Operating System: Linuxmint with Cinnamon Desktop
RSS feed reader: Newsboat
Newsboat
is a CLI program with simple keystrokes. My process is “n” for the first
new article. If I want to read it I can read it there in plain text, but
I usually type “o” to open it in my browser. I read it or leave it open
and go back to Newsboat. ( I use Alt Tab for that.) Next
“D” to delete the article in Newsboat and move on to the next new
article.
I had used QuiteRSS for years and then tried Gnome Feeds recently. Both are GUI with internal browsers, but I am enjoying the simplicity and reliability of Newsboat. I had to install it with snap which was not ideal, but I’m no longer
Music player: cmus
I recently switched from Clementine (GUI) to cmus (CLI) . It was available in the repository for my Linux distribution. This is a complicated program with lots of keystrokes and commands. I haven’t begun to learn all of it. Just getting it to start playing was a challenge. This “cmus, a really quick guide” got me started. I may write more on using this program as I learn to use more features. So far I’m playing albums or using playlists that I made on Clementine. I’m able to start cmus up with a couple keystrokes and pick an album to play while I do other things. I’d love to find a simpler CLI player, but for now this one does nicely. It’s got me listening to music again.
This cmus cheat sheet will be helpful as I learn to do more.
Podcasts: Gpodder
I’ve been using Gpodder from as far back as I remember listening to podcasts. Here’s a post I wrote about my process with podcasts.
Text Editors
I use several text editors
Obsidian I gather information and notes with this program and keep a daily log there. I do a lot of typing in Obsidian, because it’s always open ready to receive or cough up information.
Zettlr I got this back when I first learned Markdown, because it has the helps I needed. It’s got a beautiful dark mode and keeps the writing area clutter free. I’ve been using Obsidian to write blog pages, but I’m trying to move over to Zettlr for any writing that requires concentration. Zettlr gives a nice clean space for that. That’s what I was looking for when I tried working in a totally non-Desktop environment. That turned out to be a little too extreme.
Xed For a quick note to use immediately and usually discard
Vim Editor for use in CLI. I was using nano, but learned enough vim recently to get by and I rather like it. It’s the editor that opens when I use Mutt for email or edit some file while I’m in a terminal.
Bluefish For HTML. I wrote a lot of HTML for a few years some 20 years ago. I liked this program for that purpose and used it in Windows on the job. I still have it on Linux for when I rarely need to look at or write HTML.
Sigil Epub edits
Geany This program is for programming. I’m a wannabe in that department, but I found out it will do a great job of Search/Replace on multiple files. It is really fast. I’ve made it my default for opening .txt files.
ReText For quick edits of Markdown files. It has a preview as well. Great for when I spot an small error to fix.
Libreoffice Writer I don’t use it to edit unless I’m editing someone else’s writing. I like to use it to easily change style in a document when I’m converting it to pdf.
Browser: Vivaldi
Originally I got it when I needed a browser that has tab tiling for
some work I was doing. I stayed with Vivaldi when they hosted their
Mastodon instance and invited me to join. I use their setup in the
browser to view Mastodon. I recently found out that the jk
keys work flawlessly for moving between posts. I’m not a fan of
scrolling with a mouse.
Obsidian Web Clipper is an extension I use to clip pages or highlights from the browser into Obsidian. There is a nice reader mode in that extension as well. It’s nice for those messy pages with all manner of things splashed about.