteRSS Day 1 blog entry from a few days ago, which described two issues with QuiteRSS.

Since QuiteRSS does not copy to the primary selection, I need to paste from the system clipboard, which is not something that I usually do. The "+p Vim command works, but I have since learned about Control+R! You can paste from the system clipboard by pressing Control+R and then +. The significant benefit of this command is that it works in insert mode. (I am usually in insert mode when I need to paste URLs during my regular feed processing.)

I also figured out a bit more about the occasional new items that are marked as read before I look at them. It happens when similar items are in different feeds! When I first saw this happen, the feeds were in different category folders, so it was not obvious. I subscribe to multiple feeds from a site, and some items in my “Business” category (keeping an eye on funding rounds) were marked as read because items in my “AI” category linked to the same article. In this case, the feeds are likely based on tags, and this behavior makes some sense.

Some items are marked as read even though they do not link to the same URL, however. A recent example is the Undefined Behavior deserves a better reputation article on the SIGPLAN “PL Perspectives” blog:

The article was discussed in /r/rust:

The only common value is the title, so it seems that QuiteRSS marks items read if there is already an item (in the database) that has the same title, even if that item is unread. I doubt that this is by design, as this behavior can be problematic. For example, somebody might want to read or participate in the discussion on Reddit but miss that item if it is marked as read from the start. Note that it is not an issue in my case, however, because I delete items as I process them. (I process all items, including those already marked as read.)